tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post4951739353536719577..comments2024-03-28T05:23:34.861-05:00Comments on Pretentious Title: Writing Wednesdays: How Long Should Your Story Be?Rachel Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13917123007610750274noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467549889510324132.post-34850003108282719822015-05-27T09:32:06.711-05:002015-05-27T09:32:06.711-05:00Rachel
This is super helpful. I, too, love the fre...Rachel<br />This is super helpful. I, too, love the freedom that comes from not having to stick to the hard-and-fast trad pub word counts, but it really is a danger for me. I'm long-winded at the best of times, and having to cut makes me tighten up. Putting on my reader hat doesn't help in my case, because I looooove long books. Give me a door-stopper, in pretty much any genre, and even better a series of them? I'm in heaven. I was reading some reviews lately of the Expanse SF series by James S.A. Corey and several reviewers said they were too long--that's one of the things I love about them, long and richly-textured.<br /><br />Since I know I have a tendency to love those twisty, meandering plots, and I don't tend to see them as digressions or unnecessary, I have to be even more careful. I'll be relying on my critique partners and beta-readers a lot for that. But I'm still not letting myself go over 115k for a final draft on my book, with the hope of cutting it down to 100 or 105. It's only the first of three, so it's not as painful as it could be.<br /><br />Your two-bird rule (or Eli's...) is helping me right now try to combine some scenes, less for overall word count than for structural integrity, but it's still a VERY helpful strategy!<br />Nicole Montgomeryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05965868885700569766noreply@blogger.com