Follow word count guidelines to keep from snoozifying your reader.
by Anne R. Allen
A constant complaint I hear from agents, editors, writing teachers, and reviewers is that they see too many manuscripts with inappropriate word counts.
If you’re getting a lot of form rejections or simply silence from agents, reviewers and editors, this may be why.
Word count guidelines have been trending down in the last decade. Most editors won’t look at a debut manuscript longer than 100K words—a little longer if it’s fantasy or a non-romance historical. They were not so rigid ten years ago.
Now publishers—and many readers—won’t take a chance on any long book by an unproven author.
While readers will happily plunk down the big bux for an 819-page book by George R. R. Martin, they’ll turn up their noses at a book that long—even if it only costs 99c—if it’s written by Who R. R. You.
I know the “accepted wisdom” in the indie world is that if you self-publish, you can write whatever the heck you want and people will buy it. But that’s no longer the case. The wrong word count for your genre red-flags you as an amateur, and most readers don’t have time for amateurs.
Not when there’s so much professional-level stuff being self-published.
A decade after the beginning of the “Kindle Revolution,” too many readers have been burned by self-published bloated rough drafts. A reader is not likely to pick up a book that screams “I’ve been writing this in my spare time for the last 8 years and I refuse to rewrite and would never let an editor tamper with my genius.”
So don’t be that guy.
Word Count Guidelines By Genre
Word counts are generally agreed to be the count provided by MS Word’s “Word Count” tool. Some extremely old-school agents prefer that you use the formula of 250 words per page (double spaced, 12 pt. font) and calculate it yourself, which seems a silly waste of time, but always check agent websites for guidelines.
For debut authors, following these rules will seriously improve your chances of traditional publication and/or establishing a readership, no matter how you publish.
In other words, get famous first and break the rules later.
If you are a household name, you can publish a compendium of your shopping lists from the past two decades and your publisher will happily promote it and people will buy it.
Unfortunately, that’s not true for the rest of us.
Here is a summary of current word count guidelines. This is a composite taken from a number of publishing industry websites, so nothing is set in stone. Take these as target word counts. Some publishers will accept longer or shorter books, so always check the website of an agent or publisher before you submit.
Note I say these are for “debut” fiction. Once you have a loyal fan base, you can break the rules with abandon.
Word Count Guidelines for Debut Fiction
Picture Books—text: 500-1000 words (32 pages is ideal.)
Middle Grade fiction—20K to 40K. (Yes, we all know about Harry Potter. And when you’re as famous as J.K. Rowling you can write MG tomes, too.) “Upper Middle Grade” can be a bit longer.
Young Adult fiction—25K to 80K.
Chick Lit—60K-75K.
Cozy Mysteries—55K-70K. (BTW, Agatha Christie’s mysteries sometimes came in at 40K words. I think we may be going back in that direction.)
Fantasy—90K-110K. Definitely down from the epic tomes of yore. Self-publishers can get away with more. Fantasy readers like big books and they cannot lie. 🙂
Historical fiction—80K to 110K+. (You can still wax verbitudinous in this genre.)
Literary fiction—65K to 100K, trending away from the higher numbers. “Spare and elegant” is the mark of literary chic these days.
Standard Mysteries and Crime Fiction—70K to 100K.
Romance—55K-75K. For subgenres of romance, check publishers’ guidelines. Word counts for specific romance lines can be very strict. Some historicals can be longer, although Regencies tend to be short.
Science Fiction—75K—100K. When there’s world-building involved a book generally needs to be longer.
Thrillers—80K to 100K.
Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance—70K to 90K.
Westerns—50K-80K.
Women’s Fiction—70K-100K. The women’s fiction family saga has gone out of fashion recently, but they’re generally on the longer end.
Around 80K seems to be the magic number for most adult fiction. So if your ms. goes way over that, it may be time to put on your editor hat and get ruthless.
Word Count Guidelines for Nonfiction
Nonfiction books have shrunk drastically in the last decade. A study done last spring showed that the average length of a nonfiction bestseller has dropped 42% in the last seven years.
In 2011, the average length of a best-selling non-fiction book was 467 pages, but that dropped to 273 pages in 2017.
Nonfiction books get queried in the form of book proposals, so you don’t submit a complete manuscript (except for memoir, which you query like a novel.) That’s probably why word count guidelines for nonfiction are so hard to find. I’ve also found wildly different word count suggestions between agencies.
So treat these as word count “guestimates.”
Biography—80K-110K. These can be pretty long. Especially if your credentials are good.
Commentary—40K-60K. Not much info out there about word count guidelines for political and other opinion books. If you have appeared on cable TV news, you can probably get away with more verbiage.
Humor—20K-40K. For humorous memoir, follow memoir guidelines, and for funny novels, follow fiction guidelines, but for books like John Hodgman’s The Areas of my Expertise, Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys or the classic 1066 and All That, (only 128 pages and still in print after 80 years) keep it to 40K words or less.
Memoir and Narrative Nonfiction—40K-70K. You’ll probably want to prune a memoir if it goes over 70K. Books in this genre tend to get bloated without heavy editing. Remember you can write many memoirs about different aspects of your life.
Self-Help & How-To—20K-50K. In the age of ebooks, these are getting shorter all the time. My publisher had me cut my book The Author Blog down from 40K. (And these days some ebook how-to’s are only 3500 words long.)
Travel and Nature—40K-70K A lot of these books blur boundaries with memoir.
What if Your Ms. Doesn’t Fit Word Count Guidelines?
With both fiction and nonfiction, it’s best to err on the side of brevity these days. To quote Chuck Sambuchino, editor of the Guide to Literary Agents:
“Agents have so many queries that they are looking for reasons to say no. They are looking for mistakes, chinks in the armor, to cut their query stack down by one. And if you adopt the mentality that your book has to be long, then you are giving them ammunition to reject you.”
If your word count goes over the limit:
- Consider splitting it into two books.
- Or a trilogy. You’ll triple your income. 🙂
- Are the extra words in there for world-building? Consider cutting some details and putting them on your blog.
- Do some ruthless editing. Are you repeating yourself? Can you say something with one word instead of ten?
- Can you condense some of those conversations with indirect dialogue?
If your word count is under the limit:
- For literary fiction: Flesh out characters.
- Thrillers: Weave in another subplot.
- Crime fiction: Kill off a few more victims.
- Or…maybe you’ve got a novella.
Novellas are hot.
Yes, old-school Big Five publishers (and Bookbub) still aren’t much interested in novellas, and some agents will reject on low word count alone.
But readers love them! Jane Austen fan fiction authors have been practically minting money with 140-page or less “Pride and Prejudice variation” Regency novellas in the last few years.
And forward-looking agencies like Fuse Literary offer “assisted self-publishing” for their authors to write novellas in between big novel releases. Their Short Fuse Publishing produces digital-first novellas in a number of genres.
For more on the popularity of the novella, check out Paul Alan Fahey’s post for us on the subject. Next June we’ll have a post from actress and bestselling author Mara Purl on the difference between writing a novel and a novella.
by Anne R. Allen @annerallen March 18, 2018. Photo by Sage Ross.
What about you, scriveners? Do you have a problem keeping to word count guidelines? Do you tend to write over or under the standard word count? Have you ever turned a long book into two or three?
On March 19th, Anne will be visiting Romance University, where she’ll be talking about the many benefits of having an author blog.
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13 Imprints of Big 5 publishers who take unagented submissions. From the good people at Authors Publish Magazine.
Helpful information — once again. Thanks heaps. And I think I just may have to start submitting under the moniker Who R. R. You.
I also fell in love with the pseudonym, CS, it’s perfect for my career at this point.
I was very surprised, Anne, at the lower length of lit-fic these days, I thought that was still immune. But everything else, yeah I’m hearing the same thing from all my colleagues- perfect is 10k short than what you’re looking at now.
I think there’s a lot to be said for drawing out the characters/plot lines etc and making your tale into a series. If you can pull it off without seeming trite, you’ll hit two birds with the same stone because people still love themselves a series, right?
Thanks again for another informative, fun, funny and steal-able post!
CS and Will–I’m glad you liked the RR joke. I keep thinking I should add another R to my name and be Anne R. R. Allen. Will definitely do it if I decide to write fantasy. 🙂
Will–A series is the way to go for so many reasons. They sell better overall, plus you make more money selling individual titles. Plus you can make the first one free or very cheap to draw people in.
I second csperryess on both counts: There’s a whole heap of useful, and even interesting, information here. And Who R.R. You is a hoot!
Tricia–It’s so fun when a joke just appears on the page the way that one did. 🙂
Anne—Thanks for the useful, up-to-date info on word count! Since attention spans are shorter, seems like books should be, too. Is “bite size” the next trend?
Ruth–Bite Size is definitely a trend. James Patterson is having huge success with his “Bookshots”–books of 150 pages or less. http://bit.ly/2FR20nY
This post has it all… well, except a great salsa verde recipe.
Thanks Anne. I shared this with my FB group of dead serious writers.
EJ–I hope the serious writers don’t mind my jokes. 🙂 Sorry about the salsa verde recipe. Maybe next time…
Thanks for researching and posting, Anne. But, I find this kind of “guideline” to be ineffably discouraging to actual writing, writers, storytellers, researchers and others who write to create rather than to sell, or who wish to do both without sacrificing either.
Arbitrary word counts (which is what every single one of these has to be) offend me and should give us all pause. According to whom? For what reasons? Why should we go along with this?
BTW: with the option of ebooks, publishers can’t even claim cost as the reason to force books to be shorter.
Finally, “fame” is no rationale for “earning” the “right” to have longer books and have them be acceptable. The WRITING is what should convey the meaning, and the value of the writing is what should dictate which books are “too long” or “too short.”
When editors/agents/publishers and authors stand up for each piece’s having the best format and length, acknowledging the uniqueness of each creative effort ,rather than bow to some idiotic idea of what each “genre” should “allow,” THEN we will have a book-lovers’ and book-writers’ realm worth inhabiting.
I write what my books seem to require for the story/characters to be well-presented. Standards of size should no more apply to books than to paintings, sculptures or poems.
Imagine these scenarios:
— “Sorry, Michelangelo: even though this painting fits perfectly on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, current standards for ceiling paintings deem yours to be too large. You’ll have to eliminate some ceiling tiles. Try making God’s and Adam’s arms shorter.”
Or,
— “Sorry, Auguste Rodin: We like ‘The Thinker,’ but this year’s outdoor sculptures are not to exceed these dimensions: 6′ x 3′ x 4′ , by city of Paris decree, but your sculpture’s are 6′ 2″ x 3′ 3″ x 4′ 7″. Oh, you made it ‘life-sized’? Well, use a smaller model. Scrape some bronze off, all right?”
Or,
— “Sorry, Judy Chicago, but the Brooklyn Museum curators have decided that you’re only allowed to have 33 place settings for ‘The Dinner Party.’ Oh, you have 39? Well, you’ll have to disinvite some guests.”
Sure. That all makes perfect sense…about as much as allowing insurance companies to dictate eligible medical procedures and treatments.
Best to you,
Sally Ember, Ed.D.
author, “The Spanners Series” (utopian sci-fi/romance in which each Volume is over 120 words)
http://www.sallyember.com/Spanners
Sally–Thanks for your input. I don’t know if you noticed that I said these are guidelines to help improve your chances of publication.
Of course you can translate the Epic of Gilgamesh into Klingon and write it in Wingdings and you could have the next Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on your hands.
But I would be lying if I didn’t point out the odds would be against you.
You need to know the rules before you can break them.
As I said these are only “guestimates” and that authors should always “check agents’ websites.”
Also, “if you’re famous (like Michelangelo, Rodin, and Judy Chicago) you can break rules with abandon.”
This is simply a list of the current standards of the business and meant to be helpful guidelines for writers who are interested in becoming professional authors. If you’re writing as a hobby, or for your own therapeutic needs, you can happily ignore it all!. 🙂
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been curious. At least I know I’m doing something right now.
Ryan–It’s always good to know you’re in line with standards in the industry, even if you’re working on your own.
I have to disagree on what to do if the book is too short. That’s the most common advice, and if you’re at 50K and have to get to 90K, you ain’t getting there by slapping in a subplot. If you’re going for indie, a novella is fine, but if you’re going for traditional publishing, you’re pretty much screwed. This was a weakness i spent years trying to fix, and beating myself over it, thinking my writing was flaws. I had trouble even getting one subplot into the story.
A better option first is to add setting and five senses into every scene. If it’s from the opinions of the character, it’s going to add characterization and keep the reader immersed. Many places don’t recommend doing it because writers do it badly, instead of trying to figure out how to do it right. I read Michael Connelly all the time, and he pulls me in with this no matter where I am in the book.
Also, a better understanding of what secondary plotlines are. Craft books generally do not describe them very well, and I suspect those writers may not understand them very well either. I just took a very eye opening course on it. As a result, I’ve come up with at least six secondary plots in my story, including two I would not have thought of as such.
Linda–I did suggest for literary books, fleshing out characters is the best way to expand a book. I’m not sure that adding a bunch of description will work for a thriller, but it can help with a literary novel.
But good subplots are the best way to flesh out a book. I do wish there was more info on subplots out there. My problem was always too many subplots. The course you took sounds great.
I think trad pub is going to be downsizing books as well. I read a Canadian writer whose trad publisher publishes her novellas. As I said in my response to Ruth, James Patterson is having a huge success with books under 150 pages. So if you’re querying right now, yes, you have to get over 50K for most genres but I think that will change.
Linda, that’s an interesting point about secondary plot lines. Maybe we can talk Anne or Ruth into writing a post about it–or maybe they’ll invite you to guest post it! I’d love to learn more about the subject.
Tricia–We’ll have to look into that. 🙂
I’m one of your readers who errs on the side of brevity, Anne, as you know. I adhere to Elmore Leonard’s response: “I leave out the parts I think readers will skip.” If you are going to do that, you need a LOT of plot to get to 80,000 words. More plot points, not just more description (in my opinion, and Leonard’s – grin). I think a lot of crime writers pad their novels these days. If you look at many good movies – the Great Gatsby comes to mind – they were sourced from novellas.
Melodie–I love your short books. (I like the longer fantasy ones too) but I think your latest Goddaughter book is the future of books. It’s novella-length and just the right size to stick i a pocket and read on the bus. (In a font that is big enough to actually read.) Your publisher seems to be in the vanguard of publishing shorter books, and I’m sure the Big Five will follow eventually, especially with the huge success James Patterson is having with them.
And you’re right that it’s not just short-attention span syndrome that’s pushing this. The film industry is too. The novella is the perfect size to convert to a screenplay.
Thanks for the kind words, Anne! I think you’ve said a bundle in the last line of your comment. We should probably all be writing screenplays if we want to be part of the future of ‘story’. 44 pages for one hour television show. 120 pages for 2 hour full length picture. Wish I had gone this route when I was a young thing 🙂
This is so helpful! And for picture books I’ve heard they’re shying away even from 1000. I’ve heard under 500 is even better. But I’m particularly interested in this list of non-fiction. I’ve never seen word counts for nonfic before, and this is so helpful!
Sarah–I think everything is downsizing, so those top numbers may not apply much longer for any genre.
The nonfic numbers really surprised me. I started looking when my publisher told me my ms. was too long for my Author Blog book. I had feared it was too short.
Thank you, Anne, this is great information. I’m kind of okay with books getting a bit shorter–at least as a reader. And after having written my first novella, I find I like writing that length and plan to do more of it.
Eve–I feel the same way as a reader. I like ones I can read in a few sittings. Congrats on your novella! I haven’t done one yet, but I want to.
It’s always good to be reminded of these. I read a lot of fantasy and yes, I love those long, long, big, heavy books. LOL
Susan–Some agents are still willing to look at those 110K fantasy manuscripts, because they know fantasy readers love long books. But others want a standard 80-90 K for everything because they don’t want to read that much of a debut novel.
More kismet in this post! In the past week I’ve had 4 authors, querying me for an edit, ask if their book is too long or not long enough. These are authors with a first book, who expect to self-publish.
I decided to do some research and found contemporary advice was to ‘go shorter’, so urged the 160k authors to start thinking about splitting their book, while telling the 120k authors to wait for an edit, since they just might have heavy-handed material, which could be tightened down by 20k or more.
So — really fun to hear your thoughts on this dilemma.
oyes — have encountered more novellas in the past year than in the 5 years prior, with authors apologetically noting that ‘this was all the story needed’ — and after their edit, I had to agree. Hoping publishers start to wake up to this shorty ‘trend’, cuz I don’t care whether people prefer long or short, just so they read. :O)
Thanks for sharing stuff that seems to always be ‘right in time’.
Maria D’Marco
Maria–Serendipity indeed! I think you gave them great advice.
It’s silly that novellas have been so out of favor for the past 50 years, so it’s time for them to make a comeback. Especially since they’re so perfect for adapting to film.
The majority of my stuff clocks in at roughly 52k, give or take 2k. Very rarely do my stories get into that “rarefied” atmosphere of 70k+ words. Whenever a story of min hits that level, my first thought is “why did I pad out my story so much?”, which of course is a bunch of bull crap, but that is the end result of trying to follow the rules about word count.
I actually have a novel/novella that the reverse needs to be done, in that it clocked in at 52k, but a beta reader told me the chapters were too long, so I’ll have to spend some time turning 8 chapters into at least 15.
As a reader, I definitely balk at reading a 100k+ word tome, no matter what the genre. I’m sorry, but any book that clocks in @ 500+ pages gets the clove of garlic and the cross of silver pens thrown at it.
G.B.–I’m reluctant to pick up a big book these days too. I’m not sure I rank them up there with vampires on the scary scale, but I know what you’re talking about. 52K would have been fine for a novel in the 1920s and 30s. I don’t know when things got so rigid about word counts. Probably the 1950s. Conformity ruled. 🙂
Thank you, Anne. In this fast paced world, it seems that “less is more.” As for myself my nonfiction picture books all fall under 1000 words, but most fall within 500 to 700 as I am hitting the upper range of that audience. It’s a challenge to say a lot more with fewer words. I must say, however, that I find myself limiting the word length in the historical articles that I write for adults as well.
BA–Writing picture books must be like composing a poem. Short word count takes more time.
It’s true that most news articles and features have shrunk considerably. People are on the go, reading on their phones and don’t have time to settle in for a “long read” article. Even the New Yorker has mostly short articles now.
GREAT POST AS USUAL, ANNE! I just sent it to a friend who’s writing a self-help/memoir. Looks like she’s right on target for length. I’m looking forward to reading Mara Purl’s post next week. She’s a woman with a ton of talent and an amazing life story.
Sandy–Good to see you here! *waves*. Self-help and memoir are much shorter than I realized, so I was glad to find this information on several agent websites.
Mara won’t be here until June. But I’m really looking forward to her post. She’s a lovely person. We got to do some readings together last September and it was great fun.
Thanks for the information. The counts have changed down a bit since the last time I checked. My YA novel isn’t 5,000 words short anymore! Yahoo!
Oh and I love the cat sleeping on the hefty book picture!
Christine–Yay! Of course not all agents have updated their requirements, so always check their websites before you submit.
I loved that kitty picture too. That cat looks just like my cat Marco I had back in the 80s. 🙂
Hi Anne – I thought I’d put my 2 cents in from experience around the crime thriller genre. I’ve got 2 series building, one is crime fiction with the debut tome going out at 115K. Common critique was it was way to long. I did a sequel at 80K and it was better received as for length – content was a different matter 🙂 I also have 3 true crime books at 50K each and they seemed to hit the eBook sweet spot bang-on. But, a few regular readers told me they don’t gauge a book by the word count. As long as it keeps them in the story, then time flies and they’re happy. Now I have a historical non-fiction underway -it’s at 65K and halfway through first draft – not sure how I’m gonna cut it. Maybe I’ll just rewrite history and turn it into fiction. Thanks for the great info, as usual!
Garry–Definitely 80K is a much more popular length for fiction, as you discovered.. Nonfiction can be shorter. If you have longer nonfiction, you can always cut it into two books.
I think one factor in the change in reading habits is that percentage line at the bottom of your e-reader. If you’ve been reading for hours and that percentage doesn’t budge, you can feel sort of defeated. A big jump in the percentage gives a reader a feeling of accomplishment.
What a wonderful, helpful post – I’m definitely bookmarking it! Prior to this this, the best idea I had was “50K is a novel, epic fantasy can be longer.”
Irvin–I wrote this because so many people on Facebook seemed to be confused about lengths. 50K is considered “a novel” by the NaNoWriMo people, but most publishers want something longer for adult fiction.
Thanks for the update. There are posts with word counts out there but they are old (like 10 or more years). It’s great to have an update especially in this industry. Many of the numbers are the same but some have subtle shifts and trends are always good to know.
My novels tend to be on the longish side, between 100 and 120K… they’re suspense, paranormal suspense and historical suspense. I’ve yet to have anyone tell me they’re too long. Personally, I hate the trend to shorter books… I love to wallow in whatever world the writer has created, and, being a fast reader, a shorter book doesn’t give me enough time in that world.
But I did split a fantasy/scifi novel into at least two, probably three volumes, after the first volume got close to 200K words and it wasn’t even half done! Yes, fantasy can handle a longer length, but 200K? No way. So, now I’m working on the third volume of what will be a trilogy… or maybe a quadrilogy… who knows? Only the writing will tell…
Susan–Everybody has their own reading habits and of course some people will prefer the big books. My sister does. A trend is just that–a way things are leaning. But that doesn’t mean every book has to be the same. Also, you’re an established author, so these *debut* fiction guidelines don’t apply.
But when you can break that big book into three (or four or five) you not only please more people, but you make more $$. Never a bad thing. 🙂
Great post! It’s hard to stick to the limit but sometimes you might find that the book is far better than when you had those extra bits.
MariaJohn–Yes, very often word count problems can be solved by a good editor. Writers almost always say things with more words than we have to in a first draft.
Hello Anne, I have one question: What would be the word count for creative non-fiction, Ex: a collection of essays or for a memoir? Thank you!
Nadia–I haven’t seen any word count info on collections–either of stories or essays. But since your essays form a memoir, I’d go by memoir word count guidelines.
Anne, you bring some of the most helpful information to the screen! Thank you for this post on word counts. I’ve recently switched from nonfiction/memoir to historical fiction. Found my word count limits and am happy I can write veritudinously. 🙂
Sherrey–Good to see you here *waves*. Yes, historical fiction can still be pretty long, so have fun!
Anne, thank you very much! I had no idea those word totals had dropped that much! I guess I need to get to work. My paranormal romance is 106,000 words. No wonder I’ve received form rejections from all the agents I’ve contacted. I need to try to cut it down to 90,000 or less. And then I need to decide whether to self publish, or try other avenues.
As for your question, I wrote a romance/adult fiction novel that was originally over 300,000 words. I split into two novels and cut about 100,000 words…which really hurt.
Thank you again.
Fred–That’s the thing–a lot of agents don’t post desired word counts, but they reject if you don’t follow them. So it’s good to know the standards. Many, many agents reject on word count alone. Cutting your romance to 90K would give it a better chance.
It is wrenching to cut a big book into two or three. You always end up having to lose some of your favorite passages. Killing our darlings does hurt.
I am relieved to know that my books are in the correct word count for their genre. I did do some research on this first though. A useful post.
Robbie–It’s nice to know you’re doing it right. 🙂
Thank you for this oh-so-helpful information!
And I’m so glad to read that many manuscripts are too long because there’s nothing I hate more than slogging through a wordy non-fiction book that over-explains a concept or idea or repeats itself over and over!
I’m writing my soon-to-be self published debut non-fiction book and have tried to find any information on appropriate word counts. I don’t want it to be too short, and I don’t want to add unnecessary fluff just to make it longer. My rough first draft is at just under 22K words, so it appears I may be right on track in the self-help/ how to genre.
Chrysta
Chrysta–This information is hard to find partly because Google isn’t chronological. You get 10 year old information on the top of the SERP and have to go digging to find the current stuff. But nonfiction has shrunk by almost 50% in the last decade, so your 22K words is probably just fine. I agree that nonfic is often bloated by “fluff” and repetition, and it’s great that it’s being cut down to “just the good stuff.”
Most helpful. Thanks for that. On the subject of splitting a book, I’ve done that on twos accasions. One on my publisher’s advice and one I decided was going to be far too big. (possibly a George R.R. Martin sizes book).
V. M.–I’m glad it’s helpful. And thanks for the testimony that splitting a book works!
Thanks for this helpful information, Anne. 🙂 — Suzanne
I don’t see my comment!
Thank you for helpful information I really enjoyed reading this article even though it wasn’t so satisfying for my Ms. But, as you had written, I’ll just kill off more victims 😉
Lenka–I think it’s much easier to make a short book longer than the other way around. In fact, it can be fun. Good luck with it!
Lenka—here’s Ruth butting in and politely disagreeing. Please see my post about the power of the delete button and Stephen King’s 10% rule. https://selfpublishingsites.com/2019/01/stephen-kings-10-rule/
Hope Anne and I have helped.
Ruth–Lenka’s problem is a book that’s too short. That’s why adding another subplot/dead body helps. And it can be fun for the writer. Readers do have expectations about novel length. But that doesn’t mean Lenka can’t publish her book as a novella!
In many cases, adding “five senses to each scene” is only going to read like the filler it is. You need “more story”, not “more words”. The story is there to write. Reveal more character with more dialogue, add interesting or amusing incidental action, give interesting information about your setting (within sensible limits), and yes, add some description here and there WHERE it benefits the story, not just a word count.
Plus, add more story. It doesn’t have to be subplots … expand your character’s journey. But it has to serve the story and be interesting, and after all, we’re writers … that’s what we’re supposed to be good at.
Brent–Great tips on keeping your word count down. Newbie writers often write more description than necessary because they’ve been taught to add “all the senses” to every scene. But as you say, story trumps everything else. If it gets in the way of the story, cut it.
This is so helpful. My current novel is around 75K words and I thought it needed to be closer to 80K, but the story is done. I’m so encouraged by this. Thank you. — kc conrow
KC–I’m glad this helps. 75K is a respectable length for most novels, unless you’re writing epic fantasy. Most readers will thank you. 🙂