Word Count

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I do like to keep track of both where I am in a story and how much I’m able to accomplish each day.  That’s mainly because I deal with deadlines.  I’ve had to feverishly finish a story before in the 11th hour and boy, that wasn’t fun (that was also an un-outlined book, so I wasn’t even sure exactly where I was going with the story.  Thankfully, it somehow ended up fine.)

I like to pay attention to my progress also because with my genre, there’s a pattern to the events there and I need to stay on-target or else my pace may be off.  I don’t need a bloated beginning—that’s no fun to read.  But I don’t need a bloated ending, either, with a sleuth going on and on about how clever she was in figuring out the killer.  I like a second body near the middle of the book to keep readers guessing, so I also need to know when I’m about halfway done with the manuscript.