It’s not plain sailing

I had a plan to write a sci-fi novel first draft of 120 K words, I had a protagonist I liked, an antagonist I disliked, and a raft of supporting characters that were not cliches. I had identified their wants and needs, as well as the conflicts they would face. My settings were detailed, felt real to me, and were plot pertinent.

I had it planned out, the plot points sorted, and the character arc was satisfying. Everything was in place to wade through and get to 120 K words.

So I started, and with a few bumps in the road, I was getting on well. A thousand word days were OK, and I was well on target to complete the first draft by the end of November 2022. I got to the middle of September 2022 and realised I was a little off, so I killed 20 K words, reworked the plot, reworked some scenes, and it was much stronger for it.

Now at the beginning of October 2022, I have finished, nearly two months early, but 50 k words light. What has gone wrong? Or, was the story I was telling too simple? Where are the holes? How bad is my pacing? Is the ending too rushed?

This is not a problem I expected, and I am not sure what to do with it. Leave it alone for 6 weeks, and then read it again and go from there? Read it through now, and try and add some more scenes? Add some sub plots? Strengthen the theme?

As you can see there are a lot of questions that I need to ask myself. Hopefully, I can do that over the next few days, and get back on track. Off to read something that I think does it all very well, and get some pointers.