How Long is this Fic Really?: A Guide
Word count in the HP Series:
Sorcerer’s Stones: 76,944
Chamber of Secrets: 85,141
Prisoner of Azkaban: 107,253
Goblet of Fire: 190,637
Order of the Phoenix: 257,045
Half-Blood Prince: 168,923
Deathly Hallows: 198,227Word count in the LOTR Series:
The Hobbit: 95,022
Fellowship of the Ring: 177,227
Two Towers: 143,436
Return of the King: 134,462This changed me
I’ve read/ am reading fic that are upwards to 150,000 - 200,000. You’re telling me that authors that write for fun are writing a full-length book for the fun of it? They have earned my respect 10 fold.
I decided to do some math to satisfy my curiosity, a.k.a. I Wonder How Many Novels I’ve Written Across My Fandom Career. My current cumulative word-count, according to the AO3 Statistics function, is 2,571,675.
Depending on who you ask and what websites you consult, the average novel is anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 words. At the upper average, there are also some 200,000-word monsters out there in the deep (see 3 posts up).
If I use 200,000 words as my metric, I’ve written about 13 novels.
If I use 100,000 words as my metric, I’ve written about 26 novels.
If I use 50,000 words as my metric, I’ve written about 52 novels.
Taking into account my non-fandom published writing, which is a different species of book altogether (i.e. the primary kind of writing I’m known for outside of fandom isn’t prose), I’m actually not sure how much that adds to the count.
TL;DR—keep writing, folks! It adds up, and clocking words means honing craft.
