As I sit here outlining the chapter that ends in the first big plot twist, one that will surely make everyone go "WTF?!", possibly even to the point of quitting the book out of its insane randomness, my mind started wandering to things it shouldnt be. Things such as word count.
Ive never written a novel before, so I have no idea how long this will turn out to be. The goal for Nanowrimo is 50,000 words. I'd prefer at least 65,000 words. Average novel length I think gets up around 80,000 or more depending on the genre.
At the moment, though, Im not too worried about novel length. Rather, I was thinking more about the length of my outline. Again, having never written a novel, I have no idea if I can mathematically calculate an average length for my novel based on my outline. An amateur's guess is "double" the words, but it will likely be higher than that (I like to play it conservative). I just want to have an outline that is long enough to be transformed into a full novel.
So... the only thing I have to go by is my full outline for book five. I'd written it up in college, and from what I'd remembered of it, it was massive. Sitting here working on book one, I decided against better judgement to go back to the other outline to see how many words it was.
To my shock and amazement, the full outline was a paltry 10.5K words. Im less than 4K away from that mark and I still dont feel I've reached Act 2 yet. Im still in the beginning of the story. Granted, after the next couple chapters I'll be in the middle. But I just cant believe that the outline I'm working on now is going to trounce the other one a few times over.
Im not sure what that says about these outlines. Either Im getting way too detailed with my current one, or the other outline was garbage. Personally I'd like to think the other outline was very amateurish. That story needed a lot of molding, and thats why I ultimately jumped back in time four books to help flesh out the characters and story behind it all.
It will be years before I ever get back to book five, so for now I'm going to keep it out of my head. But I certainly am very excited to get in there and spruce it back up.
And that was what I was trying to articulate to myself by writing this. My excitement for rewriting the book five outline doesnt have to go unquenched. Once I finish the outline for book one, its going to get a rewrite. And then the book itself will get its first draft in November. There is nothing but exciting times ahead, and it starts with this afternoon.
Stop worrying about word count. Start worrying about what Elena/Aidan are going to do after their meeting gets cancelled. Then worry even more about their conversation after the plot twist occurs.
