This guy was kind enough yesterday to help me out with a technical problem I was having with Word. Please check out his FB page and website. If you need proofreading done I highly recommend him. I thought I would return the favor by singing his praises across all the social media networks I’m active on.
How Many Words to Word My Way to a Novella?
How many novels would a novelist novel if a, err, doesn’t really work. Anyway, I mentioned in an earlier article that I belong to a lot of Facebook groups and hear a lot of the same questions over and over.
I often hear writers ask, “How long does it take to write a novel?” Or, “How long should a novel be?” My original article was intentionally snarky, but I felt like these questions deserved at least a serious attempt at an answer.
The second one is pretty easy to answer. If you plan on Indie Publishing, it doesn’t matter as much, but I would still make it at least 50,000 words long before I would call it a novel. 17,500–49,000 for a novella.
But if you plan on submitting it to literary agents or publishers then 70–80k is a safe bet in most cases. Always check the submission guidelines though before sending any query letters.
The quick answer to the first question is, “It varies from writer to writer.” Some can knock out a 100k word novel every three months, others might spend years to produce a 25k novella.
Math, oh no that dreaded thing with numbers that writers like myself fear and hate, can help break it down for you though.
Don’t worry though, someone far better at math than me already did it all for us and threw it up on the internet where it can be easily found verified with Google. The catch though is that the math is going to vary by individuals as well. Luckily I have one thoroughly tested guinea pig novelist I know very well, mainly me!
So when I write and things are really flowing well I can usually pump out around 1000 words an hour, a little more when I handwrite stuff. Googling the math tells me that at this pace if I can keep it up every day, can land me a 75kk word first draft in about 2.5 months.
The truth though is I usually can’t keep up this pace for 2.5 months. I write best in 20-minute chunks of time. I have learned 500 words a day is a good goal for me. I can knock out 500 words in one 15–20-minute sitting. If I feel
inspired I can do this several times a day at least. And I’m planning on putting this one to the test in a big way in about a month.
The problem here though is even though I can definitely pound out a novel-length manuscript in 5 months pretty easily at the 500 words/20 minutes a day pace more than likely I’m going to render a stinking heap of confusing gibberish that won’t be worth the years it would take to struggle through an edit to make it a readable first draft.
A tool that helps me with this is an outline. How to make an outline again varies from writer to writer. There are a lot of great articles you can find all about it though.
Personally, I like very simple and skeletal outlines that I build on as I go.Usually, they only include the opening scene of the first chapter, a few scenes for the middle chapters and a final scene as a place holder since it will most likely change by the time the first draft is finished. I also use a very loose timeline, short descriptions of the main characters, and various plot notes that I add as I go along. If I’m writing Sci Fi or Cyberpunk I will also keep a list of terminology I make up as well. I found this saves me a tremendous amount of time when it is time to edit and proofread my novel.
As a side note I should mention that I write fiction much faster than I write non-fiction for some reason. This 690 word or so article (so far) has taken me the better part of a day to write. A similar length flash fiction piece would probably only take me 20–40 minutes max to write. thought I would mention it just in case you decide to try and write some non-fiction and suddenly find the speed of your writing has changed dramatically.
So that’s a brief little description of my method for getting the stories out of my head and on to the page. Every writer will have their own unique methods in the end, but I hope some of what I do will be useful for those of you thinking about attempting a novel.
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in books • 21 hours ago
Satori in the Slipstream
$0.99 ON AMAZON AND OTHER PLACES NOW! A Great Little Collection of Short Stories at a Great Price!!!!
Satori in the Slipstream is a collection of dark stories that will take you to those places where the brutal clarity of truth is sometimes revealed. Follow the tales of a young woman in Japan trying to find herself in a Buddhist temple, a junkie street artist trying to draw away his demons with is art, a Japanese soldier confronting the horrific destruction and death in Hiroshima, a young hustler on the streets saying goodbye to his dead friend, and an office lady in Japan contemplating suicide from her 18 story apartment. All these stories in more.
ebooks
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HLWJ88L
https://www.books2read.com/u/mZP7ap
Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1731214944
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/1731214944
Something Gaijin This Way Comes
$0.99 ON AMAZON AND OTHER PLACES NOW! A Great Little Collection of Short Stories at a Great Price!!!!
FREE BOOK HERE NOW! A Great Little Collection of Short Stories!
Broken, blistered, and busted tales about life in Japan. Take a look into the darker seedier side, an old woman waits to die in the summer heat, a homeless man flees Japan rather do prison time, an old man argues with his wife and things go really bad. These stories and many more.
Ebook Pre-order
https://www.books2read.com/u/boZkRR
$0.99 ON AMAZON AND OTHER PLACES NOW! A Great Little Collection of Short Stories at a Great Price!!!!
Fly Fishing Out of a Dead End Life
FREE BOOK HERE NOW! A Great Little Collection of Short Stories!
A small collection of short stories, flash fiction, and haibun. A young man escapes from a rough life through his passion for fly fishing. A man reflects on how fly fishing, anger, and meditation have impacted his life. An old man tries to decide whether to try and reconnect with his son or chase his dream of catching a trophy salmon. A businessman who had little time for family bitterly reflects on his life while on a fishing trip. A man fly fishing in the high desert of Eastern Washington tries to capture in words the powerful spiritual beauty of the land and sport.
Ebook
https://www.books2read.com/u/3L02le
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JMFW3LM
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07JMFW3LM
*Paperback (NOT FREE)
In Transit
In Transit
You drowse in the rhythm of the
JR train’s click
over the tracks
opening your eyes briefly as
the train hushes
into another station.
This half-consciousness,
more like forced meditation
on an icy morning
than real sleep;
you draw out a long over
due yawn as
Koizume Station drifts past.
With eyes now open,
green and alien to
the dominating browns
you watch for your stop
through the window.
A row of half sleeping Japanese,
faces tight as concrete, are
reflected back at you
in the window.
You wonder why the softness of a
child’s nap always alludes
them on the sleepy
late afternoon trains.
Kokobancho Street
Kokobancho Street from my collection of poems “The Dead Along the River Speak to Me”.
https://store.kobobooks.com/…/the-dead-along-the-river-spea…
RIP Pat Conroy
I was very sad to hear Pat Conroy passed away over the weekend. He was one of my favorite authors. I don’t think it is a stretch to say he was one of the great Southern writers right up there with Faulkner, O’Connor, and Lee. This part of my collection. I have The Boo and The Water is Wide somewhere, but they seem to be buried somewhere in my bookshelf right now. I haven’t read “My Losing Season” yet, but I intend to soon.
For any writers out there looking for a model to help them learn how to write descriptions Pat Conroy’s novels are a fine teacher.
Myths about litmag submissions
A really great blog post about being realistic about your lit mag submissions.
http://themfayears.com/2016/01/31/some-myths-about-your-litmag-submissions/
100 Word Micro-Fictions
A couple of 100 word Micro-fictions
No god, no? ”
Hallelujah,” the crowd roared. And the minister let her drift with John the Baptist and Jesus. She let the illusion sweep over her. Life had beat the atheism deep into her, the junkie shakes, no god no, husband’s teeth busting fists, no god no, death of, um um, that hurt, no god no, but a big old hole. She was going to float in it, real or not. Then he drew her out of the water and she felt his hands on her breasts and saw that “come on girl” flash in his eyes, no god, no god.
White Swan Freedom
The stairs were hard on his crippled feet. The apartment building was glacially cold and ugly as frostbitten toes. But it wasn’t White Swan. The Boeviks fighting amongst themselves had left the walls peppered and fresh blood stains covered their execution wall at the bottom of the staircase. But it didn’t bother him. He simply wore a tank top whenever he went into the basement exposing the Vor stars tattooed on both shoulders. Their vendettas didn’t concern him anymore. Only shooting Afghanistan into his veins to escape White Swan memories mattered.
SOTU
asamuraisunsettwisted 