Natural Ebb and Flow: What's Your Word Count?

with Seeker Pam Hillman.

Have you discovered the natural ebb and flow to your writing? Your rhythm? Your pacing? I’m not talking about the story you tell and how you tell it, but how long your scenes are. The mechanics, if you will.

Do you tend to write all your scenes the exact same length or do your scene lengths vary, coming in and out, long and short, like the tide?

I realized several years ago that I write 800 words between scene breaks. Don’t confuse a scene with a scene break. A scene break (SB) usually occurs when I change POV, not necessarily when I get to the end of a scene. It’s just how I plot. But that doesn’t mean that all my scenes are anywhere near 800 words. Some of them are far, far from that, ranging from 260 words to a whopping 1888 on my latest manuscript. I wondered if that was normal for all authors or not.

After reviewing several of my own manuscripts and getting feedback from some of my Seeker friends, I’ve come to the conclusion that varying scene length is the norm, and actually, a good thing. (Whew, glad to know I’m normal in at least one way!) But, honestly, I imagine most of you already knew that scenes varied greatly in the stories you write and those you read, yes?

But what I hope to share with you today might help you in the planning stages of your current novel…or the next one.

So, let’s get started!

If you’ve written two or three manuscripts, you probably have discovered your rhythm already. Being a spreadsheet junky, I already had my manuscripts logged in as words per scene and chapter. I knew going into my latest full-length manuscript, The Promise of Breeze Hill, that I write 800 word scene breaks (SBs). I knew the total word count needed to be about 90K. That comes out to about 112 scenes. This kind of information helps me plan where my major turning points will be.

The Promise of Breeze Hill

After I charted the scenes for The Promise, I wondered if my last full-length manuscript had a similar rhythm. So I charted Claiming Mariah, and sure enough, the average words per SBs in Claiming Mariah was 798.22 words. The Promise of Breeze Hill was 799.75 before the rewrite. Hard to believe that the word count between SBs was so close.

Claiming Mariah

So I wondered if other authors have similar rhythms? Even if they don’t chart their word count, if they’ve written very many books, they probably have figured out their rhythm. So, I went to the group I always go to when I have a question like this. My Seeker Sisters, of course.

Tina said that she tends to write two scenes per chapter for her category romance, with those chapters averaging 3500 words. Mary and Missy also said their chapters average about 3500 words. Depending on how many scenes they write per chapter, their SBs could occur every 900-1750 words or so. In spite of my spreadsheet tendencies, even my chapter lengths run the gamut of 1500 to 3500 words. Julie also mentioned that she’s writing shorter chapters these days, trying to keep her chapters to 2000 words.

Having the above information from these ladies was gold, but it didn’t tell me what I wanted to know. This only gave me averages. I wanted to see the ebb and flow of someone else’s work. Was I the only one whose charts looked like the tide rolling in and out? What really made me sit up and take notice was when fellow spreadsheet queen Myra Johnson send me some REAL LIVE DATA from two of her manuscripts. Remember up above that I mentioned that my average words between Scene Breaks (SBs) was 800 words and how knowing that helps me determine from the get-go how many scenes I need to plan on? It also helps during writing if I’m halfway through the manuscript and only have 30% of my words. I’m either not digging deep enough — or — let’s face it…. I’m not digging deep enough.

Well, turns out Myra’s average word count between SBs is right at 1050. (Myra, did you know that?) Myra sent me the word counts per scene for Castles in the Clouds and Rancher for the Holidays. Castles is a much longer book that Rancher, but regardless, Myra’s natural “rhythm” held true.

And, her charts look like a tide rolling in and out. Just like mine!

I.Am.Vindicated!

Castles in the Clouds by Myra Johnson

Rancher for the Holidays by Myra Johnson

Now, if you’ve read this far, and you’re frantically counting and comparing words in your manuscripts, DON’T.

Knowing your natural rhythm might be good for some, and others might not care at all. I like knowing that I need to shoot for 800 word scenes. And since I write in Scrivener, I can see at a glance which scenes are low on the word count. Even though I ended up with several scenes under my goal, I strive to up the word count on those to at least 600, but at some point, some of those scenes just felt done, you know? There wasn’t a single thing I felt I could add to them to make them better. They were short, to the point, and didn’t need “padding” just to make them longer. Sometimes, you just gotta say what you need to say, and get out of there.

And that might be MY cue to wrap this up. So, a few final thoughts and tips.

Don’t force yourself to write like someone else. Don’t take one of my charts or Myra’s charts and try to write scenes to that length. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Don’t force yourself to write long/short/long or short/short/long just because you read a piece about it here. Do what comes naturally to YOU. However, if somewhere along the way in your writing, you find that something isn’t quite right or the pacing seems off, then checking your scenes for ebb and flow might be the ticket to unlocking a tsunami of great writing.

If you’re new to writing, don’t take this as gospel. Don’t even try to grasp this technique or emulate it. Tuck it away and after you’ve organically written three or four manuscripts, then compare your own work against itself to see if you see a pattern starting to emerge. I didn’t have time to chart some of my earlier manuscripts that weren’t written in Scrivener, but I glanced over a few scenes and noticed that my scenes tended to be more uniform in my earlier completed manuscripts. I think that was my way of writing to the market and what I’d analyzed in my own reading more than to my own rhythm.

It’s also important to point out that in the charts above, there is usually one scene that stands out above all the rest. While I can’t speak for Myra’s work, I will tell you that in my own, those scenes are major turning points in the story — watershed moments, if you will. Those tend to write themselves.

And, finally, one other thought. I checked a couple of my novellas and my scenes average about 575 words between SBs. Mary also mentioned that her chapters and scenes tend to be shorter in novellas. So instinctively, our rhythm for novellas is different to our rhythm for book-length fiction. More than likely yours will be too.

Did I leave anything out? Did I confuse anyone? The floor is open for discussion! :)

If you know your natural rhythm for scene length, we’d love to hear it. And, if you know the range of your scenes, even better!

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CBA Bestselling author PAM HILLMAN was born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi and spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn't afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove an Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn't mind raking. Raking hay doesn't take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that's the kind of life every girl should dream of. www.pamhillman.com