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Q&A How to add depth to writing - turn a story into a book [closed]

I've had a few 'great ideas' for books. I'm a big sci-fi fan, especially Michael Crichton. I'm not sure if that's relevant but there it is. I want to write a full length book, not a short story, a...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user6916458‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:49:27Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/36140
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar user6916458‭ · 2019-12-08T08:49:27Z (over 4 years ago)
I've had a few 'great ideas' for books. I'm a big sci-fi fan, especially Michael Crichton. I'm not sure if that's relevant but there it is.

I _want_ to write a full length book, not a short story, a full length hundreds of pages long book. I draw up a plot of what I want to happen, figure out bios for all the major characters, then hit the keyboard. All sounds right, right?

Roll forward a few hours (or days) and I've written a few pages, maybe 5 or 6 and I'm half way though my plot. This is my issue. I could go back though and pad random paragraphs here and there but it feels like I'm doing just that - padding. I know word/page count shouldn't matter but I _want_ to write a long story. I want to invest the time and energy and see what I produce, even if it never sees the light of day.

How do I make my stories longer without just padding for the sake of padding?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-05-16T01:37:30Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 21