Back in English 318 at BYU, Brandon Sanderson used to tell us that there was a big difference between “little-p plot” and “big-p Plot.” The first applies mostly to chapters and scenes, which he said he could teach us. The second refers to the overall story structure, which he couldn’t teach in a classroom setting and said we’d have to discover on our own.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, because it seems that my books are starting to fall into a recognizable pattern–and that pattern has some interesting potential for serials and other alternate forms of publication. Each book is divided into 3-4 parts, each part is divided into 3-6 chapters (typically 5), and each chapter is divided into 3-5 scenes. Here’s how it works:
Chapter 1: Setup for the basic story arc. Introduction of the characters and setting, the prominent theme or premise, and a little foreshadowing of the coming conflict.
Chapter 2: The inciting incident, a discovery or event that starts the plot rolling and puts the characters in motion and conflict.
Chapter 3: Complications arise, the problem gets worse, the first attempt at a solution fails, generally leaving the characters at a loss.
Chapter 4: Setup for the resolution. The characters discover or build something that will help them to settle the conflict. They stop reacting and start to be more assertive.
Chapter 5: The resolution. The characters either succeed or fail, but the arc comes to a close either way. The story question is answered, the thematic elements come full circle, and the story either closes or moves on to the next part.
Basically, it’s the 3-act format divided into five chapters. When I wrote Heart of the Nebula, all four parts fell into this pattern, and now that I’m writing Star Wanderers, I’m finding myself falling into the exact same pattern again. Stars of Blood and Glory is a little bit different; there are three parts instead of four, and each part is divided into six chapters instead of five. But still, it’s all very structured.
In short, Brandon was right. It took me a few books to really learn “big-p Plot,” but now that I’ve found a story structure that works for me, it’s starting to come quite naturally.
The cool thing about this particular structure is that it’s very conducive to serialization. Each chapter is between maybe 3,000 to 5,000 words, so each complete sub-arc is between about 15,000 to 25,000. That’s the length of a short novella, and it takes me only a month or two to write (sometimes three, depending on how much revision it needs).
The only reason I haven’t done more with serialization up to this point is because I’ve found that sharing my work while it’s still unfinished tends to throw a wrench in my creative process. The idea of publishing a work in progress on a chapter-by-chapter basis scares me, because if one of the story arcs has a flawed beginning, I wouldn’t be able to fix it.
However, by following a five-chapter arc format (with bits and pieces here and there to hint at a larger overarching structure), I can see myself publishing a novel or epic in a serial format. It would be something like the Perry Rhodan series, which follows an arc structure of 25 to 100 issues (each a small novella) per cycle.
So here’s how I’m thinking of doing it:
- Publish the first installment and price it at free while writing the second one.
- Publish the second installment and price it at free, raise the price of the first installment to $.99 and write the third one.
- Publish the third installment and price it at free, raise the price of the second installment to $.99 and write the fourth one.
- Publish the fourth installment for $.99, drop the price of the first installment to free and publish the completed novel for $2.99.
So what do you think? Does it seem like a good way to publish a book? It gives the reader a reason to keep coming back, and rewards those who got in early by charging them less for the completed work. By selling the novel in shorter chunks, I would be able to put more work out and hopefully gain more visibility, especially by making a portion of it free at any given time.
I’m seriously thinking about publishing Star Wanderers this way, once I hear back from Writers of the Future. I’ve already finished the rough draft for the second part; it probably needs a good revision or two before it’s ready, but since it’s shorter, it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get feedback from some first readers and finish the next draft. And if the third part is already finished by then…
So many awesome possibilities! 🙂 What do you think?
My question is whether this structure, although it works for you, might not be ‘sub-par’ in some way. If you fall into something really structured, then what happens when that structure isn’t appealing enough to your readers… Maybe the take home message here is: Beware of comfort and complacency? I don’t know. What do you think?
I don’t really see the point of giving parts away for free and raising the price of the others?
What if you did it this way-
1. Part One always stays free as an introduction to the work, just the way that you can download free samples of the beginning chapters of a novel.
2. Part two at .99 whenever you publish that, and the price remains at .99 indefinitely, no fluctuating.
3. Part three you sell at 2.99 and the price remains as is.
That way it is like a 3.99 novel, but new readers can take a chance on the free first part. I don’t really see a point of making the middle part of a book free. It won’t be an incentive for new readers to take a chance on you. Rather, it has potential to be confusing.
4. When you put the book together, price it at 4.99 so readers are encouraged to follow and adjust to your serialization format?
The problem is you will have to advertise that it is a PART of a larger whole. Otherwise you’re going to piss off readers with “unnecessary cliffhangers”, even if there is some sort of resolution at the end, it is not The Ending. And that first part will have to be REALLY good in order to get readers to do extra work to come back for more. It’s not like they will just be able to “flip the page” in order to keep reading. And it’s not like they’ll receive the next part of the serialization by default because they’re subscribed to the magazine for a year, such as the way serializations have worked in the past.
I don’t know. It sounds like a “fun idea” for YOU as the writer, but I don’t think the serialization actually rewards your READERS for reading. If that makes sense? Why eat breadcrumbs in a line when you can just walk over to a cake and eat it whole?
If the various serialized parts can stand ABSOLUTELY SEPARATE from each other and the readers aren’t punished for not continuing on to read the next part, then I think it could be okay. If each breadcrumb was just fine by itself and standalone in any order in case it’s picked up out of order by mistake. Like pearls on a string. Then the readers will be rewarded for investing in your idea and letting you experiment on them. Does that make sense?
Thanks guys! Those are some very interesting points, and good things to look out for.
The five chapter mini-novella that I’ve started to develop does have a complete arc for each installment, with a beginning, middle, and end. Because it’s also part of a larger work, however, it also has elements that carry over and don’t necessarily get resolved. I wouldn’t exactly call it a cliffhanger, since each installment should ideally be a satisfying read even with the knowledge that it’s part of a larger work. It’s kind of like the parts of a trilogy; even though you know that The Empire Strikes Back is part two of a three part series, it’s still satisfying in and of itself, even with the “I am your father” ending and the cliffhanger with Han Solo.
Putting out the novel in installments might be annoying to some readers, but because they’re pretty short (only 15,000 to 25,000 words), I should be able to put them out rather quickly, with a delay of two or three months at most. The more I practice, the faster I’m sure I’ll be able to go–and if readers prefer to wait for the full-length novel, they have that option too.
As for pricing, I’m still a little undecided about that. Obviously, the sum of all the smaller installments shouldn’t be less than the complete novel/omnibus, but how to price them leading up to that point…I’m not sure. I don’t really like the idea of making the later installments more, though, especially if they’re all roughly the same length. It would be a good idea to make the first one available for free…but with the system I’ve outlined here, readers who started from the beginning would be able to get the whole thing for only the price of the last installment, or if they started somewhere in the middle, the price of the last installment plus the earlier ones, if they don’t want to wait until the first one goes free again.
For Star Wanderers, the full-length novel is only going to be about 60,000 words long, so I’ll probably price it at $2.99 like I did with Genesis Earth. It’s going to have four parts, so that means I can price three of them at $.99 or $1 and make another one free. I don’t like the idea of making the whole thing free at the same time, but by rolling the price over in the way I’ve outlined, it would reward the readers who had to wait for each installment to come out by costing them less.
That’s the idea, anyway. And I agree, it all hangs on making sure that each installment has a complete arc and is satisfying in and of itself.
As for becoming complacent, I’ll definitely have to watch for that. However, I don’t think this is the structure I’ll end up following for every book–just some of them, probably the shorter ones. I’ve got an idea for a parallel novel to Star Wanderers telling the same story from the other character’s point of view, kind of like Ender’s Shadow. That one will probably follow the same structure, but Edenfall probably won’t.
I don’t know. I’ll probably experiment with Star Wanderers just to see how it goes. Might as well try everything at least once, right?
Re: the self-contained stories: Good. That makes me rest much easier about the idea. My current novel is divided into parts with beginnings, middles, and ends–but it definitely would not be good to split the novel up into novellas because they’re simply not self-contained enough to be satisfying, which is why I brought that up.
As for the prices… Hmm. How about this model instead?
1. Part one is always free.
2. The other parts you keep at .99 cents.
3. Omnibus is priced at 2.99 as you said, but that will discourage reviewers from reviewing the parts and you may have publicity problems instead? Which is why I suggested omnibus pricing greater than the sum of its parts. You should probably also hold off on an omnibus edition for a while, to keep all your reviews in the same spots for as long as possible to encourage more readers to give you a shot. Perhaps wait until after you serialize a sequel? *amused* Just saying.
4. Give away Smashwords free coupons via your newsletter to reward loyal readers and advertize that you will do this with a note at the end of each novella, directing your readers to your website and newsletter.
How is that as a model?
That’s an interesting idea. The only thing I’m wary about is that it’s technically against Amazon’s terms & conditions to publish something with them and sell it at a lower price somewhere else. Since they don’t allow you to set your book price at free, I’d technically be violating those terms & conditions by setting it at free elsewhere, and could get thrown out of the program. They haven’t done that yet, though–in fact, customer service has helped authors to price match their stuff at Amazon, and has said that they’ll continue to do that–but a contract is a contract, and I don’t want to be on the wrong side of it if I can avoid it.
Rolling the price back up with each installment would allow me to stagger it, so that the latest free installment isn’t available at Amazon and thus doesn’t violate the terms. Then again, if none of the later installments ever drop to free at all, it would only be the first one I’d have to worry about…and maybe by the time the other ones were out, Amazon would have price matched it. Hmm…
The Smashwords coupons aren’t about selling at “free”, though, since the regular Smashwords price would be the same as the one at Amazon. A coupon is a coupon, and you can set it to expire at a specific date.
I’ve seen other authors do this. It’s not price-rolling, since all official prices remain the same indefinitely, it’s just an Internet coupon. Y’know, a 5-digit jumble of letters and numbers that you hand out and then they enter it into a specific field on the form for checking out and purchasing your order? *amused* The Smashwords coupons I’ve seen are only valid for two weeks, so it wouldn’t violate anything that’s in Amazon’s terms of service since it’s not the actual price-tag.
You keep making things way too complicated. XD
So it would look like this –
1. Part One you set as free on Smashwords so that you can get a $0.00 price match on Amazon.
2. Part two you set at .99 at all markets.
You send out a Smashwords 5-digit coupon via your newsletter so that for the first two weeks, your loyal fans can purchase the installment for free. The coupon expires. Special sale is over. No actual price-rolling or complications on your end.
3. Rinse and repeat with the other parts.
Lol, you’re probably right. That’s a good model right there; I’ll probably do something like that.
Mrrr. Sorry if it came across a bit grumpy, though. I was exceedingly grumpy yesterday morning. It was not the best day of my life ever. XD
That’s fine. May the best day of your life not be a day in which you are grumpy. 🙂
Lol. I can second that motion!
Oh, Funny–this just got posted today, ironically enough.