How long should a book be?
My science fiction series, THE RECARN CHRONICLES, started off its life as the first book in a proposed trilogy entitled BODY AND SOUL. I wrote the first book, REVELATION, but when I was about 20,000 words into the second book, REVOLUTION, it occurred to me that it may be better to just write one book, with a new title, PAST LIVES FUTURE DEATHS.
Bad decision.
I wrote PAST LIVES FUTURE DEATHS but something just didn't feel right. I felt that to put the complete story in one book (i.e. shrinking a trilogy into one book) would have made it far too long, and if I just wrote the two books, the second book (previously conceived as the third in the trilogy) would have been noticeably shorter than the first.
Of course there has to be a lower word count limit to qualify as a novel, but I don't subscribe to the idea that a book should be forced to be - let's say - 100,000 words long; in fact, I think that trying to force the length of a book is a very bad idea. It leads to the possibility of the author 'padding' the book with superfluous material, just to reach the target word count. I believe that in doing this, the author is almost certainly going to reduce the quality of his or her book. Also, the reader deserves the best book that the author can write, not something that loses its shine due to being forced to reach a predetermined target.
So, I returned to the idea of a trilogy, and was much happier for the decision. I retitled the series THE RECARN CHRONICLES and designed some new covers. Now, I am happy in my work again and feel that a weight has been removed from my shoulders.