Sustainability is a catchword these days. And it’s an important word in my personal vocabulary, not just because my brilliant daughter is an enviromental science major. Sustainability is important because this is the only world we’ve got and I believe we should be careful with ALL of the life in it. (except maybe big scary bugs and flesh eating bacteria).
But as an author and a reader, sustainability means something completely different, though equally important, when it’s applied to a story concept.
At some point in nearly every book I write (usually toward the middle of the first draft) I ask myself if this idea or conflict or character can carry a full length book. “Is this idea sustainable?”
In Zen In The Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury said you have to write enough short stories so you know which ones need to be longer. It’s a quote that has stayed with me – and echoes in my head with each project.
I recently wrote a short story for an anthology due out at the end of 2012 and what I thought was a brief romantic lark wanted to be a full length book. It was absolutely a sustainable idea, but I didn’t realize it until I got into the short story.
That’s annoying and reassuring at the same time. Annoying because the project had a strict word count and a tight deadline. Reassuring because new ideas, and the next book, are like golden eggs to an author. No artist wants to look at the abyss of a blank page or blank canvas.
The world building, the character growth, the adventurous journey all need to be sustainable to carry the reader from opening line to satisfying conclusion. To be sustainable, all those pieces have to be in play, balanced and interwoven.
My action-packed urban fantasy novel, Justice Incarnate, began with a short story idea and bloomed into a dark, edgy, and sustainable world that has carried the series further than I expected when I submitted that first novel to my publisher.
In each book and short story, as the characters come alive on the page to face down nasty adversaries and excessive government restrictions, I am humbled and comforted by the sustainability of my 2096 world and the various characters (good and evil) who run amok there.
Live the adventure!
