Novel Questions

[Aurora Black]

A new novel idea came to me last night before bed, and of course I was very excited about it. I still am. The only issue that I'm having trouble with is this: I want the novel to have 22 chapters, no more and no less, with each chapter telling a different story.

How will this be recieved, exactly? 22 different stories in the same book? Will the audience be confused when a new chapter comes out and they realize that the previous chapter was the end of all the characters he/she met before and gotten to know? Will they be reluctant to start again with new ones?

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Tom Collins]

My opinion...opinions are like assholes, yadda yadda...

If you want it to ba a Book and not just a collection of short stories then there needs to be an over riding theme. It doesn't nessisarily have to be the samn theme in each story but there has to be something that ties all of the stories together into a whole tale.

If you don't want all of the stories to have the same theme then you could use a trick to tie them together...something like begining each tale in the location that the last one left off in...the first starts in an appartment in Manhatten and ends in Central Park where we pick up a new set of characters and follow them to a resort in Up State NY where we pick up a third set of characters who we follow to Florida where we pick up a fourth set of characters, etc...I think you get the idea.

If there isn't something that ties the stories, one to the other, then they are completely unrelated tales and it'll be nothing more than a colletction of short stories.

Fuck...I really like that idea...wish I hadn't given it away...*cheeky grin*

 

[neonlyte]

A new novel idea came to me last night before bed, and of course I was very excited about it. I still am. The only issue that I'm having trouble with is this: I want the novel to have 22 chapters, no more and no less, with each chapter telling a different story.

How will this be recieved, exactly? 22 different stories in the same book? Will the audience be confused when a new chapter comes out and they realize that the previous chapter was the end of all the characters he/she met before and gotten to know? Will they be reluctant to start again with new ones?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Will the chapters be related by theme? Different viewpoints of the same condition?

There are several novels (whose names escape me) who deal with the same set of circumstances seen from different viewpoints. Generally the view points are limited to many fewer than 22 - but this may not be what you have in mind.

Probably you need to start the writing and see where it takes you as the author, and decide whether you have a compendium of short stories or a complex weave of inter-related themes pulling to a single objective. Sounds an interesting starting point.

I've remembered one - Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. Complex but interesting read and well received.

 

[Aurora Black]

Fuck...I really like that idea...wish I hadn't given it away...*cheeky grin*

Don't worry. That was the idea (if you meant the collection of short stories part).

 

[Aurora Black]

Will the chapters be related by theme? Different viewpoints of the same condition?

There are several novels (whose names escape me) who deal with the same set of circumstances seen from different viewpoints. Generally the view points are limited to many fewer than 22 - but this may not be what you have in mind.

Probably you need to start the writing and see where it takes you as the author, and decide whether you have a compendium of short stories or a complex weave of inter-related themes pulling to a single objective. Sounds an interesting starting point.

I've remembered one - Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. Complex but interesting read and well received.

I want each chapter story to have it's own theme, and I agree that I have to begin writing first before I can decide exactly where I want to go with the book.

Thank you both for your thoughtful and speedy replies. It means a lot.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is the best example I know of bridging the novel with the collection of short stories. There is an overarching story that flows through all the short stories that makes it all a novel.

It's all about having some thread that binds them all.

It can be really loose like I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, but there needs to be soemthing and even then it's going to look like a collection of short stories. Truth be told, it will be the strength of the connection that will make it feel more or less like a novel. However, don't let that limit you. I am personally a huge fan of collections of short stories.

 

[Aurora Black]

Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is the best example I know of bridging the novel with the collection of short stories. There is an overarching story that flows through all the short stories that makes it all a novel.

It's all about having some thread that binds them all.

It can be really loose like I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, but there needs to be soemthing and even then it's going to look like a collection of short stories. Truth be told, it will be the strength of the connection that will make it feel more or less like a novel. However, don't let that limit you. I am personally a huge fan of collections of short stories.

Does it absolutely have to have a connecting theme?

 

[neonlyte]

Does it absolutely have to have a connecting theme?

I think it does if you want the writing to be classified as a novel, but the linkage can be tenuous. In the Mitchell example, he choses to range across several hundred years from the past to the future, the link isn't at all obvious until you are deeply into the book. He also uses a mechanical trick, which I personally did not like, of seperating each chapter into two parts, so that the first part of the first tale continues, after intervening stories, as the last tale. It reinforced the idea of linkage (and proves there are always new ways to invent 'the novel'), but I couldn't see a logical reason to divide the stories in that way, other than to be different.

Write... if you are like most writers, it will reveal itself.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I am working on something similar. inspired by Fred Sabberhagan's Beserker stories and Keith Laumer's Bolo series.

In my opinion, you need an overriding tie in of some kind to make a collection of short stories a novel and not an anthology. Sabberhagan uses a mythic race of "Chroniclers" who leave a short comment att he begining of each chapter. Laumer uses a continuing character, the Bolo fighting machine.

I'm using a combination, with the "narrator" being the memory banks of an ancient star cruiser and all the stories, related by being tales of people who at one time or another, served upon that ship.

If there is absolutely no tie in, then I think your novel idea will end up being more an anthology or collection of short stories. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Aurora Black]

I am working on something similar. inspired by Fred Sabberhagan's Beserker stories and Keith Laumer's Bolo series.

In my opinion, you need an overriding tie in of some kind to make a collection of short stories a novel and not an anthology. Sabberhagan uses a mythic race of "Chroniclers" who leave a short comment att he begining of each chapter. Laumer uses a continuing character, the Bolo fighting machine.

I'm using a combination, with the "narrator" being the memory banks of an ancient star cruiser and all the stories, related by being tales of people who at one time or another, served upon that ship.

If there is absolutely no tie in, then I think your novel idea will end up being more an anthology or collection of short stories. But that's just my opinion.

I just thought of a tie-in, a character who's not exactly a narrator but is featured at some point in each chapter and briefly interacts with each part's main characters.

Makes me think of that Canadian horror series from the 80s, The Hitchhiker. Did anybody see that one? The Hitchhiker was always waiting for a ride at the beginning of each episode, and the characters interacted with him in some way (mostly driving past him) before the story continued with them as the central focus.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I just thought of a tie-in, a character who's not exactly a narrator but is featured at some point in each chapter and briefly interacts with each part's main characters.

Makes me think of that Canadian horror series from the 80s, The Hitchhiker. Did anybody see that one? The Hitchhiker was always waiting for a ride at the beginning of each episode, and the characters interacted with him in some way (mostly driving past him) before the story continued with them as the central focus.

I remember the hitchiker. That works. in fact, most any tie in will work. Its just if there is no tie in at all, it seeems to lack an overrriding sense that you are reading a longer work and becomes merely a collection of stories by the same author, which is pretty close tot he definition of an anthology.

 

[Aurora Black]

I remember the hitchiker. That works. in fact, most any tie in will work. Its just if there is no tie in at all, it seeems to lack an overrriding sense that you are reading a longer work and becomes merely a collection of stories by the same author, which is pretty close tot he definition of an anthology.

An anthology is exactly what I'm trying to avoid, because from reading the Writer's Market I'm under the impression that they don't go over well with publishers unless the author is already established.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

An anthology is exactly what I'm trying to avoid, because from reading the Writer's Market I'm under the impression that they don't go over well with publishers unless the author is already established.

One option, is to link the stories via a narrator. Perhaps a traveling salesman or some other fairly fluid occuupation. His/her story could be the focus, with the actual tales being his/her imaginings of the lievs of people he/she observed in her travels?

You could then go with 21 chapters, with the 22nd being the resolution phase of your narrators life?

 

[Weird Harold]

The only issue that I'm having trouble with is this: I want the novel to have 22 chapters, no more and no less, with each chapter telling a different story.

This sounds more like an anthology rather than a novel.

The examples given previously, I, Robot, Martian Chronicles and The Hitchhiker -- or even Canterbury Tales -- are "Framed Antholgies" and not true Novels.

However, most of the stories in the novels and novellas category here at Lit aren't true novels either and a "Framed Anthology" could fit right in there.

 

[Aurora Black]

Colly, WH: I guess I'll have to see what happens when I start work on the project. Nothing's written in stone.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Why 22 chapters? Is there some significance to it? I agree with some of the other people here, there needs to be some common thread, or idea to tie all of the stories together.

 

[Aurora Black]

Why 22 chapters? Is there some significance to it? I agree with some of the other people here, there needs to be some common thread, or idea to tie all of the stories together.

It does mean something, but I can't talk about it at this point. Sorry.