We as writers put words down on a page. Those pages can lead to an article, short story, novella, or even a full-length novel, which we really hope becomes the next great America masterpiece (we can all dream can’t we). Some of us have a website or blog that we write on once in a while, once a month, once a week, a few times a week, to even once a day.
We want to share our thoughts, hopes, dreams, and inspirations with those around us. The words on our pages become a part of us as we share it with everyone else. We hope that the words we write become vivid images in the minds of our readers.
So how does this start? By typing that first word. And when it comes to a novel we will continue to write it out until we have formed our first draft. Sometimes that first draft might only be 50,000 words. And other times we might end up with well over 150,000.
Those 50,000 will probably be just the bones of the story whereas with 150,000 words there will need to be a lot of cutting and trimming down the story.
As writers we like to say that the story then needs to be fleshed out. To add some meat and flesh to the story. So what does that mean? It means that the story reads was more or less like an outline and now we need to add what to the story to make the reader want to continue reading it. To add the descriptive elements. Adding the emotional aspects. And all those other things in between to make the reader not want to put that book down at the end of a scene or a chapter. And especially at the end of a chapter. We want the reader to be so engrossed in our book that when the chapter ends they must go to the next one to find out what happens next.
When it comes to 150,000 words, the writers needs to do a lot of trimming to take out the stuff that just isn’t necessary to the story but thought it was at the time we wrote those precious words down on the paper. We trim and polish in much of the same way at with 50,000 words so the reader is completely engrossed by the story.
The best compliment we can receive as a writer isn’t when we receive awards (don’t get me wrong, those are fantastic) or great reviews from critics (again those are wonderful too). The best compliment is when someone can tell you that your book was so good that they started it the night before and got so lost in the words that they didn’t even realize they had read until 7 am the next morning. That’s right 7 am. The reader gets so lost that time becomes irrelevant. As a writer, what more could you really want.
So why I have brought this all up. Well, my darling husband bought a new book for his Kindle late last night (around 1 am) and started to read it. I couldn’t stay awake any longer so I went to sleep. This morning he told me he got so lost in the book that he had read until 7 am finishing the book. I just had to laugh. He stayed up all night over a book. I mean, as a writer, that is exactly what we strive for. It just doesn’t get much better than that.
