How to add depth to writing - turn a story into a book [closed]

There are several potential issues that could affect the length of your story.

How you tell it

Let me start with an example, from Jim Butcher's Storm Front (the first of the Dresden Files novels).

What could have been

Harry made a love potion with Bob's help

is instead

I grumbled, and set the first potion to simmering, then started on the next one. I hesitated, after Bob told me the first ingredient.
"Tequila?" I asked him, sceptically. "Are you sure on that one? I thought the base for a love potion was supposed to be champagne."
"Champagne, tequila, what's the difference, so long as it'll lower her inhibitions?" Bob said.
"Uh. I'm thinking it's going to get us a, um, sleazier result."
"Hey!" Bob protested, "Who's the memory spirit here! Me or you?"
"Well-"
"Who's got all the experience with women here? Me or you?"
"Bob-"
"Harry," Bob lectured me, "I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing."

and it goes on in this vein for a couple of pages.

The example above isn't padding. It isn't merely "showing vs telling" either. It shows Harry making a potion alright, but it also shows something about his character, something about Bob's character, something about how magic works (worldbuilding). It is also interesting, it has juice, it takes the reader onto a journey, as opposed to the dry "he made a potion".

To be able to write such a scene, you must know the characters and the world enough to be able to give the details and the tone. And then - look at what could be expended. Look at what scenes look bright and vivid in your mind, and write them. You can always cut things out later, if you've slowed things down too much.

How much is happening

Back to Dresden Files. Harry Dresden is a wizard and a detective. In a short story, he gets a case (for example a lost child), he goes and solves it, there's one or two complications along the way, one or two support characters, but the plot is fairly straightforward.
In a novel, on the other hand, Harry might start with a case, but then there would be multiple factions not wanting him to solve the case, or wanting him to do something else instead, there are several problems he needs to solve, there are complex interactions with multiple support characters. There are multiple things going on at the same time, plotlines interacting with each other.

Are your characters fully fleshed out, with their own attitudes, passions, ways of seeing the world?

Does your plot follows one problem from start to finish with only a couple of hindrances, or do your characters face multiple issues that affect each other?

These are ways to add flesh, content, to your story, while avoiding empty padding.

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Galastel‭

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You definitely don't pad. If you are starting with plot, it sounds as though you may not be getting into the characters as much as you might need to.

Here's an idea: Take your favorite Crichton book. Write a quick outline (one page) of what happens in the book:

Ex: Jurassic Park : My quick outline off the top of my head:

Kids go to island, dinosaurs get loose, Kids in danger, High drama and T Rex saves the day against velociraptors.

That might be the basic plot. But there's a lot missing between that recollection and what he actually wrote. Those things might (or might not) be the things you're missing. Think about what's missing in my recollection of JP from the story:

1. All the stuff up front - Alan at a dig in Montana. Establishing relationship with Sadler as his student. Them needing cash (NSF funding is never very good) and taking the deal from the JP guy. Character development. Seeing nifty apatosaurs and triceratops with kids; a little bit of learning/teaching about dino's becoming birds. Humor with Ellie Sadler digging through poop.
2. The guy that is smuggling the eggs out of the park and gets eaten by dinosaurs. this was a few chapters. Absolutely crucial subplot woven through. Crichton could have had a mundane reason to kill power to the fences but this was better way to do it.
3. Sadler needing to .... do something with the electrical equipment? (I forget but Sadler did something in a bunker with a bad leg and a velociraptor in pursuit.)

Crichton split the people up and had multiple lines going simultaneously. He had all that fun stuff at the beginning. He had science about genetic engineering. He had Mr. DNA give a little narrated film. These things aren't padding, they're deepening.

Here's an idea: Map out the parts you've written in a story ... to one of Crichton's novels. Put the 'equivalent' things lined up to one another.

What does Crichton have, that you don't? Did you skip the character establishment stuff at the beginning? The subplots? Just ... Ask yourself what else he built into his story that you don't have.

Crichton follows a standard 3-act structure. If you aren't sure what that is, go ahead and learn about that, too. It might help you spot what's missing ...

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

DPT‭

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