Word Counts In Summaries

Do you put word counts in your summaries?
Do you like or dislike them?
Why do you put them in summaries? Why not?

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Yes, I do.

I like them.

I put them in summaries because I write so many oneshots in such varying lengths and I know I want to be warned if something is 50,000 words or if it's only 12. I like to know what I'm getting into and I figure others do as well.

I put them in my summary but only for oneshots or contest entries if that makes sense. I mean I would never do that for a longer story.

I do it because of the same reason that you said. I think it's useful for the reader, it's a heads up as to what they're getting into.

I tend to do it for every story I write, although I generally don't write chaptered stories anyway.
I think it mostly stems from writing on LiveJournal, where pretty much everyone puts word counts on their stories. I like to know if I'm reading a 90k, 10k or 500 word fic.

When I went and added up my cumulative word count on Mibba, having word counts on everything really helped, too, but that's just an added perk.

Saul Hudson:

I put them in my summary but only for oneshots or contest entries if that makes sense. I mean I would never do that for a longer story.

I do it because of the same reason that you said. I think it's useful for the reader, it's a heads up as to what they're getting into.

I do the same thing, I would never put word counts on my chaptered fics. Then again, most of the oneshots I write are for contests, so I kinda have to put the word count. I don't think I'd include a word count if I wrote a oneshot that wasn't for a contest, just because I don't think the number of words should matter. The reader can just skim and judge if they think it's too long to read at that moment without having to include a word count.

I have included word counts on chaptered fics. Sometimes I put it in the summary at the end or I'll include the word count per chapter in the chapter description.

When I post my NaNo story, I'm going to point out that I wrote it for NaNo and it's just over 50k.

I, too, only really put word counts in contest entries. I've never really felt the need to do it for anything else besides that.

The only chaptered fic I've put a word count in is my NaNo, and that's because I'm proud of it xD [/egotisical]

I've actually never thought much about putting word count in my summaries. I probably should in my one-shots, but unless I have copied something over from Word (which I haven't done in a while actually) that's a lot of work for my lazy soul. I'm sort of indifferent to a word count when others do it, but I will admit it looks pretty professional.

Icamane-Caroling:

I, too, only really put word counts in contest entries. I've never really felt the need to do it for anything else besides that.

The only chaptered fic I've put a word count in is my NaNo, and that's because I'm proud of it xD [/egotisical]

I know what you mean.
I'm proud of my NaNo too.
Maybe i'll put the word count in my finished stories too though.
After all it would be easier to do the entire Mibba word count like Dru said if all the words counts were posted.

I don't. I don't feel the need, really. :/

Saul Hudson:

After all it would be easier to do the entire Mibba word count like Dru said if all the words counts were posted.

See, I just opened all my documents and used the word count on MS Word to get totals.
But I do like the idea for putting them in completed chaptered stories, except I'd have to do it after I won't touch it anymore, because I have this annoying habbit of going back and changing things even after they're complete xD

I only put them in stuff for contests. They drive me nuts. It's kind of like it gives you this annoying hint at a present that throws you off.

Icamane-Caroling:

See, I just opened all my documents and used the word count on MS Word to get totals.
But I do like the idea for putting them in completed chaptered stories, except I'd have to do it after I won't touch it anymore, because I have this annoying habbit of going back and changing things even after they're complete xD

That's why I started doing something like ~7800 instead of 7816.

Double, so, uh, I'll just add something.

What I really like about word counts is that they can actually tell you a lot about the way a story is going to be told. If I read this really interesting summary and then I read it's only 600 words, I know it's probably going to be more introspective as to what a character was thinking during a duration or something like that. If I read it's 10,000 words, I know I'll probably get something that happened before this summary and then during and after with more layers.

I'm not saying longer is better or anything, but how long a story is does tend to have an affect on the way it's told. And that's important to me as a reader.

My summaries are pretty much just one-liners, sometimes from the story, and my stories are almost always one-shots or drabbles, so I add the word count to give readers an idea of how short or long my 'short fiction' supposedly is. And I myself prefer seeing them to give me an idea about how much time will go into reading the story.

Also because I usually don't have much else to add to the summary box

Honestly oneliners in the summary can be really nice

I guess my thing is that word counts make the story seem cheesy. You don't pick up a novel and look for the word count in it do you? If you wanna know how long the story is, click and look how far you have to scroll down.

kiss dru's . . .:

Do you guys put word counts in your summaries?
Do you like or dislike them?
Why do you put them in summaries? Why not?

I sometimes put word counts in the summaries of drabbles/one-shot (for drabbles more than one-shots).

I don't mind them really but I don't ever pay attention to it when reading other stories.

I put them in for myself, for the most part, so that when I'm using the Drabble or One Shot commenting threads, I know which ones I can include (w/o having to re-open the Word doc and do the word-count thing there). I make sure to put it in my drabbles because I know that there's a bunch of different accepted definitions on Mibba, so I like to add it there so readers know what their getting into.

cho-nee-dono:

I guess my thing is that word counts make the story seem cheesy. You don't pick up a novel and look for the word count in it do you? If you wanna know how long the story is, click and look how far you have to scroll down.

But novels and internet published fics (especially oneshots) are very different.

I don't write novels. If I did, I wouldn't put a word count on it. But I don't write novels.

^ I was using those as an example.

cho-nee-dono:

^ I was using those as an example.

I thought you were using them as a comparison. My bad.