Calculating word count for short fiction?

Word count by your program.

I've heard newbies and pros both go back and forth about this all the livelong day.

I've always used MS Word's count, rounding off to the nearest hundred, and never had a problem. When I edited an anthology, I did my own word count for everything anyway.

I think most people these days go with the exact, but not all. And the 250/page does tend to give a higher number ... which means more money for the author.

I've never worried much about it. Unless the guidelines say otherwise, it's MS Word's count for me.

For short stories, a lot of publications now want word processor's word count. Most often shorts are paid by # of words, and program word count most often is smaller than the 250 method. Good for the publisher, not good for the author.

jchines said:

I've heard newbies and pros both go back and forth about this all the livelong day.

I've always used MS Word's count, rounding off to the nearest hundred, and never had a problem. When I edited an anthology, I did my own word count for everything anyway.

I think most people these days go with the exact, but not all. And the 250/page does tend to give a higher number ... which means more money for the author.

I've never worried much about it. Unless the guidelines say otherwise, it's MS Word's count for me.

Click to expand...

If you do it right, the 250 method also tells an editor exactly how much space a story or article will require. A word count program can't do this.

I always use MS Word's count.

You should just print it out and count the words by hand. Really.

No, no, no. Count the letters by hand. Spaces count as .5 characters. Punctuation is .3 characters. Add it all up. The average word is 6.2 characters, so divide your total by 6.2, round it up to the nearest prime number, and voila.

Count

You don't actually have to count anything, if you format properly. One inch margins with Courier 12 gives a predetermined number of used spaces per line and per page. It won't work out to exactly ten words per line for individual lines, but it will over the course of a story.

White space counts, and so does the space between words. You can't publish a piece without also publishing white space and the space between words.

Courier 12 and one inch margins means ten words per line, no matter what the word count program says.

"Hi, Marge, how you doing?"
"Fine."
Glad to hear it. I'm having a bit of arthritis trouble, myself."

Each of these lines is ten words. Why? Because you also count white space. You have to publish white space, so the spaces white space uses also count as words.

This is why counting in this method tells an editor exactly how much space a published story will require, and why a word count program won't.

But you have to use Courier 12 and one inch margins.

This is also why newspapers are usually smart enough to pay by the column inch, rather than by the word. It's also why many magazines prefer that you use the word count program. It saves them a lot of money.

jchines said:

No, no, no. Count the letters by hand. Spaces count as .5 characters. Punctuation is .3 characters. Add it all up. The average word is 6.2 characters, so divide your total by 6.2, round it up to the nearest prime number, and voila.

Click to expand...

Oh my gawd.

Forgot to mention, after printing out, to circle the words starting with a vowel with a red pen.

I will kick you and jchines, you see if I don't.

count

jchines said:

No, no, no. Count the letters by hand. Spaces count as .5 characters. Punctuation is .3 characters. Add it all up. The average word is 6.2 characters, so divide your total by 6.2, round it up to the nearest prime number, and voila.

Click to expand...

In publishing, a word is any combination of six spaces and characters. This is the standard set up by publishers many, many years ago. Six spaces is one word, and six characters is one word. Three characters plus three spaces is also one word. Twelve empty spaces is still two words.

You never have to count letters or spaces by hand. They all count exactly the same. All you have to do is set your margins so Courier 12 gives you an average of sixty spaces per line. This is one inch left and right. This is always counted as exactly ten words because each space on the line counts the same, whether it has a letter on it or not.

When you print something in a magazine, it takes exactly the same amount of paper to print each line, regardless of how many, or how few, actual words are in that line.

So set the margin correctly, use Courier 12, and simply multiply the number of lines in the story by ten. This is an exact word count by magazine and newspaper standards because it tells an editor exactly and precisely how much space that story will use in the magazine.

It isn't "word" count editors worry about, it's paper space. The saying is "Ink is cheap, paper is expensive." And in magazines paper is also limited, so, again, it isn't actual works that matter, words are only ink, it's paper.

This is also why newspapers measure writing by column inches, rather than by word count. A story or article takes up so many column inches (A space one inch high and two inches wide.) and this is what counts, whether you have twenty words, or fifty words, within that column inch. It's still a column inch, and that's how you'll be paid.

James -- I hope the "round up to the nearest prime number" bit made it clear I was joking

My own method is to click "Word Count" in the menu for MS Word, round off that number, and slap it on the manuscript. Then instead of spending lots and lots of time obsessing over how to do a word count, I work on writing the next project.

jchines said:

James -- I hope the "round up to the nearest prime number" bit made it clear I was joking

My own method is to click "Word Count" in the menu for MS Word, round off that number, and slap it on the manuscript. Then instead of spending lots and lots of time obsessing over how to do a word count, I work on writing the next project.

Click to expand...

That's really as good a way as any these days. So many writers just use the word count program that few editors expect anything else. As long as the font is Courier 12, editors just sigh and do a quick mental calculation.

Should you do the rounding up, or the exact number, really? So... 1,500 or 1,478?

Ok, I was confused, then not so confused, then confused again....then thinking about prime numbers....now I know that I'll just roll with the counting software I already have....I'm too frickin' lazy to count every single space and letter. I'm subject to go Aboriginal...one, two, three, eehhh faget about it!