Help, my story is running away with me!

[johnnylemuria]

Actually, I like where its going, so that's okay. But I was originally planning on writing a sporty little 4000 word short story, and at 4737 words currently it looks like its going to be 8000+ before its through. Has anyone else had a story's length sneak up on you like that?

[Mark Neumayer]

Is it running away as in out of control, or is the story just telling you it needs to be longer than you expected.

I was shooting for 70k-80k with my book and ended up just north of 100k after final edits. But the story needed the room. Being the first in a planned series was part of the reason (lots to explain) and needing to give more background on the Norse mythos pushed the word count as well.

But for e-pub we have the luxury of letting the story be the length it needs to be.

[edwinmason]

I'm in the middle of the same thing. A story I started, hoping for something around 4000 words, is now at 3500 and I think I'm a quarter of the way there.

I'm tempted to just start throwing problems at the characters until it becomes a novel, or scrap it as it is and start with the same characters and setting and plan a novella or novel.

[Django Mathijsen]

I'm pretty good at hitting word count targets. Still, I can remember two stories I planned for 3,000 words eventually becoming around 7,000. Usually this happens because you estimated the number of words needed to tell the plot wrong. Then I just finish the story with the number of words it takes (and write another 3,000-word story).

But once in a while my characters don't want to do the things I need them to do to tell my plot. Then you have to decide: either change the characters so their actions will fit the original plot. Or follow the characters and see where they take you. I've had one occasion where I had plotted a love story between pioneers on a distant planet. Eventually it turned into the prelude to an interstellar war.

Listen to Harlan Ellison in this youtube-interview. He says that things like that happen to him all the time. And he gives a really cool example: his story "Run for the stars":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8qa98-GiZY&NR=1
(01:30-02:40)