How do you lengthen your novel -- HELP Me, PLEASE!

Well, I need more words!
My story is not finished yet I know aldready it is lagging in words. I am serious about getting this novel published and need help seriously!

all help is very, muchly, seriously appreciated... yeahh

Thanks!

If you finish, you finished. How many words shouldn't matter so much as the plot and the content. Read it over, what is missing? Are there loop holes in the plot, scenes you chose to cut that you think need putting back in? Are there characters people might not know enough because you didn't spend a lot of time with them? Did you skimp on the description? If your story is complete, with no elements missing, then the number of words shouldn't matter, really. You shouldn't be writing to have so many words, you should be writing to have a nice complete story. No?

My story is not finished yet I know aldready it is lagging in words. I am serious about getting this novel published and need help seriously!

Well, the process of editing can help a lot. You can find plot holes, lack of description, lack of character development, lack of explanation, poor grammar, lack of flow, etc. You can always PM me or anyone else here to look over something of yours. (the green peoples [moderators] or the purple peoples [instructors] are easy to pick out )

There's also a Novelist usergroup you can explore to give some advice. There, people who are currently writing novels or are editing their finished novels are exchanging ideas and strategies to help each other out.

~ Jabber ~

I think the problem lies in finding a story with enough 'legs', enough complexities. Get a plot that is meaty and allows you to break out of the narration and offer the reader some atmospheric segues/pauses.

The main thing is to THINK CREATIVELY. Write your plot points out on notecards and spread them out on the floor in a large room. Play around with the order of your events. Who knows, you might discover some interesting new possibilities.

Write biographies for your characters. As you write your novel and begin to more fully immerse yourself in the world of your story, you'll find depper and deeper layers to your heroes and villains. Include these wherever possible, perhaps in flashback or as part of a character's emotional development through the story. E.g. the hero is claustrophobic but has to navigate a cold, dark cave to reach the treasure. Hence he overcomes his fear and transforms and grows as a person. As Anthony Hopkins explains, think of your characters as photographic plates that start blank and slowly reveal themselves to you.

But don't forget, only show the reader what is necessary - AND NO MORE!

Hope this helps.

Gahks

How many words is it? If it is at least 50K you can still publish it as a YA novel depending on the publishers you want. Sometimes even shorter if you manage to land an agent.

Subplots!

Ok, you sure fire way to add length. (It usually adds pages than words, but it goes quicker) dialog. If you can get the characters to talk a lot, you can get 3 pages in a short time, so (INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY)

If it is too short, think...

Have I rushed it? Is ther more to tell? Subplots?

All writers use these, as a way to keep a reader intereste AND bulk up a novel.

Whenever I write a story (Novel, essay, anything) it always takes me more words than I had expected to end it. For example I sometimes realize along the way I need to add something I had forgotten, or something completely new comes to mind that needs to be put in. So you might end up having more words than you thought you might.

But I don't think you should add words for the sake of having more words. If your story is finished at 50k, then the story is finished at 50k. If it's done at 150k, then that's where you stop writing.

That's just my opinion. Good luck on it though!

Nooo!!!! Dialogue is not the way to go. You'll only end up with a lot of empty dialogue that only adds to the quantity and not the quality.

But as someone said, editing does a lot. You do find places where your description needs strengthening, or where you really rushed over a section and you know it needs more adding to it.

Ask yourself this question as you go very carefully through it; have you said everything you want to say, every step of the way?

But don't have a definite word count in mind, or go through it thinking you need to add so many words; just fine tune, look carefully at your description and dialogue (you might want to add some, but don't go adding pages just to add words when the dialogue itself lacks any value) and see where you are when you get to the end.

Good luck.

I just want to say, the dialog. If you use it right. It would work. No ranting of course. Oh god that is boring. But you are right about that.

Subplots that delve deeper into secondary characters are yummy sources of words.

Actually, dialogue is a great way to go...if it is used properly. Your dialogue should flesh out your characters and give voice to their conflicts. Otherwise it is pointless. If you think that one of your characters is boring, add some dialogue to give them a personality.

Ok, I'm just going to emphasis this more: Expanded Moments! Plus, description (but no overload, because I will die of bordom). Make sure that your character's personality exists (I have had issues with this in the past), this sometimes helps becuase you needed a paragraph to describe your character more, sometimes....