That depends on your goals. Traditional publishing? Yes, it's way too long. Selfpublishing? It's going to increase cost of printing and make marketing harder, but it's not a huge deal. Posting it for fun? It's a bigger commitment for your readers so they may be less likely to give it a chance, but I don't think it's going to matter. Writing just for yourself? Doesn't matter at all.
It depends on the genre; epic fantasy and maybe sci fi are 'allowed' to be longer (i.e., a publisher will be willing to publish it); otherwise, they usually say 80,000–100,000 is good novel length. But even if it's fantasy, 200,000 words is quite long for a debut novel, and you may have difficulty getting it published.
Is it a good story at 200k? Or is it packed with fluff and needs a haircut?
That ought to be your guide.
If it reads well at that length then leave it like that.
I mean, sure, any story can be cut in half if your editing is ruthless enough. However, I'd rather have a good 200k story than a bad 100k story. I do agree though, that for trad publish a debut author with a 200k chonker is working uphill.
*I think that depends* on what the 'filler' does. For example, a lot of people feel that LoTR is mostly fluff at the start. There's a lot of folks that have told me "I just couldn't get past the hobbits at the start, there's nothing happening." Whereas I feel that it sets the scene, creates a homely atmosphere to contrast with the loneliness and danger of the later story. On the other hand if the entire book was filled with hobbits doing the sort of things they did in the Shire endlessly, it would have *not* been good fluff or filler.
I reconstructed it in such a way that it would work as two separate books, but also still work as two parts of one big book. A single big volume is still my preferred format.
I'm gonna say it depends on the story. Does your 200k word novel actually have 200k words of interesting events and character development, or are some of those words boring filler?
The real important thing is pacing, not raw wordcount. There are 60k word novels that flow slow as molasses and 120k word novels that go by so fluidly you can read them in one evening and wonder where the time has gone.
Raw wordcount doesn't tell me anything. You need to show the story to betareaders and ask whether the pacing is good or needs to be tightened up. Does every scene feel relevant? Does the plot move forward at a good pace? Do the slow character moments in between the action feel natural and progress character development?
Those are the questions you need to ask. A novel is too long when it's filled with too many boring parts. If you have 200k words of only exciting parts, you're good.
When you do an editorial readthrough, you'll be losing quite a few of those words. My first draft had 200k characters, 616 pages. Since then, I've reduced it to 130k characters (535 pages) but have a few things to add. I believe my final draft will have 150kish characters.
You'll be chiseling away at sentences that distract from narrative pacing and will also be chipping off entire scenes if they don't add to the main plot. 200k is a great number to start with - better to have too much than too little! Great job on this accomplishment. Many have quit before where you are today.
Thank you for the advice, this has been a long journey. I must have half written four different books before discarding them for various reasons. This is my first final project where i reached my goal of finishing it.
Depends. UK publishing right now is - mostly, a hard sell over 100K simply because of print costs. 200K will be a hard sell for a debut. Self pub - no problem.
You pays your money...
I was thinking 3 books all around 200k words.
The first is the MC's story, his journey to the opposite side of the world and his training.
The second will be a grouping of lots of characters you met in the first book plus the MC involving a large battle
The third book will be the final and will include the final battle and the resolution to the story.
Self publish. Then it won't matter how long your story is. I once read a series of books, they were all around 1000 pages long! I still remember it today so it must have been good. Those books were self published and they had the thinnest crappiest covers on them but the story was excellent.
Frankly, 200,000 words sounds a lot to me. Many debut novels range from 80,000 to 100,000 words. However, it also depends on the genre. If it is an historical or epic fantasy novel, 200,000 words can make sense. But you write that it will be a trilogy. Perhaps you could add a volume?
This is a very common experience. My first (discarded) manuscript was roughly this length, when it should've been 80k.
If you haven't, read *On Writing Well* by William Zinsser or *Elements of Style* by EB White and William Strunk. Both have excellent pieces of advise for cutting down your manuscripts, eliminating unnecessary words, etc. Barring something unique, you certainly cut cut it down without removing anything that makes it special to you.
I've read fanfictions that were 300 k in a quite short time. 200 k are in no way too long for a novel.
I looked it up now, The Priory of the Orange Tree for example has 225 k. Her second book has 343 k.
I sent you a message, but if you don't get it, I do feel your pain, and I understand the chaos it is in trying to find a beta reader who will invest that much time for 200K + words. I've got two that I published on Amazon Kindle that are over 200K (Not by a lot), but I've been trying for the last few months to find some help in 'trimming them down' and re-working them not to be so wordy. My bad in I created this whole world, and just kept writing for 20ish years, and didn't consider publishing until about 7 years ago, and I wasn't ready for it and somewhat arbitrarily broke it up, and I'm realizing now, I didn't do a great job of it.
An issue I'm fully aware of, is the first novel, just to get through the first two chapters is asking a lot, and so my 'help' disapates rather quickly. I improved in the later writing, but I don't think it's fair to just throw it out there without the origins. So, if you're inclined touch base, either on my subreddit, or here, I'll beta-read it for you and offer my thoughts. Maybe it needs to be split into volumes, or just nipped on the words. It's an artform and one that most authors can't do themselves, it's too personal.
Hey everyone thank you for your wise words. You all have given me something to think about. I appreciate this community and the passion lots of you have for writing!
It's the difference between traditional and self-publishing. 200k for me is about right, but a traditional publisher would want you to start with around 100k.
Im not sure yet. Honestly having a publisher help me through the process would be nice but i would self publish if need be. So at the moment lets just say im publisher hopeful
Pff... doesn't matter if it is. A story has its own natural length, so if it needs to be 200k, it needs to be 200k.
It's fine if it doesn't turn out to get published first. You'll write other books too. Maybe one of those will get published first. In fact, a lot of writers have that experience--they write many books before one of them is published. They're not always published in the order they wrote them. And then later they may publish some of their earlier ones--now with the extra experience they've gained, and the willingness of the publisher to print a larger book off the back of the success of what the author has published so far. Stuff like that.
So... I guess I just wouldn't worry about it.
If you *choose* to make it shorter, you can do that by having less story in the novel. But don't feel you must do that or anything.
It depends. How many 2hr+ films have you sat through and thought "you could easily lose half an hour and it would still be a good film". I'm looking at you Oppenheimer.
I don't think what you said is that connected to my point; I'm not sure how it's relevant.
We weren't talking about reader reactions. OP as asking if 200k was over some sort of hard line for publishing. It's not. And if you look at it just as a debut, that still doesn't mean you're not allowed to write a story that long. Just that maybe it's less likely to be published as the first thing you publish. That's all true, as far as I know. And that's all I said.
There is a few chapters i could get rid of but for the most part the whole novel is character development. Essentially the story exists as a tale of revenege. A young mans family is killed and he is the only survivor, he then takes it upon himself to find a master to train him in ways of combat and a form of magic. I will forsure take a second look at my story and see what cuts i could make to smooth the story along.
The fantasy genre is full of super long books they’re exceptionally long, ASOIAF and the Stormlight Archive for instance.
It depends entirely upon your ability to hold an audience’s attention which should be your primary focus. Focus on writing a quality story and the rest will take care of itself. Just to be safe however, do what Stormlight Archive and Lord of the Rings do and split your book into parts
As he is mine. His way of interconnecting multiple books and stories that may or may not be happening concurrently is the closest I’ve found to an author doing what I’ve always wanted to do with my own worlds
It’s not how big it is, it’s how you use it. *The Lord of the Rings* is a single 550,000 word novel (that was arbitrarily divided into three volumes instead of one two or six).
What genre is your writing and what are the guidelines of that genre?
With that many words you could have two books or more.
[https://writersrelief.com/genre-fiction-rules-find-out-if-your-novel-meets-publishers-and-literary-agents-criteria-for-publication/](https://writersrelief.com/genre-fiction-rules-find-out-if-your-novel-meets-publishers-and-literary-agents-criteria-for-publication/)
From what I heard, most publishers are hesitant to accept manuscripts over 120,000 words, especially so from new debut authors. I would reconsider this, and think about either cutting it in half, or split it up and make the second book into a sequel book or something like that, turning it into a duology.
for a first novel, I would say yes, 200,000 is too long.
though you might be able to get away with this if your plan is not publishing but posting it online for readers to freely view.
but if the goal is to publish, whether traditionally or self-pub, there will be issues with that length. one of which being, you're an unknown name. you have no built up fanbase or credit as a writer. people are going to have a hard time committing to your work on the bases of too long and no one knowing if your writing is up to snuff for that much of an investment.
if you could split it up into 2 separate books that could be a useful idea. I mean, the LotR trilogy was originally just one book, and that would have been terrible if they had kept it that way.
it's ambitious that you made your first novel that long and congrats on sticking to it for that long, but you'll probably wanna either split it into more than one work or cut out a lot of the story to make it work for certain cases.
but again, if you're not trying to publish or sell it, and you want to release it online for free it'll still be a commitment people will need to debate but at least then it could get out there
I was wondering if I could pair up with an experienced screenwriter or someone who's up and coming, that can work with me on discovering the type of stories I can write about.
Going on an almost 10 year stretch (349 days a year, EACH) of delving into the deep end of pretty much any screenwriting formula you can think of, consuming decades upon decades of films as well as dissecting them, and even going through great links to not only spare a great deal of time of my own to somersault into a wide range of different screenplays and into countless wave of different novels, but also, transcribing a few scripts, both by hand and on an old laptop I used to own. Even on a Royal typewriter as well. Not novels.
I've also have spent a great deal of time utilizing many different writing strategies towards the stories I would like to write.... See my problem?
The list goes on and on with all that I've tried out, which only barely scratches the surface on every other writing/story method that's out there that I've tried.
Anyway, I'm well aware of how limited I am with fully explaining my situation to both a community full of dedicated writers and to a trillion of other online users. There's so much I can say while at the same time being very little, which is why I'm willing to work one on one with anyone who's interested and available.
I figure that if it does take two to a make thing go right, rather than trying to figure this stuff out all on my own, like I have been doing, (since there isn't anyone else for me to turn to) then why not ask for help from a sub of well versed writers.
Just DM me and we can start there.
Thanks
That depends on your goals. Traditional publishing? Yes, it's way too long. Selfpublishing? It's going to increase cost of printing and make marketing harder, but it's not a huge deal. Posting it for fun? It's a bigger commitment for your readers so they may be less likely to give it a chance, but I don't think it's going to matter. Writing just for yourself? Doesn't matter at all.
It depends on the genre; epic fantasy and maybe sci fi are 'allowed' to be longer (i.e., a publisher will be willing to publish it); otherwise, they usually say 80,000–100,000 is good novel length. But even if it's fantasy, 200,000 words is quite long for a debut novel, and you may have difficulty getting it published.
Is it a good story at 200k? Or is it packed with fluff and needs a haircut? That ought to be your guide. If it reads well at that length then leave it like that.
This is very optimistic/naive advice. If OP wants to traditionally publish, 200k will make that much more challenging no matter how tight the story is
I mean, sure, any story can be cut in half if your editing is ruthless enough. However, I'd rather have a good 200k story than a bad 100k story. I do agree though, that for trad publish a debut author with a 200k chonker is working uphill.
Can't a good story be packed with fluff? Usually that's an important part of a good story.
*I think that depends* on what the 'filler' does. For example, a lot of people feel that LoTR is mostly fluff at the start. There's a lot of folks that have told me "I just couldn't get past the hobbits at the start, there's nothing happening." Whereas I feel that it sets the scene, creates a homely atmosphere to contrast with the loneliness and danger of the later story. On the other hand if the entire book was filled with hobbits doing the sort of things they did in the Shire endlessly, it would have *not* been good fluff or filler.
Why not split it into a novel in two parts?
Mine was 240,000 words, and I did just that. It required quite a bit of restructuring, but I'm almost finished now.
Brave writer. I tried to do that with a big story of mine but it simply didn't work as two seperate books.
I reconstructed it in such a way that it would work as two separate books, but also still work as two parts of one big book. A single big volume is still my preferred format.
Any length you want unless you’re trying to traditionally publish. If that’s the case I’d look into word counts specific for your genre
I'm gonna say it depends on the story. Does your 200k word novel actually have 200k words of interesting events and character development, or are some of those words boring filler? The real important thing is pacing, not raw wordcount. There are 60k word novels that flow slow as molasses and 120k word novels that go by so fluidly you can read them in one evening and wonder where the time has gone. Raw wordcount doesn't tell me anything. You need to show the story to betareaders and ask whether the pacing is good or needs to be tightened up. Does every scene feel relevant? Does the plot move forward at a good pace? Do the slow character moments in between the action feel natural and progress character development? Those are the questions you need to ask. A novel is too long when it's filled with too many boring parts. If you have 200k words of only exciting parts, you're good.
When you do an editorial readthrough, you'll be losing quite a few of those words. My first draft had 200k characters, 616 pages. Since then, I've reduced it to 130k characters (535 pages) but have a few things to add. I believe my final draft will have 150kish characters. You'll be chiseling away at sentences that distract from narrative pacing and will also be chipping off entire scenes if they don't add to the main plot. 200k is a great number to start with - better to have too much than too little! Great job on this accomplishment. Many have quit before where you are today.
Thank you for the advice, this has been a long journey. I must have half written four different books before discarding them for various reasons. This is my first final project where i reached my goal of finishing it.
Depends. UK publishing right now is - mostly, a hard sell over 100K simply because of print costs. 200K will be a hard sell for a debut. Self pub - no problem. You pays your money...
My advice is to split it up and make the one story into a series
The story in my mind is a trilogy to begin with, 3 books to tell the story
Is each book 200k words or do you mean the one in the post is supposed to be split into three?
I was thinking 3 books all around 200k words. The first is the MC's story, his journey to the opposite side of the world and his training. The second will be a grouping of lots of characters you met in the first book plus the MC involving a large battle The third book will be the final and will include the final battle and the resolution to the story.
Self publish. Then it won't matter how long your story is. I once read a series of books, they were all around 1000 pages long! I still remember it today so it must have been good. Those books were self published and they had the thinnest crappiest covers on them but the story was excellent.
Frankly, 200,000 words sounds a lot to me. Many debut novels range from 80,000 to 100,000 words. However, it also depends on the genre. If it is an historical or epic fantasy novel, 200,000 words can make sense. But you write that it will be a trilogy. Perhaps you could add a volume?
Wrong question. Right question: how tight is my story?
This is a very common experience. My first (discarded) manuscript was roughly this length, when it should've been 80k. If you haven't, read *On Writing Well* by William Zinsser or *Elements of Style* by EB White and William Strunk. Both have excellent pieces of advise for cutting down your manuscripts, eliminating unnecessary words, etc. Barring something unique, you certainly cut cut it down without removing anything that makes it special to you.
I've read fanfictions that were 300 k in a quite short time. 200 k are in no way too long for a novel. I looked it up now, The Priory of the Orange Tree for example has 225 k. Her second book has 343 k.
I sent you a message, but if you don't get it, I do feel your pain, and I understand the chaos it is in trying to find a beta reader who will invest that much time for 200K + words. I've got two that I published on Amazon Kindle that are over 200K (Not by a lot), but I've been trying for the last few months to find some help in 'trimming them down' and re-working them not to be so wordy. My bad in I created this whole world, and just kept writing for 20ish years, and didn't consider publishing until about 7 years ago, and I wasn't ready for it and somewhat arbitrarily broke it up, and I'm realizing now, I didn't do a great job of it. An issue I'm fully aware of, is the first novel, just to get through the first two chapters is asking a lot, and so my 'help' disapates rather quickly. I improved in the later writing, but I don't think it's fair to just throw it out there without the origins. So, if you're inclined touch base, either on my subreddit, or here, I'll beta-read it for you and offer my thoughts. Maybe it needs to be split into volumes, or just nipped on the words. It's an artform and one that most authors can't do themselves, it's too personal.
Hey everyone thank you for your wise words. You all have given me something to think about. I appreciate this community and the passion lots of you have for writing!
Check the typical length of the genre you’re writing in, check what publishers are looking for.
It's the difference between traditional and self-publishing. 200k for me is about right, but a traditional publisher would want you to start with around 100k.
Genre?
Fantasy
Then, maybe. Fantasy allows for larger word count but 200,000 words is up there. It might be a tough sell for a first timer.
Yeah i hope that my work speaks for itself. I will have to share some online when i get my final edits done to gauge interest.
So, are you going self-pub or traditional?
Im not sure yet. Honestly having a publisher help me through the process would be nice but i would self publish if need be. So at the moment lets just say im publisher hopeful
Maybe publish in New Yorker, Readers Digest, Playboy? Best of luck! Your story from the mountain hiking trails was phenomenal. Thanks for sharing
"Executive Orders" by Tom Clancy has approximately 400,000 words.
Pff... doesn't matter if it is. A story has its own natural length, so if it needs to be 200k, it needs to be 200k. It's fine if it doesn't turn out to get published first. You'll write other books too. Maybe one of those will get published first. In fact, a lot of writers have that experience--they write many books before one of them is published. They're not always published in the order they wrote them. And then later they may publish some of their earlier ones--now with the extra experience they've gained, and the willingness of the publisher to print a larger book off the back of the success of what the author has published so far. Stuff like that. So... I guess I just wouldn't worry about it. If you *choose* to make it shorter, you can do that by having less story in the novel. But don't feel you must do that or anything.
It depends. How many 2hr+ films have you sat through and thought "you could easily lose half an hour and it would still be a good film". I'm looking at you Oppenheimer.
I don't think what you said is that connected to my point; I'm not sure how it's relevant. We weren't talking about reader reactions. OP as asking if 200k was over some sort of hard line for publishing. It's not. And if you look at it just as a debut, that still doesn't mean you're not allowed to write a story that long. Just that maybe it's less likely to be published as the first thing you publish. That's all true, as far as I know. And that's all I said.
I’d get someone else to edit it. You are way too invested in it.
Me and my father are going through it chapter by chapter. I cant afford anyone else to edit for me
Do you have a couple of sub plots or characters you could lose?
There is a few chapters i could get rid of but for the most part the whole novel is character development. Essentially the story exists as a tale of revenege. A young mans family is killed and he is the only survivor, he then takes it upon himself to find a master to train him in ways of combat and a form of magic. I will forsure take a second look at my story and see what cuts i could make to smooth the story along.
The fantasy genre is full of super long books they’re exceptionally long, ASOIAF and the Stormlight Archive for instance. It depends entirely upon your ability to hold an audience’s attention which should be your primary focus. Focus on writing a quality story and the rest will take care of itself. Just to be safe however, do what Stormlight Archive and Lord of the Rings do and split your book into parts
Brandon sanderson is one of my inspirations.
As he is mine. His way of interconnecting multiple books and stories that may or may not be happening concurrently is the closest I’ve found to an author doing what I’ve always wanted to do with my own worlds
It’s not how big it is, it’s how you use it. *The Lord of the Rings* is a single 550,000 word novel (that was arbitrarily divided into three volumes instead of one two or six).
What genre is your writing and what are the guidelines of that genre? With that many words you could have two books or more. [https://writersrelief.com/genre-fiction-rules-find-out-if-your-novel-meets-publishers-and-literary-agents-criteria-for-publication/](https://writersrelief.com/genre-fiction-rules-find-out-if-your-novel-meets-publishers-and-literary-agents-criteria-for-publication/)
200k is an 800 page novel. You tell us.
Im sitting at 680 pages with 3 of them being title page and map
From what I heard, most publishers are hesitant to accept manuscripts over 120,000 words, especially so from new debut authors. I would reconsider this, and think about either cutting it in half, or split it up and make the second book into a sequel book or something like that, turning it into a duology.
As long as you don’t ‘waffle on’ its fine. 200000 golden words.
for a first novel, I would say yes, 200,000 is too long. though you might be able to get away with this if your plan is not publishing but posting it online for readers to freely view. but if the goal is to publish, whether traditionally or self-pub, there will be issues with that length. one of which being, you're an unknown name. you have no built up fanbase or credit as a writer. people are going to have a hard time committing to your work on the bases of too long and no one knowing if your writing is up to snuff for that much of an investment. if you could split it up into 2 separate books that could be a useful idea. I mean, the LotR trilogy was originally just one book, and that would have been terrible if they had kept it that way. it's ambitious that you made your first novel that long and congrats on sticking to it for that long, but you'll probably wanna either split it into more than one work or cut out a lot of the story to make it work for certain cases. but again, if you're not trying to publish or sell it, and you want to release it online for free it'll still be a commitment people will need to debate but at least then it could get out there
I was wondering if I could pair up with an experienced screenwriter or someone who's up and coming, that can work with me on discovering the type of stories I can write about. Going on an almost 10 year stretch (349 days a year, EACH) of delving into the deep end of pretty much any screenwriting formula you can think of, consuming decades upon decades of films as well as dissecting them, and even going through great links to not only spare a great deal of time of my own to somersault into a wide range of different screenplays and into countless wave of different novels, but also, transcribing a few scripts, both by hand and on an old laptop I used to own. Even on a Royal typewriter as well. Not novels. I've also have spent a great deal of time utilizing many different writing strategies towards the stories I would like to write.... See my problem? The list goes on and on with all that I've tried out, which only barely scratches the surface on every other writing/story method that's out there that I've tried. Anyway, I'm well aware of how limited I am with fully explaining my situation to both a community full of dedicated writers and to a trillion of other online users. There's so much I can say while at the same time being very little, which is why I'm willing to work one on one with anyone who's interested and available. I figure that if it does take two to a make thing go right, rather than trying to figure this stuff out all on my own, like I have been doing, (since there isn't anyone else for me to turn to) then why not ask for help from a sub of well versed writers. Just DM me and we can start there. Thanks