Size doesn't matter

Why you shouldn't worry if you think your book is too long or short

 

 

There have always been rules regarding book lengths, printing costs money so books cannot be too long, but size can also dictate value so a little short book may not be worth putting out if there isn't a large enough readership. As a rule YA books would be between 30,000 and 50,000 words, novels between 50,000 and 80,000 and Sci-fi and fantasy stories could be as high as 100,000 for world building purposes. So if you turned up at a publisher with your 130,000 word manuscript, be prepared for some severe editing. There were obviously some exceptions to that rule, such as the middle to later Harry Potter stories, but by that point fan-bases had been found and readerships established, the earlier books were very standard sizes.

 'just because you have the capacity to write a 200k word book doesn't mean you should.'

Digital books or e-books have changed this way of thinking, stories no longer need to conform to word counts meaning your book can be 2000 words or 200,000 words if you like. This is evidenced in the non-fiction variety where there are a large spate of books that are in the 10-15k word bracket, allowing every person with experience of a subject the ability to share their message. Short stories no longer need to get in to a compendium as they can publish on their own. A full length science fiction story born out of an unheard of world can now be told in it's entirety allowing the reader to experience the tale as the author intended it.

Why this freedom of word counts I hear you ask, because there is no print or paper associated with the production cost, words on a screen are pretty much free the same as this blog is, so now you are free to tell your full story the way that you want to. However that said there is still other very good reasons for editing, just because you have the capacity to write a 200k word book doesn't mean you should. Books still have a point to get to and a story to follow, if you lose your reader in too much back story that isn't really relevant then you may never get them to the end. The same applies the other way, if you see the lack of word limit as a reason to push out consistently short books then you need to ensure that you are still giving enough detail for others to understand the story that you are telling them.

I have really enjoyed the freedom of writing without word count restriction, however I do impose certain ones on myself, in an attempt to ensure that I am including a good amount of material for the reader. The best advice I can give is to make sure you write enough words to tell the story well, not leave your audience unsure of what happened or unwilling to finish.

Good luck and keep writing.

Written by Martin Wallace