Thanks so much, everyone, for your help in getting the word out about Ella. It hit the Number 1 Christian Historical Fiction spot a couple of times on the weekend thanks to you! If you’ve read it already, I’d like to hear what you think. Send me a message with your opinion of Ella, good or bad; all of your ideas will help my writing in the future.
I found writing to a prescribed plot line (Cinderella) more difficult than I thought it would be. My source was a copy of the original fairytale written by a French author Charles Perrault in the seventeenth century. The original is a bizarre tale involving talking birds, bleeding feet, and eye pecking. I chose to go with a tamer yet melodramatic version of events and had to keep bringing myself back to the original story line when my imagination wanted to take flight.
Writing a Novella comes with its own challenges. Wikipedia describes novellas as:
“A work of written, fictional, narrative prose normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. The English word ‘novella’ derives from the Italian novella, feminine of novella, which means ‘new’”
You have to keep a small cast of characters and a limited plot line in a novella. You also should keep descriptions to a minimum. I found not developing sub plots to be somewhat hampering yet at the same time I didn't get bogged down in the scenes.
Including editing, it took two months to write and that’s only the beginning. Today’s author has to be involved in the marketing as well.
I look forward to hearing your opinions!
