Greetings fellow scribes

I'm on the horns of a dilemma. I've started a new novel, a sequel, and I'm trying to work out the best format in which to write it.

In the first book, I wrote a series of mini-novellas that eventually connected up, but now find I have quite a few characters doing different things around the globe. Basically, four different sets of 'adventures' which will eventually merge, as in the predecessor. But I'm wondering whether to do the mini-novella thing again, as this plot is a little more 'involved', and may work better by 'scene-switching' at a faster pace to give the reader a clearer overview of what is going on.

I can't decide what will work best. I like the mini-novella format, but well, I did it already, and I think sequels should be slightly different. So, three parts of seven chapters each, or seven parts of seven chapters each? That is the upshot of this question.

JB

A lot depends on whether you want to draw parallels as the book's progressing. When I wrote TBMH there were three stories running simultaneously and I wanted certain scenes to bounce off each other to make a particular point. So the scene in which one woman lamented she was pregnant sat next to one where another rejoiced that she'd finally been allowed to adopt, and I was able to echo the language of the mother and daughter in certain adjacent scenes to show they were alike even though they hated each other.

You can use this 'compare and contrast' device more successfully if you break the stories up and weave them in and out of each other. The risk is that you pull the reader out of a story continually, and you might prefer a 'total immersion' effect for each story.

I think Lammi's nailed it, really.

My experience of parallel narratives is that worst danger is that the reader gets bored wondering why these different stories are in the same place, and waiting for the narratives to join up. And if they decide they don't like a character, then find they've got a huge chunk of them to read, they may just not read any further.

If you keep the switches frequent you keep all the threads of interest up and running, as it were. The longer you leave it before you come back, the more you may have to do to first of all remind the reader what's going on, and then get them really involved with the new bit.

I'm not sure which side that comes down on, but that's what occurs to me at the moment.

Emma

Thanks for the advice guys.

You've made up my mind for me. The plot of the sequel is going to be a lot quicker. The background has been set, and now all that remains is a rather speedy countdown to Apocalypse - so the shorter chapters will work better, as you say, to provide that tension and edge-of-the-seatness. It means a whopping 49 chapters (7 parts of 7 chapters each) but I just love a challenge.

JB

Sounds good. Besides, how could you not do something that results in as magical a number as 49?

Emma

Exactly

Arranging chapters around mystic numerology can be a bit of a mare though!!!

JB