Surprisingly Freeing; or So That's What They Mean by "Natural Length"

 
Today, as I was planning my next few novels to write (GoSH1 is just past 45,000 words now, and I should finish it before the end of next week), I kept looking at one of my partially-developed ideas from 2010. I had shelved this idea when I had realized that it would not work at "normal novel length". That is, the idea would not work at 90,000 words or more. Even 70,000 words seemed likely to stretch the idea past the breaking point (AKA, "the boring point").
 
This afternoon, though, I realized the story could work at 40,000 words. This is short for a novel, but–who cares?
 
I'm excited. I wanted to write this story. It's what I think of as a cool experiment, something that should be a lot of fun to write (and maybe a lot of fun to read). Not exactly "cross-genre", but a blending of two concepts that I wanted to explore. Since I no longer have to force the experiment to be a 90,000-word novel to make it available to readers, since there is (now, once again) a market for shorter novels, I can take this idea back off the shelf and not have to worry about stretching it into something it was never meant to be.
 
When this really clicked for me, though, this wonderful new freedom, was when I realized that even for a different project, one that I expect will be a more normal 80,000 to 90,000 words, that if it comes in shorter than that–who cares?
 
Amazon uses the tagline "Stories at the Natural Length" for their Kindle Singles. They're mostly referring to short stories of various lengths, but–who cares?
 
I already knew I could write a story or novel to whatever length I wanted. Today, though, it finally became real.
 
I can write my stories, my way.
 
I just love that.
 
-David
 
Related Posts:
Writing Short Stories Considered UsefulNaNoWriMo 2007 Post MortemNaNoWriMo 2010