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Sunday 19 March 2017

When a Short Story Becomes More


A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to start writing my March short story soon. I had an idea ready to go, and even a market to send it to. I was also positive it would take two-three days to write the first draft.

So, after weeks of this story simmering in my mind, I got started. I was positive that I could get the first draft done before hubby's annual leave.

On my first day I wrote over 5k words, introduced an array of characters I liked, and really fell into the narrator's life. I felt for her because there was an edge of sadness to her story I hadn't expected.

That's when I realised this couldn't be a short story. There's too much story to tell. Too many layers to slowly reveal. So many mysterious, twisted scenes to write. Nope. This had the makings of a novel.

But I wanted to be sure, so I added more words the next day--2.5k, to be exact. And adding these words confirmed what I suspected soon after starting: this YA horror idea was determined to be a novel.

So, it looks like I'll need to come up with another short story idea for the market I had in mind... o.O 

In the meantime, I've taken a bunch of notes for the novel, done some research, and even cast the characters. But I won't be writing it just yet because hubby's got the next two weeks off--yay! After that, I think I'll be tackling this story. 

Writing YA horror fills me with A LOT of excitement. I've always been a huge horror fan, so I'm not surprised to be coming back around to this. Actually, all my stories contain some thread of horror. If you've read any of them, you know what I mean. ;)

Anyway, it's a little strange when this sort of thing happens. But hey, I'm not going to complain about any story wanting to be longer. I'm just happy about getting new ideas.

Like I mentioned above, the next few weeks are going to be full of hanging out with hubby--awesome!--but after that I intend to get stuck into this story. And I'm really looking forward to it.

Happy writing!

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