9 Exciting Strategies to Increase Your Word Count (Plus 1 Bonus Tip)
Are you an author, struggling to reach your daily word count goals? Or perhaps you are reaching your goals but want to raise the bar just a little more. With all the day-to-day going on around us, hitting your word count every day can be a daunting task. Read on for 9 exciting ways to make reaching your word count goals a little bit easier.
Not every strategy will fit into your personal writing style. Some of these you may already do. It is my hope, however, that you’ll find something below that helps you hone your craft and crank out a few more words every day. Let’s get into it!
1) Sprinting
Sprinting is a fantastic writing strategy to increase your word count. It can be done alone but is even more engaging when done in a group. You can find writing sprint groups online, and I’ve found Discord is a great place to sprint with others.
So what is sprinting, and how do you do it? Sprinting is where you set a timer, often for 15-20 minutes, and you write as many words as you can in that timeframe. You don’t take the time to edit or to think about word choice. You just write the scene. Once the time is up, you count your words.
When sprinting with a group, there is usually one person who is moderating it. They will set the timer and announce when to go, and when to stop. Then everyone shares how many words they wrote. It can be very competitive while still being cooperative. Oftentimes you’ll try to do just a little better than you did the previous time. Or you might see someone who has a much higher word count than you and so you vow to yourself that you’ll get that many words in some day.
Sprinting is a great way to spend time with other authors who are all moving toward a similar goal. Everyone wants you to do better and the accountability is another bonus of this tip. And since they do not take long, they can be peppered into your busy life wherever you may find an opportunity to write.
2) Outlining
Wait! Did I just say outlining is an “exciting” strategy? It is when it helps you reach your goals! Sometimes when writing a scene we get stuck on what we want to write. Maybe there are too many options (or maybe not enough). Or perhaps you’re feeling scattered. By outlining the scene you can take control back and complete it.
First, you want to start with an overall view of what the scene is. Is Allie in the village looking for her mother? Now that you know basically what it’s about, you want to come up with events that happen as part of this scene. She checks the baker’s shoppe. She looks down by the river. She asks people in the town square. She’s approached by a shady stranger who gives her a cryptic message. She hurries back to her home to try and figure the message out. She reasons out several plausible interpretations and picks one that seems most reliable. She hurries off to the mushroom patch where her mother must have been last seen. Once she leaves, her mother comes up from the basement, carrying some old keepsakes that she is going to refinish.
Now that you know just what needs to happen, fill it in with telling the story. Don’t be afraid to wander away from the outline if you get on a roll. The outline is only a tool to help keep you moving forward. If you stray too far, you can always make your way back to the outline and get back on track.
This same approach can be used for the novel as a whole, instead of just a scene. I come up with the overall plot of the novel, then create a certain number of major events in the story (which will be the chapters). I then reorder them into their proper place and then create one new layer of outlining, treating each as a scene above and writing out the things that happen in that scene.
By doing this you can keep your writing in manageable chunks, have an idea of where you’re taking the story, and just might find a few surprises along the way.
3) Group Writing
If you can get a few people together, this is a fun little idea! It’s similar to a sprint, but everyone is given the same prompt, or situation to write about. Set a timer for 30 minutes and everybody writes about this topic. At the end of the timer, everybody reads aloud what they wrote. An alternative is the group moderator collects all the papers and reads them, if the group decides they like the idea of anonymity. The group can then critique each one so the authors get feedback.
4) Serial Fiction
One of my favorite ideas to get the creativity flowing is writing serial fiction. Sometimes called micro fiction, it’s the practice of writing short 200-300 word scenes, each of which follow the previous scene. It’s called micro because it doesn’t take long to write a piece (maybe 15 minutes), nor does it take long for your audience to read the piece. If you have a lot of them posted on a website people can binge read them if they’d like, and get a fuller story.
Serial fiction can vary in length from a single post on up to hundreds. For reference, each piece of micro fiction is around the length of a printed book page. If you can get a series up to 300 entries, you might even want to compile it together and turn it into a book! This is one way to get a novel out in a year! One post per day, for 300+ days in the year, will give you enough content to publish a book. Now, no excuses! (I’m talking to myself here too, haha!)
5) Lightning Journaling
The Lightning Journaling strategy is a little different than the other ideas, in that it is generally non-fiction (but doesn’t have to be!) This one gives you five minutes to write down a brief overview of how your day went, what thoughts you have on your mind, musings about various topics. The fun part of this tip is that it doesn’t HAVE to be real! You can even assume a different persona and write their journal if you’d like. Make up the events that happened. The important thing is to write, as much and as fast as you can.
An alternative to this is a Gratitude Journal. Take 15 minutes and write about something you’re grateful for. Go into detail. Make a mini lecture about it if you wish. Just remember to keep it positive! This is not only good for word count, but also for a healthy mindset.
6) Writing Buddy
Having a one-on-one writing buddy can be a huge benefit to keeping you writing (which in turn increases your word count). It is something that works both ways as you will keep your writing partner motivated as well. In any given writing buddy session you may not even need to speak. Just being in each other’s presence can be enough of a comfort to get the words moving.
In addition to the physical presence, this gives you a chance to talk about roadblocks you may be having and sharing ideas to get past them. Or if you feel particularly proud of a sentence or a section, having a writing buddy gives you an audience to read it to so you can gauge reaction. A writing buddy who will build you up can be a huge benefit to getting more words written. You’ll want a more critical reader for helping you edit, to turn your extra words into gold, but for now get and be a cheerleader to improve word count.
7) Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a strategy that may not directly increase word count on your novel, but can be used to give you more ideas to play with. This, in turn, can improve your word count. It is similar to outlining, but in a much looser sense. It can be done as a cluster or as a list (are there other brainstorming techniques you like to use? Comment below!)
When brainstorming a list, you don’t even need for things to connect. Maybe you want to brainstorm for your entire story, maybe for a single scene, but either way you can just list things associated with it. Perhaps you come up with a list of events that you want to happen (incidentally, this is one part of the outlining strategy mentioned above). Maybe you have an idea for a location you want to include so you add that in and make bullet points to describe that place. Once you have brainstormed lists, you can analyze them and see what you can group together, how things fit in place, and can come up with some ideas to write about.
Clustering is another brainstorming technique that answers a lot of questions about your story. Consider it meta data that you can refere to while writing. With this strategy, you start general with your story in the center of the page. Draw a little cloud around it. Now we want to answer lots of identifying questions: Who, what, when, where, why, and how. First, write the word Characters near the center cluster. Draw a cloud around it and a line from this cloud to your main one. Do the same with the words: Problems, Timeline, Locations, Motives, Actions. Next you’ll want to pick one of the secondary clusters (Characters, for instance) and make a cluster for Main, Major, and Extra. Make your clouds. Make your lines. Then make a cloud for each Main character. A cloud for each Major character. A cloud for each extra character. Do similar for each of your clusters, using relevant cluster names. Once done, you will see just how much material you already know and can then begin writing and consulting your clusters as necessary. Also note, you can make changes at any time, just make sure it filters through to the rest of your brainstormed ideas as well (if you change a name in the Characters cluster, you may need to change the name in a Motive cluster item as well).
8) Alternate Scene
Sometimes you’re stuck BECAUSE you have an outline that you are following, or at least an idea for how you want a scene to turn out. Maybe the words just aren’t coming. One time I sat down to write a scene and just couldn’t move forward with it. I was in a bad mood and decided to kill off one of the main characters! *GASP* I figured, I can write this scene to get my anger out and then throw it away. What was meant to be a therapeutic exercise turned into one of the coolest (in my opinion) scenes in my book. Plus it happened to answer a few other questions and so I kept it.
What I did was write an alternate scene. Have you ever though, “This is what is supposed to happen, but what if they made this choice instead?” Write the scene as if they made that choice. You don’t have to keep it, but it will help you get the creativity flowing and once it’s flowing you can decide if you want to keep it, throw it away, or save it to alter for another situation somewhere down the road in your writing career (same book a few chapters later, or different series entirely).
9) Different Perspective
The strategy for writing a different perspective basically involves writing the same scene but from another character’s point of view. It can even be just from a villager who sees the situation unfold. The characters and location will pretty much be the same but the actions and thoughts will be somebody else’s and this can help you see a scenario more completely.
For example, you’re working on a scene where the mages discover they are going to be attacked with a special weapon. They try to discover if there is a defense, details on the attack, and how to overcome. But if you write it from a different perspective, you’re now writing it from the antagonist’s POV, which shows why he feels the need to attack the mages, how he intends to do it, and what he needs to do to succedd at his objective. Both of these will be biased accounts though, as the mages feel they are in the right, and the antagonist feels he is in the right. So perhaps you write the same scene from an unbiased POV, from a villager. You can (and likely will) stick with the mages’ POV, but you’ll have a better understanding of why it’s all happening and may improve their POV just because you can see it more clearly.
In Conclusion
With all these strategies to help increase your writing volume, you should be able to find something that works for you. Even if it’s just a fun little side task to entertain your own creative spirit, engaging in some of these tips can improve your writing practices. We discussed some technique strategies (Sprinting, Outline, Serial Fiction, Lightning Journaling), some content ideas (Brainstorming, Alternate Scene, Different Perspective), and Social Strategies (Group Writing, Writing Buddy). Which of these do you use or plan to try? Do you have other ideas that help? Let us know in the comments below!
Bonus: Character Building
This bonus idea is one that I find to be a lot of fun; character building! A lot of times when writing a novel, you may have an idea of what this character is like but nothing really written in stone. For this activity you’ll take one of your characters and answer a lot of questions about their life and background. It helps to give the character some depth and if done before you start writing your story it can help you write the character more accurately. Even if you’ve already started (or published the first book or two) it’s an exercise that can be fun and fulfilling. This Character Checklist (right click to download) gives a great starting point and is what I’ll be using for this exercise.
It’s most effective if you come up with a template that you like. Whether you get a notebook that is just for characters and write each answer in on a line or two, or you create a beautiful form in Word, develop something that makes you feel accomplished.
I like to break it up into six different sections: General, Personality, Material Possessions, Background/History, People, and Skills.
General
For this section I enter things like their name, age, gender, height/weight, race, build, alignment, and title/position. I suppose build could be replaced with appearance and is a full physical description. Not all of these need to be used, but it’s a good starting point for a fantasy novel.
Personality
Here I list things such as their pet peeves, habits, hobbies, secrets, likes/dislikes, phobias/preferences, strengths, weaknesses, religion, and a one-line Motto. These are the things that get a reaction out of them as well as rules by which they live their life.
Material Possessions
Although it will vary greatly depending on the point in the story, you can either include things they begin with as well as anything they acquire across the adventure, or can just pick a point at which to take a snapshot. What clothing do they have? Do they have weapons, items/valuables, a residence, any pets, a method of transportation.
Background/History
These items can set the scene. How/where did they grow up? Do they have any current or past injuries? Any memorable events? What kind of education did they receive? What is their social standing and have they received any inheritance?
People
What people are close to the character? Describe their parents/guardians, extended family, friends, enemies, acquantances, as well as their marital status and any children.
Skills
Do they have Magical powers? Are they skilled in combat, be it with weapons, magic, tactics, or physical brawling? What kind of physical skills do they have, like climbing, swimming, acrobatics? How well do they communicate, and do they have any special knowledge?
Putting it all together
Once you’ve answered all these questions, you can write up a few paragraphs that turn answers into descriptions. I once used a database to enter answers to each question and then created a report that filled the answers into paragraphs. Almost like a Mad Lib, but you don’t have to go through all that. Just fill in the answers to the questions, format it to inspire you, and enjoy the process and the end result!
2 Comments
Gbemileke Ayoyinka Akinwale
I find your ideas intriguing and I’m willing to try them out. I hope it works. Thank you for this piece, amazing work.
Alexander
Thank you for reading and for the kind words. I hope some of these ideas help improve your writing time.