Sticking to a Word Count

Novels range from 80,000 + in words.

But it can be 50,000 words.

A novella is 10,000 to 40,000 words generally.

A short story of 5,000 to 10,000 words. 

Flash fiction is under 500 words. 

A paragraph should be 100-200 words or five sentences. 

Writing often involves thinking about how many words we can write. How long should a novel or story be? It’s easy to think in word counts. Most writing platforms count the number of words in a piece. How many words does one type on a document? I suppose we could manually count words those of us who write by hand still. 

Numerous articles focus on the length of works. How long should we write? How many words are too much or too little? Seriously try typing “sticking to a word count” or “how long should my novel be” into Google. 

Word counts are great. Especially if you like setting goals. For example, I need to write this many words, or I know this scene should have this many words. Personally, I love word counts for knowing if I’m overextending a scene and should split it into two scenes. That isn’t to say some scenes aren’t longer or shorter than each other, but looking at how far over I go is a good indicator of which is which. 

I also really like them when I know the scene I want, but I haven’t worked out all the kinks for the scene; but to work out the kinks, I need the actual scene to make it better. 

But it’s a double edge sword. It’s hard to go back and edit something when it is perfectly within the word count goal. What if I affect the perfect word count by adding or removing words? It’s within the word count goal; therefore, the scene’s purpose must be complete. 

At least that’s what the lazy voice in my head is telling me. However, realistically I know it can be easy to achieve a mass number of words without actually having a decent sharable piece of work. 

So if you’re like me, where the word count both terrifies and reassures you, here are a few things to keep I like to remind myself of when looking at my word count:

1. If the scene is double what you expected of the word count, see what can be cut or if it should be separated.
2. If the tension or conflict is low, cut the non-conflict pieces and look at the actual action in the scene.
3. If you find yourself asking what the point of the scene is in the first three paragraphs, try rewriting the scene, focusing on the conflict at hand.
4. If you’re under and the scene doesn’t feel right, see if the scene is necessary to the story; if it isn’t, cut it. 
5. Along with the above may be the plot device you’re using isn’t the right one for the scene go back to what you wanted the scene to do to move the story along and play with ideas to move it forward.

See these links on word counts for references:

Master Class – Word Count Guide: How Long Is a Book, Short Story, or Novella?

Word Count List – How Many Words Your Text Should Have