Dear Bernard,

I’m writing my own novel – a historical fiction set in Whitechapel 1888 – and it’s very slowly drawing to a close. I understand that all stories require different lengths (in terms of word count) however I’ve read too many well intentioned but ultimately bad articles on publishing and am hung up on word count. As of writing to you the novel is sitting at 73,000 and I’m aiming for 80,000. My biggest concern is that it’ll be turned away for being too short and that what I add will read only as filler.

Do you have any advice on this issue?

Thank you,

Sebastian