My First Draft is Too Short!

Finishing a first draft is a milestone. I want to say the job is done but there is more to do.

Congrats! First draft done!

First off, take a minute to slow down and pat yourself on the back. No, do more than that. Treat yourself to a dinner out or that sweater you’ve been lusting after. Take the time to savor the great accomplishment. Thousands have started a novel but given up before reaching this point. Well done!

But is it a novel?

There is probably an existential answer to the question but I’m focused on a more practical issue. Is your novel between 80,000-90,000 words? That’s typically what both publishers and readers are looking for. As with any rule in writing, there are exceptions. War and Peace has 587,287; A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 46,333.

It’s not that you can’t have a novel outside the normal boundaries but you’ll probably have a hard sell both to publishers and your eventual readers. I don’t know whether readers have trained up publishers or the other way around, but they usually expect some heft in any novel they’re committing their time to.

So, to avoid an unnecessary and uphill battle, make sure your novel is in the optimal range. And if you are newish to the game, your word total will almost always be seriously short of the target.

Bump up word count and engage readers more

A low word count can cause panic as you may feel written out, but there are ways to bump up your word count while engaging your readers more fully.

Don’t gallop to the end

If you have a story in mind, you want to get the bare bones of the plot down as quickly as possible. And that’s not a bad thing. But give the manuscript a read and consider where you could elaborate on the basic design.

Your hero needs to destroy a piece of code which has world-ending potential. You have a lot of scenes where he is plotting his movements once he has broken into the facility. But what about adding a scene or scenes where he has to learn how to physically infiltrate the building? You might have given passing attention to this aspect in your draft which you can expand into an interesting quest in and of itself. You increase the suspense for your reader and up the word count simultaneously.

Flesh out characters

Say you have created a character (let’s call her Delilah) who likes to get her way. The protagonist (Angela) is the target of her pressure. You show Angela doing what Delilah wants despite her misgivings so that you can go onto the juicier parts where Angela gets into trouble.

But what if Delilah breaks down Angela’s resistance gradually rather than Angela giving in during one scene? What if you show Delilah’s war of attrition? That way, Delilah is a more interesting character, not just a steam-roller, and Angela doesn’t seem as weak (not usually a good look for the protagonist). Better story and higher word count.

Use subplots

A sub-plot is a story parallel to the main story which may enhance or amplify the main plot. I know that doesn’t give you much but I think I need to spend time on this so I will talk subplots farther on.

Anyhow, alls to say, increasing the word count for your novel can also heighten the excitement and engagement of the story. The next post will cover a question you might need to ask yourself as you are improving your manuscript.