Writing a first-draft battle scene is akin to real combat - chaos, confusion, and you must keep your cool as you fire word bullets downrange. - Don Roff

Word count is a fickle thing. Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer weighs in at a hefty 460,000 words. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is barely 30,000. There are stories across all genres that span from a few hundred to several hundred-thousand words.

Creating believable worlds in fantasy or dystopian or what-have-you writing can help sell the reader on an otherwise unbelievable premise.

The lesson I most needed to learn was this: just write. It doesn’t matter how bad it is. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense the first time around. There’s a reason editing is a thing, and a reason it’s called a first draft.