{"id":348,"date":"2015-06-02T12:09:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T16:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/?p=348"},"modified":"2015-06-02T12:09:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T16:09:36","slug":"the-art-of-writing-how-to-finish-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"The Art of #Writing: How To Finish a Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a> Now, not to disparage those writers that have spent the last four decades polishing their magnum opus, but there comes a time to finish a book. Like a relationship gone bad, it’s a bit ripe and it’s time to move on already. Aren’t there other stories you want to explore? Don’t you have a folder of story ideas that are weeping for your attention. You know there is. So how to do it?<\/p>\n

Now confession time. I’m sitting on my high horse here, even though I’m one of though aforementioned authors. But things have changed for me in writing land as I’ve taken on some ghostwriting projects, (because you know, a girl’s gotta eat) and nothing is a daunting as writing up someone else’s ideas on a schedule. A very tight schedule. It’s the type of schedule where you mess around all weekend and come Monday you have 10,000 words due on Wednesday and you don’t get paid if it doesn’t get done. It’s like doing NaNoWriMo everyday of your life.<\/p>\n

To do it you have to have a master plan, as well as a decent typing speed. I’ve developed a strategy that’s helped tremendously. Do you want to hear it? No? Well I’ll tell you anyway.<\/p>\n

It starts with Scrivener.<\/p>\n

Scrivener is such a useful tool that I’ve never regretted the forty bucks I spent on it. This is unusual for me, because as cheap as I am, I regret spending money on the laundry. Scrivener however, makes writing books fast and easy.<\/p>\n

There are always discussions about being an outliner or a pantser, and each writer has his or her style in putting out a story. Using Scrivener doesn’t make a pantser an outliner, but it sure can help you set up your goals into manageable pieces. Instead of looking a blank page you can look at blank folders ready to fill with your writerly goodness.<\/p>\n

Step one: decide your word count. Now wait? Doesn’t your story evolve organically? How can you decide a word count? Well the industry does that for you, with different genres having a different word counts that are considered more desirable than others. A romance book can get away with 50,000 to 60,000 words, but a SF epic can’t get away with less than 80,000. Your word count is pre-decided based on your genre. Don’t worry. You’re a writer. You can do this.<\/p>\n

Step two: decide how many chapters you want. This is highly dependent on what you are writing. If you are writing short e-books, depending on the word count you will 5 to 10 chapters. Larger works will have more. But if you aiming for 60,000 words, you’ll end up with 20 to 25 chapters. Just pick a number. It’s not set in stone. That’s the beauty of writing. You are working with words, not paint or clay that dry up while you work.<\/p>\n

Step three: Divide word count by chapters. Viola, you have target word counts for each chapter.<\/p>\n

In Scrivener you will now go and set up folders for each chapter. And after you do that add sections to each folders for scenes. I usually set up three to four scenes per chapter, though again, that’s not set in stone. It is good to add variety to the number of sections you use per chapter. Let your creativity be your guide as you write. <\/p>\n

Now, here is the thing that will have you shaking your head. Set a word count for each scene. Yes! You will do exactly that. You’re a writer. You have words to get out and you don’t have time to shift this little thing to that little thing to make a decent chapter. Nope. You are going to do this from the get-go.<\/p>\n

Say I’m working on a 10,000 word ebook. Here I’ll set up 5 chapters at 2,000 words each. In each chapter I’ll set the opening scene at 400 words, the second at 1000 and the last at 600. This gives me a frame work to move from chapter to chapter, though if inspiration strikes, that goes out the window. Still I know I’m going to hit the target of 2,000 words for that chapter. So if I’ve got 400 words to fill one section that’s what I’m going to do. It calls on your creativity, and you may get more detailed than you originally intended, but that’s good. Hit 2,000 words, wrap it up, move to the next chapter, wash, rinse, repeat.<\/p>\n

It’s how you finish books.<\/p>\n

It’s what Chuck Wendig says, write as much as you can, as fast as you can, and finish your stuff!<\/p>\n

Editing it<\/a>. That’s another post.<\/p>\n

Happy Writing.<\/p>\n

Mug is Chuck Wendig’s Secret to Writing available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now, not to disparage those writers that have spent the last four decades polishing their magnum opus, but there comes a time to finish a book. Like a relationship gone bad, it’s a bit ripe and it’s time to move on already. Aren’t there other stories you want to explore? Don’t you have a folder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,33,1,34],"tags":[162,207,211,254,323,324,325,334],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-novel-writing","category-the-writers-craft","category-uncategorized","category-writing","tag-how-to-finish-a-book","tag-outliner","tag-pantser","tag-scrivener","tag-word-count-by-scene","tag-word-counts","tag-word-counts-by-genre","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}