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Young Writers Society


Chapters, Pages and word count



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Wed Feb 10, 2016 6:30 am
dracowave says...



I'm writing a light novel and am thinking of releasing a volume as part of a series sometime within the next few months-years not sure of a certain time-frame yet. As far as pages word count and chapters go I have between 29-35 chapters 54,000 words and 187 pages and im adding more to the first part so ill have around 38-45 chapters and 250 pages. I could use opinions on the number of chapters, pages and words needed to produce one average volume and how much of it i should use. Thanks for any help i do receive and have a nice day/night
  





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Wed Feb 10, 2016 7:10 am
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Mea says...



Pages
Don't worry about pages. The number of pages in a Word document is likely to be very different from the number of pages it would be when printed. Page number depends far more on spacing, font size, and other things that would only be set when printing the book.

Chapters
Again, don't worry about these too much. Chapter length is a highly subjective thing - every author's chapters are a different length, meaning that the number of chapters in the average book varies widely. Some books don't use chapters at all.

Word count
This is what you need to pay attention to. It's what publishers care about, and it's what decides if your piece of prose is a novel, novella, short story, etc. Typically, the minimum accepted length for a novel is 50,000 words, though most are longer, closer to 100k. Anything less than that is generally considered a novella.

Keep in mind though, that this will change depending on the genre. For example, children's fiction tends to be shorter, often only 20k-50k, A mystery/thriller is usually 60k-80k, while sci-fi and fantasy tend to run significantly longer, often over 100k, and I've even seen a few around 350k.

So, broadly, anything over 50k is considered a novel. But in reality, it's a lot more nuanced than that, and I'd recommend researching your genre and considering what is right for your story rather than going with an arbitrary number.
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Wed Feb 10, 2016 4:18 pm
Rosendorn says...



According to wiki, light novels are usually between 40,000 and 50,000 words, meaning you should not go over 50,000 in your story as a debut author if you're traditionally publishing. Printing books is an up front investment and publishers are always gambling when they pick up a new story by a new author. They have to sink in a fair chunk of cash before they ever see returns— most of it going towards the actual paper and ink the book uses.

If you're web publishing or self publishing, read other light novels in the same genre and format to see how they split everything up. The best way to find out genre norms is to consume the genre, and extensively.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  








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