Restructing a Short Story into a Novel

Good news--I have not received any rejections recently, BUT I'm still waiting for word on three stories. Waiting, waiting, waiting. *Sigh*

I've already written about my very long story, "Nightingale," that I cut down to make it more saleable.

It's going to Interzone next. Oh, nevermind. I just checked things out at Ralan's. Interzone is NOT open to email subs in May as their website promises, and I'm not going to pay to ship it all the way to the UK. There are plenty of US markets to consider. BUT, it would help if Interzone would update their own 'website,' which isn't very helpful even at its best. I mean, really. Why should I have to get such news from a secondary source?

Anyway, I want to turn it into a novel. Right now it's in the rumination stage, filling in the details needed to fatten it into a longer work. Certainly I have room for more background, room for more character development, room for broader scenes.

But I had a bit of a breakthrough this week, partly as a result of the post just previous to this one--Nightingales.

I originally titled the story "Nightingale" because the girl in the story is turned into a nightingale. But what if my MC/hero is his own kind of nightingale? I had originally seen him as having at least a couple of extraordinary characteristics, but what if he's really quite plain, simple, unextraordinary? It's only through the resolution of the conflict that something amazing comes out in him. Not magic, though. HE can't be magic. He'll be aided by someone else's magic, earth magic, but he, himself, won't have any kind of extraordinary power--except that greater power given him by his devotion alone.

Hmm.