I’m not used to being told that my writing isn’t bulky enough, but in a few walks of life, that feedback has come out, and now I’m taking it to my writing. Whilst Luke’s books have been ticking along, I’ve been working on my other WIPs, one of which I’ve been meaning to pad out for a while – The Signs Are Coming. Despite managing to get it into a really good place, I still feel like as a novel it is too short, so that’s been my mission this week – to make it longer.

Before now, I was at about 76K words, and now I’ve managed to hit 81K – not by adding in new content, but by adapting what I had and filling in the gaps. With that particular book, it’s very tight because everything is confined to that one story. It’s not going to get a sequel and everything gets wrapped up in that one place. It’s hard to fit things in because the story is so neat and I didn’t want to add scenes and words for the sake of it. So, instead I took what I had and moved it on.

Instead of adapting content, I’ve changed the settings of scenes, I’ve given dialogue that fits in without changing the plot, I’ve added further development to our characters’ backstories and actually, it’s working. I really thought I’d packed this book to the brim, but it turns out there are still quite a lot of gaps I can put my extra words in and still make it work.

Why though? Why do I want to add even more words when it’s currently at a good length? You might think ‘if it ain’t broke…’ Well, if I’m honest, I wanted to hit 80K because that feels like a ‘reasonable’ length for a novel. I still think anything under leaves you wanting more and I think 80K is a good solid book. Hell, if Atlantic Split had been 80K, I would’ve managed to get most of that story in there and it still be readable and long enough. However, I know that every book is different, and what works for one might not work for another. So it’s not a benchmark I’ll set for all my books, but I think it’s a good starting place.

Either way, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write a book as long as A Long Lost Time again, and I’m okay with that. I did it once and I’m pleased I did. Even though it’s chunky, it needs to be, and I have no regrets. Even if you could probably use it as a decent doorstop if you wanted!

Atlantic Split, At Liberty To Live and An Undercover Dream, the first three books in The Luke Bright Series are available to purchase NOW! The final book of the series A Long Lost Time will be released in 2020!

Please follow me on my blog and social media links below, and use the links on my website to purchase a copy of each if you have not done so. Don’t forget to leave a review! Thank you once again for taking the time to read this blog post

N.A.K