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Post by Bannanachair on May 13, 2018 8:18:51 GMT -4
I was wondering how long books are (in terms of total wordcount, not page count), and so I grabbed a couple of the smaller books off my shelf and decided to count. The method that I used to count was that I opened to a random page, counted how many words were in the first two lines to get an average for the number of words per line, multiplied that by the number of lines per page and then multiplied that by the number of pages. Here's what I found:
Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov: 90,000-ish words
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson: 200,000-ish words
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger: 80,000-ish words
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan: 110,000-ish words
None of my RPs, for comparison, go over 6,000 words. Weirdly enough, that means that, if all of the OPs of my RPs were to be collected into a collected edition, it might almost take up a full, 300-page book.
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Post by Duck14 on May 13, 2018 9:25:43 GMT -4
It’s very dependent on the genre you’re writing in and how long a writer has been in the business. Publishers like first time writers in fantasy or science fiction to be writing somewhere between 80k and 120k. If you’re writing shorter fiction, as in a novella, you want to be writing below 50k.
You should also take into account that book sizes have largely changed over time. You don’t find massive tomes anymore because readers generally have a shorter attention span than they did when Tolkien released LoTR. It really depends and there isn’t exactly any one uniform size.
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Post by Bannanachair on May 13, 2018 9:29:06 GMT -4
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Post by Bannanachair on May 13, 2018 9:32:24 GMT -4
It’s very dependent on the genre you’re writing in and how long a writer has been in the business. Publishers like first time writers in fantasy or science fiction to be writing somewhere between 80k and 120k. If you’re writing shorter fiction, as in a novella, you want to be writing below 50k. You should also take into account that book sizes have largely changed over time. You don’t find massive tomes anymore because readers generally have a shorter attention span than they did when Tolkien released LoTR. It really depends and there isn’t exactly any one uniform size. Latepost. How embarrassing, I haven't done one of those in years. I think that I can realistically aim for the 80,000-120,000 word range, though curiously enough, with the exception of Lord of the Rings, fantasy and science fiction series seem to be getting older as time goes on, not shorter - compare the length of one of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoon novels to the length of Frank Herbert's Dune to the length of any ASOIAF books written by George R. R. Martin. |
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2018 12:12:04 GMT -4
series seem to be getting older as time goes on, not shorter yes, tim... things get older as time goes on |
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Post by Duck14 on May 13, 2018 12:30:29 GMT -4
It’s very dependent on the genre you’re writing in and how long a writer has been in the business. Publishers like first time writers in fantasy or science fiction to be writing somewhere between 80k and 120k. If you’re writing shorter fiction, as in a novella, you want to be writing below 50k. You should also take into account that book sizes have largely changed over time. You don’t find massive tomes anymore because readers generally have a shorter attention span than they did when Tolkien released LoTR. It really depends and there isn’t exactly any one uniform size. Latepost. How embarrassing, I haven't done one of those in years. I think that I can realistically aim for the 80,000-120,000 word range, though curiously enough, with the exception of Lord of the Rings, fantasy and science fiction series seem to be getting older as time goes on, not shorter - compare the length of one of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoon novels to the length of Frank Herbert's Dune to the length of any ASOIAF books written by George R. R. Martin. I don’t think we should really compare G.R.R.M here. He was an established writer before ASOIAF so was a more trustworthy investment for publishers than say Rowling was when she released Philospher’s Stone. For that reason he didn’t really have a length restriction. Once again, I think the audience has changed. Sure, series may be increasing in length at times but individual books really aren’t. You mention some of the big novels but there are many more shorter novels which could probably counter that theory. And even Martin started in the 90’s. |
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Post by Baise-moi on May 13, 2018 12:52:54 GMT -4
Entirely your choice. Don't feel as though there's a quota you have to meet - if the book flows naturally but falls short of the word count you were expecting, don't drag it out. Thinking of a wordcount is arbitrary, but I understand that it can be useful to set goals as well. Whatever you're capable of, really, or what you think is best; there's no right or wrong answer here.
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Post by Duck14 on May 13, 2018 12:59:35 GMT -4
Entirely your choice. Don't feel as though there's a quota you have to meet - if the book flows naturally but falls short of the word count you were expecting, don't drag it out. Thinking of a wordcount is arbitrary, but I understand that it can be useful to set goals as well. Whatever you're capable of, really, or what you think is best; there's no right or wrong answer here. I absolutely agree that it’s how it should be. The only problem comes with publishing if that’s the endgame. If not go nuts. Traditional publishers have to sell books at certain prices and books have to be a certain size to fill that quota. 80k-120k is quite a big range for a full length novel from a first time writer and works nicely. Novellas usually fall under 50k. Then novellettes and finally short stories each a little lower. It’s just how publishers are now. And I do think readers will scrutinise a novel if it’s longer or shorter than what they feel like reading. |
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Post by Bannanachair on May 13, 2018 19:37:58 GMT -4
Entirely your choice. Don't feel as though there's a quota you have to meet - if the book flows naturally but falls short of the word count you were expecting, don't drag it out. Thinking of a wordcount is arbitrary, but I understand that it can be useful to set goals as well. Whatever you're capable of, really, or what you think is best; there's no right or wrong answer here. Yeah, it's just that people think of novels as being a certain length, so I was wondering what that length is in words - I roughly know what it is in pages already, and in hours that it takes to read, but neither of those are particularly useful for when you're writing. |
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