Tracking Word Counts

[anthrodisiac]

I read threads like this and continue to be astonished at the analytics people do on their writing.

Tracking word count wouldn't help me one bit, because being a pantser I have no idea where a story is going, nor how many words it will take to get there. I vaguely keep mental tabs on my overall output, which I know hasn't changed in years (roughly 10k - 15k a month), but that's like knowing I'm six foot tall: it's a fact that just "is", there's no other inherent meaning, doesn't tell me much.

Also a pantser, and obsessive word-count monitor. I'm a big fan of personal arbitrary metrics. I like going back and seeing how much I wrote and measuring it against how much I kept. I usually scrap or about 30-40% for one reason or another. I'm an overwriter, so looking at overall word count is better than final product word count in terms of determining how much raw effort went into something.

I think particularly because I'm not entirely sure what path the story will take and because I have no idea how many words it will take to reach the end (hopefully) that it's interesting to keep track of how long it took me to get there, which days produced the most usable words, etc.

If someone wants to keep tabs of it, that's cool. If not, that's also cool.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I think word count is a good measure of productivity and progress, which is important when you’re working toward a deadline. I don’t think there’s any particular value when you don’t have a deadline. I don’t think plotting or pantsing matters there.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

These days I generally only check the word count when I've finished writing. None of my stories 'target' a particular length, I just keep writing them until I think I've reached a natural conclusion.

In the past, though, I used to try to write 1,000 words per day and that did keep me on track.

 

[NuclearFairy]

When I first started writing it was with pencil and paper, that then got transferred into an app on my phone for another site that had automatic formatting tools and a word count. That site had a recommended word count per chapter. You go too far over the word count and your story might make the app crash happy for your reader. So knowing my word count was important!

I was also moving my stories onto lit after my SO had edited them on that site, and I'd noticed in my reading of fantasies here that commentators tend to get really unhappy if your block of chapters is too short, so I had to keep an eye on my word count there too until I had enough chapters strung together.

I quickly figured out that twelve notebook pages was a good length for that site, and six chapters was a good length for this site.

Anyways, when I finally got a chromebook and could start actually typing (my god is typing so much faster) I searched high and low for how to enable word count tracking. Now I know if my section has gotten too run on for the other site, and how many lit pages it'll fill at a glance. Also, if I highlight a section for breaking up, it'll tell me how many words are highlighted so I know when I've found appropriate breaking points.

Also it's a nice bit motivation, all the way from "Hooray! I wrote 50 words today!" to "Fuck yeah! I wrote 5k words today!"

 

[lovecraft68]

Other than the few times I did Nano I never count. To me it just seems like another thing to obsess over and worry about.

Sometimes if I have a good burst I'll take a look to see how many words I wrote just to see if it was as much as I felt it was, but I don't go in with any number in mind.