Word Count, Chapters, and Structure

 The very last thing I worry about when drafting is structure. I suppose I've learned that a story starts out with a character thinking that their goal is one thing only to have a twist or decision point at the 1/4 mark that uncovers the true goal. Because they pursue that goal and believe they're making progress, at about the half way point, everything is going to go to hell in a hand basket because the character runs up against the main challenge of the book and yet the character hasn't yet changed enough overcome that challenge. So they run face first into it. WHAM. Fail. Fall. And have to wander off to lick their wounds. And they have to make another decision. Either give up or double down. So on and so forth. 

The problem for me is that I have to throw all of that to the wind when I draft. This is because drafting is slow and difficult for me and I want nothing analytical to pull me out of whatever tenuous drafting space I can achieve. Numbers and divisions and did this decision point happen in the right spot are all worries for a much later date. So I start a draft. No chapters. Just words. Get to The End.

NOW I put on the analytical hat. Now I start looking at over all structure. I go through and arbitrarily assign chapters roughly every ten pages. I'm looking for a natural scene break or place to end on a hook. Some chapters are ten pages, some eight, some twelve. Until rewrites.

As I go through my own dev edits and work through punching up emotion and language and scenes, my arbitrary chapters begin to tell me what they need to look like. Some book keep the ten page chapter convention without issue - most of the SFRs do that (it's easier with only one or two POV characters.) The current WIP, however, has some super short chapters, and one or two long ones. The chapters follow POV shifts because there's an extended cast with several points of view. The book is supposed to be fast, but full of sensory detail and the turned out that the best way to put a reader into a scene was to invite them into each character's world.

Long way of saying that I don't maintain a word count list for scenes or for chapters or for turning points. Structure is a wire frame in my head, yes, but as the Pirates of the Caribbean would say that's, ". . .more guidelines than actual rules." Do I check out that my first decision point happens within the first 25k of a 100k novel? Absolutely. Usually, the earlier the better for me and for my reader. I can get right to the action. Spreadsheets can be great things. Word counts can be great things. But depending on who you are and what your process looks like, they can completely shut you down. The only way to find out is to try them and judge the results. If you are someone who wants to keep things vague and open and full of possibility, consider this your permission slip to learn what structure works for you, store that structure in your muscle memory, and then just draft. Impose logical structure in your editing phase.

We'll be the Ghost Busters of writing: Don't cross the creative/drafting and analytical/editing streams. It would be bad.

Long Term Planning - They're More Like Guidelines

Warning. Genre quotes whiplash ahead.

I approach Long Term Planning (tm) in the spirit of the Pirates of the Caribbean. You recall the scene. Elizabeth has been captured by the crew of the Black Pearl. She attempts to bargain with Barbossa, quoting the pirate code. It doesn't work out.

Long term planning is Elizabeth. I'm the undead pirate (some days deader than others.)

Yeah, yeah. I know. I handled data for a living. Damn it, Jim, I was a SQL DBA not a project manager! You might think I ought to give you screenshots of my exquisitely sorted (indexed, with prime and foreign keys!) data of my long term planning.

You'd be wrong. This is where I channel Barbossa and growl, "The code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules."

Long term planning spreadsheets, color-coded and cell-linked are enough like rules to make me want to gouge out my eyes with my pen. I am so glad several people posted shots of their planning spreadsheets for you, and I am honestly pleased those constructs work for them. For me, they're soul and creative impulse crushing. Don't know why. Don't much care why. I only care that they ARE. So I don't do 'em. Won't have 'em. I am apparently not wired to work in that fashion.

Instead, I stick to the guidelines. Of course, I still plan. I absolutely keep track of what I want and what I'm doing to move in that direction. Just - differently. Thus the really, really old school list you see above. Crappy photo on purpose. There are somethings that aren't yet ready for the light of day, even as half-baked ideas.

The handwritten lists mature into other formats and get attached to target dates and Bullet Journal short goals and long goals. No. I won't photograph a Bullet Journal page for anyone else's consumption. I practice NSFW Bullet Journaling and we run a marginally family-friendly blog here, so we'll all be happier without that image preserved for internet posterity. The cats get to see my pages, but they don't judge. Well. Not my Bullet Journal, anyway.

Here's the moral of my disjointed story - it's easy to get wrapped up in thinking there's a right way to do long term planning. And maybe there is a right way. The Right Way for YOU. If you are a linear, analytical thinker, detailed spreadsheets may give you all kinds of creative energy and drive. Yay! If you're a spatial, relational thinker, you're going to be driven to drink by those same spreadsheets simply because your brain works differently. Your tools for long term planning will be no less rigorous, no less valid. But they will likely be much harder to screen shot. Just remember to honor the system that turns on your lights. That's the right one.