So I'm working on a novel right now that will span about 20 years in the protagonist's life. And I'm struggling a bit with how to structure it. The longest fictional time a novel of mine (published or unpublished) has ever covered is a few months, and most have only run about a week of fictional time -- I tend to write pretty linearly without big gaps. Even the novels over a span of months I've written were pretty easy time skips, because they were "quest" books so I could gloss over a few weeks of the journey and still have a direction.
But this book is supposed to be more like a tale of the main character's life. A bit biographical, I suppose? There is definitely an arc to the story, and I've written a full synopsis that (I think) makes sense, but unlike a quest/journey where the reader sometimes has an idea what the next goalpost is, I feel like I'm trying to fit a lot of more isolated scenes into a broader arc. And I'm having some trouble with how to bridge them and not get too mired in any particular year of the character's life (or if I SHOULD get mired in particular years and then skip between them? IDK). I'm also not sure how to show the necessary character development that happens slowly over years without showing, well, everything, which would be more than tedious.
Does anybody have any recommendations for how to approach this, or any book references you can throw my way that do something similar? (Preferably SFF.) I'm determined to figure this out as I like challenging myself with new structures and styles -- I always feel it improves me as a writer.
TIA!
eta: It's just occurred to me upon writing this that maybe real-life biographical or memoir books are what I should try to look at. Hmm!
eta2: Someone just mentioned Jane Eyre to me off-board, which is, yeah, exactly the sort of book I mean -- I knew I must've read some!
But this book is supposed to be more like a tale of the main character's life. A bit biographical, I suppose? There is definitely an arc to the story, and I've written a full synopsis that (I think) makes sense, but unlike a quest/journey where the reader sometimes has an idea what the next goalpost is, I feel like I'm trying to fit a lot of more isolated scenes into a broader arc. And I'm having some trouble with how to bridge them and not get too mired in any particular year of the character's life (or if I SHOULD get mired in particular years and then skip between them? IDK). I'm also not sure how to show the necessary character development that happens slowly over years without showing, well, everything, which would be more than tedious.
Does anybody have any recommendations for how to approach this, or any book references you can throw my way that do something similar? (Preferably SFF.) I'm determined to figure this out as I like challenging myself with new structures and styles -- I always feel it improves me as a writer.
TIA!
eta: It's just occurred to me upon writing this that maybe real-life biographical or memoir books are what I should try to look at. Hmm!
eta2: Someone just mentioned Jane Eyre to me off-board, which is, yeah, exactly the sort of book I mean -- I knew I must've read some!
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