It’s not the word COUNT that matters - it’s the word USE
If you can tell your story in 70,000 words, then you’ve told your story
My girlfriend finished a sci-fi novel last year and it’s with her editor/publisher now (so I have no idea what the published word count will be...) - I helped her with spacecraft mechanics and Mars geography details, but I wouldn’t be much help with the ‘storytelling’ I don’t think...
Yep. There's no way to know if "typical" is "the right size" for your story until it's written. And then, who cares? Some hired reader at a publishing house? Pff!
Brevity is treasured by many readers (especially after hearing a Kamala answer).
“Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know”
—attributed to Lao Tzu.
When historian Will Durant, co-author with his wife Ariel of the 10 volume Story of Civilization (13,549 pages) was asked what he could say to sum up the findings of his research he said:
“Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say.”