Hi writers,
I was wondering what is the average word count most writers finish the first draft on? I havent finshed my own yet, but my first draft so far is litrally plain and so bad I am fighting myself not to edit it eerrrrrrr...
So yeah if you guys could be super great and tell me!
Thanks writers :)
Thanks for the answers guys. I have put myself in a strict routine where I must write 2000 every day without looking back. It last until 30 days then I'm going to shelve it for like a week and then start the edit. I really do hope this works out for me as it will be my first novel ever so fingers crossed for me.
Tegan and Jonathan give really good advice. Personally my first drafts tend to be between 80 and 100k and I aim for around 150 - 200 by the time I have reworked. I don't even look at word count until the third draft, and its at that point I start to cull heavily. Take out any show not tell bits ect.
Because i'm writing a series and I have five books I tend to have a aim to be over 100k when I rework, but just like Tegan I get the story down first and then shelve it for a few months. When I come back to it I tend to print it, and go through the story twice with a red pen. Usually when I rework I add another 15 to 30k and then when I cull I tend to cut about 2-15k.
I do however try to write between 2000 and 5000 words a day, on the days I am writing. When im editing I try to get through 2000 tops, after that I start to make mistakes, and I go from middle of chapter to middle of chapter to make sure that the story is flowing across the breaks.
hope all this helps
s
I wouldn't worry about word count at this point unless your MS is either very short 150k.
First draft can be so variable. I cut about 5k in total from my first novel, to end up at 113k, and added 2k to the second to finish at 112k. That's in a genre where 90-120k is considered the norm, so they ended up about right. And it'll depend what you're writing as to what final count you're aiming for.
I outline a novel, but even if that's not your style you might still find it useful to work out a target word count and how many chapters that'll need at 3k per chapter. It's completely non-scientific, as chapter word counts tend to vary wildly, but at least the more you complete the more it helps you know you're on the downslope :)