As I've been working away on my novel, I've been thinking a lot about the nitty gritty of writing and one of the things I've been considering is what the word count for my story should be. I've currently written about 41,000 words. It's difficult to know exactly how many words my novel should have as different people say different things.
The trouble is I'm getting towards the end of my story now and I want to wait until I've finished it to go back and edit/add stuff. As I've mentioned before on this blog when working on my previous story I spent so long trying to edit it to include other people's suggestions before I'd actually finished it, that I got bogged down in it and it was no longer any fun writing it. So I gave up.
Back to my current story. I realise that 40,000 to 50,000 words may not be long enough for the average novel. But as I go over it once I've finished, I may be able to expand on that to get the word count up. As one website says, a novel is as long as it takes to tell the story. That same website also suggests that electronic publishing favours a shorter novel, although I think it may have been written before the advent of the ebook!! It may be that once I finish it, I publish it on Kindle with a shorter-than-average novel word count and get people's feedback on it, then maybe adapt and lengthen it at some point.
I wish there was an easier answer to how long a story should be. And that I found it easier to write longer stories! Although, having said that, I did complete a novel for teenagers that was nearly 72,000 words long (and also that I hope never sees the light of day!). So I can do it!
Honestly, all my first drafts come in very short. The one I'm working on at the moment is at 22,000 at the moment and I don't see it getting past 50,000. Just get it down on the page naturally and see what you can do with it later.
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