Your Word Count Is Important

I can't speak for the majority, but I do believe that managing your word count for whatever story you're writing is important.

And once you learn your audience, it gets somewhat easier to finish your book. I say this because, depending on your audience, some readers appreciate long chapters while others prefer shorter chapters.

Find what works best for you and your audience and roll with that.

side note: you NEVER want to get hung up on the word count WHILE you're writing out your chapter(s)...

If you constantly checking the word count, trying to reach whatever goal you set for yourself, it's going to take away from you producing good content, and you'll basically be less focused on what you're creating and more focused on hitting your word mark instead.

When it comes to sites/reading apps like Wattpad & Radish Fiction, people are there to read serialized fiction.

I can't speak for everyone, because people have different taste, but for me personally as a reader - I like things medium length when it comes to reading books on my phone. I'm not really here for 10,000 words per chapter - not only is that a lot of scrolling that you'll have to do while reading, but if you're like me, you get bored REAL fast just sitting there staring at your phone's screen, especially if the story hasn't gotten interesting yet. 

Wattpad and Radish Fiction are here to bring you quick-to-read serialized fiction that is broken up into bite-sized pieces, not huge ass chunks lol

SO! What you need to aim for, if you're just starting out writing or not, is AT LEAST 2,000 words per chapter. 

If you write in Microsoft Word (12 pt font size), that's like 5/6 pages total. And when that gets transferred over to Wattpad, it looks less than that, so all in all, your reader is getting a nice sized chapter and is not getting overwhelmed by so much content while you're *hopefully* breezing through the next chapter of your story thanks to how manageable the word count is.

long story short, everyone's happy!

another important extra side note: I'm NOT saying that you need to get out 2,000 words every time you sit down to write a new chapter because let's be honest, sometimes you'll really get into it and you may end up with 6 thousand words or more, or less. If you go over, you can either cut it into two chapters or stick it all into one. Again, do what you feel is best. 

But when it comes to someone who is just starting out and they're worried about how much they should be writing instead of worrying about actually writing the story, for people like that I like to encourage them to sit down and at least try to make the 2k word mark their endgame. 

For me, after I'm done writing a new chapter for a story, I don't focus on the word count... AT FIRST. Sometimes I like to let the chapter sit for a day or two and then I'll come back to edit it. When I do that, I always find myself adding in new content and in certain instances, taking out stuff that has no purpose - thus, the extra edits and extra content further adds to whatever my previous word count was and yaddablahblah I've met my limit and then some.

But again, this is during that final round of editing for when I worry about if a chapter is long enough or not. 

Hope that makes sense :)

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THE BOTTOM LINE:

Don't overdo it, okay? Keep it at 2,000 (3,000 max) words per chapter and you'll be fine. Always remember, sometimes less is more! 

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