My novel is an action adventure story in the chivalric genre.
I have cut 60,000 words. I now have 78,000 after may thorough edits.
I hope to reduce it to 70,000, but its becoming more of a struggle.
My novel is an action adventure story in the chivalric genre.
I have cut 60,000 words. I now have 78,000 after may thorough edits.
I hope to reduce it to 70,000, but its becoming more of a struggle.
Cut 60,000 words? Ouch...
I've been told 95,000 is the minimum for Sci-Fi/fantasy novels, with the norm being 105,000-130,000. I'm on my 2nd draft and i've gone from 105,000 to 96,000 so it's looking good with still a lot of editing to do. The 95,000 as just a marker for me, it's likely I will finish on the 110,000 mark. I try not to think about it too much, and I definitely don't let it have any influence on what's edited in or out. If i don't like something it's gone. I have saved 40,000+ of deleted content since the beginning, some of which I'm sure I will use, maybe in the sequel.
I try and keep mine under 100K, however, my book 3 became 220K and I ended up splitting it in half and re-writing most of it so that it stood as two separate books (both under 100 once I stripped out all the dust and fuzz)
I do much like Jonathan and try and aim for around 30 X3000, it seems to be good for structure.
I always go by the maxim "make as long as it is interesting". Personally I wouldn't stick to a rigid word count target, instead cut whatever your gut says is unnecessary and you'll probably arrive at the same outcome.
Happy writing.