Went back to finish the short story, as prep for converting it into a novel for NaNoWriMo…and found I couldn’t finish it, because there was too much more to tell.
Which is a relief, actually, because it means I don’t have to throw the short story away and start over, or worry about having enough depth in the setting and the characters for a novel. The short story is the intro to the novel, the opening scene(s), setting the stage for everything that follows.
This has never happened to me before. But then, it’s only my third novel, so what do I know?
Now I’m working up the outline of the book, discovering plots and subplots I didn’t know were waiting inside the short story.
It’s a process that’s both fun and terrifying, like doing improv sketches in front of a video camera instead of an audience: you have to hope the jokes land, because you won’t know until long after you’re done performing.
