Scene Word Count

As a writer, you’ve probably read there are recommended lengths for a manuscript depending on the genre you write in. We’ve done some research and thought we’d share that with you.

In order of length, word count guidelines for a few of the popular genres are:

Novellas: 20,000 to 30,000
Middle Grade: 25,000 to 40,000
Romance: 40,000 to 100,000
Young Adult: 50,000 to 80,000
Mysteries, thrillers, and suspense: 70,000 to 100,000
Paranormal: 75,000 to 95,000
Fantasy: 90,000 to 100,000
Horror: 80,000 to 100,000
Science Fiction: 95,000 to 125,000
Historical: 100,000 to 120,000

Genre length may vary with different publishers, so check submission guidelines carefully. If you’re self-publishing, readers of the genres have come to expect a certain word count, and you don’t want to disappoint them, so think about the word count and make a conscious decision on the length of your novel.

But what about word count per scene?

When you’re about to begin a big-picture edit, you may wonder if counting the number of words per scene is important. We think it is, and we’ll tell you why.

Scene Emphasis

After you’re happy with the total word count for your novel, it’s time to evaluate how your word count is spread across your scenes.

By counting the words in each scene, you can see where you are putting emphasis and where you are not. Without knowing the specific word count, you don’t have a method to know if a critical scene is too short or a minor scene is too long.

Patterns

Some authors like to write scenes of the same length for the entire novel. Others vary the scene word count. The choice is yours, and you can use it to your advantage if you evaluate the per scene word count from a big-picture view.

If you follow a pattern (same word count per scene) throughout your novel and one scene is way longer than the rest of your scenes, make sure this is the climax scene. If it’s not, you probably have too many words in the scene.

How I Used Word Count To Improve My Novel

You can see in the Word Count Per Scene graph below, that scene 2 in chapter 3 is over 6000 words long. The other scenes in the novel are all under 2000 words. I discovered this during my big-picture edit of DESCENT (my first novel).

This was a scene early in the novel where my main protagonist, Kalin Thompson, moves to Stone Mountain Resort. In great detail, the scene described Kalin moving into her new apartment. After I looked at the word count, I realized I’d written the scene to give the reader a feel for resort life. Nothing much happened in the scene to move the plot forward.

I knew I needed to fix this. Instead of putting the details in one scene, I cut the scene and sprinkled the details throughout the other scenes.

This improved the story by eliminating an info dump but still leaving in details that showed the reader what it’s like to move to a ski resort. If I hadn’t reviewed the word count of the scene in the context of the other scenes, I might have missed this.

How The Feedback App Will Help

Depending on the software you use to write your novel, counting the words in each scene can be a time-consuming exercise.

For example: In Microsoft word, you’ll highlight each scene and look at the word count displayed at the bottom of each page. In Scrivener, it’s a little easier. The word count is displayed at the bottom of each screen if you’ve broken your text into scenes as you write. In either case, you’ll have to keep track of the word count and evaluate it from a manuscript level.

The Feedback app will automatically break your novel into scenes and create a report showing you how many words are in each scene. You’ll be shown a graph, and can easily see where you need to focus on word count. Word count is one of the Key Elements Of Fiction the app uses to help you perform your own big-picture edit.

The Feedback App will also show you the breakdown of scenes per chapter. We’ll talk about this in another blog.

Download our free eBook, BIG-PICTURE Editing And The Key Elements Of Fiction and learn how big-picture editing is all about evaluating the major components of your story. We call these components the Key Elements Of Fiction. Our eBook shows you how to use the key elements of fiction to evaluate your story and become your own big-picture editor.

Source: Big-Picture Editing and Word Count Per Scene – Feedback For Fiction

Today on Write Better Fiction we’ll cover Scene Word Count. Write Better Fiction is a process to help you critique your own manuscript and give yourself feedback. This will help you improve your novel, so you’re ready to submit it to an editor.

When writing genre fiction you should know the length of the novel that is acceptable for your genre, but what about words per scene?

Do you think word count per scene is important?

I do, and here’s why.

Word count per scene is the number of words in a scene. A scene or several scenes will make up a chapter, the chapters get you to the novel. I know, obvious, right? But how can you analyze your word count to improve your novel?

Same number of words per scene: An author may choose to write scenes that are all a similar length. Let’s say 1800 to 2200. They create a novel in this format, then they acquire readers, and the readers come to expect the flow a similar word count per scene would generate. It might be risky for the author to change once she has established a following for her style.

Variable Number of Words Per Scene: In theory, you could have a scene as short at one work and as long as the entire novel. These are extremes of course.

Potential pitfalls with word count:

One long scene: You write a novel with scenes that range from one paragraph in length to 1200 words, but you have one scene that is 2500 words. When the reader gets to this scene, he is going to wonder why so much time has been allocated to the scene. Either the author didn’t notice one scene was way too long, or he did on purpose because something very important is happening in the scene.

My spreadsheet has a column for scene word count. I then have Excel graph the scene lengths. I have a quick look for anything that stands out as unusual and ask myself why I wrote the scene this way. This graph would extend to the number of chapters in the novel.

Screen Shot 2016-05-15 at 5.53.30 PM

What Stands Out?

Chap 2: The first scene in only 50 words long. This is very short compared to the other scenes in the novel.

Is it too short compared to the rest of the scenes? In this case, am I trying to create an effect of shock, or fast pace, or intrigue?

Chap 3: This chapter only has two scenes where every other chapter in the novel has three scenes.

Was this done on purpose? Was it a mistake? Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve by the number of scenes in a chapter. You could also create this graph on a per chapter basis and ask yourself the same questions as per on a chapter basis.

Chap 4: This scene is 2500 words long. The graph shows you it’s out of balance with the other scenes in the novel.

Is a scene too long compared to others? In this case, I must ask what is so special about this scene. If nothing, then I’ll consider breaking the scene into two or more scenes.

This type of analysis is done when an author has finished her first draft. It’s a bird’s eye view of the structure and allows her to check the pacing and flow of her story.

I critiqued DESCENT, BLAZE and AVALANCHE using the techniques I’m sharing in Write Better Fiction, and I believe this helped me sign with a publisher. And speaking of publishers, Imajin Books has released AVALANCHE for pre-order at $0.99 USD for a limited time. This way, my readers get a little gift of a sale price before the novel is released.

Please let me know in the comments below if you examine your word count by scene and why you do this?

Thanks for reading…