Let's Write a "Novel-in-Stories"
this is how I steal like an artist
I recently read an email newsletter from Jessica Brody of Writing Mastery fame who is also the author of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. In her email, she talks about a concept called “Novel-in-Stories” and I was hooked immediately because it’s something I’ve already been doing but didn’t realize someone had given it a name.
What is a novel-in-stories?
A novel-in-stories is a literary work that consists of a series of interconnected short stories or vignettes, often featuring overlapping characters, settings, or themes.
Novel-in-Stories Example
There are plenty of short story collections but the key to making one of them a novel-in-stories is the common thread between them. A recent collection would be Tom Hanks’s Uncommon Type. The common thread is a typewriter featured in every single short story in some capacity.
How to get started writing your own novel-in-stories:
You could start with a short story you’ve already written. That can be a great source of inspiration. Or you can try to start with a common thread that you already know ahead of time will weave through your collection of stories. Here are a few common threads you could use to get you started:
a common character | You can build your novel-in-stories by following the same character. Since you’re not writing a traditional novel, you have some more freedom to explore the character from multiple perspectives. This can be done by having different stories from different POVs that somehow include the main character and show how they grow and change throughout the novel. Winesburg, Ohio is a good example of this, with George Willard as the common character.
a common setting | Like James Joyce did with Dubliners, you could use a common setting for your collection of stories. In this style of novel-in-series, the setting becomes almost like another POV character, where you get to see different times and different people through the eyes of the same place. With this method, you can keep the same setting across short periods of time (following different characters as they pass through the same place on a particular day for example), across longer stretches of time (such as city, building, or place that’s existed for many generations), or anything in between.
a common object | A novel-in-stories can also be centered around a single object. This can be the same object, perhaps something that gets passed relatively quickly from person to person (like a coin), or more slowly, like a piece of jewelry or art gets passed from generation to generation. You could also follow physically different objects that are of the same kind, like Hanks used the typewriters in Uncommon Type.
a common unifying theme or concept | This method is a lot more flexible than the others, where your novel-in-stories is held together by a common theme that’s experienced across the different stories. This theme could be anything. In Olive Kitteridge, for example, Elizabeth Strout uses a novel-in-stories to explore the complexity of human relationships, the challenges of aging, and the search for meaning in life. In Wisenburg, Ohio, for example, Anderson explores themes of isolation and loneliness in addition to the common setting.
Progress I’m making with my own novel-in-stories idea:
This is exactly what I’m working on or have been trying to work on for the past year (or so). I want to write a series of stand-alone stories but they all have something (or someone) in common. My curio fiction (which I wrote about in The Writer magazine July issue1) collection is still in the works and will feature 10 short stories, each of them will have something in common with each other. As a practice run, I recently wrote what I refer to as “The 7.” A series of 100 word stories that are connected. Here are those stories:
6/24/23 - Starless Sky (Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac)
Her feet dangled over the edge of the roof her seven story apartment building. Bare feet. Painted black toe nails. She turned on her teal Studebaker AM/FM radio, tuned to her favorite station.
“This song goes out to all the wild women flying in that starless sky. You know who you are.”
It was like her favorite broadcaster knew exactly what she wanted to hear. He spoke directly to her soul. It was a sign. The one she waited for her whole life. The lyrics buzzed through her body. She swayed side to side, closed her eyes and leapt.
6/25/23 - Stolen (Johanna - Sweeney Todd)
“Welcome to another hour of macabre musical tracks! Somewhere out there I hope there’s a Johanna just waiting to be stolen.”
The truck hit a bump along an old gravel road. Headlights off so not to arouse suspicion. Radio loud enough for the driver and his passenger to hear. He hummed along to the song, tapping the wheel hypnotically.
Moonlight broke through the sycamore trees revealing a dilapidated Victorian house, long abandoned by time and money.
He lowered the cab of his truck and pulled her bound legs towards him. Hoisting her over one shoulder her name tag falls. JOHANNA.
6/26/23 - Stop (Fancy - Reba McEntire)
Her gas tank was just over three quarters empty and a sign up ahead said she wouldn’t see another gas station or rest stop for sixty miles. She pulled off at the next exit, excited at the prospect of stretching her legs.
Engine switched off, she opened her door and winced from the loud gas station music.
“…on hot Summer days I just want a beer, a drag, and a Fancy tune. How ‘bout we light it up…”
She pulled a cigarette and match from her pocket, then releasing the nozzle from its cradle, stood still, letting gasoline drip out.
6/27/23 - Heartless (Billie Jean - Michael Jackson)
Waiting at a drive thru her favorite song came on the radio so she turned it up. When it got to her favorite part she belted the words like no one was watching. “What’ll it be?”
She shouted her order, refusing to turn it down till it finished, and pulled up to the next window to get her food.
“That one goes out to all the heart broken girls secretly wishing to be heartless.”
Bag on her lap she pulled away. While at a stop light she reached in for her burger and pulled out her still beating heart instead.
6/28/23 - Lie in Wait (Jolene - Dolly Parton)
“If you’ve got a best friend named Jolene, be warned. I hear she’s a man snatcher.”
Heather lit a cigarette and lowered the volume on the station playing in her ears. She leaned against a tree and waited. No one paid her any attention while she watched her ex-boyfriend who was also waiting. For her.
When he waved to someone in the distance, a tear rolled down Heather’s cheek. Her cigarette fell and she snuffed it as she walked towards them.
“…and I cannot compete with you…”
“JOLENE!” A gunshot left her auburn hair mixed with blood on the ground.
6/29/23 - Buried (Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles)
“What a weird song to play at a bowling alley, amiright?”
My friend and I giggled sneakily at the guy behind the shoe counter who looked just like a member of the Beatles.
“And just like that, poor Eleanor is no more. You’ve been listening to…” We laughed louder realizing it was a radio station playing and not a CD.
“Ellie, you’re up,” I said, then the power went out! I heard screams around me. “Ellie?” I whispered in a panic.
Lights came back on and there she was at the end of the lane, buried under hundreds of pins.
6/30/23 - The End (Delilah - Tom Jones)
She kissed him sweetly before he got in his truck and drove away. She walked to her bathroom and turned on a light.
“I knew a Delilah once, and she deserved to have the grin wiped from her face too. If you feel the same, this one’s for you.”
He got out his car, leaving the door wide open, the song blasting into the night sky. He crossed the road to her front door and rang her doorbell.
Her laughter came before she opened the door then faded when she saw him standing there with a knife blocking the moonlight.
WHAT THREADS “THE 7” TOGETHER
Female song titles.
Female main characters.
Radio in each story.
Same radio host.
CURIO FICTION FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS
As I mentioned earlier, I have 10 such short stories planned. Each of them woven together by one of the common threads I mentioned earlier. Which one am I using? You’ll just have to read them to find out. Which brings me to the end of this editorial. I’ve recently decided to treat my writing with a bit more seriousness and that involves putting more of my fiction work behind the proverbial paywall. This includes my curio fiction short stories which I fully intend on sharing here, to my paid subscribers, when they are written in their rough draft form. I will also send my paid subscribers the ebook when it is ready as well as the paperback copy (personalized). If you’d like to read the stories in their infancy and get this collection in your hands, consider subscribing today.
Read HERE for a comprehensive list of all the rewards paid subscribers receive.
This link will open the July issue of The Writer magazine in the Apple News app. The article cannot be directly linked to The Writer website.
These are super easy tips to follow. I don't presently have the bandwidth for fiction writing, but when I do, I may well pick up on this. I can imagine a lot of folks diving in here with this framework, much easier than starting from scratch.
TL;DR: just wanted to call attention to this idea! It's a good one.
Currently underway here! https://tvansantana.substack.com/p/the-backbone