Is your book the right size?
by Ruth Harris
Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, size does matter. At least, when it comes to books. 😉
- Too long or too short?
- Wordy and flabby?
- Curt and brusque?
- Novel or novella?
- Short story or novelette?
From urban fantasy to space opera, thriller to romance, readers expect a certain length. Too short and they feel cheated. Too long and they start flipping pages.
Question: what size is the right size?
Answer: it depends on what genre we’re talking about.
Length in a book is calculated by word count, not by pages. Word count is immutable. Page count, determined by formatting choices like font size and margins, is variable. Most word processors feature a word counter so, as you write, you can keep track of your goals and stay close to the desired target.
Note, though, that word count guidelines are just that: guides, not iron-clad rules. If you’re a beginner, though, it’s best to stay within the guidelines especially if you want to go the TradPub route and find an agent. Better watch out because a 20K word epic fantasy will get you arrested and put in scifi/F jail.
Everything you wanted to know about word count but were afraid to ask.
To escape scifi/F or any other kind of jail, here’s an overview of word count guidelines by genre.
(That links to a post by Jacqi Murray that shows word count rules are way more complicated than most of us think. She lists genres that most of us have never heard of. New Weird, anyone? The basics: under 50K, it’s a novella; over 120K, and you’re going for TradPub, your name better be J. K. Rowling…Anne)
Whether you’re looking for an agent or planning to self-pub, Chuck Sambuchino at Writer’s Digest offers a detailed analysis of word count expectations for genres including commercial and literary fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, middle grade and YA, westerns and memoirs.
- Writing a mystery?
- Romance? Carina Press, Harlequin’s Digital imprint, sets out submission guidelines including word count requirements.
- Thriller Guy on word counts for thrillers.
- This Goodreads discussion explores the long and short of the short story.
- From the under 1000 word flash story to the full-length novel, here’s another take on word count.
- According to Amazon’s text stats, the median length of a novel is about 64,000 words, although a sampling of classics including Lolita, Portnoy’s Complaint and War And Peace shows a wide range of word counts.
- Scrivener has a build-in word counter to help you keep track of your progress and so does MSWord. Word Counter is a nifty little stand alone app that does just that and comes in handy if you’re working in a note-taking app.
Now that we know what neighborhood we’re aiming for, we might need to apply some writer juju.
Book too short? Need to bulk up?
No trip to the gym required but some know-how about how to use different techniques to add to your word count is essential. Like making tomato sauce, there’s more than just one recipe to help you get where you want to go.
- The Novel Doctor suggests ways ranging from introducing a new character to beefing up your descriptions to add length.
- Janice Hardy’s check list for adding length also includes tips on what NOT to do.
- Shaquanda Dalton, a Sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has thought of five ways to pump up your abs and pecs…oops, I mean word count.
- Author K.M. Weiland suggests five more ways to add heft.
- If you’ve really come up short, Emily Wenstrom, a lit addict, movie junkie, and writer, spells out ways to double your word count.
The upside of short.
What if short is the right length for your story? What if adding length in the form of more plot twists or new characters just weighs down your story and/or adds pointless, meandering blah-blah-blah?
Don’t give your reader a reason to skip or even just give up. Why not embrace the short and write a novella or a short story?
- Anne’s post on the desirability—and profit potential—of writing short fiction is a must-read.
- Paul Alan Fahey, bestselling master of the novella, tells why novellas are hot—and tells how to write one starting with the initial idea, through the log line to the outline and on to the ending.
- Author of dark fantasy, James R. Tuck, shares 6 tips on writing short fiction.
- James Scott Bell offers a succinct guide to writing a novella along with a list of famous novellas by writers from Ernest Hemingway and Charles Dickens to James M. Cain and Stephen King to inspire you.
- Want to go even shorter? Here are 10 steps to writing a short story.
Too much of a good thing?
You’ve gotten carried away. Your taut, svelte thriller has ballooned to encyclopedia length. Your 150K word category romance would probably be better divided, like all Gaul, into three parts.
If your book needs a membership in Weight Watchers or a few KonMari sessions with Marie Kondo, there are several methods, professionally approved, that will help you lose ugly fat and clear the clutter.
- Tips from the thesis whisperer also apply to fiction with advice from Stephen King & Harlan Ellison. Here are five ways to kill your darlings.
- Editor Jodie Renner tells how slash your word Count by 20-40% without losing any of the good stuff.
- Editor Brian Klems at Writer’s Digest suggests ways to cut your story down to size.
- Karen Marston is on-topic with 10 tricks to cut your word count.
- Literary agent, editor and publishing coach, Rachelle Gardner, provides a check list that will help you cut thousands of unnecessary words.
- Janice Hardy gives a persuasive example of how she cut words from a page of one of her own books that had already been edited and (she thought) trimmed.
- Freelance writer Jesse Hines shares editing tricks that will help you keep to your word count.
Rx for clichés, flabby phrases and weasel words
- Here’s what to say instead.
- Words to use instead of very: http://www.
proofreadingservices.com/ pages/very - Word Hippo is a dictionary on steroids that will turn up similar words, opposite words and rhyming words. With examples and pronunciations.
- Refer to this list of 681 clichés to guard against.
- The Oxford Dictionary blog suggests ways to avoid using a cliché.
- An article at the University of Richmond’s Writer’s Web explains how to identify and avoid clichés.
Can you Right Size Your Book?
S, M, L?
Grande, Venti, Trenta?
Whether it’s t-shirts, coffee—or your book—take a moment to remember what you already know: there’s no such thing as one size fits all.
Also remember that novellas (word count 20k-50K) and novelettes (10K-20K) are making a major comeback in these short attention-span days. James Patterson’s latest success is his “Book Shots,” short novelettes that take 2 hours or less to read. More about them on Anne’s book blog.
by Ruth Harris @RuthHarrisBooks July 31, 2016
What about you, scriveners? Do you know the standard word count for your genre? Are you having trouble going over or keeping under the guidelines? Have you ever cut a book in half or even into a trilogy to make correct word count? Do you write New Weird? Can you tell us what it is?
Remember we don’t monetize this blog, so the only payment we get is when you buy our books.
This week we’re celebrating Ruth’s fabulous new book page, put together by our generous host, Barb Drozdowich of Bakerview Consulting. Check out the shiny new page for:
(which are fabulous and unputdownable)
And for your weekly dose of poison, check out Anne’s book blog. Did you ever wonder what made those birds in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic movie act so nutty? Turns out it might have been a dose of Domoic Acid.
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
Please note: I try to vet all the contests and opportunities I list here, but I may miss something, so always read the fine print, especially when it comes to copyright. Don’t enter a contest that takes rights for non-winning submissions, or asks for ALL rights, rather than first rights. More on this at Writer Beware.…Anne
THE SUNDAY TIMES SHORT STORY AWARD NO ENTRY FEE Any story under 6,000 words. Five shortlisted runners-up get £1,000. First prize worth £30,000. The Society of Authors is the sponsor. Author must have previous publications in the UK or Eire. Deadline September 29, 2016.
Bartleby Snopes Dialogue-Only Story Contest. $10 FEE for unlimited entries. Write a story under 2000 words, using only dialogue–no tags. No other restrictions. Prize: minimum of $300, more with more entries. All fees go into the prize pot. Deadline September 15th.
Call for anthology submissions! Wising Up Press is accepting submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction for their “Kindness of Strangers” anthology. Prose: 5,000 words or fewer. Poets may submit up to five poems. They accept simultaneous submissions and previously published work. Deadline Sept. 1st
Verbolatry Laugh-a-Riot Contest 2016 Win £50 and publication, no fee. Seeking Humorous essays and cartoons about writing/publishing. Two categories, free and paid. (Pay £5, win £100) Judged by Moira Allen, Leigh Anne Jasheway and Geoff Tristram. Sponsored by Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat. Deadline 31 August 2016.
MYSTERY AUTHORS! We found a list of 15 small presses that specialize in mysteries and do not require an agent for submissions. It’s compiled by Authors Publish Newsletter.
ROMANCE AUTHORS! Here’s a list of 31 small presses that specialize in romance and do not require an agent for submissions. Also compiled by the Authors Publish Newsletter.
25 PUBLISHERS YOU CAN SUBMIT TO WITHOUT AN AGENT. These are respected, mostly independent publishing houses–vetted by the great people at Authors Publish. Do check out their newsletter.
If the book’s running too short, you can also add a “loop”–a section in the book that essentially loops and comes back to where it started. It is a common practice, and I’ve run into it as a reader. Sometimes it’s done pretty good, and sometimes the loop annoyed me.
I’ve always run too short for what the publisher’s ask for–40-50K. I always thought it was some kind of failing on my part because I’d see people talk about books ballooning to 200K. I’d spend a lot of time wrecking the story trying to bring it up in word count (trust me: there are a lot of ways to break the story). But I think the reason for the shortness more of my understanding what my story needed to do and stopping when it was done. I’m glad for indie, because I can do the word count that my story naturally runs.
If you are running too short, your story is probably thin. Add five senses every five hundred words–all senses, and get down into your character. If you’ve only described the setting vaguely like “They entered the bar,” then plug in a few more sentences to bring the reader into that place. Description tends to get a bad rap because people do it poorly, so writers tend to leave it out or give up control to the reader (a bad idea) instead of using it to immerse the reader.
Linda—I’m with you: when a story’s told, it’s finished. Thanks for the “five senses” approach!
Wow! I never thought there would be so many cool resources to move your word-count in both directions. Fabulous Anne! Of course, all that cutting stuff is blasphemy to me… epic is what it is, but I find I sometimes trim, sometimes flesh out when I’m revising and that’s a good field test I think for how well the writing is going.
I started with an epic fantasy trunk novel, 200k and everything you say about not being JKR applied in spades. Chronicling a shorter tale, for me, was a question of thinking about STAKES. If the entire world is not at risk, you can tell the tale in less time. As long as I remember, it’s always crucial to the characters, I find the tension and energy is still there. But as always with epic, the tales start to link together… so a series of three or four bite-size novellas all concerning the same event bind together nicely as one main-course novel later on. We have this freedom now with e-pub and especially with self-pub.
Will—200K? Aaaargh! Love your idea of thinking in Stakes instead of whole-world-at-stake—and the resulting “main-course novel.” 🙂
I just went and checked. All four of my space operas fell short of the minimum 90,000 words. Thank God my publisher still took them.
Thanks for a link to that list and for the tips on beefing up. I know most have to pare back, but not me. I am a bare bones writer and need to add more.
Alex—Hope that list helps but remember that the traditional word counts aren’t as rigid as they once were. Now writers have the freedom to write to various lengths…all we need to do is tell the story!
Hi, Ruth, just what I needed today. When I sent in my ms for “Equality”–a new nonfiction anthology of personal essays with 25 writers onboard–I wondered if it was too short. Hmm. I’ll be hearing from the publisher any day now so have my fingers crossed. I really didn’t have any guidelines for length other than saying around 2K words, assuming some essays would be long, some would be shorter. Thank you also for the shout out on my novella post. You’re the greatest. My best, Paul.
Paul—”Around 2K words” is the only sensible way to approach the issue. We’re not Twitter authors where the character count is rigid, just writers doing our best. 🙂 Your novella post is a classic, must-read!
Thank you so much, Ruth. Do appreciate those nice words and your support. I’ll let you know how it goes once I hear from the editor. Cheers, Paul
If I’m writing a story to submit to magazine markets, there is a definite maximum word count. Not too many markets are interested in 20,000-word stories, (there are a few), but for 3-5,000 words there’s a lot more. For my mystery novels, I want them to get over 60,o00 words. My first novel was 183,000 words. I probably won’t do that again, but reviewers have remarked upon the historical detail.
Louis—Thanks for the excellent points about magazine markets. They are often constrained in questions of length due to their format. What matters is that writers know what the parameters are depending on what they’re aiming for.
May I be excused? My brain is full! (old Far Side cartoon)
Fortunately, with exception of my one commercial novel (roughly 68K), just about all of my word counts fall within the novella range of 30K or so. I like the advice given, but I’m always leery of pumping up a word count for the sake of pumping up a word count.
G.B.—Thanks but couldn’t agree more about the hazards of pumping up the word count. As I said, beware of pointless, meandering blah-blah-blah. To be avoided in all cases!
Another great post. Thanks heaps once again.
CS—Thank *you.* I appreciate your kind words. 🙂
What a wealth of information in those links! Thanks for this, Ruth.
Next we need a post on how to sell cross-genre novellas. I have a sci-fi crime novella that is getting great reviews, and alas, not many sales. I think by making it sci-fi, I alienated my crime fans, and confused the sci-fi market .
A post on selling novellas, period, would help!
Melodie—I feel your pain! I wonder if the issue *might* be more about how to sell cross-genre fiction rather than just how to sell novella-length fiction. A double challenge! I wonder if anyone has succeeded.
Great info. Just what I needed, too. Timing is perfect! Thanks, again everyone plus Anne and Ruth. You saved the day.
Victoria—Thank you! 🙂
Thanks for the resources! When I wrote everything longhand, I got a lot more detail onto the page, because I had time to think about things as my hand was writing letters. But now I type as fast as I think, and I don’t sit and mull over phrases and descriptions the way I used to. My first drafts are very lean, and I have to go back and pad. Description and emotion have been my go-to starting points, but there’s lots of other great suggestions in here. Thanks so much!
Kessie—An excellent point! As you point out, the move to digital has more implications than just format. I wonder how much it has also affected the reading experience. Do we read faster? Skim more? I wouldn’t be surprised.
I write historical sagas, deliberately planned and plotted at saga length, with ensemble casts, spanning many years. Historical sagas are traditionally very long (e.g., The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, Exodus, Gone with the Wind, …And Ladies of the Club), and wouldn’t be nearly the same stories if hundreds of pages were hacked out or they were split into a pretended series. For awhile, I queried one book as a pretended trilogy, and I quickly realized that wasn’t being true to the story as I intended it. A lot of people I’ve spoken to say they want more longer books, and have expressed surprise that many traditionally-published books these days are so short. I went indie in part to stay true to my stories at the length which naturally unfolded and works for them, as well as the tradition of historical novels being so long. Honestly, I have a hard time getting lost in a historical novel that’s all of 300 pages, since there’s no time for detailed world-building and epic storylines.
On the flip side, my books in most dire need of radical rewriting and restructuring are all under 100K. Those were written less carefully than the books I deliberately wrote and plotted at saga length. People should look at the actual content and intent of a book, instead of declaring it’s automatically “too long” or “too short” without reading a single word.
Carrie-Anne—As you correctly point out, sagas are traditionally and, by definition, long. Thanks for sharing your experience with a “pretend” trilogy!
This is such a great post and I’m so appreciative for all the helpful information. That’s why your blog is my fav! : )
Cindy—Thank you for taking the time to comment. Anne and I appreciate your kind words and we are totally thrilled to hear our blog is your fav! 🙂
Always nice to have all of these resources in one place. Thank you!
Jesse—Glad to hear the post is helpful. 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to comment. Anne and I appreciate our wonderful commenters!