The Author's Progress

[rj_anderson]

I've just finished Chapter Five of Touching Indigo, which might not sound like much at first. But since my chapters average 17-18 pages, that brings me up to approximately 23,200 words.

I'm nearly a quarter done! Woo hoo!

*shades eyes with hand, peers hopefully at the creative horizon*

There's a city shining in the distance. I can almost read the words THE END written over the gates...

Comments

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much every chapter I write, no matter what the project, ends up being 4500-5500 words. It just feels like the most natural length to me as a writer.

As a reader, though, I scarcely pay attention to chapter length unless they're exceptionally short (like 100 words or less) or annoyingly long (as in Ursula LeGuin's The Other Sea, which was a very hard book to put down and not in a good way -- great writing, but with three kids I needed to be able to stop SOMEWHERE, and it annoyed me at times that her scenes kept going and going even when there wasn't anything particularly exciting happening in the plot).

[faerie-writer.livejournal.com]

"It just feels like the most natural length to me as a writer."

Funny, how writers all have different takes on what feels natural. :)

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Funny, how writers all have different takes on what feels natural. :)

Oh, I know. It's been very hard for me sometimes to give myself permission to do things differently from other writers whom I greatly respect. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that their way must be the "right" one -- that since it works so well for them, it's what I ought to be doing as well. But when I try to adopt another writer's methods, more often than not it ends in creative disaster. I think I'm just going to have to blunder along and find my own way. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting - I agree that it takes more doing than you expect, to trust your own stylistic choices. You feel the need for some sort of validation - but at the same time, you never quite lose that stubborn sense of 'it works better *my* way.'

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

Uh, that was me, by the way. :) LJ has the disconcerting habit of kicking me off at random.