Advanced Plotting by Chris Eboch

Author:Chris Eboch [Eboch, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pig River Press
Published: 2013-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Janet Fox writes fiction and non-fiction for children of all ages including the award-winning Get Organized Without Losing It and the young adult novel Faithful (Speak/Penguin, 2010), an Amelia Bloomer List pick. Her most recent work for young adults, the historical novel Forgiven (June 2011; Speak/Penguin), is a 2011 Junior Library Guild selection. She lives with her husband in Bozeman, Montana. www.janetsfox.com

Add More Meat to Your Manuscript

by Chris Eboch

“I love it,” the editor said. “I want to buy it.” There was just one little problem. I had a 90-page manuscript for a middle grade series. He wanted 160 pages, to fit their series format for that age. “Send me the chapter by chapter synopsis on how you will rework it by next week,” he said.

Of course I said, “Of course.” I wasn’t going to miss this chance to sell a whole series. But the manuscript already had a plot that worked well, with all the necessary elements. I wanted to keep the action-packed fast pace. How could I add 70 more pages, without getting repetitive or adding fluff that would slow the story?

Many writers wind up with long early drafts that need to be cut. But sometimes a manuscript needs to grow longer, to fit the market. A novella might have a better chance of selling as a novel. A short novel might increase in value if it’s fat enough to distract the reader for several hours. Work-for-hire books often have to come in at a specific word count. And then you have cases like mine, where even an original novel needs to fit a standard series format.

I studied books on plotting, including Beginnings, Middles, and Endings (Nancy Kress, Elements of Fiction Writing series, Writers Digest Books) and came up with the following possibilities for filling my novel with more substance.

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