Wordcount ~ Am i missing something?

Adversary · Dec 18, 2018

Okay... so, i haven't actually read a lot of novels (yeah yeah, i know, but this is not the place...), but those i've read, with one exception, are average in length, 80-140K typically. About the 'thickest' prose i've read is Lovecraft, the 'thinnest' was Meyers (yeah yeah...), but most has been average, more or less. When i read a book i tend to have time, and i try and finish it as quickly as possible, and by that i mean, i'm not one of these that read a chapter here, another on the bus, another on a break at work. I'll sit down, at night, and read till its bedtime. I like to immerse myself in the author's world. I'll usually take 3-4 days to finish a book. I can read fast, but when its a novel (ie: someone's art) i take my time and absorb it best i can. By online tests, even taking my time i still read faster than average. So... maybe 2-3 days to read 80-90K words.

Now... with MY writing, even when i'm taking about the same amount of time (because i'm always looking to improve, or fix), i can rip off 80K in a night. I can do that easily. I write on Scrivener, and i can only go by its wordcount. I would say my writing is on the average-to-heavy side, prose wise. It's not YA by any means.

I ask this because i am having serious issues with my wordcounts... like, almost to the point of asking if there is a point to continuing this endeavor. I cant seem to write ANYTHING that isn't bloody epic in length. Even after a thorough slash-fest, it'd still be lonnnnnnng stuff. Personally, i'm not afraid of epic novels, but i would like to sell this stuff someday. So far i'm leaning towards traditional publishing. But with this reading... disparity... i'm wondering if there is something off with writing software wordcounting. I read 32K last night in a couple hours, and that was again, dragging for mistakes or things i can improve. I've never been able to do that with a book.

I wonder, because maybe my current burgeoning 200K fantasy epic (that i'd really rather was closer to 100K) isn't as long as i think it is? My other, shelved epic is already 450K words long, and it's not done. Unless there is a serious disconnect here, that one is likely never getting written.

Thoughts?

be frank · Dec 18, 2018

Adversary said:
Okay... so, i haven't actually read a lot of novels

<snip>

I would say my writing is on the average-to-heavy side, prose wise. It's not YA by any means.

<snip>

Thoughts?

My main thought here is that people who by their own admission haven't read much of anything maybe shouldn't presume to know what is or isn't found in YA.

onesecondglance · Dec 18, 2018

You can read your own work faster than someone else's because it's your work - you know what's in it. Your eye skips over words and your memory fills the blanks in. It's the same for me, as I'm sure it is for others here. The wordcount tools are accurate.

The "average" wordcount for trade published books is a function of two market forces - what's economic to print, and what readers consider value for money. The trick is, those two forces are shifted by your success as an author: if you are a known, successful author, likely to sell a larger quantity of books, then it is more economical to print longer volumes (because there will be a sales return); likewise, if you have an audience who are familiar with you and like what you write, then a longer volume will be seen as better value for money.

Unfortunately, the flipside is also true: a debut author has no sales track record for the publisher to estimate from, so a special print run on an oversized volume is too much of a risk; and, faced with an absolute tome from someone they've never heard of, a buyer could be forgiven for not wanting to invest so much reading time into something that they have no evidence they'll enjoy - not to mention if the book is more expensive than usual due to the larger size.

This is why the standard advice for those seeking trade publishing is to write within the "average" wordcount - which is actually a pretty broad range, so not that hard to hit - or, if it's absolutely impossible to cut down to that, to break the story up into multiple volumes. Typically, those volumes are also supposed to stand alone as much as possible, so it doesn't matter if a reader picks them up out of order. You also mitigate some of the risk of failing to publish the later volumes, due to lack of sales or other reasons: at least the earlier ones told complete stories in themselves, even if the wider, overarching story wasn't completed.

If none of that appeals to you, you might consider self-publishing. There's economics there as well, in terms of length vs value for money when considering the generally lower prices in that market, or the per-page payments from Kindle Unlimited, but if you stick to electronic, it costs no more to publish a 450k brick than it does a 45k novella. Again, though, you might think about splitting the story up into smaller segments: most self-publishers on AW report improved sales if they release new titles extremely frequently, in the order of one or two a month. But you would need to ensure that each of those segments ends on a suitable hook to persuade readers to purchase the next, rather than feeling that they've bought a tenth of a book.

The other, perhaps less palatable advice, is to learn to write more succinctly. This isn't necessarily stripping words from sentences - it's an overall rethinking of how you construct scenes and which scenes you need to tell your story. "Kill your darlings" doesn't just mean "don't get attached to particular lines" - it can also apply to entire characters or subplots. Cutting down from 450k isn't just going to be decluttering line by line. You're going to need to cut content. If the prose is sparkling clean, and every character and plotline is absolutely essential... then go back to the part about self-publishing.

D. E. Wyatt · Dec 18, 2018

onesecondglance said:
it costs no more to publish a 450k brick than it does a 45k novella.

Unless you're having a professional edit that charges per word.

onesecondglance · Dec 18, 2018

D. E. Wyatt said:
Unless you're having a professional edit that charges per word.

Good point.

Devil Ledbetter · Dec 18, 2018

I suggest putting some of your prose into an editing program like Pro-Writing Aid. There are free versions to use online, and they can flag text that is wordier than needed, redundant, repetitious, etc. While this sort of thing isn't the end-all, be-all, it can help you see if, where, and how you should tighten things up.

I'm not saying epic-length fiction is always too wordy, but if anything has a possibility of being too wordy, it's prose that goes long.

indianroads · Dec 18, 2018

A writer that doesn't read strikes me like a musician that doesn't listen to music.

I'm a novice at the writing game, so take what I say with some salt - but I believe that the very best way to learn the craft of writing is to read. How else can you gain an innate sense of voice, pace, POV, character, and story development? I taught myself to read when I was three years old by memorizing the shape of words. I've been a voracious reader ever since - I had a chaotic childhood and reading was my sanctuary. I can't imagine not having a book going. I'm not well educated with regard to literature, but I know when something I write doesn't feel right - and I use that sense to correct my work.

My novels are all about 100K words in length, which IMO is a sweet spot - long enough to have good story and character development, but not so long as to be a doorstop. To get there I look at the story I want to tell, break it into pieces (acts, then chapters), and write to that goal. I also am a planner (not a pantster), so I lay out the whole thing as bullet points before I start the first draft. If there's not enough there for 100K I either discard it, turn it into a short story, or let it stew until other aspects of the story turn up in my mind. If there's too much there I break it into chew-able sections and turn it into a series (which I am doing with my WIP).

awriter · Dec 18, 2018

I don't have any specific advice for your current 200K word fantasy other than editing ruthlessly once you've finished the first draft.

For the 450K one: is it possible that you've actually written a series in a single manuscript? 450K is so enormous that you might benefit from breaking it up into multiple books and then editing those down to marketable lengths.

Also, maybe you should try taking a break from novels to write some short stories or flash fiction. Personally I've found that working on short stories has forced me to think much more carefully about pacing and wordiness due to the constraints on word count.

Woollybear · Dec 18, 2018

I agree with the editing downward advice.

I skimmed your question. You have a lot in there that doesn't pertain. You probably don't want readers skimming your novel.

Chris P · Dec 18, 2018

An old timer here used to say any story can be told with any number of words. I balked at this, especially since my love-every-word masterpiece came in at 250K. However, I took him at his word and found it was more or less true. My novels now come in at a much more reasonable 60 to 90K in first draft.

I don't have a method to share, other than I have had much better luck staring small then building up. For the 250K doorstopper, first I cut scenes that didn't move the characters along their journey, then started nibbling down adverbs, adjectives, prepositional phrases, getting rid of combined dialog/action tags (I can't remember the proper term, but things like "she said, hanging up the phone and turning to face Mike"). That only got it to 180K, so I trashed the entire first half of the book, kept a handful of scenes, and got it to 120K. Still too big and wouldn't budge--mechanical, sparse writing with absolutely no life. At this point I abandoned the project and launched the next one. First draft at 60-something. Added a subplot that raised the stakes of the main plot, and ended up at 85K. Guess what? Published! Editor and I got it to a tight 75K to the presses. If I go back to the doorstopper, the only remedy I think will be to start a fresh page 1 and go from there. Same story, but will need totally different words to tell it in fewer. (Wow, after all this description I wonder why my first project was so big?)

Treehouseman · Dec 19, 2018

Sometimes its not as simple as using filler words (as software programs like Hemming-write or whatever use, because they can give flavour to your work)

How are you telling the story?

People who "write long" are very often trying to concentrate too much on details. Everything doesn't need to be described!

Instead of "Bob fixed himself breakfast and then caught the bus to work" you might have done the whole Bob going to the refrigerator, and then the toaster, and then choosing a bread, with a two-page aside of the difference between Rye and Pumpernickel, then all his self-monologue about breads and his ex-girlfriend who owned a bakery with a flashback to that time in New Zealand...

Before you know it, you'll have wasted an entire chapter of toast and he hasn't even got to the bus!

This is where a second pair of experienced eyes can be helpful. Short stories are good too.

Adversary · Dec 19, 2018

I should clarify, because i realize now there is a difference, this work i'm waist-deep into right now is epic fantasy, which... seems to gravitate towards higher wordcounts. This is good. Even as a reader, this is good. If a book is good, well... i dont want it to end. I was just reading about Name Of The Wind ~ Rothfuss. Thats 600+ words, and a debut novel, and wildly popular. An extreme example, but perhaps it takes a bit of pressure off the 200K range debut?

onesecondglance said:
You can read your own work faster than someone else's because it's your work - you know what's in it. Your eye skips over words and your memory fills the blanks in. It's the same for me, as I'm sure it is for others here. The wordcount tools are accurate.

Good, i was just wondering. I do read slower when its my work though, even if i've read it 20 times. I'm always looking for places to edit, cut, etc.

The "average" wordcount for trade published books is a function of two market forces - what's economic to print, and what readers consider value for money. The trick is, those two forces are shifted by your success as an author: if you are a known, successful author, likely to sell a larger quantity of books, then it is more economical to print longer volumes (because there will be a sales return); likewise, if you have an audience who are familiar with you and like what you write, then a longer volume will be seen as better value for money.

Unfortunately, the flipside is also true: a debut author has no sales track record for the publisher to estimate from, so a special print run on an oversized volume is too much of a risk; and, faced with an absolute tome from someone they've never heard of, a buyer could be forgiven for not wanting to invest so much reading time into something that they have no evidence they'll enjoy - not to mention if the book is more expensive than usual due to the larger size.

I actually did not know that books could be priced on their page count, though it makes good sense. Interesting. So definitely harder to 'sell' a 180K debut novel to a publisher (who has to print a pile of 'em) than a 120K one.

This is why the standard advice for those seeking trade publishing is to write within the "average" wordcount - which is actually a pretty broad range, so not that hard to hit - or, if it's absolutely impossible to cut down to that, to break the story up into multiple volumes. Typically, those volumes are also supposed to stand alone as much as possible, so it doesn't matter if a reader picks them up out of order. You also mitigate some of the risk of failing to publish the later volumes, due to lack of sales or other reasons: at least the earlier ones told complete stories in themselves, even if the wider, overarching story wasn't completed.

Are there any statistics/anyone know what percentage of debut publishings exceed these averages? I was always wary of general wordcounts, for the above reasons, but then i saw a long list of wordcounts of famous novels, by genre. There were a LOT of big-time fantasy books that were well over 200K, even first books. Maybe over 300K. I'm sure that many were just first FAMOUS books, but not the actual first book published. Some, but not all?

If none of that appeals to you, you might consider self-publishing. There's economics there as well, in terms of length vs value for money when considering the generally lower prices in that market, or the per-page payments from Kindle Unlimited, but if you stick to electronic, it costs no more to publish a 450k brick than it does a 45k novella. Again, though, you might think about splitting the story up into smaller segments: most self-publishers on AW report improved sales if they release new titles extremely frequently, in the order of one or two a month. But you would need to ensure that each of those segments ends on a suitable hook to persuade readers to purchase the next, rather than feeling that they've bought a tenth of a book.

Perhaps i'm wrong, but it seems to me that traditional publishing is truly 'making it', in this game. I'm told that i could essentially just toss my first draft online and become a 'published' author. Again, maybe i'm wrong, but if you can see your hard copy on a Chapters bookshelf, i think thats a good indication you've really done something.

That... is my hang-up about self-publishing. Though i'm not writing it off, i understand the positives too.

I also want to see a solid, self-contained, start-to-finish product. A book someone can read and say 'thats a story'. If it inspires a sequel, thats great, but for my first book at least, i'd like to FINISH something. Stand-alone.

The other, perhaps less palatable advice, is to learn to write more succinctly. This isn't necessarily stripping words from sentences - it's an overall rethinking of how you construct scenes and which scenes you need to tell your story. "Kill your darlings" doesn't just mean "don't get attached to particular lines" - it can also apply to entire characters or subplots. Cutting down from 450k isn't just going to be decluttering line by line. You're going to need to cut content. If the prose is sparkling clean, and every character and plotline is absolutely essential... then go back to the part about self-publishing.

That 450K monster is just that... a ragged, flowery, overwrought beast. It doesn't need cutting, it needs a chainsaw and a woodchipper. Maybe one of those big machines that shred scrap cars. I'm not concerned with that one right now. Its shelved until i learn how to write. Haha.

That said, i'm new at this. Well.. i have been 'writing' for a few decades now, but my serious effort is new, maybe 4-5 years. I only started bothering to learn about the industry this last year. So, what my writing will look like in 10 years is a mystery. It might be more succinct, or it might blossom into verbose walls of text. I believe that the great artist is the simplifier... first and foremost, so i AM trying.

I DO love detail though. I love reading it, and i write what i like to read. I have a published friend who loathes detail (i just dont understand), and she does not have my problem...

Edit: Jesus... look at this mess. I think i just proved my own hopelessness...

Adversary · Dec 19, 2018

awriter said:
I don't have any specific advice for your current 200K word fantasy other than editing ruthlessly once you've finished the first draft.

For the 450K one: is it possible that you've actually written a series in a single manuscript? 450K is so enormous that you might benefit from breaking it up into multiple books and then editing those down to marketable lengths.

Also, maybe you should try taking a break from novels to write some short stories or flash fiction. Personally I've found that working on short stories has forced me to think much more carefully about pacing and wordiness due to the constraints on word count.

Well, whats funny, is that that 450K beast was SUPPOSED to be a quick, succinct character study. Its a contemporary fantasy, a 4 year vignette of a villain in my main story (outlined in great detail, but yet to be written), with three MCs. As an exercise of sorts, i thought, lets tell the story of this villain's beginnings, before he became a villain. It was a side-story... heh heh... certainly not something that i wanted to turn into a series, even a trilogy. I have since found maybe three different acts in it, that could theoretically be broken into separate books, and i'm sure at least 10 chapters out of the 40 are not necessary, but its still just a story i wanted to see in one book.

But again, i'm not worried about this 450K story right now. I'm focused on this new epic fantasy thats been bugging me forever. I did not want to write epic fantasy, its not my genre (though i enjoy it), but it just kept poking me... This one, despite my issues above, will be FAR easier to finish right now i think. I'm about 90K in, and about a quarter of the way through the outline.

Your last point is a good one. That is definitely a weakness of mine... keeping it short and sweet.

Adversary · Dec 19, 2018

Devil Ledbetter said:
I suggest putting some of your prose into an editing program like Pro-Writing Aid. There are free versions to use online, and they can flag text that is wordier than needed, redundant, repetitious, etc. While this sort of thing isn't the end-all, be-all, it can help you see if, where, and how you should tighten things up.

I'm not saying epic-length fiction is always too wordy, but if anything has a possibility of being too wordy, it's prose that goes long.

You can trust a program to do that?

Adversary · Dec 19, 2018

Treehouseman said:
Sometimes its not as simple as using filler words (as software programs like Hemming-write or whatever use, because they can give flavour to your work)

How are you telling the story?

People who "write long" are very often trying to concentrate too much on details. Everything doesn't need to be described!

Instead of "Bob fixed himself breakfast and then caught the bus to work" you might have done the whole Bob going to the refrigerator, and then the toaster, and then choosing a bread, with a two-page aside of the difference between Rye and Pumpernickel, then all his self-monologue about breads and his ex-girlfriend who owned a bakery with a flashback to that time in New Zealand...

Before you know it, you'll have wasted an entire chapter of toast and he hasn't even got to the bus!

This is where a second pair of experienced eyes can be helpful. Short stories are good too.

But the reader MUST KNOW their breads! What did his ex-girlfriend look like? What did she wear? Was she nice? Did she believe in GMOs...???

Heh... i must confess, easily one of the most memorable books i've ever read was American Psycho. I mean, i fully understood them for what they were, but when Ellis (as Bateman) went on and on and on and on and fucking on.... for pages after pages about a single Huey Lewis album, or whatever, i found myself just laughing. I do love psychology though...

But yes, obviously, i see your point.

Elle. · Dec 19, 2018

Adversary said:
But the reader MUST KNOW their breads! What did his ex-girlfriend look like? What did she wear? Was she nice? Did she believe in GMOs...???

Heh... i must confess, easily one of the most memorable books i've ever read was American Psycho. I mean, i fully understood them for what they were, but when Ellis (as Bateman) went on and on and on and on and fucking on.... for pages after pages about a single Huey Lewis album, or whatever, i found myself just laughing. I do love psychology though...

But yes, obviously, i see your point.

The way I see it is "description with intent" or "description without intent", which for me the latter is unnecessary and just slow the pace and the narrative. When Ellis went on to describe minute details of Bateman's morning routine or have Bateman discuss the entire Phil Collins discography, it is description with the intent to show Bateman's psychosis, and obsessive nature and help to slowly build the picture and the tension until with descend into Bateman's madness.

Describing a character make a sandwich because the author is using it as a way to show the character's OCD nature and how every piece needs to be lined-up a certain way shows character development through action. Describing someone through the whole sandwich making process just for the sake of it in my opinion is useless and again just slow the story.

That's just me.

On a separate note I personally would never used any kind of software to amend my writing (add or take out words) but that's just me.

lizmonster · Dec 19, 2018

Adversary said:
I should clarify, because i realize now there is a difference, this work i'm waist-deep into right now is epic fantasy, which... seems to gravitate towards higher wordcounts. This is good. Even as a reader, this is good. If a book is good, well... i dont want it to end. I was just reading about Name Of The Wind ~ Rothfuss. Thats 600+ words, and a debut novel, and wildly popular. An extreme example, but perhaps it takes a bit of pressure off the 200K range debut?

You may indeed be working on a Rothfuss-level book. 99.9% of us aren't, and I think it's worth seriously challenging your assumptions about the necessary length of your work.

Having said that, 200K isn't 600K, and an agent might look at the word count and figure you could carve it down to 180K without much trouble. But I've seen agents on Twitter say their cutoff for epic fantasy is 140K. You're definitely narrowing your pool of agents (which once again isn't necessarily a doomer, just a fact).

That said: yes, it's possible to push expected word counts, even with a debut. I sold a space opera at 125K, and post-edits it was 130K. But that's less than 10% above the recommended max for such a book.

Adversary said:
You can trust a program to do that?

Tools are just that: tools. Most tools can give you interesting insights; whether or not those insights are applicable to your specific work is a different issue. I still run my stuff through Word's grammar checker, even though I ignore most of the things it flags, because sometimes it highlights a stylistic issue that I hadn't noticed myself.

anaemic_mind · Dec 19, 2018

I have no advice, as I'm in the same boat with my 450K+ behemoth of a debut novel that still doesn't have a complete first draft. Just wanted to raise my hand and wave at a fellow overwriter :hi:

. Following this thread with interest and noting down tips to add to my editing todo list.

veinglory · Dec 19, 2018

If you are *completing* epic works that is the opposite of a problem. But if you want them in print they will be in multiple volumes.

If you are not completing them your problem might just be not knowing how to write conclusions and you'll just keep going til you work that out?

neandermagnon · Dec 19, 2018

veinglory said:
If you are *completing* epic works that is the opposite of a problem. But if you want them in print they will be in multiple volumes.

If you are not completing them your problem might just be not knowing how to write conclusions and you'll just keep going til you work that out?

Seconding this advice.

I used to have a problem with novels going way way over any sensible word count. The problem was that they didn't have much structure or focus. They were about a character's life and the character had all sorts of problems and bad things happening, but there was never any conclusion. It was a little like a soap opera rather than a novel, except that a soap opera has a careful structure, with a story + cliffhanger for each episode and a few plot threads that span many episodes but which do come to a conclusion... just as a new long storyline starts up. They go on forever but they're carefully structured. My stories were like that, but without the careful structuring. Learning how to narrow the focus of the story - sticking to just one or two main storylines and limiting the subplots - is helping a lot with keeping it to a sensible size and also the story itself improves. It helps to limit the tangential scenes... if the story has no real focus I just end up writing everything that happens to the character. With more focus on a specific plot you have the question "does this scene move the story forward?" I do keep some tangential stuff in for worldbuilding and character development but keep it to a minimum.

Adversary · Dec 20, 2018

Elle. said:
The way I see it is "description with intent" or "description without intent", which for me the latter is unnecessary and just slow the pace and the narrative. When Ellis went on to describe minute details of Bateman's morning routine or have Bateman discuss the entire Phil Collins discography, it is description with the intent to show Bateman's psychosis, and obsessive nature and help to slowly build the picture and the tension until with descend into Bateman's madness.

Describing a character make a sandwich because the author is using it as a way to show the character's OCD nature and how every piece needs to be lined-up a certain way shows character development through action. Describing someone through the whole sandwich making process just for the sake of it in my opinion is useless and again just slow the story.

That's just me.

On a separate note I personally would never used any kind of software to amend my writing (add or take out words) but that's just me.

Yeah, i got that about Ellis, and thats why i loved that book. I've described this, time and again to others who've read that book, and it seems than none of them got it. They just said it was stupid. I thought it was brilliant. One of my favorite books.

I've always been pretty wary about doing this myself. I dont think? its a problem i have? If i had to guess, i'd say i'm more prone to description in more dialogue tags than is needed, dragging out dialogue and scenes too long, and leaving just a few too many of those darlings alive. I'm working on it...

Adversary · Dec 20, 2018

lizmonster said:
You may indeed be working on a Rothfuss-level book. 99.9% of us aren't, and I think it's worth seriously challenging your assumptions about the necessary length of your work.

I mainly brought that up because after alllllll this reading about wordcounts and publishing, i'm stunned that a first book with that much girth got published. I like to think that if its truly good enough, pretty near any rule can be broken. And NO... a 600K+ first book is NOT my goal. Not even close.

Having said that, 200K isn't 600K, and an agent might look at the word count and figure you could carve it down to 180K without much trouble. But I've seen agents on Twitter say their cutoff for epic fantasy is 140K. You're definitely narrowing your pool of agents (which once again isn't necessarily a doomer, just a fact).

That said: yes, it's possible to push expected word counts, even with a debut. I sold a space opera at 125K, and post-edits it was 130K. But that's less than 10% above the recommended max for such a book.

My nebulous goal for this one was around 120-140K. Right now its looking like it'll be around 300K before editing. I'm pretty sure there will be a lot to edit in there this time though. I usually write a lot 'tighter', but this time i'm just letting it flow and moving on, trying to hammer out a complete, if bloated, first draft. Should be able to edit it under 200, and go from there.

Tools are just that: tools. Most tools can give you interesting insights; whether or not those insights are applicable to your specific work is a different issue. I still run my stuff through Word's grammar checker, even though I ignore most of the things it flags, because sometimes it highlights a stylistic issue that I hadn't noticed myself.

Hmmm...

- - - Upd

Adversary · Dec 20, 2018

anaemic_mind said:
I have no advice, as I'm in the same boat with my 450K+ behemoth of a debut novel that still doesn't have a complete first draft. Just wanted to raise my hand and wave at a fellow overwriter . Following this thread with interest and noting down tips to add to my editing todo list.

To be fair, that 450K monster of mine has a solid beginning, a solid conclusive end, and more than enough beef in between the posts to call 'finished'. I'm definitely satisfied with the beginning and end, and there are some excellent chapters in between. Its about 3 characters, and a LOT of stuff happens to them. I could write another 200K on the stuff that happens to them in between the stuff i already have. Its just a matter of deciding which are important, and which are fill, and cutting. But the real problem, and the reason i cant call it done, is the 'glue'... the stuff in between. Right now, it just strikes me as a collection of happenings. Might just be picky me, but i dont get a sense of flow, from beginning to end. Veinglory (and others) suggest multiple volumes, but i just never saw this story as a series. It was just a character sketch. To better describe it, lets say my main epic story is Star Wars, all nine. This book was supposed to be just a little side book about say, Boba Fett. Not a series on him. The main story will be the series. Perhaps if i'd already written and published the main story, and it was wildly popular and people were aching for a side study... but this would have been my FIRST book.

But again, that one is shelved for now. Its also by far my favorite of all my stories, concepts, and 5-6 assorted book ideas, and so i think coming back to it once i've found (hopefully) some success with other stuff, and honed my skills a bit sounds like a better plan.

This little sword and sorcery epic fantasy book i started the thread about, is my main focus now. Its a simple, tight, marketable story idea... perfect for a first book. Again, its not my genre, but then, i've not technically completed anything yet, so maybe it will be?

Adversary · Dec 20, 2018

neandermagnon said:
Seconding this advice.

I used to have a problem with novels going way way over any sensible word count. The problem was that they didn't have much structure or focus. They were about a character's life and the character had all sorts of problems and bad things happening, but there was never any conclusion. It was a little like a soap opera rather than a novel, except that a soap opera has a careful structure, with a story + cliffhanger for each episode and a few plot threads that span many episodes but which do come to a conclusion... just as a new long storyline starts up. They go on forever but they're carefully structured. My stories were like that, but without the careful structuring. Learning how to narrow the focus of the story - sticking to just one or two main storylines and limiting the subplots - is helping a lot with keeping it to a sensible size and also the story itself improves. It helps to limit the tangential scenes... if the story has no real focus I just end up writing everything that happens to the character. With more focus on a specific plot you have the question "does this scene move the story forward?" I do keep some tangential stuff in for worldbuilding and character development but keep it to a minimum.

Yup, sounds a bit like my big one. Problem is, all the chapters i have in there move the story, and provide more and more ammo for the conclusion, build more drama, build more character, etc. Some more than others, obviously, so those 'others' will have to be cut. I was doing like you too, and writing everything, but anything i felt did not contribute i keep in a separate, sort of 'deleted scenes' file. I write a lot of those, and (tragically) i have some of my best work in there, but to me, thats just one, practice, and two, more flesh for my character... and i'm of the opinion that a writer cannot know his characters deeply enough.

Harlequin · Dec 20, 2018

Have you been to SYW, and tried posting there for feedback?

I'm gonna make an unwise wager at this point and say that, if I cannot find anything of significance to cut or tighten in your first 3-5k words, I will read the whole thing.

I am an underwriter, which has its own challenges, and finding ways to streamline is something of a character flaw in me (or trait, if you prefer.) But I am a big believer in the power of conciseness. If less words are used, they must be more focused, and more powerful. Really dense, thoughtful epic sff is often not particularly long, in part because if you throw 200k+ words of complex ideas at a reader, they will drown. (There is a good reason Wolfe's New Sun books are only around 70-80k each.) Tolkien would be a beast if it was one volume as he'd intended, and not the four it got cut up into. But getting a series like that where none of the books are standalone is probably not happening for a debut author lol.

A text can always be trimmed, though whether or not it should be, is a matter of preference. Rothfuss was mentioned; I think his books actually have quite a bit of negative space that *could* be trimmed (I think the whole novel could be half the length and tell the same story, in fact) but some would argue the style suffers. Swings and roundabouts, innit. I do feel compelled to add, it took Rothfuss rather a long time to get published (he spent years on sub, if I remember rightly). It's quite possible the long word count was a contributing factor to this.

Wordcount ~ Am i missing something?

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