presto change-o.

So this short story is now 2,000 words long and I have introduced four characters, two of whom are actually important to what I thought the plot was when I started it.

Also, I've figured out that it could be a novel, if I just tweaked a few things--in which case all four of the characters so far would be important.

(Better yet, the main plot of the novel could be described as one of those "they fight crime!" things.)

Do I want another novel? Do I need another novel?

... maybe I will work on a different short story today and hope that that one doesn't do this, too.

only the good guys'll get what they're coming for

Reasons I Am Writing An LJ Post Instead Of These Stories, #1 - 6:

1. You think I have any idea what this story is actually about?
2. Ditto.
3. I don't think I am ready to write this story yet--I have a first line and some vague feelings, but no POV or general voice or tense.
4. I know the general shape of the story, but I don't know if I can follow it yet.
5. I just wrote the first scene around a gimmick, didn't I. And now I have to come up with a story to follow it. It's such an awesome gimmick, too!
6. Terror at getting the emotional relationships between the characters wrong.

(Number six is the New Notanovel, which I think I might need to write very slowly, at least for the first bit. Getting to know all characters is sort of like walking into a room where a lot of people who've known each other for years are talking, and trying to figure out, through transcribing bits of their conversation, who they are and their relationships to each other--but this is a more snarled web than most.)