A Quote by Arvind Ethan David
In my head, the 5 issues of A Spoon Too Short comprise one novel: a 100 page graphic novel sequel to Douglas' two Dirk books, taking some of the ideas he was working on before he died, and a whole bunch of new stuff from me and a little from Max Landis (who is the Executive Producer on the book as well as writing the forthcoming TV series).
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A typical twenty-page short story would work quite well as a graphic novel. A single graphic novel of maybe 120 pages would condense down into a short story quite nicely.
The trouble with calling a book a novel, well, it's not like I'm writing the same book all the time, but there is a continuity of my interests, so when I start writing a book, if I call it 'a novel,' it separates it from other books.
I've no objection to the term 'graphic novel,' as long as what it is talking about is actually some sort of graphic work that could conceivably be described as a novel. My main objection to the term is that usually it means a collection of six issues of Spider-Man, or something that does not have the structure or any of the qualities of a novel, but is perhaps roughly the same size.
It may sound very strange, but I love the freedom that writing a novel gives me. It is an unhindered experience. If I come after a bad day, I can decide that my protagonist will die on page 100 of my novel in a 350-page story.
The DNA of the novel - which, if I begin to write nonfiction, I will write about this - is that: the title of the novel is the whole novel. The first line of the novel is the whole novel. The point of view is the whole novel. Every subplot is the whole novel. The verb tense is the whole novel.
I first heard the term "meta-novel" at a writer's conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The idea is that even though each book in a series stands alone, when read collectively they form one big ongoing novel about the main character. Each book represents its own arc: in book one of the series we meet the character and establish a meta-goal that will carry him through further books, in book two that meta-goal is tested, in book three - you get the picture.
I won't read a new graphic comic novel until the writer has completed the entire series. I got burned a few times when I got turned on to a book, plowed through it only to find out the author was in the middle of writing the next.
Writing a novel, when it's all going well, it's wonderful. You're lost in the world, and you have a relationship with your own mind. Also, as a novelist, you don't have to yell at anyone. But being an executive producer of a TV show, all you have is people coming at you with questions, and you're making decisions, decisions, decisions.
A novel means a new way of doing a story. If you go back the origins of a novel, 'Clarissa' - that's not a novel; it's just a bunch of letters. But it isn't! Because it's organised in a particular way! A novel is what you make of it.
I have a whole section of a filing cabinet in my office full of ideas. Some are ideas for books or articles I want to write. One is a romantic comedy; one's about my dad's life. I've also got ideas for books on moral relativism as well as democracy and human nature. There's also a really cool concept for a spy novel.
Most really good fiction is compelled into being. It comes from a kind of uncalculated innocence. You need not have your ending in mind before you commence. Indeed, you need not be certain of exactly what's going to transpire on page 2. If you know the whole story in advance, your novel is probably dead before you begin it. Give it some room to breathe, to change direction, to surprise you. Writing a novel is not so much a project as a journey, a voyage, an adventure.
While working on my first five books, I kept wishing I was writing a novel. I thought until you wrote a novel, you weren't taken seriously as a writer. It used to trouble me a lot, but nothing troubles me now, and besides, there has been a change. I think short stories are taken more seriously now than they were.
The process for writing a picture book is completely different from the process of writing a chapter book or novel. For one thing, most of my picture books rhyme. Also, when I write a picture book I'm always thinking about the role the pictures will play in the telling of the story. It can take me several months to write a picture book, but it takes me several years to write a novel.
While writing 'Bhavesh,' I pretty much chewed up every single graphic novel I could get my hands on, so all the way from the entire 'Batman' series, Frank Miller's 'Batman,' Ed Brubaker's 'Batman,' Scott Snyder's 'Batman,' all the way through 'Daredevil' to '100 Bullets,' through so many other graphic novels.
A short story is a sprint, a novel is a marathon. Sprinters have seconds to get from here to there and then they are finished. Marathoners have to carefully pace themselves so that they don't run out of energy (or in the case of the novelist-- ideas) because they have so far to run. To mix the metaphor, writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.
You think you're writing one historical novel and it turns into three, and I'm quite used to a short story turning into a novel - that's happened through my whole career.
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