30 November 2008
New chapters finished
Finally finished the second of the new chapters last night (tentatively titled "Clusterfuck" and "Antimatter Monday"). They both ran longer than I wanted (around 12,000 words each), but I think I can get away with that, though bringing the final draft in at ~100,000 now seems impossible; there's just not that much fat left to trim anywhere else. I'll start editing the last chapters today, though how much work I actually get done is an open question.
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2 comments:
If it gets the story told without extra fat, clocking in at significantly more than 100,000 words is just fine. IMNSHO, of course.
Well, 120,000 is pretty much a hard upper limit for a first novel no matter how lean it is. You can't sell anything longer unless you have a proven track record (or can break it into a series, which I've been determined from the beginning not to do). But I'm absolutely certain now I won't hit 120. I probably won't even hit 110.
I guess I'm using the word count as a measure of the tightness of the story. At this point, I know this story. I could probably recite half the damn thing from memory. So I have a good idea what word count is "tight" and what is "bloated" or "rushed". 100 would be so tight it hummed, but I don't think I'm skilled enough to trim that much fat. If I can keep it under 105, I'll congratulate myself and call it a day.
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