How long is long enough?

[GeekDavid]

As I just posted on the Shameless Self-Appreciation Thread, I just passed 45k words in Librarian. The thing is, the basic story is told and I'm having trouble figuring other content to add to stretch the length.

I've heard that a good fantasy should be 80k words, but honestly, I'm thinking getting to 60k will be rough, to say nothing of 80k.

What are your opinions? Is a shorter story that tells the story completely okay, or do I need to keep looking for subplots to add?

(If anyone wants to read the manuscript with an eye to suggestions, drop me a private message... I'm not scared of people reading my stuff, I just don't want it out in public just yet.)

 

[Svrtnsse]

Spontaneously, without knowing anything about you or your writing, I'd say that adding content for the sake of providing a longer read is a bad idea.

I'm sure it can be done, but I'm thinking that in order to do it well it will require some significant reworking of the entire plot. If I understand you correctly the main story is told and any subplot you add on will ultimately have no impact on the outcome and as such, would it really matter?

You're probably better off making sure the reader knows to expect a short-ish story.

 

[Lawfire]

Are you planning on publishing? It may be on the short side for traditional publishing. If you are self publishing, market it as a novella or whichever term is appropriate for the final length.

 

[GeekDavid]

Are you planning on publishing? It may be on the short side for traditional publishing. If you are self publishing, market it as a novella or whichever term is appropriate for the final length.

Almost certainly self-publishing, though I do have a friend who says he wants to start a small press and wants my book to start it with, so I don't think length would be a problem there either if I do go that route.

I'm not ready to give up and say 45k is it, I can still add stuff that highlights the personalities of the characters and so on, but I really don't see that taking another 35k words.

 

[buyjupiter]

I'm finding the same problem in my piece. I still have 8 chapters to go, which is the same number I've had for a week now, despite writing 3 chapters. But at the end of writing the first draft the piece is going to be about 50k words. I need to get to 80-90k to tell the story well, which if every chapter comes in at ~5k, should work.

Here's my to-do list of things to go back and rework, without adding in sub-plots (just as an idea of where you might want to add in some bits):

--emotions; do I adequately show them, or am I just using a hackneyed expression as shorthand? Is this the right place to tell?
--dialogue; did I write in all the dialogue the scene needs or did I summarize again?
--exposition; does this scene need to be fully written out? It does? Awesome, word count ticking up again.
--working in the back story; this is going to need some finessing without coming across as an info dump. Right now it's all sitting in one section, waiting to be filled into the rest of the narrative. This may lead to more scenes as well.
--setting; did I describe it enough to get a real sense of being in the room/location? Or did I say "tree" when I meant "a large cluster of elms, nestled by the brook, etc"? Not that I want to go overboard with description or anything, but I will (no matter how hard I try) end up choosing a vague phrase/word when I need to be more specific.

I think in the end, it's going to be as long as it's going to be. If it does end up being novella length, I imagine that could be a harder sell than a full length novel (but I've heard the word count of a decent fantasy novel being in the 90-100k range). It could be that a shorter length as a first time author may work in your favor. It's hard to tell without reading it if it needs to be shorter and more tightly written to fit into the short story market, or expanded to fit into the novel market.

And if everything else fails, you can always set it aside and keep it on hand for when calls for submissions in anthologies go out. You might keep an eye on Ellen Datlow's homepage, she requests submissions on there for a wide range of material.

I hope that helps, and happy editing!

 

[Ireth]

I wish you luck, David. I have the opposite problem -- the way my story is shaping up right now, I think it'll be way longer than most publishers would want. I'm already doing my best to keep to the absolute minimum of scenes that need to be there for the plot to make sense, so there's really not much fat I can trim.

 

[GeekDavid]

I wish you luck, David. I have the opposite problem -- the way my story is shaping up right now, I think it'll be way longer than most publishers would want. I'm already doing my best to keep to the absolute minimum of scenes that need to be there for the plot to make sense, so there's really not much fat I can trim.

In that case, do what Tolkien did... split it in three! Lord of the Rings was originally intended to be one book.

 

[Ireth]

In that case, do what Tolkien did... split it in three! Lord of the Rings was originally intended to be one book.

Indeed. I don't think mine's going to be quite that long, but I can't really see it going under 550-600 pages. Splitting it into three would make each book ~200 pages or less, which is pretty thin. I could try for a duology, though.

 

[GeekDavid]

Indeed. I don't think mine's going to be quite that long, but I can't really see it going under 550-600 pages. Splitting it into three would make each book ~200 pages or less, which is pretty thin. I could try for a duology, though.

I already have plans for book 2 and 3 of this trilogy, so I know where I wanna break the story... even though the plans for book 2 are sort of in flux, which does change a few things in the book I am writing.

 

[ThinkerX]

The story will be as long as it needs to be.

In your case, 45K, is novella length.

Purportedly a number of E-Publishers believe that novella length works are ideal for digital publication.

 

[MadMadys]

The best method for determining whether or story is complete (or too complete, even) is to give it to others who can look over your draft critically and constructively. Based on their feedback, you can really begin to understand what your novel(-la perhaps) needs. If I were to read it and feel it was thin in some areas, had plot holes or just wasn't fleshed out enough, that would be good cause to lengthen it. By that same notion, if things carried on too long I might suggest to chop as well.

Word count should never factor into your process until later drafts and only if you're aiming for a particular length. As ThinkerX said, it should be as long as it needs to be and that goes for the entire book and each chapter.

So in short, find someone(s) to read what you wrote and use their assessment to adjust and not personal interest in fluffing numbers.

 

[Edankyn]

I wouldn't ever let word count force you down a path in writing. The results are almost always going to be that the additional word count will consist of primarily fluff. That being said, if you feel that additional subplots would add value to the overall story (either through character/world development, additional conflict, etc.) it wouldn't be a bad thing to include them. Ultimately it's dependent on you specific story. 45k is a significant amount of writing so congrats on the accomplishment.

Purportedly a number of E-Publishers believe that novella length works are ideal for digital publication.

This is a great point. While word count shouldn't control your writing, IMO, it may have a very large impact on your publishing options and primary audience.

 

[wordwalker]

Agreed on all counts. Let your story find its natural length, and let the right readers (every writer needs those) advise you if it's thin or padded there.

(Also, have you considered packaging it with other novellas or short stories? Plenty of authors put a novella with some shorts and called it a collection volume or even a novel-- though that's less necessary in the digital age.)

Then, market it based on the best way to use that length, and also how it combines with your other work's lengths-- for instance, a 45K novella might be perfect as a bargain or freebie to drum up attention for novels, or maybe it's free short stories that make readers want to buy the novella for more.

 

[skip.knox]

I wouldn't regard the story as done until it had been through a few beta readers plus one or more editors. You may find your 45K words should be 80K or 20K.

 

[GeekDavid]

I wouldn't regard the story as done until it had been through a few beta readers plus one or more editors. You may find your 45K words should be 80K or 20K.

I've had two readers so far, and a third has just volunteered to look at it. I'm planning on drafting a willing friend to serve as editor... he's the kind of person who'll email me memos from his work with complaints about grammatical errors in them, so I think he'll do pretty well at it.

 

[Bruce McKnight]

The story will be as long as it needs to be.

In your case, 45K, is novella length.

Purportedly a number of E-Publishers believe that novella length works are ideal for digital publication.

I've read similar articles that state story length in digital publishing is on a downward trend due to shortening attention span of Gen Y and the "instant-ness" of information availability in the internet age. I think your first sentence really says it all, though.

 

[skip.knox]

I've read similar articles that state story length in digital publishing is on a downward trend due to shortening attention span of Gen Y and the "instant-ness" of information availability in the internet age. I think your first sentence really says it all, though.

Well, obviously GRR Martin will never sell his books, poor guy.

 

[deilaitha]

My advice: edit your work to make it flow better, make sure it has all the necessary components, double check everything. For some reason, any time I edit a draft of something it ends up being longer. I think it's because I realize things that are missing. Before editing the first nine chapters of my manuscript, it was 20k words. Now it's 27k words and I had to break one of the chapters in two. The scary thing...I hacked out a lot of material, too. It was a net gain of 7k words.

I realize that editing processes are different, but when I edit I always find something else I missed.

If you have really edited it a lot already and it seems really complete to you, then you need to respect that the work has reached its "natural" length and it will just be a novella.

 

[GeekDavid]

If you have really edited it a lot already and it seems really complete to you, then you need to respect that the work has reached its "natural" length and it will just be a novella.

End of second draft, it weighed in at a little over 55k words. A small novel but still a novel.

 

[ThinkerX]

At the grocery store today, I saw a book which perked my interest enough to lift it from the rack and turn it over to read the blurb on the back cover. Instead, there was no blurb, just a *second* cover. Turns out the 'print' publishing world is reviving an idea I hadn't seen in decades: two novella length works set front to back with each other in the same book. And this was not a weighty book to begin with, maybe 200 pages, give or take.

Way, way back, I read some downright fascinating (to me) tales that came out in such formats; one was a world concept by Kim Stanely Robinson and another was a dying civilization set in an asteriod belt.

At the area's one and only proper bookstore, I've seen novella length works in the form of thin booklets put out by local authors...which apparently sold pretty well. (One was even a fantasy story, aimed at the young adult audience).

This makes me tenatively conclude or wonder if print publishers are not testing the market for novella length works, along with the E-Publishers.