Category: Writing Workshop

50,000 words

People often ask how long should their novel be. We’ve all faced the problem of wanting to fill up two hundred pages and having nothing to say after only didty. Contests often deman a minimum of 50.000 words. What is the right length of a novel?

Let the experts speak:

  • Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland – 26.700 words
  • Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness – 38.500 words
  • H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness – 41.300 words
  • Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows – 58.800 words
  • Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles – 59.600 words
  • Isaac Asimov, Foundation – 66.000 words
  • James Joyce, Dubliners – 67.500 words
  • J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye – 74.000 words
  • J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal – 77.000 words
  • Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game – 101.200 words
  • George Orwell, 1984 – 104.000 words
  • Stephen King, The Shining – 162.000 words
  • Leopoldo Alas Clarín, La Regenta – – 30.400 309.000 words
  • Miguel de Cervantes , Don Quixote – 383.000 words

As you see, both classics and recent best-sellers range in a wide variety of possible lengths. In other words: a novel is as long as it is. It will last for as long as the story requires. Asimov and Carroll were quite consisten in the length of their sequels -perhaps because they were, with all due respect, more of the same-, while for Card and Rowling the sequels grew longer as their universes expanded.

Take a look at your bookshelves: are the books thick, thin, or every size? And which are your favourites? That might be the type of novel that you’re best at writing…

Stolen ideas

Our Spanish commenters are debating writing contests and how some are an opportunity while others are a theft.

From this topic of stolen ideas comes another interesting debate: Which of these statements is true?

  • Don’t refrain from moving your ideas by fear of having them stolen – there are more where those came from.
  • Any single person will have, at most, ONE great idea in their whole life.

What do you think?

Finding time

Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!
Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!

We wonder too often how to find time for writing.

Quite accidentally I’ve found a nice way: when I get home after work, unless I have some other plan, I grab my laptop, play some  music, pour a drink, sit at the balcony and write.

  • The cats meow? I feed them, then go on writing.
  • I get hungry? I grab a bite, watch something while I eat it, then go on writing.
  • The dishes pile up? I tidy up, then go on writing.

Instead of findig time for writing, I just write – and find time for everything else.

Why don’t you try it?

(Español) Listado de certámenes

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.

At the mountains of madness

Guillermo del Toro abandoned “The Hobbit” and we now know why: next year he’ll be shooting “At the mountains of madness”. James Cameron himself will be assisting on the 3D. Big fan of Lovecraft, del Toro wasn’t able to find funds for his dream project because, according to his own words that I quote from memory, “the insignificance of the human being in the universe is not a theme that would sell much popcorn”.

But maybe it will.

An early, undated version of the script surfaced online, and even though sites like ScriptShadow were forced to remove not only the link but even the (rather positive) review, the PDF should still be around. I could finally read it last weekend.

Co-written with Matthew Robbins (Don’t  Be Afraid of the Dark, Mimic), the text contains an adventure movie which is at the same time classical and modern: classical in its love for the mistery of the unknown, and modern in the unbreakable pace that keeps the reader (future spectator) glued to the seat. The script sweats love not only for Lovecraft but also for Poe and all the horror and sci-fi literature of a century ago.

On the negative side, the script lacks any memorable characters, which is maybe its bigger flaw, as ScriptShadow pointed out. And certain attempts to humanize them (like Dyers briefly glimpsed wife or Gedney’s worries about his brother Pip) are clichéd and not relevant to the plot. Probably in an effort to cut down on the number of pages (i.e. cut down costs, i.e. convince investors), some informations and themes are forced onto the mouths of the characters, thus verbalizing the topics for the dumbest memeber in the audience. The reading reminded me of the viewing of Hellboy 2:  rich imagination, poor storytelling.

We can take for granted that the movie will be a visual show. The script’s descriptions are brief (lesson taken!) but del Toro and Cameron will distill much wealth from the original story. We can only hope that the flaws in this version of the script have been solved in later revisions. Defective or not, I just can’t wait.

As a farewell, a soundtrack suggestion, both for del Toro and for readers of the script: the Antarctic beauty of the music of Max Richter

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(Español) Más Reverte

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.

The pleasure of writing

[…] I had the opportunity to share some drinks with several students of journalism in their third year. I wasn’t all that surprised to learn that they had no university newspaper or even personal blogs. In fact, they said, they didn’t usually write.

“Why are you studying journalism, then?”, I asked.

“Most people in my class only want to be on TV” one of the students said. And she added, “Actually, several classmates already had boob jobs.”

Jose A. Pérez on Mi mesa cojea