The Evolution of Word Count
In these days of ever-lengthening manuscripts and agents’ “rules” about what entrees into what genre “have” to be what length or they’re unsalable, it’s worth remembering that The Great Gatsby rings in at just over 47,000 words. In other words (no pun intended), by today’s standards, a novella. So where did the magic number of 85,000 come from? Who decided that, despite the continuing success of ultra long books like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (almost 200,000 words), Gone With The Wind (over 400,000 words) and almost everything Brandon Sanderson has written in the past decade, anything over 100,000 words was a no fly for a first book?
Or, conversely, that anything much under 80,000 words wasn’t a real book at all?
We’ve seen that traditional publishing follows, rather than leads the industry. As I originally wrote for the Evil Toad Press “about” page, “our goal, both as a publishing house and as a provider of a la carte author services, is to bring the world books that it might not otherwise see. Increasingly, traditional publishing follows rather than leads the market. The focus is on what sells: on clear genre categorization and well-defined audiences pre-primed to buy one book by having bought a hundred others just like it. Genre-defying, or otherwise original books often have a hard time finding a home, simply because they’re too original.” A trip to Barnes & Noble amply proves this true. The Da Vinci Code does well and suddenly there’s a new section: religious thrillers. A genre is born.
Which should tell the publishing world, if nothing else, that books create genres–not the other way around. Harry Potter spawned a new renaissance in YA; The Sorcerer’s Stone couldn’t originally find a home, because it wasn’t the same simplistic drivel that audiences had come to expect. Almost every author out there–including me–has a story of how their book was rejected for being “unreadable.”
But, you know, the thing is that if all it took to be a bestseller was following some third party’s arbitrary set of rules, then every most formulaic book out there would be a bestseller.
Whereas, in reality, it’s the game changers, rather than the game players, that dominate sales.
Why?
I personally think that it’s very hard to write a good book while still slavishly paying attention to things like word count. If you’re telling the story you have to tell, that’s really your story and your vision, then it’ll be the length it is. Period. Good books are good precisely because they’re about story, not formula. Twilight’s many imitators are not outselling Twilight, and this is why. So it’s worth remembering, the next time you feel a stab of ice-cold fear deep in your bowels because some agent’s website is holding forth about what makes books “salable,” that according to these rules, chances are, none of your favorite books are.
Part of the problem, too, is that agents–and authors–get word count confused with the far more important issue of reader expectation. Assuming, often incorrectly, that one is central to the other. Whereas, it’s been my experience that no one ever left a book at the bookstore because, “gee, the blurb was awesome, the cover art was compelling, and the first two pages totally gripped me, but the spine seemed about one half inch too short.” Rather, reader expectation–again, in my experience–has more to do with the actual content of the book.
As I Lay Dying, A Separate Peace, and Slaughterhouse Five all clock in at under 60,000 words. Slaughterhouse Five, indeed, at just under 50,000. Making them, according to the same people who teach them in class and extol them as examples of a bygone (and vastly better) age, not real books. Does anyone else but me notice this logical disconnect? That the same person who’s invariably going to tell you that Atlas Shrugged is her favorite book would reject the manuscript, were it given to her today, as too long? Not politically correct? Who’d invariably cite reasons why the protagonists were unlikable?
It’s unfortunately true, especially in this industry, that nothing succeeds like success. Which means that, equally unfortunately, nobody’s going to give you the time of day until you’ve proved yourself–and it’s virtually impossible to do that while sublimating everything that makes you different and wonderful and special into a set of arbitrary standards. Turning yourself, as it were, into the Stepford Wife of books.
Write something good enough that you can defend your choices–including word count–and then keep defending it. Decide what you stand for, as Clay Christiansen says, and then stand for it all the time. Don’t let anyone talk you into neutering your characters, or your plot, against your better judgment; trust me, there’s time enough to sell out, later. Go for your dreams, first. Publish the book you want to publish, and go with the publishing method–not that feeds your end-cap fantasies but that makes getting that book, your book, in your hands a tangible reality.
The rest will come, or it won’t. No publishing method, just like no word count, can ensure success. All you can ensure is that you’re staying true to yourself.
