Colin Harvey – author

I drew a certain amount of flak for last week’s post for suggesting that writing short stories was no better a preparation for writing novels than any other form of wordsmithery, such as journalism or scriptwriting.

Some of it was very useful in outlining this week’s post over at Suite101 following up on what some of the differences are. Unfortunately I ran out of available space,* so I’ve had to break it into installments.

* Suite has an official word limit of 300 words; it’s possible to go a little over, but not to post something the length of what this was turning into…

Today’s post at Suite101 is the -with hindsight– rather clunkily titled* ‘Making the change from short stories to novels’ which is actually more about putting to bed one of the recurring myths of SF, that writing short stories is a step on the ladder to writing novels. It was inspired by some excellent research by writer  Jim C Hines on the subject of first novel sales.  Research that’s well worth checking out.

* Sadly, however, by the time I’d read the title aloud and realized how clunky it was, it was too late to change it without scrapping the whole post.  And isn’t one of the joys of blogging supposed to be that it’s spontaneous? Clunky titles and all!

I’ve posted the first of an occasional series at Suite101, examining why stories fail. SF is a literature driven by ideas, but an idea without a plot is not a story. Plot grows from character, just as in the best stories, plot drives character.

I’ve held back from this sort of article for some time, because I still think of myself as a journeyman, but I’m slowly accepting that I’m further along the road that journey takes, than many others.

This morning’s blog is a straight list of the 2009 Nebula Award finalists. However, I couldn’t resist posting links to the stories I trumpeted when they first came out, which makes me look profoundly perspicacious. Of course, that ignores the finalists I initially rubbished, as well as all the other stories I backed which never made the final… 🙂

…is Neil Gaiman’s splendid The Graveyard Book.