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Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: HANNIBALELANTRIAN on April 23, 2008, 09:50:02 PM

Title: Word Counts?
Post by: HANNIBALELANTRIAN on April 23, 2008, 09:50:02 PM

Hey all!

I was just wondering what the rough word counts of Brandon's books were. Anyone know?

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: Eudaimoniac on April 24, 2008, 09:28:28 AM

some strange part of my twisted brain says something about 300k to 320k...

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: The Incredible Thorbear on April 24, 2008, 09:33:33 AM

really? isn't 300k really big? I mean the Shadow Rising or Fires of Heaven big?

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: Eudaimoniac on April 24, 2008, 09:55:31 AM

well... he has started the wordcount on the last Wheel of Time book on 400k, so i think 300k is about normal...

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: Chaos on April 24, 2008, 02:06:52 PM

Actually, I remember reading some annotations that he usually shoots for 200-250k for "epic level books", like Elantris and Mistborn.

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: darxbane on April 24, 2008, 03:45:36 PM

Whatever the size is, you'll wish it were more when you done the book.  I finished MB1 and 2 in a combined 10 hours, and I reread some sections.  I had a couple of very tired days at work because of Brandon Sanderson, but I don't mind. :)

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: firstRainbowRose on April 24, 2008, 04:43:19 PM

He mentioned in one of his blog entries that (I think these are correct.  I couldn't find the entry) 200-250k is where elantris and mistborn are, 150k(ish) is where his young adult novel is (scribbler) and I don't remember if he said what area Alcatraz is.

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: WriterDan on April 24, 2008, 06:45:11 PM

I'm pretty sure that I remember from when I took his class at BYU:

Elantris: ~180/190k

Not sure about Mistborn.  Probably pretty close to ~210k.  If I remember right, Mistborn2 was ~230/240k.  There was some big mix up about how big the book was and someone at Tor was saying that the book was unpublishable because it was too big.  Kind of funny, seeing as how that one was smaller than most of the WoT books.

This seems to be borne out by the number of pages in each book and the relative percentage size.

Although, he'd probably be the best source for this information.  :)

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: imflyer20 on April 25, 2008, 12:31:14 AM

250 words a page is about the publishing standard. The rest is math for a rough estimate. A 300k word novel, divided by 250 words a page, would have approximately 1,200 pages, so Brandon's are not that long. Hubbard's Battlefield Earth was about that long. The copy of Mistborn that I have is 634 pages, paperback, so that's about 164k words.

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: MsFish on April 25, 2008, 12:45:26 AM

Amazon will give you word counts on most books.  It's in the "text stats" section.

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on April 25, 2008, 12:53:08 AM

250 words per page is the manuscript standard if manuscripts are in 12-point double-spaced Courier font. Words per page in published books varies wildly according to what typesetting is used.

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: imflyer20 on April 25, 2008, 01:33:58 AM

...Manuscripts. I forgot that. Forgive me, I just got through with finals this week. >.< oh the embarrassment!

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: Hero of Ages on April 25, 2008, 06:17:47 AM

According to Amazon:

Mistborn- 208,253 words
WoA- Doesn't say.
Elantris- 199,091 words
Alcatraz- Doesn't say.

Title: Re: Word Counts?
Post by: Spriggan on April 27, 2008, 12:15:46 AM

Alcatraz is only around 40-50k which is common for that market.