MANAGING THE WORD COUNT
A few
weeks ago, I was asked if I could add another 20,000 to my current word
count. Whilst this sounded daunting at the time it hasn’t been as much as a
struggle as I imagined it might be.
To help me
on my way, I was advised to try and even out my chapter lengths to 3000 words
plus. This advice was given based on the length of my first chapter which was
about 3200.
Each of
the four parts of a novel should ideally be of equal length. To help me to
achieve this I have always kept a chart where I record the number of words and
MS pages in each chapter. When I looked at what I had already achieved, I was
able to see where I should focus my efforts to add the extra words.
As I was
now looking for a revised total word count of 75000, I set a target of 18750 for each part and set to work. By the time I had read and edited my material, I’d
added another 12000 words to the count. A glance at the new totals showed me
where I still needed to focus my attention to keep the balance right.
As I post
this, I’ve got about another 3000 to go. Part Three which covers events from the
Recommitment Scene at the halfway point to the Crises at the three quarter mark
still needs about 1700 words to be split between 6 chapters. At average of just
283 words per chapter this isn’t too much to achieve. Part Four which deals
with the Scenes to Climax, the Climax itself and the Dénouement only needs
another 1100.
Although
we all deal with problems in our own way, this method of keeping the balance
right has always worked for me. Using a target figure for each chapter has
taken the stress out of achieving the higher word count required.
If you
found this useful, please give my post a like.
Comments
Post a Comment