by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’ve written several books that were pretty short. I realized they were short (around 50-53,000 words) and took a closer look at the stories. I didn’t see a good way of adding anything to the books that would make them any better. They were just really lean books that still allowed for character development and a solid mystery. I left them as-is and published them.
I even wrote short for Penguin once or twice. They didn’t say a word about it, simply reduced the price of the paperbacks a dollar and let them stand as they were.
But occasionally I’ll write short and go, “Okay. This is too short.” And I’ll find ways of adding elements to the story that will genuinely make the story richer and have more depth. My most recent release is an example. It worked so well that I thought I’d share the couple of approaches I took to make it work.
Flesh out summarizing narrative. This was something that my editors at Penguin would frequently (rightly) bring up with me and really should be done regardless of whether you’ve written short or not. I’d have a sort of placeholder bit of narrative that basically just summarized what the character did for the rest of the day as some transition. But going back through in another draft, there’s always an opportunity there to add something meaningful. I realized that readers would likely be interested in what my sleuth’s life with her brand-new husband was like. How had life changed? What was difficult? What was better? It gave me the chance to sketch some of this in and develop my character a bit more, as well. This approach even provided some light conflict for the story.
Get into the character’s head. (More about this approach in my post, “Empathizing With Your Character”. Take a look at supporting characters: is there an opportunity for development there that can add something to the story or shed light on the protagonist? Is there a good subplot that could add conflict to the story and dimension to the main character?
Further reading:
5 Fun and Easy Ways to Lengthen Word Count by K.M. Weiland
What to Do When Your Novel’s Too Short by Janice Hardy
Do you ever write short? Do you find ways to lengthen the books or just release them as shorter books?
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