How to write more words in a chapter?

[killwrites]

So I planned out the first arc of my story, feeling confident that I can at least write 10 chapters worth before proceeding with the rest of the storyline. But after writing about halfway through, I was shocked to see that my word count is so pathetic (6632 words to be exact). The feedback I received is that I have too little prose, but I don't know what I'm supposed to write in because I just keep on feeling that it's only filler that adds nothing to the story.

tl;dr how do you extend your word count while still remaining relevant to the plot? kinda weird question but hope someone can provide insight

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Add more descriptions, motion, and emotions.

 

[RaizarP]

Explaining the feeling of your character when they said something is one way to increase word count.

Description of their movement, their opinion about something, or maybe you could add some thought of your MC too

 

[SakeVision]

The sooner you end this story, the faster you move on to the next story.

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

Read more hardcover novels, those are way more descriptive than light novels and webnovels, but don't incorporate all the elements of the prose ofc. Light novels/Web novels are usually lighter in word count, even 1.5k words per chapter is good enough as long as you post daily.

 

[KiraMinoru]

You didn’t even really describe what he first sees in the environment the MC suddenly finds himself in. Typically you’d want to paint a vivid picture of the surroundings at that opening scene. What he sees, smells, hears in the background, tastes, feels on his skin. Is the sun blazing? Is it hot, cold? Are there tall towering buildings, short ones? What do they look like, olden, modern? Make the reader feel like they’re there and experiencing that instant of suddenly finding themselves in an unfamilliar environment.

 

[killwrites]

You didn’t even really describe what he first sees in the environment the MC suddenly finds himself in.

My intention for the prologue to focus more on how the MC found himself in the environment because I wanted to get the reincarnation part to the reader as quickly as possible, but I see your point too. How can I improve on balancing description with the opening dialogues?

The sooner you end this story, the faster you move on to the next story.

can't disagree with that lol
i don't get how the trending stories are always upwards of 100k words, it's kinda scary actually

 

[RaizarP]

My intention for the prologue to focus more on how the MC found himself in the environment because I wanted to get the reincarnation part to the reader as quickly as possible, but I see your point too. How can I improve on balancing description with the opening dialogues?

can't disagree with that lol
i don't get how the trending stories are always upwards of 100k words, it's kinda scary actually

Nah, mine often got into the first page of trending and it didn't hit 100K words yet.

I think the first time I got into trending is when my fanfic have 10K words count

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

i don't get how the trending stories are always upwards of 100k words, it's kinda scary actually

Eh, 100k words isn't that threatening once you get used to writing. Some people can pull that off in the span of a few weeks or a month. Like I'm lazy as hell but I somehow wrote 80k~ in a month and a half. Also that's because quantity usually works better than quality in terms of web novels.

 

[KiraMinoru]

My intention for the prologue to focus more on how the MC found himself in the environment because I wanted to get the reincarnation part to the reader as quickly as possible, but I see your point too. How can I improve on balancing description with the opening dialogues?

Just take a segment before any dialogue starts in the new world to describe the environment. It doesn’t need to be overly detailed, but for specific scenes that should be memorable like a first impresssion, I would make them pretty detailed. If it’s a place they’ll be in frequently, it’d be a good idea for the reader to be able to imagine the scenery.

The rule of thumb I’d use is to ask myself, is this a scene that should be memorable? If yes, be detailed. If no, I can’t be bothered to care.

 

[killwrites]

I somehow wrote 80k~ in a month and a half

Damn. To think i wrote a 40k story in six months and was so sad to see it flop down into the abyss because of the unreasonable time i spent...

Just take a segment before any dialogue starts in the new world to describe the environment. It doesn’t need to be overly detailed, but for specific scenes that should be memorable like a first impresssion, I would make them pretty detailed. If it’s a place they’ll be in frequently, it’d be a good idea for the reader to be able to imagine the scenery.

The rule of thumb I’d use is to ask myself, is this a scene that should be memorable? If yes, be detailed. If no, I can’t be bothered to care.

I see, i tend to focus more on characters than the scenery because i want to leave it to the imagination of the reader but that isn't going too well lol. thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Jemini]

One thing you can do is toss in something random, and use that random thing to build your characters. An absolutely great example of this would be the latest chapter from a series I have been reading. "The Queen of Darkness Does Not Want to be the Villain" (which is on chapter 87 at the time I am writing this.)

The queen of darkness does not want to be the villain

Luna was a just regular girl, working as a librarian at the capital of the kingdom, until one day, a prophecy called her the 'queen of darkness' and said that she was going to take over the world with power and fear. Even though she's a gentle girl who always...

www.scribblehub.com

In this chapter, the author had to basically get across 2 points that could both very easily get summed up in a few hundred words. So, what he did to pad out the chapter is that he decided it was raining, and he used the rain to showcase the fact that the main character had a severe case of OCD and had her constantly worrying about how the leaky roof of the building had some leaks that were more severe than others, and this resulted in the buckets that were used to catch the water getting filled unevenly.

They also managed to use a rain spirit to bring the main decision the MC had to make at this point of the story into focus.

All the other tips here are good too, and wrap up into tips like the one I just gave here. Adding a character moment by having them react to something random is always good, and getting very detailed with the surrounding environment is also good. The chapter in question I just mentioned also helped to really build the image of the castle at the same time. Now we know that it's old, it's leaky, and the fact it's in this state also tells us a lot about the kinds of people who live here as well.

So, this may be something else your story is missing. You actually can build your characters a LOT more effectively by describing their surroundings than you can describing the characters themselves. This would be an example of "show, don't tell."

 

[BlackKnightX]

So I planned out the first arc of my story, feeling confident that I can at least write 10 chapters worth before proceeding with the rest of the storyline. But after writing about halfway through, I was shocked to see that my word count is so pathetic (6632 words to be exact). The feedback I received is that I have too little prose, but I don't know what I'm supposed to write in because I just keep on feeling that it's only filler that adds nothing to the story.

tl;dr how do you extend your word count while still remaining relevant to the plot? kinda weird question but hope someone can provide insight

Have you reread your story? If so then how do you feel about it? Does it flow well? Does it feel rush or stale at some part?

If you’ve already reread your story and it flows well, then you have nothing to worry about. Just leave it as it is.

If you add more words just to pad up the word counts, then you’ll surely write a filler. In other word, nothing significant.

 

[owotrucked]

I think you can read those tutorials:

Discussions & Writing Tips

forum.scribblehub.com

Especially action 2: plug and play. You should carefully choose which actions you want to unfold completely with her formula.

There's "Is description really needed" to give example to increase descriptions.

Don't describe everything indiscriminately tho. Please achieve your goals with a wordcount as low as you can

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Don't force yourself to write more words if they don't fit. You might just have a fast-paced writing style, and that's fine. Some people will love it!

 

[ligmaballs]

write whatever comes first then edit later

 

[PhillisCreziles]

Depending on what happens per chapter, you could show more descriptions and details within the environments and the characters.

For example, instead of:

She was scared and she screamed, "Stay back! Or I will shoot!"

You could write:

Her wounded body trembled with aching fear, and she shrieked a yell that echoed through the bleak forest, "Stay back! Or I will shoot!"

 

[SakeVision]

Depending on what happens per chapter, you could show more descriptions and details within the environments and the characters.

For example, instead of:

You could write:

ppf weak

write what gun she's using, how it feels when she pulls it out, what internal monologue she's going through at that moment, who gave her the gun, what guns she shot so far, what she's wearing, what she wished she was wearing, what kinda trees grow in the forest she's at, how many bullets she has left, what kinda bullets she has, short history of bullet, and then

go back to whoever she's aiming at, and describe if they recognize her gun, if the shot the gun, what they imagine being shot by the gun is like, how they feel inside a forest and if they prefer a city, their tragic backstory if they are about to be shot to death, the moment of impact, what thoughts were flashing through their head as they died, how their body hit the forest floor and stained the autumn leaves crimson, how much damage the bullet did- describe all the tissues, nerves and internal organs hit and how it damaged them, and then

what she thought after killing someone, how she examined the body, if there was anyone else nearby to hear the shot, if local animals were startled by the noise, if her own eardrum rang after the noise of shooting a gun without ear protection etc etc

The skyyyyyy is the limit. Amen. Preach!!

 

[PhillisCreziles]

ppf weak

write what gun she's using, how it feels when she pulls it out, what internal monologue she's going through at that moment, who gave her the gun, what guns she shot so far, what she's wearing, what she wished she was wearing, what kinda trees grow in the forest she's at, how many bullets she has left, what kinda bullets she has, short history of bullet, and then

go back to whoever she's aiming at, and describe if they recognize her gun, if the shot the gun, what they imagine being shot by the gun is like, how they feel inside a forest and if they prefer a city, their tragic backstory if they are about to be shot to death, the moment of impact, what thoughts were flashing through their head as they died, how their body hit the forest floor and stained the autumn leaves crimson, how much damage the bullet did- describe all the tissues, nerves and internal organs hit and how it damaged them, and then

what she thought after killing someone, how she examined the body, if there was anyone else nearby to hear the shot, if local animals were startled by the noise, if her own eardrum rang after the noise of shooting a gun without ear protection etc etc

The skyyyyyy is the limit. Amen. Preach!!

This works too.