The Journal, Tuesday, April 3

Hey Folks,

Well, the current WIP is going to be a novellette or a novella. I don’t usually write to a particular length, but I know this one won’t get into the short-novel range.

Something occurred to me after I wrote yesterday’s post.

Write This Down: The only real difference between a short story and a story of any other length is that a short story is about One Event. Not two, not a few and not several. One.

This story is about two cases, a new one and a cold case that all but mimics the new one, and it’s about only a few major events. That’s how I know it won’t be more than a novella.

As I wrote yesterday, I knew the ending going in. There’s a reason for that.

The idea came to me in whole cloth, complete with the satisfactory resolution of the case (the resolution, not the final conflict, is the ending), while I was writing the previous novel. It was part of the 1200 or so words I cut from the previous novel.

I could have left it in the previous novel as a matter of interest, but I wanted to develop it a bit. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I already knew the ending. So here we are.

No worries. I’m leaving to go camping on either Thursday or Friday, so the timing of this one is perfect. I should have finished it by then, so I’ll be between major works during the camping trip.

***

I was going to post the first of a few Topics today, all spurred by a comment made on a post a few days ago. But I don’t want this post to grow to an unmanageable size, so I’ll post the first one tomorrow. (grin)

***

Had a good day of writing today. I’m nearing the final climax. That and the ending will come tomorrow. Probably no more than a couple thousand more words. At the moment, I’m just hoping the perp will do something stupid so the detectives can erase him out of hand and avoid a lengthy trial. (grin)

See you tomorrow.

Of Interest

See “Day Two of the April Challenge” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/day-two-of-the-april-challenge/.

See “Facebook, She Just CAN Quit You” at https://killzoneblog.com/2018/04/facebook-she-just-can-quit-you.html.

And maybe saving the best for last, see “Art Crimes and Undercover Stings: My Chat with FBI Director (Ret.) Robert K. Wittman” at https://www.suecoletta.com/art-crimes-chatting-with-fbi-director-robert-k-wittman/.

Fiction Words: 5023
Nonfiction Words: 400 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 5423

Writing of Stern Talbot, PI—The Early Years: The Case of the Missing Body

Day 1…… 2790 words. Total words to date…… 2790
Day 2…… 2959 words. Total words to date…… 5749
Day 3…… 3273 words. Total words to date…… 9022
Day 4…… 5023 words. Total words to date…… 14045

Total fiction words for the month……… 11255
Total fiction words for the year………… 124796
Total nonfiction words for the month… 1760
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 35520
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 202096

Calendar Year 2018 Novels to Date………………………… 3
Calenday Year 2018 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
Calendar Year 2018 Short Stories to Date……… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 29
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 4
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………………… 182