30,000 words... what is that, a novella?

[Robb]

I know novels are usually much longer, but I'm done. I'm ready to edit.

Can I stop writing now, or will no one even look at the silly thing? :shrug:

[SmileyBoy]

1. How many pages do you have???

...

[Robb]

2. Depends on how I format it...

I've just been watching my word count until I'm done editing and put it in manuscript format.

[SmileyBoy]

7. Find a novel with normal-looking (1.5 spaced) pages...

...and format it that way.

Probably you're close to 40-50 pages.

[gyopsy]

3. The rules are usually

0-20 pages short story
20-60 pages novella
60+ pages novel

Or something in that ballpark. You get the idea.

[qwertyMike]

4. I was taught

Say what you have to say and then shut up.

How many words is Camus' "L-Etranger" - The Oustsider?

[qwertyMike]

8. As an aside

I wrote a column for 6 years in a small rural weekly.
Each time the old chestnuts rolled around like Fri. 13th (Triskadecaphobia). Xmas. Rememembrance day. St Patrick's Day .....and you had to say soemthing about it of course in a rural community.
One Valentine's Week I wrote a teeenage high school love story and deliberately put no adjectives in it.
It was the biggest hit I had - but nobody noticed the lack of adjectives.

:)
Fun

[Robb]

9. That's terribly funny!

I've been a columnist for a tiny rural weekly as well... a paper where the headline could (and did) read "SNOW COVERS VALLEY".

Big fun, because no one ever put any constraints on me. But after a year or two, that $15 paycheck just didn't add up. :)

[qwertyMike]

13. Our constant headline was

'NIMBY' - referring to the Dump - or Sanitary Landfill.
Every 2nd week.
I doubled as ad. salesman and sports photographer and Editor (during Vacation time)
So I made a sort of living wage.

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Summer home of Phillip Glass, Rudy Wurlitzer and the guy who designed the Mustang - Whassisname.
The girl from WKRP lives there and managed to commit bigamy with James Brolin in a local church (Technicality - California divorce law from his previous marriage).

Mick Jagger flew there to view "the Total Eclipse of the Sun" - remember that song?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh - rural life.


Mike

[Nevernose]

16. "An essay should be like a woman's skirt..."

"...long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to make it interesting."

[Deja Q]

5. Novellas... I've seen a few based on Doctor Who...

They're also three to four times the price of a typical 280 page mostly-full-length novel, despite being 1/4th the size.

I've never liked the "pay more to get less" ideal. (just like food. The healthier stuff tends to cost much more... gee, how does replacing whole milk with skim milk warrant an extra $2 for a brick of cheddar cheese?! That's hot dog fodder... or whole wheat bread with fiber costing $1 more per loaf than the extra-processed bleached rubbish?! Surely it costs more to bleach and process the stuff before baking it! Oops, I digressed... I have a penchant for doing that, forgive me...)

[BigMcLargehuge]

6. usually the publishing company/agent sets that rule

but a good rule of thumb is

30-45,000 novella
45,000 plus novel

Many publishers won't even look at a "novel" under 80,000 words, and even then they consider them "short novels". And if it's just 30,000 words you have a long short story more than anything else.

[wryter2000]

10. Word count

Don't go by the word count in your word processor. "White space" counts as words, too, because it takes up space on the page. Double space in non-proportional font (courier). Get 25 lines on a page. Then, you estimate 250 words per page. Multiply the page count by 250, and you have your word count.

My first novella was 18,000 words. My last one was around 30,000.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a 90,000 K book (approx). I'm going to be 7 pages short at 353 pages.

[Robb]

11. Makes sense.

Fiction and I are just getting to know one another. No one (in book land) seemed to talk much about word count when I was writing nonfiction. :)

[southerngirlwriter]

12. There's a great contest

with huge cash prizes. Enter your novella there. It will give you some cooling-off time to think about the future, and if you place semi-finalist or above, you'll get attention from publishers.

http://www.wordsandmusic.org.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

14. Do you edit your own?

I've written a little sci-fi piece that will probably never get published (141,000 words), but for me it's hard to edit my own work.

(Funny thing is I'm about 60,000 words into writing the sequel right now)

[joeybee12]

15. I think it's borderline novella/short novel....

...Seems to me a novell is about 20,000 words.

And yes, stop writing and start editing--novels today tend to be short.

[Robb]

19. Wheeeeee!!!

"novels today tend to be short."

And here I thought it was just me... let the slaughter (editing) begin! :D

[joeybee12]

20. And if it's your first one, you won't get an agent and/or publisher to

look at it if it's over 70,000. Someone above said agents/publishers want them over 80,000--I heartily disagree.

And there are some good points here--everyone writes differently. You may edit a lot--even so much that the final work doesn't come close to looking like the original, or you may find that not much has to be done.

Good luck!

[jpgray]

17. A novel is usually 50,000 to 150,000, 30,000 sounds like a novella to me

May God have mercy on your soul. :D

[Nevernose]

18. Thinking about the 1920's authors

Sherwood Anderson didn't edit anything (or at least not "Winesburg, Ohio"). He just wrote like he wanted it, went slowly and as the muse took him.

Fitzgerald, however, took five years to write "Gatsby." Underwent dozens of revisions. Even tried to change the name to "Under the Red, White, and Blue" after the book had already gone to the printer.

So, it would seem to me, at any rate, that it really depends on how you feel about it: Is it any good? What's left to be done? What's mising? What do other people think of it?