Fic help.

[SF_and_Coffee]

All my multi-chapter fics are well over a 100K and my 'short' sequel (5 chaps) to one is almost 30K...

Now that's what I like to hear!

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Thing is, there doesn't seem to have been much of an upper limit for the length of a novel back in the 50s and 60s, either (else many of Michener's works might never have been published), whereas now the twin piece to having a lower limit is for some publishers to reject stories that go over 100k - 120k words as being "too long", forcing authors to cut out significant chunks of the story and skimp on character development in order to get their word count down to an "acceptable" range.

This is the real problem, right here. Yes, it's economic and also practical, in that paperbacks do have a size limit over which they are difficult to hold, difficult to bind and difficult to shelve. With luck, the spread of ebooks will eliminate this upper limit.

As for whether long books are padded, I'd say you've run into better written long books than I have, because I see it a lot.

Seaboe

[fems]

This is the real problem, right here. Yes, it's economic and also practical, in that paperbacks do have a size limit over which they are difficult to hold, difficult to bind and difficult to shelve. With luck, the spread of ebooks will eliminate this upper limit.

As for whether long books are padded, I'd say you've run into better written long books than I have, because I see it a lot.

Seaboe

Actually, paperbacks seem to have a higher limit than hardcovers. I ordered my first fic in book format just for fun and because it was so long I had to do it in two parts; the first 39 chapters (434 pages/141.311 words) were in hardcover and chapters 40-80 (516 pages/173.770 words) in paperback. Unfortunately I didn't know about the 450 page limit for hardcovers and 550 for paperbacks when I ordered my first part but nevertheless they're both very pretty (and now I at least know how both versions look).

[Starfist]

Sarum is one novel I've not had the chance to read. But the name is familar to me. As my father used to teach people to fly gliders at Old Sarum airfield. And I have visited to fort and flown out of the airfield.

[Whytewytch]

Sarum is one novel I've not had the chance to read. But the name is familar to me. As my father used to teach people to fly gliders at Old Sarum airfield. And I have visited to fort and flown out of the airfield.

I love anything by Edward Rutherford! Sarum was fabulous--I highly recommend it!

[mathpiglet]

If you enjoy Sarum, you'll love London!

[Skydiver]

Guys

If you want to keep on about novel lengths then maybe it needs its own thread. This one is supposed to be for folks that want help with their fic.

[BruTak]

Can someone with a better grasp of Scottish geography than me point me in the right direction for something?

I need a semi-derelict country estate with the usual assorted outbuildings. The nearest town being roughly 15-20miles away via rough cross country roads. Access to a loch. Pleanty of wild open space. An hour or so's flight by helicopter from Glasgow.

Can anyone suggest anywhere that might fit the bill with a wee bit of artistic license? Or do I just bite the bullet and make something up?

[Sealurk]

Can someone with a better grasp of Scottish geography than me point me in the right direction for something?

I need a semi-derelict country estate with the usual assorted outbuildings. The nearest town being roughly 15-20miles away via rough cross country roads. Access to a loch. Pleanty of wild open space. An hour or so's flight by helicopter from Glasgow.

Can anyone suggest anywhere that might fit the bill with a wee bit of artistic license? Or do I just bite the bullet and make something up?

An hour by helicopter is tricky to define - it depends on the type of chopper, the urgency of the flight, conditions etc, but for the sake of argument, 100 mph sounds acceptable for cruising speed. So, one hundred miles from Glasgow is... the Lake District? Hmm, I'm assuming you want to keep it in Scotland though, so basically you would probably be better off looking around Inverness, which a highly scientific method (using a USB stick held up against Google maps as a crude 100 mi measure) has told me is pretty much exactly one hundred miles from Glasgow, and there are lots of lochs and wild open space to the west.

Looking on Google maps, I've found Loch Monar. It's deep in the Highlands by the looks of it, which is possibly the sort of terrain you're after. Not sure how close the closest town is though, and as for derelict country estate... yeah, I think you may as well just invent that. It'll be in the right sort of area if nothing else.

[BruTak]

An hour by helicopter is tricky to define - it depends on the type of chopper, the urgency of the flight, conditions etc, but for the sake of argument, 100 mph sounds acceptable for cruising speed. So, one hundred miles from Glasgow is... the Lake District? Hmm, I'm assuming you want to keep it in Scotland though, so basically you would probably be better off looking around Inverness, which a highly scientific method (using a USB stick held up against Google maps as a crude 100 mi measure) has told me is pretty much exactly one hundred miles from Glasgow, and there are lots of lochs and wild open space to the west.

Looking on Google maps, I've found Loch Monar. It's deep in the Highlands by the looks of it, which is possibly the sort of terrain you're after. Not sure how close the closest town is though, and as for derelict country estate... yeah, I think you may as well just invent that. It'll be in the right sort of area if nothing else.

Sorry, I should've specified the type of helo. A nice inconspicous Eurocopter EC-135.

But around the Loch Monar area sounds pretty much ideal.

[LT. COL. John Sheppard]

how well will a POV and script style fic go?

[Whytewytch]

IMHO, script style pushes us away and any POV (except 2nd--**shudder**) pulls us closer to the story. Think of it this way: your grandfather, a carpenter, is going to teach you to build a house. Either he writes you directions and turns you loose (script) or he takes your hand and shows you how to hold the hammer and the nail (POV).

There may be a way for them to play well together (as Gabaldon did with two different types of POV in her Outlander series), but it will take a lot more skill than many seasoned writers have. If you're just starting out, I would use either omniscient or deep 3rd POV, so that we can see what your characters are thinking/feeling. Remember if you're in 3rd, though, your POV character can see those around him but cannot read their thoughts or know their feelings (unless he awakens with psychic abilities). In deep 3rd (some call it limited 3rd), you are basically a body-snatcher, inhabiting the body and mind of your chosen character.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Script style doesn't involve POV at all. Scripts are also both difficult to write and to read, and I really don't recommend them for anyone who isn't actually writing a work that they intend to produce with actors for the stage or screen. Honestly, if you're writing for readers, write a story, not a script.

[BruTak]

Sometimes though, script style can be quite effective.

Using it to illustrate a cop questioning a suspect for example.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Sometimes though, script style can be quite effective.

Using it to illustrate a cop questioning a suspect for example.

Nowhere near as effective as just doing it with a normal dialogue passage in a normal story, though. See, you don't need to write a script to do dialogue effectively. In fact, unless you're writing for the stage or screen, doing it in the context of a regular story is more effective, because you can include reference's to a character's internal thoughts, state of mind, unspoken reactions to things, etc.

Honestly, scripts aren't really designed to be read; they're designed to be performed.