I’m working on a short fiction novel of about two hundred pages. So far, I have 37'000 words finished on the first draft. This is my first book. I have a rough outline that I’m following. My target for book word length is somewhere between seventy and one-hundred thousand words.

Anyway, my problem is, I think I am going to finish the book and be short. That is, under seventy thousand. If I had known my book was going to run short, I would have added more story when I was at the outline stage.

At this point, I plan to just push ahead and keep writing until I finish the outline as it is, and then worry about total word count. Since I am not a writer by trade, I do not know what professional writers do when they have this problem.

I can think of two things to do. One is to pad all the chapters by filling out the scene descriptions and the characters. Of course, then the chapters may get bloated. Or two, go back and add more story, meaning extra chapters. I don’t like the idea of adding more story. It seems like trying to sew on an extra arm or leg to a body that is already complete.

So normally, what does the professional writer do?

Thanks
Azel

It might mean going back to the drawing board and finding out what is missing from your basic structure. There might not be enough substance, sufficient plot factors to support a standard novel. If the story isn't complicated enough to actually be a novel, what you end up with is a novella, which is more like a very long short story: it has some of the elements of a novel, but not the depth.

The first step is to decide what you want to produce. If you think the story is perfect, then stick with it being a novella (a good length for the POD, self publishing route).

If you want to make it a novel there are other things to consider:

1: analyse your plot structure and see how many major steps it has. It might be too "simple". Measure it alongside it's closest competitor, or your favourite novel of the same type.

2: look at your characters and see what you can do to develop them further and make them real beyond question - that's a way of introducing new scenes without interfering greatly with the plot.

3: Read scenes out loud and ask yourself if they are crystal clear to anyone not familiar with what is going on. Test a scene at a writers' circle or upload here.

4: avoid padding - it just adds waffle, and it's what you'll probably cut out later on.

5: cry.

hope some of this helps.
Colin M

I don't like the sound of something being 'written up' to a particular word count. It sounds as if your story's reached its natural length, Azel. So you're not going to like what I say, but I'll tell you what happened to me anyway.

The very first piece of extended writing I did turned out at 40,000 words. I rang an agent, picked at random from TW&AYB, and she said, 'What you have there, my dear, is a novella, and no one will be interested.' To say I was crushed is an understatement.

I called a friend to have a moan and he said, 'Well, look at it this way: I've heard a lot of writers regard the first novel as a warm-up exercise, not to be published.' Boy, was I stung. I thought, 'I've put so much work into this! It's got to be more than just a learning exercise!'

I did send it out to one publisher who dealt with teen fiction but it came pinging back pretty quickly - it wasn't written for teens and that must have shown from page 1. Then I had a little mourning period, put the ms away, and wrote another novel.

If you can (after you've finished kicking the computer, punching the pillow etc) get another project on the go fairly quickly, this will help. In that respect writing's a lot like dating, I find. And maybe, in a few months' time, you could come back to the original piece and see if a natural and organic solution to increasing the word count suggests itself. If it does, terrific. Roll up your sleeves and get going on it again. If not, then you're 37,000 words into being a better writer than you were and you've learnt a lot on the way.

Good luck, whichever.

I agree with Colin, and add that you need to develop an awareness of the difference between padding and added texture.

By padding, I mean bunging in unnecessary details. For instance, in a fast action scene you don’t want to be saying that the hero was able to hurdle the fence because he used to be high-jump champion at school and still has a collection of silver cups which his grandmother polishes every weekend.

Added texture is building up the scene/action/character so that your readers can recreate them in their heads. This is linked to the dreaded Show Not Tell. Forgive me if I'm going over something you know, but the basic idea is to show what’s happening by describing how it affects your characters. So:

It was raining heavily is Telling. It’s just a bald statement.

The rain stung his face, drenching him in seconds is Showing. It shows how heavy the rain is by describing how the character feels. It’s more interesting for the readers and draws them into the character’s world.

It may be that, in your first draft, you have a lot of Tell. This is how some writers normally work their first draft and then, on the second draft, they go through it changing the emphasis and adding layers of texture to the story. That’s not padding, but you need to learn the difference.

Why not post a section in the archive for us to have a look at?

Dee

How are you calculating the word count? 200 sides of A4 at 12 point Times New Roman with double spacing averages 400 words. So a 200 page text is 80,000 words. Unless anyone knows anything different, I thought you had to take into account 'white space' when calculating the length of a novel not the actual number of words.

<Added>

This kind of thing -

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/wordcount.htm

Gulliver, everyone these days just uses the word-processor's wordcount feature. Production managers have a complicated calculation called 'casting off' to work out how many pages of book a MS will be - or they used to - but the rest of humanity doesn't have to know about it.

Azel, I'm sure you're right to go ahead and finish the first draft, and then see what you've got.

After that, I think Colin's and Lammi's and Dee's advice is all good. If this is your first novel it would be worth seeing whether, when you revise it, it naturally grows longer, as Dee says, by adding texture and substance to things (though yes, you still need to know when to keep things short and snappy). But any words or scenes you add must deserve their place: you need a good reason of plot or character or theme, not just 'well it makes it longer'. If you realise all you're doing is padding, then you'll know the piece is already the length it naturally is, and it will ruin it to try to fatten it up. In which case, yes, you'll have to call it your prentice piece, push it under the bed, and use all you've learnt to write the next one.

Two other possibilities. It's not necessarily something for a novice to try, so you'll have to be confident that you've got the writerly skills to cope, but you could weave in a subplot, rather than trying to extend the story you've got. Take a minor character, and develop their story in parallel with the others'. Something which explores the main theme from a different angle and/or in a different mood often works well, connecting in and out with the main one. Again, it must add something important to the novel, not just make it longer.

One more thought - again, not necessarily easy for a beginner. I had a novel which concerned the downfall of an old family firm, and it came out rather short. So I wrote diary entries for the grandmother to go at the end of each chapter, starting in the present day, and moving backwards through 40-odd years to the founding of the firm at the end of the last chapter. It filled out the background and backstory, and gave a much stronger sense and more poignant sense of the loss of a good place, and meant I could develop the grandmother's character, who had been a bit peripheral. But if as I wrote them I hadn't found they added to it like that, I would have cut them. In the end, most readers said her and her diary was their favourite element of the whole damn thing.

(And by the way, 'fiction novel' is tautologous - a novel is fictional, by definition)

Emma

Emma,

I have to disagree with you. I think it is important for writers to have a grasp of the production side of publishing. It might save some disappointment. If you produce a novel which your computer says is 80,000 words, you shouldn't be too surprised if your publisher - if you get that far - wants it cut down to reduce costs.

I think the days when writers could put creativity before practicality have gone (if they ever existed).

My mss have all come out at 300 pages plus. Must admit, I thought word count was word count - I called all these novels 90,000 words, as per my contract. No one at either the agency or the publisher's complained or contradicted me, so I don't think it can be too much of a problem.

I want to thank everyone here for their input and advice. I have made a list of your suggestions, and plan to use them after I finish my first draft.

As to how I count words. I found a few pages in books I enjoy that were about half exposition and half dialogue, and counted the words. It usually came out to about 400 to 450 per page. I then multiplied this by two hundred pages. I then set my goal at 80'000 to 90'000 words. I am now (first draft) about in the middle of my books outline, and I panicked when I saw that my word count was too low to reach my goal. That is why I posted the question.

I started a novel a few years back and never finished it because I got caught up in the ‘details of perfection’ while writing. I have decided to avoid perfection this time around, and concentrate on finishing the first draft. I often see sentences and paragraphs of my daily writing that I know I could do better, but I push on instead. This word count problem will have to wait until I am finished with the first draft. At least now I have some ideas on how to solve the problem, and I can stop worrying about it.

Perhaps this subject will help others who have the same problem.

(I will be posting a question about grammar soon.)

Thank you all.
Azel

Azel, you're welcome. And I think you're right to steam on with the first draft, if that’s what you're comfortable with.

After three years of talking to other writers on here, I find that novelists generally divide into two broad groups: those who write a skeleton and add on the texture later, and those who write reams and then winnow out all the chaff. Neither way is right or wrong. Just do whatever suits you best.

Good luck

Dee

On of the site members, waxlyrical, has just had a novella published, so once again, if you think it's fine the way it is, don't ruin it with padding.

you shouldn't be too surprised if your publisher - if you get that far - wants it cut down to reduce costs.

I wouldn't touch a publisher with a bargepole who did this. The only reason for cutting a novel is because it has words that aren't earning their keep, and the only reason for adding words is because the novel needs them to be its true self. As long as my novel was within the broad trade outlines of 75,000-120,000 words (fantasy and S&F can be longer, literary could be a bit shorter) I wouldn't cut a word because they wanted to save costs. I can think of no worse reason.

There's a WW member who pulled out of a contract because they asked her to cut 20,000 words because they'd got their sums wrong, and so she should have. I thought that was staggeringly unprofessional for a small but supposedly professional publisher. FWIW, TMOL is 140,000, and that length hasn't even been commented on.

It does help to understand production processes, but in trying to get published, you really don't need any other wordcount than the one your wordprocessor produces.

Emma

I am that member. (there’s a song in there somewhere )

It was heartbreaking at the time, having to pull out of the contract, but I'm of the same mind as Emma on this; I can think of no worse reason to cut a manuscript.

Dee

I'd like to echo Colin's words - if that's the length the novel needs to be then... that's the length it needs to be. I wrote a 50,000 word novel - I'm calling it a novel and not a novella because my agent's described it as one to publishers and that's how publishers have spoken of it too - and my agent said, yes, it was short, but perfect for the story. I did increase it to 80,000 by going deeper into other characters and bringing out other aspects of the narrators charater and story, but my agent - and I agreed- said that too much of the tightness and tension had been lost. However, though publishers have liked it, most have said that it was too risky to try to launch a writer with a novel as short as this - for reasons it's just too early in the year for me to be arsed to go in to. So I'm writing a bigger book, with the intention that my real first novel will come out at a later date.

So maybe just put your book on the backburner and get on with your next, bigger book? And when that bags an agent, show them this shorter work and see what happens?

<Added>

And Gatsby's only around 50,000 words, and the brilliant, Dr Glas by Hjalmar Soderbergh can't be more than 40,000 and they're both called novels. I think once you get to 40,000 the definition of a novel has to go beyond just wordcount (though I'm aware that no one on this thread is arguing about what makes a novel a novella and vice versa - I just wanted to say that Azel's 60,000 words can be a novel in its own right).

My novel is 55,000 words. Okay, it's targeted at a slightly younger audience, but I also describe it as a novel and not a novella.

Lord of the Flies - that's fairly short, Animal Farm. And then you have Stephen King "short stories" that run in excess of 80,000 words.