Word count interrupting my flow of Writing

Ideally getting a few beta readers to look it over would be a good guider. If they all say the same thing, then you may have a problem. But...

Sometimes writers do have their niches and comfort zones. I know I can't write short stories, and struggle with anything under 40k. Yeah, I'm jealous of those who can write for the short market, but I know it's a very different skill from novella and novel length, so readily accept it's not a skill I have, so I let the worries go.

On chapters: only one publisher I know makes me worry about chapter lengths, but that's because I have to write a certain amount for each chapter for a serialization they run (between 2-4,000 words per chapter). Other than that -- you don't have to have chapters at all, just scene breaks etc. Chapters can be as long or as short as the story needs them to be.

And with overall word counts... they'll always be with you... vaguely: all lengths have cut-off point with publishers, unless you forewarn them you're going epic novel!! But I've read a lot of novellas where the author would have killed the story if they'd taken it further. They didn't, and those novellas left me stunned with just the right amount of... everything! If you can do that, if you're doing that -- you're on the right track!

nostalgia said:

Thank you! I guess it's something I have to accept. Even tho i'd love to write an epic novel. Maybe i'm fit for novellas??

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What have your beta readers said after they've read it? Did they feel it needed more?

Going off what your beta reader said above, maybe your stories run short because you're 1) telling too much (explaining, summarizing) and not showing enough (writing real-time scenes, which in many cases will include dialogue, maybe lots of it); and 2) not developing your characters sufficiently, not only through what they do, but also through their dialogue and internals. You may not be giving your characters a chance to react, to think, to come to a decision.

Know your story and you'll find it fiarly easy to expand.
here's a trick I'm currently trying. Write your story from the POV's of 2-3 different key characters. Basically same events but each observing and h interpreting the events differently. When you're done, inter-splice them and you'll find yourself with a longer story.

Or more traditionally. Take your story and and expand certain parts,. Even something like a trip to the grocery can be rife with little interesting things. A long story is nothing mor than a series of short stories stitched together.

Let's look at The Hobbit.

The fiirst story is Bilbo's house party and meaeting with gandalf and the dwarves.
THe scond story is the trip to rivendell
The third is the Misty mountains adventures
The fourth is Mirkwood through to the arive at long lake.
The fifth is the dragon
The last is the battle of five armies.

You'll find each of these section undergoes it's own arcs, character changes and plots.

That you're comofrtable with short stories is very good,. Now you just have to slightly adjust your concept of a story. Just as the Hobbit can be seen as a six short stories centering around one bilbo baggins. You can write a series of chronologically arranged short stories centering around one or two characters.

I would focus more on the story, not the length. Forcing a story to a certain length could be detrimental to the telling of the story. I once took two short-stories, and combined them into one that eventually became an 80k-word adventure. The exciting part was in realizing how the two stories could work together. But, also, dialogue is important, as others have hinted at.

I've found that I always max out a draft ~60K, but prior to writing I was the same. Either my story lost steam around 20K or I finished the draft at 30/40K. I think the best cure is to keep writing. I get similar critiques (you don't describe this or that) and plot is rushed in certain points, but over time as I've stretched out my drafts with the more WIPs I've completed, it's gotten better. I can't speak for you, but in my experience it was a practice thing. I didn't set out to make it longer, but with the criticisms and what I saw was wrong with my work, it naturally ended up longer.

Your stories can be short for many reasons, it's not possible to guess without seeing some actual text. Short stories exist, novellas exist, really short novels also exist and they are all fine with the really short length they are. On the other hand, some writers struggle to fully flesh out their story because they choose to tell the story in short. Let's put that into an example: you may know the first Harry Potter book, which begins with telling us basically that "Harry was an orphan with magic abilities, who lived with relatives, in a cupboard under the stairs. The relatives were not very nice to him, but one day he received an invitation to a magic school and left." This information can be put in two sentences. It can also be put in ten pages, if one includes some descriptions and some "scenes" where things happen and people talk. But if you look at JKR's book, you'll notice that the above information takes up quite a lot of space (and wordcount), with quite a lot of things happening along the way. Instead of just telling us "his relatives were not very nice", JKR shows this in several scenes where we see each character talk and act, and we learn about them gradually. We see the family argue, or we hear dialogue showing them as being selfish or obnoxious, and thus we learn what sort of person each of them is (instead of just being told who's who). We see them go to the zoo, which is not really part of the grand plot about Harry becoming a magician but it's there to show us (rather than tell us in a sentence or two) that HP has magic abilities. And it's a fun episode which is a pleasure to read anyway, so it doesn't feel like a "filler". Same with that part where Harry meets some other magic kids and they eat those weird flavoured jelly beans. It's not part of the main plot, it's just a quirky little scene that's oh so funny (who's going to get the earwax flavoured one? ) And of course that fun little scene has a very serious purpose - to show us (rather than tell us) about that magic world filled with magic items.
And that's how you end up with a "lengthy" book , you fill your book with more fun little episodes!

If you add one obstacle, plus one character, you'll reach your desired length.

Honestly, a story should never be longer than it absolutely needs to be. Most of what I write is short stories (the longest thing I've ever written was just novella length--basically the stuff you described writing).

Try getting some betas to look over your stuff. Post it in the SYW forum. Develop subplots if you haven't. Flesh out scenes/characters more. But honestly, just because it's short doesn't mean it's bad.

Simone.Garick said:

A long story is nothing mor than a series of short stories stitched together.

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This is not particularly true. Novels have a structure that builds, just like a short story does and simply putting short stories into a sequence will not make a novel. And thinking of a novel as a series of short stories will not solve the problem of being able to write a novel because it ignores the structure and sequence, the arc within a novel.

For the OP, from what your betas seem to be saying I agree that you may be "telling" rather than showing. Since they mentioned lack of dialog, I would suggest looking for places where you summarize conversations. (FREX: Johnny talked to Bill and they decided they should go look for Amy.) Then write out that conversation and see what happens. (I find that pretty much all the good stuff in my books comes from conversations, even though there are other scenes etc. The conversations are what drive the conflict and motivation.) Learning when and where to put details is just part of learning how to craft a story. The best way to learn it is to read other books and ask yourself how they approach that problem, and then keep writing. A lot.

If you find you are still writing shorter, that's okay too. The market for novellas (20k-40k words) is small, but it exists.