My first draft of The Samogon Affair was over 156,000 words. After several revisions, it came in at around 106,000 words.

My second novel, however, was a mere 56,000 words—too long for a novella, too short of a novel. This was discouraging because the purpose of writing this book was to launch DEA Agent Kelly Reed into her own crime series.

So why was this manuscript so short? Did I rush to finish it? Maybe. Or was the storyline to blame?

With the manuscript in hand, I sat down with my editor to discuss Kelly’s story. We both agreed there was room for expanding, but Kelly, not me, would have the final say on how long her story would be. I was able to add more words just by fleshing out scenes with more creative description and by personalizing Kelly a bit more with readers, and by adding a second plotline that would put Kelly in deeper conflict. But my concern was knowing when to stop.

Unlike The Samogon Affair, Playing For Blood isn’t a 100,000 word story. It just isn’t. I know readers prefer longer stories, but this one reads best as a short novel. To force it to even 80,000 words would’ve killed the flow of the story.

This was the opposite of what I did for The Samogon Affair, which was to cut over 50,000 words that did nothing for the story. The point is, not all revisions are about butchering. Sometimes you have to beef it up.

Are you a writer who struggles with too many words or too few? Leave me a comment about your revisions and word counts. Do you do more butchering or beefing up?