I've just been wondering, how long you took to finish your first novel or if you even finished it at all? How many chapters did you make? Was it given the original ending or did it change somewhere along the way?

Maybe share some insights as to why you did so as well.

I've been digging myself into a hole with my writing you see. Never intended to last this long but the story just seems to need to finish before I move on to the next one. It's not that I hate writing the story, I just don't know when to stop it. I've already got an ending in mind but I don't know whether to finish it sooner rather than later.

    ChuYang I begin in March and end it in September. At first planning to do more than 400 chps (800-900 words/chp) but because the novel isn't really popular I decide to cut a lot of scenes and finish it sooner with the ending I already planned. In my opinion if the book isn't popular I'll end it fast and move on to a new book. Of course, I won't ever abandon it halfway

        ChuYang

        A year each for my two finished novels. 120+ and 100+ k words. Since those novels meant to be traditionally published (no in the end they weren't) I could start by planning and writing the end. That's a huge help when you write the rest of the book.

        The seven volumes (at around 65+ words each) of my current webnovel took wildly different times to be finished. If I remember correctly the first one got done in just over a month, but the last finished one took nine months or so to get finished. You could mostly chalk it down to a change in my working situation. Full time teaching jobs leave you with less time to write.

        I have some kind of idea about the ending, and that it's supposed to happen when volume twelve is finished. While it helps it's nothing as concrete as the endings I had done for my first two novels before I really started wriing them.

        I'm older now. Writing as I go is easier. I couldn't have done what I do today twenty years ago.

        About changing endings. A premade ending is a target. If you deviate while writing you need to decide if you'll get back on track or if you're changing the ending. If you do the latter, bloody change that ending immediately. You always want an updated target to aim for if you use the system with a pre-written ending.

            StenDuring Oh so did you ever get an idea halfway through the novel that was like so good in your head but knew it was going to change what you originally had in mind?

            I've had a few ideas that made me think could make the story great but then it would drastically change the ending.

            If you did, did you follow through the original ending or allowed your imagination to prevail?

                Zehell2218 The popularity thing you talked about, what exactly do you mean?

                On which do you weigh it heavily more on: views, collections or power stones?

                Personally, I find it hard to abandon my work solely because of collections. Seeing it increase everyday made me feel gratified, like my work at least gives people enough entertainment to warrant placing it in their library.

                    ChuYang It took me close to 10 months to finish the book.
                    From the start I aimed it at a rough wordcount of 40-50k, orienting myself on the avergae lenght of a Light Novel. Which in the end came out to 41 chapters plus a short epilogue.
                    While a few details were only hashed out during the writing, the ending remained still the same, at least in broad strokes. (the final climactic battle still features the same primary combatants and ends exactly how it was originaly imagined, but some details around that drifted around a tad.)
                    That said, it was also intended to be more akin to an origin story to open the gates of the setting I had in mind for a while, which will have at least a couple more LN-sized stories in it once I get around to writing them.

                        ChuYang

                        Both. I've rewritten some 5k words halfway into a story (that means deleting 5000 written words and restarting) because it would be impossible to keep the ending, and that ending was too important to change. I've also rewritten an ending because the new direction I accidentally steered into was just too sexy to avoid -- the ending apparently wasn't important enough.

                            I honestly don't know that there is a hard and fast answer to your questions, as in my experience they tend to vary wildly from writer to writer. Me personally, I tend to do only a small amount of initial planning before starting a story, and allow it to evolve organically and end naturally when it feels right. Other writers pre-plan every last detail and scene before they even begin the first draft.

                            There are two ways to end a story- when it feels finished, or when you have reached the ending you want. Note that these two can sometimes be the same, but often times are not.

                            As far as finishing a novel, the time it takes also varies wildly. There are some writers who can finish a 100k draft in a month. Others take 10+ years to do the same. Me personally, I tend to average 30k words or so a month, maybe more if I'm really feeling it. There is a writer out there I know that pumps out 10k words a DAY. Ultimately, you have to find what feels natural for you. And honestly, writing is a lot like working out- you can't do a lot at first, but the more you do it, the stronger you get, and the more you can handle.

                            Yeah. I agree with the post above from personal experience writing tends to take a position in concept, journey, and ending. The concept defines the setting/possibilities/tone & flow of the story, the journey builds and evolves the plot, and the ending is a close to that journey. After writing for a bit you begin to get a better understanding of the type of writer you are and having an ending in mind helps steer your journey to how you wish it to end.

                            The same is said about the opposite. Without an ending you let the concept steer your journey into an eventual ending that naturally appears.

                            I write based on what I want to achieve, i personally like establishing some specific msg only question I have is how do I want it to be delivered through the journey or the accumulative end. This drives my style of approach.

                            If I decide to go with the journey I build onto the story until I feel my world and msg has been properly established and did what I wanted it to do. However if I go more toward the end route I analyze and justify if enough was in place to make the ending as meaningful as I wanted it to be.

                            For me having a predefined ending does not set in stone how your story can end it just gives an out line for what you want. On the other hand not having an ending defined allows for more freedom and character development because your no longer thinking about the ending but the next step your story is gonna take.

                            This is biased to my writing style

                            ChuYang power stone. There are books with only 10k colls but in top 10 and there are books with 20k+ colls but don't enter top 20. Colls means nothing since there can be several fake acc, or people who just save in library and don't read but those who votes will at least keep reading

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