Average length of a short novel

Oct 21, 2009 a story is technically a novel at 50000 words, but this would be a very slim novel. The skys the limit for the maximum length, though anything over 250,000 is getting into war and peace territory. The average adult novel runs approximately 100,000 words while those in other categories run 80120,000 words. Within the publishing industry we tend to talk about the length of a book in words. As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. You can use comparable, successful books as models to determine the length you book should be. As weve talked about before how well does short fiction sell in ebook form. For adult fiction especially crime, thrillers, womens fiction, saga and romance, 100,000 words is a good benchmark to aim for. Average sentence lengths of famous novels and authors.

Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. I heard 10,000 words can be accepted as an e book at a short length at least for nonfiction. Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. If the average length is 300 pages, youre looking at a 75,000 word manuscript. Tolkiens the lord of the rings trilogy has an enormous word. Id guesstimate that nonfiction books generally yes, this is very rough run perhaps 150450 pages, and at about 350 wdpage that works out to something like 50150k words. There are general guidelines for each literary category. As an interesting side note, amazons text stats show that the average length of all books on amazon is about 64,000 words.

This is a normal novel length in almost every genre. May 12, 2012 if you are writing a standard length novel, aim for 80,000 to 95,000 words. Some will tell you 2,500 words is the average, while others will say that 3,000 to 5,000 word chapters are more likely to be the norm. Typically a writer will have published most or all of the stories in other venues and then work with an agent to market the collection. Ill walk along published may 12, 2011 has an average chapter length of 1,021. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. Short story collections are notoriously had to place over the transom.

At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. If your story justifies the length, you neednt worry if you get up to 150,000 words, or even 180,000. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. What is the average length of a novel, book, short story, novelette, novelella or flash fiction. Possibly the greatest short novel ever written, the haunting, hypnotic pages of conrads heart of darkness are as rich, strange and savage as. Find out the different opinions on story lengths here. With that in mind, a good length to shoot for in your scenes is the length of a newspaper story, about 750 words.

Aug 05, 2019 a short story could provide material for a single programlength television episode, a novella for a movie, and a fulllength novel for a miniseries. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Right now, when it comes to novel length word count, its all about 90,000 words. What do most writers see as a good average chapter length. He claims that 121,000 is the average successful ebook length. May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. I enjoy writing novel length fiction, but those 100,000. Im working towards being an author, but you have to start small. If you picked up a scifi or historical novel from a bookshelf, you wouldnt be surprised if it was pretty hefty and probably had a dragon on the cover. I started writing but im not sure how long this story should be. The average fantasy novel should have between 50,000 and 150,000 words. Smiley lists novels as typically being between 100,000 and 175,000 words, while national novel writing month requires its novels to be at least 50,000 words. Aug 05, 2010 because it gives the opportunity to new short story writers to be known faster than a long novel,which sometimes does not really clarify in a short period of time, the values of writing and expressing the feelings, the characters whatever the author s style is in language and literary themes of all genres and subjects.

Within short stories, there is a further breakdown to define super short stories as flash and microflash. Feb 18, 2012 why modern novelists need to watch their weight. However, book length varies widely between genres, among authors, and based on the content of the book. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Oct 18, 2017 but chapter word count is something that you want to keep in mind for future edits. Several years ago, my son wrote a short story that i found to be very good, as did many of his teachers. Each chapter will consist of one or more scenes that contribute to the development of the story. T he indie author chris fox coined the term potato chip chapters for easilydigestible book chapters of a certain size. Yet any piece of fiction climbing over the 110,000 word mark also tends to give editors. This is a fairly short book, but it packs a spiritual punchand the 5 x 8 trim size is perfect to read this book sitting on the beach or on park bench. Sep 18, 2017 in comparison, the database gives an average length of 89,000 words for adult fiction excluding fantasy, smack in the middle of the commonlycited range of 80,000100,000. Most print publishers prefer a minimum word count of around 70,000 words for a first novel, and some even hesitate for any work shorter than 80,000. A short story is usually a fictional story that is too short to be published by itself.

How long is the typical short story supposed to be. A short story has a word count of under 20,000 words though anything over 10,000 puts it into that no mans land along with novellas where its a long slog. Precise word count definitions will vary, but as a general rule of thumb, a short story is anything up to about 7500 words sometimes 10,000, with. But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer, lengths may also vary by subgenre. You might be more surprised if a ya novel required olympianlevel arm strength to lift. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Trim sizes in this post were updated on january 30, 2015 as soon as you get serious about selfpublishing a book, you are confronted with the choice of what size your book ought to be for instance, if you want to get a price on how much a book will cost to print, the first thing you need to know is. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. A short story has a word count of under 20,000 words though anything over 10,000 puts it into that no mans land along with novellas where its. Before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think about the purpose behind dividing a book into chapters.

I always think it should reflect the intended use of the synopsis and what kind of document your trying to summarise. Does anyone know the average length of a short story. These days, editors of literary magazines are readily publishing short stories of approximately 3,500 words, and they are shying away from longer works. It doesnt have to be exact, but its there to guide writers. Why modern novelists need to watch their weight books the. However, many authors, frustrated with the low price of ebooks, have taken to writing ebooks that are between 40,000 and 50,000. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel.

Classification of fiction by length school for champions. If you set yourself a target of 85,000 words, youll know that if you fall short of that average figure, your story is either lacking in substance, or it doesnt have enough fuel to be a full length novel without some serious editing, and would. So, with all of this in mind, is there actually an average word count you should aim for. I guess 50,000 is a short novel and some early novels before goes as low as 40,000 which can be considered to be a novella. That means 75,000 words equals 300 pages, which is just about perfect for a first novel. The english word novella derives from the italian novella, feminine of novello, which means new. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. The average short story should run anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 words, but they can be anything above 1,000 words. I like that poe defines the short story form largely by focusing on the readers interaction with the text, and i.

Short stories range anywhere from 1,500 to 30,000 words. In the publishing industry, 250 words is considered a printed page of text. Keep in mind that a few of these are translations of foreignlanguage novels, so the statistics will not be perfect for those. Bearing in mind if you opt for a shorter word count, you might not be able to print on the spine should you set up a print document. When i got back home i checked and found that her latest book published april 1, 2014, ive got you under my skin, has an average chapter length of 768 words. Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novellas word count to be between 15,000 and 40,000 words, although definitions vary. Below is a short list of some famous novels and authors with their respective writing statistics. Books can be as short as 25,000 words, around 100 pages, or as long as 3 million words, or about 1,000 pages. A good, short literary novel might be 60,000 words. Oct 10, 2016 the right answer to how long should my book be. You may object that your 200,000word saga is exactly as long as it needs to be. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature. Often a novellette length work is difficult to sell to a publisher.

Debut authors have a hell of a time finding representation for short story collections. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. This type of book should not go more than 200 pages, so 40,000 words is probably your max. This book has 144 pages, so it contains about 28,800 words. So wouldnt it be better to aim for a specific lengthlike a range of words. May 10, 2016 heres the general rule for any book published traditionally or self pubbed. Although a short story could be as long as 30,000 words, stories of that length begin to become too bulky for their genre. A short story has a word count of under 20,000 words though anything over 10,000 puts it into that no mans land along with novellas where its a long slog for a short story but too short for anything resembling a novel. Before the advent of ebooks, modern fiction writers concerned themselves chiefly with two lengths. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook.

While 50,000 words is a fairly firm minimum, plenty of ya books reach up to 100,000 words, with a sweet spot at 75,00080,000. But to answer marcs question, a short story usually runs 48k words. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. As you say, its all a matter of the natural length of the story. While anything over 40,000 words can fall into the novel category, 50,000 is considered the minimum novel length. I dont want it to be too short, but not too long to where im basically writing another novel. Unlike a chapter book, it can usually be read or told in one sitting. On average, a printed novel contains about 80,000 words. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing.

In comparison, the database gives an average length of 89,000 words for adult fiction excluding fantasy, smack in the middle of the commonlycited range of 80,000100,000. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. For fiction, i recommend 5,000 words or more for short stories. You can go a little longer or shorter, but 750 words should be enough to tell a fully formed story. Classification by length includes short short stories, short stories and book length.

Typically, a book that is published in paperback format at a length of 300400 pages will come in between 80,000 and 100,000 words. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. On the light end of the spectrum, there were five titles that averaged between 25 and 30 words per paragraph. Oct 27, 2018 chapter length matters more than you think. In terms of competitions, short story length is usually between 1,000 and 5,000 words, although i have seen short story competitions with a 17,000 word maximum. Indeed, the english word novel derives from an italian word. To save the time and effort of counting wordbyword, often a rule of thumb for the average number of words per.

A little flesh on the bones may be necessary for a novel to be a comfortable, enjoyable, satisfying read, but excess padding will dilute the impact of the story and ruin it. You can write as short or as extended a chapter as you want, with as many scenes in each that you want. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. For a novel, i would recommend at least 50,000 words in length. I have a great novel that i want to at least have a word count of 50k. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. Ive seen short story anthologies that are in the range of novella length all the way up to more than 150k words. Every category will have an average length, including childrens books, young adult, business books, etc.

I was surprised when smashwords founder, mark coker, revealed that on average, as word count decreases, so do sales. If you do have shorter scenes, set them next to longer scenes. Not that it is by any means impossible to expand or contract as needed for a different match, but that will give a sense of how much material is in each. Anything over 110,000 words is considered too long for a fiction novel. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. While 50,000 words is a fairly firm minimum, plenty of ya books reach up to 100,000 words, with a. With the rise of ebooks, though, that isnt such a problem anymore. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. For that group, a novel is more than 40k words, a novella is 17. Sep, 2010 of course, foundation posts work best for this, and ive started with a blog post dating from 2010, and one of the more popular destinations for search traffic, selfpublishing basics. Apr 05, 2015 i appreciated your information on word count and novel length, particularly since you broke it down by genre. Literary agent danielle zigner takes a look at typical novel lengths per genre and what appeals to publishers within the current marketplace. Jan 16, 2011 even quite a short novel can be obese.

Although marquez has an average word count of 2,412 words and overall his short story lengths are quite consistent at the high 2000s, he also has a flash fiction. However, the true word count depends on the category in which youre writing. In general, it is between 3 and 50 pages long and would take between 1090 minutes to tell. With the advent of digital publishing, the terms novella and novelette have taken on a new significance in the 17th century, the word novel referred to a book length story shorter than a romance. Alternatively, this is an acceptable length for a short work of nonfiction. Perkins agency in new york says its much easier to market a firsttime novelists book if the word count falls between 80,000 and 100,000 words, or roughly 300 doublespaced, typed pagesthe average novel length.

A first book, is preferred by publishing houses to be anywhere from 60000 90000, any more than that and apparently, they tell you to do some slashing, because they dont want to risk spending lots of money on print costs then have you novel be just like the other thousands of novels out there that dont make. For a long time, this was kind of the grey area of fictiontoo long to be a short story, too short to be a novel and many people didnt write works this long because it was almost impossible to get them published. My friend has told me to start with some short stories. Ive always been fond of edgar allen poes description of the short story as a work of fiction that can be read in a single sitting. Someone told me that i should write some short stories and submit them to local magazines and stuff, and try to get them published. A novella is a work of narrative prose fiction, longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. What is a good length for a selfpublished book on amazon. Mar 20, 2018 precise word count definitions will vary, but as a general rule of thumb, a short story is anything up to about 7500 words sometimes 10,000, with higher word counts typically called novelettes, and short novels called novellas. A very good, very short one might be as little as 45 or 50,000.

We are storytellers writing one scene story at a time. Some people might regard this as a novelette or novella. Novelist jane smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. Precise word count definitions will vary, but as a general rule of thumb, a short story is anything up to about 7500 words sometimes 10,000, with higher word counts typically called novelettes, and short novels called novellas. How to explain this dramatic shift, and whether the trend will continue, remains to be seen. In the traditional publishing world, its a length that publishers would avoid due to increased printing costs.