While anything over 50, words can be considered a novel, you should probably aim for between 75, and 90, words for your first novel, if you are looking to attract an agent or publisher. There is an established worldwide market for novels in all genres and an extensive number of competitions to match. There are a number of elements that go into creating an amazing novel, many of which rely upon the skill of the author. The Aaron Mullins website and blog explore all of the most important aspects in depth, to help you become the best writer you can be.
Start with my Free Resources for Authors page. Epics are very long stories, usually around , words per novel, often within the fantasy or historical genres. Epic novels bring great depth to world-building, with many detailed setting and locations described throughout the story.
There are also numerous characters, all of whom undergo individual and group development. Lord of the Rings by J. Tolkien and Game of Thrones by George R. Martin are two examples of epic fantasy. These six core categories are the main writing formats within which we must define our author goals. But which one is fits best to your story ideas and ambitions as a writer? Does one of the above fiction writing formats immediately call out to you? Or have you already completed enough of a word count to fit within one of these categories?
Your target word count will affect how many characters you introduce, how much back story is required and many other aspects of your writing. Therefore, when starting out, it helps to choose a goal that matches your writing ambitions from the start.
You may even have a writing competition or literary magazine in mind, many of which have fixed word lengths for their submissions. Typical word counts are designed to help structure your writing. Writing to a typical word count also helps to focus the mind with a clear goal in mind, which improves motivation and increases our enjoyment of writing as we see clear progress towards our final product.
From an external perspective, readers and agents also tend to look for specific writing forms when choosing what to read, or who to represent. So writing to the average word count one of these six recognised writing forms allows you to be classified and recognised within that particular format. However, once you embark on a writing goal, remember that they are not set in stone. When writing flash fiction, you may generate new ideas that mean your goal changes to a short story.
This is fine and is a natural part of the creative writing process. This will let you see when I publish a new blog post, usually once a month, with free stories, new books, writing tips and author advice. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. When writing a longer book that is aimed at year-olds and could maybe be considered "tween" , using the term "upper middle grade" is advisable.
With upper middle grade, you can aim for 40,, words. You can stray a little over here but not much. Shoot for 20,, words. Learn the differences between middle grade and young adult fiction.
The word round the agent blogosphere is that these books tend to be trending longer, saying that you can top in the 80Ks.
However, this progression is still in motion and, personally, I'm not sure about this. I would say you're playing with fire the higher you go. When it gets into the 80s, you may be all right—but you have to have a reason for going that high. Again, higher word counts usually mean that the writer does not know how to edit themselves.
A good reason to have a longer YA novel that tops out at the high end of the scale is if it's science fiction or fantasy. Once again, these categories are expected to be a little longer because of the world-building. Concerning the low end, below 55K could be all right but I wouldn't drop much below about 47K. The standard is text for 32 pages. That might mean one line per page, or more. When it gets closer to 1,, editors and agents may shy away.
Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. I remember reading some Westerns in high school and, if I recall correctly, they weren't terribly long. There wasn't a whole about this on agent and editor sites, but from what I found, these can be anywhere from 50K to 80K. Memoir is the same as a novel and that means you're aiming for 80,, However, keep in mind when we talked about how people don't know how to edit their work.
This is specially true in memoir, I've found, because people tend to write everything about their life— because it all really happened. Coming in a bit low K is not a terrible thing, as it shows you know how to focus on the most interesting parts of your life and avoid a Bill-Clinton-esque tome-length book.
At the same time, you may want to consider the high end of memoir at 99, Again, it's a mental thing seeing a six-figure length memoir.
You have agents like Nathan Bransford now formerly an agent and Kristin Nelson who say that you shouldn't think about word count, but rather you should think about pacing and telling the best story possible—and don't worry about the length.
Yes, they're right, but the fact is: Not every agent feels that way and is willing to give a ,word debut novel a shot. Agents have so many queries that they are looking for reasons to say no. They are looking for mistakes, chinks in the armor, to cut their query stack down by one.
And if you adopt the mentality that your book has to be long, then you are giving them ammunition to reject you.
Take your chances and hope that excellent writing will see your baby through no matter and I hope it does indeed break through. But I believe that we cannot count on being the exception; we must count on being the rule. That's the best way to give yourself your best shot at succeeding. And no agents or publishers would even look past that number. For that matter, how long should any book be? How many words are in a typical novel? Word count matters because every book, regardless of genre, has an inherent contract with the reader.
Thrillers tend to be 70, to 90, words. My point is that your genre will likely dictate your word count. There are exceptions, like YA books that exceed , words , but those tend to be outliers, and first-time authors rarely, if ever, get to be an outlier.
Additionally, knowing your word count before you start writing can help you better plan your narrative arc as well as your writing schedule. Big, epic stories get anywhere from , to , words.
The Old Man and the Sea was about 25 to 30, words, tops. Coyne uses the Nanowrimo word-count length of 50, words for his examples, calling 50, words a good foundation to build upon. Editorial trimming is inevitable. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as the definitive word count you must reach in your book. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. You can also track word count in Scrivener.
The average single-spaced document typed in point font contains about words per page , but that can vary pretty drastically depending on your formatting. So, if you have an hour to write and aim to get down words, you might wonder, how many pages is words — and the answer is less than one! Doable, right? Your answer here is pages. This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. Blake Atwood is an editor, author and ghostwriter in Dallas, where he buys far more books than he has time to read.
I really need some help in the writing world. I am a newbie having written word literary fiction manuscript. Is enough or should I add some content?
I have already finalized the work. One of the hardest writing tasks in the world is adding content to a novel when you have already said everything you thought you needed to say and the story feels complete as written. I suggest that instead of embarking on this difficult task, you enjoy your first book as what it is, your first completed manuscript. Most people who dream of writing a novel never begin, and most who begin never finish.
Go ahead with whatever publication plans you have for your book, whether self-publication, seeking a commercial publisher, or soliciting literary agents for representation. Realize as you do so that its length at the lower end of the range may handicap it somewhat. As a result, your first novel may not be your first bestseller.
It will still be your firstborn forever. In the meantime, nudge your heart toward your next book, making use of all the things you learned by writing the first one.
One of those lessons can be to start with a slightly more complex story so that the length is likely to end up a bit longer, but naturally.
All of this is very good information. And yes, I do believe having super long manuscripts published as novels is the exception and not the rule. My current manuscript, a family drama with a bit of murder, attempted rape, blackmail, domestic violence, underage sex, illicit drug use etc. Nice to know that at 75k words I'm okay. As stated at the very very end of the article.
The importance is the telling showing a good story. If it takes 20, words or , words to convey, then that's what it is. I also wonder if today there is a need to adjust these so called "standards" as I think readers are more inclined to shorter books especially of lesser known's. For indies, the sales statistics check the Smashwords surveys the last few years tend to dispute that; their best-selling sized books are over k in length.
My personal preference for crime fiction is towards the shorter end - around 60, is often a sweet spot but it is completely dependent on the story. The word counts being described here are still being driven by the traditional publishing industry that likes book spines of a certain thickness. Readers have, to some extent, been conditioned to think of this as being the 'right' length but I don't think it stands up to scrutiny. Crime fiction is my interest and I've read so many books of 75,, that are far too long with meandering uninspiring sub-plots.
Many authors would be happy to cut these extraneous scenes but they are obliged to submit manuscripts of a certain length. Thanks for the post - it is useful to have guides and discuss this but that last para should be writ large. Indie published authors need to make story their number one priority. Talent is essential when writing a book - knowledge is key. Maybe it's because I'm an avid fantasy reader as well as a writer of fantasy fiction, but I LOVE big, fat epic length books.
I love spending a long time in a world, really getting to know the characters. The same translates into my preference for TV series over films. I hardly ever watch movies. They seem unsatisfyingly short to me although there are, of course, plenty of great movies out there. My first novel currently sits at K and will probably push K by the time it's finished.
And it's only the first book in a series. At the moment, I don't see how I could really make it shorter without compromising the story arc, and neither do I want to. Well done, Eloise McInerney, for being true to your vision instead of trying to fit your story into the Procrustean bed of industry-standard word lengths. My debut novel, too, is very robust. In its first form it was pushing , words.
Demchick, will help me get there! However I am very happy that he believes "every story has its natural length" and that "the most important thing is the quality of the novel itself. Less is not always more.
Glad to hear that someone else shares my love of big books. We'll just have to convince those publishers that big really is better ;-p Good luck with your novel, I hope it succeeds.
I agree that stories all have their natural length, and epic is called epic for a reason! Just self-published my first novel on Amazon -- , words. It's a contemporary fantasy. I had several reasons for taking the self-publish route and length was one of them. I had read too mant articles that expressed the same sentiments as this one. None of my beta readers complained about the length. In fact, most commented that they weren't ready to say goodbye to the characters and they want a second book.
One drawback of self-publishing a hefty book, though, is that it costs more for the physical copy. My first novel thriller came in at , words after the first edit.
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