Word count used to be important to me. I felt like I had to make everything that wasn’t a short story into a minimum 70,000-word novel. But, recently, I’ve changed my mind. Now, if a story is finished before it gets to that total, I’ve decided that it’s ridiculous to try and stretch it out.
The great advantage of letting the story finish when it wants to is that you can use the time you would have spent adding to it to write another one.
There are several stories in progress that I’m pretty sure won’t make it to much over 40,000 words.
Even though they’re short, I think that they’re complete.
I’m not going to pad them out with unnecessary words, just to make them longer. I believe that would destroy the flow of what I’ve written.
So, as soon as I run out of things to say, and they’ve been edited, I will be publishing them as novellas.
I’ve done it twice before.
The first novella I published was The Lost Princess, a prequel. I kept it short because it was originally a freebie, an introduction to the Balcom novels, RibbonWorld and its sequel, Jungle Green. At 43,000 words, it’s no longer free, but priced at just 99p ($0.99). Over 1000 copies have been downloaded or sold so far.
The second is my current FREE novella. It’s yours, in exchange for your email address. So far this year, over 700 copies have been downloaded.
Following along soon will be a Steampunk adventure, Murder Most Foul. This one is just about finished.
Next, at the moment, will be Another Rainy Night in Helcon City, a Sci-fi crime Noir.
Then, there’s a story of first contact, which is currently untitled.
Finally, Ripples. It’s a story that shows how everything is connected.
As with all of my projects, I’m at the mercy of the voices in my head. These have no concept of time, deadlines or my desire to get things finished. They can’t even agree on a running order.
The stories will be done when they are done, today, tomorrow, sometime, never. Then again, any of these projects might end up at 100,000 words, meaning this post would have been for nothing.
That’s the fun of it all.
All I can say is, look out for more information.
I’d love to get your comments, please leave them below. While you’re here, why not take a look around? There are some freebies and lots more content, about me, my writing and everything else that I do. You can join my newsletter for a free novella and more news by clicking this link.
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