on Fiction University:

Your word count has nothing to do with how well your novel is written, but it can be a red flag that there’s a problem.

I got several interesting questions on last week’s article about how point of view strengthens a novel that deserved further exploration. Essentially, commenters were concerned that showing would bloat their manuscripts and add too many words. They were particularly worried about already large manuscripts.

This is a legitimate concern for a lot of writers, because showing can use more words than telling. But it also allows you to cut words from other areas, because when you show you also:

• Characterize
• Dramatize
• Describe

When you show, you allow characters to interact with the world, which sneaks in details while you show action and internalization. The details you use convey more than one thing, which saves you words in the long run.

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