Okay, I'm taking another look at Sunder's 90,000 word projection. As it stands now, I have 16,000 words and Clay, the guy we're rooting for, has yet to meet his Samwise Gamgee, Mark Raft. I'm now writing chapter six which turns out to be the place where I had thought I'd be by the end of chapter three according to my outline. Things seem to be getting a bit deeper than I anticipated at this point. You still with me, amigo?
My point is that I've got several more chapters to write in part one which is the shortest section of Sunder's three parts and I've already completed a sixth of the projected word count. Now imagine this, part two* is supposed to fill about half the book. That doesn't take into account part three which will have all the super cool big bang answers to life, the universe, and etc.
Crap, do you think I may have underestimated the length by just a tad?
*That's the part with all the nasty zombies I've been promising.
Well it sounds as if you're doing very well indeed, and at this stage I wouldn't worry at all if the first draft ends up much longer than you'd planned - it would be much better than being, for example, 20,000 words short :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tanya.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably more surprised than worried. Sunder is such a simplistic tale that I just didn't expect to find so much intrinsic plot material to write about.
You're certainly right about preferring too much to write about rather than too little or, worse yet, having 20,000 words of pointless filler.