I was cruising the various forums a couple minutes ago while I took a break from writing and came across a thread about a novel being too short. In it, the poster was wondering if others encountered that issue and what to do about it.

As someone who has issues with being more verbose then too little, while it’s not necessarily something I am experienced with, I do know how to fix it.

When writing a novel, especially if there’s more than one character, there’s room for adding characterization, expanding on a scene or adding POV changes. Sometimes you can do all of them and make it work.

One trick I do when I want to make sure my battle scenes are large enough is that I like to show the POV from both sides of the fight. There’s always interesting characterization to be found in a situation like that. That’s one way of doing things.

Adding description to a scene is another, but this you have to be careful with or you’ll slow your pace down. So, use this one sparingly.

My big thing is to add characterization. Add scenes involving all of the people involved and you’ll not only make sure you have enough words but will give the reader a reason to root for the person you’re writing about.

Each of these can help you out a lot, and I hope sharing them will give some advice that’ll help others advance their career.