Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Length of Books

This is topic Length of Books in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/writers/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000139

Posted by writerPTL (Member # 895) on :

How do you guys drag things out to 70,000 words? How big would 70,000 words *be*? I've finished half (maybe more!) of my first book, and it's only 22,000! Is there some trick or something? It's hard for me to write very short, and hard for me to write very long . . .

Posted by srhowen (Member # 462) on :

Draging it out sounds like you would make it very boring.

Young people novels are often only about 40,000 words long. Think Goosebumps or the others aimed at the same age group.

Check your description, check for passages of telling verses showing, add to the dialog(as in adding some action instead of talking heads)---add a sub plot if you don't have one. Tell the story with the word length in mind.

I do 2,500(about) per chapter and always keep in mind how many chapters I will have. More recently with the last book I made a bare bones outline. Just the idea of each chapter. It helped a alot. Also have some crits done and listen to the readers coments on things like--I wish you would tell us more about----?

Good luck. My problem has been getting things down to 70,000 words. And I used to think I couldn't write short but with work have discovered that I can.

Oh and 70,000 words is about 300 pages with double spacing, 1.5 inch margins and using times new roman 12pt font.

Shawn

[This message has been edited by srhowen (edited June 04, 2001).]

Posted by writerPTL (Member # 895) on :

no, actually Animorphs books, which are typically longer than goosebumps, are only 28,000... even factories like R.L. Stine couldn't do forty thou a month.

sorry, I'm wayyy into details.

But thanks!

Posted by srhowen (Member # 462) on :

I refer to the R.L.Stine books aimed at teens. Not the very thin larger than regular paperback books.

And---While writing my last novel, 75,000 words in four months, I also wrote 4 columns at 3,000 words each, a serial story at 3,000 words each section (four of them), put out three newsletters and worked on a non-fiction book I am doing---about 50,000 words per month. I also teach in the middle school as a sub but work almost full time between the three schools I sub at.

Ann Rice writes several books a year and hers all fall into the 100,000 plus word range.

Shawn

Posted by writerPTL (Member # 895) on :

::smacks head::

Oh, you meant like fear street, not goosebumps...

Whoa, you must be very, very busy!