Gauging How Much To Write...

Seriously, why is the prologue the easiest part?

I have about 11, 438 words written for chapter one, and one more scene to write before I think I'll end it. Then it's on to chapter two, a feat that I haven't achieved in... years. Wow. That's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I suppose between college and a writer identity crisis and creative writing classes, that might happen to you...

One thing that I always struggle with is trying to figure out how long to make my chapters. Or how long to make my book, for that matter. That probably sounds weird-- You make it as long as you want. You're the writer. But for as long as I've been writing, I've wondered how you can tell.

This question especially intrigued me when Husband announced he had written about 30,000 words. Now, when Husband and I work, we'll write anywhere from one scene to five, and then ask the other person to read what we've written and give some general critique. This means that I'm following along in his novel, watching things unfold. We've also talked about our storylines, and where they are going, so we can help each other fully develop ideas and make sure details are in place. This means I know where his story is going. And NaNoWriMo has a goal of achieving a novel that has at least or about 50,000 words. So when he made the 30k announcement, I was perplexed. It felt like he had just started his story. So that made me wonder, how realistic of a goal is 50k? How long of a book does 50k words even get you?

A couple days ago my husband came home from work and pulled out a book he had just finished, a sci-fi novel that was printed in sort of your standard, paperback, compact sci-fi/fantasy way. This book has 391 pages, and 18 chapters. He broke it down like this:

Page 123 of the book has 332 words. Assuming that every page has 332 words (which it doesn't, but we're writers, not mathematicians)....
-estimated 129, 812 words in the book
-estimated 7, 212 words in a chapter
This means that, according to this particular scale, 50,000 words is an estimated 150 pages.

I don't know about anyone else, but the shortest novel on my shelf is over 200 pages...

Let's be clear: I'm not trying to judge. I am pretty positive there are short books out there; I just don't think my husband and I are going to write any short novels any time soon. Breaking down a finished, published novel really helped us put things in perspective. Am I going to stop a chapter when it hits 7,000 words? No way. My first chapter is over 11,000 words already, with another scene to go. What I am going to do, however, is make sure that my storyline moves along at a good pace. If I hit 50k and I'm not at a good pace or a good place in my plotline, then maybe I should rethink how things are going.

It will also help me imagine how my novel will look in physical book form instead of blank white screen form, which is, conveniently, a great motivator.