Monday, October 1, 2007

Lots and Lots of Words

I'm writing a novel. Somedays the words just fly out of me, and other days I'm not really sure what to write. Today I've got the writing bug. I did some more writing, probably only about 1/2 page worth. I have two little kids and a husband, so getting time to write without any distractions doesn't come often.

As I've typed, I've wondered how to tell how many real pages my story is. Most books are printed in 8 1/2 X 11 sized. Novels tend to be smaller sized. So although my story is 35 pages so far, I assume it is a few more pages than that in novel print size. I guess a better way to "compare" might be words in a book. Thankfully with word processors they do they counting for you. I can't imagine trying to count all the words myself. :) So far I have 15,847 words. That's a lot of words.

I was reading one writer's blog http://www.josikilpack.blogspot.com/ (I'm sure that even though probably no one reads my blog, at least yet, she may enjoy having her link shown. It's a good blog to read.) Anyway, her goal is 80,000 words for the book. So I get to thinking that if I times my current words by 5, that is close to 80,000. That would be 175 pages or a few more novel print size. Not at bad goal. Although, at this point I can't imagine 175 pages. Maybe more like 100. But hopefully as the story evolves I can find enough good plot line and dialouge that will make the story better and maybe a little longer.

4 comments:

Josi said...

I love having my blog mentioned :-)

To figure out an estimated page count, you're on the right track.

Typically a page of writing in 12 pt New Times Roman font, double spaced, will be very close to the word count on a page in a book. I usually shoot for about 80,000 words and end up with about 300 pages. Publishers want to know word count rather than page number, but I like keeping track of the pages.

Keep up the good work! And commenting on other people's blogs is the best way to get people to check yours out--like you did mine!

Heather Moore said...

If you estimate that there are 250-270 words on each page of a printed book, you'll be able to caculate about how many pages your book will be.

My publisher also goes by word count. They want my books to be about the same length, so I have to stay between 80,000-90,000 words.

Tristi Pinkston said...

Yeah, I agree with Heather and Josi. Figure on about 250 words per page and you'll be about right.

By the way, thanks for stopping by my blog! If you want, you can also come over to http://www.tristischallenges.blogspot.com and participate in the writing challenges I do as well.

Annette Lyon said...

Thanks for stopping by!

You're right that the book will shrink a bit in print--maybe 20% ish. My most recent book was about 380 pages (111,000 words) on the computer and came out in print as 327.

Congrats on getting going on it! I've written through the baby years (four times), and it CAN be done!