Bigger is Better?

So I’m working on the second draft of Blood Red Shoes, and it keeps getting longer and longer. . . I can’t decide whether or not this is a good thing.

In my not-so-secret heart, I think 50,000 words is the perfect length for a book. The Great Gatsby is about 50,000 words–what more need I say? 50,000 words is space enough for an efficient writer to give you immortal characters, vividly imagined scenes, and a plot as deep and swift as a great river. I’m tackling In Search of Lost Time just now, which is something like 50,000,000 words long, so the metaphor of wading through it is all too apt. In both the real and metaphorical world, I enjoy wading (I grew up catching minnows and crayfish in little creeks, in big boots), but I do wish that Proust had also written a Good Parts version of his masterpiece.

Anyway, BRS is not yet on its way to joining In Search of Lost Time and its friends in the Longest Books Ever Club, but it is getting decidedly chubby. That’s because in this draft I’ve been persuaded to include non-essential elements like back story, and settings. I’m a child of the 80’s, when Ray Carver was god and writers (even tiny ones) were encouraged to eliminate every word that did not move the plot forward. Of course, in a certain sense, things like settings do move the plot forward, because it keeps the reader from wondering just where the conversation in question is taking place so he or she can concentrate on reading.

I always struggle with first person narration on the question of what to leave in and what to leave out (actually, this is also a problem in third person. Arguably, it is THE problem of writing.) I’ve spent a lot of time with the main character, Asha, by now. I know how she likes her lattes, her biggest pet peeves, and where she hides things she doesn’t want her mother to find–but does the reader need to know all this?

The answer gets harder the further I get into this book. It makes me worry about draft # 3. . .