100,000 Words (Patreon)

When I finished the first complete draft of “Scars of the Golden Dancer” the book was only 60,335 words. I even proudly tweeted about that. It turns out I was naïve though. The version I submitted to a publisher last year was a little over 90,000 words. Now, after doing more editing on the book, and adding a few scenes, it’s just over 100,000 words. I never thought it would get this long. I used to lament that the book was on the short side, but once it got over 80,000 words, I knew it was a good length for a novel.

It’s possible I may do some cuts at some point before this gets into print, but I don’t think the final product is going to be under 95,000 words. I can be quite sparse sometimes in my writing, so what I’ve added helps flesh out small details and get the characters more time to breath on the page. The added scenes have allowed me to show more on the two main characters interacting. I also know some of the extra word count has come from rewriting dialogue to better capture the character motivation I want.

Editing “Scars of the Golden Dancer” has proven to be toughest writing project I’ve undertaken, and the longest I’ve even been working on something. A lot of this comes from the fact I wrote the book piecemeal and have been polishing it ever since, but it’s also suffered some first novel blues. As I said previously, I’m going to change how I work going into the next book so I don’t have to such a protracted writing process.