Draft two of the long story is finished and I’ve sent it out to my five beta readers.
I can’t mess about with the words for a while…
Instead I’ve looked at word counts specific to areas of interest/concern and have come up with these pie charts…
This pie chart (all stats are based on number of references throughout the whole 88,000 words) proved a suspicion to be true.
I use the word door more than any other when referring to things in rooms.
I do a lot of setting up/or describing places and the exit and entrance way seems for me to be a narrative anchor point.
In the next draft I’ll check for necessity. Do we always need to know where the doors are to engage with a scene? Can people already be in the room rather than walking through a door?
Doors just can’t be that interesting…Can they?
I have dual protagonists and hoped that they were more or less equally name-checked throughout the draft (as this means more or less equal narrative significance).
Hurray they are…
In fact the female character is slightly bulkier, hard to see in this graphic.
Look at all that sea! Very good. Its a salty tale.
The sun is boring to write about but sometimes has to be referenced and can’t really be called anything other than the sun.
Sky is sky is sky, glad its the smallest. Its blue. End of.
OK lots of love and feeling going on…
Hate can be more entertaining, perhaps a character or two needs to be a bit angrier in the next draft…
Oh hang on…
Lots of old school thwacking, especially heading towards the climax.
The amount of shooting is a total surprise though, must be threats or reported action…
One to watch…
And anglo saxon is the clear winner.
Perhaps by too far a margin.
Some expletive imagination required in the next iteration…
