Begin by Writing Your Target Number of Words
Making a specific word count a daily goal is a preliminary objective
Your style of writing may change your word count to a relative term. What do I mean by that? Well, first off a one-thousand word essay is always one thousand words, one more than nine hundred-ninety-nine— one thousand.
If you write as I do, then you just focus on reaching a certain word count per the day. I know where my piece is going, even though I am a seat of the pants writer. I do not usually outline on paper, it is all my head.
My focus is on writing a certain amount of words depending on the day. I want to reach my goal number, but that is only the beginning. Later, as do all writers, I go back and revise, change, flesh out and more.
My writing process
I lay down the first draft without editing. My focus is to write the basic ideas using the wording I am comfortable with at the beginning. Afterwards, I have to go back and make it more and more into the prose I want you to read. My goal then is not the number of words but the quality of word choice. There will be a difference in phrasing and count between the first draft and the final version.
One line of text in the first draft may become a whole paragraph after revision to better communicate the idea I am writing. Therefore, maybe I met my original goal of two thousand words but later versions become four-thousand words long. I will also cut, which is also essential in writing, and my four-thousand may fall down to one thousand or fifteen hundred. All along the original two thousand is a relative number.
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The writer and the musician create
In the recording industry there is a term called “laying down a track”. A musician records — lays down — the basic tracks. Possibly the producer wants to add some form of instrument or even scatting at another time, now he lays down additional tracks recorded separately.
You do something similar in writing. You lay down the original draft and then you add and subtract from it until you reach your final version. You write amplification in one paragraph, you combine phrases in another and the final result is all these tracks, which we call revisions. This is the nature of writing.
Word count is just a general number that you work with at first, refining your piece to your final goal at a certain word count at the end.
If you were to imagine the last word to fall across a line marking fifteen hundred words, throughout your revision process you would see that word cross the line going one way and then again going the opposite way back and forth until that final version touched the line at fifteen hundred. Of course, your matching the line depends on how accurate your editor wants your word count to be.
When you make a certain word count to be your goal every day, you are aware that this is just a preliminary objective.
Let me show you an example:
This is the first and last versions of one of the above paragraphs.
The first paragraph was part of my original one thousand words:
If you write as I do which is I just write. I know where my piece is going, even though I am a seat of the pants writer. I do not outline on paper, I outline in my head. I focus on writing a certain amount of words, right now two-thousand per day depending on the day. However, once I write my two-thousand words, I go back and revise, I change, I flesh out and more. Then my two-thousand words can become three-thousand quickly. That is because the first draft is just me writing without editing. I am just getting the basic ideas down in the wording I am comfortable using at the beginning. Then I have to go back and make it more and more into the prose that I am not interested in writing as much as in you reading it.
The revised paragraph is
My focus is on writing a certain amount of words depending on the day. I want to reach my goal number, but that is only the beginning. Later, as do all writers, I go back and revise, change, flesh out and more.
I lay down the first draft without editing. My focus is to write the basic ideas using the wording I am comfortable with at the beginning. Afterwards, I have to go back and make it more and more into the prose I want you to read. My goal then is not the number of words but the quality of word choice. There will be a difference in phrasing and count between the first draft and the final version.
The first paragraph has one hundred forty-three words and the revised version in two paragraphs has one hundred twenty — a seventeen percent difference. Multiply this over the many sentences and paragraphs in a piece and you will see your word count shift both ways radically.
The original goal of one thousand words is relative. If you plan to write say thirty thousand words for a small book, that is great, but your original thirty thousand is not going to be the final number without targeting your revisions to meet that objective. You will need to add or subtract to improve your quality of writing from the original drafts, then — revision, revision, revision until you have it right.
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I look at writing as a sculptor creates an art piece. He chisels until he has the original shape carved basically out of the mined rock, then he taps a little here, removes a little there until the piece of art reaches its final beauty.
Writing is like that, it is revision, revision, revision until you have your article just the way you, the artist, wants it — correct number of words and all.
The original target word goal is important to start, but the final product will be radically different than that first laid down “track”. The word goal is just a relative number. How relative depends on your editor, even if that is you.