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Optimal Word Count: Dos and Don’ts

January 9, 2019

narrative, publishing, word count, writing

If you take a look around you, you’ll discover we’re obsessed with measuringFor more on this, take a look at my article on measuring success. Your camera is this many megapixels, your phone has this many gigabytes of RAM. It’s no surprise that texts – novels, essays, and blog articles – fall victim to the same process. But what is an optimal word count for a given text?

In today’s article I’ll… Well, let’s be unusual and start from the end: I’ll eventually give you some tips on how to calculate the optimal word count for your novel (though probably it won’t be what you expect). But before that, I will talk a bit about word counts.

I’ll explain why I think optimal word counts are overrated. Furthermore, I’ll show you why becoming preoccupied with having the “right” word count for your novel might be counterproductive.

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Narrative Exposition: How To Improve Your Writing Technique

October 18, 2018

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

exposition, fiction, literature, narrative, plot, writing

A novel is about emotions and thoughts, but it’s also about facts. Even in literary fiction, where focus is on characters, the author needs to communicate certain facts to the reader. For example, what a character did on a certain past occasion. Or, where her parents were at some point in time. We call this narrative exposition (I will offer a more detailed definition further below). Believe it or not, narrative exposition is an area where authors of even the highest caliber can have trouble with.

Improving your narrative exposition technique can dramatically improve many areas of your writing. It can make your narrative flow more naturally and more realistically. A better narrative exposition strategy can also increase the affective power of your characters.

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