Word count...

pingle · Mar 4, 2019

Sorry, I know I can look this up this myself, I know it will have been asked many times before, but things shift all the time in the literary world, so I am asking.

Acceptable word count for a fantasy that will be going out to agents at some point?

I'm rubbish with genres. I think it's historical fantasy, if that sub category exists.

I figured out my WIP word count today and it's 82k with a lot of important scenes to go. I know it's standard to shave the words down when editing, but many of these chapters were left quite bare as I needed to research the history more before I got too descriptive, so I think it's probably accurate once I add and take away. Oh gosh, I'm so worried now. It's a bit of an epic, but definitely a stand alone. I'm wondering if I need to rethink the plot, wrap things up more quickly before I'm drowning in chapters that I can't bear to kill.

At what point will agents be giving it an instant reject because of the word count?

I keep reading looong books (currently reading Americanah, long and brilliant, not fantasy) but all the advice I've ever read has said don't go overboard with the words.

TIA!!

waylander · Mar 4, 2019

According to my agent long is good if it is epic fantasy for the UK market, 140-150k no problem. They have to be good words though, essential to the story not padding. The US market may take a different view and want something a little shorter from a new author, so 100k is safer if you intend to query the US (and why wouldn't you).
I know someone whose 130k manuscript that I read got interest from Harper Collins (UK) and they asked the author to expand it to 200k, and yes, they did buy the rewrite

lizmonster · Mar 4, 2019

My former agent (US) more than once said publicly she'd cheerfully look at epic fantasy up to 140K. I have no reason to think she was an outlier there.

pingle · Mar 5, 2019

Thanks guys, I was very reassured, but then realised that to describe it as epic is not quite right. It's not high fantasy, I think I just meant there is a quest like nature to it, though it's not explicitly obvious until a way in, but it does require a lot of things to happen and therefore words.

Does anyone know how many words the other fantasy genres get away with?

lizmonster · Mar 5, 2019

pingle said:
Thanks guys, I was very reassured, but then realised that to describe it as epic is not quite right. It's not high fantasy, I think I just meant there is a quest like nature to it, though it's not explicitly obvious until a way in, but it does require a lot of things to happen and therefore words.

Does anyone know how many words the other fantasy genres get away with?

As a general rule, 80-120K is considered average for spec fic. You do have some wiggle room there (all three of my SF books went out at ~130K, although what I queried was 110K), and if you can write a sharp, clear query you'll probably find agents giving the benefit of the doubt to a higher word count.

The thing to do is tell the story as it needs to be told. Some stories need to be 60K, some 200K. As you're still drafting - yeah, you're worrying prematurely. Get the whole thing down, revise until it's the best you can make it, and see where you are then.

pingle · Mar 5, 2019

Thanks Liz, I think I'll try to aim for 120k. I agree that I'm probably prematurely worrying, but after last year's disaster of querying a 140k YA book I'm trying to be a bit more conscious of potential glaring errors while dafting.

Laer Carroll · Mar 7, 2019

pingle said:
... after last year's disaster of querying a 140k YA book I'm trying to be a bit more conscious of potential glaring errors while dafting.

Your "disaster" may not have been length. There are several other reasons why your YA may have been rejected.

YA is more tolerant of shorter lengths, 80K or even shorter. The first Harry Potter book is often counted as a MG book or YA, depending on one's viewpoint. It is 77,500 words, which is a bit long for MG but about right (on the AVERAGE) for YA. There are lots of YA books with those shorter lengths.

But YA is a much more varied market than a casual look might have us believe. I've seen bestsellers a good deal fatter than 100K on the bookshelves. The first Hunger Games book is about a page short of 100K words. Twilight is not quite 119K.

Then there are the heavier books. Both Roth's Divergent and Zusak's The Book Thief are 144 K words. But they are heavier in content, with complex stories, characters, and settings. They are not fat & agents and editors did not think they were.

All of that is for AFTER you've finished the book, as LizMonster points out. Forget word count on the first draft. It's tough enough to get it reasonably right on the first pass without out critiquing yourself prematurely.

Jinnambex · Mar 21, 2019

Another important thing to keep in mind is to write the story. I believe stories are organic and if they need 150k to be told, then write it.

My own novel went through so many drafts and has gone from 140k to 110k, back up to about 150k--all the while making the writing crisper and letting the story come to life, so to say.
When I shaved my story down to 110k, I was very pleased, but I realized it felt thin, bare-boned, and while it told the entire story, it was missing the meat and depth and feel of greatness that you get from the other novels I've read like Brandon Sanderson's works. If you want a story with depth, you have to let the story grow on its own, and not confine it to a word count.

*This is the most important part though, IF YOUR WRITING AND STORY IS GREAT, THE WORD COUNT IS MUCH LESS IMPORTANT.

The other caveat obviously is that the shorter the story, the easier and cheaper it is to publish for first time authors.

David Odle · Mar 21, 2019

If the story is not done, don't worry about word count. Don't worry about anything else but finishing the story. You can adjust after.

litdawg · Mar 21, 2019

I just cut 8,200 words down to 4,100 by mostly cutting world building info dumps. Now that I've written 2/3 of the story, I find I can let go of urge to explain in the early parts. That said, I may no longer be 2/3 of the way to a publishable length once I cull unneeded explanations from the rest of the manuscript. So, yeah, word counts aren't helping me right now. Write the story. Make it a better story. Then count the words?

themindstream · Mar 24, 2019

Worth pointing out that historical notions of 'acceptable' word count for YA fantasy can be divided into 'before and after Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'. Goblet of Fire was much longer than the first three HP books a then-unheard of length for its time and got put out there in no small part because it was Harry Potter. When it sold like gangbusters regardless, publishers were more willing to buy longer YA thereafter. (Source: some Diane Duane blog I am too lazy to dig up at the moment; her YA wizard series got started in the 80s and she watched it happen.)

Thomas Vail · Mar 25, 2019

pingle said:
Thanks Liz, I think I'll try to aim for 120k. I agree that I'm probably prematurely worrying, but after last year's disaster of querying a 140k YA book I'm trying to be a bit more conscious of potential glaring errors while dafting.

If they're good words, then the word count shouldn't count against you too much, but you also might want to sit back and consider if the story you're telling wouldn't make more narrative sense as more than one book.

pingle · Apr 6, 2019

Oooh, lots of replies that I didn't see, sorry for the delay in reading them, but all excellent food for thought.

I'm at 114k now and think I'll be lucky to not hit 130k with this first draft. My main problem is I so want to add some meat all the way through, I've been somewhat sparse with historical tidbits and do think some bit more is needed. Jinnambex what you said is spot on, I really want that depth, I've finally realised that I'm really aiming for literary fantasy and without depth it's just hollow.

And Laer absolutley, my YA had more problems that just length, it was a bit of a tired concept and not really of the zeitgeist if I'm honest! If only I had known that before I started writing it :ROFL:

I'll try not to worry for now and will plough on with the writing. Thanks all!

Jinnambex · Apr 17, 2019

Good luck!
Some animals grow only to fit their environment, and I like to think of stories like that in terms of word count--if you fence in your story, it can only grow so much. Break down the fence, and let the story grow! Trim it down later, if you can. Is there a scene where the characters spend a paragraph "admiring the landscape"? Maybe just fit the landscape into a scene instead. Now find every instance (keep a few of them though, because Dayyyumn, some landscapes are beautiful) in the book and do that. Even shortening one sentence by removing fluff here and there adds up over time.

I'm sort of rambling now, but I think this is a funny example: I read Stephen King's ON WRITING memoir and book on how to write (highly recommend it by the way) and he abhors adverbs. "He walked quietly" is infinitely worse than "he crept" according to King. So I went through my entire novel by word searching "-ly" and rearranged sentences containing them and cut down my novel by a literal 1000 words. It was crazy. Every one of those sentences sounded better in the end too.

litdawg · Apr 18, 2019

Jinnambex said:
Good luck!
Some animals grow only to fit their environment, and I like to think of stories like that in terms of word count--if you fence in your story, it can only grow so much. Break down the fence, and let the story grow! Trim it down later, if you can. Is there a scene where the characters spend a paragraph "admiring the landscape"? Maybe just fit the landscape into a scene instead. Now find every instance (keep a few of them though, because Dayyyumn, some landscapes are beautiful) in the book and do that. Even shortening one sentence by removing fluff here and there adds up over time.

I'm sort of rambling now, but I think this is a funny example: I read Stephen King's ON WRITING memoir and book on how to write (highly recommend it by the way) and he abhors adverbs. "He walked quietly" is infinitely worse than "he crept" according to King. So I went through my entire novel by word searching "-ly" and rearranged sentences containing them and cut down my novel by a literal 1000 words. It was crazy. Every one of those sentences sounded better in the end too.

That's a great vocabulary exercise too! I am often tempted to stop and search for the right word when drafting, but if I start moving towards a search engine to find it, I write a verbose phrase in its place and drive on. Crafting like you describe can be one of the productive pleasures of editing, not drafting.

Word count...

pingle

waylander

Who's going for a beer?

lizmonster

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pingle

lizmonster

Possibly A Mermaid Queen

pingle

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer

Jinnambex

Silence is deafening

David Odle

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litdawg

Helping those who help themselves

themindstream

Thomas Vail

What?

pingle

Jinnambex

Silence is deafening

litdawg

Helping those who help themselves