I was going to post my excerpt for you avid readers today however I left my flash drive at home so alas I cannot. You'll just have to wait a bit longer for that. In the meantime you should scroll down a few posts and read the hilarious 500 word auto-summary.
I have good news! I wrote a bunch of new chapter 2 this weekend hooray! I'm getting closer to finishing book 1. After I looked up some page length vs word count for already published authors I've decided on an ending for Book 1. If I were to end the book where I originally planned it would be far too long. I'll give you an example. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a nice quick read at about 320 pages. This book is only 77k words. Granted the typeface of this book is larger than what you would find in most adult fantasy books but still 320 pages is nothing to sneeze at. I'm currently at 62k words and I have roughly 10 more chapters to write at my current book end. I average between 3k-5k words a chapter which means I have between 30k-50k MORE words to write if I maintain my pace. This would put my book at somewhere between 90-110k words. Now realistically I'd want my book to be closer to 110k than 90 however according to Brandon Sanderson the "sweet spot" for Fantasy publishing is currently between 90-120 for unpublished authors. He did however mention that his first book was closer to 200k. Probably if I ended Book 1 where I originally planned it would be about that.
I don't want to rush the story to squeeze it into something a literary agent or a publisher would prefer but I also don't want to cut it short. I am afraid that the designated spot would leave a reader largely unsatisfied. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how I feel when I get to that point. Don't most books have at largely positive ending, a victory for the good guys? Maybe it's good that if I end the book where I'm thinking that won't happen but then again what would that mean for Book 2?
I realize most of you can't give me any advice because you had no idea what I'm thinking or where the book is headed at all. That being said you should still give me comment love, I only get comments from Sarah and Mike :p
2 comments:
Here is your comment love:
You are awesome!!
I love you!!
Here is your advice:
You should decide what to do when you get closer to writing the end. You can see where you are and how you feel about it.
Now let's see if I can remember my password so I can post this...
Hmm.. how to follow that comment.
You are a noob?
Just like everything you've done up to this point with the book, the answer will come to you in time. Remember your old chapter 1? And you re-organized like the entire beginning of the book because it just worked better that way?
As you get further into your ending, you'll reach a point and say "okay, that's book 1". Don't rush it, and don't cut it off at 120k words because some person said so... end it where you want and where it feels right.
Also, make sure Katze and Rafe at least make out a little before the end of Book 1. Rafe needs some second or third base action to get out of his frump for a while. Muahaha.
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