As you surely know, a piece of writing needs a certain length to qualify as a novel. That length is measured in words, not pages. Why? Because the number of pages can vary critically because of the differences in format (margins, font, page layout…). Word count parameters are held by the publishing industry and they help them regulate and evaluate submissions.
Whether the industry (agents, editors, publishers) will consider the word count of your novel acceptable or not is going to depend on various factors: the genre, whether you are a debut author or not, and others that we’ll be analyzing in this post. Also, we’ll be offering tips that you can apply to your next project.
So, if you want to know what is the word count sweet spot you need to hit with your novel, keep reading because we’ll explain it all.
Now, without further ado, let’s get into it.
1. The count
Having a clear idea of how many words our project needs to be considered what we want it to be is only logical. However, if you are an avid reader, you will know for sure that books have different lengths, there are 100, 300, and even 1000 or 5000-pages books. Books come in all shapes and sizes. What I mean by this is that you should tell the story you want to tell, and let it grow naturally.
That being said, let’s take a look at some parameters:
Short stories: They can be 1,500 to 30,000 words long.
Novellas: Somewhere around: 10,000 to 40,000
Novels: They vary between 50,000 and 100,000 words, those of 50,000 are considered short novels, and are not very popular with publishers; and those longer than 90,000 as long novels. The majority of the novels published today are 70,000 to 100, 000 words.
Count by genre:
Romance: between 70,000 and 100,000 words.
Science fiction, adventure, and fantasy: They are almost always the ones that cover the highest number of words, with a count between 90,000 and 120,000, although in some cases they can reach 150,000.
Suspense, horror, crime and mystery: They range from 70,000 to 90,000.
Non-Fiction Category:
Standard (Business, Political Science, History): between 70,000 and 80,000 words.
Biographies: from 80,000 to 200,000.
Self-help: between 40,000 and 50,000.
2. Word Count can help you with Structure
Keeping track of the word count as you make progress with your novel is a great hack that can help you nail story structure. Let’s say for example that the final objective you have for your current project is 80k words, which is probably the safest number to aim for in any genre you pick for your novel.
And let’s also say that you are using the 3-act story structure (This structure is great, why wouldn’t you use it? Click here to know more about it.) This structure offers clear, effective guidelines that tell you where you need to go with your novel and when.
We know that the first act should make up for the first 25 percent of your novel (give and take), then the 2nd Act covers the middle 50% and the 3rd Act, the remaining 25%. This means that the end of my first act will occur around the 20k mark and that the second act will finish at the 60k mark. With this, it’s easy to control your word count and story pace.
Also, the Three-Act structure tells us that the inciting incident should occur around the 10% mark; midpoint, 50%, and the climax, 90%. With easy, little math; the structure, and word count of your novel can come together and make your life much easier.
This kind of data is something authors know and use. Of course, they are not rigid rules. Make sure you bend them a little here and there so they accommodate your needs and those of your novel.
3. Why does the word count matter?
Word count is one of the elements agents and publishers look at first, at the time of accepting a manuscript or not. Just by looking at the number of words the novel has, they can know many things.
For example, first-time writers with stories longer than 100k are hardly accepted for publishing. These long stories carry a risk that many publishers prefer to avoid, since, as it is well known, the higher the number of words, the higher the cost to the market. Therefore, publishers can’t risk expending so much money on the production of a book that they can’t be sure will sell well. They can’t risk that kind of money on it. Remember publishers make money on your book, only after the book has sold. Of course, consumed authors with a readership can get longer books published with any risk, because publishers know, these authors have people waiting for the books to come out. So no risk there.
But a book that is too long also means that your pacing is probably off or that you have scenes or information that you don’t need for the development of the story. So, they’ll need to work a lot on it to make it shorter and tighter and that’s just time they don’t have.
On the contrary, if your novel is too short, let’s say, 50k or 60k, it probably means that your story is not complex enough, that your subplots are not well developed (or not developed at all), or that your MC is not facing enough challenges, which means an unsatisfactory ending for the novel, which means a loss in readership. If an agent or publisher sees this, they’ll know that the piece of work will need too much work to get it to a point where it is sellable, and again, that’s just time they don’t have.
So, if you want to go down the road of traditional publishing, it’s important that you take all this into account.
4. Genre-related issues
As we showed before, different genres work with different word count ranges and we’ll explain why in just a minute. Let’s compare a contemporary novel to a fantasy or science fiction one. What’s different between those two that can cause a difference in the word count? The answer is simple: worldbuilding.
When we write contemporary, we are using the same world we live in. There’s no much to explain in there, except maybe for the city in which it develops or the social aspects that are relevant to the story: a college, workplace, etc… But that would be it. We assume that city, college, or workplace exists by the same rules we all know and are part of.
However, for a fantasy or science fiction novel, we are creating a new world with our own rules, characteristics, creatures, social interactions, etc. All of this requires a certain amount of words to explain. Words that we don’t need to use in contemporary for example. That’s why this kind of genres are expected to be longer than the average. But careful! If you are a debut author, you still need to keep it under 100k, for the reasons we explained before.
Another good example is the case of crime, thriller, or horror novels, for you will need shorter and more direct sentences and a very tight plot. You can’t leave any room for distractions or you risk losing your reader’s attention. If your detective novel is too long, then maybe it means your detective is wandering around for too much time, and that means your pacing is off and some parts of your story lead to nowhere or are just boring.
5. Beyond the first draft
Your novel will vary a lot from your first draft to its final version. So don’t get too worried about hitting the exact word count the first time around. Revisions bring many changes: Scenes you need to add or delete, descriptions that you need to make more vivid, character development you need to work on, characters that disappear because you realize you don’t really need them, etc.
All of these changes will be reflected on your final word count. All I’m saying is that the first draft won’t stay like that. It’ll grow and evolve and sometimes that means fewer words or on the contrary, more words.
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6. You can’t force your story to be something it’s not
Yes, of course, it is necessary to consider a number of words, but, as I said, do not obsess with it. I need to highlight this part of the article, I don’t want you to get obsess with getting the right number of words. Do not think – O.K, I’ve got 60,000 words, so I need to finish the novel ASAP-. Let your story flow naturally, you’ll have time to edit it afterwards.
Many times it happens that when we are writing our first book, we are filled with anxiety, and we think too much about finally finishibg our book. We have too many questions: When will the end come? When can I finish it? How much time do I have left? Will I reach my goal? It’s not bad that you have these recurring thoughts, but you can’t let them dominate you.
So, if you decided to reach a certain number of words and finish writing in a period of time, do not press the words, do not run, do not rush to reach the end when you feel that you are approaching the limit number, this will only result in a hasty end, underdeveloped characters, dead-end fragments, unfinished and little exploited scenes, an unbalanced internal structure, with a too-long introduction, a rushed development and a mediocre resolution.
In summary, it is not only about writing for the sake of writing, if you do not have a good prior approach, a study, and analysis of the characters, structure, and possible arguments, in addition to the possible elements and resources that intervene in a literary work, you will be able to achieve the expected figure, but nothing more. It will only be a number.
Also, not every idea has the potential to be a novel. And that’s perfectly ok. Some ideas are born to be short stories and will work better that way. Adding words here and there for the sake of adding them, won’t do good to your plot. Don’t force things. Enjoy the process of writing what you want to write. That’s all.
7. You got this!
At first these numbers might seem scary. I know. The first time you get to your computer and know that there are around 80k words that need to be written, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
Writing a novel takes time. Yes, it does. But it is so worth it!!
Make sure you plan ahead and commit to a plan. Get to know your characters and your plot before you start writing. Consistency is key! Don’t give up. You have a unique story inside yourself that will only see the light if you commit to it. I believe in you.
Get a writing partner with which you can discuss your writing goals for the week. Create a habit, study the structure, and just do it! The words will come. I promise.
Summing up our word count knowledge…
Let’s sum up some important factors we’ve discussed here today:
- Novels are measured in words, not pages.
- The publishing industry holds certain word count standards that vary according to the genre and if you are a debut author or not.
- Your story length will vary a lot from the first draft to the final version.
- If you are a debut author, do not exceed the 100k when submitting your story, it’s a deal-breaker.
- Research your genre and category and see what is expected from that specific kind of work.
- Word count can really help you nail your story structure
- Don’t force your story to be something it’s not.
- 80k is a safe number to aim for when writing a novel.
- It might seem difficult at first, but you’ve got this!
I hope you found this article useful and that you start applying all the knowledge in here right away.
Let us know in the comments what kind of story you are writing and how many words you’ve written so far.
Best of lucks!