One of the tools I use in Scrivener is of course the target word count. Everyone learns about the project total, but I like to set up my templates to have a target word count per scene.
When you add scenes to each chapter in Scrivener, open each scene when your done. You’ll see a little grayed out circle with a circle inside it. Click on that – it opens the space for you to put your scene word count in. If you’re doing one scene per chapter, that’ total will be 1667. If two scenes, you need to have 880 and 881. Try this, since you’re going to go over. Set every scene to 800 words.
I have four scene lengths I typically use – action sequences tend to be 400 words, a short scene is 600, average scene 800, and long scene 1200+. If I enter a chapter knowing I’m going to have action snippets or sequences, I now add a third scene and adjust my scene lengths accordingly (setting one of the scenes to 400).
It might make sense, if you’re an extreme planner, to make an excel spreadsheet and keep track of scenes, against your grand total of 85,000.
Here’s an additional word on that subject – try like mad to avoid long scenes in the middle of your book. Long scenes give a feeling of drag. Shorter scenes in the middle of your book help you to avoid what Jerry Jenkins calls “The maunder of the middle”.
Again, all this is to avoid the problem of trying to write a book, and finding you’re 45,000 words over target. Or in my case, my first novel topped out at the length of two and a half books! I’ll discuss tomorrow how to fix that.
