How Many Words in a Novel? The Complete Guide by Genre

60,000 words, 80,000, 120,000? When you write a novel, the question of length always comes up sooner or later, because an editor will find a story that's too short underdeveloped, and a first novel that's too long will worry acquisition committees.

The answer depends on your genre, your readership and what you're aiming for (traditional publishing, self-publishing or a contest). This guide gives benchmarks genre by genre, based on the conventions of the English-language and French-language markets.

The general rule

An adult novel most often runs between 70,000 and 100,000 words, and that's the range where most novels sold in bookstores fall.

For a first novel, editors and literary agents recommend a narrower range, 80,000 to 95,000 words. Beyond 100,000 words, a debut author's manuscript meets strong resistance, because it costs more to print and the commercial bet is riskier.

Below 50,000 words, you're generally looking at a novella, that is, a short novel.

Word count by genre

Genre	Range (words)	Estimated pages*
Short story	1,000 to 10,000	4 to 40
Novella	20,000 to 50,000	80 to 200
Contemporary romance	60,000 to 80,000	240 to 320
Historical romance	80,000 to 100,000	320 to 400
Thriller, crime	70,000 to 90,000	280 to 360
Literary and general fiction	80,000 to 100,000	320 to 400
Science fiction	90,000 to 120,000	360 to 480
Fantasy	90,000 to 120,000	360 to 480
Epic fantasy	100,000 to 150,000 and up	400 to 600 and up
Historical fiction	90,000 to 120,000	360 to 480
Young adult (12 to 16)	40,000 to 70,000	160 to 280
Middle grade (8 to 12)	25,000 to 50,000	100 to 200

*Estimate based on about 250 words per page in manuscript format.

Where the differences come from

Fantasy and science fiction run longer because the reader doesn't know their world and it has to be built for them. A thriller, by contrast, takes place in a familiar setting, where nobody needs the workings of a police station explained.

Romance runs shorter because the genre follows a tight structure (the meeting, the obstacles, the resolution) with few characters, and because its readers read fast and a lot, so a shorter format serves them well.

Literary fiction has the widest range, because its constraints come from the work itself far more than from the market.

How long some famous novels are

Novel	Author	Words	Pages*
The Little Prince	Saint-Exupéry	about 16,500	about 66
The Stranger	Camus	about 36,000	about 144
The Great Gatsby	Fitzgerald	about 47,000	about 188
1984	Orwell	about 88,000	about 352
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	Rowling	about 77,000	about 308
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	Rowling	about 257,000	about 1,028
War and Peace	Tolstoy	about 587,000	about 2,348
Les Misérables	Hugo	about 655,000	about 2,620

*Estimate based on about 250 words per page.

The first Harry Potter runs about 77,000 words and the fifth 257,000. Rowling could lengthen her novels because her audience was already waiting for them, which a debut author can't count on.

Hugo and Tolstoy wrote at a time when many novels first appeared as serials, and publishing conventions have changed a great deal since.

Converting words to pages

The conversion depends on format, font and line spacing:

Format	Words per page
Standard manuscript (Times 12, double-spaced)	about 250
Mass-market paperback	about 300
Trade format (literary fiction)	about 250 to 280
E-book	varies with the reader

For a quick estimate, divide your word count by 250 to get the number of pages in manuscript format.

If your novel is too long or too short

Under 60,000 words

Your story may need more development. Ask yourself:

• Do your secondary characters change over the course of the story?
• Are your key scenes developed enough?
• Do you have subplots that enrich the story?
• Is the world of your novel fleshed out enough?

A short novel can work perfectly well, since Camus's The Stranger runs 36,000 words. If you're aiming for traditional publishing, though, a manuscript under 60,000 words will be hard to place, except in genres that welcome that format (some romance lines, or a novella that owns its length).

Over 120,000 words

Your story may need tightening. Ask yourself:

• Do some scenes leave the plot where it was?
• Is every description necessary?
• Could you cut a subplot without making the story poorer?
• Could you merge some characters?

For a first novel, going past 120,000 words worries editors. If your story justifies it (epic fantasy, a historical saga), you can consider splitting it into two volumes.

The story decides the length

Setting yourself a word count as a goal in itself is a trap, and "I'm going to write an 80,000-word novel" makes a poor starting point. The story decides its own length.

What matters is that every scene serves the plot, every character has a reason to be there and the pacing holds from beginning to end.

The benchmarks in this article help you see where you stand against what the market expects, and they remain guidelines: the quality of your writing will always count for more than the word count.

Tracking your progress

To keep an eye on your word count while you write, Extypis shows a live count per sheet, per chapter and for the whole project (words, characters, paragraphs and sentences, with an estimated reading time). You can also set yourself a writing goal, a word count with a deadline, and follow your progress on a circular gauge.

In short

A novel most often runs between 70,000 and 100,000 words, and a first novel does well to land between 80,000 and 95,000. Romance runs shorter, fantasy longer, and no quota is worth sacrificing the quality of the story.