Character count with spaces

Meaning

Character count with spaces is the number of all characters plus spaces, excluding line breaks. Korean word processors and most editors show both "with spaces" and "without spaces", and the web novel industry mostly uses the former. Where English publishing uses word count, Korean spacing is irregular enough that character count became the standard. The count without spaces is typically 75 to 80 percent of the count with them.

Why it matters

Episode length, contest eligibility and manuscript fees are all set by this number. Paid web novel practice is 5,000 to 5,500 characters with spaces per episode; Naver's official serialization and some contests ask for 6,000 or more. Major contests phrase eligibility as "at least 30 episodes or 120,000 characters". The catch is that platforms and editors count slightly differently. Some count line breaks, some do not, and quotation marks in dialogue are handled inconsistently. Every writer should compare their editor's figure against the platform's upload screen at least once.

Example

The same manuscript measured three ways:

Draft A (dialogue-heavy episode): 5,120 with spaces / 3,890 without / 3,610 without punctuation Draft B (description-heavy): 5,080 with spaces / 4,210 without / 4,150 without punctuation

The two drafts are nearly identical with spaces but differ by over 300 characters without. Dialogue raises the share of spaces because of line breaks and short sentences. Depending on which standard a platform uses, Draft A might be judged "short".

Common mistakes

• Hitting 5,000 on the without-spaces figure. With spaces that is over 6,500, and the episode runs long. Check the standard first.
• Ignoring the dialogue ratio. A dialogue-heavy episode reads faster at the same count. Character count and felt length are different things.
• Padding description to reach the count. 5,000 is closer to a ceiling than a goal. If the event is over, stopping at 4,500 is better.