Word Counts and Motivation

Sometimes, like with weight loss, people get a little too obsessed with the numbers in writing. Can't say I haven't been there, but it's an old habit from my college days and one I don't feel inhibits the process.

The guideline for most fiction novels is widely stated to be 80K, which I always hold to be the minimum especially on the first book in a series.  Fantasy is usually given the green light for 120K or more. Intermediate children's books and pulp romance often ends up as low as 35K. If you're self-publishing, psh, the max page count of whatever service you use is really the only limit. I think CreateSpace's limit is in the 700-something page range, which even at a big font with adequate spacing can still put you past 300K to accomplish so it's hardly a limit unless you're trying to squish up a big compilation into one volume.

Math, sorry... but it's important math for any aspiring author. The limits I mention outside of self-publishing are where you're looking to land for traditional publishers and agents. You'll notice a big series like Harry Potter started off modest, but once Rowling got the green light, those books got much bigger. Nevertheless, if you're looking to take advantage of traditional publishing to market you, knowing the standards is important in the beginning.  Your first book is your business card so they want to see you can both write a decent novel-length story and not take up gobs of their time while they are actively seeing if you're worth taking out of the slush pile.

Word counts, though; what else are they good for? I like to use them to get a good feel for how I want to divide up scenes. In UnNamed, I introduced a lot of side characters that needed a face. I wrote the bulk of the book, made it to about 76.5K words and decided to go back and humanize some of those characters. So I set a word count on the five characters that needed a little boost, giving each of them an approximate scene addition of 2K each. I did the same for the epilogue at the end-- get it up to about 5K.

It seems to be a common writer issue where some writers just get too beefy.  I believe King has a personal rule of 'first draft - 10%', meaning if his draft is at 100K, he makes it a point to chop about 10K. However, all of my works aren't built the same and I often find my first counts underwhelming while I'm pounding through central ideas.  Some scenes get colorful and detailed, others read like 'there's this guy and he's gonna be important but we'll come back to that'. 

While I was poring through my first draft, I found it much more productive to mark spots where I could elaborate without too much side-tracking, once I'd gotten to know their roles better over the course of that first sweep. I didn't take time dissecting chapter counts or parts.  Part I is substantial.  Part II is definitely the biggest, and Part III?  Pretty little actually; more like a chapter than anything. However, the division I chose holds importance in the flow.  The epilogue was reserved for leading the end of this book into the next, so it's pretty much a separate story with a few familiar faces popping up.

I do like to break convention, but I certainly don't go out of my way to do it. Generally, I can agree that you shouldn't be a slave to word count. However, you do have to consider what you want for your work. If you're free or self-publishing, obviously you have more freedom to toss around. There are plenty of authors who use free publishing but make a killing on donations. I wouldn't expect this to be the norm unless you do have a day-job that pays the bills. The popularity of your work is never guaranteed, so how you brand your work can be a part of whether it succeeds or fails.  Some works are successful giving your audience the ability to choose your worth. It's not typical and it can look like a lack of confidence, but that sort of perception can clearly be countered. Put a price on something and you have different concerns, such as the piracy of your work, whether people think it's fairly priced, etc. Back to word count here, but popularity can also depend on length.  You may want to consider whether your target audience likes short bits or epic tomes. This may not exactly be a matter of word count, but if you're finding it slow-moving, this may come up in reviews or comments.

Let's switch over to a little motivation...  A lot of people seem to wonder where I get it from. I've been a squishy can of worms, hesitating on getting anything done for years.  I called it a block but the ideas were always there; the confidence, not so much. Did I have the right words?  The right skills in art?  Even after achieving two degrees in graphic design with honors, I had those days where I questioned my abilities. I couldn't improve when I wasn't finishing anything and I wasn't improving or sharing. Even lacking confidence, I just wanted to share SOMETHING, anything. Starting small can help you warm up into a workflow and confidence.

Plenty of writers get jealous over 'lazy successes' (like poorly written novels like Twilight and 50 Shades or short poorly-drawn comics about everyday life). I've been there, but in some ways it's been motivational.  You do want to keep your integrity and your visions, of course, but frequency can play a role.  For some of us, those short stories and short comics STILL take up gobs of time, but not so much as the big projects and they offer exposure. You may want to take advantage of some of those exposure sites for your smaller works: DeviantArt, Soundcloud, Line WebToon, Wattpad, all great places for artists to protect and post projects of any size to drum up interest. Yes, it can be extremely unnerving when you start comparing successes or telling yourself you might deserve it more, but these people are often lucky or just diverse enough that something strikes gold on the many, many social outlets they use to find their audience. Until you create a demand, those months and years of working on bigger projects aren't going to guarantee your successes, but they will have valuable lessons. You can keep striking until the iron is hot, but if you lose motivation, you may need to make some mini-breaks to refresh your course. Shorter competitions, awards, there are plenty of other things to work for while trying to find that coveted fanbase.

That doesn't mean you have to work for that eye-rolling 'exposure'. You'll always get people that think they can define the value of that for you and those people are usually looking to benefit from your work while subtly devaluing you and exploiting it for their own purposes.  YOU decide what exposure will be valuable. Your best bet is to use protected public social sites, some with the incentive of income opportunities if you achieve a certain number of subscribers.  Don't do 'exposure' work if you can't afford it, either in time or money. Don't be so eager to slap your name on everything if you don't feel it will benefit your goals.  You'll find that motivation is much harder to come by when you're slave to what someone else thinks you should be doing.  Do those things if you're curious or stand to gain something from the experience.  

One thing I always found discouraging was leaping into a project that someone else was way more excited about. It's not that I don't have interest in collaborating with some people; if they are patient, often I will find the inspiration after my own priorities are taken care of. Currently I have a handful of solo projects that may keep me very busy for a couple of years. If someone has put an idea by me that I really like, it can take years for me to get back to them. If your one big passion project relies on someone else to collaborate with you, you may want to take on some smaller projects rather than badgering them. Hell, it might influence them to get on board sooner if they see you are actively working on improving too.  Some of us just get worried we'll get suckered into work where we're doing most of the actual labor involved.  That can be anti-motivational. 

If you have a proposal, write it out, plan the project with division of labor considering the amount of time everyone might be putting in, even the division of pay in accordance with the effort. You might be screwing yourself out of a working partner if you want 50/50 but your output is 80/20. It's always helpful to an artist if you have a solid grasp of these things before wanting to dive in. For one person, it may just be an idea they've been playing with, but the other person may need some solid motivation to rely on someone else.

You can find motivation everywhere, some things very simple like a soundtrack while you're working but other things might include security and contracts. Everything about creation is not flighty and fun, but you don't want it to be just work either.  Motivation can often be about adjusting expectations. If you've been working too hard, you may need to make it lighter so you don't burn out or you may need a break altogether.  If you feel things have been moving too slow or you're not doing enough, you may need to restructure and reprioritize to achieve some of the things that aren't progressing. Motivation to do one thing is sometimes about stepping away until those ideas you want so badly come back to you. Even the most well-planned projects can peter out. Even with deadlines, try to plan for those. I usually give deadlines twice the actual project time it will take. If there are any setbacks, blocks or breaks needed, that is what I make the time allowance for.  Sometimes I can be a machine and get something done in the shorter time, but stress to finish can be a motivational killer.

In personal news and to finish up, UnNamed is pretty much wrapped up during NaNoWriMo, putting my final WC at nearly 90K with nearly 55K done for NNWM itself. I'm hoping my readers/fans/ family will support the campaign to get publishers interested in my work. Production values will get bumped up from my current self-publishing projects and I hope I can start getting some bonus swag going for early adopters. What I can offer my readers will increase with my ability to financially invest in my projects, so as always, if you want to see what an artist is capable of, be sure to donate or preorder!  I'm excited to get things moving.  

Thanks for reading and keep writing.