YIKES

[rtilryarms]

OK,

I am far enough along on my first book to begin finalizing and editing. In doing so I formatted the text in the first few chapters following instructions and links offered here.

I was shocked to find that just over 10,000 words takes up 42 pages. Calculating my outline/story ratio I average 10,000 words of story per 2,500 words of fact and notes.

At this rate I will be a little over 100,000 words which will result in over 420 pages of print. Almost one ream!

Is this usual or should I go back and review things a little closer?

Thought I would ask before I let it worry me.

Thanks
rt

[SRHowen]

don't worry about pages, worry about word count, butonly after you have told the story.

MS pages printed have little to do with book pages--I think my lates printed ms came out to 550 pages or so.

Shawn

[rtilryarms]

holey moley. I don't know why i am surprised. I guess I just never got this far before.

A ream of paper. Jeepers

[sc211]

I guess you could say your novel got reamed. :D

But yeah, that's how they look.

And hey, I just noticed that you can switch around "reamed" to say "read me." How fitting.

[Velleity]

100,000 words = 500 pages sounds about right to me.

And 100,000 words is what I think of as "novel-sized." I wouldn't worry about it.

::mumbles something foul about 150,000 word drafts::

[ElizabethJames]

We got to 100,000 words and were so proud and pleased with a story well told. And then we started whittling and planing and smoothing and slicing and ended up with 65,000 tight-packed words with no room to breathe.

Then we added hard returns for each of the 67 chapters, which gives at least the illusion of air!

[Vomaxx]

Yes--after you finish rewrites and general pruning, you'll have fewer words.

[Greenwolf103]

Mine was 445. You know they'll ALWAYS ask for rewrites that will undoubtedly make it shorter.

[Writing Again]

Using the formula: Six spaces equals a word: Sixty spaces to a line: 25 lines to a page: My ms = 250 words per page.

In actual words used I average 200 words per page.

I love doing it this way and have been doing it for years because it makes my word counts so simple and easy.

[maestrowork]

RT, that sounds about right.

Yup, all that double-space, 12pt font, 1" margin stuff would fatten up your ms.

[STORMTURNER]

I don't think the MS Word word counter is all that accurate. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I was well on my way to to 5000 words (by MS WC's standards) but my story took a dramatic turn. Over the weekend, I let it marinate and toyed with whether I should keep going and get over the hurdle or go with the fresh new twists. If I go on, it'll probably jump track never to get back on, or if I start over the 5000-word progression is null and void.

Viki King wrote in one of her books about screenwriting, "Write your first draft from your heart and revise with your head..."

Well my head keeps interferring with my heart. I don't know where my story will be tomorrow or whether I'll have 10,000 words completed by then.

[Greenwolf103]

There used to be a word count thingy for free use on the Internet but it was taken down. (Too bad; it did my formatting, too!) I think there's another one out there but not sure of a URL.

[ChunkyC]

My first was 124,000 words and ended up at 580-odd pages, about 214 words per page on average. 250 words per page is a good way to estimate how much paper you're gonna need, and will probably give you a number close to what an editor would calculate.

[mr mistook]

This question is, I think, related to the topic. I've noticed that since I've been writing in standard manuscript format, my chapters end up about 12 to 20 ms pages. (3K to 5K).

Does that seem low? If it get's published, is there going to be a new chapter every four pages?

[Greenwolf103]

I don't think a 20-page chapter is low....