Novel Lengths

Regarding your question about word count, check out this very informative article.

If you're a new author looking for a publisher or agent, I've heard you want to keep your manuscript at around 80- 100k words. Also, if you end up self-publishing, that's a good length to keep your book at around $15 - $17 retail. Publishers and Agents won't consider manuscripts from unknown authors that are "too long" because they're too much of a financial risk; and if your novel is too short, it's not considered viable - at least for Fiction. Not that I'm an expert, but that's the feedback I've received from agents. Hope it helps.

1. Go to bookstore.
2. Find Fantasy/SF section.
3. Examine typical books there.
4. Make a word count estimate.
5. Bear in mind that the "acceptable" length for a first novel may differ significantly from what Robert Jordan can get away with.

caw

Acceptable word counts differ, but in general if it's your first book you should shoot for something between 80,000 to 100,000 words. Some publishers will consider up to 120,000 for a first novel, but you're pushing it at that point.

To estimate your word count: I wouldn't use the word count programs on the word processors. Because it actually counts the words in the novel, and in reality, a book with 3 words per line (lots of short dialogue, say) costs the same to produce as the book with 15 words per line (lots of exposition or scene description) if they have the same number of lines. Most writers will use an estimate of 250 words per page, if you've double-spaced and used the acceptable fonts and type size (in other words, you've used the proper manuscript format).

If you want to get picky, then you should take a few random pages from your novel, count out how many words there are in 10 lines on each page. Divide this number by 10. Count how many lines there are in each page. Multiply this by the previous number. That's how many words per page you have. Finally, multiply by the number of pages in your manuscript. That's your word count for the novel. This is how DAW suggests you estimate word count.

Using Word's word count is accurate enough. I really don't think anyone is going to be all that picky about it if it's off by 500 words or something. And 85k seems like a perfectly acceptable fantasy novel to me.