Re: Story writer’s syndrome?

On 10 jul 2009, you wrote in alt.writing.fiction.sci-fi:

> Dear writers,
> I'm in the process of writing my Sci Fi story. When I started it I had
> a vague idea for a plot, which I abandoned after the 2nd chapter.
> The story had gown and wasn't going in the direction I initially
> planed for it, it had taken much more interesting turn.
> After a lot of thinking about it, I've worked out what's going to
> happen at the end on a grand sort of level, i.e.: to Humanity, the
> Earth and the Universe. But the fate of the individual characters I'm
> going to let evolve organically.
>
> I've been using the post it note method which is working well for the
> most part, that is you just carry a small wad of post it notes in your
> pocket and write down any ideas that come to you no matter how
> tenuous. Short sentences or just singles words are best I found!
>
> My concerns with are that in I've got 18 chapters over 61 pages thus
> far, in which an incredibly number of events happen, it's very fast
> moving.
> This was done in 30 thousand words although I couldn't tell you how
> long this story ultimately will be in the end.
>
> Some of my chapters are just one page long others are on average 5
> pages, I've read some thickish Sci Fi books by a well known author and
> I've also looked at some thin books.
>
> In the "Tome", a chapter averaged about 11 pages with an average of
> 400 to 450 words per page; my page average is about 500 words per
> page.
> I read the equivalent number of pages comparative to what I have
> written to see how many events that much writing would encompass.
>
> To my surprise this particular author only had 3 things happen to his
> characters in that space, there was a lot of dialogue that I found it
> tedious to wade though but I did because I cared about his characters
> And I wanted to see what happened to them although I had to get past
> all these words to do it.
>
> There was also lot of inner dialogue which often seemed to go on
> longer then the events supporting this soul searching could possibly
> accommodate.
>
> In my story I've been all over the universe, back in time and virtual
> reality. Civilizations have risen and fallen and insanity and evil are
> on the loose, Lovers have embraced, innocents have died and strange
> individuals with connected karma battle to save the universe.
>
> And that's all done in just 61 pages!
> So do you get my point? Is this too much too soon? I've reread what
> I've written and It doesn't seem to me that it come across as and info
> dump, all the Chapters work logically and connect the right way.
> So am I worrying about nothing, or is this just a short story writer's
> syndrome?
> What are your thoughts on this?
>
> Cary.

:-)