Rant about word count

There are times when longer books are better. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire is a longer MG-YA book. I love the depth, detail and side stories in the book. No one part went off too long on a sid track and the substories fit with the flow of the main plot.

The unabridged LesMiserbles, has so many extras that it was one of the most tedious books I ever read. In the middle of a chapter, Hugo would go off on a twenty to forty pages side track, about the history of an abbey, or the battles fought in a particular place. There is even a long telling of the history of the Paris sewer system. LesMiserbles is a masterpiece, and Hugo one of the great authors, but it was one time, when more was too much.

Cyia said:

I know, I know 113,000 is crazy long, but I can't help it. The story works OK at 93,000 (mainly I moved a chunk to the sequel), but I feel like the characterization suffered.

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Don't worry about it. No one but you will ever miss it.

Wow...I actually don't know how people write such long books.

It hurts my brain.

It's really about pacing. If you have 113K worth of page-turning story, the word count is fine. If the stuff you love at 113K slow the story, it's not fine. (Though honestly, 113K is likely to give many agents pause, especially these days when shorter books cost less to print. Harlequin just said they weren't printing books over 100K for a while to cut down on spending. Granted, that's not a YA publisher, but I can see others doing the same thing)

You have to trust your gut on this one. If you truly feel the book is better longer, then stick to your guns. No one should ever feel forced to do something just because everyone says so. Just understand that you potentially face additional challenges a shorter book may not. Be sure the longer book is better because those extra words do all the things a great story is supposed to do, not because it has scenes or lines in it that you love. They may be good scenes. You may love them. But if they don't improve the story they don't belong. I've cut many a line or scene that was good, but just didn't do anything new to advance the story. New is a good thing to think about when revising. A scene might advance the plot or be exciting, but if it doesn't offer anything new on top of that, it can probably go.

Personally, I'm a firm believer in staying within the norms on word counts until a writer gets published. It's hard enough to sell a novel, so why make it even a little bit harder for yourself? But that's a call only you can make. It's your book.

Two cents, if that: Anything over 75K for YA is pushing it, in my experience. But there's a tenth time for everything, so YMMV. I'm with Danthia; stay within the norms (which of course vary depending on who you ask and when). But really, 93K sounds awfully long for a first time YA book.

93k is nothing. So is 113k.

People aren't as scared of reading so-called 'long' books as you think.

Hey, look Twilight. It's like 130K and it's a HUGE hit. Long books don't scare people that much, I agree.

Came across this thread as I was asking myself what is the norm for word count. I have two books at around 60K and that's only half of the story!! And I have misc chucks that I'm playing with are another 10K. I really feel like I'm trimming the fat but then it's like those little details that really need to pack a punch are missing. Guess I'll find out as I post some threads.
In reality, as someone already posted - I guess the writers are really the only ones that miss it in the end. But I totally understand where you're coming from.
I couldn't imagine trying to keep a story under 100K.

I feel the opposite. I wish that agents were cooler about shorter things.

I think this whole idea of "Debut YA books should be between 40k and 60k" is ridiculous.

Has anyone heard of a little book called A Great and Terrible Beauty? How about City of Bones? Wondrous Strange? Twilight? I could go on...

People just underestimate kids. They think, "Oh, well, Twilight, that had sex appeal and adventure. Of course kids will read a five-hundred-page book for THAT. But for everything else, no, they're not intelligent enough to sit through an ORDINARY 500-page book." And Cassandra Clare - well, she's just hilarious, so young adults will read 120,000 words of a book as long as SHE wrote it...but everything else must be short. And stupid. And gimmicky.



*rant over*

*Whew* Because I am changing my book to YA *tweaking although it already reads like YA* and it is 104,000 words right now. I might be able to (slim chance) shave off a few thousand words, but not much more than that.

my finished YA MS is 123K... I have had a few readers and no one has screamed *make it stop, it's too long!*

Quite frankly, as an avid reader, I always looked for the longer books because they would amuse me longer. You can't put a word limit on what's good and bad... it all depends on *dun dun* the story

Thanks for the chuckle, Cyia.

Length is a dilemma. I have two drafts sitting in my computer: one 120,000 words and the other 140,000 words long. I know I can trim them down because I'm sure there are places where I walk or talk my characters to the action rather than showing them dealing with the problems.

Why the churckle? When I start, I always worry that I won't have enough words. On my most recent YA WIP, I sweated whether I could squeeze 50,000 words out of my idea. It's 62-63,000 words in (its endless) revision.

Speaking from long and hard experience, a book over 100K from a new author is a very hard sell to agents and publishers, even if readers might not be put off by it. My YA fantasy clocks in at 150K, and while the majority of my rejections haven't mentioned the length, enough of them have to indicate it's a major problem.

That doesn't mean it's impossible to sell something that long, but you need to be realistic about your chances.

113K is at the ragged edge, but doable. If the agency where you submitted the 93K version is excited about the project, you might have a shot at running the longer version past them once you've "set the hook," so to speak.

If not, and you sell the shorter version, count your blessings. Someday when (not if!) you're famous, you can publish the "definitive version."

I personally have always loved longer books because I knew I would enjoy them longer - provided the book is good, of course. I remember feeling so sad, as a kid, when a wonderful book would end.

Yes, there are word count requirements... Unfortunately. They scare me. I always feel that I'd either not have long enough of a story or go way over the limit, LOL. But I do what I can, write the way I think the story should go, and then see what I can do about the word count (if anything).

Edit: Darn, I just scrolled up and realized I missed Danthia's post. I'm leaving mine up to emphasize the point, though.

Something I don't noticing anyone mentioning is cost. Longer books cost more to produce. They use more paper and ink. Publishers are already taking a gamble on signing a debut author. When a book is longer than the norm for YA, they have gamble to even more. It's especially challenging in the current economic climate, where dollars are so stretched thin... it sucks, but it's true. For example, Harlequin (the romance publishers) recently announced it will now limit manuscripts to under 100,000 words:

"This week Harlequin sent out an email firmly requesting that authors limit their manuscripts to 100,000 words and under. That will significantly save on paper and printing cost."

From http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/12/creative-cost-cutting.html.

My first draft of my YA urban fantasy was at around 150,000 words. Huge, but I felt like it needed to be done. Then I decided it was too long and had unnecessary scenes so I chopped it down to 140,000 words. Still way too long. So now I've had to take out about 8 chapters and move them to make a second book I never intended on having. So instead of having six books as the series, I have to have seven. The downside to limiting authors to a word count means they have to have more books in the series to later explain things that wouldn't fit. Especially in fantasy. Now my book is 91,000 words, and still probably long in terms of YA but when I flick through it, it seems incredibly short.

That's exactly it Chanelley, when the book is good, you don't notice how long it is, you fly through it. Now, all you need to do is convince the publisher / agent. Do you already have someone lined up?

I have three agents with fulls and four with partials. A few have partials from when the book was at 130,000 words. I figured that if I've cut it down too much, the agent will tell me where I need to elaborate and I can add some chapters back in.

I remember at 14 panicking because I couldn't hit the 500 words limit on my English creative writing assignments, 2 years later I was struggling to stick to the 1500 word limit of my advanced class. Even on my Uni essays I tend to break the word limit by at least a couple of thousand and have to trim back and those are on subjects I find rather boring (market economy anyone? how about the 'Natural verses Social' debate? Patriarchal societies?... glad this course ends soon).

Most of what I write goes one of two ways:

1. Too many unnecessary words which I never seem to want to cut but slow things down.
2. I keep things too short and end up giving just the facts with no explanation which works sometimes but not for a whole book.

Sorry but YAs in the 500 page range are the exception, not the rule. I think a query beginning with " . . . . my 100,000+ word YA story . . . ." will turn off a lot of agents. Once you hook someone, then you can say, well behind door #2 is my extended version, the one I really like.

Good luck Cyia.