@joyR
It is interesting that word counts in the millions are suggested necessary to tell the story of two characters over a period of time.
Meaningless objection without defining the period of time.
As an example, Tolstoy managed "War and Peace" in 587,287 words. Granted one might consider themselves a better writer than Tolstoy
Or one could just not think Tolstoy was that great of a writer. Haven't read war and peace myself, but from what I've read, a lot of people consider it a difficult read and not just because of the length.
Oh, and War and Peace was originally written/published as 4 separate books.
shouldn't a better writer be able to tell a better story with fewer words.?
No, not necessarily. It depends on the story.
Trying to tell a story in the fewest possible words purely for the sake of telling the story in the fewest possible words does not make one a "better" writer.
Some praise quantity, others quality.
And some think quality and quantity are interdependent and that less in terms of quantity does not always make for better quality.