: Re: Is there a method to estimating the length of a work before writing it? I am writing my first novel, which I think likely will end up being several volumes. Although I have a lot of experience

@Kevin153

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For what it's worth, novelist and short story writer Mary Robinette Kowal has a mathematical formula she uses to get a ballpark figure for a story's likely word count:

Add the number of characters and the number of locations. Multiply that sum by 750. Then multiply that number by 1.5 times the number of [plot] elements the story incorporates.

She goes into detail on this in a recent Writing Excuses episode, giving advice on, for instance, how to define a 'character' for this formula. (She uses the term MICE, which is explained on an earlier episode of the podcast; I have substituted 'plot' in my use of the quote to make it more digestible to people who are unfamiliar with the MICE concept).

As she says, the result will give you just a rough estimate, but it could serve as a useful aid for you. (I tried retroactively using it on the last story I wrote, and it was uncannily accurate. That was short fiction, though – the margin of error may get bigger for epic trilogies...)

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