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I've written a couple of short stories. I'm really satisfied with some of them, and I would like to turn them into full-length novels. They were meant to be short stories from the beginning, but I feel I can still add more stuff to them (e.g. some part needed more details, and I didn't develop the characters enough).

Is it a bad idea to turn a short story into a full-length novel? (Is there any author who has been doing this?)

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Orson Scott Card did this with both Ender's Game and Songbird, and Daniel Keyes did this with the classic Flowers for Algernon. In all three, a key element of the expansion was delving deeper into the key characters, making them fuller characters with richer history and relationships - the focus was more on this than on significantly building up the plot elements. – Standback♦ Jul 23 '12 at 12:09

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Asimov did it with Nightfall as well as Standback's examples.

As I've said elsewhere, it's only a "bad idea" if you're padding your story with effluvia. If you think you have more to say, more things can happen to the characters, the characters can be more developed, the setting could be richer, then by all means go for it.

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Isaac Asimov wrote the original short story, but it was Robert Silverberg who adapted Nightfall into the novel. – Lukas Stejskal Jul 23 '12 at 12:57
According to good ol' Wiki, they collaborated on it, but yes, Silverberg was involved in any case. – Lauren Ipsum Jul 23 '12 at 14:51

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