My first drafts of action chapters are about 500-1000 words. This is pitiful, and caused my outline spreadsheet to say my novel would come in short. So I sighed, and turned sentences into paragraphs. It’s now about 2000 words, which is still too short, but at least my outline spreadsheet doesn’t say my novel is going to come in short any more.
Which is good, because my stuff always gets longer in revision. So my goal is my minimum wordcount. People tell me that’s not right, because it’s easier to cut than add, but it’s more in line with the way I work, so there you go.
Current wordcount: 29387. Guesstimated final wordcount: 80288 (still a little stunted by action miniscenes). Percent complete: 36 and change.
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