[SilentDan]

I have the opposite issue - mine's a measly 23,000 ish. Of course adding description will blow that out to maybe 25,000.

Making your sentences *concise* is a good practice, in that it makes every word have more power to it, and also reduces overall length. Try condensing.

Also, some writers have a tendency to waffle on, draw everything out, not have any point till 3/4 of the way through, have sentences 4-7 lines long, write in every detail about the protagonist's parents meeting, falling in love, dating, buying The Perfect House Darling, having two kids, the husband getting two promotions, and so on and so forth. This took 50 pages. I was falling asleep by the end. This was one chapter, too. Hinting at, or briefly touching on, backstory is one thing; starting at the dawn of time and working your way through to 'now' is another entirely. That's where Silence (as a literary device) is great, though it is more appropriate to short stories than novels.

Some word-cutting methods: Start at the beginning and cut paragraphs until you get to a point where you absolutely cannot cut it out - the story would suffer without it. Every scene should do something, be it show character, or move the plot forward, or what have you. If it doesn't, it should probably go. If you get to a part that you're writing (or reading over) and you find yourself skipping it... the reader probably will too.

[SilentDan]

The sites you're going to that are telling you that novels need to be shorter to sell are wrong. They are inaccurate and do not reflect what is actually happening in the marketplace. You can ignore this information.

On the other hand, this is an excellent point. Just because someone says so, doesn't make it automatically and infallibly true.

[KatG]

Well, what you have at that length isn't a novel per se; it's a novella. Which some of the smaller presses may publish.

[BettyCross]

Your MS should be long enough to tell the story you want to tell, no longer, no shorter. I've tried writing short stories, but my story ideas don't fit into short story length, except for a few very short pieces.

So I write novels. My publisher prefers 60,000-90,000 words for novels. They'll accept longer ones if they are well-paced. My first novel was 97,000 words. They let that one squeeze through, because it didn't seem padded. My second novel, sent to the same publisher, clocked in at 132,000 words.

Fortunately, they took it, but while I was waiting I half-expected them to turn it down for length. During that month of length-anxiety, I developed a tentative strategy to cut it down to 90,000 if they rejected it for length. However, that would have required other changes, so that the first volume would "feel" like the end of a book, with some sense of resolution, instead of just stopping.

I'm a bit off the subject here, but especially if you're a new author, you may have to compromise on the structure of your MS in order to fit size restrictions.

A good example of how to end a book in a series comes from another medium: the first Star Wars trilogy. Ep IV ends with Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star, but Darth Vader escaping in a fighter. Ep V ends with Luke's premature battle with Vader and the famous "I am your father" moment, and Luke getting rescued. In both an episode of conflict comes to an end but the larger struggle against the Empire (or the Rebellion, depending on your point of view) continues. Ep VI ends with the Emperor killed and the Empire at an end. Yay! End of story.

Betty Cross

[Laer Carroll]

I have the opposite issue - mine's a measly 23,000 ish.

Your MS should be long enough to tell the story you want to tell, no longer, no shorter.

Quite right. If so, and you feel the style and substance of your story is professional level, then you need to find a publication route for it.

But you may find, after letting the story sit for a while so that you come back to it fresh, that you did not develop its center enough. Every story is about someone striving for something. Between the character's need or desire and its fulfillment are obstacles to be overcome or avoided.

Obstacles (and the actions needed to deal with them) are of four primary types, which you can remember with the acronym PEMS - physical, emotional, mental, and social. And some obstacles are a combination of the primary types. For instance, an Indian burial ground in the path of an expedition is physical, but it is also a social problem. Trespass and an Indian tribe may be angry at your protagonist. It also has an emotional side; if she has a conscience, she may decide to go around the burial ground though it makes her travel harder.

So, have you really thought out all the problems your protagonist faces to achieve her goal? Or did you make that achievement unrealistically easy?
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Or you may find that your story is only the beginning of a longer story. As an example, suppose your main character discovers she has super powers. She has been dedicated for years to winning some great athletic competition. But now winning would be so easy that it would be a hollow victory.

So she decides not to enter the competition at all, facing the disappointment of her dedicated followers and financial backers. Because that is the right path, not the convenient path. End of story. A victory, but a moral one. And more heroic than if she took the easy route, of easy physical victory.

BUT. Now her life is empty of challenge. Many athletes participate because they like to win. Sometimes over other people, but sometimes also over themselves, over their own weaknesses and lack of skill. What greater challenges can she find which will tax her newly greater physical abilities? THAT could be a novel-length story.

In super hero comics the greater challenge would be a super villain. This leads to fights which tear up great cities and kill a lot of innocent people, as super hero and super villain fight. But in a more mature story the challenge could be more realistic and, in many ways, more difficult. Difficult enough, perhaps, to require a trilogy to write.

[Tyler Hawke]

Edit critically. An editor will - they have no emotional attachment to your work. Unless you have a work that bucks the trend, stay within the guidelines that are out there for a first time novelist. I agree with others that you write the story you want to tell.., then, on the business end of it, you have to ask yourself if your work is truly sellable if its overly long? Do you really need certain sections to tell your story? Currently, I'm on the 3rd draft of my horror/thriller. It was nearly 122,000 words long. I'm close to finishing the third draft that will bring it to 115,000. It took a while, but I now have spotted a portion of the book I can drop that won't affect the spirit of the story and with some smoothing over, will bring the book somewhere in the 100,000 mark. Far more sellable to a publisher. If you want to put yourself in a position to succeed (unless you happen to be spectacularly talented - I'm not), stay to guidelines. Once you get your foot in the door, you can lengthen and expand.