Number of words?

[Zuneida]

How many words make up a good novel. I'm sure there must be a round about number. Can all you experts please let me know.

Thank you

[seun]

There's no definite answer for that because the length of a book doesn't automatically have anything do with its quality.

As with certain other issues, size doesn't matter. ;)

[Leigh Walker]

I am certainly no expert, I am sure you will get some of them to jump in, but if you ask me, a good novel should be as long as it needs to be to be good. However, I have heard that agents and publishers want it to be between 80,000 and 100,000 words. my current WIP is 106,000 and the experts here have suggested I cut it down.

[Zuneida]

thanks guys..(nice one seun)..

Leigh I also heard that 60 000+ is appropriate. I guess like you say, it needs to be as long as it is good. Great advice.

[Julie Worth]

It's a matter of probabilities and genres. Overall, you might get a first novel published if it's between 60 to 120 thousand. But your chances are much better if it's between 80 and 100 thousand, and even better if you're on the low side of that range. Unless you're writing SF or fantasy, in which case, for some pubs, 100 thousand is the minimum.

[Vandal]

Nicholas Sparks' first novel, The Notebook, came in at a whopping 52,000 words.

That's all he needed to tell his story.

[scarletpeaches]

How many words make up a good novel. I'm sure there must be a round about number. Can all you experts please let me know.

Thank you

How long is a piece of string?

There's no definite answer for that because the length of a book doesn't automatically have anything do with its quality.

As with certain other issues, size doesn't matter. ;)

Ha! Only a man with...'issues'...would say that! ;)

Nicholas Sparks' first novel, The Notebook, came in at a whopping 52,000 words.

That's all he needed to tell his story.

51,999 of those should have been shaved off the manuscript.

[ChimeraCreative]

I suppose a person's first novel should be somewhat compact and brief. After you've made some money and gathered a few 'street creds' you can be more long winded and egotistical with your writing. You, know, artsy. ^_^

-An

[scarletpeaches]

...There are a lot of authors who have taken the opposite view...BTB for one. James Patterson, Danielle Steel...

[ChimeraCreative]

You squashed my generalization very nicely, thank you. ^_^

-An

[JJ Cooper]

Is BTB - Bob The Builder?

JJ

[scarletpeaches]

Yes! :D

(No...Barbara Taylo Bradford).

[Shane Fitzsimmons]

If my MS is shorter than 200,000 words I'm going to be very surprised.

I've rarely been satisfied with short books. 80,000 words seems ridiculous to me; I can't even fathom it. The Postman was really short, as I remember, and I felt like it hurt that novel a lot.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but in my experience, it usually doesn't. Or at the very least, the ones that have stuck with me have run on the longer side.

It's not really a bias, because I don't go looking for longer books. The best ones I've read just happen to be long.

Blade of Tyshalle, by Matthew Woodring Stover, is just about tied for first place as my favorite novel of all time, and it comes in at over 300,000 words. In fact, I think it's closer to 350,000 words.

While it's mostly true that the more space your book takes up the less books you'll be able to fit on the shelf, there are all sorts of font-size and spacing tricks publishers use to cut down or increase the amount of size in your book. Again, with The Postman, I've got a hardcover edition that I think runs like 175 pages and that thing looks damn near double spaced, with probably a 12-point font. Which means that in actuality, the book probably runs less than 100 pages, which is ridiculous.

On the other hand, with Blade of Tyshalle, it's single spaced for sure, with probably a 10-point, maybe even a 9-point font. It's really small, and it still runs 790 pages. But that's how they crammed it together in a nice sized package.

The softcover version of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora runs over 700 pages, but the font size and spacing is much more traditional. If I recall though that book ran close to 220,000 words. And TLoLL was Lynch's first book.

Quality writing sells. If somebody tells you to shorten your MS, it's the result of a lack of faith in your writing. Doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't listen to an editor telling you to shorten your book, and as a first-time author, if somebody's offering you a book deal you might be crazy to turn it down rather than tighten things up. But ultimately, if you write a 300,000 page novel that kicks ass and takes names for every fuckin' word of it, you'll sell it, and you won't have to worry about shortening it.

[ccarver30]

41,143 ;)

[PeeDee]

98,735. If it's any longer, it's elitist crap. If it's any shorter, you're just being artistic and no one will like you.

;)

It varies hugely, even for first novels. Like most of writing, and reading, "it depends." Which is just fine.

[CaroGirl]

It depends on the story you're telling and the genre in which you're telling it. I don't read SF/fantasy at all, so I have no expectation about length. The length of a story doesn't impact my satisfaction or enjoyment of it at all. Jeanette Winterson told Sexing the Cherry in 151 pages. Rohinton Mistry told A Fine Balance, one the best novels I've ever read (it changed my writing life) in many more pages than that. It was a long one, but I don't have my copy here to tell you how long.

In terms of getting a first novel published, you have to be within an agent or publishers accepted guidelines, or anywhere from 60 to 120K words.

[johnzakour]

A lot depends on the publisher. I know Daw likes their SF & F books to be at least 80,000 words. I always come in at around 100K and my books are tiny compared to a lot of the others they publish.

[PeeDee]

I generally find that 100-120 is what I aim for. If I go beyond that, I start becoming aware of the length, if you see what I mean. Like going out too far on a branch. If I go much under 100k, then I feel like I've left something out.

It's meaningless and instinctual, but I relax when a novel's hit 100k. I feel like I've done my job.

That said, my Roman novel is longer than 120k, and my Depression-era novel is shorter than 100k. So it really depends.

Just be aware that, as a first-time novelist, it's not an easy thing to sell a 200k monster.

[Vandal]

51,999 of those should have been shaved off the manuscript.


So which lucky word made the cut?

Wait, I don't think I want to know...

[Joe Moore]

How many words make up a good novel. I'm sure there must be a round about number. Can all you experts please let me know. Thank youYour question has a qualifier: "good". That's an impossible question to answer because what one reader considers good another hates. But if you meant what is the word count of commercial fiction, here are a few general stats. Remember that there are exceptions in every genre.

Epic: A work of 200,000 words or more.
Novel: A work of 60,000 words or more.
Novella: A work of at least 17,500 words but under 60,000 words.
Novelette: A work of at least 7,500 words but under 17,500 words.
Short story: A work of at least 2,000 words but under 7,500 words.
Flash fiction: A work of less than 2,000 words.

First time authors should error on the side of caution since longer manuscripts cost more to print and publisher must factor that in when deciding to offer a contract. Short stories and flash fiction word count is determined by the requirements of the publication. Good luck.

[PeeDee]

Good post, Joe. That's a cheat sheet all by itself.

[Azraelsbane]

My 1st draft was 102k (though I chopped the book in two, because it was originally 200k+, but that was toooo long, heh). After hack/slash edits and polishing I'm down to 86k. I have a couple scenes to add that should bump it up to around 90-95k, though everything I'm spewing here is MS Word count, I haven't done the "professional" word count yet.

[Jamesaritchie]

If you mean a novel you can sell, don't ask anyone except publishers. They all put out length guidelines, and if you're serious about selling a novel, find these guidelines, before you start writing the novel, and then follow them when you write the novel.

"A novel should be as long as it needs to be" is good advice if you don't want to sell it, but lousy advice if you do wish to sell it. A novel, especially a first novel, should be the length publisher's length guidelines say it should be.

[PeeDee]

I find that a novel can be opened small, expanded big, and brought in small within a controlled number of words. Or pretty close to it. And usually, it works for me the same way as a short story. If I write a short story and I aim for 5,000 words, I usually hit it pretty close, and it usually gets cut well under with the edit run-through.

Novels are the same way.

[johnzakour]

Flash fiction: A work of less than 2,000 words.



Until, just now (and this is totally true) I always thought Flash fiction was fiction animated with flash... :Shrug:

Okay, I'm not all that bright...

[PeeDee]

You're embarrassing. YOu have to sit at someone else's table next lunch period.

[johnzakour]

You're embarrassing. YOu have to sit at someone else's table next lunch period.

I'll sit at the geek table since I naturally assumed Flash meant well, Macromedia Flash. (I never get to sit with the cool kids.)

You gotta admit that would be a cool form of short story!

[PeeDee]

Could be worse. You could have thought that Flash fiction were stories starring Barry Allen or Wally West.

[johnzakour]

Could be worse. You could have thought that Flash fiction were stories starring Barry Allen or Wally West.

That would be FFF. (Flash Fan Fiction.)

Now, BOT (back on topic): What should the word count be for a YA novel? I like to keep mine between 40k and 70k.

[PeeDee]

I would have agreed with you and still, in theory, do, except that I see more and more novels for YA which seem to be skewing longer. I don't know if that was a side-effect of competing with Harry Potter tomes, but we wind up with things like Paolini's Eragon books. Or the wonderful Jonathan Stroud.

But on the whole, I'd still treat 40-70 as a good range.

[Joe Moore]

Until, just now (and this is totally true) I always thought Flash fiction was fiction animated with flash... :Shrug:

Okay, I'm not all that bright...John, here's one of the most famous examples of flash fiction: Ernest Hemingway's six-word flash, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Here's a good link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction)for additional info. Good luck.

[Shane Fitzsimmons]

My favorite novel is around 350,000 words. There really is no definitive number.

[barnicus]

I always consider 70,000 the minimum for a novel from my research. Obviously there are exceptions and a 45,000 word novel could be published, but who is ever the exception?

[PeeDee]

I don't think Neil Gaiman's Coraline was much past 35,000 or so.

But then,

1) It was Young Adult

2) He's Neil Gaiman

Likewise Stephen King and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, or The Colerado Kid.

1) He's Stephen King

2) He's Stephen King.

[Vorteil]

A lot of YA stuff I've read was in the 40k-60k range, unless it was some sort of fantasy epic. I prefer that length to the 80k-100k range many other things fall in, which is why I read a lot of YA books. My idea of a good novel would be something fairly concise...but in the end it's all just opinion.