Word Count Revisited

Last September, I wrote two blogs on word count, one on traditional word count, and one on computer word count. If you're like me, you're confused about which one to use

When I attended the my local RWA chapter's conference in March, I asked writers, editors and agents which word count they use. The unanimous answer was--computer word count.

Now, just because we're using computer word count doesn't mean we can forget formatting. Correct formatting is still one inch margins on all four sides, text double-spaced or 25 lines per page (25 lines per page is slightly closer than double-spaced), and widow and orphan control off.

Finding this out makes my life easier. Now I can write single-spaced, which I prefer, and not worry about how many vertical lines my story takes up. As long as I format the ms. correctly in the end, I have a valid word count.

Also, today, my latest chapter in the Neverending Story at Romantic Synonymous is up.

Thank you all,
Linda

NaNoWriMo - 27,115 words so far

In the first eight days of NaNoWriMo, I've written 27,115 words.

As I reread some of the words I've written, I wince. One scene written two ways. Another scene that needs better motivation. Bulk words, I say to myself, words cranked out, not final words. First draft.

Did my other stuff start out this bad?

Probably worse. Even as I reread my NaNoWriMo entry, I do have POV correct, and I no longer write sentences that start with "This is" or "That is". Progress of a sort, I suppose.

Last year I took Shannon Donnelly's Show and Tell course offered by the Published Authors' Special Interest Chapter of the RWA (PASIC). She said most of writing is rewriting. You write down what you can, messy as it is, then go back and layer in emotion, showing, descriptions, etc.

And fix the spelling. Probably half my words have typos.

But now for the good news: I'm more than halfway through. This week I have other things to work on, so I had to get ahead. Next time I won't report a really high word count.

I'll end with some shameless promotion. On Friday, November 14, I'll be blogging at Between the Lines on "Where To Find Romance--In a Book, That Is".

Thank you all,
Linda

Word Count II

Now for electronic word count.

Here's the only explanation I have for figuring out electronic word count. It comes from the free course Roses Write Fifty Books that sisters Delilah Devlin and Elle James of Roses Colored Glasses give every year.

b) If your targeted publisher uses the computer word count, you have to know how many words you average per page. To figure that out, open a document you are working on that is near completion (can be a fully fleshed-out chapter). Check the word count (in MS Word you go to "Tools" then "Word Count"). Take that number and divide by the number of pages in the document. That will give you your words per page. When you look at the publisher page count, say, 50,000 words, you divide 50,000 words by your personal words per page number to get the number of pages you have to write to complete that story.

OK, now I have a WIP that MS word says has 20,031 words in 60 pages, so my words per page is 333.85, or 334. So, if my publisher wanted 50,000 words, I would have to write 150 pages.

Now, I'm not sure if this calculation includes the first page of a chapter, which usually starts partway down the page. If it does, it assumes that the first page of a chapter also contains 334 words, even though this page is not completely filled with type.

Author Monica Burns also has a Word Count spreadsheet on her website that tracks progress on your WIP in both Courier and Times New Roman. You plug in your word count, and it tells you how many pages you have.

I find her spreadsheet a little confusing, because in this spreadsheet, TNR assumes 285 words per page and Courier assumes 250 words per page

Now, if I use this TNR calculation, my 20,031 word TNR manuscript would contain 70 pages. So I think I'll stick with the Roses calculation.

I'm confused, too. As in all cases, check your publisher's Submission Guidelines.

Thank you all,

Linda

Word Count I

How simple can a concept be?

Word count is the number of words in your document. Microsoft Word, which I use, has a handy dandy little tool that counts the number of words in my manuscript. And I use that count when writing to an agent or publisher.

Wrong. Word count, as strange as it seems, is not necessarily the actual number of words in your manuscript. For paper, word count's meaning is mangled to mean how many vertical lines can fit on a page. Publishers want to know how many sheets of paper they need to print your story.

For example:

"Hi, there. How are you?"

"Hi, yourself. I'm fine."

And

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. These are the times that try men's souls. Today is the first day of the rest of your life

Have exactly the same word count. Why? Because both snippets take up two vertical lines on the page.

The print industry standard is a one inch margin on all sides, twenty-five lines per page, Courier or Courier New 12 point, widow and orphan control off. A page printed in this manner is considered to have 250 words on the page, or ten words per line.

Oh, and you start a new chapter about two-thirds of the way down the page, and this page also counts as 250 words, even though there are NOT twenty-five lines of type of the page.

Now, my example up there is not done in Courier New 12 point, and it does not have the one inch margins and is not spaced twenty-five lines per page, but you get the idea.

I write using Times New Roman (TNR) 12 point, but with everything else as above. When I want to see how many pages it is in Courier New, I just Select All, then change the font.

Look at all this information. Takes up only a half page of explanation, but it took forever for me to find it out. I wish somewhere they had something to explain to us newbie writers how to format our manuscripts. A caveat is always look at the submission guidelines. The trouble is, I did look there, but those guidelines didn't explain this stuff, either.

I wrote my first WIP in single space, TNR 12, until I had 100,000 words by the Word word counter. Formatted in the print format above, my WIP came out as 120,000 words. I've read that transferring electronic word count to paper word count can increase the word count by 15% to 20%. In my case, it was 20%. I could have saved myself a lot of work if I had known what I was doing.

And now that I've thoroughly confused you with paper word count, next week we'll talk about e-pub word count.

Thank you all,

Linda