How many words is a typical trek novel?

[Trent Roman]

I'm here in my office, about to go home and sleep (it's 2 am local), and I'm writing this monumental MS thesis. I'm just curious how it stacks up to a trek novel in terms of total words. I'm currently approaching 23,000 words, if Word is to be trusted, although a little of that's no doubt my tables and figure captions, which don't really count. I'm currently in that sleep-deprived, mildly manic, "why didn't I go into something easier, like brick-laying" stage of my degree.

You sciency-type folk are economical with words. My undergrad thesis was 21K; by the end of it, I longed for your thriftiness (and probably my supervisor did, too. ) The way things are shaping up, I'm looking at 35K on the M.A.

The longest thing I ever wrote was my PhD thesis which was 94,245 words long.

Nice. You ever wonder if the commitee members read the whole thing or just skimmed it?

Creditorly yours, the Rent Woman

 

[Turbo]

Full Circle: 133,000

Fantastic! A long novel is just what us poor Voyager fans need.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Full Circle: 133,000

Fantastic! A long novel is just what us poor Voyager fans need.

Seconded.

 

[Rosalind]

and I have no idea how many words I've got in mine, since I work with LaTeX and multiple files.

I know it's completely off-topic, but I LaTeX. Er, right.

oh yeah........

Anyway... Good to know about the progression, since I'm just starting my MS/Ph.D program.

good luck!!!

I personally prefer the longer works -- gives one something to sink their teeth into a little more; to get more invested in the characters and the situation.

some of the shorter novels still rank in my top ten, but given a choice, I definitely go with the longer novels.

You sciency-type folk are economical with words.

why use words when you can just use one equation? (and then we spend the next three paragraphs explain the equation )

Nice. You ever wonder if the commitee members read the whole thing or just skimmed it?

I know my examiners definitely read everything.

 

[JD]

Wow, I can't imagine what you guys must be going through. I'm freaking out over here because I have a 15-20 page essay on Human Trafficking due sometime in the near future. We're taking it step by step so I'm not sure when the actual final essay is due.

 

[Ferd Burfel]

I wrote a crazy paper/thesis/document/soul stealer about the connections and differences between Jefferson and Bush II that was long as hell. I need to pull it up and get the word count on it. It covered everything from elections to terrorism to staring wars to transitions of power. And a little bit about the intelligence of each man.

 

[Trent Roman]

I wrote a crazy paper/thesis/document/soul stealer about the connections and differences between Jefferson and Bush II that was long as hell. (...) And a little bit about the intelligence of each man.

Ouch; the idea of being compared to a guy like Jefferson in terms of intellect shrivels my Balzac. Still, suppose he could take comfort from the fact that's its a comparison not many people would come out of looking good (as opposed to comparisons to the intellect of potted ferns, which are far more embarassing).

Creditorly yours, the Rent Woman

 

[Ferd Burfel]

Well I never said the comparison was favorable. But the parallels between them in many other aspects is quite interesting.

I think Jefferson is easily one of the smartest 10 people the world's ever seen. When you dig into what he has about and what he knew its extremely impressive.

 

[FalTorPan]

I want to know how many colons (the character, not the organ) are in a typical tie-in book title.

 

[Osquevel]

I want to know how many colons (the character, not the organ) are in a typical tie-in book title.

By title, do you mean the title, such as "Star Trek: Worlds of Deep Space Nine: Andor: Paradigm" (3) or the entire manuscript? (n)?

 

[Stevil2001]

Or even better, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mission: Gamma: Twilight.

 

[Marco Palmieri]

Or even better, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mission: Gamma: Twilight.

To be fair, no one at Pocket ever writes out the titles that way. Officially it was, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Mission: Gamma, Book One—Twilight. I did that deliberately in order to break up the punctuation.

But admittedly, even that is an eyesore. So it's just as well that titles like that never appear with punctation on the covers or in the body of the books.

Neverthless, when it came time to formally title Star Trek Titan and Star Trek Vanguard, I left off the punctuation on purpose. I don't have the option to do that with the TV-based titles, but I can write out the ones we make up any way I want.

 

[TerriO]

Or even better, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mission: Gamma: Twilight.

To be fair, no one at Pocket ever writes out the titles that way. Officially it was, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Mission: Gamma, Book One—Twilight. I did that deliberately in order to break up the punctuation.

But admittedly, even that is an eyesore. So it's just as well that titles like that never appear with punctation on the covers or in the body of the books.

Neverthless, when it came time to formally title Star Trek Titan and Star Trek Vanguard, I left off the punctuation on purpose. I don't have the option to do that with the TV-based titles, but I can write out the ones we make up any way I want.

Semantics, Marco. Semantics.

 

[KRAD]

Seeing the em-dashes or the titles without colons (like Star Trek Titan) just makes my bibliographic teeth hurt. This comes of being the child of librarians, I suppose, but the proper bibliographic way to write DRG3's book is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mission: Gamma Book 1: Twilight, and doing it any other way would just annoy cataloguers, who have enough tsuris, as they'd have to correct it.

 

[Deano2099]

Of course going back to the original poster, it's far from a fair comparison as a scientific paper is a whole different beast to mass-market prose.
I imagine if you were to look at the average word syllable count the paper would be considerably higher...

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

Yeah, but while I was taking a completely-unjustifiable hour break to speed across town and see if Destiny pt. 2 was at the bookstore(s) (thwarted - d'oh!), I kept muttering to myself, "I could write a frickin' novel in the time this thesis is taking me." ...Which led me to wondering how many words a novel consists of. Honestly, I think a novel would be easier. At least I wouldn't have to keep track of my references, and if I lied a little here and there, it's not like I'd be thrown out of the program. lol

 

[Trent Roman]

^ I know somebody who is doing a creative arts project for her Masters. Trust me, she has to keep track of her references as much as anybody else (though I imagine there aren't as many... how many items in your bibliography?)

Creditorly yours, the Rent Woman

 

[Marco Palmieri]

Seeing the em-dashes or the titles without colons (like Star Trek Titan) just makes my bibliographic teeth hurt.

Sorry. Damned if I do, damned if I don't don't, I guess.

 

[BrotherBenny]

When I wrote my novella for my creative writing bachelors' degree thesis, I had to write an accompanying essay to back it up, which ended up being about half as long as the damn novella, with more references than some other students' theses. The novella was a shade over 20,000 words, and will never see the light of day, while the accompanying essay was 9,500 (excluding the words in the 112 references).

 

[Rosalind]

At least I wouldn't have to keep track of my references,

LaTeX and BibTex are your friends.

and if I lied a little here and there, it's not like I'd be thrown out of the program.

that's true.

how many items in your bibliography?)

I had just under 200 in mine.