[CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest
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Right, that's another 20K words tossed into the bin as I rejig Motive & Means a third time. Hopefully I'll be able to recycle at least some of it. Writing mysteries is such a pain...
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@zwabbit
20k ouch!
That's sort of the demon in the back of my mind, as I decide whether to give my villain a full detailed flashback backstory—or just do it with a much shorter exposition—the exposition would be much easier and has less of a chance of breaking up the flow of the story—but a flashback might draw the reader into the world to greater level and make them understand the villain more than “because evil.” -
Is there an official, industry accepted definition for word count? I'm writing a python script for my own manuscript to tally up the word counts of chapters and for-author-organization-only sub-chapters for easier tracking than relying on manual calculations within my standard document editor. I just don't know whether hyphenated words should count as multiple words, or (not that my story has them but for the sake of program completeness) whether things like stat blocks which have like [+] buttons rendered with text would count as words.
I don't plan to get anywhere near the 100k limit so it shouldn't matter insofar as staying within the bounds of the contest, and I imagine y'all would allow for quite a bit of leeway if the stated word count on the entry form differed from your own calculation of the word count when looking at the manuscript but I would still feel embarrassed if my own totals were off :P
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@Hylebos no there isn't without requiring people use a particular software, etc.
It's not a super strict limit... If by some reasonable word count system it's less than 100K then you should be fine.
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@Hylebos Assuming your [+] are counted, if they are less than one percent of your total words, you'd be hard pressed to see them even come up. For example, 1% of 99k is 990. Which means even 1k short of 100k, you'd still be fine at 99990.
I've rabbit holed way too much on this and now I have a regex to count freestanding special characters for some reason, (?<!\S)[^\w\s]+(?!\S). If that regex doesn't exceed 1k in your file, you'd be hard pressed to ever see the difference in how words are counted even if [+] was counted.
As a general rule though, I think a word contains at least one alphanumeric (\w) character. So freestanding special characters probably aren't counted. That's how it works in Google Docs at least.
Edit: This is a quick regex which gives me the same word count as Google Docs. \w[\w-—']*
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After another three weeks, up to 40k words so far. Averaging 7.5k words a week now like my goal. Halfway done, though! Probably another six weeks to finish the first version.
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I just found out about this and it sounds like so much fun!
I have a villainess video game LN-inspired novel I’ve been working on off and on for the past year so this is just the push I need to finish it up! Currently it’s around 40K words.
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Well, it doesn't look like this is going to get done, though now I have an idea of what 90% of it should look like. My best bet is to just cut my story in half—find a sort of ending point and maybe I could hit 50K words—but given that I still find glaring errors in the fanfic that I wrote a year ago —I am a little apprehensive at the idea.
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@jazzyjeoff well I think that's still impressive. I have only reached 4k because I keep getting distracted by anime, webcomics, and Vtubers...
If I'm super lucky I will have a draft to send in by the deadline...
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@jazzyjeoff Perfect is the enemy of success. Whatever you need to do to get the words flowing, do it.
@Lily-Garden said in [SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
I keep getting distracted by anime, webcomics, and Vtubers...
The eternal struggle✊
In other news, it looks like the word count minimum has been lowered to 35k?
There are also 77 days until the deadline. So even just 500 words a day should get you there! I think there's still time!
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@Parity It always has been 35k if memory serves.
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@Hylebos Maybe I have a false memory, but I swear it was 50-100k when I first read the entry requirements in September.
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Btw, thanks everyone who is still commenting here—it’s been helpful and encouraging!
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Just a bit curious, with over half the contest time gone, approximately how many entries have there been so far?
I used to write a lot in my teens, but I haven't deliberately written a story for probably close to 15 years now (if not longer). This contest has gotten me writing again for the first time in donkey's years, and I have the whole thing planned out, but I'm finding it difficult to write without the right feeling inside. Only at 2.2k words so far (according to Word) but I need to get in that mood properly so I can churn the world inside my mind out onto the pages. It's a bit more difficult since I work the afternoon/evening shift, and I always found my best writing period was in that time frame.
How does everyone else get the feeling going?
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@QuixoticHorizon I use speech to text on my phone while walking around the neighborhood and just let the story flow off the top of my head. I tried doing the whole outline thing but had trouble getting it going so and shelved that story for now.
Of course with all the new licenses I might run out of time before I finish a draft…
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@QuixoticHorizon said in [SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
How does everyone else get the feeling going?
I've tried listening to the OST for shows that have similar vibes for the scenes I'm going for. I jammed to kumakuma bear OST for a slice of life chapter for example.
At a more subconscious level, (I'm not sure if this is gonna make sense), but I focus on writing the next sentence, rather than thinking of what I'm writing. I find that helps me keep the words flowing.
@Lily-Garden said in [SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
I tried doing the whole outline thing but had trouble getting it going
I've never found outlining useful, so it's not just you. I try to think of the ending and write towards that, and have found a little more success that way.
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@QuixoticHorizon I find the ideas flow when my mind is otherwise unoccupied, like when I’m out walking, or trying to get to sleep. I always keep a notepad by my bed to jot down ideas. (And then I inevitably look at my shorthand in the morning and have no clue what I was thinking... I really wish sleepy-me would write in more detail.)
I end up going through a loop of blasting out a chapter of ~2k words, then going off to do something else for a bit while I plan the next one. It’s a great excuse to nap lots!
In terms of outlining, I’d consider myself part of the wing-it crowd. I do a small amount of world building before starting, and usually have a few plot points in mind, but then I dump my characters into the world, have them behave realistically, and wait to see what happens. Any time I’ve tried to lock myself into a detailed plot before writing, things have gone horribly.
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@QuixoticHorizon
It’s not like I’ve written many stories—it was only after reading Tearmoon Empire that I was inspired to write at all—but now it’s sort of become my hobby.
I knew that I would be pressed for time on this —so I decided to take something tropey and try to make it mine (in this case I was inspired by a story that I had read and grew to hate as I continued to read it and despised the ending. I hated it so much, that I decided to take the central premise and turn it on its head—it’s my own revenge story of sorts!)
I start with an idea and a few characters that I think I will like. Then I imagine as many scenes that I can that might be interesting and use those as sort of check points that I am trying to reach—everything else is like finding pieces of a puzzle that I am putting together—scenes and characters start showing up until I sort of have a story. It’s pretty organic—the characters are free to direct the story to places I never expected—and the places may have characters that I never expected. Then I go from “sort-of-have-story” to “story”and then polishing the story.Finding out the minimum has been cut down to 35K words has allowed me to drastically decrease the scope of my current story—right now I am at 32K words but there are still too many gaps to be coherent— but it is not nearly as intimidating as it was before. It won’t be polished without outside help but I may have found someone willing to proofread it. Finishing in time is possible now—assuming outside life does not get in the way.
