Comments on: Less Story, Easier to Read ???

By: riemannia

riemannia — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 16:52:19 +0000

Ah. Yes, those are substantial cuts.

By: Angelle Trieste

Angelle Trieste — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 04:59:18 +0000

I got some numbers from a Silhouette writer and posted it at http://www.angelletrieste.com/wordpress/?p=701. I think people will notice because in order to have smaller word count, the stories have to have fewer subplots, characters, etc. Also when everything stays the same except the font size, margin, it's not that difficult for the readers to figure out that perhaps the story's getting shorter.

By: SusanGable

SusanGable — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 02:41:37 +0000

No, I don’t think that’s the case. I think there’s a serious case of confusion going on. Because they fully INTEND to make them shorter – or else, how could they make the fonts bigger and the margins bigger? If we just all switch over to using computer count, and that doesn’t make much impact, what’s the point?

The table that was sent to the authors included a ms page count (based on the 250 wpp theory/method of counting) and those page counts were decidedly shorter — corresponding exactly with the drop in word counts. (i.e. my manuscripts usually run about 340 ms pages – 85K. The new table says my ms should come in at 280-300 ms pages, which is the 70-75k.)

By: riemannia

riemannia — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 20:43:36 +0000

I’m also hearing–perhaps incorrectly–that the new word counts are computer word counts. If that’s the case, the difference isn’t so big, I don’t think.