Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

Question: How many words should my novel be?

My answer: There’s no simple answer or formula for the proper length of a novel.

My personal take is that a novel should not be for both children and adults. If it’s written in a simple tone for children, adults will review it as sounding childlike, and they won’t enjoy it. If it’s written in an advanced tone to cater to adults, children will find it incomprehensible. Furthermore, the length of either should vary; children have a shorter attention span, right?

Do as you will.

In answer to the question, though, it should only be as long as it needs to be to drive the story from beginning to end. There’s no set number of words. Too few, and it’ll read choppy. Too many, and it’ll drag out.

My advice is to write it, proof it, have it beta read, and then hire an editor.

Striving to work within the confines of a word limit is counter productive to both creativity and joy.

First and foremost, as a writer, it’s important to enjoy writing your novel, so just write it. Once it’s down, read it, and have others read it before its release. People will tell you if it feels like the chapters are too long, too short, if the story feels empty, sluggish, or whatever.

The best way to approach novel writing is to just get the whole story down. Once it’s down, get away from it for a bit. Then, go back and read it as a reader. You will find your own issues with it. You can then fatten it up as much as you like. If there’s too much in there as it is, you can cut out whatever doesn’t need to be there.

In the end, especially if you’re a novice writer, it’s really important to hire an editor. An editor can go through your story and help you cut what doesn’t need to be there. An editor can help you restructure sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and chapters. An editor, a competent editor, will help you to prepare your book for an audience, an audience who will be extra critical of your work because they have purchased a product they expect to hold quality content–good writing.

If you think you might need an editor, check out my editing tab.