Sunday I finished a long story I’ve been working on since
summer. I should say, I finished the
fifth draft. I thought Sunday that it was the final draft and was quite
enthused about it. Monday I started to
feel parts of it weren’t right and began to become disillusioned.
The story is called, “The Drowned Phenician Vintner,” and it’s
about 17,600 words. If you’re not in the
writing game, let me tell you, any short story more than 7,500 – 8,000 words
has a limited market. Novels should be
70,000 – 100,000. So The Drowned
Phenician is in that grey area—some web sites, magazines, and journals call it
a novelette; some call it a novella.
I like to call it a “long story.” I have counted the words in several Raymond
Chandler and Dashiell Hammett stories, and they frequently came in around
15,000 – 16,000, particularly Chandler’s finest, like “Red Wind” and “Goldfish”. Several of Hammett’s long stories were
serialized in Black Mask, and when he
had four 15,000-word-connected serials, he and his publisher put out a 60,000
or so word novel such as Red Harvest,
The Dain Curse, or The Glass Key.
That’s not where I am headed with this, though The Drowned
Phenician is loosely connected to my stories “Ice,” (Ellery Queen, Sept.-Oct.
2011), and “Joe’s Last Scratch,” by chronology and recurring characters—P.I.
Frank Swiver, his love Vera Peregrino, maquis forger Joe Damas, and lesbian
waitress Alex. It is still conceivable
that I could develop some sort of overall story arc or villain and write one or
two more in this set and have a good book.
More about the drafting and revision process in my next
post.
