There were only a handful of historical fiction novels under 60,000 words, and the top 10 books in this genre averaged over 110,000 words. It’s a safe bet that you should have a solid word count if you write historical fiction. How many words are in a horror novel? The average best...
When I wrote my first novel, I started to worry that I was off the mark regarding how many words I had to offer. I was scared that agents would reject my book simply because I had got the length wrong. How many words are there in an average novel, how many pages in a book, how...
My problem - and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me - is deciding where to start. My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr Bowditch first, and how we became close. ...
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Instead, try to lose yourself in the daydream of the story. If you do, the right words will often come on their own. Scenes versus chapters Most novels are divided into chapters. Chapter breaks give readers places to pause in their reading. ...
Now determine—and enter in your calendar—the number of pages you need to produce per writing session to meet your deadline. If it proves unrealistic, change the deadline now. If you have no idea how many pages or words you typically produce per session, you may have to experiment before...
In the next section, we'll explore some of the sound effects that can be used when writing a poem. Sound Effects in Poetry Poets have many tools that they can use to create their poems. The one you might be most familiar with is the effect of sound. When words are spoken aloud, ...
As Stephen King says, “Put interesting characters in difficult situations and write to find out what happens.” One or the other of these approaches will simply feel most natural to you. But, in truth, many of us are hybrids, some combination of the two — needing the security of an ou...
How many words should your first novel be? What should be a picture book word count? What should be a fantasy novel word count? What’s the minimum word count for a novel? What should be the average chapter word count? There are no “rules” as to book length, nor as to chapter le...
Don’t worry about how good it sounds or how many mistakes there are – simply write. Write feverishly until that page or chapter or whatever section you are working on is done. This is also a good way to combat writer’s block.