#30: 4 Reasons Why You Need a Target Word Count

Fiction Writing Made Easy with Savannah Gilbo | How to Write a Novel & Writing Advice

Savannah Gilbo

Education, Writing Advice, Plotting A Novel, Editing A Novel, Character Arcs, Fiction Writing Mistakes To Avoid, Story Development, Fiction Writing Tips, How To Outline A Novel, Character Development, Story Structure, Books, World Building, Arts, Writing Stronger Scenes, How To, Fiction

4.9 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2020

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In today's episode, we’re going to talk through four reasons why you should have a target word count for your story. Here's a preview of what's included: [01:50] Generally speaking, a novel is defined as any story over 40,000 words. But, the average novel is usually somewhere around 80,000-100,000 words. [02:05] Technically there’s no maximum length for a novel, but there are guidelines you can follow to determine whether your story is the appropriate length, or too long. These guidelines ar...

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there, Savannah here. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to share our next book
0:05.0	pick with you because I'm super excited to dig into this book and see how and why it works.
0:10.0	Our next meeting is coming up on November 16th at 4 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. Eastern, and we're going to be
0:16.0	digging into the fourth wing by Rebecca Yarrows.
0:19.1	Abigail and I are so excited to deconstruct this book and these meetings are always so much fun.
0:24.1	They're interactive so in addition to our presentation on why we think this story works
0:28.8	and why we think it resonates with readers, there are also polls and lots of opportunities to chat with other
0:34.4	writers and ask us questions and you know just participate in a group discussion
0:38.8	about a really awesome book. As always our aim is to analyze a novel and translate our learnings into
0:44.8	actionable tips, tools, and strategies that you can take and implement in your own
0:48.8	writing right away. So if you want to join us or if you want to learn more about how the book club works, go to
0:54.4	Savannah Gilboe.com forward slash book dash club.
0:58.0	One more time, that's Savannah Gilboe.com forward slash book dash club. hope to see you there.
1:03.0	Agents and editors at publishing houses see many many manuscripts
1:06.8	cross their desks and the first part of your submission
1:09.4	they're going to read is your one-page synopsis
1:11.8	in which you'll include the word count of your
1:13.6	story. When you stick to the average word count of your genre, it shows that you've
1:17.6	done your research and that you understand the market that you're trying to fit your
1:21.3	story into. If you're coming in way over or way under the average word count of your genre,
1:26.0	this could mean the difference between your manuscript being read by those agents or not.
1:31.0	Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Savannah Gilbo, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Savannah Gilbo and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.