the wisdom of crowds book three joe abercrombie

There were in particular a few extra chunks added to the chapters Civilisation and Good Times – where the main characters and storylines start to intersect and there were things to set up that would pay off over the long haul. The book lost about 7,000 words overall on this draft despite the additions, but gained about 10,000 on the proper second draft (which I did once I’d finished a first draft of all three books), mostly I think with just additional bits of detail, background and character that I knew I needed after finishing a version of the whole story. I also originally did the uprising in Valbeck purely from Savine’s point of view, but on reflection decided it would work better done partly as a ‘Little People’ sequence, which ended up adding a chunk of words but also of context and variety. But at the same time I added a few things – so Sore Spots went from 2,300 to 3,900 as I added an extra scene to it (which was the one of Savine dressing with her maids). So the first chapter, Blessings and Curses, for example, went from 3,700 words to 3,000. Many chapters lost 10% of their word bulk or more as I tightened up, already seeing what I needed and didn’t, what served the characters and story and what could be axed. In terms of development, the first and final drafts of A Little Hatred were pretty much exactly the same length, but it waxed and waned a bit between and in particular I did an extra sort of one-and-a-halfth draft after I’d finished the first (feeling that I now had a much better grip on the characters and story and wanted to rewrite a bit before proceeding with the next book) where I cut everything down quite a lot but also added a few things. So a little bloating as I struggled to contain all those threads but less than with the First Law where the books went something like 190, 200, 240k.

The three books ended up at (and probably not quite final final figures but close enough): A Little Hatred – 177,800, The Trouble With Peace – 195,300, and The Wisdom of Crowds – 199,200. I’d been aiming at 180,000 words a book, each consisting of three parts of 60,000 words. It just so happens that for much of this project I kept a lot of tedious records of when and how it was written, so – for the tiny minority of people for whom that might be of some interest – thought I’d go through some of that data and talk a little about the process… Finally reaching the end of a big ass trilogy like this seems a good moment to look back and take stock.

The wisdom of crowds book three joe abercrombie