I've been struggling with this one for awhile. When posting approx. word count do you only include the words of the story or everything else in the document as well? My current book is approx. 76, 650 words of just the story, 97,746 if counting chapter header, etc. So which one is best to use in a query?
Approx. word count?
- Thread starter Bmann
- Start date
You count only the words in the story or novel. No title page stuff, no first page info, no headers, not even the title itself.
Then you round the word count. Short stories, you round to the closest 100. Novels, closest 5000. [Edited to add: or the closest 1000.] Note that if there's a maximum word count allowed, it's cheating to round down to meet it. So if your story is 4044 words and the most they'll accept is 4000, you need to find 44 words to lose.
Maryn, good at that kind of edit
Then you round the word count. Short stories, you round to the closest 100. Novels, closest 5000. [Edited to add: or the closest 1000.] Note that if there's a maximum word count allowed, it's cheating to round down to meet it. So if your story is 4044 words and the most they'll accept is 4000, you need to find 44 words to lose.
Maryn, good at that kind of edit
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I'm puzzled by the idea of 21000 words of "chapter header." That's over 20%. Are you talking about things like the diary entries that head chapters in Mistborn, for example? I think you would count those--they are part of the story.
I'd suggest the 97,000 count.
(I thought novels were rounded to the nearest 1000, not the nearest 5000. But editing up or down at that level--less than 5%--is not too hard.)
I'd suggest the 97,000 count.
(I thought novels were rounded to the nearest 1000, not the nearest 5000. But editing up or down at that level--less than 5%--is not too hard.)
I used a "novel" template, and each template has info for name, address, phone number, email address, word count, title and author.
@Woollybear makes sense. If it is part of the narrative, it goes in the word count. If this is a non-fiction book are the chapter headers like the recipe names in a cookbook chapters? Or a paragraph, like what Woollybear is describing.
If it is not, such as the title of the book, the author's name and contact info, that sort of thing, it wouldn't go in the word count.
If it is not, such as the title of the book, the author's name and contact info, that sort of thing, it wouldn't go in the word count.
I suppose where you round the word count on novels depends on who you listen to, and the potential difference of a few thousand words isn't much compared to a novel's total length. But I, too, am confuzzled by such a high word count for chapter headers.
bmann, do you open chapters with, for example, a lengthy quotation of something that in some way relates to the chapter's content, enough to add 21K words, like the Mistborn example? If so, you'd count that--but I would strongly, strongly advise you to greatly reduce that count. (And to make sure you haven't violated copyright with anything you quote that you didn't write.)
No template should be adding 21K to your word count. You wouldn't put author information at the start of each chapter of a novel, only on its title page, which you would not include as part of a word count. And author info probably runs less than 75 words, so even if it appears repeatedly, I don't see how it's adding up to such a big word count.
I do have to ask if you've written each chapter as its own document, though, using the novel template. That will make it appear over and over. I used to do that because old computers struggled with documents over about 50K words--but newer ones have no problem with much longer works.
bmann, do you open chapters with, for example, a lengthy quotation of something that in some way relates to the chapter's content, enough to add 21K words, like the Mistborn example? If so, you'd count that--but I would strongly, strongly advise you to greatly reduce that count. (And to make sure you haven't violated copyright with anything you quote that you didn't write.)
No template should be adding 21K to your word count. You wouldn't put author information at the start of each chapter of a novel, only on its title page, which you would not include as part of a word count. And author info probably runs less than 75 words, so even if it appears repeatedly, I don't see how it's adding up to such a big word count.
I do have to ask if you've written each chapter as its own document, though, using the novel template. That will make it appear over and over. I used to do that because old computers struggled with documents over about 50K words--but newer ones have no problem with much longer works.
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Yes the template was used for every chapter. You can see here:
I am probably misunderstanding but you don't put a cover page on every chapter, just at the beginning.
Was there a typo in your numbers? You'd have to have over 1000 of these cover sheets to account for a 21,000 word difference between "the story" and "everything else". I'm pretty sure the word count doesn't include your headers and footers...
Was there a typo in your numbers? You'd have to have over 1000 of these cover sheets to account for a 21,000 word difference between "the story" and "everything else". I'm pretty sure the word count doesn't include your headers and footers...
Every chapter is started with the template, there are 29 chapters, only the first page contains the author info, title etc. It could be counting the header and number as well. If I add up the word count MS gives me in the folder per document( which doesn't count headers, etc,) my story is 79,136. So I jus should round that up to 80,000?
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I would think you would only count (and round up) the words that would actually be published. Any "extra" word count that would not be published would not be counted. No matter where that extra word count comes from.
That might be close enough, but if it were me, I would not let it rest at that. You have nearly twenty-two thousand words you can't account for. That title page isn't going to be more than 25-30 words, depending on the novel's title, your name, and a few other variables. Say it's thirty, and you've got 29 of them because this isn't a single document. That accounts for only 870 words out of 21, 096, leaving you with over twenty thousand words. Say it's counting the words in your page headers and the words Chapter X. That's not going to approach 20K. I'm having to guess at how many pages you have, but if it's 300, you're likely adding only 8 or fewer words per page, 2400 words, depending on the title. (I use a one-word short form for my title in headers. The book titled The French Method just has French in the header.) That still leaves a staggering number of words that you can't tally as part of the book or not part of the book.
Since in a perfect world an agent or publisher is going to request the full based on your terrific query, and since they won't want you to send 29 separate chapters, I'd say now's the time to put this into a single document. (I know, bo-o-oring!) Do a word count before you add the title page and headers. Subtract 58 for the words Chapter X. If your count is near 80K, you're good.
Maryn, concerned there's some sort of embedded code in there
I hope you'll share the outcome. I'm so curious what the deal is.
Okay, so I don't know what's going on. So I put all the chapters together into a full ms, formatted correctly, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, etc. I have a 409 pg count and a word count of 100,642. Outside of the very first page which contains contact info, title which is 21 words, the rest is the story. I can only deduce that I simply cannot count, like at all. So seeing as the full MS is telling me 100,642 - 21 should I round down to simply 100k?
Yes, that's what I'd round to, 1oo,ooo. Obvioiusly there are some differences of opinion here, so my word is not law or anything. (You consolidated those chapters really fast!)
It sounds to me like whatever program did the counting with the template-based chapters is the Bad Boy here, telling you the total count all together wasn't even 80K. Pants on fire much?
Is 100K an appropriate word count for its genre? One of the things it took me literal years to master was editing for length.
Maryn, who still writes fat but edits much better
It sounds to me like whatever program did the counting with the template-based chapters is the Bad Boy here, telling you the total count all together wasn't even 80K. Pants on fire much?
Is 100K an appropriate word count for its genre? One of the things it took me literal years to master was editing for length.
Maryn, who still writes fat but edits much better
If it was me, I'd go through and find 1,000 words to cut so you could call it 100,000. If you round up (which you technically should since it's closer to 101 than 100), you are flirting with form rejection territory.
When you use section breaks it can affect how some programs count the number of words, just FYI.
When you use section breaks it can affect how some programs count the number of words, just FYI.
It's not really required for novel writers. Yay!
It's not really required for novel writers. Yay!
Until you get paid.
Glad you got it sorted, Bmann.
Related question: should we be counting things like dates/character names at the beginning of sections in the wordcount? My novel is dual POV and every time I swap viewpoints I put the character name and the date. I could probably lose a couple of hundred words if I didn't count this stuff (trying to get down to 80k if I can).
Related question: should we be counting things like dates/character names at the beginning of sections in the wordcount? My novel is dual POV and every time I swap viewpoints I put the character name and the date. I could probably lose a couple of hundred words if I didn't count this stuff (trying to get down to 80k if I can).
To my understanding, you round to the nearest 5,000 for a novel. Or at least the nearest 1,000. So a few hundreds words don't really matter for 5k. And I doubt someone is going to say "egads! This story would be amazing but it just happens to be 1,000 words too many! Well, into the trash it goes!"
So, regardless, it's a moot point. Rounding to hundreds is only relevent for a short story, where 100 words is a much bigger fraction of the story.
I would round down to 100K (then try to cut more if possible, depending on genre & age category).
I would count anything that a word processor would count once your novel was compiled into a single document. That includes titles, chapter headings, names or dates at the beginning of chapters, poems or quotes that start the book or each chapter, prologues, epilogues, etc. But remember, you’re rounding anyway. 100 words of chapter headings won’t make or break your book
I would count anything that a word processor would count once your novel was compiled into a single document. That includes titles, chapter headings, names or dates at the beginning of chapters, poems or quotes that start the book or each chapter, prologues, epilogues, etc. But remember, you’re rounding anyway. 100 words of chapter headings won’t make or break your book