Robert Lanford

Writing Fantasy: By the Numbers

My fantasy novel is humming along at a decent, though somewhat glacial, pace. However, the project is so big and (at least for me) so ambitious, that I have had to find milestones or accomplishments to help keep me excited and focused on my goals.

I am officially in chapter nine, and during a short break from writing, I got curious and asked myself the question:

“How many different people, places, and events have I created in those nine chapters?”

My curiosity peaked, I did some quick number crunching and here is what I came up with.

Fantasy By the Numbers:

• 63 – Unique First Names

• 107 – Historical Events

• 28 – Cities

• 61 – Unique Locations

• 128 –  Total Encyclopedia/Reference Guide Entries

All of this was done in:

• 63 – Pages

• 9 – Chapters

• 31814 – Words

There is still a long way to go to the finish line. I am only about one-seventh of the way to my desired length (approx. 210,000 words), so I’ll try and update these stats as I go along.

On a related note, I would like to thank everyone who read the excerpt I posted and gave me your feedback. I really enjoyed sharing that chapter. If everything goes as planned, I hope to have a second excerpt up by the end of this month, so be sure to check back in soon.