How many words in...? [writerly thread]

[Vermilion]

An average chapter of an average novel?

Answers on the back of a postcard please.

x
V

 

[Vermilion]

<bump> for a dead thread.

 

[Liar]

<bump> for a dead thread.

Hey, wait for the postcards.

But none from me, because I have no idea. Sorry.

 

[The_Fool]

Chapters aren't about words, they are about breaks in the story. Shifted points of view. A good nights sleep. A years journey. They can be half a page or a hundred pages.

 

[sr71plt]

4,372.3 words (26,233.8 character spaces).

 

[3113]

4,372.3 words (26,233.8 character spaces).

Which is how many pages?

 

[Weird Harold]

An average chapter of an average novel?

Tough question. I don't read "average" novels so I can't even do a random sample for you.

I do however have several Baen Books Free library CDs and I can do a random sample of word count divided by number of chapters from those if the number is really important -- it will take awhile though.

A quick random sample of books on my shelf show 18 chapters for 316 pages 30 chapters for 652 pages and 36 chapters for 442 pages from three different authors. I don't thnk you can come up with a meaningful number for words/per chapter any more than you can come up with the ideal number of words to tell a story.

 

[sr71plt]

Which is how many pages?

17.48 manuscript pages; 12.49 book pages, plus or minus 2.3 pages.

Please pass the martinis.

 

[sr71plt]

Now, laughs out of the way, guess what? The publishing industry does construct strawman answers to this question (for future planning on the projected costs of their publishing seasons). And Publishers Weekly occasionally throws out some researched figures. The numbers I threw out were meant to appear fanciful, but they, in fact, aren't. Firm numbers aren't possible, of course, but the ones I gave were based on updated, existing estimates. 250 words for an average manuscript page, 350 words for an average book page, 85,000 words for an average fiction book (the likes of Dan Brown are bringing the chapter lengths down and the likes of Alexander McCall Smith and the cozy mystery writers are bringing the book wordage down), 6 character spaces on the average per word.

Only broad-based mainline publishers use averages like this. A fantasy publisher would be way higher than this on an average chapter length and total book wordage.

 

[gauchecritic]

6 character spaces on the average per word.

Uh oh. Does this mean that everyone has to halve their measured typing speed?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I actually have a book that lists how many pages, etc. for virtually every book subject.