I am working on my first trilogy and had to come to a decision on the last two books. The rough draft of book 2 is 30k shorter than the rough draft of book 1. While that may not mean much at this stage, it was pretty damn hard to bring book 1 up to the average word count of a first time fantasy novel, so I'm not looking forward to the struggle with book 2. I did consider combining books 2 and 3, but that would have made book 2 in the duology incredibly long, and a Michelle West or J.K. Rowling I am not. I decided to stick with the split, although I may drag a chunk of book 3 into book 2 because book 2's ending may drive readers nuts (assuming any of the monsters get into publication).
When I first conceived of the story, it was just that - a story. Now that I've been writing awhile, I'm realizing how much "non-creative" stuff I have to think about, including things like where to split longer stuff to make them even remotely publishable.
I'm trying not to think about the editor part of the process yet, but sometimes I think it sneaks in there anyway. Why else worry about a book being "too short" or "too long" or "split in the right place"?
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-11-21 10:04 pm (UTC)When I first conceived of the story, it was just that - a story. Now that I've been writing awhile, I'm realizing how much "non-creative" stuff I have to think about, including things like where to split longer stuff to make them even remotely publishable.
I'm trying not to think about the editor part of the process yet, but sometimes I think it sneaks in there anyway. Why else worry about a book being "too short" or "too long" or "split in the right place"?