Monday, June 18, 2007

Novella wrap-up!

Just last week, I finished posting the four-chapter novella Youth Conference:
* Let the Manhunt Begin!,
* Doomed Unrequited Love,
* Sexual Purity, and
* Another Great Year at Youth Conference.

This has been a lot of fun, and I agree wholeheartedly with what William Morris said about why Mormons should embrace the novella. My project -- posting this story on the web -- proves some of William's publishing-related points right:

* "I think the novella would work well on the Web (serialized or not), especially if it was presented in a creative format — with accompanying images, music, discussion, glosses/hperlinks, sidebars, etc.": A novella serialized on the Web? With images? And discussion? Is it narcissistic of me to imagine he was thinking of me when he wrote that and now he's helping others to my brilliant idea? ;^)

* "novellas are a quick, yet often satisfying, read — even a one-sitting read": My logs show he's right about the "one-sitting" part. It looks like more people have been following the story as a serial than reading it in one shot, but quite a lot of people have read Young Women's and/or Youth Conference in one sitting -- a few people per day. (Yes I do read my logs very carefully -- because I'm curious about what works and what doesn't -- and I can tell if someone is actually reading the story or just paging through it.)

Some of his more literary points about framing and the connection with drama are also interesting, and I'd be curious if anyone here has any comments about them.

Now, as you probably already know, my novel Exmormon is composed of a series of (interrelated) novellas, and I'm planning on posting the whole damn thing!!! Slowly but surely...

The next section/novella on the agenda is Part III:Saturday's Warrior. I've scheduled that one to begin on September 18. Why such a long wait? Because I don't want to skimp on the high-quality cartoons that you've come to expect from this novel. ;^)

Unfortunately, I've only got one new one done so far for the next section:


(I know they don't look like much, but they take forever, and Saturday's Warrior is a long segment that will need a lot of them...)

Anyway, that gives you plenty of time to get caught up on parts one and two before part three begins. Not that you need to read the earlier parts to follow the later parts (the beauty of writing a novel as a series of novellas!) but you can if you want to. :D

No comments: