Books of the Month
Word Count for Mystery & Thrillers
 Sharp Objects |
80,565 |
 The Surgeon |
98,039 |
 The Girl on the Train |
101,704 |
View all genres and ranges  |
Word Count for Debut Novels
 Fight Club |
49,962 |
 The Notebook |
48,978 |
 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone |
78,792 |
| View all debut novels |
Word Count for Series
 Twilight |
118,975 |
 New Moon |
132,758 |
 Eclipse |
148,971 |
| View more series |
Advice
While it's important that every story find its natural length, it takes time to develop an instinct as to what that length is. In the meantime, overwriting to the point that your draft exceeds typical word count ranges is a common issue — and those widely-accepted ranges aren't completely arbitrary.
Overwriting drags down a narrative, turns off prospective agents/publishers/readers, and can cause professional services to become prohibitively expensive. To start resolving this issue, let's discuss in terms of excess of story vs. excess of words. The former is a structural problem; the latter, a technical and stylistic problem.
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About
Have you ever checked your book's word count, written a few paragraphs, then checked again? Well, then you've come to the right place. I'm obsessed too. It's okay, it's a disease and we'll get through it together.
Hi, I'm J.F. Wiegand the author of three novels. I created this website to help you better gauge your book's word count, because the more examples you see and the more advice you read, the more confident you'll be. I created this website to help you better gauge your book's word count, because the more examples you see and the more advice you read, the more confident you'll be.
Continue reading