: Re: First draft Word count. Do you find your first draft is longer or shorter than your completed work? I understand that I will be cutting alot of unnessary words, but I also have a list of

@Welton431

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I think this is a matter of personal writing style.

My first drafts are typically shorter than my final drafts; even though I cut entire pages out of my first drafts, and in one case ten consecutive pages were rewritten into half a page. (In the first draft, I had a plan for a secondary character that didn't work out, it just didn't fit right. I deleted him and his introduction and dialogue, and the slack was taken up with a different character.) I also cut any unnecessary exposition, if it feels boring I rewrite it.

However, despite all that cutting, as I re-read scenes, I often consider them under-imagined, without enough imagery, color (literally color of the scene being described), feelings or emotional context, and so on. I see places where my dialogue is too blocky; just people talking, and that needs to be broken up with some stage craft, action, pauses, thinking, and so on (a wall of dialogue is an under-imagined scene; people DO things as they talk). So I fill them in.

That makes the story read and flow better and it increases the word count; often by 20%. Although you need to hit some minimums to have a novel, I wouldn't worry too much about word count. Write and rewrite until the story reads smoothly to you, cover to cover.

Which is how I rewrite, cover to cover; it gives me enough time between revisiting scenes so I see them with fresh (and more analytical) eyes, so I can tell if they are boring, or awkward, or need work. For me, usually by the sixth draft I read through the whole thing without a hitch, then I'm done and its ready for the next step. I don't limit myself to six drafts, my first book I probably did 20 drafts before I was satisfied. But now six is typical.

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