I average about 120-140k words but recently I heard 90k is the new preferred word count. I've seen and read long books that I just can't put down unless I force myself to. Anyhow, what's your average word count?
100,000 tends to be at the middle of the range I see from a lot of publishers. As a reader, I don't really care about length, as long as the "novel" fits the basic definition of a novel. Quality is more important.
I've heard that it's between 100-120 with the sweet spot being about 105-110. I think 140 is way too long. I think 90 is a bit too short in my opinion, but still acceptable.
80k is the average for books in general. Fantasy gets away with being a bit longer (usually into the 100k range). 140 is definitely above average, and the longer a first book is, the less likely an agent or publisher is to take a risk on it. That said, plenty of 200k+ and 300k+ books get published, even first novels (see Brandon Sanderson's Elantris, and Patrick Rothfuss's In the Name of The Wind). Now, I've finished plenty of super-long books, but I find most of them don't need to be so long. And I tend to write very scarce books (40-70k words) and then fill them with detail and stuff I forgot to explain to get them up to "normal" word counts of 80-100k, and I'm speaking as someone who writes fantasy.
If I find a book to be too long it's usually because I'm not actually enjoying the book. At that point, 5,000 words would still be "too long". If your book works best at 120k-140k then do that. If it's a book I like, I want it to end anyways. There is a point where I'd suggest taking something that turns out super long and making it into a series, but I don't think that's necessary with 120k-140k.
Wow, just noticed that typo. My edit button seems to have performed a disappearing act so I'm just fixing it in the quote.
I noticed the edit button only hangs around for an hour or two or until a reply happens so it's best to doublecheck your posts and edit quickly
I finished my 2nd draft of 196k words, realized it was way too long. So I just took the first act of my story, and just extended it to be my first book, and still landed on 100k words for it. Even though I haven't done any revising yet, but I am trying to aim under 100k words.
woops, my bad, I was distracted by something vitally important and hit submit. I forgot to double check.
Once you become a "member" (which happens once you've been on the forums for two weeks and have made at least 20 posts) you will be able to edit your posts whenever you want
It also depends on the type of fantasy. Epic fantasy tends to be longer. Readers sort of expect it, and publishers factor that in. Urban fantasy, tends to be shorter. Check the publisher guidelines you're interested in submitting your work to. They often list preferred word counts. That will give you a good target.
oh so it has returned, huh, thanks for that. I also noticed my link is active so that's why things are working the way they should there. I'm a member. Go me! lol
I agree that it is about the story, not about the numbers. If you were making a movie then you'd have a time limit for technical reasons... a book has no such limits. As long as the words have life in them, let them flow. In the worst case, if it gets too heavy to hold, split it into pt.1 and pt.2
Both of the fantasy / science fiction books I drafted were 80k. I find a lot of shorter fantasy to read and am way more likely to pick up a book if it's shorter. I have heard 100k as typical for fantasy. I have a feeling that sword and sorcery and character driven / romantic fantasy are on the shorter end, while epic fantasy is on the longer. 100k might be the average for all kinds of fantasy. 140k sword and sorcery would be a sight to see.
From a literary viewpoint, I think any book should be as long as it needs to be. If it's longer than can happily be fit between two book covers, then it can be published as two separate books. That's my opinion as a reader, and probably as a writer as well. However, if your goal is to get traditionally published via an agent, etc, you do need to pay attention to the book lengths they 'require' for a first-time author. So pay careful attention to their requirements, and work within them. One of the things any agent expects in a query letter is a word-count figure. If they are only interested in 100-120K word count (for Fantasy) and you send them one that's 140K words long, the query is very likely to go straight in the bin. If they read the query letter itself (which they might not, once they see the word count) and your query sounds incredibly interesting, they MIGHT agree to look at it. But that will be with a view to getting you to cut 20-40K at some point. They have to sell your book to a publisher, who is not going to want costly extra pages in a new book by an unproven author. Once you are JK Rowling, you can make your books as long as you like!
There are good long books and bad. Personally, I'm not a fan of IT because it's just too long and takes forever to get anywhere. Name of the Wind is long, but it's such a page-turner! The prose is just fantastic, and Rothfuss can pretty much make any scene interesting. Also, The Earthsea books are good examples of short fantasy novels. They don't have to be long or short, it just depends on how well written the book is.
