I think, no matter how you present it, some readers will pick up on it and others won't. I'm the kind of reader who loves wondering whether little things are supposed to be clues.

I have a whole list of little things in my head that I need to remember to sprinkle in to keep my goal of nothing that's really important later coming totally out of the blue.

Got about 800 words last night, I'm getting concerned there may be too much dialogue and character interaction in chapter 6 and not enough plot advancement, that I might be burning through too many words between plot points.

Gud, the key is that the dialogue and character interaction should advance the plot. (says the woman who has pacing issues, so take what I say with a grain bucket of salt).

Just keep going-- a lot of times, after a first draft is done, you'll find places where you can convert plot moving narrative into dialogue and you'll find dialogue that is nothing more than "sittin' and talkin" scenes that don't really do a lot. (Again, says the woman with pacing issues...)

Just keep going-- a lot of times, after a first draft is done, you'll find places where you can convert plot moving narrative into dialogue and you'll find dialogue that is nothing more than "sittin' and talkin" scenes that don't really do a lot.

That's good advice, it should be clearer once I'm on my revisions.

A lot of the dialogue does have purpose, so maybe instead of saying plot advancement I should say events in the story. I have events in the story and I have changes in the characters and relationships that might need to have happened by certain events but are otherwise flexible.

I've got another set of eyes to read chapters 1 to 5. I kinda feel guilty about sending him a first draft complete with typos, punctuation errors, and run-on sentences. Not guilty enough to take the time to try to fix that stuff right now though.

I'm still trying hard not to pester my wife to read chapter 5.

Got a bit more last night even though I was also busy with other stuff. About 4000 words into chapter 6 which means I'm now over 40,000 words. The figure I've seen for a novel is 50,000, not that I'm anywhere near finished though.

50K is generally for shorter genre novels, Gud. Cozy mysteries, category romances, a lot of YA novels come in around that word count. Most adult novels however, tend to be about 75K or higher and generally, fantasy has a high word count window.

Most of my adult works come in at around 100K

Sure just take the wind out of my sails. Seriously though, I'm feeling like I'm accomplishing something. I think I'm on track for about 200k total length, maybe a bit more. It's hard to see it being less than that for where I'm at in the sequence of events.

Before the kids I starting writing a story and I believe I'm now further along that I got to that time. Also, I think this time is a lot less crappy.

Seriously though, I'm feeling like I'm accomplishing something. I think I'm on track for about 200k total length, maybe a bit more.

Dude, of course, you're accomplishing something. You're doing that thing that so many people say they can do, but so few even attempt.

And 200K? Wow.