You don’t have enough words to reach 50,000 yet. Maybe you finished your story before you hit your target word count. Maybe you’re just feeling word weary and can’t seem to make your characters DO anything. Or maybe you’ve already hit 50,000 words but you just really want to write more to show That Guy Who is Always Writing More Than You. (I hate that guy.)
Either way, you need more words and pronto.
As much as I love Chris Baty’s No Plot, No Problem, this is one of the weakest sections in his book. He recommends things like having your characters quote large sections from other books, always referring to your character’s by their very long full names and similar pointless padding that you’d just have to delete later anyway. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could add a ton of words to your story but they still actually helped the story itself?
I’m going to give you some of my time honored word count “cheats” that should give your book a big word count infusion but will actually serve your story. Will every word of what you write in the exercises below end up in the final draft of the story? Almost definitely not. But all of it will help you to better understand your characters and story while giving you the chance to get a ton of extra words down very quickly.Â
- Have a character recap the entire story so far to another character. This may seem stupid but it’s actually one of the most helpful things you can do and never fails to get me unstuck when writing or editing. Having a character explain everything that’s happened in the book so far from their perspective to a neutral party is a great way to get a big picture view of your plot that will inform not only where the story goes from here but also what you change and keep in editing. If you’ve got multiple viewpoints, it’s worth it to do this several times, once from the perspective of each character. Sometimes the best way to figure out the little details is to step back and look at the big picture.
- Take surveys or fill out dating profiles for your characters. You know those silly surveys that get passed around on Tumblr and Facebook? They ask things like, “What’s your favorite color?” or “Pizza or hamburgers?” and are often very long and a fun little time waster. Take them as your characters. Not only will this be a painless way to increase your word count, as you force yourself to think of the answers to the (often very random) questions, you’ll learn more about your characters. One answer may inform a whole new direction to your story that you never thought of or reveal something about your characters even you didn’t know. If survey’s aren’t your thing, try dating profiles. Either way, having your characters take a break from the story to answer obscure questions about themselves can be very illuminating.
- Indulge in a long inner monologue. You’d probably never keep a huge chunk of just one character’s thoughts in the final draft but go ahead and let them unleash their innermost thoughts for a little bit. What do they really think about the other MCs that they’d never say to their face? If they could stop things right now and write in their journal, what would they have to say at this point of the story? Letting each of your characters have a chance to rant for a couple of pages can give you more three dimensional characters (both main and secondary) and will enrich your scenes. Even if your characters never actually express their true feelings in your final draft, knowing them now will enable you to craft a more layered scene. Not to mention that letting you characters tell you their secrets is a great way to figure out where the story should go next… you never know what they’ll reveal and what ideas that will give you.
- Throw in a curve ball from a completely different genre. You’re writing literary fiction? Have a random zombie attack just to see what your characters do. Why not throw a grisly noir murder in the middle of your high fantasy book? How about some slapstick comedy in your horror thriller? Again, you likely won’t keep this in your final draft but by throwing your characters a major curve ball and forcing yourself out of your comfort zone, you’ll often figure out where the story should go. Maybe that scene won’t stay in the final draft exactly as written (maybe the zombie scene is one you later rework as a subtle story of a childhood trauma) but giving your characters some intense situations to deal with that are (literally) out of their world can sometimes be just what you need to get your story cracking again. Not to mention that giving yourself a break from what you’ve been writing all month is good for you, the writer, and can make you fall in love with your original story all over again.
What other easy word count boosts would you recommend?
Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.
