Draft MTS WIP done, editing underway

Congratulations!!! Now the fun part begins.

As far as length goes, isn't the rule of thumb 80,000 - 100,000 or something? I know straight mysteries can be smaller... I've heard 60K but don't quote me on that.

Mine finished at 37,000 and I'm in the same boat. I absolutely love editing; it's so much more fun than sketching out bones. Although every time I add a few words and take a few out, I'm satisfied with the result but my word count isn't going up. I think I'm going to need to add a few sub-plots.

And I echo the Veteran's Day sentiment!

Since I'm having to do the same thing (our thriller came in at 73K and needs to be 90K), I'll tell you what we did:

We started with short chapters. Our chapters normally run 10-15 pages, but there's some six page ones. That's a sign that maybe we can add to or enhance whatever's in the chapter. It usually means we didn't do something quite enough. Though, please note that when we add more pages, it does have to be meaningful pages, not just fluff. There have been chapters we would have liked to add a couple of pages to, but it would have been filler, so we left those alone.

We've also targeted chapters that come close to the end of the page as potential for adding another page or two. Again, no fluff. A lot of times when I look through the chapter, I'll find things to fix that really do make an improvement because something isn't quite working right. Sometimes we find that it comes down a page, too.

And the big one. This one takes a lot more work. Since mine is action-adventure, we have to control the pacing or it gets boring. Somewhere along the line, we wound up with two high action chapters right after each other. So we started out with thinking about what we could do to add something in between those chapters and wound up with two more that greatly added to the conflict. In another set of chapters, we realized that very little was actually going on in the chapters (nothing new was given to the reader), so we dropped those chapters and started anew. That thinking gave us about four new chapters.

I'm not sure where we are in word count at the moment, but last time I checked, we'd added over 10K just doing all of this. The key is to make sure your changes help the story, not just pad the story.

Finally, Believing Kate might skim this entry, I forgot to wish Kate Thorton and the other vets who congregate here a happy and well-remembered Veterans Day. For people who've endured what Kate has endured, EVERY DAY should be Veteran's Day.

Click to expand...

Thank you (U.S. Army, Desert Shield/Storm)

Jason, I think you need to add to that word count, bud. Did you do an outline? Can you weave in another story line, additional characters, more action?

I'm at around 55k on draft one and I'm shooting for around 80.

Lisa

I write really spare too and always come up short in the first draft. Add more subplot, and expand a bit where it seems too bare-bones.

Meanwhile, congrats on getting that first draft done. That's half the battle right there.