Length In YA?

Am I losing my mind or are YA books outside of the Contemp YA beginning to trend towards being longer as a rule? I'm reading some YA books in the genres I hope to write that have been published in the last 5-10 years and it is hard to find shorter books. I don't really enjoy reading doorstops unless it's meant for adults for some reason. I enjoyed Harry Potter a ton when reading it, but that's the only MG/YA book or series I can remember actually enjoying that are long. And they didn't start out as doorstops either, they got longer as the series went on until reaching doorstop status for the last three books.

All the YA SFFH(Scifi, Fantasy, and Horror) that I've enjoyed reading have been shorter, and I find myself more inclined to not want to write huge books when it comes to YA. I would much rather write something in the range of:

Valiant by Holly Black- 63.5K

Asylum by Madeleine Roux -60.5K

Not that I would mind writing a YA Horror or YA SFF book that is longer, just that I don't feel the need to write anything greater than 90K for any of the YA books I want to write. I'm working on two YA books at the moment a YA UF that I hope to have submission ready at 75K or a little less and a YA Paranormal/Horror that I hope to have submission worthy at 70K. The sort of length I enjoy reading myself when it comes to reading YA.

Do you think not wanting to write longer will hurt me in the long run? Are there any other YA SFFH writers here who write on the shorter side of things?

*goes back to nervously hand drafting her YA Paranormal while she waits for responses*

Sage said:

If you write something in the 60s or 70s, you'll be just fine. It has become more acceptable (for most readers and publishers) to have a YA SFF book that's longer, but a shorter book is still an easier sell, as long as it's not too short.

An editor asked me to cut my 85K YA SF to 65K, though I think that's an unusual request.

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That does sound a bit weird to me, as the only genre's I can think that I would write YA that length is SF and Secondary World Fantasy where worldbuilding is intergral to the story making sense. You can't really understand the characters without their world being understood. Oh, and YA Historical too because with that you're basically creating another world when recreating a different time period.

Becca C. said:

I'm with you -- I prefer shorter books, in both my writing and reading. I for one would welcome more shorter books! The doorstoppers do get tiresome, especially if they're not VERY tightly written.

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Exactly! I think my problem is that it's much more apparent when a longer book isn't tightly written and no one wants to read a flabby book. Short book lovers unite!

Windcutter said:

I'm with you. I never write long. My adult urban fantasy barely reaches 83k. I've spent years writing screenplays which have extremely strict limits when it comes to page count. I guess I'll never be able to write doorstoppers unless they are meant to be parts of a series and I'd just smish two books into one.


How short is too short these days? Obviously 30-40k is way short, but after 45k it gets a bit murky, especially for contemp. Like everyone says contemp can be short, but I think I've only seen a few books below 60k.

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That's interesting, I would like to know too even though I don't plan to write any YA Contemp myself. I prefer reading to writing it. As for those doorstoppers? I swear my desire not to read YA ones is because adult fiction has been trending towards being longer and longer especially in SFF. I love me some adult Epic Fantasy, but I do not love the word counts regularly being upwards of 200K or more where the exact providence of a lamp we never hear of again is chronicled.

That I'm seeing a trend of that same type of flab appear to start becoming normal in YA that's popular is disheartening to say the least. Part of what I like about YA is the generally lack of flab even in traditionally flabby genres like Epic Fantasy.

KSavoie said:

I have noticed a trend in longer books, although there are still shorter ones coming out. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell is 100k and contemporary for instance. There are a few others I read about the other day that are up there also. I say just write what you want to write and worry about that stuff later! That's what I'm trying to do now haha.

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Wow, 100K contemporary? I can't imagine why it would need to be that long to be honest. I can see a YA Historical possibbly being that long, but not YA Contemp. Now that I see things are trending towards longer but shorter will be the norm still for a while yet, I'm more than comfortable with my 70K and 75K submission length goals. I know that I can write first drafts around 55K-65K and easily add in the needed detail since I tend to write sparse while drafting for the first time.

MynaOphelia said:

My guess is that a longer book gives the reader more time to get immersed in the world and get invested in the worldbuilding, and people like that because it allows for more escapism than a quick read. I prefer shorter books too, but I think there is an allure to spending a ton of time in the world with the characters and that might be part of the reason why those books tend to do well.

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I'm not so sure the worldbuilding bit applys, though it CAN add to length sometimes it doesn't always. In Valiant by Holly Black, there's plenty of worldbuilding and a very immersive mix of New York and the world of the fae living in NY in only 63.5K. Worldbuilding gets a pass often as a valid excuse for things being extremely long, but plenty of writers especially in YA prove that worldbuilding doesn't have to make the book extra long. You can make an immersive world without things getting into doorstopper teritory.

MynaOphelia said:

Oh no you definitely can. I'm not saying that's impossible, I'm just saying that a lot of writers probably find it easier to worldbuild with a lot of words than to make an immersive world with less. That doesn't say badly on anyone, it's just what it seems like from over here...

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I can understand that. It is harder to work in just the right amount of wordbuilding if you're writing shorter than if you're writing longer, it's certainly a different type of skill that's for sure.

Laer Carroll said:

Quite right. Quality of the writing is more important than the quantity. The quantity of our thought behind the world building may a lot. But when we expressing it for the reader it's more important that we use vivid, evocative writing which leaves much to the reader's imagination. Too much detail interferes with readers' imaginations.

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On a different matter: I've noticed that many of the best sellers are longer works, 100K or more. Popular wisdom may have it that teens like shorter books, and that we should aim for 80K or less. But my guess is, when we say that, we're only expressing our own tastes and prejudices. Not that of most teen readers.

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The worldbuilding is one of the things I loved most about Valiant and a lot of Holly Black's work. Even her longer work is tighter than say the Divergent series, Which I tried to read but felt even in chapter one that a lot of unneeded worldbuilding just gave the story more words instead of depth. In my book it should add depth instead of just words and if it isn't doing that then somethings wrong. Harry Potter had a lot of depth which for me compensated the word count of book five, six, and seven.

Re Different Matter: For me, I'm 23 so I'm not that long out of the target market for YA. As I teen I actually prefered shorter YA, just like I do now. The story had to be extremely gripping to justify high word counts. But I also started reading things like Time Machine and Harry Potter at 8, and Anne Rice at 9. What put me off high wordcounts as a teen and even now is the time period or depth of the work versus what I was finding in adult fiction. A lot of time I would find the time period for whatever is going on too short and unbelievable and feel like the author was just padding things out.

I think that most of those books are popular because teens are feeling immersed in the worlds being portrayed, and that is more difficult to do at a lower word count. I'm sure more teens felt that same feeling with shorter books, we would see a trend towards best sellers being shorter.

Me, I would love to be a best seller. But there's no way I'm going to pad or bloat my writing to do it. I don't thinking shooting for somethat that isn't realist for my style of writing will help me tell the story I want, and for me at this time 100K for any of my ideas isn't realistic.