A lot of emphasis is placed on word count. After all, it is the deciding marker of the territory. How else do you determine what is or isn't a novel, novella, or short story. And, of course, magazines, newspapers, and other publications need to limit word count to what they can fit in the space allotted. Page count only helps slightly. I mean, margins, font, and typeface all determine how many pages a book has. So, let's take a look at the word count of a few popular novels.
[A partial list taken from: worddreams.wordpress.com]
[You can also check out: http://griffinpauljackson.com/2013/07/25/book-word-counts/ for a more organized (by word count) and rounded off (as in 75,000 not 75,201) list] While researching, I noticed a trend toward longer works. I guess readers like to immerse themselves deeper into the stories, characters, and settings. Perhaps gone is the time when people only took a few minutes a day to read. And here, I thought our society marched toward shorter attention spans. |
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