✍️ It Starts with a Sentence: The Art of Expansion
By Kellie Nissen
Author Coach & Self-Publication Mentor
Founder of Just Right Words
Readers don’t want polish.
They want you.
Have you ever been told that you should write your life story – or a part of your life story?
Or perhaps you were (or are) really good at making up bedtime stories for your children and have toyed with the idea of writing them down and seeing if you can get them published?
If your answer to either of those is yes, I’m willing to bet that, for most of you, your next thought was something like:
“I couldn’t possibly produce enough words to make an entire book!”
I get it. That was me (and still is to a certain extent).
There’s more story in you than you think...
The first novel I wrote started out as a 2,000-word short story.
My writing coach at the time said,
“This is great but I think you have more to say. It has potential as a Young Adult novel.”
For context, a young adult novel needs to be anywhere between 50,000 to 70,000 words.
That’s a little more than 2,000!
I told her there was no way I could do that.
She told me I could.
“It’s all about expansion,” she said.
I didn’t believe her but I set about giving it a go because… well… let’s just say my writing coach was not the sort of person you said no to.
So, how do you turn 2,000 words into 70,000?
Insert whatever numbers you wish in that question, because my suggestions will be the same.
Expanding a short piece into a full-length manuscript looks impossible at the start, but try to remember this:
Expansion is not about padding or fluffing — it’s about digging deeper.
To expand, you need to explore moments, meaning, and memory.
It’s absolutely achievable.
To get you started, here are my top three expansion tips 👇
💡 Tip 1: Zoom in on moments
Something that happened in five minutes can fill five pages if you slow down and explore the scene with sensory detail.
Expand on the moment by noticing the smells, sounds, sights and textures.
💫 Tip 2: Develop character layers
Whether you’re writing memoir or fiction, your characters need depth; they need to feel real.
Expand on your character by showing contradictions of personality, discussing their motivations, fears and quirks, and developing their relationships.
🌷 Tip 3: Reflect, don’t just recall
You may have heard of “show, don’t tell” — but this is the next level.
You can describe a scene or event beautifully, but to really expand on it, you need to have your character (or yourself) reflect on what it all meant.
Ask and answer questions like:
How did I change?
What did I learn?
What questions still linger?
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
— Maya Angelou
What starts small can still be mighty.
Next time someone says, “You should write a book,” don’t dismiss it.
Start small, trust the process, and let your words grow —
there’s more story in you than you think.
Give it a go 🌼
PS. If you’re wondering about my short-story-come-YA-novel pathway, I absolutely could and did expand on that word count.
In fact, I got to 90,000 words!
Then I had to cull 20,000 of them.
If you think expansion is hard, believe me when I say killing your darlings is even more difficult.
“A word after a word after a word is power.”
— Margaret Atwood
Kellie Nissen is an author coach and publishing mentor and is the author of What Cancer Said and Tales from GoAnna.
Her YA novel is yet to be published because she keeps tinkering with it — and just needs to stop!
By Kellie Nissen
Author Coach & Self-Publication Mentor
Founder of Just Right Words
