This author’s note originally appeared in the October 17th edition of my author newsletter. To subscribe to my newsletter, click here.
I had a major realization about my creative process while writing “Sex, Life, and Love under the Algorithms.” My original goal was to take a short break from The Stars of Redemption in order to work through a creative block. Instead, I came away with a plan that could revolutionize the way I write everything.
The major realization was that my natural writing length is between 10k and 30k words. When I try to write short stories, they tend to balloon very quickly into something longer. But when I try to write novels, I always run into a creative block somewhere in the middle, usually around the 30k-40k word mark.
This doesn’t mean that I can’t write novels; just that I have to find ways to work through this problem. I remember asking Brandon Sanderson a question about this ten years ago while taking his writing class:
Me: So I have this problem, where every time I try to write a novel, I always get stuck in the middle and have to put it aside for a few months before I can finish it.
Brandon: But you finish it, right?
Me: Uh, yeah. But—
Brandon: Then what’s the problem? So long as you end up with a finished novel, your creative process is still working. It might not work the same as someone else’s, but it works.
Ever since then, that’s basically been my process. I work on a novel until I hit a creative block, then lay it aside and pick up another half-finished novel and work on it until I either finish it or hit another creative block, at which point I lay it aside to work on something else.
But in 2017, I decided that wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t producing novels fast enough to keep up the rigorous release schedule that I needed in order to stay relevant in the indie publishing world. So over the course of the next two years, I developed an outlining method to write faster, cleaner, and more efficiently.
I’ve written three or four novels using this new method, and in spite of all my best efforts, I always find myself getting stuck somewhere in the middle—in other words, after surpassing my natural writing length. At the same time, I still haven’t managed to write more than 2-3 novels per year.
It’s very difficult to keep writing on something that won’t be finished for months when your sales are starting to flag and you know you need a new release to boost everything again. Some people thrive on that sort of pressure, but not me.
That’s why “Sex, Life, and Love under the Algorithms” was so refreshing to write. From start to finish, it only took a month to write (and the only reason it took that long was because I was taking it easy). No creative blocks. No long breaks. What’s more, I now have a story to submit to the major markets, or self-publish, or do whatever else I can think of to earn money and reach new readers.
This made me wonder: what if I could write all of my novels this way?
In the golden age of science fiction, there was this thing called the “stitched novel.” Most SF writers specialized in short stories, but found it much more difficult to write novels. The solution they found to this problem was to stitch together several short stories that took place in the same world, and turn that into a novel. Asimov’s Foundation books were written this way, for example.
What if, instead of stitching together a novel after the fact, I used my novel outlines to come up with short stories or novelettes that I could later assemble into a finished novel? Each story would be a complete story in itself, and I might only reuse half of it in the novel, or rewrite it from a different character’s point of view.
Not only would I avoid hitting creative blocks, but I’d also be able to get paid during the novel-writing process itself, and also have more frequent new releases. I would also have more material to submit to the major magazines and other traditional short story markets, potentially getting my name out that way.
To keep my readers from paying for the same story twice, whenever I self-published one of these stories, I would make it free for the first couple of weeks. I would also retire most of these stories after the novel itself came out, though I might use one or two of them to help promote it.
There are a couple of novels I still need to finish using the old method. The Stars of Redemption is one of them, and I should probably also finish the Twelfth Sword Trilogy before doing anything too experimental. But I have some new story ideas that could really work out well with this assembled novel technique. Also, I think it’s time to retire the Star Wanderers novellas and combine them into a single novel, which could serve as a proof-of-concept.
I have no idea if this plan will work or not, but I figure it’s worth a try. If breaking things down to my natural writing length enables me to write more novels in the long run, that would be fantastic. And if the quality of my novels goes up because the short stories help to flesh out things like character and setting, so much the better.
