Plot Math: How to finish every story you start
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L Doctrow
Writing a novel is hard. Duh. But what exactly’s the hard part?
Is it coming up with ideas? Not, really. Many people have more ideas than they know what to do with. And if I could have a penny—okay, make it a dollar—for every time a person tells me that they have an amazing idea for a story after they find out I’m a writer, I’d have, well, a lot of dollars. The point is that everyone has ideas.
What about writer’s block? Everyone knows what that strange malady is (even non-writers) and it’s been made famous by names like Truman Capote, Harper Lee, and Michael Chabon. While writer’s block is sometimes a problem when writing a novel (and, hey, we know how to fix writer’s block anyway) it’s not the main problem.
Maybe the reason most writers find it so hard to finish the first draft is because they lack the discipline to sit at their desk and get words on the page. I’m not so sure, though. I’ve taught many, many (over 100 or so, last count) writers the craft of fiction and I haven’t found them lacking the zeal or drive.
In fact, most of have a story bouncing inside of them like some sort of molten diamond that needs to be released. In my experience, a more common situation is for a writer to have more words, paragraphs, and pages then they know what to do with, their story caroming off into an infinite void with no end in sight.
No, it’s not lack of ideas, or trouble getting started, or trouble continuing that makes novel writing hard. It’s lack of a plan.
Like you, I find the E.L. Doctrow quote included above very romantic. It makes me feel like some sort of cosmic wayfarer, destination unknown. The problem is that—while it sounds epic—it leads to a metaphorical car crash and the only thing totaled will be your novel writing dream.
I believe that writing skills lie at the intersection of science and art (commerce too, if you want to go that route) and while using a formula to write a book is a terrible idea, form is essential to get anything done. When it comes to finishing a novel, we need to know exactly what best practices will get us over the finish line. The best way to plan your novel and actually finish is to use Plot Math.
Publishers, editors, and audiences all have expectations when it comes to fiction. Short stories are assumed to be—well, short. That’s anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 words. A novelette is anywhere from 10,000 to 17,000 words, novellas are 17,000 words to about 40,000, and finally the novel can range from 40,000 words to infinity (fun fact: the longest European novel published is In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust coming in around 1,267,069 words).
Writing by word count—Plot Math—is a good way to turn the large problem of making a novel into the manageable problem of putting down a certain number of words in order to fulfill readers’ expectations when they encounter your work.
Okay, cool. You want to write a novel. It has to be at least 40,000 words. So, what do you do now? Make a coffee (or tea), throw on something cozy, fire up your laptop and…just keep writing until you hit that word count?
No! That’s what you’ve been doing so far and how’s that working out? The expectations of publishers, editors, and readers actually go deeper. Not only are there length expectations for types of stories (short, novelette, novella, novel) but also for genre. Here are some examples:
· Young Adult: 50,000 – 80,000 words
· Romance: 80,000 – 100,000 words
· Thriller: 85,000 – 100,000 words
· Fantasy: 100,000 – 115,000 words
· Sci-Fi: 115,000 – 150,000 words
Assume that you want to write a thriller. Ignoring (at least for now) any consideration of sub-genre, we know that the story needs to clock in between 85,000-100,000 words. Simple, right?
Not so fast. I wouldn’t leave you out in the night like that. Many a writer has set off with this amount of information, sure that their car now has two functional headlights and can make their way home just fine—thank you, very much—only to discover that they have too long of a runway in the beginning of their story, a flabby middle that goes nowhere, and a rushed ending with no payoffs and a lot of salty tears. Let’s avoid that, shall we?
What we need to do next is spread our word count across a three-act structure. The three-act structure is the simplest form of organized story telling because it consists of—and I promise I’m not being pedantic—three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. You could just divide this into thirds and approach it like that, meaning if you want to write a 100,000-word thriller then why not just make each act about 33,333 words. After all, this is Plot Math, right?
Sure. But this is where the art comes into our method. The three-act structure actually contains a much more ancient structure. Some call it the Hero’s Journey, others the five-point plot, regardless of the name, a story told in a properly paced three-act structure appeals to what is most fundamental in all humans and will elicit deep emotions that every writer has dreamed of pulling out of readers (laughing, crying, mass defecation—or is that just me?).
To use Plot Math to achieve this proper pacing is simple: your first act should be about 25% of total word count, your second act 50%, and the third the last 25% of your total words. For our example, you would want the beginning to be 25,000 words, the middle 50,000, and the end about 25,000.
These are rough numbers but sticking as close to possible is recommend (recommended only because it sounds too aggressive to tell you that I demand you stay within these limits).
I hope Plot Math provides you some relief. Metaphorically, you not only have a car with two functioning headlights but it isn’t even night anymore. Rejoice!
Hold up. I got one more Plot Math pro-tip for you. It’s useful to know how long your novel should be, especially by genre, and especially useful to use the three-act structure with a recommended word count, right?
If they say you can eat an elephant if you go one bite at a time, then this is your last bite: write 2,000-word chapters.
If you know that you’re writing a 100,000-word thriller in chunks of 2,000-word chapters then the Plot Math comes out to writing about 50 chapters. Further, if you stick to the three-act structure Plot Math then you know your first act will have 12-13 chapters (25% of total chapters), your second act 24-25 chapters, and the third another 12-13.
Go on. Put on something cozy. Fill up your glass with something hot. Open the laptop. Hours, days, weeks, months, and years of banging away at the keys are over.
With Plot Math you know where you’re going, and more importantly, how to get there.
