First draft finishing word count

by David Castanho
15th May 2014

Hi writers,

I was wondering what is the average word count most writers finish the first draft on? I havent finshed my own yet, but my first draft so far is litrally plain and so bad I am fighting myself not to edit it eerrrrrrr...

So yeah if you guys could be super great and tell me!

Thanks writers :)

Replies

My first draft was 140,000 words.

I have added and cut text during the editing process. My word count is now 85,000.

I have cut and saved 60,000 words. There are ideas for future novels in my saved text file.

Novel Word Count Genre Guidelines

Picture Books -200-500 words

Early Readers - 500-2000 words

Chapter Books - 5,000-10,000 words

Middle Grade - 25,000-45,000 words, most averaging 35k.

Young adult - 55,000-90,000 words

YA contemporary tends to be on the shorter side, 60-70k

YA fantasy, sci-fi, and paranormal tends to fall on the longer side due to world building, 70-90k

Adult - 70,000-115,000 words

Romance - 85,000-100,000 words

Cozy Mysteries - 70,000-85,000 words

Mysteries, Horror, Crime - 75,000-95,000 words, most averaging 90k

Sci-fi and Fantasy - 80,000-120,000 words, most averaging 100k-115k

Literary and Women's Fiction - 80,000-100,000 words

Profile picture for user Adrian
Adrian
Sroka
19900 points
Ready to publish
Fiction
Historical
Middle Grade (Children's)
Young Adult (YA)
Adventure
Adrian Sroka
16/05/2014

originally, by someone, I was told it should be at least fifty five thousand words. Spaces, punctuation marks and certain words do not count. Go on line to writers/literary market and ask, you will receive more in depth answers.

Stephanie

Profile picture for user angelsay_34397
stephanie cataliotti
june coldwell
270 points
Developing your craft
stephanie cataliotti june coldwell
16/05/2014

Good luck, it is a huge ammount of fun :D

Profile picture for user sophie.b_27287
Sophie
Barlow
895 points
Ready to publish
Poetry
Fiction
Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Adventure
Comic
Business, Management and Education
Speculative Fiction
Historical
Gothic and Horror
Autobiography, Biography and Memoir
Philosophy and Religion
Sophie Barlow
16/05/2014