I have a question... budding writer

[Yokomsa]

Can someone please tell me on average how many words on in the usual Dresden paperback?  I am starting to create my template for writing my books and I don't want them to be too long or too short and the paperbacks seem a good length for writing.

This is my first real endeavor into the world of writing (outside of papers for professors)

Any assistance you can offer would be appreciated!

Stephanie Yokom

[Josh]

I haven't counted the Dresden Files average, but the number you hear bandied about most often falls within the 80-100,000 wordcount range for a solid science fiction or fantasy tale. This obviously is just an average, but that's the point where I usually shoot for in drafting and outlining my work.

[Tasmin21]

I actually went on Amazon.com and looked up all of the Dresden Files books. They have a nifty little feature that lets you see word count.

Storm Front was somewhere around 80,000 words.
They didn't have White Night available for stats at that time, but Proven Guilty came in just over 150K

I guess, as you get more popular, they let you write longer books.

[Qualapec]

Does anyone know how many words per chapter on average?

~She-Wolf

[Yeratel]

Does anyone know how many words per chapter on average?

I'd guess about 6,000 - 8,000 per chapter. I remember reading an article by Loius Lamour talking about getting started as a writer by selling western stories to magazines. When he found out he was getting paid by the word, all of a sudden every time he wrote a gunfight, the hero kept shooting until he dropped the bad guy with his very last bullet.

[Richelle Mead]

Yeah, 80-100k is standard for this genre.  In MS Word, the average page is 250, and I think a printed book puts a bit more into one page.  SB was 400 pages in manuscript form, 368 in print.  I'm sure there's a mathematical formula there to deduce the number of words per printed page...but, well, I'm an English major.

[RMatthewWare]

What I've heard is for a first time writer, you can push the word count up to 120,000 if its Sci-fi or fantasy.  Otherwise, 80-100k is about right.  For my newest novel, I'm aiming more for around 80,000, but then I'm shooting for a YA market.