Experience, mostly. I usually work from at least a basic outline, and I know about how many words each scene or incident is going to take me to write. With the new one, the set up is just now complete and I've got three major complications to get through, which I reckon are going to take 15,000 words each. So, I'm figuring it's going to take about 65,000 words. In the actual writing, it could end up being a bit less or a lot more, depending on how chatty the characters get and what unexpected complications they throw at me.
That makes sense. For some reason I've always thought more along the lines of "pages," so I've never looked to see how many words any story of mine might have. I'll have to look into that.
You have my sympathy on losing the scene. I overwrote a story file a couple of years ago and I was apoplectic. Never did think the re-write was quite as good as the original.
Yeah, that's the impression I'm getting, that the original version was better. I remembered a lot of it but, still, I wish there had been someway to retrieve it.
Original answer deleted because, wow, I didn't read your question quite right, did I? *g*
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-14 03:02 pm (UTC)That makes sense. For some reason I've always thought more along the lines of "pages," so I've never looked to see how many words any story of mine might have. I'll have to look into that.
You have my sympathy on losing the scene. I overwrote a story file a couple of years ago and I was apoplectic. Never did think the re-write was quite as good as the original.
Yeah, that's the impression I'm getting, that the original version was better. I remembered a lot of it but, still, I wish there had been someway to retrieve it.
Original answer deleted because, wow, I didn't read your question quite right, did I? *g*
Lol, oh, I've been there.