# Uh oh... What if my book is too long??



## Eicca (Jan 2, 2020)

I started adding up all my word counts today... My book is on track to cross 200k words when it's finished. That's longer than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! I never meant for it to be that long.

How worried should I be? I know it varies by genre, but I'm writing a spy thriller and I can't think of a single other book in the genre that's even remotely close.


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## Dan Rhys (Jan 2, 2020)

Unfortunately, unless you are a well-known author, it is unlikely a publisher will publish one that long, but don't fret too much because you can always cut out items easier than the reverse. I suspect you can find things not absolutely central to the story to get rid of. If you can make the book two parts, the first 100,000 words the part one and the next the part two, that could work.


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## Amnesiac (Jan 2, 2020)

Okay. Kill your darlings. The places where you've got up on a soap box and begun an exposition of your personal views, places where the dialog isn't as tight as it could be, any part of your story that doesn't advance your plot or build suspense, toss it out. Be ruthless with your editing! If you're still too close to it that you can't be objective, shelve it for a couple of weeks and then revisit it when you are in a more detached frame of mind. Tighten it up, reduce your adverbs and adjectives, avoid over-explaining things to your readers...


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## Ma'am (Jan 2, 2020)

Without having seen your work, I'll just say that first drafts are frequently way too long or way too short for the material covered. Also, first draft does not equal finished manuscript. 

So, I'd just finish it, first. _Then _worry about going through it again yourself. After that, get some other eyes on it. It's amazing what others see that the writer misses. What we write is an interaction of what's in our mind and what we put on the page, whereas others see only what is on the page. So there can be quite a difference between the two. 

If the content is determined to be quality rather than loose writing after those additional steps, then you'd have to decide whether to leave it that way, even though it might be harder to find a publisher, or if it could work as more than one novel, with each able to stand on their own. 

Please disregard if this is too basic; I don't know how much experience you have. Good luck with it.


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## bazz cargo (Jan 2, 2020)

Whey hey! That is one long tome. Bet ya could half it by culling most of the adverbs.





Eicca said:


> I started adding up all my word counts today... My book is on track to cross 200k words when it's finished. That's longer than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! I never meant for it to be that long.
> 
> How worried should I be? I know it varies by genre, but I'm writing a spy thriller and I can't think of a single other book in the genre that's even remotely close.


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## Cephus (Jan 2, 2020)

That's your first draft. Cut a ton of that out on the next pass. No trade publisher is going to put out a book that long unless you're famous or a proven commodity.


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## Eicca (Jan 2, 2020)

Seriously, of all problems I did not expect to have! I was always afraid it would be too _short._

This is my first rodeo, and I've been working on the thing for something like 15 years now, so like was mentioned above a few times I'll just get it finished. That'll be an achievement in and of itself. Then I'll start hacking away. I can already think of several scenes that can be trimmed or eliminated altogether.

No wonder its taken so long to write. Between the final and all the failed drafts, I'll probably have done easily 350k words.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 2, 2020)

Yeah, some books are way too long, they will never sell, like The Bible, who would ever read that?

Seriously, write it first just the way it comes. It may be you will want to cut it down when you consider it, or turn it into a trilogy, or whatever. But think, nobody has ever written a gripping page turner of a spy story that long; wouldn't it be great to be the first!


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 2, 2020)

Eicca said:


> I started adding up all my word counts today... My book is on track to cross 200k words when it's finished. That's longer than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! I never meant for it to be that long.
> 
> How worried should I be? I know it varies by genre, but I'm writing a spy thriller and I can't think of a single other book in the genre that's even remotely close.




Listen to me very carefully: IGNORE everything those other responders just told you. It's all urban myths perpetuated by the internet, and if you follow any of it, you will be sorry. I know because I once did what they recommended and it RUINED THE BOOK. Not only that, but it turned out to be terrible advice.

Look, 200k was a lot...once upon a time. But that was because of printing costs.
But this is 2020, and eBooks are now the big moneymaker on the market.
And eBooks don't care about page count.

Secondly, it is a myth that a newbie will be unable to sell a 200k book.
You write a compelling query with a solid hook, and you can sell it.
It will be hard going, but it is very much possible to sell a book that big.

And finally, *killing your darlings* is the single-most misunderstood writing advice in the entire world.
When you get to editing, trim the superfluous stuff, trim the unnecessary stuff, but DO NOT go and cut stuff just to make it fit some word-count you heard about from some random on the internet.
Cut ONLY what needs to be cut; if it does not *progress the story*, or if it does not* illustrate your characters*, then it may be a candidate.

Trust me on this; I cut a book in half once because of this kind of bad advice, and it ruined the book.
I literally had to change my name and move to another town after that book.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 2, 2020)

Yep, what he says /\  /\  up there. My last post was an attempt to say that humorously, but seriously, it is your book, write it your way. And if you juggle it about after do so because you want to. It may be you read something and think they have a point sometime, but you don't have to accept any of it, and maybe you are the one with the point. They can't really know it needs trimming in any way, they have not read it.


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## Eicca (Jan 2, 2020)

I think I understand what is being said and what is necessary. I know my story, and I know exactly what needs to be in it, and I know it's part of the writing process to remove things that don't _need_ to be in it. So, if it's still 200k after I get rid of anything that doesn't _need_ to be there, then that's that.

The bottom line is the story has to stay the way it is. There's no shortening the overall plot. I've revised this stupid thing so many times until I got every last bit of it feeling like "yes, this is really tight and excellent." It's taken fifteen years. If it needs to be a trilogy, then I'll find some good break points and sculpt them accordingly.

I guess I'll have to consider getting some beta readers too.


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## luckyscars (Jan 3, 2020)

Eicca said:


> I think I understand what is being said and what is necessary. I know my story, and I know exactly what needs to be in it, and I know it's part of the writing process to remove things that don't _need_ to be in it. So, if it's still 200k after I get rid of anything that doesn't _need_ to be there, then that's that.
> 
> The bottom line is the story has to stay the way it is. There's no shortening the overall plot. I've revised this stupid thing so many times until I got every last bit of it feeling like "yes, this is really tight and excellent." It's taken fifteen years. If it needs to be a trilogy, then I'll find some good break points and sculpt them accordingly.
> 
> I guess I'll have to consider getting some beta readers too.



The truth, as usual, is most likely somewhere in the middle. So let's address the two main points (Most people on this thread + Ralph's)



> "200k is too long -- publishers won't consider it, especially not from a newbie"


*
Why this is correct*

200,000 words is a hefty read and readers may or may not want to invest that much time in a book they aren't totally sure they will see a payoff for. Additionally, it is unquestionably true that _most _first time novels by run on the conventional word count. Stephen King's Carrie is really short compared to most of his books. Rowling's The Sorcerer's Stone is really short compared to the following books. This is not an accident.

What it means is that a book that is essentially the length of 2-3 'standard' length books is not necessarily a deal-breaker, but it is a red flag -- the red flag being ''has this person actually edited or are they just waffling amok?". But DON'T take my/our word for it. 
Literary agents themselves (not all perhaps, but many -- and in my opinion enough of them) make this point often. Such as here 

Writers Digest run entire articles on the subject, with the caveat there are always exceptions. Here. These articles aren't being written for fun. They aren't being written for no reason. 

*Why this is bullshit*

Mainly because it is an absolutism and, as an absolute statement, is empirically false. _Some_ books do get picked up at that length from new writers. _Some_ stories really do need 200,000 words or more to be told. 

The fact that _most _do not is an observation, it is not a rule.

The assertion that a book is statistically more likely to be read if it is X, Y or Z isn't terribly relevant to this question: Every book is unique because every story is unique and there are no fixed rules as to what makes something publishable -- if only.



> "Don't listen because sometimes cutting out a chunk of content is really bad and also ebooks don't care and..."



*Why this is correct
*
Cutting a lot of content for no other reason than to hit some arbitrarily-determined  'sweet spot' is plainly bad advice. I had this problem as well: Often I would go into editing convinced that the answer to every problem was to CUT, CUT, CUT. A lot of the time that is actually true, but it's only a part of the puzzle. And yes, with e-books there is less emphasis ('less' not meaning 'zero') on book length generally. And if you're self-publishing, obviously, you don't have to answer to anybody.

Funnily enough: After cutting a bunch out in my rewrite, I actually am finding myself re-inserting bits from the original, mammoth version of my manuscript in the final draft, because I realized the story was empty without them. This is the magic of editing: It's not a one-way street. Sometimes you have to change your mind multiple times to find what works.

*Why this is bullshit
*
Firstly and most obviously: Because print books are still a thing and there's the cost issue. But more than that, there's also the perception problem. It's not an accident that a lot of first time novels are mammoths. What happens is writers tend to fall in love with their work and its world and therefore create a _lot _of white noise that doesn't necessarily move the story. You end up with over-long descriptions, excessive dialogue, random subplots, and so on. Pretty soon, a fairly simple story gets blown up like a tumor.

While sometimes tumors are benign, or not tumors at all but rather some impressive growth, I would say it is always foolish to _assume _that one can be an exception to traditional wisdom. Yes it's possible to get a really long book published. It's also _possible_ to climb a mountain in a bathing suit. The question is: Are you really wanting to risk stacking the cards against yourself if it is avoidable?

While a story being epic doesn't really matter if self-publishing, since the OP did not mention if they were publishing themselves or seeking an agent/publisher, advice regarding perceptions and adherence to convention/fulfilling expectation regarding word count (and everything else) hinges on that question. If the writer is trying to land an agent, they probably don't want to be disadvantaging their book in the eyes of industry professionals.

*HOW TO SOLVE:*

Beta readers. A beta reader is the only way to properly know if your story is too long or too short, too slow or just right, etc. 

Beyond that, you have to be REALLY honest with yourself. Ask yourself if EVERY scene you have actually MOVES the story. That has been my greatest lesson so far. 

By 'move the story' I mean specifically: Has a significant change been made at the end of the scene versus the beginning of it? Has the character changed, or learned something important? Have the circumstances changed _significantly _through the course of the scene, or is it pretty much just "Oh, that's interesting, guess I know a little more about how much he loves his mother...that's nice."

If the answer is 'no' or 'not sure', that scene DOES NOT!!! belong there.


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## luckyscars (Jan 3, 2020)

*Here's a little story on the subject:
*

_The first draft of my current WIP was beta read by a member of this forum (no longer active, I hope!) several years back_. _The gentleman had published multiple books in a similar genre and on a similar theme and had some decent sales. Perfect! _

Sent the manuscript over. Three days in, I got an email.

*"So, when does the story start? I'm at Chapter 7."*

I knew exactly where he was and my reply was "Soon...kind of. There's just a few things..." 

Another week went by. Another email.

*"I'm at Chapter 10...WHEN DOES THE STORY START?" *

I still urged him to carry on, but it was clear something was wrong.

Another week: *"OK, I'm at Chapter 17 and I still have no idea where this is going. I thought this was a time travel book? Where's the time travel?"*

"It's coming," I promised, knowing it was, that he was only a couple chapters away from when shit started to hit the fan, "Just carry on. I swear, it's good!"

Another two weeks, and then: _*"OK, I'm giving up. I got to Chapter 25 and I see where this is going but it's just too damn slow moving, sorry."*_

_^As a point of information, that iteration of the book was 200,000 words long.


*FIND A BETA READER AND LISTEN TO THEM*_


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## bdcharles (Jan 3, 2020)

_Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_ was Susanna Clarke's first novel and it weighs in at 282,750 words, and that was something like ... nine years ago? Twelve? Recently-ish; not totally current but not a whole different era, and it is supernatural fantasy which does tend to allow for more wordiness. There are general patterns - many agents may be reluctant to take on a long novel due to very real market pressures - but then again, the occasional one may take a punt. Then there's self-publishing. It depends somewhat on what you want to achieve as well as the quality of your writing.

Incidentally if you are after beta readers I will happily take a look at the first three chapters (which is a typical submission pack length). Can't really take on more than that though.


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## EntrepreneurRideAlong (Jan 3, 2020)

Happens to everyone. In the review process you will find a lot of places that you can cut down.


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## EntrepreneurRideAlong (Jan 3, 2020)

I should also mention, a good editor will help with this. I found my editor through a VA Facebook group. She helped me cut out a lot of fluff


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## Eicca (Jan 3, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> Incidentally if you are after beta readers I will happily take a look at the first three chapters (which is a typical submission pack length). Can't really take on more than that though.



It may be a while but I’d love to take you up on that. I’ve got to do some revising of the opening to tie it in with the revising I did of the third act.


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## JohnCalliganWrites (Jan 3, 2020)

If you haven't had beta readers, my experience is that most first novels, no matter how well edited, will be given a lot of cut-cut-cut feedback, not in terms of story, but in prose. If you have not had beta readers, if I were you, I would get 2-3 and ask them to give editing suggestions on the first chapter. Apply them and see if you agree. Often, the effect of the suggestions will cut from 10 to 30 or more percent of the words.

Cut this filter word. Cut this exposition as it could be left to subtext. Cut this paragraph because it summarizes the last two paragraphs. This paragraph is a repeat of an earlier paragraph. Cut this word repetition or reword. This scene lacks tension and only delivers exposition, so cut the scene and move the exposition to another scene. Cut this apologetic language. Cut "it appeared" because it doesn't actually negotiate a POV breach better than staying in voice. Cut this. Cut that.

You might not agree with all of the suggestions, and who knows, maybe that's not the kind of feedback you'll get, but it is usually the feedback you'll get. If you agree with it, you could then apply it across the board through the novel and get the word count down before you give it to anyone else to read.

I think longer novels have to meet a higher standard of conciseness. Personally, I'll read a very wordy short story, but if I get into the third or fourth page of a 400 word novel and realize that it strikes me as wordy, I won't keep going.


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## jacelove (Jan 4, 2020)

As you said, that's pretty wordy for your genre of choice. What I do is look at a paragraph and find sentences that are excessively wordy or can be stated slightly differently to cut down the word count. 

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 4, 2020)

In modern terms, a 200,000 word book is approx 540 pages long (assuming a 6x9 format).
It is possible to sell a 200k book to a publisher, *but as I mentioned, it would be difficult*.
Here is a good example of the current industry standards.







But publishers do buy books of that length. In fact, the current #5 ranked book on Amazon is 545 pages long.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPM7TIG/?tag=writingforu06-20
However, you should keep in mind that this book is by an established author.

But as Scars pointed out, you have more than one possible path for publishing your novel.
Once upon a time I wrote a book that was 253,000 words long.
Agents and publishers alike rejected the book because of its length.
So I became an Indie publisher.
That book sold well, and ultimately spawned a whole series of books.
You can check the results here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GW5WIYI/?tag=writingforu06-20


So to reinforce what I said earlier; don't go chopping your story mindlessly to meet an arbitrary word-count. 
Write the best story you possibly can.
Cut only that which does not progress the story or illustrate your characters. 
Binge-books are a thing.

Also, when accepting advice, take note of the source. Examine their credentials, read their reviews, look at their sales rankings.


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## luckyscars (Jan 4, 2020)

I feel like one of the best things that has come out of the 'Indie Publishing Revolution' is that there is now an option for people who want to deviate from the norms that all-too-often in the past have led to good books being unread.

There are many examples of novels and novelists in the past who only saw major sales after they died. H.P Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe are two that spring to mind. These writers wrote prolifically but were constantly given the cold shoulder during their lifetimes by swarms of literary professionals who considered their work unsaleable. The fact anybody knows who they are today is down to the quality of their work and luck. How different might things have been for them if they were able to bypass the sneer-brigade and self-publish to reach their readers directly? Plenty more authors had to bend over backwards to make their work publishable.

The flipside of that argument, of course, is that for every once-unfortunate Lovecraft or previously-unfairly-maligned-during-their-lifetime Poe, there are hundreds and thousands of shitty-beyond-shitty 'authors' who are able to 'publish' and even *whisper* sell a decent number of books through self-publishing channels like Amazon. Often based on little more than relentless self-promotion and appealing to genres where quality control tends to be lacking. Books which are rife with spelling errors, terrible dialogue, and -- yes -- far too many pages of waffling baloney. I literally downloaded one yesterday. All kinds of preposterous nonsense and the thing had somehow got itself onto the 'Popular On Kindle Unlimited' list. I read four pages and deleted it away. I find myself doing that a lot with the KU crap.

Anyway, the conventions that govern traditional publishing is still, for me, a good filter for quality literature, so when I see 'recommendations' that first-time novels not exceed 100,000 words I take that on board _strongly _and will look for ways to trim the fat to bring it as close to that number as possible. Again, these numbers don't just come out of thin air. 

But Ralph is essentially correct that IF the book absolutely _cannot _be made shorter than 200,000 words and shopping it around to a good number of agents leads to nothing but a 'no thanks', then Indie is definitely a good and entirely legitimate route. And definitely a far better option than cutting for the sake of cutting until the heart of the story is gone.


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## Amnesiac (Jan 4, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_ was Susanna Clarke's first novel



I loved that book!


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## indianroads (Jan 4, 2020)

A longer book can be daunting, however, if the story is intriguing and the writing is good I'll enjoy every word.


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## Eicca (Jan 4, 2020)

Lots of good advice in here, thank you all.

This situation has helped me change my mindset, and it’s been enlightening to approach every scene with the following criteria:
-What needs to exist in order to progress the story?
-What needs to exist to develop the characters?
-What can be eliminated or condensed to make it more efficient?

I’ve got a list of ideas already forming to trim this thing down, and they all _feel_ good. In every case the scenes that were good are now going to be much more relevant and punchy.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 4, 2020)

indianroads said:


> A longer book can be daunting, however, if the story is intriguing and the writing is good I'll enjoy every word.




Yep, but binging isn't just for Netflix anymore.
I got a number of reviews that loved that Calizona because they could stay in that world for days.

But think twice about self publishing. You really need a lotta skills (besides writing) to Indie publish properly.
Covers don't design themselves, blurbs don't write themselves, and eBooks don't build themselves.


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## Tomkat (Jan 4, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> Yep, what he says /\  /\  up there. My last post was an attempt to say that humorously, but seriously, it is your book, write it your way. And if you juggle it about after do so because you want to. It may be you read something and think they have a point sometime, but you don't have to accept any of it, and maybe you are the one with the point. They can't really know it needs trimming in any way, they have not read it.



This is a good advice. Thank you Mr.Buckle


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## Eicca (Jan 4, 2020)

If I do split it up into multiple books, I’ll probably have to split up chapters too. What’s a good work count range for chapters? I’m currently at 4-6k, sometimes more or less.


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## luckyscars (Jan 5, 2020)

Eicca said:


> If I do split it up into multiple books, I’ll probably have to split up chapters too. What’s a good work count range for chapters? I’m currently at 4-6k, sometimes more or less.



Chapters are very flexible. The original purpose of a chapter was to split a novel into parts that can be read in 'a sitting', rather like how the idea of a short story was to provide something that can be read beginning to end without a break. A chapter is a way to divide a long novel into digestible pieces like food on a fork. 

Because times have changed, and the definition of what constitutes 'a sitting' varies anyway, chapters are extremely flexible. Some run only a page or two (extreme cases, for effect, have examples which are just one sentence or even a single word), but usually a few thousand words is typical, so 4-6k would most likely be fine. Probably try to keep it within the 5k mark where possible, but there's no rules here. One of my chapters is 7k but because it 'reads fast' I don't think it feels overly long.

Genre might dictate how you structure a book (a more action-oriented book will likely have shorter chapters as scenes tend to require less build up), as might reader age (chapters in books aimed at younger readers tend to be much shorter), or just personal preference and writing style and the type of book it is.

In my current novel, I like most of my chapters to run a little longer - 5,000-6,000 words, with that 7k one & and a couple closer to 4k- which I then split into un-numbered sub-chapters, indicated by line breaks. There is no set length to the sub-chapters, they end when they end according to each scene.

I think, generally, it's optimal if chapter length is vaguely consistent and a chapter follows the length of a scene at one scene = one chapter. In this novel, a scene-per-chapter wasn't really possible, as the length of the scenes meant the chapters were either too short or too long. Hence I used the sub-chapter thing, so I could increase some of the chapter lengths to occasionally near the 7,000 word mark while still keeping the scenes dispersed.

Bottom line: You can do what you want with chapters. Some books have no formal chapters at all. Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King, for example.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 5, 2020)

Eicca said:


> If I do split it up into multiple books, I’ll probably have to split up chapters too. What’s a good work count range for chapters? I’m currently at 4-6k, sometimes more or less.




There is no fixed length for chapters. 
Personally, I start a new chapter when something changes in the story. When the mood of the story changes, or the plot takes a turn, or sometimes when I introduce a new character. New chapters are a great place to set up a proper character introduction & subsequent development. After all, characters are everything. The plot is just the stage upon which your actors perform.

My chapters range from a few thousand words, to as much as 29k. It's all about the flow of the story.
Also, I am a big fan of naming chapters, so each new chapter has a title that hints cryptically at what is to come.
I always thought it was lazy writing to just number chapters. (and it makes the index look stupid too.)


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## KHK (Jan 5, 2020)

Ralph Rotten said:


> There is no fixed length for chapters.
> Personally, I start a new chapter when something changes in the story. When the mood of the story changes, or the plot takes a turn, or sometimes when I introduce a new character. New chapters are a great place to set up a proper character introduction & subsequent development. After all, characters are everything. The plot is just the stage upon which your actors perform.
> 
> My chapters range from a few thousand words, to as much as 29k. It's all about the flow of the story.



In the same book?
Or did you mean that you have some books with shorter chapters, and some others with extra long ones?

If it's the same book, are you not concerned that there could have been some innate cadence to the story but it gets broken by the chapters of very uneven lengths?

And if you just free-flow with the story, why bother breaking the text into chapters at all? Just start a new paragraph, maybe after an extra empty line?

Disclaimer: none of the above is meant as criticism, overt or implied. As a newbie to this writing business, I genuinely want to understand ;-)




Ralph Rotten said:


> Also, I am a big fan of naming chapters, so each new chapter has a title that hints cryptically at what is to come.



Something like "Chapter XXVII, In Which Romunculus Platt Tries to Buy a Horse, But Inexplicably Finds Himself in a Different Realm"? ;-)


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## REBtexas (Jan 16, 2020)

I once had this story in mind and was going to call it, _The Carrier. _It is a really cool story with a double meaning but it got so long I started to forget who some of the characters were. I could then see that I was going to have to have a spreadsheet or some way of keeping track of everything. Before long I wasn't having anymore fun with it.  Now I mostly remember not to make it too complex.  But this is just me. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 16, 2020)

KHK said:


> In the same book?
> Or did you mean that you have some books with shorter chapters, and some others with extra long ones?
> 
> If it's the same book, are you not concerned that there could have been some innate cadence to the story but it gets broken by the chapters of very uneven lengths?
> ...



I change chapters when the story makes a change, like happy is about to turn sad, or the shite is about to pass through the blades of a fan, or a new character joins the story. Some kind of change to the flow of the story.
As you can see by the image below, sometimes my chapters are only a dozen pages long, and others they could be 100+.
I do not cotton to splitting the story up just to set some sort of cadence.



This is what I mean by naming chapters. I have always been a fan of giving them names that sort of set the mood for what is to come.
Not quite spoilers, but a word or phrase that is the literary equivalent of mood music. Y'know.


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## seigfried007 (Jan 16, 2020)

At this rate, my WIP is going to be something like 400K. Going to have to split it into multiple novels. It's 315K right now, and I've got about 20K of cut scenes that may go back into the book. 

I've divided it into separate "books" by setting/arc/time. I try to keep chapters around 1K-ish, but they're often just shy of 3K. Shortest ones are a bit over 500 words. I use chapter titles.


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## bdcharles (Jan 17, 2020)

KHK said:


> Something like "Chapter XXVII, In Which Romunculus Platt Tries to Buy a Horse, But Inexplicably Finds Himself in a Different Realm"? ;-)



Sold!


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 18, 2020)

seigfried007 said:


> At this rate, my WIP is going to be something like 400K. Going to have to split it into multiple novels. It's 315K right now, and I've got about 20K of cut scenes that may go back into the book.
> 
> I've divided it into separate "books" by setting/arc/time. I try to keep chapters around 1K-ish, but they're often just shy of 3K. Shortest ones are a bit over 500 words. I use chapter titles.





400k is quite a handful. The max page count for a print book on Amazon is 828 pages (6"x9" format).
That index I posted was for a novel of 253,000 words (6x9 format) so I'd guestimate that 300k is about the max you can fit into a print edition.

Actually, now that I think about it, 350k was the most I could fit into a prototype. I completely forgot that I tried to fit 400k into a book last year.
I wanted to fit Calizona 3 & 4 into the same book, make it a double edition and call it Calizona 3.5...but even at 11pitch font it was just too many pages.
So I made the *print books* separate, but sold the *eBook *as a double-book. I marketed it by hailing the eBook as being environmentally friendly (save a tree...and some money, and buy the eBook!)

Here is the Amazon breakdown on max pages for print editions. These limitations would also apply to other publishers.


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