How does Novelcrafter count words?
Novelcrafter takes into account context when giving the wordcounts for your stories, so may appear different to other writing software.
You may notice that Novelcrafter’s word count doesn’t always match other writing applications. This is completely normal and occurs because different applications use different rules for determining what constitutes a “word boundary” - the invisible lines that separate one word from another.
Different applications interpret punctuation, symbols, and special characters differently when deciding where one word ends and another begins.
Novelcrafter considers the following boundaries:
- Hyphenated words are considered as one word. For example: “heavy-handed”, “non-fiction”, “not-so-good” are all considered as one word.
- Em-dashes are also treated as boundaries. As such, “I was about to leave for the party—then the phone rang.” is considered to be 12 words.
- Symbols in a group, such as “[…]” are not considered a word.
- Connecting periods/ellipses are considered to be a boundary. “I am…not sure” is considered to be four separate words.
Word counting involves complex decisions about punctuation and symbols and can differ wildly between languages. Apps prioritize different aspects, like technical accuracy, user expectations, or industry standards, leading to these variations.