Novella

I've noticed a disturbing trend at Walmart. I'll find a new product and buy it. It'll be good. Several months later they'll switch the product out with a really cheap imitation. Now I've noticed another trend. A few months back I got a 2-pack of 48" LED lights for a fluorescent light fixture in the kitchen area One of them was longer than 48" and wouldn't fit, because there is absolutely no give to a light fixture. I had to take them back. This week I found the same problem with a surge protector. Out of six plug ins, only one would accept a plug. The other five are out of specification. Could I take it apart and try to fix it? Maybe, but it's going back instead.

Walmart has an ongoing quality problem. Maybe it's the manufacturers. Maybe it's greed. Maybe it's incompetence. I miss Made in America.

Book Stuff

Last week I presented two possible solutions to the Book 2 problem. One was to insert a novella(Book 1.5) into the series. The other was shifting the second half of Book 2 into Book 3, a move that would work very well, and writing a new first half for Book 2. The better solution is going with a novella. The reason is pacing. A new first half of Book 2 wouldn't read the same way. The transition between the first half and second would be too abrupt. They would be set about three years apart unless I revamped all the date references. I thought about making it have a Part 1 and Part 2 the way some books do, but nah. I think it would be better to make 1.5 its own book with its own pacing and its own story. That gives me more room in Book 3 for the finale and all the stuff going on. The problem now is figuring out how to make the story for 1.5 work. I have the basic idea, but it's not enough. I also have to figure out length. A normal book in this genre is going to run about 80k or more words with a page count around 300ish, depending on the margins in the paperback. I've seen novellas with 79 pages. No. That's too small. I'm thinking in the 40k to 50k range. That could give me 150 pages that wouldn't take nearly the amount of time as a full novel. At the moment I'm still going through Book 2 overhauling things.

In spare moments during the day, I've had some ideas for the new series idea I mentioned the other day. Ideally, this would be written after Book 3 is finished. Since going to the emergency room last year, I've gotten very little writing done. I'm feeling rusty. Part of the problem with Book 2 is that it uses the 3-act formula. It has plot points at specific places that have to be there, although there's some wiggle room. The 50% plot point could be a little early or a little late but not much. The same with the others. In the 3-act formula, the story takes off at the 25% mark. Up until then everything is setup for the rest of the book. In Book 2  the 25% mark is about page 75 or so. Things are happening before that, but it's not enough. That's just too many pages, especially in a book 2 where the settings and characters are generally known already. I don't particularly like the 3-act formula to begin with.

The more I think about the new series idea the more I'm wondering if I should target it to middle grade. That definition says middle grade is ages 8 to 12. Meh, I'm thinking the protagonist should be 13. In YA the characters start at age 15. If middle grade is 8 to 12, what about all the 13 and 14-year-olds? Anyway, the series idea could be set at any age. It would depend on the concepts in the book.

So, the page count for middle grade is 20k to 50k. I'm thinking about a series for middle grade that would have three books with over 26k words each. That's the length of an 80k novel. Instead of doing a novel, I could use the three short books to experiment with a plot structure that works for me. Maybe instead of using the first 25% as setup, I could start the action right away and fill in the details along the way. Basically, I'd be skipping to the 25% mark and using a try/fail cycle, perhaps with interludes of back story to fill in the gaps I created by skipping the setup. Or maybe I could have breathing spaces in between the action that fills in the setup. However it worked, 26k is really short. I could do a rough draft in a few weeks and see whether it's working or not.

But couldn't I experiment with the Book 1.5 novella? Maybe, but the rest of the series uses the 3-act structure. I'd rather stick with it, if I can. I'd rather use it to shake the rust off rather than do that plus experimenting.

An advantage of doing middle grade is that I could probably do cartoony cover art work. My art skills aren't up to professional illustration quality for a regular novel, but a kid book cover maybe I could do.

That's what's going on. At the moment it's all fixing Book 2 as far as writing goes.

I might kill the Messengers web site and create a new one branded around my name with the various series and books linked off of that. I'm also preparing for a YouTube channel. I've been painting and cleaning and throwing stuff away. I already have the lighting, although I might need to buy a new chair. I accidentally cut the fabric on the one I have when a piece of lighting rod fell into it.

There may be weeks where I do the blog and weeks where I link to a video. I'll have to see how it all works out.

Have a great weekend.