I hit 50,000 words on a single story draft for the first time and it felt wrong

I mean, I've been writing for years but always stalled around 30k. This one, a weird sci-fi thing set in a flooded Denver, just kept going. Hitting that 50k mark made me realize I'd been writing a ton of filler scenes just to see the number go up, not because they mattered. Has anyone else hit a word count goal and then immediately wanted to delete half of it?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahclark6d ago

Ever think hitting a big word count was the whole point? I used to chase those numbers like they meant something. Then I had the same feeling you did, where you look back and see a bunch of scenes that go nowhere. It kind of ruins the win, doesn't it? Now I'm way more worried about if the words actually matter for the story. That 50k mark just shows you put in the work, but the real job is making those words count.

nathan2896d ago

Yeah that "ruins the win" feeling hits hard. Reminds me of this one time I wrote a whole chapter about a guy making soup, like three pages just on chopping vegetables. It was beautiful prose, man, but it did nothing for the plot. Had to cut almost all of it later.