Monthly Archives: April 2013

100,000 words

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I’ve just passed 100,000 words on the first draft of Fuller’s Mine. I’m guessing that by the time I finish the story and then edit, the final length will be about that. For comparison, Newton’s Ark is 76,000 words.

One of the questions I asked when I set out to write my first novel, was how how many words are required to be considered a novel?

I soon discovered there’s no hard and fast answer, but 70,000 – 100,000 words is considered typical, to the extent there can be any such thing as typical when there are famous novels of less than 50,000 words (e.g. Fahrenheit 451) and more than 500,000 words (e.g. War and Peace).

The right answer of course is it needs to be as long as it needs to be and no longer.

Angela’s Choice

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I’m 90% done on the first draft of Fuller’s Mine, but I have one unresolved story line.

At the end of the story Angela Faraday, who we met as a child in book one but is now an adult, has to make a difficult choice about her future. She has three options, none of them appealing. I’ve written versions of the scene where she decides with each of the choices and still can’t decide, partly because she can’t really decide. All the choices really suck. At this point I’m even thinking of leaving it unresolved, which  in some ways rings true, although her inaction would be a choice in herself. Perhaps that is the right solution. She chooses by not choosing which is something people do all the time.

Any thoughts appreciated.