Making the transition

I've found it next to impossible to go from novels to shorts - had to give it up and stick with novels. Guess I'm too long winded to wrap things up in less than 80k

I tend to think of novels are a series of short stories that fit on a wider story arc.

I'd have to agree with vein. Generally, I write a bunch of shorts as I think of them, little tidbits of action, and when I've gathered enough of them about one particular character or event, I start stringing them together as a longer story. I figure the ones I keep writing about ought to have their whole stories revealed.

I, also, agree with veinglory. I look at shorts as a small slice of life the characters are going through. What was their life before and after? They must have had other trials to deal with.

Novels

Writing shorts and writing novels is not the same thing in many ways. Though there should be no choppy writing in either, and flow should stay the same.

The real difference between short and long is one of scope. There's more of everything. More description, more characters, more events, more subplots, more depth, more everything.

I suspect most who try making this transition screw up in the opening chapter. It's too narrow, too limited, isn't painted on a canvas large enough to hold a complete novel.

What works for some is to dig out your favorite novel in the same genre as the novel you want to write. Rip off the covers and place it beside your keyboard. Don't copy the words, but do copy the number of characters, events, etc., in the first chapter. Try to use the same amount of description and narrative. Use it to get the pace and scope of your own novel correct.

Not really. My short stories started getting longer and longer. That's when I decided to shift to a novel.

I think you have to look at your story. Is there enough for a novel?

With my work, I've found that if I let the story dictate, it finds the correct form.

I think it's a bit of this:

spike said:

<...> I've found that if I let the story dictate, it finds the correct form.

Click to expand...

... and the rest of what you yourself said, re going back & "smoothing out the choppiness".
Some of it I think is simply habit. If youre used to writing short stuff - and I think your stories are very short, no? - you automatically write in a way of looking over your own shoulder and taking out - or not even writing down - every word thats not absolutely necessary. With a novel, you can let yourself go a bit more. You can glory in decriptions of scenery, or weather, or someone's weird hairdo (if it's pertinent to your story or to colour in your character). It's a bigger canvas, so to speak. You can have fun with painting in the details of a tree in the middle distance because you've got the space and because it will benefit the picture.

Mind you, I'm a fine one to talk, because apart from juvenilia Ive only produced one "real" novel (and quite a lot of short stories); and Ive now had two agents tell me that the idea is good and the writing is fine but that it needs more fleshing out. So, er... yeah.

Mebbe get it all first down on paper, and then work on fattening it up for the second draft?
Thats certainly what I'm going to do now.