What’s all this about word count?
Put A Love Story by Eric Segal beside War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and the argument does not stand. But I am not thinking about selling, for a change; I am thinking about determining the volume of your book accurately.
I read somewhere an easy way to do it. If you divide your book into scenes, which is how most writer write (I really don’t know, I am new to the class), then taking the word count of the average number of words in a scene (say, 1,500) and multiplying it with the number of scenes you need to complete the story (say, 60), then 90,000 words will be the approximate number of words in your book. I hate mathematics, but this is easy.
Today, five minutes ago when I was walking my dog, my mind wandered and this is what I got from staring at the skyline.
First, you need to know whether your writing is abstract or descriptive.
Second, my dog went poop.
When you do not know what to say, talk about yourself. I write around 1,000 words per scene and my writing is abstract. I would rather call you a good man than an incredibly fantastic person with a heart made of twenty four caret gold minus taxes. I have got 64 scenes as of now, which makes 64,000 words; but again, my writing is abstract and I need to write transitions. So, I add 500 words per scene, which makes it . . . I need a calculator . . . . . . . 96,000 words. A difference of 32,000 words. Makes a lot of difference to a publisher.
I must rush to my novel. Now you know why 2010 came late to my site.
Hehe. Excellent.
I walk my dog while thinking too. Dogs are no respectors of dignity however.
Write the story and it ends when it is done if you ask me. Counting words is what you do when it is finished.
Hi Shruti,
I read your work on short-stories.net and i was awed by the quality of your writing.
Well, i am a newbie mostly into writing flash and it would be great if you could give an advice or two about writing in general.
You can review my work here.:
http://cachememory.wordpress.com/category/scribblings/
thanks,
Rohan
Hi Dave,
Yeah, all animals are free from human vices (dignity lies somewhere in a gray area).
I do not care about the length of short stories, but a novel length work and I frequently click on my calculator.
Hi Rohan,
Usually I do not like giving advice because it puts you on a higher plane and I do not know how to be humble about it although I try a lot. But advice helps, especially from fellow writers.
I am on your site now. Thanks for coming by.
I loved your critique on my work. thanks a lot Shruti…it means a lot.