Writing Wednesday
Wednesday is the day I share what I have learned on my journey from writing to publication, marketing and writing and publishing again. If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them. If you have any tips please share them with us…
How long should a book be?
At writing workshops the most common question I get is, “How many pages should a book have?”
My first answer is you need to consider word count not pages. My second answer is, when you start a book, you should sit down and write the story. Get it out on paper without worrying about rules, spelling, grammar or length. Once you have that first messy draft that’s the time to get serious.
If you need help getting the first draft finished you might want to consider NaNoWriMo. That stands for National Novel Writing Month, which is November. It is basically a challenge to write a novel in a month and it works! Check it out here:
The second thing you want to do is dissect that mess. Create chapters. Does your first chapter have a strong hook? It is time to make sense of the mess. Once you decide you have a beginning, middle and a strong ending and defined chapters it is time to start counting those words.
I would say shoot for 90,000 words. Adult fiction and nonfiction books have similar word count requirements. The standard is no less than 70,000 and no more than 120,000 so 90,000 is right in the middle.
For some genres the word count is considerably less.
Picture books- 300 to 600 words
Early Readers- around 3000 words
Chapter books- 7000-10,000 words
Middle grade- 30,000-45,000 words
Young adult- 55,000-75,000 words
If you author a blog, ideally posts should be somewhere between 500 and 800 words.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule. The most important thing is to write a great post, essay or book. If the story is good the reader will keep reading.
Some writers challenge themselves to daily word counts. I prefer weekly. That way I can always catch up if I have a bad day.
When do you consider your word count?
Happy Writing,
Doreen
14 thoughts on “The Perfect Book Length…”
Love this! I just finished my memoir at 93,000 words, my proposal, and I am now seeking representation. I, too, do not like daily word counts and prefer weekly. The struggle now is to keep writing while I wait. I have started a new weekly Thoughtful Thursdays email newsletter to try to keep myself accountable. Any advice for seeking representation? Many thanks!
Yes! My post on finding an agent was only a Wednesday or two back. Check it our and good luck!!
I am going to try NaNoWriNo this year. Yikes. I don’t know how I’ll write a book and consider word count but since I’m a newbie I have a lot to learn. Thanks again for another wonderful blog post about writing, Doreen.
I am going to try to do NaNo this year. If I finish up some ghost projects I’m in.
You will do great!
90,000 is conventional wisdom, true. As usual, I woke up and saw that it was Wed and i had to high-tail it over here to get more excellent advice.
Thank you Carol.
Thanks, as always, for sharing your writing wisdom with all of us, Doreen.
Thank you for reading.
NaNoWriNo makes me crazy. Crazier. I’ve wriaten many books for other people (gw)and the last thing I need to do is crunch it for word count. Good guidelines (as always!) You never fail to enlighten!
It does seem kind of crazy.
I ghost write too and have 2 clients at the moment but if I finish this month I think I’m going to give NaNo a try.
I always learn from you! I had no idea that word count was more important than pages!
I had no idea either.
I’ve never done NaNoWriMo as I’m not a fiction writer (except for picture books), but it seems to have been such a fabulous kickstarter for many friends.
Always great info here, Doreen. Thank you!
I’very never done NaNo either because I write nonfiction but I think I’m going to do it this year anyway. I’m going to pretend what I’m writing is fiction.