“The Short and the Long of It: Turning a Short Story into a Novel” by Maria Alexander
Have you ever written a short story and thought it would make an even better book? I started writing short stories long before I ever tried to write novels. Both of my current books are based on short stories I wrote. Mr. Wicker , which won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel, was based on an unpublished short story of the same title, as well as a screenplay. My latest book, a young adult novel called Snowed , is based on my flash fiction piece, “Coming Home.” First published in 1999, it was reprinted several times, turned into a one-act play by Los Angeles Women in Theatre, and even produced as a podcast . But how do you take a small idea and turn it into a big one? One that transforms a few hundred or thousand words into a book-length page-turner? In both stories, the protagonist was fairly isolated, dealing with a major problem on his or her own. To create a book-length idea, I had to involve other people in the drama and give them stakes...