[MrBF1V3]

I recently replaced the hard drive in my laptop, which is much easier than buying a new one. While I was gathering resources to get the new hard drive I did my work on the family computer on Word (tm), with the new and working laptop I'm writing on OpenOffice (tm?).
On Word the word count on the first file of my WIP is 12853. In OpenOffice the word count for the same file is 10631.

Suddenly I'm way behind on my goal.

Does anyone have any idea which word count is more accurate?

B5

[Sterling13]

I've heard (and read somewhere) that Openoffice is way off on their wordcount for some reason or another... but I thought what I read was that Open Office is generally higher... hmmm.

This post (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3894913) - plus the link to the other post - starts to explain it...

Sounds as though Word is generally considered more accurate, though.

[Laer Carroll]

The difference between the two is only a few percent. In any case, the actual word count is irrelevant to how publishers count words. They are really more concerned about PAGE counts.

Consider. A page with only snappy dialogue, each sentence or phrase a few words long, may contain less than a hundred words. A page with only dense description or exposition may contain several hundred words.

The average word count per page will vary considerably depending on the publisher, type of book, and individual work. A kindergarten book of fairy tales, versus a high-octane thriller, for instance.

Each writer may have a different target publisher and form of book in mind, so the page/word count you will be concerned about varies. For me, I set up each page for an average of 12.5 words per line and 40 single-spaced lines per page. This works out to 500 words per page. So I halve the number of pages I've written, and think "I did N thousand words this week."

Much more relevant to keeping aware of your progress is: How many SCENES did you write this week? After you've completed a book, and spend some time getting distance from it, you may shrink, expand, add, and delete scenes quite a bit. Scenes are what you must keep in focus, not words.

It's more important when you write to keep your main story in mind, rather than fiddle with small details. It is the main story and any secondary stories you create which you sell, and people buy, and remember, and tell their friends about.

SFWA (http://www.sfwa.org/about/who-we-are/) has more info on this topic at the following link.

http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/what-is-a-word/

[MrBF1V3]

Okay, that kind of clears it all up, sort of. Another one of the things you don't hear about. It also begs the question; then why don't they ask for page counts? (An imponderable, I'm sure.)

It's possible my OO count was higher because I downloaded the newest version--maybe they "fixed" the word count situation. I personally am not hyper about how many words are in the story, but when a publisher puts first or second item in their guidelines "Must be at least XXK words." It sounds kind of strict.

While I'm submitting documents with blatant misspellings on the first page, I'd rather not look like I've inflated the word count.

B5

[QuoteDepot]

Hello, I'm a software developer. I'll go with Microsoft word not because it's accurate, but because it's used by more people.

People use word most, so you have better chance to have common idea with others.
To have an idea how it counts, please test youself.
I just tested the following words;
A two three is good. !? It ‘ s good

It give me 10 counts. Notice there are blanks before and after ‘ . So you have some idea right?

I hope it helps.