[Abby]

Weclome, Tatiana. Good luck trying to sell your epic ... I nearly threw mine across the room when I found out that no agent wants to represent such a huge work, because booksellers in this day and age want shorter books unless they're a guaranteed best-seller.

Lord of the Rings is guaranteed. The movies were successful. Stephen King is guaranteed. A few others. But a newbie author? ... Good Luck.

But finish it anyway, while the iron is still hot.

When you find it impossible to sell, write a shorter novel (under 150k words) and sell that one. Make yourself a household name. Then sell your epic, and watch all the publishers say, "Wow, she was an overnight success! I never saw that talent coming."

:) Best Wishes from one epic writer to another.

[KatG]

Tatiana, I have removed your email address from your post. While you can give out your email address to people via Private Messages, we ask that people don't put up email addresses, website addresses or other link taglines in their posts in the forums.

[arcanezombie85]

I find I'm having an opposite problem...I had planned for my stories to be a trilogy, however as I bring my first part to a close it falls way short of the +100,000 word average I seem to be seeing.

[KatG]

If the books are around 70,000-100,000 words, it's probably not an issue. If it's YA/childrens, shorter is also okay. Heading into the 40,000-60,000 range, for the adult market, you're into novella territory. This doesn't rule out putting it out, but it may be that smaller presses, who do novellas, are going to be more interested than larger ones.

[Sacorian]

I am writing a book. Seriously. The biggest problem with this little book of mine is that it is nowhere near little. It's about 80,000 words right now, and may have concluded the first quarter of the overall tale. Yes, I have already taken into consideration the notion that books are as long as they need to be. The main reason I'm writing this is to inquire about the lengths of some famous novels, not in pages, but word count. For example, how long is Steven King's "Gunslinger"? or Papa Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" in words?

What are some averages or rough figures of some greats?

Lord of the rings is 473K without appendices. If as you say your 80,000 words are about 1/4 of your total story then the maths is 80,000 x 4 = 320K not bad. BUT if you're telling me that thats this is the mythologies which come before your legend then in fairness one should point out that. The Silmarillion is another 248K (The pre story to LOTR) and the Hobbit is another 96K. so that Tolkiens whole tale from Start to Finish is a total of 817, 000 words (with all the appendices its almost 1, million words [We love you Tolkien]). By all means buddy a novel of 320,000 where the words are valuable and are well written is more than worthy of being read and enjoyed. And Tolkien is quite obviously legendary in his efforts. Please do not take this post as one of discouragement. Or at least if you must be discouraged be discouraged in comparing the length of your novel to the length of others. To make my point clear, my next favorite tale after that of Middle-Earth is Dracula which is a mere 162K. If your tale is telling all you want it to tell then be happy with it despite its length.

[Wojciehowicz]

Not everyone bases everything on length. If your story has too much of a deus ex machina feeling, or one where things come out of nowhere without any sense of entry point, or too quick pacing ignoring obvious things, then a shorter novel will leave people feeling lost and frustrated and they won't get into the world you set for them.

Characters that take part in the story should have some sort of entry point that makes sense. We find them where they usually are, or are about their usual business, and they enter the events from there. Important characters should never come out of nowhere at the last moment and that's any character worth naming and having more than a page of dialog with. Foreshadowing is very important. Give people a sense that something is up. Lay groundwork for thematic systems of action. That is, when there are a series of events that are causally linked, do them justice by detailing the important points along the way.

Go too quick, and you will do more harm than good.

[virangelus]

Characters that take part in the story should have some sort of entry point that makes sense. We find them where they usually are, or are about their usual business, and they enter the events from there.

On that thought, I suspect that it may also be a good idea to make the character memorable for something. That something can be big or glorious. One of my characters is a high-tech data jack. Or, perhaps it can be something as subtle as being notably quiet. I believe that Blake Snyder calls this the "Ten Things That Need Fixing" beat.

[Wojciehowicz]

On that thought, I suspect that it may also be a good idea to make the character memorable for something. That something can be big or glorious. One of my characters is a high-tech data jack. Or, perhaps it can be something as subtle as being notably quiet. I believe that Blake Snyder calls this the "Ten Things That Need Fixing" beat.

Memorable is always good. Giving them personality and attitude all their own should be allowed to pace itself. Some characters need only an entire chapter to be properly introduced. Others need the entire course of the book. I've spent most of the first third of my current work making everyone behave a little oddly, and now, they are noting it. I'm at over 57000 words, much of that has been detailing relationships of various qualities and a lot of sex, and now... the next big shock to everyone's system as a legendary lost ship arrives with pursuers right behind, followed by news of the emperor's assassination, and one of the three main characters suddenly being given the reins of power.

Don't be afraid to let the story go where it has to before it gets to the next step beyond.

[theWallflower]

From what I gather from author's sites and sites like QueryShark (http://queryshark.blogspot.com/) et al, I think that's way too long for a debut novel. Granted, if it's super-super-good, an agent will pick it up.

Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind is an example. But keep in mind, that novel won several awards. You're not the judge if it's super-super-good. The agent and/or publisher is.

I feel that buyers are gravitating towards sources of entertainment that are shorter but consume more of them. I see this in iPhone app games, webisode series, and micro-transactions. And with the eBook revolution, I expect customers' tastes will trend towards "bite-sized" books. I think we see this in the popularity of YA among adults today.

[KatG]

As we've already established in this thread, this is not the case in fiction. Science fiction novels are longer on average than they used to be. YA novels are longer on average than they used to be. Secondary world fantasy novels remain very long, even if they are not bestsellers. Contemporary fantasy novels are longer on average than they used to be. Other types of fiction equally produce long works on a frequent basis. And e-books offer the potential for books to be longer, not shorter, because an e-file can store large amounts of text, whereas print is constrained by binding/paper/transport/print size re price issues.

The sites you're going to that are telling you that novels need to be shorter to sell are wrong. They are inaccurate and do not reflect what is actually happening in the marketplace. You can ignore this information.