Is Word Counting Necessary? Everything You Need to Know
There are several aspects to the craft of writing that is less than obvious. These technicalities are pieces of the trade that any writer has to become familiar with, but are not instantly recognizable to consumers. One of those aspects of writing is word counting. This crucial aspect of writing is foundational to
Here is everything you need to know about why a word count is necessary and how a dedicated WordCounter can help improve your writing.
What Are Word Counts Used For?
Perhaps one of the best ways to understand why a word count is necessary is to understand how they are used. Word counts are a tool that has been developed over time to help define an audience. Writing is all about the audience as any good writer will be catering to a specific group of readers. Word counts help to define that audience and help writers connect their content to their target.
For example, someone who is in the market to purchase a novel is going to be looking for a word count of 80,000 to 100,000. Now, true, as long as there have been novels and the people who love them, the scenario of a person asking a clerk for a precise word count has never happened.
When a person thinks to themselves that they want to read a new novel, they aren’t going to think in terms of word count. However, subconsciously, they are going to seek out works that are in this ballpark, because that’s the standard word count for a novel. If work is drastically longer, or shorter than this range, the reader may still enjoy it, but it won’t be a normative experience.
The same goes for someone who is looking to read a blog post. The average blog post is going to be around 1000 words. If you are looking to read a blog and it’s far under this word count or drastically over, chances are you won’t invest your time here, but instead look for a word count that more comfortably fits your standard of a blog.
So word counts, when it comes down to it, help to connect writers to the volume that readers want within their specific field of writing.
Improve Communication
As a writer, you are always writing for your audience. Whether that audience is on Twitter and Instagram, or you are writing content for websites and blog posts, your audience comes first. This is why word counts matter so much because they help you understand how to properly communicate within certain parameters.
If you are writing blog posts that all have a word count of 1200 words, then you have to develop the skill and knowledge to communicate entire thoughts, arguments, or new ideas within that word count. This is where practicing your word count can really help to improve your ability to communicate.
It may seem like an odd skill to have to learn as a writer, but learning how to communicate ideas, even similar or identical ideas, through varying word counts is a necessity. You may have one message that you need to communicate through a short tweet but then expound upon in a blog post. Word counts help you to understand what your parameters are for communication and then give you the structure to learn how to communicate inside of them.
When Does Word Counting Take Place?
This is the part of writing that is entirely up to your preference and style. Word counting is typically thought of as part of the editing process as you refine, reshape, and edit your work to get it ready to publish. This is where you can hone in on editing your work to fit a specific word count goal. However, the process of word counting can happen as you write.
Sometimes writing can be incredibly difficult and it can be hard to put words to paper. In these instances, it’s just important to get concepts out, and then you workshop them later. However, when it comes to word counting, a valuable skill to develop is learning how to naturally hit your word count goals while creating the raw content.
This skill takes time and practice, but there are tools that can help. The Word Counter is a free, online tool that allows you to have an in-depth analysis that is generated as you write. This tool not only counts your words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, and pages in real-time, but it also provides you with keyword analytics as well as reading time estimates.
Conclusion
Practicing writing for specific word counts with a tool like The Word Counter can help you develop the skill you need to quickly, and organically communicate within specific parameters. Word counting is an important part of growing as an effective writer and learning how to communicate clearly to specific audiences.