I don’t normally promote blog posts I find on the net, but perhaps I should following this post by Ian McHugh on the CSFG site.
In his post, Ian discusses managing the size of the first novel he wrote, and the traps and pitfalls he enountered. He says specifically:
“So, what went wrong?
In a word: structure.
In more words: I didn’t have a strong enough structure, or even a strong enough understanding of narrative structure, to keep my story under control.”
As I’m giving a presentation on story structure at the upcoming Conflux Writers Day I found this particularly worth the read, so please check out Managing the size of your story.
Ian’s blog is also worth a look – lots of good writing information there.