Novel Lenght

I think that's a bit much, no matter the genre. I'd try chopping it down to 120,000 if you could, if not more.

Be sure to avoid info dumping, telling rather than showing, and omit extra words like down you used in your post.

If...

this is your first novel then the shorter the better.

In the UK/Commonwealth the length is under 110,000 words. There is more leeway in the US, but a longer book is more expensive to publish and that is a consideration.

pdr said:

In the UK/Commonwealth the length is under 110,000 words. There is more leeway in the US, but a longer book is more expensive to publish and that is a consideration.

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I'm totally ignorant about the US, but in the UK you can go a great deal longer than this. My first is coming out at just under 200,000 words, and my second has been commissioned for the same length. It is one genre where a longer book does stand a realistic chance of acceptance.

That said, pdr is quite right and longer books are more expensive to produce. The chances of selling translation rights are also considerably lower. I would never deliberately aim to write a monster-fat debut (says she, wise-after-the-event) but can only say that here at least there is no need to panic if it ends up that way.

By 'ends up', of course, I mean its length after all the shortening you've done to make the book better - not to make it more acceptable. Stephen King reckoned a second draft should cut at least 20%, and I'm afraid mine took a lot more cutting than that before it was anything like decent enough to submit.

See what length your book comes out at when you've cut it as much as you can without damage. In the UK at least, that's the length at which you should submit.

Louise

Argh!

A curse on all you exceptions.

If you read the UK agents' and editors' tips and advice it is always to keep your first novel under 110,000 words.

And of course there are exceptions, especially in historicals, but 'tis better to work towards that figure

I certainly don't want to mislead the OP or do anything to reduce their chances, but if their novel really does need to be in the 140,000 range then it would be a great pity for them to damage it unnecessarily. 200,000 like my own is, I think, unusual - but 150,000 not so much.

There is a lot more flexibility in the UK than is sometimes supposed. Back in 2007/8 when I was on the hunt for an agent several of the submissions guidelines included rigid word limits (eg Greene and Heaton's was 75,000 - 150,000) but these have now largely disappeared, partly due to the recent success of longer books in the fields of fantasy, sci-fi and historical.

Some new small publishers (eg Bridge House) may well keep to limits of 110,000 to reduce their risk element, but these are not necessarily typical. Even competitions for debut novels in the UK right now don't limit below 150,000, eg Pan MacMillan New Writing (50,000 to 150,000), Daily Mail First Novel (80,000 to 150,000).

The best advice I've found on the subject for new writers is this from the Writers Workshop, which places writers with agents for a living:

A novel of average length is anywhere between 75 – 100,000 words. A novel of 120,000 words is perfectly normal too.
Any book in the range of 150-180,000 words is a long one, and needs to work hard to justify its length. Anything over 180,000 words is really testing the patience of agents and may well make it harder to place. Anything over 200,000 words is almost certainly suicidally long.

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The key here is the ability to 'justify its length' - ie the book really has to need every one of those surplus words to go over 150,000 - but even here, the cut-off is 150,000, not 110,000.

Since the OP's novel is 143,000, the difference between these two limits could be crucial. Again, my advice for the UK would be first to make sure the book is as short as it can possibly be without doing it damage. Then check submissions guidelines for any specific word restrictions that would rule you out, and where there aren't any - go ahead and submit.

In the US it sounds a very different story, so this discussion may be purely academic anyway. However, I thought it worth getting this information out there for the sake of any UK-based writers who might be reading.

Louise

Shorten it. And as others have said check to see if you are adding words in there that don't need to be. I am overly wordy and on my 3rd rewrite I see all the things I can eliminate which isnt hurting the story at all.