Book writers?

Im currently doing a bit of writing and i want to know if any of you guys have written any books or short stories?

What advice would you give to someone new to writing and how many words should be per chapter, like around what average. 3,000 ? 4,000? 2,000?

What is something you enjoy reading in books? Like what really captures your attention whether it be a great intro or short chapters.


Answer below, much appreciated!

 

Are you writing a novel or a short story?
What genre did you have in mind?

 

If you are writing a novel, never go by a certain amount of words or pages per chapter. The chapter ends when it ends, that's all up to you. I've read novels that have 3 page chapters and I've read ones with 20 page chapters.

For a novel you should have between 80 - 100k words minimum.

Fantasy captures my attention every time. no matter if its medieval style, viking style, or just random shit with fairies and dragons.

EDIT: the word count usually depends on the genre of book. I only write fantasy style stories, but I've read on the internet that if you're writing scifi then it should be 100 - 120k minimum words. I'm not sure why it matters, and it seems to only matter for "beginners". For example, J.K. Rowling breaks these rules because she is a well known artist and her book will be published no matter what, I think the 4th harry potter book had around 400k words. If 400k came from a new novelist and they took it to a publisher, it may not even be reviewed simply because it broke the word count "laws."

Steven King can has also broken these "laws" but after I think he's probably even more famous than Rowling, so really my point is if you get 1 best-seller, the laws of the novel word no longer apply. But for a first time, if writing fantasy, it should be no less than 80k words and no more than in the 100k area. 110k words, no big deal. But just don't go crazy writing an extremely long story for your first time, and as long as you hit 80k+ you should be fine. But again, thats only if your writing fantasy genre, different genres have different "laws".


EDIT 2: This comes from a writing site:

 

Just write your entire story and worry about the length later? If it's a good story it wont matter if it's 70,000 or 400,000.

 

In a way this is true, in a way its not.

If the story is far to short/long theres a good chance a publisher won't even read it to find out if its good or not.

What I suggest doing is what Levels said, just write it. But if its too short, revise it. Add in extra details and stuff like that to get it as close as possible to the minimum.

 

Divide the chapters where there is a break/turning point/change/apex in the story, don't let the length of a chapter decide where you stop or start one.

 

thank you all for so much advice, i am really using what you all say so i appreciate it A LOT!

and i ask because i don't want to just start filling up nonsense just to add bulk to a chapter.

For example, describing a spectator by writing "The spectator smiled, with his wood colored beard swaying in the piercing cold winds"

^^ seems unnecessary and too much.

So i just asked for that reason only and i would like to know if anyone has written, i know Grim has an book coming out.

 

It's only unnecessary if it's not important. Does the reader need to know that it was cold and the wind was blowing? People usually use descriptions like yours so that the reader gets a better feel for the environment that the reader is in. This also leaves some freedom for the reader's imagination.
Also, I personally think describing something as "wood colored" is a terrible comparison, just because wood can come in many different colors.

Generally, a paragraph, chapter, or novel should be long enough to get your point across, but not so long that it drags on.

 

You should have your chapters roughly planned out before even attempting to write a book of some time.

You should have story-boards, character descriptions/background stories, the plot etc all planned out before even writing the first line.

That is my advice, my cousin recently had a book published so that is the source I am using after seeing the work she put into it. It took her around 9 months with numerous publishers sending her away till she got it published.

 

Just write a story, use your imagination power and write a powerful story. Do not worry about the length of the story, just make strong and powerful characters and a good story-line. That's all it matters.

 

I think it's rather simple to publish an e-book on Amazon. A couple of friends of mine have books on there, one as an e-book and the other is published with hardback copies. If you want his details for more information, message me.

 

You should post some work you've put into the story. I'd love to give you some pointers with actually writing the book.

 

I wrote a short story while writing my main story.

I could send you the short story, its literally like 700 words but i did it because sometimes writing the main one could fry my brain.

 

Just copy and paste it onto the thread here, or by pm if you want privacy.