Should story stay true to its roots?

Sounds like you have the right number of characters to me! See C.S. Lewis' success with his Narnian books. Same number of characters, similar (very generally speaking) dynamic. I think you're going to have to write to the end to find out how it's going to work for you.

One thing I did that worked for me in one of my books was that I started where the core adventure really started and let the histories bleed through onto the page when the characters had a wee bit of down time (aka dark moments, aka points of reflection, etc.) Also I hunted around for thematic commonalities and opposites. So, if for example there's a theme developing in the direction of love conquers all, I look for hints of love conquers all in the stories of the other characters as well as dis-proofs (love fails) of the theme and offshoot proofs (love destroys or love is a trap.) This way I can get a 360 of a theme that may normally only get a two-dimensional thread through the narrative.

Is there any way to turn one story into three individual but interwoven novellas rather than one full length manuscript?

If not perhaps keep writing the sstory you are now and when you reread and edit see if some secondary characters just disappear fromt he saotry and if possible edit them out

I don't think there's any problem with having too many secondary characters. Even if some of them are barely developed, you can always make them worth reading about. If you feel overwhelmed with writing about too many characters, you can always reduce some of them to brief appearances that still carry power. Sometimes it's those little characters that make a difference, and sometimes forcing yourself to make their appearances brief also forces you to make their presence in the novel and their very characteristics more defined, having to encompass the very essence of each character in only a few scenes or whatnot.

As for the story seeming like three stories, you could try a similar method and just really focus on what in each story is the most important, what you can do to capture the real meaning of each story and its most significant aspects without making any of them too extensive or complicated. If you do decide to take some major scissor action, I recommend listing the major and minor details of each story and seeing which feel the most important but also keeping in mind which you personally feel most inspired to write about.

For example, let's say one scene in a character's backstory was him meeting up with a childhood friend in a coffee shop and realizing how much they've changed. It might not be the most important scene to his overall story, but if there's some sentiment or power in the scene to you personally, don't cut it. You'll likely find that you can achieve a good balance between making the stories both rich in memorable detail and not convoluted or filled with extraneous material.

Good luck!

Write the whole thing without much introspection. Then look at the huge pile of still damp clay you've created (after a few weeks of rest) and figure out which clumps to carve off and which to save and how to shape what remains.

I would just write it the way it "wants" to be written first, and see how it turns out. Even if it ends up with a hundred characters and labyrinthine subplots. Maybe you'll have to redo it, or cut out a lot, but maybe you won't. Maybe it will be one book, maybe it will be twenty. Who knows. Maybe you're one of the writers who can pull this off successfully.

And I might be in the minority here but I like longish stories with lots of characters and labyrinthine subplots. Write 'em all the time.

--Tehuti, whose own current WIP, too, is many charactered and labyrinthine and is based on childhood games...huh, she didn't even realize that until now, so perhaps she's biased?

I agree that you should try to wait until you're finished and see how it turns out and how it all works itself out. Just my opnion though

This is the Novel forum. The story should be good. That's the only restriction.

caw

Basically, you're a little over 10K in, don't have a solid direction, have started second guessing yourself, and rather than stepping back and taking stock, you're planning on scrapping everything and starting over? You can reach the 10K mark many, many times, scrap what you've done to that point, and start over and it will never get you any closer to The End.

I'm not saying you're wrong to scrap what you have and start over, but until you figure out the direction the story is taking, what the story is about, and have a handle on how you're going to tell it, you run the risk of repeating this situation at the 10K mark over and over again.

Trust me on this.

Birol said:

but until you figure out the direction the story is taking, what the story is about, and have a handle on how you're going to tell it, you run the risk of repeating this situation at the 10K mark over and over again.

Trust me on this.

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I don't often disagree with Birol, but on this one, I do. Write the damn story for the specific purpose of finding out what it is about. It's not at all unusual for writers, very fine and famous writers, to proceed without entirely knowing the outcome of a story. I forget who it was, but it was someone very well known, who said something like, "I write to figure out what I want to say."

The key thing is not to stop when you run into confusion. Plod forward. Even without knowing what's out there as you go. Chances are you'll find out. And almost everybody here will tell you that the act of writing begets further writing. You can always cut stuff later.

caw

blacbird said:

I don't often disagree with Birol, but on this one, I do. Write the damn story for the specific purpose of finding out what it is about.

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I didn't say you have to know what the story is about when you sit down to write, but you do need to know what direction you're heading in. If you're in Illinois and want to "Go West, Young Man," you'd better travel in the direction of the setting sun. Whether you're going to California or Oregon doesn't have to matter at that point; whether you want to see the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean does.

What I may scrap is this recent chapter, but I'm not willing to start from scratch at this point. But as my mind refines what the story is, I'm beginning to lose characters, simplify background stories, and draw in more storybook grandiose as part of what I envision this MS to be.

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Then it sounds like the story is evolving. That happens.

No

To the OP's thread title question: "No!" There is no should, apart from it should be a good story when it's done. However, if you wander from the original concept, then you may lose what it was that made the story worth writing.

To the OP's actual situation: 12K is only 10% through, (or 20% if your first draft is a bit thin). Like others upthread, I think you should finish the thing then worry about what to trim.

But there's a difference between merely needing to edit out extraneous material and actually not knowing how exactly one wants to tell the story, in what direction they want to go, what characters they want or need to include, et cetera. It sounds to me like the OP is going through the latter situation somewhat, in which case it's probably wise to take a step back from the story and think about it in a "big picture" sort of way and try to sort things out in her own mind before proceeding.

If she continues to plow ahead with uncertainty about these very important aspects of her novel, it's likely she'll end up with a product that's even more difficult to edit and reshape than if she stopped while she's ahead and gave it some serious, focused reflection. It's also likely that if she continues writing her story "true to its roots" with all the elements she's unsure about, there will be masses of writing that can't just be scissored away because they all draw back to the elements she decided not to change. If that's the case, it's probable she'll have to go back and rewrite the whole thing or at least a lot of it later.

If she recognizes dissatisfaction or confusion with her direction right now, I say the best thing is to outline the plot, characters, style, et cetera so she can get a firmer grasp at what she needs to do when writing. Of course, there will still be revisions and such to be made even if she does have a clearer idea of her piece, but taking a step back to redefine the novel before writing more of it will refocus the task at hand in a necessary way.

Stay true to its "roots"? I honestly don't see a need for that. Stories mutate and grow because that's their nature and their original roots might be totally lost from the finished product. Just seems natural to me that this happens.

Now, it should always stay true to whatever it was that geeked (in the old definition: it excites you so much you go to extremes for it) you to write it in the first place. Whatever that spark, that flash, that idea was--THAT should never be lost no matter how much the story mutates and grows. My experience is that once you lose that geek point, the heart of the story stops beating and it's just a dead thing anyway.

But I see that geek point as totally different from the roots.

DeleyanLee said:

Now, it should always stay true to whatever it was that geeked (in the old definition: it excites you so much you go to extremes for it) you to write it in the first place. Whatever that spark, that flash, that idea was--THAT should never be lost no matter how much the story mutates and grows. My experience is that once you lose that geek point, the heart of the story stops beating and it's just a dead thing anyway.

But I see that geek point as totally different from the roots.

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In truth, that "geek point" is what I always believed the true roots of a story to be, at least in my case. Everything that geeks me out and sparks a story is the real root of my work, and I have to stay true to that. But maybe I'm just weird that way.

tehuti88 said:

In truth, that "geek point" is what I always believed the true roots of a story to be, at least in my case. Everything that geeks me out and sparks a story is the real root of my work, and I have to stay true to that. But maybe I'm just weird that way.

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As an illustration: My first novel got its spark from a D&D adventure I was in at the time where one of the PCs was a phoenix who kept setting fire to his buddies more than our enemies. I started wondering what kind of buddy a phoenix could have that wouldn't turn into overdone bacon at the drop of a flame.

The roots of the story was the D&D adventure and the original characters--and that got quickly left behind for things that suited the story's needs much better, not to mention what truly belonged to me and not the rest of the gang.

The spark of the story was the fantasy elements that came to mind with the answers to "What kind of buddy could a phoenix not roast?"

So, to me, they're very different things.