Confusions about Length

[John Jarrold]

Think about your overall word-count, don't get bogged down worrying about the number of words on a page.

[Rhi]

When I finished the third draft of my first novel it was 65,000 words. Two years and two drafts later, the same novel is 205,000 words (unfinished) and has much more content because I keep thinking of more things that I can put into it. Now, I'm not saying the same thing will happen to you, Ishar, but you may find that, the longer you write it, the more ideas you have for it and the longer it ends up becoming.

[JDP]

When people say a novel/MS should be 120k words, is that a 'raw' word count (counting every single word), or an approximate count including 'white space'?

[iansales]

Just use your word processing software's word count, and round it up or down to the nearest thousand.

[Doctor Sax]

Kerouac legendarily wrote On The Road on a single roll of teletype paper, and I don't think he even bothered with a word count. So, to echo others, word count per page doesn't matter.

[Rhi]

Originally Posted by JDP

When people say a novel/MS should be 120k words, is that a 'raw' word count (counting every single word), or an approximate count including 'white space'?

Word Processing software gives you the 'raw' word count so I assume that's the one everyone goes by.