# Word Count?



## Rhizanthella (Apr 1, 2014)

Anyone got advice on the word count of a first novel? So far I feel like mine might be too long. I've heard genres in fiction tend to vary when it comes to acceptable debut novel word count, and fantasy can range from ~80,000 - 130,000 words. I want to be certain, and if thats true, could I get an explanation on why? Could it be that fantasy novels just need more words to develop their world, magic, etc? 
Please and thank you!


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## BWFoster78 (Apr 1, 2014)

A novel really should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story.  My advice to you is to use the showcase and crit sites like Scribophile to make sure that your story is as tight as it needs to be before you publish it.  Once you figure out what really needs to be included, the length doesn't matter.

All that being said, I think that 100-120k words is a great range for an epic fantasy, and it is generally considered that fantasy novels do need more words than other genres.


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## Chilari (Apr 1, 2014)

Write it however long it needs to be. You can consider requirements for publication once you've got it down on paper (figuratively). There's no point worrying about length yet when you don't know you'll still like it when you're done, you don't how long it'll even be when you're done, and you've not come close to starting editing. If it needs to be shorter, you can edit it down, or split it up, later on. But focus on telling the story for now.


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## Svrtnsse (Apr 1, 2014)

I'll just chime in with the above; there are more important things to worry about.

I also think that as long as the reading satisfies the reader it doesn't matter terribly much how long the story is. What you don't want to do is drag things out for the sake of dragging it out. If the reader starts to feel like the final battle is drawing near and then the story somehow doesn't get around for it, then that's something that's going to annoy the reader.

From what I've heard word count is less of a concern with digital publishing. When printing, a book of length X will span Y pages. This results in a book Z inches thick. For a fantasy reader looking for a good reading experience in a new and interesting world they'll want a big chunk of a book, something to really dig into. Buying a thick book will be more appealing than a thin one.
With e-books that just doesn't matter. Your kindle won't get any heavier no matter how many words the books in it add up to.


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## PaulineMRoss (Apr 1, 2014)

Another vote for don't worry about it. Write the story first, get it critiqued, edit it to make it as tight as possible - then, if you plan to submit to traditional publishers or agents, you can begin to think about length. If you self-publish, it really doesn't matter at all.


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## Feo Takahari (Apr 1, 2014)

How Long Should a Book Be? -- Word Count For Books Explained | WritersDigest.com



> Science fiction and fantasy are the big exceptions because these categories tend to run long. It has to do with all the descriptions and world-building in the writing.
> 
> With these genres, I would say 100,000 – 115,000 is an excellent range.  It’s six-figures long, but not real long. The thing is: Writers tend to know that these categories run long so they make them run really long and hurt their chances. There’s nothing wrong with keeping it short (say, 105K) in these areas. It shows that you can whittle your work down.
> 
> Outside of that, I would say 90K-100K is most likely all right, and 115-124K is probably all right, too. That said, try to keep it in the ideal range.



(Of course, there are places to publish at almost every length if you look hard enough. The one big gap is between 10K and 20K--that usually means self-publishing.)


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## Rhizanthella (Apr 1, 2014)

Thanks for replying everyone! Sorry, I was in a Science class.
Okay. I really like to see the don't worry about it. Haha, I wonder why. 
So, here's my issue. I'm rewriting this novel for the third time and I'm 24% through it and already have about 128 pages(word count Ã· 250). If my math is correct, I will be finishing it with about 534 pages (135,000 words). And this is supposed to be the first book out of four in the series. I really have a hope to see my books on a tangible book shelf, and I can see this might present a few problems. 
I suppose I should just finish writing it as is and then try to trim down the content to an ideal word count without starving the story of needed instances. Try being the key word.


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## BWFoster78 (Apr 1, 2014)

Rhizanthella,

I really hope you're not writing in a vacuum.  It's hard to emphasize how helpful it is to get feedback from other writers.


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## Rhizanthella (Apr 1, 2014)

What do you mean? I have other people reading my works... I belive feedback is amazingly important and the more people I can get, the more opinions I see. At the same time though, I don't want to put myself at too much risk by having twenty beta readers that do what they like with my works.


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## BWFoster78 (Apr 1, 2014)

Rhizanthella,

A lot of debut authors write their books without getting any feedback from other authors or editors or anyone knowledgeable about writing fiction.  These authors tend to self publish books before their craft is ready.  Just wanted to make sure that you weren't one of those.

This comment did concern me, though:



> At the same time though, I don't want to put myself at too much risk by having twenty beta readers that do what they like with my works.



The work is yours.  No matter who tells you*, "You absolutely must change this character's name from Joe to John," it's your choice.  You should always carefully consider the advice of someone who has given freely of their time in trying to help you, but that's where your obligation ends.  The story and writing have to be yours.

The more eyes you can get on your work, the better, imo.

*With the obvious exception of me.  All my advice is solid gold that should be followed absolutely with no question.


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## Rhizanthella (Apr 1, 2014)

Oh! Hahaha! No, by "do what they want" I mean, steal ideas and characters or the story altogether. This fear might stem from Stephanie Meyer when she was writing a novel from Edward's POV and one of her beta readers put it online or something and ruined the chance of her publishing it. No worries about the editing process. I love getting feedback from them! Not /all/ my ideas are good and not /all/ theirs are. I hope that I can reach a happy medium.

And Yes. I agree. Your advice is probably solid gold.


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## psychotick (Apr 1, 2014)

Hi,

I'd agree with the others - word count is one of the last things you should be concerning yourself with. Just write the book and let the words fall where they may.

Having said that there are a couple of places where the count will be important. The first is if you submit to an agent. They will want to see something within their expected range. So for most books that'll be something like 60 to 80k, for epic fantasy 100k to 140k. That's all to do with their perceptions of saleability and the printing process.

Now for printing, and here I'm talking from my experience with Createspace. There are physical limits to how big a book can be. Using a six by nine format, fourteen point font, I've squeezed out one 250k novel. But at that it's damned near a telephone book and I don't know that it could become any larger. Also, not to be forgotten, the more pages a book is the dearer the printing process will be - which means the sale price of the book goes up. To give examples again from CS, my shortest book is 47k squeaking in between a novel and a novella. I can retail that for about six bucks. My longest is 250k, and its minimum retail price is about 24 bucks.

There are also the expectations of your readers. These are trickier to guess. But in general they want a good read. Short stories and novellas don't sell as well as novels. And if they're fantasy readers, they will expect a longer novel.

But as I say these aren't things to worry about while writing. You write what you need to write to tell the story.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Svrtnsse (Apr 1, 2014)

Out of curiosity, is there any good rule of thumb for converting word count to book thickness? Like, if a book is 120,000 words it will be 1 inch thick, for a standard size (I'm assuming that's 6x9?).


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## Rhizanthella (Apr 1, 2014)

Thank You all! Words of encouragement are so useful! As for the book thickness rule, I only know how to determine pages per word count.


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## psychotick (Apr 1, 2014)

Hi,

No, sorry Svrtnsse. Word count per page will vary wildly depending on font, font size, formatting, books size, margins trim etc. As a general rule I use a six by nine book simply because its one of the standard sizes, however, the books are larger than trade published paperbacks which are I think eight by five and a quarter. I use a two centimetre margin with two and a half on the gutter on a thick book, Times New Roman font, twleve points, and block formatting (i.e. gaps between paragraphs - to which I then add indents as well). I do it because it looks both good to my eyes and is easy to read. And a simple calculation using that of 250k words and 750 pages will tell you I get 330 words per page. But I could get more if I were to decrease the font size and knock my formating back to the more standard indent only.

However, CreateSpace has a formula for converting page numbers to book thickness, something you have to use to measure up for covers. I can't remember how exactly it works but my 750 page monster is about two and a quarter inches thick. If you go to the CS community you'll no doubt be able to find it.

Cheers, Greg.


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## psychotick (Apr 1, 2014)

Hi,

Actually I just found it:

White paper: multiply page count by 0.002252
Thus, if your book si 750 pages x 0.002252 = 1.689

However I don't thick this is the complete story since my book is thicker than that. Maybe I used different paper. I thought it was just plain white. And also the book is slightly thicker than the internal spine width which is what this calculates.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Snowpoint (Apr 2, 2014)

I don't think the number of words is important. Readers will stay if it is good. Publishers might be more specific about what they want to buy.

If you need to trim down, find ways to make each scene do more, like multitasking.


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## Butterfly (Apr 2, 2014)

Word count is only important when it comes to selling and printing your book.

Out of curiosity I've looked at a few submission guidelines from a couple of publishers. I found this at Tor.uk.

SUBMITTING A NOVEL TO TOR UK Ã‚Â« Tor Books Tor Books are looking for works between 95,000 and 150,000 words and anything outside those numbers will not be considered. Read the responses and comments at the bottom of it to see what Tor says about it.

I take it that each publishing house will have its own preference on word count. But at least for Tor, your 135,000 word novel is well within the range of what they are looking for.


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## BWFoster78 (Apr 2, 2014)

> No, by "do what they want" I mean, steal ideas and characters or the story altogether. This fear might stem from Stephanie Meyer when she was writing a novel from Edward's POV and one of her beta readers put it online or something and ruined the chance of her publishing it.



Rhizanthella,

2 quick points:

1. I hear this concern from newb authors a lot.  The general consensus is that your ideas and characters and story aren't really worth anything to anyone besides you.  Personally, I have more story ideas than I will ever have time to write.  If you want some of them, just ask.

2. It's not that Stephenie Meyer now can't publish Midnight Sun; it's that she felt so betrayed by her beta reader posting a rough draft for everyone to read that she lost interest in the project.  That's a shame, too, because that book, imo, is far superior to Twilight.


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## ndmellen (Apr 2, 2014)

This is actually a big concern for me, as well...The final draft of my manuscript is massive, topping out at 240k. I know that this is far too long for a first time author, but I can't see how to make it smaller. There is no fat to trim, and no place that I can change the story arcs to make it two books that both have a satisfactory ending....Everything leads up to the last twenty pages. Should I even bother trying to go the traditional route, knowing that it is too big?


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## BWFoster78 (Apr 2, 2014)

ndmellen,

My guess is that a really good crit partner or a content editor would be able to give you plenty of suggestions on how to trim it down...


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## PaulineMRoss (Apr 2, 2014)

BWFoster78 said:


> My guess is that a really good crit partner or a content editor would be able to give you plenty of suggestions on how to trim it down...



My experience is that the trimming down is balanced by areas that need to be filled out. I took whole chapters out of mine and still ended up with exactly the same overall total.


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## PaulineMRoss (Apr 2, 2014)

ndmellen said:


> The final draft of my manuscript is massive, topping out at 240k. I know that this is far too long for a first time author, but I can't see how to make it smaller. [...] Should I even bother trying to go the traditional route, knowing that it is too big?



If you've set your heart on trad publishing, it's worth sending the first few chapters off to agents, just to see what they say, but publishers are constrained by economic realities. The alternative route to a trad publishing contract these days is to self-publish, build a following and wait for them to come to you. But I would say, unless you conform to the publishers' fairly rigid guidelines, or are prepared to hack your manuscript about to fit, self-publishing is probably going to be less grief. 

My first is 220K, so I understand what it's like to start writing and find you have a massive tome on your hands. And no, often it's just not possible to cut it down, not without losing the essence of it. Some fantasy just works best when it sprawls epically across entire worlds, and readers enjoy immersing themselves in that kind of story.


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## psychotick (Apr 2, 2014)

Hi ND,

There's nothing to stop you submitting to an agent etc, and if this is where your heart is I would say go with it. The book being too long is just an extra hurdle, but it's not insurmountable. I would do as Pauline suggests and send off a few chapters, don't mention the word count, or at most mention that it's a little oversized, and see if you can hook someone. It may be slightly unethical but it's still better than being rejected out of the box based on an arbitrary number. On the other hand, do not submit it to any agents / publishers who have a strict word limit. It'll just end up in bad feelings all around.

However I would not prune it. As a rule of thumb you can trim a ms maybe 5% without drastically affecting the book. But any more than that and you'll start altering either its readibility or the story itself. In point of fact whenever I've tried to trim a ms it's ended up larger than when it began as I continually find more things that need fleshing out.

Cheers, Greg.


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## BWFoster78 (Apr 2, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> My experience is that the trimming down is balanced by areas that need to be filled out. I took whole chapters out of mine and still ended up with exactly the same overall total.



Pauline,

Not meaning to imply that it's not possible that an author could possibly have 200k+ of legitimate length as much as I was advocating that the poster in question seek feedback to make sure that it's the case in this particular instance.

For the record, I've noted much the same thing as you did.  I deleted large swaths of text only to find that other scenes needed drastic fleshing out.


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## Caged Maiden (Apr 2, 2014)

so I'm working on a novel right now that's already lean.  it's been trimmed and will still come out as 135k words.  Here's what I recently learned:

One, if it's your debut novel and you need the validation of passing the gate-keeper agents, seek one out that really represents similar books to yours.  They are more likely to bite on it, get excited about it, and not worry if it's a little bigger than they originally wanted.  The thing is, if you get an agent excited about your work and pull them in... they don't care whether it's 15k words heavier than they wanted.  They want it anyways!

Two, if you didn't want to go through an agent, but instead were aiming for small press, it's likely to be a bigger problem.  Small press publishers tend to have stricter rules, tight budgets, and less overall "play room" for word count.

Three, if you have no need to throw yourself upon the slush pile and have your book declared a victor, you can self-publish no matter the length.  Down side is that for paper copies, you'll have to use a site like createspace to offer a print book, but it sounds like you want to see your work on a shelf in a store.  So I think you're going the agent route.  I am too.  It's what I need to do for this first novel.  IN fact, I sent a query a couple days ago and keep reminding myself a response is on its way in a week.

Okay, so I hope you have enough advice to rest assured at this point that the extra pages don't amount to a deal-breaker to an agent (who will seek out a bigger publisher).  Best wishes!


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## Jabrosky (Apr 2, 2014)

I second every comment saying that writers shouldn't worry themselves about word count until they have something finished.

Actually, I have been worrying a lot about story length lately, but not in the sense of traditional word counts. I've read more than once that beginning writers like me should start with short stories before tackling larger novels. That advice sounds sensible to me, but for some reason I'm having difficulty brainstorming ideas that can be condensed into short stories. It seems that every idea I generate either deserves a longer story or centers on a simple fight scene. Don't get me wrong, I like writing action/adventure stories with fight scenes, but I don't want my writing to turn formulaic.


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## ndmellen (Apr 12, 2014)

Verum- This was incredibly helpful; thank you..


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