Having trouble visualizing how to format a soap-opera-as-novel book

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sugarhit

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I'm working on a piece for Wattpad and know the characters, setting, outline, etc. I can't, though, figure out how to lay out the piece so that it's coherent and reads like a soap opera but not necessarily a screenplay.

I'm not sure if I should write it as a screenplay with novel-esque elements. If I should write it as a novel with multiple points of view and each one delineated. Or just as a novel with an omniscient narrative.

If there are some good examples of how this is done well, please point me to them!
 

IdrisG

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Have you ever read the Harlequin Big Book Melodramas? I think they've stopped the line now, but the point is that they were very long, very complex stories in which a lot of stuff happened. They described them as follows:

These are the books you snuck from your mother's bookshelf as a kid and read with a flashlight under the covers at night. The juicy melodramas full of beautiful women and the powerful heroes they loved, dazzling international locations, money, affairs, marriages and divorces (and remarriages!), reversals of fortune, blackmail, compromising positions, secret babies and lots, lots more.

--From my old Harlequin Big Book Melodrama submission requirement pdf.


The examples they gave were Judith Krantz, Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins, and Danielle Steele. Multiple POVs and divergent subplots are the order of the day when you're writing story meant to emulate the breath of a soap opera. Their preferred starting word count was 100,000 words. Hope that will be some help to you.
 

Jamesaritchie

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A novel is a novel. I don't see why yours would have to be any different in structure or format than any other novel. You can write it in third limited, or in omniscient, with equal ease. A soap opera is just a story.
 

sugarhit

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Have you ever read the Harlequin Big Book Melodramas? I think they've stopped the line now, but the point is that they were very long, very complex stories in which a lot of stuff happened. They described them as follows:



--From my old Harlequin Big Book Melodrama submission requirement pdf.


The examples they gave were Judith Krantz, Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins, and Danielle Steele. Multiple POVs and divergent subplots are the order of the day when you're writing story meant to emulate the breath of a soap opera. Their preferred starting word count was 100,000 words. Hope that will be some help to you.

Thanks a ton. Melodrama helps a lot...researching
 

blacbird

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I'm working on a piece for Wattpad and know the characters, setting, outline, etc. I can't, though, figure out how to lay out the piece so that it's coherent and reads like a soap opera but not necessarily a screenplay.

You are thinking TOO BIG. Nearly all Soap Operas began as concepts of characters and situations, and started rolling down the mountain. They didn't have an overall structural plan. Events drew from character interaction, and evolved as time went by. Hell, how long did General Hospital or The Guiding Light go on? Did anybody even think about a conclusion to those series? Or, later in prime time, Dallas?

Make shit happen. See where it goes. That's the formula for any soap opera.

caw
 

sugarhit

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You are thinking TOO BIG. Nearly all Soap Operas began as concepts of characters and situations, and started rolling down the mountain. They didn't have an overall structural plan. Events drew from character interaction, and evolved as time went by. Hell, how long did General Hospital or The Guiding Light go on? Did anybody even think about a conclusion to those series? Or, later in prime time, Dallas?

Make shit happen. See where it goes. That's the formula for any soap opera.

caw

That part of things I have in my sketch, the characters and situations. Maybe the reason those shows aren't on the air anymore is that they didn't have a logical structural plan?

I'm thinking more telenovela format than soap opera, in all honesty. 100 or so 'episodes' with a finale. Then if I have another idea, a spinoff serial.
 

Quentin Nokov

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My epic fantasy reads like a soap opera. I chose 3rd person limited that way I can get into different characters heads and flash scenes. I always thought the formula of a soap opera is multiple side-stories because each character has a story to tell. Soap operas focus on the lives of all involved not just one, and each character goes through its own character arcs.


My only advice is to know the genre of the story. Be mindful of word count. If have to span the story across multiple books, make sure each book ends in a way that it can stand alone.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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That part of things I have in my sketch, the characters and situations. Maybe the reason those shows aren't on the air anymore is that they didn't have a logical structural plan?

I'm thinking more telenovela format than soap opera, in all honesty. 100 or so 'episodes' with a finale. Then if I have another idea, a spinoff serial.

These shows aren't on the air anymore because they got too expensive. A few of the best, at least four, including General Hospital, still are on the air, but probably not for long.

But these shows were incredibly popular for fifty years, and they did have a good, logical structure. I watched several of them for many years, and I never missed The Edge of Night or General Hospital, even though I had to record one and watch the other. I also watched All My Children. Millions of other people watched them, too. I miss them because they were very good stories, well-structured, logical, and never missed a beat.

There are also a huge number of soap opera novels already out there.
 
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sugarhit

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I'm liking Empire on Fox, very melodramatic, soap opera format. I like the idea of using 3rd person limited to work through the various characters.

Thanks for the perspective, all
 
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