Do you guys feel intimated by the sheer amount of work you must put in your novel?

[EchoHellion]

I used to be, not anymore. Mentally, I don't get caught in all that. I prepare plans, and outlines of my stories, and then write things at my own pace, in my own way. Each word written is another word towards the goal of finishing a story.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Intimidated? No. Vaguely tired because it feels like I'm on a treadmill, always going forward but never getting closer to the end? Yes.

 

[YagiToshinori]

Just write a sentence for what's supposed to happen in each chapter. You'll need about 10% to 15% more sentences than you have chapters because some of your ideas might not work as well as you originally thought and you'll have to skip them. Just one sentence.

The chapters should be easier to write now. If you're still having a hard time then change perspective in the chapters or pad with action/romance.
It's a cool book, right? It's awesome! Don't you want to see what happens next?

 

[Tyranomaster]

By that, I mean the sheer number of words needed to finish a novel.

For example, if you want to write a Xianxia or a space adventure novel, those stories typically require far more than 150,000 to 200,000 words. Creating an expansive world often triples that number, sometimes even reaching millions of words.

Even if for example, you write a thousand words minimum a day, provided without stop and no burn out, how long will it take to reach 1 million words?

Do you ever think about the word count required for your novel and just stop and wonder,

'How long will this take to finish? Is it even doable?'

I swear I'm enthusiastically working on a novel right now, and I just stopped because I realized how many words will it take and how long will it need to finish and what's most of all stopping me is..

"Will people even like it?"

I know people should write for themselves, that's why I do it in the first place, I want to write my stories. But I also want readers to string along the journey.

Some probably don't think about it, and just goes along and see how it goes, but for those who do, what do you think?

I'm above 500k words now, and it's taken 2.5 years at 2/3 1500 word chapters a week. I don't think about it in terms of reaching that length. The novel really makes a difference, 500k words in the novel I'm currently writing is like 1.5m words in a 'standard' novel, because I'm writing with scientific accuracy. For reference, I have small sections that don't require research, and I write them at 3-5 times the normal pace. So it really just depends on what exactly you're doing. For me, I don't think about how 'long' that end goal is taking to reach.

 

[DireBadger]

As someone who regularly writes 5-10k words a day when I have a good idea, I guess not.

 

[Lysander_Works]

Only when I realize I never have as long to live as the amount I want to write.

 

[KUWABARA]

It's not word count which bothers me; it's a non-issue. What does make me struggle is giving a scene the full justice it deserves. Like its flow, or character interactions and just making things believable and not forced.
Just making the emotional tone just right, not too cheesy and not too long or too short."Can I do this scene justice? Can I really make readers care for these characters and their struggles?" The deeper I get in the trench, the more it fills me with too much doubt I can't do do any real justice for the story or characters. and since I'm not writing litrpg or isekai, it's just all the more stressful trying to get it to work and still be seen by human eyes. I see a success like Phantom Star and it gives me hope with space operas still getting some love.

 

[DireBadger]

Honestly, just don't think about it. If you are looking at an idea for a novel and thinking 'this is going to take me forever to write' it's a lot like looking at a TV show and thinking "7 seasons? watching this is going to be miserable.". why put yourself through the pain?

 

[lambenttyto]

By that, I mean the sheer number of words needed to finish a novel.

Is there a rule to how long your novel has to be? Do you even need to write a novel? The Jinni and the Isekai is 900 pages, but it's 6 volumes, each volume being it's own smaller plot and somewhat self-contained. They're around 30,000-40,000 words each.