(Holiday Post #2)
I've actually completed draft 0 of my novel, and it clocked in at a pretty low word count. Fortunately, this is pretty normal for me. Even with a rather extensive outline (about 41 pages of it), my 'Draft 0's' tend to be about getting the ideas down on paper (plot) rather than telling an intriguing, descriptive story. The next version, a true first draft, should be well over my projected word count, at which time I start pruning and cutting and tightening.
It is at the end of the first draft where I will have considered myself actually having written a novel. So, for the sake of record keeping, Draft 0 is at 34,000 words, which equates to 154 pages and an average word count of 639 words per scene (53 scenes). For draft 1, there are a couple of scenes I'll be removing since they don't really move the story forward. Plus, there is a new sub-plot I want to add, with will increase the scene count by about 10.
I have no idea if any other writers out there use the same method as I do, but this seems to work for me.