New writers:
Don’t let word count get in the way of your progress. It’s acceptable to focus on quality instead of quantity when writing your first draft.
If writing toward a particular word count helps you stay on a schedule you’ve created, or decreases stress related to the writing process for you, wonderful! Keep doing what works!
But those of you who have stopped writing your first draft because you’re trying to figure out how many chapters / pages / words your book “should” or “has to” be may do well to forgo trying to hit a specific word count on this first draft.
My concern is that someone who sees themselves as The Expert on All Things Literary will quickly and confidently tell you that your book absolutely “must” be [fill-in-the-blank] words long. At that point, instead of focusing on having fun and writing the kind of book you (and your audience) would like to read, you’re more focused on cramming your manuscript with a bunch of fluff that’s of no interest to you (or your readers, most likely).
I, for one, would much rather read a shorter piece that’s more compelling, than read something that’s overly long just for the sake of being long. And, honestly, I likely won’t finish it because I have to wade through a bunch of filler in order to get through to the few nuggets of what I’m looking for.
The length of a book is not often the crux of what makes it enjoyable to a reader. Thinking that you have to hit some arbitrary word count in order to create a strong piece of literature adds pressure and stress to your writing process while providing no benefit to you or your reader.
If I handed you a glass of rancid urine to drink, you would likely recoil and refuse to drink it, sending some colorful language my way in the process. Should my solution then be to bring you a gallon of rancid urine instead? Would having a larger quantity of it suddenly make you want to drink it? I sincerely doubt it!
Yet, there are many new writers who hold that view of their work. Regardless of what kind of shape the piece is in, they somehow believe that the most important question they need to ask while writing is how long their first draft should be. As if all the character inconsistencies, confusing sections, plot holes, or missing clarifications will vanish so long as they have X number of words in their manuscript.
If you are someone who has been holding back on moving into self-revisions because you are trying to reach a particular word count beforehand, I hope you’ll consider ending your story whenever you’re done telling it. For nonfiction writers, this translates to finishing your draft whenever you are finished providing the information your readers will be coming to your book in search of.
Throughout the book development process (self-revisions, manuscript evaluations, alpha readers, developmental editing, etc.), the length of the piece is almost guaranteed to change as scenes are cut, sections are added, or portions are rearranged. If your first draft is 25,000 words, your finished product is not likely to be that exact same length after the core of the book development steps are completed.
It’s okay to just focus on writing the strongest piece that you can when creating your initial draft of your work. Then let the professionals you hire and the volunteers you recruit guide you in developing the piece for sale. But right now, as you are in the middle of your first draft, chaining yourself to a particular word count unnecessarily is something you can do away with. Especially if it has made you stop writing because you feel stuck since you finished writing what you wanted to express well before hitting that “magic” amount of words you’ve heard about.
Happy writing (without counting)! ♥