Is the first draft of a novel usually shorter than the finished work?

The answer to your question is: It depends on how the writer works.

This is a question that's impossible to answer in a general sense, since different writers will approach a story in different ways. Some will rough things out and add detail later on, some will dump everything down on the page and trim it down later on. Without seeing a manuscript, it's difficult to comment on it.

It's possible that the story you're telling simply isn't a novel at all. It could also be that you've only written part of the story. But whichever of these is the case, when fleshing out this story, I highly recommend against adding things to simply pad your word count. Let the story find its own length. If it's too short to be a novel, so be it; you can find another, novel-length story later on.

But maybe what you have is closer to a very detailed outline with notes. In that case, go ahead and fill things in and let the book find its length that way.

posted over 11 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Neil‭

403 reputation 9 151 72 0

And I didn't describe actions, dialogues, and settings with much detail. Should I go back and add the details before starting the second draft?

I've seen your writing. The answer is yes. :) (And I mean that in the nicest way. You work very hard. You do need to flesh out your dialogue with descriptions.) Go back and review these two questions of yours and my answers:

Has this dialogue enough suspense to engage the reader?

First conversation scenes I've written (looking for errors, conventions, and improvements according to writing standards)

posted over 11 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Lauren Ipsum‭

2098 reputation 13 1143 397 1