Size isn't everything it expands by twenty percent

If like me before you started writing your first Masterpiece, you will have read lots of wise words about structure, plot, characterization and length. I did just this and for a large part, although it was informative it just delayed me from actually writing. The most valuable piece of advise that I did read, although I confess now that I cant remember which pontificators guide to writing it came from, was: "just write". Once I got this into thick skull the process was quite straight forward, I wrote the bulk of the book in 1 month. One of the many advantages of the whole self publishing, eBook phenomenon is that many of the rules have been torn up and thrown away. You haven't got to meet an editors preconceived ideas of an ideal length for a genre. If your story ends up at 20,000 words and you think that you like it like that and it fulfills your expectations then maybe some readers will like it that way as well. Similarly if you feel that you can keep a reader enthralled and absorbed for 180,000 words then fine go for it. In my case I was worried that at 50,000 words "prisoners, families, dolls and judgements" was a little short, although it just about met the acceptable criteria for a debut novel that I had read. However what I didn't want to do and I think can easily happen, is adding words just for the sake of it, scratching towards some preordained target. I'm sure that even the most forgiving reader will notice this and there is also a big danger that the book becomes imbalanced. If you suddenly insert a long rambling description when this hasn't been the style you have cultivated, then it will just appear as a bit weird and out of place. If after you type "and they all lived happily ever after" you honestly feel that your novel is too short,don't despair. After I had given my draft to my editor and worked on some of his comments, there was a natural swelling. It didn't seem forced and I certainly hope it hasn't come across that way. At the final count my novel is 59,700 words it did actually make the magic 60,000 at one point but being true to my anarchistic self, I cut a paragraph and I was left just a little short. But just like in other aspects of life its not how much you have but how you use them.