Sometimes my life is all about the word count. I need this many words to get to the place where I want to be. Often that is 2k for me to consider myself to have had a productive day. However, I very rarely plan out what kind of word count I should have in order to finish something. Truthfully, I should.
I’m doing a bit more planning lately. As shown by Peek Behind the Curtain. However, one thing I haven’t yet figured out how to work out is my word count. I do not have an average chapter length. Sometimes my chapters run from thousands of words. Other times, it is as few as a couple hundred. That makes it hard to figure out exactly how long a given manuscript is supposed to be when I plot it out.
One thing I am going to do in response to this is: choose to cap my chapters at a certain length instead of letting them simply wander on. I want the outlines I have worked out, I have a second one for a separate book already worked out but I haven’t shared it yet, to come out to about 60-70K in total. Therefore, I need to try and craft outlines which fall into that space.
So anybody out there, how do you plan for the length of your manuscript?