Authors: Jerry Cleaver
The lower-class father might ask all kinds of inappropriate questions. He could even try to bum some money from the girl's father when they're alone in the study. Or perhaps he's a union shop steward—uneducated, but crafty and clever and a master of insinuating and provoking. He could pocket a valuable knickknack. The movie
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
had only 6 characters having dinner, and that was a feature-length movie. We're way beyond that. Don't forget that we could use the ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend. And we haven't brought in siblings or other relatives, who could also be involved. And then there's a wedding or plans for it, possibly.
Father of the Bride
was an entire movie about a wedding. So, we're not into any of that, but it should feel that our short story has turned into a novel.
OK, it's a novel, but what have I been doing? What have I been adding to the story to turn it into a novel? What's the difference between the short story version and the novel I've been turning it into? There are more conflict and more scenes, but what accounts for them? One thing and one thing only: MORE CHARACTERS. More characters, who are more trouble, more scenes, more pages. Believe it or not, that's all there is to it. That doesn't mean it's easy. It takes work, but it is that simple.
As long as each character you add brings into the mix a problem, a complication, an obstacle that has to be overcome, your story will grow and grow until it becomes a novel. Each character must have a natural connection to the story and add to the problem. No one is just there in fiction. No one is along for the ride. Everyone must serve a purpose, our ongoing purpose, which is to
reveal character.
Additional characters cause more trouble, forcing the other characters to act and reveal more of themselves. The novel is longer because the problem is bigger, the conflict more complicated and longer running. That larger, longer conflict is created by the presence of more characters. In terms of story elements, more characters are
the
difference between the short story and the novel.
In the short story version, the boy and girl both had parents and might each have had lovers when they met, but we didn't get into any of that. We didn't get into whether they were students or employed. It was about him and her and that's all. To turn the short story into a novel, I added characters who were naturally connected, closely and intimately, to the boy and girl, characters who had or felt they had something to gain or lose by the boy and girl uniting. We've by no means exhausted the logical supply of characters. To turn a short story into a novel, add more characters, characters who are invested in the outcome of the story, who feel, for reasons good or bad, real or imaginary, that they stand to win or lose by that outcome.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to know what a character's connection or investment is when he emerges in your mind or on the page. He doesn't have to qualify to get in. You may just have an urge to put someone in the story. If you have such an urge, follow it. Respect your urges. Then, as you write, you can work him in, make him necessary, find the character's connection or create one. Remember, in the end, and at the beginning, this is a game of the heart, the emotions. If it feels good, do it. In between, you use craft and technique to get the most out of the story and yourself, to make it all fit together, and to relocate your heart when it gets lost in the shuffle. Craft and technique are the tools that you use to keep yourself on track.
So, it's more characters that turns a short story into a novel. This more character stuff I like to call
the mathematics of fiction.
Now, this is art, not science, so putting numbers on things goes against the spirit of it all. I'm not trying to turn it into math or mechanics. But I put numbers on things whenever it will help give us a feel for the magnitude or the degree of some story issue. This is an elusive game. Whenever putting a number on things will make them clearer, it's worth doing, as long as you keep in mind that it's only an estimate.
So, exactly how much does adding characters increase the length of a story? Well, let's say that a 2-character story has one fundamental scene or character combination—the 2 characters together. Now, for this example, I'm not counting repeat scenes or scenes that the character has alone with him or herself (and there are many of both). To keep it simple, we're talking about possible scenes as determined by number of single scenes between characters.
So, 2 characters give us 1 scene. How many scenes would adding a third character give us? Three characters give us 4 possible scenes (all 3 characters together and each alone with 1 of the other 3). When we add a fourth character, the number of possible scenes jumps to 11 (more than doubles). Five characters give us 26 scenes. Six characters give us 57 scenes. Seven characters give us 120 scenes. Eight characters are 250 scenes. Nine are 520. Ten are over 1,000 possible scenes. Ten characters are not a lot of characters for a novel. I was reading a Larry McMurtry novel,
Comanche Moon.
It had 16 characters in the first fifty pages, and it didn't feel crowded, nor was it hard to keep track of who was who.
Note that I'm talking about
possible
scenes. At some point it isn't practical or true to the story to have every single character having a scene with the other characters in every possible combination. But this mathematical example should give you a sense of the magnitude of
possibilities
for scenes and story. Whatever your story, it's critical to always consider every character having a scene with every other character. If you have a dangerous, threatening, impulsive character and a frail, defenseless character in the same story, they must meet in a setting where the weak character is at the mercy of the dangerous one. Otherwise, what's the point? Fiction is about exploring the forces at work in us and what happens when those forces collide.
Many opportunities for drama, excitement, and expression of character are missed simply because the author didn't have characters come in contact with each other. Considering a possible scene doesn't mean you'll do it. But not doing it because you thought about it and decided against it is a lot different from not even thinking of it in the first place. By not considering each character having a scene with every other character, you often miss an opportunity to discover something about your characters, your story, human nature, and yourself.
Now, there are exceptions to everything I say. It's conceivable that there could be a story in which the dangerous character and the weak character wouldn't meet. But there must be a good reason for it not happening, a story reason. What would such a reason be, and how do you make such a decision? That reason has to do with the very purpose of story itself, and you get to it and make your decision by asking, always, which way is
more dramatic
, which way
reveals more
of the characters?
So, in this case, you would have to work it so that it would be
more dramatic
and
more exciting
and
more revealing
if the dangerous character didn't meet the weak character. That would be difficult to accomplish. Doing (meeting and confronting) is almost always more dramatic than not doing (avoiding). But then, it doesn't have to be one or the other. In this game you try to consider everything. It's possible that it could be both—not meeting and meeting. If you create excitement by having them not meet but come close, you can still go on and have them meet. It's often possible to have it both ways and get a lot more out of the characters than by just doing one or the other.
I find the idea of not meeting being more dramatic than meeting hard to imagine, but this is not science, so we need to allow for it (and anything else that might pop into our heads). Just remember that the way you make such decisions is to ask,
"What's more dramatic?"
and
"What reveals more character?"
Those are your main considerations—
always.
So, the number of possible scenes skyrockets as you add characters. It more than doubles with each additional character. When you add repeat scenes between characters and scenes with characters alone with themselves, you generate enormous amounts of material. That's exactly where you want to be when you write a novel. You want to have so much material that you feel you're going to have trouble fitting it all in and not feel that you have to stretch and push and pad everything to have enough. If you don't feel you have enough to begin, that doesn't mean you can't start without it. You simply need to keep in mind that you can generate as much as you need by adding more characters where you can as you get into it.
Some writers start with little or nothing and expand the story as they go. Those writers (who are in the majority) like the adventure and surprise of not knowing where they're going. They solve problems when they come up. Other writers (a substantial number) plan the story ahead. If planning ahead works for you, do it. Just watch out that you don't get paralyzed worrying about problems ahead of time. That's another reason why the majority of writers tend to plan less. If you do plan, do it on the page. Working in the head is a bad choice for almost all writers.
Also, it's not that you're either a planner or not a planner. You don't work in the same way on every story. Sometimes you might plan because a particular story comes to you that way. The next time you start with no plan. You may plan some parts of the story and not others. The main thing is not to lock yourself into a single approach. Do what feels right, and don't get tangled up in how you
should
do it. The only
should
when it comes to creating is,
you should do what works.
No matter how strange or weird or illogical it seems, if it works, do it—and don't waste time trying to figure out why. Just go!
That's the novel, but there are a lot of different kinds of novels, different genres—science fiction, mystery, adventure, crime, spy, fantasy, romance, historical, etc. Which kind should you write? That depends on a lot of things. It depends on your taste, what's in your heart, your skill, what you want to achieve (publication, money, prestige), the marketplace.
First, at the time of this writing, the book market is great. Agents are being very creative in approaching publishers and getting huge sums for their authors. Publishers often seem willing to bid on a book that they have seen little or none of but whose concept attracts them. All of this drives prices up. Money for some of these not-so-well or even poorly written novels is in the millions.
David Baldacci's
Absolute Power
got five million dollars. It was his first novel and not well written by any stretch. It's worth checking to see how little it's possible to get away with. OK, but what did it have going for it? It had a hot idea and perfect timing and a sharp agent. It was about a president of the United States who gets into a fight with his mistress and kills her. The Secret Service is there, and they have to cover up the murder. Now, with Clinton in the White House and Sexgate in full swing, what better idea could you have had for a novel?
OK, you're deciding what kind of novel to write. You certainly can't count on the kind of thing Baldacci's novel had going for it. But knowing what gives you the best chance is what's important. So, what's the most salable kind of novel? It so happens that the most salable is also the easiest to write. Any idea what it is? Often half to two-thirds of all novels on the bestseller list are this type of novel. It's the mystery.
The mystery has its own
built-in
drama and energy. Any time there's a dead body, everyone's interested in who did it, why, and how. It's human nature. So, the audience is there. Also, you don't have to write so well to pull it off. Check the writing in the mysteries at the bookstore next time you're browsing. It's pretty mediocre. Now, there are some really classy writers writing mysteries. Mysteries in that class are called literary mysteries. So, even though there are a lot of shabby mysteries around, we shouldn't be looking down our noses at the genre. (I'm including
crime
novels with mysteries. In a crime novel you usually know who did it from the beginning.)
So, you don't have to write beneath yourself to write a mystery. Dostoyevsky's
Brothers Karamazov
was a
mystery.
Your story and characters can have as much depth as in any other kind of writing. One way to write a mystery is to create a murder that seems impossible to solve. Then you and your characters work like hell to figure it out and catch the killer. You don't have to have any idea who did it to begin writing. The famous mystery writer Ed McBain says he starts with a corpse or someone who is going to become a corpse and from then on he has to go on the same clues as the cops do.
It's possible to turn any story into a mystery. Know how? Kill someone. A dead body gives us instant drama, suspense, mystery. We identify with anyone who's been murdered as long as he or she is not a villain. Let's try it. Take the boy/girl romance we just went through. Who's our victim? Who shall we kill off? Well, it can be anybody except the boy, because it's his story. He's the main character. So, who's a prime candidate for murder? Whom we kill will
cast suspicion on
different characters and push the story in a different direction.