Length and transition

[Darwinist]

I've toiled with a novel for the last couple years but it proved to be too big for me, so I'm working on another one instead which is progressing much much faster.

My question is, I'm attempting to write a novel. My initial story blew up to about 160 pages before it just got too big for me, this one is only about 40 pages and feels like its nearly complete. I'm intending to break it into multiple arcs that would be spent over three separate storylines that intertwine. Forty pages feels small in comparison to works by Butcher which are several hundred pages. I'm wondering if I read too much into it. What is the usual transition from a doublespaced 10pt font MS Word, to a paperback or hardback novel?

In other words, realistically - what page count should I strive for? I don't want to drag the story out, obviously. I'm wondering if instead of making it three separate stories - if I should make it one big novel, with three novellas composing the narrative. How many pages would an editor or agent desire in a story? It's not intended to be a short story - I'd love it to be a serial that I can pick up and expand on in the future.

If anyone's interested in giving it a read. I've posted about half of it online so far. Some feedback would be awesome as well.

edit :took down the book for now out of concerns for plagiarism

[Starbeam]

Don't go by page count, go by word count.  Word does have a thingie somewhere to get word count, but it also counts everything, including chapter headings and anything like that.  I don't know what kind of word count to shoot for, but 50,000 is a good start. I know that's the word count to hit for NaNoWriMo.(National Novel Writing Month)

[Darwinist]

Ah tyvm - that helps immensely man. I'm at 16k now and at about the halfway point of where I expected to be. Looks like I'll likely go with the tri-novella idea.

[meg_evonne]

I received an e-mail from one of my writing groups before signing in here.  She spent a full hour with a face to face with an agent (was supposed to be 30 minutes, but the agent had the next person wait!).  One of those incredible click type meetings.  During the first 30 they talked about the publishing industry, the 2nd 30 they pulled apart her novel, rearranged it, highlighted areas that needed help. 

So some of the goodies she shared was that most agents are looking for 80,000 to 100,000 word manuscripts, that manuscripts need to be 98 to 99% perfectly edited and that hiring (or bartering) a professional editor was important, and that the publishing industry sucked right now for new writers.  (So what's new huh?) 

So go for the word count, Darwinist and those editors love 12 pt. :-)

[RobJN]

the publishing industry sucked right now for new writers.  (So what's new huh?) 

"right now"...? LOL

I vaguely remember reading that a lot of publishers aren't looking for trilogies from new writers. Of course, it's been six or seven years since I was last involved with the publishing business, though I'm sure some things don't change all that much. (see above )

I've also heard to go 'by the word' rather than 'by the page' since pagination can be vastly different between word processors. (MS Word breaks one file down to 220 pages, while Pages has it at 230. That's pulled from an RTF of the project from Scrivener, and the word count is the same.)

[Starbeam]

The progam I use(Mac program) gives me the option of seeing printed page count or typical paperback page count.  Along with total word count(currently about 18500) and session word count(about 3500 for what I wrote and typed up from the past week or so.), and I can reset the session word count whenever I want.  I think the PC equivalent program would probably be yWriter, though I haven't used it.

[meg_evonne]

Do you like the Mac for writing?  I've always used word.doc on PC/laptop.  I suspect that my laptop will blow a gasket before the year is out.  It is running very hot, so the fan isn't working too well anymore.  Have been wondering if I should make a switch or not.  Your thoughts?

[RobJN]

I've been running on Mac for about eight years now, and will only touch a PC at work because I have no choice.

As far as writing goes, MS Word is even better on Mac than it is for PC.

Mac also has the iWork Pages program, which took over for the old Appleworks word processing program. Pages still feels a bit rough, and can't seem to make up its mind whether or not it's a word processor or page layout program. The biggest problem I've found with it is that I keep thinking "how would I do it in MSWord" instead of "what makes sense to do?"

Another program, Scrivener, is only available on Mac, and it's what I use for most of my preliminary writing.

I heartily recommend you either hit up the Apple website and take a look at the Pages demos and walkthroughs, or -- even better -- if you live near an Apple store, head in and get your fingertips on one of the machines.

You may find that the iBook/MacBook might be a bit on the pricey side, but the machines last. I got a Powerbook back in mid 2000 and only replaced it a couple years ago. And at the time, it was the "midline" model. So if you do go with a Mac, it's money very well spent.

[Starbeam]

Do you like the Mac for writing?  I've always used word.doc on PC/laptop.  I suspect that my laptop will blow a gasket before the year is out.  It is running very hot, so the fan isn't working too well anymore.  Have been wondering if I should make a switch or not.  Your thoughts?

Love it.  I kinda want to get a new one, but the most I can come up with as a reason is that there's a small sliver on the edge that's broken lose, and I just taped that.  And the hard drive is smaller than I would prefer.  Aside from that, the couple problems I've actually had were program based--iTunes screwing up, and a known issue in the program I write with.  So while the Macs are more expensive, they have so much more staying power.  Plus, with the current OS, there's an option thingie to install and run Windows, if you have a copy not being used elsewhere.  And should run better, too.  Best Buy also sells Macs now, but I have no clue if the sales people would be as knowledgeable as the Apple store.

The program I use is Jer's Novel Writer, which looks somewhat similar to the Scrivener thing.  I like it cause I can have all my notes/character descriptions/whatnot just right there.  It works well with the way I tend to write.

[Darwinist]

What's a good font size and spacing to go with? I've been using 11pt Calibri font with 1.5 spacing. It was something my writing teacher recommended in comm college a few years back. Someone mentioned above that they prefer 12pt? Should I try 12pt Arial with doublespacing? That's another I've heard before. I'm a long ways away from sending in manuscripts, but figured I should start doing things right from the start.

[meg_evonne]

mentioned earlier that every editor and writer that I've worked with in on-line classes--to a person use 12pt NYTimes double spaced. 

[Starbeam]

The default font and size on pretty much every program I've used tends to be Times New Roman, 12 pt.  And all the submission guidelines I've read through say to double space, which is always a good idea, anyway, for when you print out a copy to revise/edit.

[RobJN]

As above , I have also seen the Times 12 pt, double- spaced as the standard. If a given publisher wants it done differently, they'll usually specify in their writers/submission guidelines.

The only other font I've seen mentioned is Courier, due to it being a "fixed width" across the page.

[LizW65]

Most online formatting sites recommend 12 point Courier or New Courier, double spaced (most nearly approximates an old-time typewriter.)  However, they advise not to get too hung up and obsessive over fonts -- as long as it's readable and consistent, it's probably okay.

[Darwinist]

Thanks a million guys. I tried the 12pt font, double spaced thing a long time ago and it just felt like it was way too big on my computer. I suppose printed on a page it'll look better. Just felt like I was putting out two paragraphs per page (not in reality, of course, but felt that way). What used to be 4 pages of print has ballooned into 8 pages of print, much closer to my goal. Now to reach that 100,000 wordcount goal.