{"id":1569,"date":"2021-11-17T09:12:42","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T14:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1569"},"modified":"2022-03-07T20:24:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T01:24:40","slug":"str-e-e-e-e-tch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/17\/str-e-e-e-e-tch\/","title":{"rendered":"Str-e-e-e-e-tch!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To you, pounding your keyboards in the NaNoWriMo dash, congratulations on passing halfway! I\u2019m with you in spirit if not in fingers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 17, 2020, Bri wrote, I\u2019ve been writing short stories and have started a new one. The thing is, I want to write a longer story, but no matter what I do to my previous stories, I can\u2019t lengthen them. I really want to write a 81-120 paged book, but I can\u2019t do that if I only can write stories that are 10-25 pages. I\u2019m really frustrated with myself for not being able to change anything. Anyone know how to create a longer story\/lengthen an old story?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erica wrote back, Make more things happen. When you feel like you\u2019re reaching a good ending point, stop and think. What can I do to make this get worse instead of better? For example, if your characters are trying to find their way out of a maze, let them escape, but stick a dragon in the forest outside that they will have to get past in order to get back to their families. It might feel a little jerky at first, like you\u2019re just stringing along a bunch of different short stories, but that\u2019s what editing is for.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m with Erica on making everything worse. If we think of our whole story as a maze, for example, our job is, by hook or by crook, by character, plot, or world, to keep our MC wandering and lost as long as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suppose we take the fairy tale \u201cRumpelstiltskin\u201d as an example. In my Lang\u2019s Blue Fairy Book<\/em>, the story is three pages long, a miracle of compression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can start by interrogating our too-short story. Imagine it, squirming under a too-bright light in a windowless room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impoverished miller has an audience with the king, and all he has is a beautiful daughter. To impress the king, he tells him that his daughter can spin straw into gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two start us thinking about the world the story is in: What\u2019s the reason for the audience? Did the miller ask for it, or was he called to appear?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we begin to think about the characters of the miller and the king: What does the miller want from the audience? What does the king want? What causes the miller to make this wild claim about his daughter? Does he know something?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can think about tentative answers to these questions and jot down some notes, maybe make a list or two. We probably don\u2019t want to settle on anything yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when we do settle, later on, our answers to these questions can fill a bunch of pages as we launch our story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The daughter, when she appears before the king, is told she has the rest of the day and the whole night to spin a room full of straw into gold. If she fails, she\u2019ll be executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is this king? What\u2019s going through his mind when he sees her? Is he evil? Does he really plan to carry out his threat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does the daughter know going in that her father has made this crazy boast about her? How does she conduct herself in this, her own audience with the monarch? What does she think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the maiden is led into the room with the straw, she breaks down and cries because she doesn\u2019t have the foggiest about how making gold from straw is accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want to stick with the original, we have to go with that. We can ask what\u2019s happened in the past when she\u2019s wept. Did crying get her what she wanted?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or we can ask what the other possibilities are. Whatever we decide, we\u2019re on the road to developing her character. From her thoughts and feelings we arrive at her actions\u2014maybe just weeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what about the setting? What\u2019s the room like? Are guards stationed at the door? Rumpelstiltskin is about to arrive. How does he get in? And what about the straw? Is it clean? Or full of bugs and bits of\u2014ugh!\u2014cow pie? Might it have magical properties?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rumpelstiltskin will spin the straw into gold in exchange for the daughter\u2019s necklace. Whoa! She has a necklace? How impoverished is her father? Or is she independently wealthy? Just the necklace is worth a bunch of words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does Rumpelstiltskin want a necklace if he can make gold out of straw? That\u2019s just scratching the surface with him. Why does he come? He\u2019s supposed to be the villain of the story, but he doesn\u2019t act like a villain. There are myriad questions about him. If you feel like it, jot down ten more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rumpelstiltskin and the daughter are together for hours each time. Do they talk? What happens while they\u2019re together? Does it really take him the whole night? Does she go to sleep?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the immediate problem of transmuting straw, what do these characters\u2014the king, the miller\u2019s daughter, Rumpelstiltskin, the miller\u2014want? What\u2019s in the way? What in their natures help or hinder them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is telling the story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does our story have to end the way the fairy tale does? How else might it end up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we explore our ideas, our story fills out. Basically, we ask ourselves: What is unknown\u2014about our characters, our plot twists, our world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having said all this, however, there are writers who excel at the short story, for whom the short story length is exactly right. Their stories appear in journals and magazines and zines. They put them together to make collections\u2014which are as long as a novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n