In two weeks, I have completed three short stories in a series, and all but completed a fourth. I breezed past a total of 20,000 words yesterday (I’m up to 23,000 at the moment). To borrow a term from horse racing, this puts me at the quarter post, about one fourth of the way towards my goal of 80,000 words in the story series.
How did I choose 80,000 as a word count to shoot for? My first novel was written as an entry to a writing contest; that was the minimum word count. And it has stuck. Prosaic, I know, but reality often is.
Over the years, that has seemed to be a good number to aim for (although the ideal length for science fiction novels, according to common wisdom, is 100,000 words). Why? My writing is dense. Ideas about character, plot and the world are constantly being thrown at the reader. With humour, they say you should leave a reader wanting more. I’m worried that some readers will be overwhelmed by my writing. A lower word count seems to be a reasonable solution to this problem.
Will I be able to finish the short story series in two months? At this rate, you might imagine I would. It has happened in the past, but not often. It’s because of the whole density of ideas thing. At some point, I will have to pause to refresh the well. That having been said, I have a couple of other stories in the planning stages, so I may be able to get to the halfway point before I have to take a break.
Then, all I have to do is sell some of the stories…