Book too Short? Pt II

Last week I offered some help for a good novel that just doesn’t have enough words to attract a publisher. A too-short novel can be a troublesome animal, but you can get that word count where you want it to be with a little creative thinking. When look at your manuscript anew, start at the beginning.  Of course if the opening is working, you might not want to mess with it, but you also might be able to further flesh out the set up or mirror something about the ending. Sometimes beginnings kick off too quickly. You can probably slow things down a little without hurting the story. Next, check the ending. Maybe there's more to wrapping up the story than you thought. Look for any loose ends or situations you referenced but never followed up on. Subplots that are wrapped up near the climax are good candidates for places to add a step or two, or to make those storylines a little more complicated.Good novels always have ups and downs in he middle. So look at any situation in which your hero might have won a battle a bit too easily. Think about ways to make your hero fail at that point, or to make them struggle a bit more for that hard-won victory. Not only would that take more writing to lay it out, but a failure where you once had a success would probably cause you to write an additional scene or two.If your story includes an obstacle that is there just to slow the hero down It might not be moving the story along. Your story doesn’t need such delaying tactics. This is really a weak point in your work and, as it happens, this could be a good place to add words. You can make this obstacle do more than just stall the protagonist by adding to, or increasing, the stakes. Make changes so that the outcome matters, and let it create a change in your hero.
After all of that, consider what you can do with your stronger secondary characters. One of them might benefit from a character arc of their own. That would prompt you to add smaller subplots or extra layers in existing scenes. Those characters could be used to show another side of the problem, or mirror the choices the hero makes. Or this character might face their own problems that could interfere with the protagonist’s objectives.So if your new novel is too short for publishers’ guidelines, don’t just stretch it – make it better!