Hi Rebels!
I’ve been working on The Crimson Witch for a long time, like several years at this point. In case you’re new here, The Crimson Witch is book # 4 in my Camilla Crim series. And I’m tempted to feel guilty about how long it’s taken me to write this book, but I felt this same way back when I was writing the 2nd book in the series, The Bear Gap Rebels.
The plot for that book was just so muddled and I wasn’t as experienced of a writer and I really struggled. I don’t remember the exact timeline, but I know it took several years to complete that book. I was spending a lot of time apologizing to my readers and feeling guilty about it until someone dear to me just kind of said, “hey, you’re working hard and it’s going to take as long as it takes!”
I certainly have still felt some guilt around The Crimson Witch but it has a very complicated and in-depth plot. And I’m simply not willing to put out a piece of work I’m not proud of. Every book I’ve written has always been longer and more involved than the last.
Which brings me to my current dilemma. Back when I really started hitting this current draft hard, I created a word count link train. Each link equals 1,000 words and I accounted for the book to be around 120,000 words.
That’s longer than any of my other books so I thought I was really covering my bases with that estimate. As of today my total word count for The Crimson Witch is at around 107,000. So I’ve already crested the 100k mark and here’s the kickers, I’m maybe just a touch over the halfway point.
I’m about halfway through act 2. Now typically my act 3 is pretty short, but the point still stands, even if I were ¾ of the way through the book, which I think would be generous at this point, it’s still going to be quite long and possibly too convoluted. I’m trying to accomplish a lot in this book!
So recently I just had the thought of, should I split this book in 2?
Not like a Crimson Witch part 1 and part 2, but just a whole new book in the series. I do have 2 more books planned for after this one so I’ve really been considering if I was too ambitious with where I’m trying to get Camilla’s story to progress to in this book.
If I did split it up, it would take some finagling with the plot and I wouldn’t be able to do the ending that I want. I also don’t know what I’d name this next book in the series… I already have names for all of the books in the series so I would have to think about that one.
The good news is, I think I could release The Crimson Witch pretty soon since it’s essentially already written.
*Sigh* I have a lot to consider…
Well, let me know your thoughts in the comments down below. I know there’s only so much advice you can give, not fully knowing the plot of this book, but let me know, is a 200,000 word book too long??
Until next time, make sure you CLICK HERE to download your 100% free eBook copy of The Sacrifice of One, book #1 in the Camilla Crim series.
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