...pages and words. And, in my case, poems. It seems to take me about 220 poems to create a verse novel, give or take. As I write, I number my verses so that they're easier to discuss in the revision process (e.g., I'm thinking about deleting #94 as I think I cover much of this material in #'s 28 and 36). For me, the verse novel is very structural--a balance of narrative and thematic explorations, a mixture of long and short poems, a diversity of poetic forms--and the pacing of the poetry has got to embody both the story's meaning and its overall "meter". However, once I've gotten the whole thing pretty well structured, I take all the numbers out because they give me a headache :)
How do you keep track of your manuscript progress? Do you have an in-process format that differs from your finished product? Do you think I use too many smiley faces in my posts? :) (just teasing)
3 comments:
I keep my numbers in. :)
I'm obsessed with word counts. I constantly visit a site where one can search for the number of words in books. (Renlearn.com.
My current YA is 53,000 words. Not exactly long, but I've seen shorter YA. I'm almost certain the story is as long as it needs to be, but I keep wondering if I need to add more words. I know that sounds foolish. It's done already!
Anyway, nice blog you have. And congrats on Audition!
Thanks, Caroline. Can't wait to read MAY B.
And, Ron, it's so nice to meet a fellow obsessive word counter :) Thanks for stopping by the blog.
- Stasia
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