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NaNoWriMo Tip #18: How Long Should Your Novel Be?

Life is short, but snakes are long.

These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works.

Let’s say you’re merrily typing along and your novel starts to deviate wildly from your outline. By itself, this is no disaster. It’s not unlikely that what you’re writing in the heat of inspiration is better than your pallid outline.

The one thing you are most likely to lose control of, especially if you’re a newbie writer, is wordcount. When I was younger, I used to set out to write a short story, and end up writing a 180,000 words of what I realized only after the fact was actually a series. Meanwhile, I’d be writing a 20 page paper for school and couldn’t figure out how to stretch it past 10 pages.

Learning to control wordcount emerges from experience, as you learn your own habits. No one else can teach you those. However, there are a few helpful tricks to bring you closer to the mark. If your word count is on the low side, you’ll have to add; if it’s too high, you’ll have to cut. The hard part is knowing how to add and subtract from your story in a way that doesn’t change it into another book entirely.

First Question: Shouldn’t you just allow your story to be whatever length it needs to be?

The short answer: Yes.

Duh.

The long answer: The hard part is knowing what length it needs to be. If you’re in the position I was when I was younger, of setting out to write a short story and finding myself with 180,000 words of an epic and no end in sight, you’re not in control of your story. It’s not writing an epic that was a problem, it was that it came as a surprise to me. Of course, I was a “pantser” in those days (I’m convinced 95% of most supposed pantsers are just writers who haven’t learned to outline properly yet), so I was fine with that. Since I was in high school, not trying to support myself with my writing (never mind feed and clothe and house spawn), I could afford to indulge myself like that. Still, I think even then, I would have been happier if I’d known how to complete a solid 70,000 word novel rather than wallow in an incomplete 180,000 word behemoth.

Also, the fact of the matter is that certain genres have common lengths, and you violate those standards at your peril. If you are an indie publisher, you can be endlessly self-indulgent, but I don’t recommend it. If you want a traditional contract, you have to follow the wordcount guidelines.

Second Question: I’m trying to write 50,000 words by the end of the month, and you want me to CUT?

The short answer: No.

The long answer: Yes. Eventually. Don’t get so caught up in the form of NaNo that you lose sight of the spirit of NaNo, which is to finish a book. It’s better to finish a solid, 20,000 word novella than end up with 50,000 words of Going Nowhere. You should strive to keep your story as compact as it can be, given the genre and story goals.

If you want “credit” for the hard work you’ve done this month, go ahead and include your outline and your excess scenes in your wordcount. It’s a good reminder of how much of a writer’s work goes on before and between the scenes. You deserve to pat yourself on the back for not skipping those steps.

On the other hand, if you don’t care to much about the official deadline, or you’re not worried about finishing, and you want to use the NaNo wordcount program to only measure the actual progress on your novel, that’s fine.

What you should never, never do is knowingly “pad” your wordcount with lame scenes, just to meet the wordcount deadline. That wouldn’t fool an editor or a reader, so why are you trying to fool yourself? You do yourself no favors thereby.

Third Question: Isn’t there some leeway, even for commercial novels, when it comes to final word count?

The short answer: Yes.

The long answer: Within reason. It’s a good idea to set three wordcount numbers ahead of time. The minimum words this book can get away with, the maximum it can get away with, and the target number of words it shouldbe.

I’m writing a YA urban fantasy, and I don’t have to worry about imprint specifications, but I still have a narrow range of wordcounts I will accept. So wordcount brackets look like this:

Minimum: 60,000

Target: 70,000

Maximum: 80,000

As you can see, I haven’t left myself a lot of wiggle room. Why is it so narrow? Several reasons. The genre is YA, so I want it to be a fun, breezy read. It’s a holiday book and I don’t want slower readers to start reading it before Halloween and still be slogging through it by Christmas. (I want them to move on to my Christmas book by then!) At the same time, I want the story to feel meaty enough that it doesn’t read like a novella, so I want it to be at least 60,000 words. (The first book of The Unfinished Song is only 50,000 words, but as the first novel in a saga, it’s deliberately short; plus, it notoriously ends on a cliffhanger, so it’s short in part because it’s, well, unfinished.)

Finally, another important consideration is whether your book is part of a series. My project, October Knight, is a stand-alone at the moment, but I may decide to write more stand-alone books in an episodic series.

The rule for wordcount and series is this: Sagas (continuous stories) can increase in length with successive books. (Think Harry Potter, where the first book is considerably shorter than the last.) Episodic books (each stands on its own and can be read out of order) should all be approximately the same length. This means that if you’re writing the first book in a saga, you won’t be trapped into that wordcount forever (but shorter is better because it’s easier to grow longer later than the obverse). If you’re writing a episodic series, you better figure out what wordcount is going to work not only for this book but for all future books in the series.

Depending on the book, I might not be so constrained. I have another book, sf, which I’ll write sometime, and the world brackets look like this:

Minimum: 45,000

Target: 90,000

Maximum: 140,000

That’s such a loose range it’s crazy. Probably once I hunker down and start outlining the project, I’ll settle on a more specific length. Really, though, for this particular story, I’m more interested in conveying the hard science and sociological theme of the book than I am concerned about whether it’s a novella or a tome. There are several ways I could present the story. Length is not the primary consideration. The readership will be hard sf readers, and I know that they can handle any of those lengths, so that’s not a concern either.

By now you should have a chunk of draft done, and you should have some idea of how long your average scene is. (Although if you are rich outlining rather than writing full scenes, you need to take into account the additional factor of how much each outlined scene will expand when written in full). My average scene length for my Unfinished Song series is 1000 words, within a 500-3000 word range.

How do you find your average scene length if you’ve never done it before? It’s easy. Use the word count feature on your word processor and just make a list, in a notebook or on a spreadsheet, of each scene and how many words it is. Add and divide. If you’re writing in rich outline mode, and you’re so disposed, you might write out one or two of the scenes in full, to see how much you add.

Multiply you average scene’s wordcount by the number of scenes, and you’ll find the expected length of the novel… IF you are following your outline. If you find you are adding or subtracting scenes right and left, then your outline, alas, is not keeping up with you and won’t be a good guide to estimate wordcount.

Don’t let you outline boss you around, but DO keep it updated. If you have a fabulous new idea for a subplot, or a minor character turns out to be super-important, not just a spear-carrier, put the new scenes you’ll need into your outline so you can tell if you’re still in control of the novel’s final wordcount.

What if you find your novel is veering way off course, growing to unwieldy length or staying stubbornly anorexic? I’ll present some suggestions for shortening or lengthening your novel while in mid-draft in tomorrow’s tip.

If you prefer these Tips as an ebook you can buy it here for $0.99:

 

Cutting Your Golden Prose

This was one of my seed scenes, and the except I’ve had up until now on my NaNoWriMo page for my novel October Knight. Now it looks like it might not make it into the novel. I tried really hard to work my Outline around to include it, until I realized that’s what I was doing–twisting my Outline into knots to save my Golden Prose.

Argh.
One of the most important (and most difficult) parts of writing is letting go of scenes we love when they don’t forward the project. I publish it here as I bid it goodbye.

On my way to second period, I stepped in a foul, bubbling puddle of black goo which had oozed from another dimension. The veil between the dimensions thins in October, and this was a gunk, an evil enchantment, from a lower plane. A gunk is never good news, so I hopped away and shook foot as hard as I could, despite the annoyed looks from the other kids in the quad. I desperately hoped the gunk would involve only mild annoyance, like being forced to choose between my soul and my firstborn, rather than something life-shattering, like acne.
My left sneaker came alive and started eating my foot. Wtf? I hate that.
I’m as manly as the next guy, so I did not scream. I screeched like a vuvuzela at a Spanish football match. I had never wondered before why no one equips sneakers with teeth, and it was less of a mystery than ever. Teeth in shoes in a bad, bad idea. I tore off the shoe and threw it across the hall. But you know how it is with spells. They never leave well enough alone. Monster Shoe fixated on me. Using its shoelaces like legs, it began running after me. The top and sole of the shoe opened to reveal huge venomous fangs. My left foot was bloody from the first bite, and it hurt to run. But I ran. I ran like hell. Or, more accurately, I ran from hell, a little shoe-shaped piece of it. Monster Shoe skittered after me.
Other kids noticed and began to jeer. Whatever had activated the gunk was not from this world, but Monster Shoe was alive here and now, and the other students could all see it hounding me. Five or six of them whipped out their camera phones and began filming the chase to post online. I heard bets about whether Monster Shoe would kill me or just gnaw my leg off. They rooted for a kill. That’s how it is at my school. People really care about what happens to you.
When you’re being chased by homicidal hellspawned footwear, one emotion crowds out any other lesser considerations from your mind, one single terror-stricken thought obsesses you: This is really embarrassing.

I never trash discarded scenes. They may yet rise again to wander the earth devouring brains serve a useful purpose, if not in this novel then perhaps…in a sequel!

Rys Rising Blog Tour and Giveaway

I’m excited to be a stop on the Feel Real Fantasy blog tour celebrating the completion of the Rys Rising series by Tracy Falbe. Here’s an excerpt from the first novel, Rys Rising.

This scene takes place in the city of Jingten. It is a remote colony where tabre magic masters have bred a new race of magical beings called rys. The tabre tightly control the small rys population, and the leader Daykash Breymer has decided to use corporeal punishment against Onja. The rys Dacian watches as the brutality unfolds…

Onja said no more, and the Daykash ordered that the charge be officially read against her. A Nebakarz priest named Dutan stepped forward. He lifted a small wafer thin disc of stone upon which was inscribed the charge. Willful wandering the tabre legal system called it. 

Then her sentence was read. She was to endure eight strokes of the phliamel. Although rumor had already informed all gathered what the sentence would be, discomfort still rippled through the assembled rys upon hearing the sentence.  

A priest, named Angpar who was young and just advanced from being an acolyte, stepped out from behind the Daykash and held out the thin long stick that was split three times at one end where crystals were attached. The thinness of the stick gave it springiness so that its crystal-barbed splinters could deliver a whip-like sting. 

Breymer said, “Long centuries ago, before tabre had fully come to master and appreciate the orderly joys of civilization, harsh methods were employed to teach us discipline. I have decided that the use of the phlia-mel has become necessary again because the rys are a young breed and, as this female has shown, have need of discipline.” 

No one among the hundreds of rys said anything, but Dacian could feel the collective protest caged all around him. He felt he should say something. Ask for mercy at least, but so many things held him back. Was he wrong to question his elders? Did he want to jeopardize his future as a Nebakarz? Did he have any reason to risk himself on account of this female who ignored the law? 

“Begin,” was all the Daykash said, and the two priests who had escorted Onja earlier swiftly grabbed her again and pushed her to her knees. Angpar walked around the trio and regarded his subject. He shook the phlia-mel once so that all could see the spring in the rod, and then he reached down and yanked off her cloak and whipped it aside. He seemed eager to have at her. 

Onja’s clothing was meager. She wore only a small vest and shorts and her lower back was already properly exposed. Dacian could see the muscles in her back tense in anticipation of the abuse, but she did not look over her shoulder at her punisher.  

Angpar raised the phlia-mel, but his eagerness faded for a moment, and he contemplated his next action as if he suddenly realized that the world would change when he lowered his arm. Then his self righteousness returned and he swung at the rys female hard. The crystal barbs flashed with white light when they struck Onja’s blue skin and her cry mixed with the meaty thwap of the rod hitting her. She lunged forward automatically but her handlers yanked her back in place. 

Many rys cried out or gasped, and some turned away, and before anyone could recover from their disgust, Angpar hit her again. The Daykash fixed an emotionless gaze on Onja. Dacian could not see her face but he imagined her grimace.  

Dacian looked at Halor urgently. His lips trembled with outrage. “Stop this,” he begged. 

“It will be over soon,” Halor said woodenly. His eyes insisted on obedience.  

When the third blow fell, Onja’s cry was louder. Dacian heard her take a deep breath to brace herself for the next stroke. As she filled her lungs with this painful gasp, Dacian felt all his rational reasons for standing by collapse like a hillside soaked by torrential rain. He looked at the tabre priests and acolytes lined up on both sides of him. They watched the punishment raptly. Where was their compassion for her suffering? They were all civilized creatures, but Dacian realized that their values did not entirely extend to their much-maligned rys cousins. They would watch Onja endure eight strokes from the phlia-mel and agree with the Daykash that it was necessary and proper. Civilization required order but was brutality the only path to that end?  

Angpar gave Onja her fourth stroke. Her sentence was half complete.  

“Stop!” Dacian shouted. He rushed forward and felt Halor grab him but he shook him off and moved toward Angpar. 

He spun Angpar away from the female and then shoved his chest so that he fell on his butt. Dacian’s magic erupted. The crystals of the phlia-mel disintegrated in three successive blue flashes and the old wood of the rod burst into flames. His next spell cracked the domux and it fell off Onja’s wrists. Its enchanted crystals lost their power and faded to pebbles. 

As the tabre holding Onja shifted to intervene with Dacian, he raised both of his hands into their faces. They were swept backwards off their feet by the hot blasting force of his attack spell. 

Onja had collapsed forward and she was trying to push herself up but the pain in her back was nearly paralyzing. Purple bleeding blisters ravaged her sleek youthful back. She looked over her shoulder at Dacian. Agony twisted her tear-streaked face, but gratitude radiated from her eyes, and he could believe that she would honor him forever.  

“Onja,” he whispered, casting his mind toward her thoughts, her soul. He felt her lifeforce. It was hot and powerful, too powerful for her to have endured this gross mistreatment. 

Distracted entirely by the sight of his downtrodden damsel, Dacian had no shield spell ready when the magic of the Daykash netted him. The spells of many tabre priests piled on next, and Dacian could not move. His legs began to wobble and the blood in his veins became hot and painful. 

Dacian summoned his power and began to untangle the spells gripping his body. In this crisis, he suddenly realized that he could throw off their attacks. He was very powerful. He would teach them not to abuse a rys female for a petty infraction.  

Halor was shouting for him and pushing his way through the tabre. But it was not the voice of his Master that got through to Dacian’s enraged mind. It was her voice. 

“Do not fight them,” Onja said. “Not yet.” 

Dacian looked at her again. She had managed to roll onto her side, and her call to patience intrigued him. Not yet? What does she mean? Dacian thought. Even without an answer, he would do as she asked. He relaxed and the spells of the tabre bit into him vindictively. Defenseless again, Dacian crumbled in pain. 

Halor put his arms around his pupil. “Enough!” he called. “Enough. Stop!” Then in a softer voice he spoke to Dacian. “Yield. Do nothing, I beg you.”  

Dacian nodded and was not ungrateful for the protective embrace of his Master.

Tracy Falbe invites you to give her characters a chance to feel real to you. The Rys Rising fantasy series is driven by magic, passion, bravery, ambition, conquest, and defeat. Rys Rising: Book I is a free ebook and hopefully your gateway to an epic reading experience.

Start reading Rys Rising for free and enter the prize drawing for a $25 Etsy gift card!
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NaNoWriMo Tip #17: Why You Should Learn To Think In Wordcount

A Boyd’s rainforest dragon (Hypsilurus boydii)

These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works.

Remember when your teacher told you to write a report on gladiolas that had to be ten pages long, so you changed the margins to 2 inches and the font to fourteen point Gils Sans Ultra Bold and BINGOyou had a ten page paper? Yeah, you really fooled her! She never saw that trick before, you sly fox.

But guess what, you can’t fool yourself. You know that page count doesn’t mean squat, so stop calculating how much you’re writing every day by page count. Page count is easily manipulated; it changes based on a million factors. There’s an entire profession devoted to manipulating page count, called a typesetter.

What doesn’t change is word count.

Different genres have different ideal word counts. A children’s chapter book is about 6,000 words. A Young Adult novel or a category romance is about 75,000 words. An adult thriller is about 90,000. A fantasy tome is 120,000 plus.

Nobody says, “A fantasy has five hundred pages” because that’s meaningless. A Young Adult novel may have large type and a padded word count to make it look heftier; a fantasy blockbuster might use a dense, elfin font to squeeze twice that number of words into the same size book so it doesn’t break the bank to print it.

Ebooks, by the way, make these games irrelevant. The reader controls the font size. The writer controls…word count.

It’s weird, at first, trying to think in word count, but there’s an easy way to train yourself to grasp it intuitively. As you type, look for the Tool in your word processing program that says Word Count. In MS Word, it’s in the drop-down menu under Tools. Select a paragraph, check the word count. Select a page, check the word count. Select an entire chapter, check the word count. Write down how many words are in each scene and chapter after you finish it. 

Pretty soon you will be able to plan in word count. “I need three more 1000 word scenes.” You’ll be aim for a certain word count before you even begin a book. You’ll know that in a 90,000 word novel with thirty chapters, each chapter needs to hit 3,000 words. If you know you write longer scenes that tend to be 6,000 words each, you’ll know already that you’re going to want only 15 chapters. Or, if your scenes run only 1,500 words, you might have 60 chapters.

In The Unfinished Song, for instance, I have a set number of chapters that remains constant for each book. There are seven chapters, period. Within the chapter, I have between ten and twelve separately labeled scenes of about 1000 words each. Toward the beginning of the book, I write longer scenes. Toward the end, I shorten the scenes to pick up the pace of the action. The overall word count of the chapter, however, doesn’t change, so when I write shorter scenes, I know I’m also going to have more of them.

I also know how many words I have to write per day in order to finish a book in a given amount of time. Like NaNoWriMo.

I didn’t always write so deliberately. When I started out, I just tossed out the scene and let it plop out however it happened to land. This may sound great, but often the result was a mess, with long, dull scenes growing up right when I needed to have sleek, swift scenes, and choppy short scenes when I didn’t want them. Learning to think in word count helped me tame this confusion and plan my novels—and my work day—every day.

Sticking to the Plan

You know how you give yourself excellent advice and then ignore it?

In other news, hows your NaNoWriMo novel going? Because, yeah, mine is whacked. I’ve written 10,000 words (two chapters) but have come up against the fact that I’ve ignored my own Outline-First plan and jumped into the writing too quickly. I was having so much fun with the story that I became carried away and rushed ahead blindly. But of course, then I slammed into a wall.

So sad, Tara. So sad.

The answer? More brainstorming of course!

Actually, it’s not surprising I’m having trouble, because what’s tripping me up is the mystery subplot. In keeping with the advice from the How To Write Mystery books I’ve been reading, I wrote my villain’s plot first: how the murderer committed the crime and covered it up, etc.

However, I’ve had a few problems:

1.) My Bad Guy backstory wasn’t sufficiently detailed. I sketched it vaguely, leaving too many details to fall into place on their own. Guess what? They didn’t. I need to figure them out.

2.) I haven’t taken my Bad Guy seriously enough. The Bad Guy has to be cunning and clever and driving the plot forward almost as much as the hero.

3.) My outline introduced my mystery plot too late and ends it too early. Since the primary genre of my book is fantasy, I will introduce/conclude the mystery later/earlier respectively than in a pure Mystery novel. But I left only the middle of the novel for the mystery plot.

I have Plot Bunching. That’s what occurs when plot bunches like wrinkled socks, with too much in one spot and bare ankles elsewhere. Bare ankles always make a novel look awkward!

I have some tough choices to make. Do I pare down much of my Act I plot lines, including the characters who are introduced, or do I pare down the mystery plot? It would be easier to do the latter, but I feel it would be the cheap way out… also my stand-alone book might turn into a trilogy.

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