mastin2
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How to Turn a Flash Fiction into a Novel
By Mastin
You’ve got an idea. You have written it down. You have improved on it as much as you think you can. Yet you still want more out of it. Now what? While, sure, making it longer can ruin a story, sometimes, the added length can do wonders. But how do you lengthen it? How do you improve on it?
This guide is for you. If you want to know other details about improving your story, there are a few lovely guides that I will gladly point you to, written by people with far more experience in writing than what I have. Though sometimes, what you need is to just make it longer. If you’re in this *very* rare situation, this guide is for you.
Index
The Spark
The Story
The World
Updates
Credits
The Spark
Let’s start with the beginning: what starts your story off. Something must inspire you to write it. Maybe it’s an object, or an action, or witnessing an event, or seeing something that someone else has written/directed. Something makes you want to write a particular story. Focus on that something for just a moment.
Now, at its simplest, anything can be a story. A single word. A single action. A sentence. Anything can be a story. The word death can tell a story. Just say it once, and say nothing else. What comes to mind? Well, obviously, it’d probably have to do with the ending of a life. The end of a life would be material worthy of a story. So, a single word can make someone imagine a whole story. This is technically Flash Fiction. A very, very short Flash Fiction, yes, but a Flash Fiction, nonetheless.
A sentence can be a Flash Fiction. If you look at the Wikipedia page on Flash Fiction, you’ll see such an example. One sentence, something which is equivalent to an advertisement. From this sentence, you can create a story. It’s Flash Fiction.
Take Spoils of War, for example. It’s a short story that I wrote. But it was inspired by only a few words, barely a sentence: Spoils of War: Death. Actually, leave out the Death part and you get the original inspiration. Add the Death and turn it into a sentence, and you’ve got, technically, a Flash Fiction. Someone could understand the whole plot of the story from just those words. Of course, it’s doubtful, but still possible.
An action can be a story as well. Punch something. Preferably not something important, fragile, hazardous, or belonging to someone else without their permission. Certainly not a someone, lest you have a darn good reason for it/have their permission. Now, if you convert that into words, it resembles a Flash Fiction: a single action. Yet it can tell a story. Maybe you were angry? Perhaps hallucinating? Literally anything.
There’s the spark. A Flash Fiction. There can be more, yes. But that’s you elaborating on it. That is you adding meat to the bone. You’ve got your spark. Technically, it could already be published. Some people have gotten away with it. Of course, Flash Fictions can be longer than a few sentences and most of the longer ones are what actually get published, but you get the idea. However, it really leaves quite a lot to interpretation. With Flash Fictions that are less than a few paragraphs, you’re more likely to inspire other writers than you are to inspire yourself. Time to add a little air to the spark.
The Story
Great! You’ve got your idea! Elaborate on it. You know what inspired it. Now think about what happens. What goes on in this story of yours? Think of characters. Think of the setting. Then put them together. Voila! Your spark has become something. Depending on how much you’ve thought up, it could still be Flash Fiction, or a short story, by now.
Not sure how to do it? Well, that’s something that you have to find out for yourself. If you can’t add anything to the story, then stick with what you have, or put it down for a while and try again later. That doesn’t mean you can’t read about examples, though, so I shall pull up the same one I did before.
Spoils of War, like I said, was inspired by those three words: Spoils of War. Then I thought about what it would be. Instantly, I thought about war. You can’t have spoils of war without a war, now, can you? Obviously, the war would probably be over. One side would win, and the other would be defeated. The victors would have spoils, gained through war, of course.
Then I thought about people gathering up these spoils for themselves. Soldiers. Bingo! I have my characters. Soldiers to receive the spoils of war. Then I thought about their background, why they were there, why they were taking their share, basically, what you end up seeing in the dialog.
What’s next? What happens after they take the spoils, of course. Now I shifted to my main character. When war is over, you’d return home, correct? Well, now I brainstormed what his home would be like, and thought about the ending, all in one. His home would be ruined and his family dead. I delved into details and then went back and did a slight mental retuning of the dialog to fit it. There’s the story. If you manage to get it written down, you’ve got yourself a wonderful piece of writing.
What to do next? Well, edit it as needed, of course. Improve upon what you have, add as much detail as you can while still avoiding the info-dump that many people hate so much. You’ve got a story, now. Most can and will stop here. I did with Spoils of War, but it’s time to think about what if you want to go further than short story/novelette and cross the larger boundaries.
The World
Oh, what, only now you think of the world? Isn’t that something you’re supposed to do earlier on? Of course it is. But that’s the basics. You know what one section of the world will be like for a short period in time: your story, as it is. But that’s as far as most people go. Time to go into the theoretical Spoils of War, if I had chosen to go further. I have the details in there, written out like a book, but I chose not to continue. What you choose is your decision, though.
You’ve got the story, but you want more. Again, first go for details on what you already have. Try to make it so that others can perfectly visualize what you have in mind. It will help, so long as you avoid the info dump. This increases the length, of course, but still won’t do anything drastic.
Now, think more about the world your story is set in. Every, and I mean every story has a world in which it takes place. There are no exceptions to this rule. It is absolute. Even if it is left open to interpretation (does so-and-so take place on our Earth, or a fictional Earth? Does it take place in the past, or present? Stuff like that), it still exists. Go back to Flash Fictions, for example. Flower. If that were a Flash Fiction, just the one word, would there be no world to go with it? No. There is always a world. It could be someone sniffing a flower, or a bee collecting pollen.
Now you need to expand the world. Make it larger. In the Flower example, say it’s a person sniffing a flower. Go deeper into the past of the story. Why is that person there? Then go further back. More detail. How that flower got there. Keep on expanding. Keep on going further back.
In Spoils of War, for example, you *should* instantly get the medieval feel, from the torch and from their conversation. But I never specifically mention the era, do I? Well, to expand upon the world in which the story takes place, I should go back in time. Go back to the beginning. When the universe was created. Think of what has happened since then.
Not in detail, though. Nobody’s that insane. I mean, nobody. Even I’m not that stupid. (General Rule of Thumb: If I've considered it for a long time but decided to not do it, then it's a bad idea to try it. I'm known for trying crazy things [insane, if you wish], so if I don't do it...) If you think about every single detail that happens in your world since the beginning, it’d take centuries to write it out. If not longer. But get some general points. For example, in our history, think about how our world began. (…However you believe that our world began. That’s delving into religion and science, topics which I shall not touch, so just use your own belief) Then think about what happens afterwards. Not everything; just the broader points. Extinction of a species, for example.
Even this kind of detail is too much, so do try to keep away from it. I’ve thought of the details behind a world, yes, but not to the extent of knowing what has happened since the beginning of time in that world. What you need is anything that could be relevant to your story.
Think along the lines of a disaster that created a mountain a character in your story will climb. But what’s really important is the history of the character’s species in your story. Their history is vital. When was such and such invented, when have their people fought against something/someone else? Stuff such as that is vital.
But what’s perhaps most important of all are events that happen just before the story. Back to Spoils of War. I’m not going to say how the road the character traveled or anything like that. I might think of it, but it won’t make it to the story. What I will think of is the childhood of the character. Not much; just a little. Anything relevant to the story will do nicely. Again, I might think of his whole life story, but I’m not going to write it down.
The earliest I’d recommend you actually start writing would be the beginning of the war, in the case of Spoils of War. That’s how the conflict started, now, isn’t it? I’d recommend you detail this, as it is highly relevant to the story. Whether you actually write it down, well, that’s your call.
What I’d do if I were turning it into a novel would be to go back to the final battle. In your mind, detail what happens to both sides in all areas of conflict, but for the sake of the story, only detail the location of the protagonist, and perhaps the location of his family.
Now you’re getting somewhere. You’ve built a universe out of a small little thing, now blown out of proportion. That could very easily be a Novella or even a short Novel, but what if you still want more?
Well, then, again, I shall give a theoretical Spoils of War situation. Remember when I said I had some details planned out but didn’t plan on writing any of them? Most of them are what the character does after the end of the story that I currently have. In other words, the ending is just the beginning. He lives his life out doing good and whatnot, and I expand the story until his death some years later as a hero, not just a soldier.
If this were still a short story, it would likely ruin it. One of the best things about short stories is that you don’t know everything and are open to interpret it as you wish. But by making it into a novel, you add such detail that there’s little interpretation; there’s no doubting what you intended (if done right and if you wish; sometimes, in novels, it's good to leave it open to interpretation). You’ve wrapped up the storyline the best you can, now. You’ve elongated an idea to be the maximum length it can be. While you can’t truly finish the story, it will close.
~~Updates~~
12/25/08
12:51 am local time
3:51 am server time
Posted the initial thread. I plan to add links to Flash Fictions, Novels, Novellas, Short Stories, and Novelettes next, along with a few other things as well. A note here and there not currently posted. I hope to somehow expand the guide to be much larger in the future, but I'll settle for what I've got.
--Credits--
...Umm...not much? Really, this is something that I did by myself, with no outside inspiration. Maybe people who've written (and posted) guides of their own in the Writing Academy, which I've read and might link? Yea, that'll do; you people know who you are. 
-Mastin
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