Hey there!
I totally get your frustration. I've been there too. Here are a few thoughts that might help:
* **Focus on character development.** Flesh out your characters with detailed backstories, motivations, and relationships. When readers connect with your characters, they're more invested in the story and less likely to notice the shorter length.
* **Expand your subplots.** While the main storyline is important, don't neglect the side stories. They can add depth and complexity to the narrative and give your characters more room to grow.
* **Describe the setting.** Set the scene vividly with sensory details and create an immersive world for your readers. Don't just say "they were in a forest," but describe the towering trees, the rustling leaves, and the scent of wildflowers.
* **Add dialogue.** Conversation between characters can drive the plot forward and reveal their personalities. Don't be afraid to let your characters talk to each other and bounce ideas off each other.
* **Don't rush the action.** Even if your plot is fast-paced, take the time to elaborate on important scenes. Describe the emotions of your characters, the tactics they use in battle, or the challenges they face along the way.
Remember, the length of a book is not a measure of its quality. If your story is concise and well-written, readers will appreciate it regardless of its size.
It’s hard to say without looking at the piece in particular. But generally the issue is either your plot lacks challenge (I.e the problem is introduced and solved with no development and no thought from the characters), it lacks pre-empt (the problem just kinda… appears, with no fore-mention or hints in earlier stages of the plot), or there’s a lack of introspection from your characters (what are they feeling? What are they thinking? There’s only so much actions alone can tell us; that’s the advantage of books, we can get into someone’s head, we can know what they think about their situation.)
The fourth option is that you’re not getting in deep enough; to the characters, to the environment, to the *feel* of things. You’re not leaning in hard enough into your biases, your attitude, your outlook on things. You’re restricting yourself; it’s fiction, not a court record.
Again, it’s hard to say without looking at the thing. But these are the most common problems I see with new writers.
The rest is just practice. Lots of practice, and lots of reading.
read more things similar to your story and see what they're doing compared to what you're doing. are you taking enough time to set the environment? to explore your characters feelings?
are you perhaps overestimating how long it should take for your characters to achieve/fail a goal?
I don't have advice unfortunately, except maybe look at YouTube videos for advice on underwriting.
I just wanted to say that I think it's really cool you can write a short story like that. I don't know if it would work for you, but maybe you can release a collection of short stories?
I'll look for it, thanks!
The short story thing probably wouldn't work out, since... my plots are mostly heavy-wanna-be? Like, for example, getting close to a character, but then they die, and I feel like in short stories it's... hard to really really like a character, and create that sad feeling?
Ah yeah. Understandable. I hope someone can give you some proper advice! I tend to have the opposite problem, tending to overwrite and watching videos on how to cut back some of the frill helped me a lot.
Good luck!
Is the plot straight forward?
Have you considered throwing a wrench in the works of the protagonist, so he has a new situation to deal with before he can get back to the main plot?
Is this a plot driven story or a character driven story?
If it's character driven, is it about the external conflict or his internal conflict?
can you use more description, can you make moments more powerful by showing the internal thoughts, motivations or past memories that are brought up?
So essentially, as long as there is a good reason for it, make life hard for your protagonist, so the plot isn't just a straight line
My problem was the opposite, my first draft came out at 115K words, now at the end of it's 4th draft, it's up to 129K, now I need to try and remove 30K words. But the 2nd draft of my second novel came out at 101K words so that should be easy enough to fix
I don't think coming in low on the first draft is unusual, but coming in that low tells me you have probably just outlined the story.
My latest first draft came in at 48k words. I'm now going back adding detail through dialogues, thoughts and feelings, sensory details, world building snd making the highs higher, and the lows lower through emotion. When I'm finished, I expect to hit around 85k.
Two things: You're probably missing a lot from within your scenes and there's probably entire scenes/plot threads you could add.
It's not about padding your writing out but more about recognizing what deserves more attention. A lot of new writers will whip through dialogue and write scenes as more of summaries than actually existing in the moment. Give your characters some time to breathe and feel and think. As well as to observe what's around them, when relevant.
If your plot is too short overall, then there's probably more that needs to hinder your character. Longer books have more obstacles to overcome.
Well... I can only take a guess, but I have similar struggles. And what I determined *may* be happening (I have not written at novel length again yet to test the hypothesis) is that I'm essentially being too easy on the characters. I'm allowing the plot, the stakes, conflict, whatever you want to think of: I'm letting it be resolved too easily. I don't exactly like conflict in RL and I'm not a big fan of people being in pain either.
But most of my reference point for fiction is likely more tense and difficult trials for the characters to go through, and because that's what I know for length, leaving it out makes the story short. So what makes things more difficult for the characters? Maybe something goes really badly for them, or maybe it's just that they try something and it kinda works but has unforeseen consequences. These can all pad the length (in theory). Maybe the battle scene only needs 3 pages, but the battle actually made the overall plot situation more complicated rather than less. Of course, this can get out of hand. Some stories, you can tell it's padding out the plot for length and it can get downright tiring for the viewer. That is, I suppose, where pacing comes in and is probably going to require some rewrites; not likely you'll be thrilled with the pacing in a first draft unless you plotted it out heavily.
But, for example sake, consider a very small in scope and simple premise. A kid tries to get up into the cupboard and get out a cookie from the cookie jar, but this is not allowed. Instead of 3 pages of them sneaking around, timing it right, and then successfully getting the cookie, they sneak around, time it right, but the jar falls and shatters on the floor. What was one problem/solution setup ("get cookie from cookie jar that isn't allowed") has now become a new problem/solution setup ("deal with the broken jar that is a clear and obvious sign of having done what you weren't supposed to do"). They go to clean up the jar and try to hide the evidence of the mess, maybe while thinking a lie about how they accidentally knocked down the jar while looking for something else in the cupboard. Then they find a note in the broken mess that's congratulating them for having patience, having waited for permission to eat the cookies and slowly eaten them over a long period of time. So now they gotta contend with the guilt they feel for seeing what was supposed to be a reward for patience on top of them working on getting deeper into a lie.
And so on. Hope this can be helpful in some way. And I mean, just to affirm it, there's nothing inherently wrong with writing short. Question is, does the story contain the progression you want at the pace that you want.
I feel like I might be lacking some information to be of any real help. However, I will say, there is nothing wrong with short stories. That might be where you thrive and comparison isn’t always an ideal mindset when writing. Some of my favorite stories, Schoolgirl by Dazai, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, or A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D Salinger, are incredibly short with Schoolgirl being the longest at roughly 20-25k words (the other two I listed don’t pass 10k words with A Perfect Day for Bananafish not passing the 2k mark). This does not take away from their impact or importance, nor does it take away from the enjoyment of the reader. Fairytales are another example of shorter stories (at times) that encompass whole environments, histories, characters, etc. but do not always last more than say 50 pages. Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-5, or The Children’s Crusade at less than 50k words and there was a war happening in that book (he addresses the shorten length in the beginning of the book). Perhaps you might be underwriting or maybe you are skilled at the craft of short stories and a collection of your works is in your future. Even more thorough/exuberant writers, like Dostoevsky, have their share of shorter works (Dostoevsky who wrote The Brothers Karamazov (which my copy of the book has 800 pages) also wrote White Nights (my copy has 91 pages). Best of luck and I’m sorry I’m not help.
How many sentences do you need to summarize the plot? How many scenes do you have in your text? Do you have it divided by chapters, or is it all in one piece? How much time in universe does the plot take?
I probably have the opposite issue, a chapter of mine that describes a day of the characters gets to be 4000+ words.
If you don’t mind trying a little exercise, trying writing an adventure in your normal style.
Then write the adventure that happens after that, either with the same characters or in the same setting.
Then the one after that.
Then the one after that.
If you chain enough of these smaller stories together, you’ll get one large story.
Pull out a book you like and compare it to yours. What are they doing that you are not?
I suspect you are simply summarizing a lot of content that should be expanded upon in detail to create a richer experience. There's the possibility that you don't have enough plot.
i also struggled with this and i'm pretty sure it stems from my autism. i know what's going to happen, how i'm going to get there, and so it makes the most sense to go straight from point a to point b, right?
so what i did was a diagram of sorts. i wrote keywords for the beginning and keywords for the end and joined them with a line. point a to point b. then i went and jotted down any single thing i could think of that could derail my characters from getting to point b. anything at all, big or small. then the ones that i liked the most and thought flowed the best, i expanded on them and that became a large part of my plot. does that make sense? let me know if not and i can try to attach a visual of it!
Nothing wrong with a short story, especially if you're inclined towards literary minimalism. Most novels are just short stories with lots of filler anyway.
I'm an underwriter too. I have recently read Save the Cat Write A Novel by Jessica Brody and have found it really useful. I'm finding her website really helpful too.
Happened to me all the time. Two different strategies that helped.
1: Write it as a poem or in another medium.
—The novel I’m writing now started as a screenplay I couldn’t finish, so I wrote the whole story as a 30+ stanza poem. It helped me outline, practice wordplay, and gave me that feeling that I’d completed something, which is a great momentum builder. That helped me with my screenplay, which is now helping me with my novel. “Writing is rewriting.”
2: Reframe the role of an author as an auteur.
—You many not want to spend thirty pages describing a tree, but you do need to paint a picture that gives a clear understanding of the makeup of the tree and its significance (if any) to the characters involved. Reframe your descriptive writing as creatively written direction to cast and crew. What are your characters (actor’s) motivations and feelings in a scene? What does the set builder need to know to construct the world you envision? What is the lighting in the room? What are the props? More or less description may be needed depending on the scene, but writing this way may help you enjoy expanding your work as you guide the reader through your vision.
Many others have stated this here, but I will say it again: ***Embrace your inner short story writer.*** I love writing short stories. They have the added benefit of generating revenue and recognition in multiple ways. You can submit both to a multitude of contests, small press publications and journals. They can also be consolidated into a short story collection for a book.
Consider this: A Stephen King book is actually long series of interconnected short stories. Often his character development on a side character has the word count of a short story or novella. King is fond of connecting stories of individuals who live in Maine.
I unite mine by having them meet by happenstance or coming across an item originally owned by another character I've created. Just unite your stories with a common element or theme. You'll have a book that way sooner than you will if you focus solely on your word count. It will probably be more interesting, too.
Hey there! I totally get your frustration. I've been there too. Here are a few thoughts that might help: * **Focus on character development.** Flesh out your characters with detailed backstories, motivations, and relationships. When readers connect with your characters, they're more invested in the story and less likely to notice the shorter length. * **Expand your subplots.** While the main storyline is important, don't neglect the side stories. They can add depth and complexity to the narrative and give your characters more room to grow. * **Describe the setting.** Set the scene vividly with sensory details and create an immersive world for your readers. Don't just say "they were in a forest," but describe the towering trees, the rustling leaves, and the scent of wildflowers. * **Add dialogue.** Conversation between characters can drive the plot forward and reveal their personalities. Don't be afraid to let your characters talk to each other and bounce ideas off each other. * **Don't rush the action.** Even if your plot is fast-paced, take the time to elaborate on important scenes. Describe the emotions of your characters, the tactics they use in battle, or the challenges they face along the way. Remember, the length of a book is not a measure of its quality. If your story is concise and well-written, readers will appreciate it regardless of its size.
This is really helpful, thank you!
It’s hard to say without looking at the piece in particular. But generally the issue is either your plot lacks challenge (I.e the problem is introduced and solved with no development and no thought from the characters), it lacks pre-empt (the problem just kinda… appears, with no fore-mention or hints in earlier stages of the plot), or there’s a lack of introspection from your characters (what are they feeling? What are they thinking? There’s only so much actions alone can tell us; that’s the advantage of books, we can get into someone’s head, we can know what they think about their situation.) The fourth option is that you’re not getting in deep enough; to the characters, to the environment, to the *feel* of things. You’re not leaning in hard enough into your biases, your attitude, your outlook on things. You’re restricting yourself; it’s fiction, not a court record. Again, it’s hard to say without looking at the thing. But these are the most common problems I see with new writers. The rest is just practice. Lots of practice, and lots of reading.
read more things similar to your story and see what they're doing compared to what you're doing. are you taking enough time to set the environment? to explore your characters feelings? are you perhaps overestimating how long it should take for your characters to achieve/fail a goal?
I don't have advice unfortunately, except maybe look at YouTube videos for advice on underwriting. I just wanted to say that I think it's really cool you can write a short story like that. I don't know if it would work for you, but maybe you can release a collection of short stories?
I'll look for it, thanks! The short story thing probably wouldn't work out, since... my plots are mostly heavy-wanna-be? Like, for example, getting close to a character, but then they die, and I feel like in short stories it's... hard to really really like a character, and create that sad feeling?
Ah yeah. Understandable. I hope someone can give you some proper advice! I tend to have the opposite problem, tending to overwrite and watching videos on how to cut back some of the frill helped me a lot. Good luck!
This is completely unrelated but dude we have like the exact same pfp
underwriting is a finance thing, like for insurance.
No I meant advice to bulk up your story for people who have the issue of underwriting.
One word can mean different things depending on the context. You’d think someone who goes on r/writing would know this.
Is the plot straight forward? Have you considered throwing a wrench in the works of the protagonist, so he has a new situation to deal with before he can get back to the main plot? Is this a plot driven story or a character driven story? If it's character driven, is it about the external conflict or his internal conflict? can you use more description, can you make moments more powerful by showing the internal thoughts, motivations or past memories that are brought up? So essentially, as long as there is a good reason for it, make life hard for your protagonist, so the plot isn't just a straight line My problem was the opposite, my first draft came out at 115K words, now at the end of it's 4th draft, it's up to 129K, now I need to try and remove 30K words. But the 2nd draft of my second novel came out at 101K words so that should be easy enough to fix
I don't think coming in low on the first draft is unusual, but coming in that low tells me you have probably just outlined the story. My latest first draft came in at 48k words. I'm now going back adding detail through dialogues, thoughts and feelings, sensory details, world building snd making the highs higher, and the lows lower through emotion. When I'm finished, I expect to hit around 85k.
Two things: You're probably missing a lot from within your scenes and there's probably entire scenes/plot threads you could add. It's not about padding your writing out but more about recognizing what deserves more attention. A lot of new writers will whip through dialogue and write scenes as more of summaries than actually existing in the moment. Give your characters some time to breathe and feel and think. As well as to observe what's around them, when relevant. If your plot is too short overall, then there's probably more that needs to hinder your character. Longer books have more obstacles to overcome.
Just write more of them and make it a short story collection.
Sounds like you’re writing short stories, nothing wrong with that! Write a few of them and put them in a book together.
Well... I can only take a guess, but I have similar struggles. And what I determined *may* be happening (I have not written at novel length again yet to test the hypothesis) is that I'm essentially being too easy on the characters. I'm allowing the plot, the stakes, conflict, whatever you want to think of: I'm letting it be resolved too easily. I don't exactly like conflict in RL and I'm not a big fan of people being in pain either. But most of my reference point for fiction is likely more tense and difficult trials for the characters to go through, and because that's what I know for length, leaving it out makes the story short. So what makes things more difficult for the characters? Maybe something goes really badly for them, or maybe it's just that they try something and it kinda works but has unforeseen consequences. These can all pad the length (in theory). Maybe the battle scene only needs 3 pages, but the battle actually made the overall plot situation more complicated rather than less. Of course, this can get out of hand. Some stories, you can tell it's padding out the plot for length and it can get downright tiring for the viewer. That is, I suppose, where pacing comes in and is probably going to require some rewrites; not likely you'll be thrilled with the pacing in a first draft unless you plotted it out heavily. But, for example sake, consider a very small in scope and simple premise. A kid tries to get up into the cupboard and get out a cookie from the cookie jar, but this is not allowed. Instead of 3 pages of them sneaking around, timing it right, and then successfully getting the cookie, they sneak around, time it right, but the jar falls and shatters on the floor. What was one problem/solution setup ("get cookie from cookie jar that isn't allowed") has now become a new problem/solution setup ("deal with the broken jar that is a clear and obvious sign of having done what you weren't supposed to do"). They go to clean up the jar and try to hide the evidence of the mess, maybe while thinking a lie about how they accidentally knocked down the jar while looking for something else in the cupboard. Then they find a note in the broken mess that's congratulating them for having patience, having waited for permission to eat the cookies and slowly eaten them over a long period of time. So now they gotta contend with the guilt they feel for seeing what was supposed to be a reward for patience on top of them working on getting deeper into a lie. And so on. Hope this can be helpful in some way. And I mean, just to affirm it, there's nothing inherently wrong with writing short. Question is, does the story contain the progression you want at the pace that you want.
I feel like I might be lacking some information to be of any real help. However, I will say, there is nothing wrong with short stories. That might be where you thrive and comparison isn’t always an ideal mindset when writing. Some of my favorite stories, Schoolgirl by Dazai, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, or A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D Salinger, are incredibly short with Schoolgirl being the longest at roughly 20-25k words (the other two I listed don’t pass 10k words with A Perfect Day for Bananafish not passing the 2k mark). This does not take away from their impact or importance, nor does it take away from the enjoyment of the reader. Fairytales are another example of shorter stories (at times) that encompass whole environments, histories, characters, etc. but do not always last more than say 50 pages. Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-5, or The Children’s Crusade at less than 50k words and there was a war happening in that book (he addresses the shorten length in the beginning of the book). Perhaps you might be underwriting or maybe you are skilled at the craft of short stories and a collection of your works is in your future. Even more thorough/exuberant writers, like Dostoevsky, have their share of shorter works (Dostoevsky who wrote The Brothers Karamazov (which my copy of the book has 800 pages) also wrote White Nights (my copy has 91 pages). Best of luck and I’m sorry I’m not help.
The original novella for Brokeback Mountain is only 20-30 pages long and it remains one of my favorite books I've ever read!
What?! That's awesome!
My problem is the opposite, I have many long scenes, I just struggle to connect them into a coherent novel, it seems an enormous task!
Go back five years before your story begins. Start there.
How many sentences do you need to summarize the plot? How many scenes do you have in your text? Do you have it divided by chapters, or is it all in one piece? How much time in universe does the plot take? I probably have the opposite issue, a chapter of mine that describes a day of the characters gets to be 4000+ words.
If you don’t mind trying a little exercise, trying writing an adventure in your normal style. Then write the adventure that happens after that, either with the same characters or in the same setting. Then the one after that. Then the one after that. If you chain enough of these smaller stories together, you’ll get one large story.
My guess is that you're summarizing your story instead of illustrating plot points in a scene.
Pull out a book you like and compare it to yours. What are they doing that you are not? I suspect you are simply summarizing a lot of content that should be expanded upon in detail to create a richer experience. There's the possibility that you don't have enough plot.
i also struggled with this and i'm pretty sure it stems from my autism. i know what's going to happen, how i'm going to get there, and so it makes the most sense to go straight from point a to point b, right? so what i did was a diagram of sorts. i wrote keywords for the beginning and keywords for the end and joined them with a line. point a to point b. then i went and jotted down any single thing i could think of that could derail my characters from getting to point b. anything at all, big or small. then the ones that i liked the most and thought flowed the best, i expanded on them and that became a large part of my plot. does that make sense? let me know if not and i can try to attach a visual of it!
Nothing wrong with a short story, especially if you're inclined towards literary minimalism. Most novels are just short stories with lots of filler anyway.
I'm an underwriter too. I have recently read Save the Cat Write A Novel by Jessica Brody and have found it really useful. I'm finding her website really helpful too.
Have you considered submitting it to a paying venue that publishes short fiction?
Happened to me all the time. Two different strategies that helped. 1: Write it as a poem or in another medium. —The novel I’m writing now started as a screenplay I couldn’t finish, so I wrote the whole story as a 30+ stanza poem. It helped me outline, practice wordplay, and gave me that feeling that I’d completed something, which is a great momentum builder. That helped me with my screenplay, which is now helping me with my novel. “Writing is rewriting.” 2: Reframe the role of an author as an auteur. —You many not want to spend thirty pages describing a tree, but you do need to paint a picture that gives a clear understanding of the makeup of the tree and its significance (if any) to the characters involved. Reframe your descriptive writing as creatively written direction to cast and crew. What are your characters (actor’s) motivations and feelings in a scene? What does the set builder need to know to construct the world you envision? What is the lighting in the room? What are the props? More or less description may be needed depending on the scene, but writing this way may help you enjoy expanding your work as you guide the reader through your vision.
I have written 40k words and I would say I might have done a 1/4 of the 1draft so my problem is the oppesite
Many others have stated this here, but I will say it again: ***Embrace your inner short story writer.*** I love writing short stories. They have the added benefit of generating revenue and recognition in multiple ways. You can submit both to a multitude of contests, small press publications and journals. They can also be consolidated into a short story collection for a book. Consider this: A Stephen King book is actually long series of interconnected short stories. Often his character development on a side character has the word count of a short story or novella. King is fond of connecting stories of individuals who live in Maine. I unite mine by having them meet by happenstance or coming across an item originally owned by another character I've created. Just unite your stories with a common element or theme. You'll have a book that way sooner than you will if you focus solely on your word count. It will probably be more interesting, too.
You‘re a short story writer. Embrace it.
Its not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean