My manuscript is 10,000 words short.  Let’s say I agree with that, because by convention, tech thrillers are at least 70,000 words, and I only have 60,000.  And let’s say I come up with 10,000 more words.  Where would I put them?

It’s a fair question.  Coming up with 10,000 words is easy.  I’m a writer.  I’ll probably enjoy it.  But where will they go?  Where would you put them?  At the end?  Seems sensible.  I wouldn’t have to move any other words around to make them fit.  They could just line up at the end.  Easy peasy.  But my manuscript already has an end, and endings are sort of final.  The dénouement.  Can’t go there.

By similar logic, they would fit nicely at the beginning, and that’s where I intend to attach most of them.  I’ve already added a few hundred words for one new beginning scene, and I’m going to keep doing it until I have a beginning scene that I’m satisfied with.

This will address another issue, pointed out to me by one of my beta readers.  Very likely a typical mistake on sequels.  I assumed my characters were already introduced.  Character development on sequels is a bit tricky.  I know these people already and I’m not inclined to keep describing them.  I should be adding depth though, so I’ll focus on that too.

Curious to receive feedback from other writers.  I know this is a running blog, but when’s that last time I ran, let alone blogged about it.  I know that people who read blogs often write blogs.  And bloggers are writers.

The first question is how much you worry about following word length conventions.  The second question is how you would go about adding to your story when the shortfall is 10,000 words.