The Process: How I Write A Novel (Part 3)

Six weeks have passed since I started the first draft of the third book of the Dawn Saga, and things are progressing quite well. I’m currently at around 70,000 words, nearing the end of the “conflict” phase of writing. (To see how the first 30,000 went, as well as an explanation for how word counts relate to number of pages, check out Part 2.)

When I write a novel, I try to think of the book with the classic beginning, middle and end, but I rename them as: Introduction, Conflict, and Wrap-up. For me, with all the characters I have and the pacing I want to maintain, I typically make the Intro about 20,000 words, or the first 20% of the book. In the case of this novel, I was able to get things started a little quicker, and it is only about 15,000 words. That may increase in the second draft if I don’t feel like I’ve shown enough back story, but we’ll see.

Conflict, where the main theme and meat of the story is revealed, is expanded in this novel, mainly due to the fact so much is happening. Normally, I shoot for 60,000, but in this case, where I have more characters and plots in motion, I think it will take at least 65-70,000 words to resolve them. Right now, I’m a little over 50,000 through this section, and things feel good. I realized one of my big plot points wasn’t going to fit into this novel, so it got bumped to the final book. I’m pretty comfortable with this decision, but I’m hoping it doesn’t make that story too long. We’ll see when we get there.