I suppose I'm not looking for specific advice here, because how could you know what to do without reading the whole thing? Still, I would like to know what people have done in similar situations. Here it is: an idea for a short story turned into an outline for a novella. Now I'm at the pivotal half-way point with 31k words (about twice what I thought I would have at this point,) and what I thought was half a book now feels very much like the first of three or five acts. This is good news and bad news both. I don't have to try to sell a novella, but what's left of the outline is definitely the last act. Where in hell do I come up with a whole middle of a book when I genuinely believed I knew the entire story? I think what I have so far is good. The last thing I want is to write another 30k worth of filler. I don't even think I could if I tried. I'm drawing an insanely huge gap of a blank. How do I get past this? Have any of you faced a similar situation? What did you do? ETA: There's a lot of room between the two "halves." I had a time jump planned at this point. I just don't know where to find the action and drama to fill in the intervening months.
More problems. More interesting scenes that showcase the characters and their conflict. Maybe give a side character their own little thing. When I expanded my novella Not Pink - I had the mc talk to his father, go visit his co-worker both looking for money, I expanded the scenes of the robot staying with his owner's girlfriend and putting up wallpaper for her, and at one point he bugs his owner by spending all night printing out his memories of the girlfriend and her child and hangs the pictures from the ceiling to surprise him because the owner refuses to meet his girlfriends young daughter. Basically I was expanding on the theme of the owners fear of commitment and love. So maybe take a theme or an idea that hasn't been expanded yet in your story and take that opportunity to expand it.
Theme! I should be looking at theme. I'm sure there's something there. I have this problem wherein there are only three characters left on Earth, and one of them is a house. The conversations and relationship problems I wanted the couple to have are in there. Then again, what's a post-apocalypse relationship without a breakup? I'm just thinking out loud here, but a "you get the upstairs; I get the downstairs" period might actually do the story some good. I don't want to slow things down too much though. Character drama alone would be a total gear shift. Maybe that's what I need though. Damn, this is making me neurotic.
I'd just finish it and deal with it later. Write the two disparate halves if you need to and then worry about connecting. Better than finishing the first half, spinning your wheels for a month searching for a bridge, and then getting frustrated and ending up with nothing. That happens to me all the time.
Maybe you're right. Ending up with half a book is totally my MO. I have many stalled projects on the pile. If I let myself stop at this point, it will be out of self-sabotage. I do have plot points I have to go back and fill in because they didn't occur to me until later in first half of the draft. Maybe by some miracle I'll come up with an entire middle section as I write the last "half." On the other hand, I fear the skip will become a snaggle-toothed, brain-eating distraction monster. Argh. I just have to write something, I guess. I'm a world-class neurotic procrastinator. I don't need extra reasons to over-think my way out of finishing this book. I'm still open to more suggestions though, if anyone has any more ideas on filling in the blank.
I'd write it without worrying about length, my feeling is that a story is as long as it is... but then i self publish, if you want a trad deal it is a more germane concern
Fair point, and I'm trying not to worry too much about final length despite my desire to go trad. In fact, I'm just ecstatic I've managed to get more than 10k further in word count than ever before. (I have a pile of false starts and abandoned WIP's.) My bigger concerns at this point are pacing and structure. The time skip planned for this juncture feels like a cheat, a bad shortcut, and a big part of me thinks I should pay attention to that feeling.
different people have different styles, but for my money i'd finish it first and then take care of the pacing on the self edit.. my fantasy book which is currently being editted started life as a 62k short novel, it then beame a 142k behemoth, and finally a 110k final draft
I heard some good advice from someone (I'm thinking it was Brandon Sanderson but I only remember the advice not who said it). This person said something along the lines of: When there is no not enough material and your not hitting your target word count, most like to bring in a new character or sub-plot. But it's far better to just add more substance to what all ready exists. Never had this problem myself really. But you might want to look at things like theme, character depth and if there are enough "try fails" in your story. The protag needs to hit dead ends and failure so that their success really feels like a victory. If every event moves his closer to his goal it's not as good as when one idea back fires and he has to take three steps back.
