First, make sure you really want to write a novel. Novels are hard to write. Here’s my scale of literary difficulty:
Short story 1
Short play 10
Novel 100
3-act play 1,000
Film 10,000
It’s usually best to start with short fiction and work your way up to more difficult material. Novels have a cachet that short stories lack, but there are shorter forms that are almost as good as novels. With a lot less effort you can write and publish a novelette or a novella, and still wear a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and refer to “…my book…” at every opportunity.
¿What is the difference, you ask. Here it is:
Novel 40,000 words or more, Difficulty 100 (and up)
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words, Difficulty 72 (average)
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words, Difficulty 62 (average)
Hint: the longer the name, the shorter the work. Novelettes are lot shorter than novels, novellas are in the middle.
Second, write to be read. Shoot the sheriff on the first page. Skip description; put action or a powerful hook in the first line, then fill in below that with the setting, the dark and stormy night garbage, etc. An example:
“Put down that wrench!” (Opening line, “Blowups Happen,” Robert A. Heinlein, 1940.)
Once you’ve grabbed the reader, don’t let go. End your chapters on high tension points:
Tenirax watched the torturer’s shadow flicker slowly up the stone stairs until he found himself in total darkness.
or
Another room straight ahead. Tenirax put his head in to take a quick look. It was too dark to see. I must light a candle, he thought, stepping inside. Suddenly, close at hand, he heard the most ominous sound anyone can hear.
Third, don’t just take us somewhere and back. Your hero must be different when he returns. Readers, in some way, should also be changed:
Bad reader change: “Why did I read that crap?”
Good reader change: “I must buy the sequel!”
Hi jorgekafkazar, I got here from your comment about astrophysicists on WUWT, which intrigued me. I liked the simplicity of your kapow.
Small quibble. I disagree with your rating for a play. IMhumbleO, i t should read:
Film 1,000
3-act play 10,000
The craft required for a play that works is 10X harder than what you can get away with in a film. What you must accomplish in the first 60 lines of a play with words alone not images–I would limit it to 20–is 10X harder than the forgiveness that film allows a writer.
The real test of a play, again IMO, is the first two pages. I don’t have the time to quote or give references, but literature is rife with them from Homer to Shakes. Or Harold Pinter. The power in one word, a power, the craft, a playwright better know. Consider (lousy example): “I lost my wallet.” Versus: “I lost my wallet again.” “Again” sneaks by the casual reader but if intentional and delivered was seen to be there all along. Next line in response, perhaps in keeping with your advice? “Yeah, I lost my wallet again, but he deserved it.” We’re in, page one, seat belts on, and the playwright doesn’t have to deliver until we discover the Sheriff is dead. Two lines. Page one. And we have 10-18 lines left to set up the rest. That’s craft. You rarely see it in most modern playwriting, or film for that matter. When we do, it’s a necklace of hearts that unite us in the drama whether play or film. But plays are 100X more powerful if they deliver; there are other humans in the room.
Anyway, appreciated the dust you kicked up on WUWT.
I definitely prefer writing for the stage. That ability of the actor to break the fourth wall is very powerful and has no parallel in film. Film is very different and has complexities not found elsewhere. But you may be right about relative difficulty. It’s like astrophysics: very subjective and hard to nail down exactly.
You see, I’m comparing my screenplay with my stageplay. The film script is not finalized yet and has already required an order of magnitude more effort than the play, partly because of the necessary research.
The film is based on a locked room case where the murderer cleverly escapes prosecution. Wrapped around the how-dun-it is the story of how the detective solved the case. Wrapped around that is the story of what brought the detective to the case, a decade after the murder. Wrapped around that, the why-dun-it: what motivated the murder. Wrapped around that…A friend has called it “a Russian doll.” Assuming the script sells, not all the nested dolls may survive the ultimate rewrites, but I’m trying to retain them for now.
Writing the play was relatively easy. The production itself was a nightmare. My director/co-producer and I had about 40 days to finalize the script, rewrite it for a staged reading, obtain audition, rehearsal, and production space, put up casting notices, do auditions, rehearse, publicize, hire the videographer, get stagehands, obtain props and set items, handle publicity, and put on the show. It was utterly exhausting. I had one minute between rehearsals where the realization hit me: This is fun!
After the production was over, a lady approached me and said, “Jay, this must have been an educational experience. What did you learn?”
I could only answer, “To write one-act plays.”
Thanks for the comment. I worked for a university astronomy department as an undergraduate, and studied astrophysics, astronomy, and determination of orbits. I also worked on a well-known vehicle in the space division of a major player in the industry.
“The film is based . . . them for now.”
Sounds like a structure that Russell Banks taught me years ago. I don’t know how to describe it visually as other than a trellis bridge pinched to zero on the left. (So you have a triangle.) That’s the present. That’s the starting point and the expansion right stitches from the upper line of the triangle down the trellis struts to points in the past on the lower line, going back in time as the drama proceeds. He explained more than that, but it was really fascinating because he insisted that ‘Russian Doll’ stories need to be structured (he writes novels) or they get out of control.
On a totally different point, what do you think of this as an astronomer:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/ir-expert-speaks-out-after-40-years-of-silence-its-the-water-vapor-stupid-and-not-the-co2/
And there’s an additional comment by Sanicola in the comments.