Too much thinking?

[thatrcooper]

You know, I don't know why I write so much or why I feel the need to show every little thing a character is feeling, but it really makes stories go long. Usually much, much longer than I'd intended.

I mean, I plot out an arc about growth and realization (and love and sex) and I swear, I never think it's going to end up as complicated and drawn out as it always does. And it all feels essential and right (if in need of trimming and cutting out my insane love of commas). Then, 350 pages later, I realize that no way would anyone sit through 400 pages of fluffy romance (or 475 pages of non fluffy romance, in the case of Ideas of Sin) and I have to make cuts.

Which leaves me wondering if I could end something, say the Charlie and Will manuscript, which has not even been titled for all that it's now epic length, earlier than I'd intended and if it would still seem complete to people.  If maybe I'm the only one who needs the After.

Because seriously, my endings are um...a bit anticlimactic, really. Aren't they? 475 pages of struggle and then...something small. They walk away. He says a name. They open a door, etc...

Or it's just a day for self-doubt.

Thinky thinky thinky.

Comments

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

I just read the short Charlie/Will story and loved it. I'm thrilled that the rest of their story might be coming soon. Are you planning to get it published?

And sometimes the throwaway, subtle endings pack quite a punch.

[r-cooper.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I've been writing them in this (so long) thing for about a year now. I wrote that short story for Christmas last year and sort of thought of it as an epilogue.

Now I'm considering the last scenes that have to get done to get where I'd originally planned on it ending, and I am seriously wondering if I lost my mind somewhere along the way. lol And I doubt any publisher would take it, as long as it is.

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

If it helps, Torquere goes up to about 120,000 words I think, without going over there to check. Generally, an e-novel is between 60-100,000, just as a rough guideline.

[r-cooper.livejournal.com]

heh. Thanks!

But oh my my do I go over that word limit. Whoa.