Friday, September 20, 2013

Fallen Rise: Book I statistics


Fallen Rise is the first novel in the the gritty, epic fantasy series that I have been writing. It is the story of a noble woman who has fallen into disrepute, and her search for redemption in the eyes of her people. Here is Chapter Two, the introduction of one of the main protagonists.

The novel is broken into two books, and the first draft of Book I is pretty much complete. I've said that before, however I wasn't entirely satisfied with the notes on which it ended, so I added another chapter, which serves to both ratchet up the tension and clarify the stakes. With a little bit more work, it could potentially be published independently, if it weren't for the fact that there are no resolutions to any of the problems, as Book I ends with all the protagonists in crisis.


I've yet to decide how I'm going to proceed when it is all finished, whether I'll try to shop it traditionally or whether I'll try to self-publish again. Offering the first half of the novel for free might be a way to sell the series.

Here are the first draft statistics for Book I:

Chapters: 24
Words: 63,133
Cut Words: 24,528
Average Words Per Chapter: 2630.5
Book I Estimated Words: 60,000
Total Estimated Words: 120,000
Project Status: 52.6% complete

Characters: 345,979
Average Word Length:  5.48
POVs: 7

Deceased/Named Characters: 10/42

I'm 2.6% over budget in regards to my word count, but I'm not terribly concerned by that. I hit close enough to the mid-point that I'm satisfied, and there is yet some editing to do, besides. Everything seems on track to end at about the 120k word mark, and overall I think I'm in a pretty good position in regards to the story arc and overall pace.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

A Preview of Fallen Rise

Here is Chapter Two from Fallen Rise, the low-fantasy novel on which I'm presently working.