Hey guys, I was wondering how many more double spaced pages of text in Microsoft Word I will have to write until it is enough for the average 200 page novel? Thanks, Geoff
Erm... I think that a typical paperback novel usually has somewhere between 300-500 words per page. 1,000 words on single spaced Word is 1 and a half pages. I'll let you do the maths, because mine is terrible! Have you been given this target of 200 pages, or do you just want to write a novel, and so are wondering how long it should be? If it's the latter then just aim for 80-120 thousand words (127,000 words is 208 pages of single spaced A4- that's my word count) and you'll be fine. Hope that helped, and hope that I'm not wrong!
I seem to remember one of my favorite authors saying that his novels are generally between 80 K and 120k in length and most of his are around 200 pages.
Page count is far too variable. It depends not only on the font size, but also on the particular font face, as well as margin settings. Look sometime at the different number of pages if you switch a piece between Verdana and Arial of the same font size. They are very similar fonts in appearance, but you get as much as a 20% difference in the word count per page. Word count is what publishers will specify, not page count.
Not only that, but a normal Word document is set to 8.5x11 inches when the most common paperbacks have a 6x9 ratio instead, so that can change it too.
Haha.. do you know how I know how many words are on the page of a paperback book? I've counted! I was really desperate to know how my novel was comparing size wise to a typical fantasy paperback, so I counted a few different books. Yeah I know, I'm incredably cool......
as cog indicated, you should never go by page count, only by total word count... and while 80-100k is today's general optimum to aim for, some publishers have lower or higher minimum/maximum limits, so you have to go by what is 'allowable' for each one you're submitting to, not what other authors have had published, or by whatever we say here...
This is good information. My short stories usually clock in at 750 to 1500 words. How many words in the average chapter?
That's a good point. Has anyone else noticed that a lot of the sample chapters posted in the novel section are only like 1,000 words long? It's not a criticsm, it just struck me as being a bit short.
It depends on the content of the chapter and where you feel it should end. You may want to end it on a particular note or during a particular scene; you may want to resolve a problem or leave the reader in suspense. Calculating the average length for a chapter is impossible because the length of every chapter by every author varies greatly. It's like asking 'What's the average height of a tree?'
Yeah I know. I've had loads of times where i had a point i wanted to end on, but I couldn't because the chapter would be too short. My point was that 1,000 word chapter works out at like at the most probably 3 pages of a normal sized paperback. If you write a novel it's going to have 100 chapters! That just seems like a lot to me.
That's a good point. hmmmm I'll have to see where my first chapter ends up... I'm used to only writing essays..short ones at that and very very short stories that get the point accross quickly. I have an outlilne of the first chapter so I have enough I think to fill it out nicely.
I know your talking to Lucy, but I want to answer too lol. I suppose it depends really. I personally dont like short chapters. The Northen Lights (the golden compass in America, I believe) had 23 ish chapters, in a 400 page book, and that was perfect. I used to read those stupid goosebumps books and they sometimes had chapters that were only a page long! I know they were for kids, but come on! I think chapters varying between 10 and 30 pages in a paperback are good length chapters. So that's somewhere between 3500 to 10,000 ish words. Although on seconds thoughts, going above 25 too often could make it too few chapters. Btw just to be sure, I dont have anything against 1,000 word chapters, and i wasn't trying to insult/bash anyone in the review room, i just personally thought that they would be too short for a novel. Hope i didn't offend anyone.
For me, the very shortest I'd consider is probably 5 pages. But I wouldn't use 5-page-long chapters throughout the entire novel. I'll take a look at mine and mark down the word counts for my first 10 chapters. Just gimme a sec...
no problem I appreciate the feedback. That makes complete sense. and sounds right to me. by the way.. I know my spelling/grammer and typo's leave a lot to be desired so I appologize to all who read my posts rest assured that when I write I use spell check and grammer check as well as proof reading my work and in addition to that I have an editor who works with me. lol that's the only way to write! lol
Chapter 1: 4,319 Chapter 2: 3,687 Chapter 3: 6,796 Chapter 4: 10,586 Chapter 5: 4,126 Chapter 6: 5,246 Chapter 7: 8,437 Chapter 8: 2,815 Chapter 9: 5,269 Chapter 10: 9,680 As you can see, they vary quite a lot in length.
there's really no 'average' as in re the 'majority' of novels... sure, you can have a single page chapter or a 20+ page one, so to average that out would come to 10 pages, or 2,500-3,500 words, but that's not helpful, imo... a chapter will be as long as it needs to be... some successful authors like short ones and others very long ones... and many vary the length...
