When I planned out my current novel in progress, I made the minimum target for the word count to be about 80,000 and as has become custom for me I plotted the story out using a five-act structure. I very much like the more detailed approach that 5 acts gives me over the more traditional 3 act where the second act seems rather loosely defined.

Given 5 acts that would make each one about 16,000 words long, longer if I move towards the 90,000 words possibility.

So, earlier this week I finished act 3 and moved in act 4 where things spiral out of control and here are the sizes of the acts written so far: Act 1 16,200, Act 2 16,600, and Act 3 32,700.

Wow, that 3rd act is massive and of course I was aware of it as I wrote it. So much happens as the murder investigation digs deep and uncovers elements that the characters could have scarcely imagined much less expected.

Am I panicking? Am I going back and looking for massive cuts to bring that Act down to a size more like the first two?

Nope.

Structure tells me where the story is going and what sort of elements are required to move it forward it is not a detailed diagram that with exact word or page counts. Now, this is an early draft and when I dive into the first revisions I will be looking to see if I leaned heavily on exposition, covered the same ground more than once, and other elements that I would be looking for anyway but I will not be looking to ‘force’ the Act down to match the others. Variation, even when one act at twice the size of the others, is not a reason to panic edit. The Act structure is a guide not detailed instructions and when a reader picks up your novel, they do not see the structure, they see the characters, the troubles, and the moral quandaries. If they see the structure then the story has failed.