The Insertables

My untitled story is something that is driving me nuts in terms of length. As much as I hate to call it this, the story is a 'human drama' based on a teenager who gets picked on and how he gets through his day. The story has fallen short of the length I want, coming in at only 39,000 words (using the standard calculation, not an actual word count). When I started this book, I was shooting for novel-length.

I was speaking to a fellow writer last week who said that if I can add about 20 pages, it should fall right into novella length and it could be publish-able. In order to do this, I need to beef up some sub-plots. I came up with the idea of 'Insertables'.

I figure that I can write an entire sub-plot separate from the book. This can just have characters from the story in it. If I write 3 or 4 chapters, I can insert them anywhere on an 'as needed' basis. I also figure I can write some additional stand-alone chapters that could help build backstory and insert them where needed or even break them up and use certain paragraphs.

By doing this and using this method, I think I can build up the length of this still-unnamed book. I need 80,000 - 100,000 words!