Do you have a specific word count for your novel?

by Adrian Sroka
9th March 2015

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.

Replies

I usually outline based on 90k (30 x 3000 word chapters). My first story end up at 113k after editing down and the second at 112k after editing up.

Funny how things work out.

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Jonathan
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Jonathan Hopkins
09/03/2015

I do have a target, but not as specific as yours. I would be happy if my novel was within 70,000 to 80,000 words. It was 129,000 on the fourth draft and 95,000 by the fifth draft. I am hoping my sixth draft is the final one, so I have a few words to cut.

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Shah
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Shah Chowdhury
09/03/2015

Do you need to cut it further? If that genre demands 70,000 words, perhaps, but with the cutting and editing you've done, if it's 78,000 that sounds good to me! My first novel was just short of 80,000 words (romantic fantasy) but it started out at 92,000. My epic fantasy stands at 129,000... and I just wrote it until I finished the story, then edited it down to this.

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Jeff Richards
09/03/2015