How do people ever manage to write short stories and novellas? Last night I did a word count of the portion of my novel I'm currently working on, and it's 7,000 words for one DAY. Which is only half over. Granted, it's a day full of plot twists and characters discussing the ramifications thereof, but still.

Save a place for me on the JK Rowling and Diana Gabaldon bench.

Save a place for me on the JK Rowling and Diana Gabaldon bench.

I'm right there with you.

Though now that I think about it, the Rowling-Gabaldon bench isn't such a bad place to be. I mean, if I can get even a small fraction of their sales my career is made!

How do people ever manage to write short stories and novellas?

It's easy. Write less.

Seriously, my favourite fanfic form (where I can do anything I like) is the 100 word drabble. I was very amazed when I had a fic (really a series) hit 89 000, and I've never had an original one hit more than 60 000. The current novel (which has been brewing a long time but is only thirteen days old on paper) is just over 10 000 and about a fifth of the way through.

Edit: Could I have used brackets (wonderful device though they are) any more in that post? Three sentances, and a (intresting and detailed) set of parantheses in every one!

Time in drama is a very malleable aspect. My friend Adam-Troy Castro did a wonderful SF/action novella ("The Wonder Drug") where about 3/4s of the story takes place in about a minute and a half.

Another writer friend of mine points out that in certain kinds of story, conversation is the action.

Mine, for instance. Left to myself, I write radio plays. Then I have to go back and edit in the other four senses.

Heh. My 7000 words are mostly dialogue, with connecting bits as needed to get my protagonist from point A to point B so she can talk to someone else. I have to go back in and perk up the action and description at some point. My rough drafts read a bit like shooting scripts, sans clever asides.

I am dialogue's bitch. One thing I love about my unabridged Count of Monte Cristo is the pages of snarky dialogue between two characters. Though every now and then I have to count up to the last identifier so I can keep track of who's saying what. I'll go "Wait, I thought he was a Bonapartist, why is he saying those things? Oh, I see, I lost track, the Bonapartist is over there, this is the Royalist. OK."

The good days are when I look up and realize that I've put out nine pages of new stuff in one day, and I didn't have to think once. As opposed to the last few days, when I hit a wall mid-scene and it's not moving. Kind of like having an SUV that can't get over a barrier. Rev, rev, rev, and all you're doing is burning rubber and the clutch.

I've only got a bit over 6,000 words in mine, and until I hit a groove, getting one word out at a time is super hard. I envy all you guys who can just churn out massive works. I'm definitely more of a novella type, though I am getting better at longer stuff. And I agree that dialogue is definitely the most fun to write.

all you guys who can just churn out massive works

Churn. Churn, she says.

giggling hysterically as I tug on the chain to my muse, who's feeling like Moby Dick on the end of a fishing pole