February 2016 - Word Counter Blog

How Many Pages Are There in the Bible?

What may appear to be a relatively simple question has, in fact, no single answer. For those looking for a general answer to the question, “How many pages are there in the bible?” the answer would be “The average bible has around 1,200 pages.” This is a general approximation and there are a lot of factors which can make the number of pages of a particular bible be much less or much more than this number. Anyone seeking a definitive answer to the question of the number of pages in the bible needs to realize that a combination of variables can come into play.

What books of the bible have been included?

If one were to take a look at the Catholic bible, for example, the additional books of the Apocrypha (religious texts not found in most bibles) would have to be included. The Apocrypha alone would add a substantial number of pages when compared to a standard bible, such as the King James edition.

While most bibles do not include the Apocrypha, they are at least comprised of both the New and Old testaments. Unfortunately, the rule does not apply to The Living Bible. This version of the bible only includes the New Testament. A bible of this nature would end up having far fewer pages. Since different bible editions include different writings, each edition differs in the number of pages it has.

The format of the bible

Bibles with no pages are more common than you think. In some circles, bibles with no pages are quite the rage. Electronic or digital versions of the bible, without any physical pages, can be easily acquired be being downloaded from the internet or shared via memory cards, CD’s etc.

But there are other factors that influence the number of pages found in any bible. Font, spacing, page width and height; margins and other print related issues would most certainly cause variation in the number of pages in a bible (and why most teachers make assignments by word count instead of page count). A large font, typed in bold and with double spacing would obviously require more pages. The opposite approach, using a small font with single spacing, would require fewer pages. The exact same bible with the exact same number of words will often have a different number of pages depending on how the publisher took these into account.

The specific version of the bible

Certain languages and translations will also impact on how many pages there are in the bible. Great discrepancies can occur even among similar versions. The King James Version of the bible may have more pages than the Revised Standard Version or the New American Standard Version.

Because the number of pages in different bibles varies so dramatically, the name of the book in the bible being referenced, the chapter and verse number help us to be “on the same page” when discussing a biblical text. Biblical scholars realized that different versions and translations of the bible could impede research. Page 20 of my King James Version may be completely different to page 20 of your more modern version. This would lead to confusion.

By slicing the bible into chunks, research can be more accurate. In fact, you can go to an exact phrase in the bible. It’s a system applauded by scholars.

On average, how many pages are in the bible?

If you took a run of the mill, everyday bible, and you managed to count all the pages, you would have the following:

The Old Testament has 929 chapters. It has 23,214 verses which comprise roughly 622,700 words. The New Testament consists of 260 chapters, divided into 7,959 verses or roughly 184,600 words. This would give our typical bible 1,189 chapters. These are made up of 31,173 verses and using a rough word count, this amounts to 807,370 words, although the King James Authorized Bible has 783,137 words.

Using a standard font, the average bible has around 1,200 pages. As a book, the bible is as thick as “The Lord of the Rings” and similar fantasy novel epics. The difference is that the bible contains history and philosophy, and can be used for spiritual guidance. And that, I believe, is the best answer you will ever get to this question.

(Photo courtesy of Ryk Neethling)

10 Ways to Write More Each Day

One of the things most writers would like to be able to do is to write more on a daily basis. While the obvious answer to this problem is to spend more time writing, that’s not always an option. If you like to write or you have a book project brewing in the back of your mind, there are some steps you can take other than to spend more time which has the potential of helping you to get more words down on paper each day.

Set goals and stick to them

If you’re writing a book, you should have an outline of your plot and your chapters in advance. How far do you want to get this week? What should your daily progress be? Set a realistic goal and stick to it even when the going gets tough.

Set milestones, and decide how you’ll celebrate them. Turn it into a game or a challenge. If you know how much you’re progressing every day and want to up the ante, ask a little more of yourself. Are you writing 1,000 words a day? Push it to 1,250, it only takes a few minutes longer, but in four days you’ll have gained an extra day’s worth of progress. Researchers say that we can boost our productivity by as much as 25% just by setting goals.

Use your most productive working time

Many of us find that we progress fastest with our writing in the mornings. Your brain’s still half asleep, but somehow it’s still fresher and you get more writing done. Other people like to write after everyone has gone to sleep. Try writing at different times of the day to determine your most productive time of day and plan your writing time around that.

Use down-time to think things through

Use times when you’re not writing to think about what you’re going to do next. Stirring a pot in the kitchen doesn’t occupy your brain, so use the time to think about where you’re going with your writing. Generate ideas as you sip your morning coffee or while you’re driving around town on errands. Even if you don’t record your thoughts, you’ll have a greater sense of purpose when next you sit down to write.

Don’t try to perfect your writing when you’re in an inspired space

Nobody can be inspired all the time, but when inspiration hits, the faster you can get your ideas down, the more you’re going to get out of the moment. You can always go back and correct things later on, but your inspiration won’t last forever. So write. Be fast. Be furious. Be glaringly inaccurate. You can fix all of that when your brain reverts to plodding along.

Use writing prompts

If you’re blogging, journaling or just writing for fun, getting ideas for something to write can take nearly as much time as the writing itself. There are tons of weird, wonderful, interesting or inspiring writing prompts available online. Pick one at random and go crazy. The creative challenges will sharpen up your thinking, and all that writing practice is sure to improve your skill.

Take breaks

Spending hours at a time hammering away at your writing might not be the best way to boost your productivity. Take breaks every 25 minutes or so, even if it’s just getting a glass of water or looking up from your work and doing a few stretching exercises. It’s a scientifically proven fact that people who cut themselves some slack in the form of short breaks are way more productive than the constant plodders.

Don’t dump your workout

Forget the stereotypes of lumbering (and slightly dim) muscle men and ditzy ‘gym bunnies’. Getting exercise improves your circulation and gets extra oxygen into your bloodstream. And that goes to your brain, helping you to think more creatively and effectively. A study on creative thinking showed that people who did exercise, even light exercise, fared better at a task set to measure creative thinking.

Figure out how you waste time

Relaxing is important, but a lot of the unproductive things we do in our free time aren’t really relaxing. We get annoyed with our TV shows, we aimlessly search the net or we engage in less-than-meaningful interactions on social media. Remember, if it relaxes and refreshes you, it’s productive. If it doesn’t, it might be that cutting out that activity will give you more time to boost your writing productivity.

Shut out distractions

Do people ping you on Skype while you’re writing? Do you have your Facebook tab open and peep to see what’s going down every time you hear a notifier? You could be losing hours of productive time just attending to these ‘little’ distractions. When you return to your work, you have to compose your thoughts all over again, and that wastes time too.

Drink lots of water

This might sound like just another of those ho-hum health tips, but it really works. Think about it. Your body consists mainly of water, and your brain has an even higher percentage of water than the rest of your body. If you’re dehydrated, which many of us are as a matter of course, how can you expect your brain to function at its best? Keep a glass of water handy, and keep on sipping!

(Photo courtesy of inthepotter’shands)

Publisher Word Count for Magazine Writing

When you write an article or manuscript for a magazine, you’ll usually be asked to hit a predetermined word count. There would seem to be nothing complicated about this. It’s the exact reason we created WordCounter. You place your writing into the text area and you instantly know the number of words you have typed. One would assume that magazine editors and other publishers wouldn’t have any issue with this number. The problem is that they likely will.

Why is an accurate word count not useful to many publishers? There is a simple reason that may not seem obvious at first, but it makes a lot of sense once it’s pointed out. Below is the reason why we decided it was important to include a publisher word count in the details section for those who will be submitting their writing for publication.

Word Length

Word Counter counts the individual words written. “He is at a big park” is six words. “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is one word. The problem for publishers is the six words take up 19 character spaces (20 if you place a period at the end) while the single word takes up 34 character spaces. While the length of the words will even itself out to a certain degree over the length of one’s writing, each writer will still produce different length articles even when they have the same word count.

When a publisher asks for a certain number of words, they are doing so in anticipation the writing will be the length needed to fill the space allotted for the article. It’s the space the article fills which is of the utmost importance to the publisher, not the actual word count. The problem is that explaining to the writer the exact length can be complicated, so they give a word count and hope that produces writing that fills the space allotted for the article. An article with unusually long words would likely go over the anticipated length, while an article with many short words would fall short of the length needed by the publisher.

To help make things a bit more accurate, there’s actually a publisher’s specific word count. Instead of counting each individual word, publishers have agreed upon the definition that a “word” is six characters long including blank spaces. This solves the issue of words being different lengths and gives a much more accurate estimate of space an article will use as compared to simply counting individual words. Using this definition, “He is at a big park.” would be three and one-third words (including the period). On the other hand, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” would be five and one-third words.

The Word Counter Publisher Count calculates a word to be six character spaces and applies it to your writing to come up with its total. This isn’t perfect for publishers, but it’s a lot more accurate than counting individual words. If you are submitting work to a publisher, you can ask which of the two methods they would prefer when you attach a word count total to your submission.

50 Creative Writing Ideas and Prompts

When it comes to writing, there are plenty of excuses people use to justify not writing. One of the most common excuses is writer’s block (whether that really exists or not). There’re few things worse than wanting to write but nothing seems to come out. I’ve found over the years that one of the best ways for me to tackle writer’s block is to step away from whatever I happen to be working on at that moment, and just get myself writing again. For me, if I can begin to write anything, then the words begin to flow on the original project where the writer’s block started.

One of the best ways to do this is through creative writing prompts. These appeal to me mainly because they are fresh ideas and I don’t have the inhibition of writing badly since I know I’m the only one who is going to be reading them. The problem is finding new writing ideas to prompt me into writing. With that in mind, and knowing others may also be in a similar situation as I, here are some creative writing ideas to help you beat that writer’s block.

50 Creative Writing Prompts

When it comes to these writing prompts, there are no rules to how you should write. Whether you decide to write a short story, a poem, an essay a haiku or any other form, the main objective is to simply begin writing. Choose ant of the prompts that speaks most to you and let the words begin to flow…

1. Suddenly, I knew…

2. “How long have I got?” she asked.

3. He knew it couldn’t last forever.

4. Suddenly, she began to laugh aloud.

5. Everything had changed, and he knew that he’d have to change too.

6. It had been a terrible year, but at the same time, she wouldn’t have changed a thing because…

7. The old man had looked like an easy victim, but…

8. It was the coldest winter on record, and all the roads were closed.

9. As the storm became fiercer, there was a knock at the door.

10. If my car hadn’t broken down that day, I’d never have…

11. I broke every one of my New Year’s resolutions that day.

12. It was the best summer ever.

13. She could hear the crowd cheering her on.

14. Would you believe that a butterfly could change your life?

15. The traffic policeman scanned the horizon and saw an approaching dust cloud.

16. If only Harry had remembered to close the window.

17. It was the first time I’d ever tried to sail a boat.

18. The world exploded into a rainbow of colors.

19. Sometimes, the wrong thing turns out to be right after all.

20. “You can’t do that!” he exclaimed.

21. I never thought I’d be famous until…

22. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

23. Choose a photo and develop your story around the scene.

24. Pick a family anecdote and turn it into an amusing story.

25. Think of a famous person and write a journal entry as if you were that person.

26. Begin with “I used to believe that” and simply write.

27. I never liked a sore loser…

28. The coals were still smoldering long after midnight.

29. She never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment.

30. He fiddled nervously with his phone and wondered about…

31. Everyone was afraid of Mr. Wilkins.

32. Describe a person’s appearance in a way that reveals something about their character.

33. I have never met a cheekier child.

34. Something strange happens every time I hear that song.

35. I had never cooked a meal before…

36. Today, I knew that I needed a complete change.

37. Choose ten clichés or idioms and find creative ways to say the same thing.

38. We didn’t plan to get lost in the woods.

39. The plane was rapidly losing height. He knew he had only one chance.

40. If only I had remembered what my mother always said.

41. It was the most inspiring thing she had ever seen.

42. He never thought he’d end up being a hero.

43. The silence was more powerful than any scream.

44. Aliens? I never believed in them until…

45. They always called him ‘the mad hermit’, but he was saner than any of us.

46. Imagine being caught in an earthquake or a flood. What happens? What would you do?

47. That day, he discovered that magic was real…

48. A desperately poor man finds a priceless artifact. What happens to him as a result?

49. The strangest dream I ever had.

50. Write a witty essay about writers’ block.

Do you have a good creative writing idea or prompt that has helped you in the past? Or have any of the above prompts made you think of new ones that could benefit other writers? Feel free to share any writing prompts you’d like and we’ll add them to this list!

(Image courtesy of Julie Jordan Scott )