Words Words Words

I absolutely, completely suck at estimating how many words a story is going to take me. Seriously, I am always way off. As in at least 5 pages worth of writing off. Probably more.

In my short stories, I mostly stick to writing one scene. One ‘short’ scene. And I keep being amazed how many words this one scene takes me. In my mind, it doesn’t seem that long. But when I read it over, I never really get the feeling I am long winded either. Which poses a problem. I’d like to cut it down, but cut what? Every word looks needed. Important to the story, or the feels of things.

Getting a little long isn’t a problem if the story is one scene. But if a story should be told in a couple of scenes, or -god forbid- happens over a couple of days, my writing becomes this long block of text no one on the internet will bother reading. I try to aim for under 6 minutes. That seems a fair amount of time to expect people to pay attention.

I am missing that mark by miles.

Living in my draft right now is something, by Medium’s estimation, already ten minutes worth of reading time. And I am about a third of the way through the story. Help. This shaping up to be an half hour monstrosity, feels like a really good story. — please keep in mind, this third of the way through and the half hour when finished, is my estimation. Which I already admitted, sucks. I won’t be surprised if the finished product totals 45 minutes to an hour.

“Can I have an hour of your time?”
“No!”
“Fair enough.”

And it’s hard to complain about it.

“This is turning out to be a novel…”
“You should totally write a novel”

Wut…I’m complaining here, don’t encourage me. I wasn’t setting out to write a novel. I can’t write a novel. I have a day-job, if I don’t get this story out, my mind won’t let me concentrate on my day job.

I see you opening your mouth, let me stop you right there. I am not quitting my day job to write. Yes, I would love to. It’s not happening. In the best case scenario, it still won’t be happening for the next 3 years. But I’ll start buying lotto tickets, just in case.

It’s the build up that gets me, every time.

Cut the build up? *Shock. Horror.* What do you mean, ‘cut the build up’? Would you have sex and skip the foreplay? Would you tell the punchline and skip the joke? Then I might as well not bother at all.

No, I’d rather finish my way too long short story and not have anyone read it.