Word Count Woes

I've read it all. I've been told time and time again that first time writers need to be under 100k. It is only the rare exception, more rare than winning the lottery, that get published if they dare go over.

So what's the damage? I have a 230K adult fantasy. The story arc does not work as separate books. And I could probably pare it down some but no way I'll be able to knock off 130,000 words without making it into something else entirely. I know that's not always a bad thing but hear me out before you decide if I'm just a naive writer without the skill to write something shorter (I know this post isn't a good example, but I CAN be consice).

So I'm in the dejection side of this forum without the rejection. I'm just preparing to send out a query (where I have NOT included word count on the advice of one of our friendly visiting agents).

Some days I just tell myself that there's a chance that I'll be that one in a million bright shining star that gets published regardless of word count. I laugh and say "take THAT Crime and Punishment!" I remind myself of all the contemporary first time authors I know who went wildly over the industry's acceptable word count for what they were writing: Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks, J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer... Most importantly I remind myself that I believe in my story. I have spent 14 years writing draft after draft. Before any of you give me the lecture that it's not about how long you spend on a novel, I know that. I would also like to add that I do NOT take that long to write anything else. I have also written other things, both novels and short stories, in the meantime, but I always come back to this story. I'm not just saying it's ready because of how long I spent or how hard I worked. I know those are irrelevant to the industry. I believe it's ready because, for the first time in 14 years, I am truly happy with it. I truly believe it is how it should be. Are there small edits and clarifications that could be done? Of course. There always are. But I feel this is finally the story in its true form.

But this is not one of the good days. This is one of those days where I read the industry standards and think about the agents that automatically reject based on word count. This is one of those days where I ask myself if I'm wasting my time even sending this out. Part of me says it's perfectly sensible to shelve this story and try one of my shorter ones. When I have more credits to my name I can try again. But I'd have to edit a shorter one, and I would just feel like a failure for not sending this one out. I would worry that I would somehow talk myself out of ever sending anything out. I remind myself that I'll never know if I never try.

I guess I'm fine with being rejected based on my writing. That's too subjective for me to feel like one person (or even 100 people) can tell me what everyone will like. I have actually sent things out before and gotten rejections. I was fine with getting rejections, even excited because it meant I was trying. But I stopped sending out those things because I personally stopped liking them. This wasn't based on the rejections at all because they were all form rejections.

But the thought of being rejected based on word count just makes me feel so hopeless. I keep thinking that even if I'm lucky enough to get someone to ask for the full manuscript, they'll reject it the moment they see it, no matter how much they like the idea or the writing.

Sigh...so I have to confess I'm mostly looking to commiserate with anyone else feeling the same. I've done all the research I can. You can throw more numbers and stats at me if you want (although, I won't say no to a few more positive ones if you've got em'. No? I thought so...). You could tell me that obviously I have to edit/ cut into separate books/ try a different book. It will all be stuff I've heard and thought myself a million times before.

Right now I just need someone else who understands.

Thanks for taking the time to encourage me! I really do appreciate it. After I wrote that post, I was a little worried that everyone would just think I was a drama queen. (And even if you did think I was a drama queen, at least you were nice about it).

The visiting agent I referred to was Jennifer Laughran. Here's the quote from her thread:

Jennifer_Laughran said:

IMO, 124,000 words is on the long side for a YA, even a YA fantasy. The thought of that (FOR ME) is beyond daunting. If I were you, I'd make it into two books and try shopping the first one. OR, I would edit mercilessly. OR, if you absolutely must keep every speck of this tome intact, I strongly suggest you NOT mention word count in your query letter. Here's the deal - when you mention a word count above, oh, 80k, it is this automatic red flag. I start doing math in my head. The math, combined with a sickening feeling about how I will lose a weekend cause of reading this thing, combine to blind me to the rest of your query letter.

Don't give me a reason to say no. If you don't mention it, I never think about math or feel sick. I am happy, and I start reading, and the book is superb, and I don't want to stop... and then I won't care how long it is. Get it?

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And I know all agents are going to be different. Like some have auto reject computer programs if your word count's too high! I'm not even judging them for this. I figure they have a right to not even look at something if they're certain they won't want to handle it. But I feel like, if the agent is that focused on me including word count, it's going to be so they can weed me out. They're going to be just as unaccepting of the wrong word count as no word count. So darned if I do and darned if I don't.

However, I will have to disagree about the works I took out of submission. But I think it's because I have a slightly different philosophy on writing. I'm not saying it's the only right philosophy, just different.

My philosophy is that, if even I don't like my work, then it's not worth it. Because I can only please one person for absolute certain. ME. Maybe it's selfish to all those potential people who would love my unpublished work--but I don't know them. I know me.

And I'm not talking about a few bad days where I think I'm a rubbish writer. I know all writers have those. I'm talking about the fact that the works I submitted in the past were written when I was a teenager. I looked over them and the writing was bad. My writing has improved significantly since then (at least, I hope it has). MOST IMPORTANTLY, even if I could get those stories published, I no longer want them representing me. Nor are they accurate representations of my current writing. So if people did like them, they wouldn't like what I've written now. I could fix them. But I'd rather write entirely new stories that I actually like.

I have to be the primary advocate for all my work, so I have to personally believe it's good.

Is this the philosophy that is the most marketable? Probably not. But while I would love to get published, and I will doggedly persevere in the face of rejection, I'm still ultimately writing to make myself happy.

On a side note: J.K. Rowling's first book may have been comparatively shorter than her others, but Sorcerer's Stone was still considered by industry standards to be too long for a children's book. However, you are right that good writing can trump the standards. Clearly it did in Rowling's case.

Anyway, thanks again for the pep talk!

Thanks. But I can be brief.

Another excellent and relevant quote from Jennifer when someone was freaking out about forgetting to add word count to their query. Unfortunately she doesn't do adult fiction, but I am sooo querying her when I finish editing my MG book. Hopefully she's still taking subs by then.

QUESTION:

bandanna said:

Hello Jennifer,

I have made a HUGE mistake! I've been selectively sending queries to agents, and even though I have a pre-send checklist (font, spellcheck, Hail Mary), I somehow managed to send two of my queries without a word count.

Well. I assume the agents in question will form-reject me based on my glaring omission. Can I send another email including the word count? Will spam filters auto-delete me?
Bandanna

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ANSWER:

Jennifer_Laughran said:

That is NOT a huge mistake. That is no big deal. I would never even notice. I would be much more likely to notice (and be irritated by) follow-up emails. If we love the query and want to know more, we'll ask.

Chill out. There are LOTS of reasons to reject writers. That isn't one of them.

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I have specific answers for some of you but thanks to all for your thoughtful responses! jruby and Georgina your words came closest to how I feel, so thanks for that.

Also, I just wanted to add, the draft before the 230k was 500k. So I can be brutal in my edits. I've also begged my current betas to tell me if anything big looks like it needs to be cut or if the story could be split, but they've all said no (and trust me, they can be brutal too). I pretty much take out anything they've pointed out as unnecessary, but they're all small things.

CheekyWench said:

Or, is "adult" enough to try to sell it as straight fantasy and ditch the YA tag? Seems to me publishers expect YA to be shorter than most fiction. SF/F seems to be a little more forgiving when it comes to word lengths.


I'm on the opposite side... holding my 50k finished novel with one agent saying, "This looks really interesting BUT it's more novella length and... hard to break out as or sell a debut author novella..." Which isn't what I was going for.. meh.

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Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. My 230k novel is an adult book. I have ANOTHER completed but unedited MG. The MG is 70k. After looking up some of those word counts, that one's just fine lengthwise.

Heh, and I know. I've seen a bunch of writers here with entirely the opposite problem. If only we could somehow average our word counts and then we'd all be just right!

Kaitie - I sincerely appreciate your generous offer to look at my work, and I may take you up on it a little later if you're still up for it. But let me just explain why I haven't yet gone to the SYW section. I do have a solid group of beta readers that I do know personally, but I have to confess that I don't yet feel comfortable posting my entire work online. I'm not worried about anyone stealing it, (it'd be great if they wanted to)! It's more that I just like to know a person who's beta reading my stories so I know how much weight to give each of their comments. For example, some of my current beta's don't read fantasy, so when they say they don't like the magic parts, I give it a little less weight than when the fantasy readers tell me this. I also have a really conservative beta who, if he had his way, would have me take out every mention of sex. Whereas most the others have said they appreciate how tame my intimate scenes are. So that's why I like to know a beta's personal tastes a little better. It just helps me work with them.

I am seriously considering the Query Letter forum, though, because there's only so many times I can have my betas look at my query before they kill me. Plus, it'd be great to have advice from those who've actually sent some out.

Jamesaritchie said:

The real lesson here is, I think, know how long a book is suppsed to be before you start writing, and then make the book come in at that length.

Any story can be told at any length. Length is a decision.

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Girl meets boy. Something bad happens. They fix it. Kiss. The end. There, I've just retold every romance ever. You're right! Length is a decision!

Okay, that was cheeky, sorry. But I will have to respectfully disagree. I do believe that length is an important marketing factor because publishing houses don't want to pay for the extra paper for a debut author. This makes perfect business sense and is completely fair reasoning on their part. But it has nothing to do with the actual craft of writing. I agree a lot of shorter stories are better written than long rambling ones. But I also strongly believe that there are really long books that are wonderful stories and shouldn't have anything cut out. Long does not equal bad writing.

kaitie said:

I actually understand your reservations and that's cool. And already cutting it in half is absolutely amazing! I didn't realize you had already made that kind of major cuts. In that case it really might be harder to bring down any more.

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Thanks kaitie! I'm glad you understand. And I was serious about probably wanting you to take a look after I know a little more about your tastes and editing style. Do you have stuff in SYW that I could look at so I could get an idea about that stuff? I'm referring to both works you have written and/or other people's works you've commented on. I hope it doesn't seem like a double standard to want to see your work first, but it's really just to get an idea of the type of person you are, not to grade or judge you you. Honestly, anyone who offers to look at my work gets an automatic A from me! Most my beta readers I've known for years, so I just already know these things about them. You seem quite savvy, though, so I can't think of any reason I wouldn't want your advice. I would love it if someone could give me more good advice on cuts.

I would just send my story to you, though, because I don't have the energy to look into everyone on the SYW section. I also feel like I'd want to contribute to the community more before I would ask anyone who doesn't already offer to look at my 230k monster.

On a side note, I was able to cut my last draft in half based on a suggestion from one of my betas. So I certainly know the value of good advice.

Jamesaritchie said:

I can understand it with books written when you were a teen, but be carfule. That's a very slippery slope. Books you write today will not bereflective of your writing ten years from now, and books you write ten years from now will not be reflective of your writing ten years after that.

As for J. K. Rowling, I repeat, there are no industry standards for bestselling writers. When your first book makes a publish several million dollars, your next book, good writing or bad, can be five thousand pages, written in crayon, and the publisher will still say, "May I have some more, please?"

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I see what you're saying here and I agree that it is important to distinguish "not good" from "different style." And of course, avoid James Joyce type angst where you burn your work in a fit of pique. My teen works had potential. Some of them I may one day return to one day. But it is the writing that was clumsy. Will my writing continue to improve? I hope so. But I feel I've finally reached a stage where I can't go back an legitimately say the writing's bad, just different, and my tastes may have changed as well. But I'm actually the poster child for the idea of never giving up on a work you believe in. I started the first draft of this story when I was 10 (NOT the same draft, though. I'm not that slow!). The concept has also evolved significantly. And most of it's (thankfully) completely unrecognizable to my original scribblings. The current draft I started when I was 20. But it's important that the core IDEA is worth it. Some of my old ideas aren't worth it. This one was and, clearly, I dedicated my life to it.

LOL about the crayon. So sadly true....

I challenge you to summarize that post with all its intended meaning in one word.

Thanks, Roly! I'm excited to hear that Kristen Nelson doesn't care about word count because she's on my query list. I have been going through my book to pull out as much as I can but it is looking very unlikely that I'll get it under 200,000 even if I sacrifice some pretty large things