How long should your first book be?

[Prince of Spires]

I'd be prepared to bet there are more non-finished books than finished across the history of literature (and attempted literature). And the reason? They ran out of interest or ran out of ideas...

I agree with the first part, but I'm not sure the second part is necessarily true. There are a lot of reasons people don't finish. I think the two main ones are finding that writing a book is a lot of work and running out of steam.

Running out of steam is related to running out of ideas. The difference is that for me running out of ideas seems very definitive, while running out of steam (because you've written what was in your head and now you have no idea where to go next) can be fixed if you're willing to sit down and think it through. In the end, ideas are cheap and a dime a dozen. The execution is a lot more important then the idea. And while the idea might not be novel-sized, that doesn't mean it's not novella-sized. But people don't continue with their idea to write that novella, they just stop writing.

Of course, some ideas are just bad. Not every idea is worth finishing. But if you've started several novels (like the OP), then I believe that at least one of those will be worthy of a book, even if it's only 40k words.

 

[Penpilot]

Yeah, you're right. I made the mistake of only responding to what I disagreed with, without acknowledging any of the rest, which was pretty sound.

No, it's not that you only responded to what you disagreed with. That's fine. Its that you misrepresented that it was the only thing I was offering up.

Only, OP asked for a cupcake recipe, and you all go "Just make cupcake"

And here you go again. Misrepresenting. To use your analogy, the OP said they were struggling with their cupcake recipe. They were struggling with it so much that they didn't even bother to try and bake it. I told them to bake it and see how it tastes first. Because not only does one have to perfect their cupcake recipe, they need the baking skills to execute the recipe properly for it to taste good.

And I told them to keep baking and trying different things so they can get practice, because we all bake our cupcakes slightly different, and need to figure out what techniques work for us and what don't. Because each time you try, even if the cupcakes taste like crap, you learn something more about making cupcakes. I then pointed them towards cook books and recipe books as a way to learn techniques and pick up things to try.

Then, you come riding in, complaining that I wasn't offering up the cupcake secrets that would allow someone bake a cupcake, not a good cupcake, just a cupcake. LMAO.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

As mentioned, if thinking Trad 110k with epics is ok, maybe 120k. Anything more, the luckier or more well known you need to be. Note things like Booklife not letting books into their fiction contest at over 100k, or their review service not accepting over 150k or something like that (although they bend the rule if you have another book well reviewed, they accepted Trail of Pyres at over 200k because Eve of Snows was an editor's Pick). I scoffed at the number early on, but it is oddly legit from from many contests to agents to reviewers to pubs and you name it. I can't write a book so short, heh heh.