How to Boost my Word Count

I have had the same issue. What I did was send my book to a few beta readers. Their feedback was very interesting, they felt like I positively rushed past just about everything in the entire novel. Not just description, though that was too sparse. I also didn't really let the events unfold naturally. I wasn't letting my characters immediately react, then act, then process.

For me, this was about not having faith in my writing and being able to create an interesting character/world for the reader to fall into. No idea if this is what's up with you, but thought I'd offer my experience.

Fizgig said:

... they felt like I positively rushed past just about everything in the entire novel. Not just description, though that was too sparse. I also didn't really let the events unfold naturally. I wasn't letting my characters immediately react, then act, then process.

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This.

One of the real common pacing problems with an early draft. Rush, rush, rush. Get through that scene and check it off. Never time for the reader to settle down into what's happening before they're dragged away.

TaliaCele said:

I am constantly seeing people complain about their books being "too long." This is a concept I am totally unfamiliar with. My novel (sort of a women's literary fiction) is outlined, and I have written 35k words. But as I see it, I need to (at the very least) double that. My style of writing is pretty minimalist, and it is really a character-driven story. I'm not big on lengthy descriptions of a room. Any suggestions on how I can "boost" word count without it being fluff? Any exercises that have helped you? Thank you!

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It's possible that what you're missing is not description but story. And that can include sub-plots, but your main story may be thin as well. Or just naturally resolved at novella length.

job said:

This.

One of the real common pacing problems with an early draft. Rush, rush, rush. Get through that scene and check it off. Never time for the reader to settle down into what's happening before they're dragged away.

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so true ....

What you are writing are novellas, and nothing wrong with that. Why not three or four and package them together? (All revolving around a common theme, or character, or location?)

Edit: Ahah, I see that you are not finished with the novel. So just keep going ... you will prob. end up with a novel about 75 to 90 K, a good length for most genres.

Do you have an outline? I would be interested in seeing a scene by scene outline (one line per scene)

Hi Talia --

I know that sometimes with my first draft I rush things, and write something that is in between an outline and a novel. It helps me keep the momentum going because I want the plot points to happen as soon as I figure them out. Then I go back, flesh it out, and slow it down. Everyone has a different process and that seems to work for me. I wouldn't worry about it until you finish the draft -- just plow ahead! Good luck!

My advice is along the lines of tko's.

Chase your MC into a tree. Then have it rain. Then throw rocks at him/her. Just when they start to climb down, attack 'em with a band of wild dogs. Keep upping the stakes, in other words. Enrich the story with how the MC reacts to all of this and how they grow personally, how their views and opinions change as a result of what they experience. I could go on and on...which is why I have the opposite problem with word count.

I sometimes have this problem too. I usually don't outline so much in the beginning, I get bored with outlining, so I tend to rush into things and then come out with a relatively short word count. But, like others have mentioned, it makes sense to work on plot development/character development after getting that first rough draft out, because that is where things are probably lacking.

Yeah, indicating that you weren't done yet would have been important. Often things don't wrap up as quickly as you think and even then, you still have to go back and revise. You won't have any idea what your word count is until you're done.

TaliaCele said:

Any suggestions on how I can "boost" word count

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Add plot.

TaliaCele said:

Thank you all, again, for your support. I've put so much into this so far, and I would just hate for something like word count to get in the way of it moving forward.

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It sounds like you're worried that wordcount is your biggest barrier to publication, as if there is some magical threshold over which publication is a surer thing.

I don't think it works like that. Wordcount is a yardstick, and that yardstick differs by genre because it is used to give an indication of two things: plot complexity and scene building.

It's a very inexact yardstick, to be sure. A 90k novel could have the simplest plot in the world, and a very rich and complex inner life that makes it a compelling read. A 120k fantasy novel can have a really complex plot and not enough world building. But in the end it all comes down to what the reading public expects in a genre, and what they'll buy.

Wordcount isn't any indication whatsoever of the quality or publishability of your novel. It may indicate it's not fleshed out enough, or the plot isn't complicated enough, or that you actually just have a novella. But adding wordcount does not ipso facto add quality.