Make My Novel Longer

I can't imagine trying to flesh out a 7,000 word story into a novel. I think what you have there is a short story at most.

I'm a skeleton first-draft writer, but even that seems to short. Your word count for a novel should be around 80,000 words. Sorry I can't help more.

There's a forum called 'Share Your Work', further down this page, where you can post a few hundred words and explain what you're looking for. We need to see some examples.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=26 The password is 'vista'

What's your age range? That will determine how long your book needs to be.

If it's MG, try for around 40-50,000 words.
YA, try for around 60-80,000 words
adult, try for around 80- 90,000 words

In any case, you've got a lot of space to fill, and you CAN'T just fill it with words. You need to fill it with story and character. Is most of that 7,000 words one character's story arc? If it is, maybe you can add some sub-plots with secondary characters to make your imaginary world richer.

Perhaps it was always meant to be a short story.

Otherwise start from scratch.
Take your characters and get to know them. (Somewhere around here I saw a character sheet that can be used by you to add plenty of info you might otherwise not have thought about. This can help you know your characters better so you can get a better understanding of how they would act in any given situation).

Then look at your main conflict. What is it? Why is it important to the MC (Main Character)? What must he do and why? What's standing in the way? How does he deal with it? How does that affect him? How does it affect others? What's at stake if he fails? What if he doesn't?

If you're an outliner you might want to consider these ahead of time. If not, you might just want to get a general grasp of these questions and start writing (the idea is to let the story unfold on its own and lead you in any direction it want's to go).

I must say going from a "completed" 7,000 word story to a completed novel length (anywhere from 50,000 to much much more depending on genre) doesn't seem like a very good idea if you can't find the story on your own.

But try it and see. Don't focus simply on the big picture. Example: Joe Carver must stop the evil overlord Mutalang from destroying the planet. Big picture is: Joe is a super-spy and the world will thank him for it. Look past that and you can start exploring his mind and motivations, his life and relationships, his moral trepidations, etc. Why should we care about Joe and the planet he's saving?

I hope this helps you some. If not you can always go to the "sandbox" and post your idea (what the story is about) for people here to help you explore it and perhaps expand your thinking about it. Sometimes bouncing ideas off others can return a bigger ball than what you cast forth.

If you already have the entire story plotted out and wrote based on that, trying to add in an additional 70,000 words is going to be near impossible, I'm sorry to say. It's going to sound forced and have a lot of filler.

A few things you COULD try, however:
-Think if there is any new twist/plot element you could add in to flesh out the story
-Take a look at the length of each of your chapters. Sometimes, just setting a chapter length goal will keep you writing until you have what you need, such as at least 10 pages per chapter, or 3-4K per chapter (with 25 planned chapters).
-Start from scratch, using the chapter length goal in mind. Scary, perhaps, but you may just find that your initial 7,000 words was a very in-depth outline!

How much you'll need to add also depends on the genre you are writing in. For middle grade, aim for 40-60K, for young adult aim for 70-80K, and for adult aim for 75-90K (very rough, generalized numbers, of course).

If you ARE writing in the children's genre, I can tell you that at 7K, as-is your novel could be a chapter book (but that would all depend on the subject).

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Beginning writers sometimes write short because they're telling rather than showing. Showing things, putting them in scenes, is always longer than summarizing them in telling.

Another thing that creates shorter stories is closing out your conflict too quickly. Look for the places where you MC succeeds and make him or her fail. Look for where things get better and make them worse instead. At every juncture, apply Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

The Share Your Work forum is a good idea. You can get a sense of what's going on in your writing and what you might work on next to get better.

To make your novel longer, add more plot.

girlyteengirl said:

I'm a new writer. I know it seems like a stretch to make 7,000 some words novel length but I'm in grade school so I'm used to having shorter pieces of writing. I'll go on the share your work section. Thanks.

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Grade school???

Completely irrelevant, but I'd just like to say thank you.
Thank you for proving that not all hope is lost. In your two posts that I read you've already managed to write more eloquently and accurately than an unfortunately large number of college students that have crossed my path.

If for no other reason, please don't give up writing because of this.

You see "grade school" and think amazing.

I see "grade school" and think - not a chance.

Cyia said:

You see "grade school" and think amazing.

I see "grade school" and think - not a chance.

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For the sake of literature I hope you're wrong. Wait, when did I lose my cynicism? Gah, all those years for naught.

Cyia said:

You see "grade school" and think amazing.

I see "grade school" and think - not a chance.

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Not a chance for what? And why?

As for the OP: I was somewhere between fifth and sixth grade, about 10 years old, when I wrote my first "novel." It was a cliche-ridden fantasy story that was about 50K words when it was done. I never had an audience in mind, I wasn't thinking about proper word counts or anything really other than the fact that I wanted to write. I wanted to write a book. So I did it.

I think that's the most important thing, right now. Just write what you want to write, study the craft of writing, read a lot, learn about both the industry of publishing and the art of novel writing (And yes, I think at least most writers know that writing is an art form). You will get better with time and practice and you will learn how to flesh out characters and build awesome plots and plan scenes and all that jazz.

To answer your real question though, how about you take a look at your 7,000 word story and compare it to some of your favourite novels? Look at the difference between scene set up, the level of "showing" vs "telling", the pacing and structure of the plot and such. I have a feeling that if your story is complete at 7K words, it's likely because you're telling it like a "campfire" story, although I could be wrong, I would have to read it in order to really say. (Here's another idea. Share Your Work is awesome and it's a great idea to post smaller snippets there, but if you *really* need help figuring out how to look at this project and want someone to read the whole thing, maybe you could go to the Beta Readers forum. Although it's normally for more finished/polished pieces, I think it might be okay just as long as you specify your problem and that you're looking for help in understanding how to write a full-length story. You might be able to hook up with someone who is willing to read it all and help you out.)

I'm no expert on the subject but what I would do is go through the whole plot again and see if there is anything lacking.

Do your characters deal with problems too easily? Are the villains thwarted too quickly. Do all the cellphones work? Does every car grumble to life the first time the characters try to start them? What's the weather like in your story?

You can't just add words for length though. They will feel tacked on.

Witch_turtle said:

Not a chance for what? And why?

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Grade school? For a teenager? Nope.

I wrote my first novel when I was ten

Shady Lane said:

I wrote my first novel when I was ten

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Hey, me too!

I started writing seriously at nine. I would advise that you read as many works as you can that are similar to what you want yours to be. Read novels intended for the same age range as yours. That will help you get used to the rhythms and pacing of novels. You may want to keep lists of major events in the books you read. See how many scenes there are and how long they tend to be. It can be fun with a book you really like. Then take the elements you like from your work (characters, setting, themes, whatever) and outline a new story with as many parts as one of the novels you've studied. That should help.

Welcome to novel writing. One of the great adventures. Congratulations on your early start.

James D. Macdonald said:

Hey, me too!

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high five!

girlyteengirl said:

I am new to this website but I have many questions. I am writing a novel and have the whole plot and story written out. The only problem is that it is about 7,000 words and I am trying to make it novel length. How do I make my novel longer? I am at a dead end and am almost ready to give up. My dad says that if I can't make it longer then I can write a book of short stories. I would rather make my story novel length though. Any ideas?

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I went through a phase like this when I was younger, and my dad said something very similar. I remember feeling all angsty that he didn't understand what I wanted to accomplish, but looking back on it now... it was his way of showing support. It's really awesome that you've got parental support in your corner. Never ever ever overlook that.

As for the short story angle, it's actually not bad. They may be shorter than a novel, but I think experience writing them really helps you become a better writer. Speaking from personal experience, that is.

And welcome!

Joining the club of people who wrote their first novel at ten

Maybe your story is just meant to be a short story. Maybe it isn't. I haven't read it, so I wouldn't know.

If you want to turn it into a novel, maybe take themes and elements from the story and its characters, and insert them into a plot with a larger scale conflict and longer character arcs etc. You'd basically be writing a totally different story, but you'd be recycling elements of the first.

Can we count the novel I wrote about the woman who had her brain transplanted into a robot body that got passed around the rest of my grade? 'cuz then I count as a 10/11 year-old-novelist.

Kateness said:

Can we count the novel I wrote about the woman who had her brain transplanted into a robot body that got passed around the rest of my grade? 'cuz then I count as a 10/11 year-old-novelist.

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Yes