Tag: outline

50k.

On By pauljandrewIn Writing ProgressLeave a comment

Yep, skipped right over any possible Warhammer jokes and went to 50,000 words. I don’t have much to say about it really, beyond that I felt very little as the wordcount tipped over last night.  I got a very tiny jolt of “Oh, that happened.  I guess that’s a thing that I did.” and then it was gone.

Granted, that particular number was never the intended finish line, and only serves as the loosest basis of the idea of a halfway point.  There’s still a lot of mountain to climb, after all.

So, looking onward from this point what have I got left to do?  I’ve moved all of my players onto trajectories that will lead to THE END in one way or another, and that is actually kind of exciting.  I’m still skeptical about reaching 100,000 words with this draft though.  Not that missing that target would be the end of the world, I could end up with a tighter and more concise 90,000 word novel and I suppose I’d be just fine with that.

Alas, I think my brain is starting to get ahead of me.  Reality check, I’m still only halfway through a first draft.  I’ve still thousands of words to go, and revisions and rewrites on top of that.  Back to it, I reckon.

 

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7 Days, 7k

On By pauljandrewIn Writing ProgressLeave a comment

Well I’m seven days into my rush to the end and I’m seven thousand words closer to it.  It’s forced me to think a bit outside of my outline and start making some decisions I’ve been putting off.

The biggest problem with my outline is that while the first 3rd of the book is pretty detailed, it gets progressively less so the deeper I get.  The second act is largely hashed out, but things are popping up that I hadn’t considered early on and I’ve been finding myself scrambling to address them in the best way possible.

Due to this issue I’m finding myself about 60% through my outline and only sitting at about 47000 words.  Which doesn’t exactly work out if you’re planning a 100,000 word novel.  So, I’m getting creative (as creative types are wont to do) and finding things I can expand upon, plotlines I can further develop, characters I can play with a bit more, to fill out what I’ve been shooting for.

After all, plot is about characters overcoming interesting problems in interesting ways.   So when all else fails give the character more problems to deal with.