When I set out to write The Wishing Blade series, I originally planned on it being a set of novellas. (Especially because the very first draft I wrote for the entire story arc of the series was 64,000 words).
Magic’ Stealing, the first book I published in the Wishing Blade series, was around 34,000 words, and I figured that future books would be similar.
What I didn’t count on was adding so many more words once I started exploring additional points of view.
Daernan got a chance to shine in The Shadow War, and the main plot really centers around him. Siklana has a major role and character arc in Magebane… and we still get the original views of Toranih and Shevanlagiy.
Not only were viewpoints added, I ended up further developing, and adding, magic systems (who knew word magic and charlago/magebane would play such a critical role in future stories?), and I added words as I reworked scenes to make more sense. Because Isaac–my writing partner and developmental editor–has a point: why try scaling a guarded wall when you could just… I dunno… take the sewers and discover even more fun stuff that affects the plot?
The result was that The Shadow War ended up clocking in around 55,000 words – a short novel, and Magebane clocked in at a whopping 109,000 words – a full-length novel.
(Fun fact… the first version of this post, sent to my newsletter years ago, had Magebane still in progress at 89,000 words.)
The Stone and String stories have also found themselves with longer stories than I originally planned. “Stone and String” was a short story of 8,000 words (surprisingly, it stayed within its expected count). It was meant to be a standalone story. But, of course, I wondered what happened next…
And so Wind and Words came along. While it took a couple starts to actually get it going the direction I wanted, I realized quickly it wasn’t going to be a short story. It ended up being a novella at 23,000 words.
Now the real question is, how long are the next books going to be? (Especially considering that Stone and String 3 should have direct ties to Wishing Blade 4).
While I cringe to look at the release dates of those books and realize I haven’t yet released the next in the series, I’ve found a similar pattern occurring within The Legends of Cirena series as it progresses.
- The Wind Mage of Maijev – 15,000 words
- The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear – 12,000 words
- The Restless Sands of Neel – 25,000 words
- The Cursed Halls of Kalecen – 18,000 words
- The Scars of Her Past – 21,000 words
- The Dragons of the Mist – 21,000 words
- The Wind Mage and the Wolf (Cross-over) – 47,000 words
- The Trial of Bells and Blood (Cross-over) – 32,000 words
- The Dark Forest of Aneth (Cross-over) – WORK-IN-PROGRESS Currently 68,000 words.
- In its defense, it not only has the cross-over points of view, it got a third viewpoint and is delving into preplanned lore that wraps up the arc from the first 9 books while setting up the next arc. 🫣
I think a lot of this has to do with adding characters, getting deeper into the lore… stuff like that.
There’s a couple drafts already written for stories that will eventually come after The Dark Forest of Aneth, which you might have seen if you’re signed up for the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter. And then there’s the ongoing story which definitely is building into pre-planned lore and I don’t know if it’s going to be a novella or novel, but the next chapter is eight of sixteen, and it’s already 17,000 words long.
Anyhow, do you have a preferred book length you prefer to read or write?
Full-length novels, novellas, short stories? 🙂
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Three series starters…
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Happy reading and writing!
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 