\n| Life is short, but snakes are long.<\/i><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019re merrily typing along and your novel starts to deviate wildly from your outline. By itself, this is no disaster. It\u2019s not unlikely that what you\u2019re writing in the heat of inspiration is better than your pallid outline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n The one thing you are most likely to lose control of, especially if you\u2019re 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\u2019d be writing a 20 page paper for school and couldn\u2019t figure out how to stretch it past 10 pages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n 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\u2019ll have to add; if it\u2019s too high, you\u2019ll have to cut. The hard part is knowing how to add and subtract from your story in a way that doesn\u2019t change it into another book entirely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n First Question: Shouldn\u2019t you just allow your story to be whatever length it needs to be?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n The short answer: Yes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Duh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n The long answer: The hard part is knowing what length it needs to be. If you\u2019re 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\u2019re not in control of your story. It\u2019s not writing an epic that was a problem, it was that it came as a surprise to me. Of course, I was a \u201cpantser\u201d in those days (I\u2019m convinced 95% of most supposed pantsers are just writers who haven\u2019t 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\u2019d known how to complete a solid 70,000 word novel rather than wallow in an incomplete 180,000 word behemoth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n 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\u2019t recommend it. If you want a traditional contract, you have to follow the wordcount guidelines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Second Question: I\u2019m trying to write 50,000 words by the end of the month, and you want me to CUT?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n The short answer: No.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n The long answer: Yes. Eventually. Don\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n If you want \u201ccredit\u201d for the hard work you\u2019ve done this month, go ahead and include your outline and your excess scenes in your wordcount. It\u2019s a good reminder of how much of a writer\u2019s work goes on before and between the scenes. You deserve to pat yourself on the back for not skipping those steps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n On the other hand, if you don\u2019t care to much about the official deadline, or you\u2019re not worried about finishing, and you want to use the NaNo wordcount program to only measure the actual progress on your novel, that\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n What you should never, never do is knowingly \u201cpad\u201d your wordcount with lame scenes, just to meet the wordcount deadline. That wouldn\u2019t fool an editor or a reader, so why are you trying to fool yourself? You do yourself no favors thereby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Third Question: Isn\u2019t there some leeway, even for commercial novels, when it comes to final word count?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n The short answer: Yes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n The long answer: Within reason. It\u2019s 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 should<\/i>be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m writing a YA urban fantasy, and I don\u2019t have to worry about imprint specifications, but I still have a narrow range of wordcounts I will accept. So wordcount brackets look like this:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Minimum: 60,000<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Target: 70,000<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Maximum: 80,000<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n As you can see, I haven\u2019t 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\u2019s a holiday book and I don\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019s deliberately short; plus, it notoriously ends on a cliffhanger, so it\u2019s short in part because it\u2019s, well, unfinished.) <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n 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. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n 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\u2019re writing the first book in a saga, you won\u2019t be trapped into that wordcount forever (but shorter is better because it\u2019s easier to grow longer later than the obverse). If you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Depending on the book, I might not be so constrained. I have another book, sf, which I\u2019ll write sometime, and the world brackets look like this:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n Minimum: 45,000<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Target: 90,000<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Maximum: 140,000<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n That\u2019s such a loose range it\u2019s crazy. Probably once I hunker down and start outlining the project, I\u2019ll settle on a more specific length. Really, though, for this particular story, I\u2019m more interested in conveying the hard science and sociological theme of the book than I am concerned about whether it\u2019s 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\u2019s not a concern either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n |
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