Lesson 1: Why and What to Write?
What to Write? (2) Fiction.
Perhaps you prefer the idea of writing fiction? In that case, let's explode a myth right now. Fiction is neither easier nor more difficult to write than non-fiction. Non-fiction is supposed to be fact, but is inevitably coloured by opinion. Fiction is supposed to be make-believe, and is inevitably coloured by fact.
A great deal of research is needed for both fiction and non-fiction.
If you want to write a factual book about tea production in Sri Lanka you will need to research the subject (unless you happen to live on a Sri Lankan tea plantation).
If you plan to set a novel in Sri Lanka where the protagonist either helps to produce tea or sees someone else doing it, you will still need to do research.
Even fantasy, as you will see in Lesson 2, demands knowledge of the world that is before you can begin creating the world that might be.
Fiction does allow for a good deal of invention. Since you are writing about characters you created (or, occasionally, recreated), you may decide on their actions, reactions and personalities. However, if your character is a modern Tasmanian farmer, you cannot have him gazing over his vast rolling acres of wheat. Tasmanians usually don't grow wheat, and their farms are measured in hectares and do not tend to vastness. In exactly the same way, you wouldn't write a novel about an 18th Century Scottish lassie enjoying a barbecue. She might well cook food over a fire, but she wouldn't call it a barbecue.
Let's have a quick look at some of the different kinds of fiction.
NOVELS, NOVELLAS, NOVELETTES and SHORT STORIES.
When you mention fiction, most people think first of novels. What, exactly, is a novel? A novel is a piece of book-length fiction. To break it down still further, let's say that most people consider a book of more than 50,000 words to be a novel. If it's much shorter than that, it will probably be called a novelette or a novella.
There is an exception to this rule, of course. A children's novel may be a bare 10,000 words, or even shorter. Equally, a children's novel may be 70 or 80,000 words or even longer (think of Rowling's enormous 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'), while a romance novel for adults might be just 50,000 words. Confused?
Although length seems so arbitrary, it does pay to be aware of the constraints of word-count before you write your book. Most genre publishers and children's book publishers have fixed ideas about how long a novel should be. In fact, many publishers lay down specific minimum and maximum word counts for their would-be authors. Creating something much longer or much shorter than the norm or the given word count is asking for rejection. Even if you don't plan to offer your novel for publication, it is still good discipline to decide on an appropriate length and try to stick to it.
Length aside, how does a novel differ from novelette or novella or short story? The three Ns have strong similarities, but the short story is different in that it usually takes one idea and develops it in miniature.
Novels usually have chapters. They may also, or alternatively, be divided into parts, which may include a prologue and epilogue. The action in novels usually takes place over some days, although I can think of at least two ("The Thuggery Affair" and "The Thursday Kidnapping", both by Antonia Forest) which cover just one day each.
Novels usually have both a strong plot-line and one or more subplots which may follow other characters whose lives are entwined in some way with those of the protagonist(s). To take a well-known example, Georgette Heyer's books very often offered a strong central romance and a subplot concerned with the romance of a friend or relative of the main hero or heroine. A subplot may be almost as strong as the main plot, or it may be sketched very lightly.
A novella is shorter than a novel and less complex. Novellas may be 15,000, 25,000 or 40,000 words. They may still have room for a subplot, but it will probably be quite slight.
A novelette is very similar to a novella, but while novellas are often taken seriously (some are literary fiction), novelettes are more likely to be termed "frothy", "trite" or "sentimental".
Short stories, too, come in different lengths; the long short story, the short story and the short short story.
The long short story is probably almost as long as a short novella. However, it will be concerned with just one major event or theme, and may take place over a very brief period of time.
The short story is shorter, but similar in structure.
The short short story is likely to be somewhere between 500 and 1500 words in length. It may be written with a twist in the tail, so that the whole story is prologue to the twist.
