Wendy Clarke & Donna Douglas: From short story to novel, and novel to short story

Today we're joined on the blog by Wendy Clarke and Donna Douglas sharing their experiences of moving from short story writing to novels, and vice versa.

Wendy Clarke is a writer of women's fiction. Her work regularly appears in national women's magazines such as The People's Friend, Take a Break Fiction Feast and Woman's Weekly. She has also written serials and a number of non-fiction magazine articles.

Wendy has published three collections of short stories, Room in Your Heart, The Last Rose and Silent Night and has just finished writing her second novel.

Wendy lives with her husband, cat and step-dog in Sussex and when not writing is usually dancing, singing or watching any programme that involves food!

You can find out more about Wendy on her website https://wendyswritingnow.blogspot.co.uk/, on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WendyClarkeAuthor/, or by following her on twitter @WendyClarke99

Donna Douglas is the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Nightingale novels, et in an East End hospital in 1930s. She has recently published the second in the Steeple Street series, about a district nurse in 1920s Yorkshire. A born Londoner, Donna now lives in York with her husband and family. In her spare time she enjoys reading, going out for coffee and cocktails, and binge-watching TV box sets.

You can find out more about Donna on her website at http://www.donnadouglas.co.uk/

on facebook at www.facebook.com/donnadouglasauthor or by following her on twitter @DonnaAuthor or on Instagram: donnaauthor.

Wendy Clarke - From Short Story to Novel

I sat down in front of the computer and looked at the blank screen. How hard can this be? I thought. I’ve written two hundred short stories so writing a novel will be the same... just longer.

How wrong could I be! The difference between a short story and a novel is as great as between a puddle and an ocean or my corner shop and the supermarket on the outskirts of town. The clue is in the name – a short story is, well, short. The other isn’t and that, I soon realised, was the whole problem.

When I write my magazine stories, I start off with the seed of an idea and see where it will take me. Sometimes I know how the story will end but often I don’t. Whichever it is, the journey between beginning and end is a short one and it’s never long before l know where my characters are taking me and the finishing line is always in sight. In contrast, it soon became clear to me when I started the novel, that muddling through with a vague idea in my head was not going to work. I would need to plan – at least a bit. The word sent shivers down my spine but, with two interweaving timeframes, I was going to need all the help I could get. So I wrote down some chapter headings and scribbled a few notes under each one. It gave me a basic framework to work from and made it easier when it came to write the dreaded synopsis.

Once I got started, I found another big difference was to do with my characters. Most short stories have at least two main characters. That means a minimum of 400 characters have paid me a short visit over the last few years. They often stay a day or two and if they bore me, I know I can throw them out and invite someone else. With the novel, a whole cast of characters turned up with their suitcases, expecting to live with me for several months if not years! What if I grew tired of them? What if they wouldn’t do what I wanted? I needn’t have worried. I quickly grew very fond of my little family and was sad when I had to eventually say goodbye to them.

The biggest problem I had when moving from short story to novel, however, was that I’m used to rewards. In a normal short story year, I have the satisfaction of writing ‘The End’ scores of times and sales to celebrate. The novel was more like a marathon with no guarantee of a medal at the end of it. Believe me – it was hard! I’ve learnt that writing a novel requires stamina and determination. You have to love both your story and your characters and want to share time with them even if there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Luckily for me, I did.

Donna Douglas - From Novel to Short Story

My new novel, The Nightingale Christmas Show, is out this week. It’s my ninth Nightingale book, and the fourth set during the festive season, so this year I decided to try something different. Rather than writing one novel, I thought it might be fun to put together a collection of themed short stories.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. And in my naivete, I thought six separate stories might actually be easier than writing a lengthy novel. I mean, short stories are quick and easy to do, aren’t they?

Well, no. As I found out, each short story was like a mini novel in itself, needing its own narrative arc, theme, voice, etc. And since each of the stories was around 10,000 words long, they weren’t that short, either!

Just to make things even more difficult for myself, I decided to interlink the stories. Each of the six tales recounts the same event – an amateur show at a hospital during the first Christmas after the war – from a different viewpoint. There’s the war-weary Matron, Kathleen Fox, and her ambitious new Assistant Matron Charlotte Davis (a young woman with a dreadful secret). Then there are two ward sisters, warm-hearted Violet and fiercely competitive Miriam Trott. Finally we have two nurses, scatty, man-mad Daisy and Peggy, who struggles to reconcile her own desires with those of her controlling husband.  

Since the six characters interact with each other, and drop in and out of each other’s stories, this proved to be quite a logistical challenge, involving a lot of wall space and great deal of colour-coded Post-its. So, for instance, when ward sister Violet Tanner receives some bad news just before the show’s first rehearsal during her own story, I had to make sure she was suitably preoccupied when I recounted the same event in the Assistant Matron’s story.

Donna's helpful post-its

As you can imagine, it was a bit hair-tearing at times, but I got there in the end. And the process actually proved really interesting. The finished result is not so much a collection of short stories as a deconstructed novel, with all the viewpoints that are general woven together pulled apart into separate strands. This meant I could give each story its own unique tone, from Daisy’s fun quest to bag herself a handsome young doctor, to Charlotte’s secret heartache over her dark past. So whether you’re looking for a laugh or something tear-jerking, hopefully there’s a short story for every mood!

I had a great deal of fun writing it (I guess I can say that now it’s all over!) and I hope you enjoy reading it. 

Thank you Wendy and Donna. It's fascinating her hear how different writers approach writing in different forms. 

Wendy's collection, Silent Night, is available now

Their first Christmas without Paula. The thought made his heart ache. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he had made up his mind that, whatever happened, he would try and make it the same as it had always been. For the children’s sake... for all their sakes.

Silent Night, is a collection of short stories with a Christmas theme. All thirteen stories have previously been published in national magazines. If you like stories with emotional depth and a satisfying ending, then these stories will not fail to leave you unmoved.

 Andrew and his children are grieving. Can he make this a Christmas his late wife would have been proud of?

Bella needs to get away from it all but her Christmas cottage by the sea holds more than a few surprises.

Christmas Eve, a starry night and two young men who have more in common than they realise.

The stories in this collection are a window into the lives of ordinary people at this special time of year. They offer hope, comfort and the knowledge that the spirit of Christmas is often found within ourselves.

And The Nightingale Christmas Show from Donna Douglas is also available now

It’s Christmas 1945, and Matron Kathleen Fox is faced with the daunting task of putting the Nightingale Hospital back together after six long years of war. In an effort to restore morale, she decides the staff should put on a Christmas show for the patients. She hands the task over to her ambitious Assistant Matron, Charlotte Davis. But it isn’t long before Charlotte is ruffling feathers among the rest of the staff…Can the nurses of the Nightingale overcome the shadows of the past and pull together in time to save the show?

Wendy Clarke: Serial Writer!

Have you thought about writing a short story? How about a serial? Today a very busy Wendy Clarke visits the blog to explain about these different styles of fiction writing.

Welcome, Wendy. How long have you been writing? Is it a full time job for you?

I started writing in the spring on 2011. I had been an English teacher at a small private primary school and had recently received the news that it would sadly have to close due to the recession. Unsure of what the future held, and unable to make any decisions, I enrolled on a writing course for something to do. To my surprise I loved it and when it finished, did a second. The following year, I

was brave enough to send out some stories to magazines and three months later, had my first sale. After much discussion with my supportive husband, I decided that writing would be my new career and have been writing for magazines ever since. It is not a full time job, though – I try and balance my writing life with other things.

You write short fiction for the women’s magazine market. How many stories have you sold and do you have a preference for a certain style of short story?

I recently had a count and found that I had sold one hundred and twenty and I am very grateful to the magazines for liking my work. I write in a range of styles and genres, twist, humour, historical... but I write a lot more romance than anything else and my stories have often been described as having emotional depth – which I hope is true.

At what point did you decide it was time to write a serial?

Until I started writing, I’d never thought of myself as someone who liked a challenge but each year, I seem to be striving for something new and a serial seemed a logical progression. I had been writing regularly for The People’s Friend and my editor had been encouraging me to write a serial for a while, but I kept resisting. Then one day, I was trying to write a short story about the German occupation in Guernsey, and realised that the characters and storylines were too many and too complex to fit into 3000 words. It was my light bulb moment and my first serial, Charlotte’s War, was born.

How does a magazine serial differ from a short story? Is there a certain word length?

There are several differences between short stories and serials - the most obvious being that a serial, especially a longer one, takes more stamina! The plot needs to be more complex, with several stories interweaving, and each instalment must end with a cliff-hanger. This is because a serial has to keep the reader interested for a longer amount of time and at the end of each instalment they must be left desperate to know what is going to happen next.

There will also be more characters in a serial. Whereas a short story will usually have one or two main characters, a serial will have a whole cast – each with their own unique problems which will become sub-plots. Unlike a short story the serial will be told from the viewpoint of two or three characters.

One of the biggest differences, for me anyway, is that a serial needs to be planned out. It’s essential to keep the storyline tight and on track and the magazines won’t accept one without a synopsis. I never plan my short stories, I just get an idea and start writing but, although daunting, being made to plot out the storyline for the serial really helped me get to grips with it before I started.

As for word count, I can only speak for The People’s Friend, as they are the only magazine I have written serials for. They accept stories of between four and ten instalments, the first one being 6000 words and the following ones 5000. Quite a lot longer than a short story.

The bottom line is serials are more intense... but very rewarding.

Are you given free reign to write the whole serial or is the idea pitched to the fiction editor.

How it works is you pitch your idea along with the first instalment, a synopsis and a character list, to the fiction editor. If they like the idea, they will assign you an editor to work with. You then write one instalment at a time which has to be checked (and maybe edited) before you write the next. Patience is a virtue in the serial game!

How long does it take you to write a serial?

I suppose it depends whether you mean how long does it take to physically write it or how long does the whole process take? What I did was to set aside a week to write an instalment then would send it to my editor, who might get back to me with some proposed changes. This would then be looked at by the fiction editor and then the magazine editor before I’d be given the go ahead for the next instalment – maybe several weeks later. While I was waiting to hear, I would spend my time writing short stories which suited me very well. To put it into perspective, I started writing my first serial in July 2013 and it has just been published this month. In that time I have written a second serial.

You write articles for writing magazines. Can you tell us about this?

That was another of my challenges! I fancied trying my hand at writing a feature and wanted to write about things that affected me personally. At the time, my blog Wendy’s Writing Now, was getting more followers and I was starting to have guests (either by request or invitation) on it. I was also being asked to write my own guest posts for others and it made me think about the guest/host relationship and how it could be beneficial to both... as long as certain steps were followed to make things run smoothly. With this in mind, I wrote my first articles for Writing Magazine, ‘How to Be a Good Blog Guest’ and ‘How to be a Good Blog Host’. This was followed by a Writing Magazine article which talked the reader through my experience of putting my first short story collection together using KDP. Finally, I have an article in this month’s magazine where I talk to People’s Friend fiction editor, Shirley Blair and other serial writers about writing serials for the magazine.

You are now a member of the RNA New Writers’ Scheme. How do you balance your writing time between short stories, serials, your novel and articles?

Let’s just say I’d never be any good in a circus, as juggling might not be my strong point! My problem is, I love writing all of these things and don’t want to give anything up. I have to be sensible though and because I have started a novel (and it would be nice to have something to submit to the reader in August!) I have said that I won’t write any more serials until it is finished. The plan is also to cut down on the articles too but I am still writing short stories alongside the novel – after all, they are my income!

How do you see your future as a writer?
I seem to be following a path that others have taken before me – moving from short story, to serial, to novel. I suppose, like everyone else, I would like to see myself as a published novelist... but we’ll just have to wait and see!

About Wendy:

Wendy Clarke is a full time writer of women's fiction. Her work regularly appears in national women's magazines such as The People's Friend, Take a Break Fiction Feast and Woman's Weekly. She has also written serials and a number of non-fiction magazine articles.

Wendy has published two collections of short stories, Room in Your Heart and The Last Rose. Wendy lives with her husband, cat and step-dog in Sussex.

Links:

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Thank you so much for visiting the blog, Wendy and good luck with your NWS submission.

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