More about words and pages in a novel

"How Many Pages Make a Novel" now has a comment thread several years long, and it's actually awkward for me to track through the thread to try to answer the latest questions. So let me try to re-state some basic points, and to answer some recent questions in the process.

A short-short story is anywhere from 250 to maybe 1500 words. A short story is 1500 to 10,000 words. A novelette could be 10,000 to 30,000 words. A novella is 30,000 to 55,000-60,000 words, and anything longer is a novel. However—

These are all terms from the early part of the 20th century, when popular magazines ran a lot of fiction. A few writers made very comfortable livings selling short stories and novelettes to women's magazines, men's magazines, general-interest magazines like Saturday Evening Post, and even newspapers. 

One men's magazine built itself around not running fiction: it was called True, and every item in it was nonfiction. (I loved it, but I also loved Bluebook, a men's magazine that ran many early Robert Heinlein novels in serial form. This was so long ago that "men's magazines" didn't have pictures of naked girls.)

For a long time, the short-story and novelette market has been a ghost of its former self. The only "popular" markets are a handful of fantasy, SF, and mystery magazines. University-funded "little" magazines will sometimes run a short story or two, but they pay little or nothing. High-end magazines like The New Yorker and Harper's will run short fiction, but usually only by established authors.

The chief markets for a new writer, therefore, are genre novels for the mass market (SF, fantasy, thrillers, romances, etc.) or for the young-adult market. YA novels are usually shorter (20,000 to 40,000 words—but then there's Harry Potter!). Most genre novels for adults start at 60,000 words and work their way up to fantasy series in which each novel is maybe 125,000-250,000 words long...and the series goes on for as many titles as readers will buy.

Most publishers' websites, if they have a page of advice for contributors, indicate the general length of the books they publish. But you can also get a sense of that by simply counting the words on two or three random pages of a book, averaging the numbers, and multiplying by the number of pages.

But bear in mind that layout and design can influence the size of a book. Sometimes a short novel can be "bulked up" with wide spaces between lines of large text. This gives purchasers the illusion that they've bought a lot of reading for the price of the book.

I don't want to discourage anyone from writing at whatever length they like. Short stories can be great reading, and also great training for writers aiming at novels. Two or three novellas, published together, can be quite marketable (preferably, however, if the author's already well known).

In general, I'd advise writing long. It's easier to cut than to add material. So if you want to sell a romance and you know the length is going to be 55,000 words, shoot for 65,000...and then go back through the manuscript and cut the 10,000 weakest words.

Comments

[Michael Hartford]

Actually, the literary journals (university and independent) publish more than "a short story or two": this is the market that keeps the form alive and vibrant. But you're right on about the payment schedule; writers in this space need to be driven by love of the form and funded by some other means.

I disagree, though, with short stories as "training" for future novelists. The short story is a form in and of itself, and there are many writers--Carver, O'Connor, Dubus--who have worked almost exclusively in short fiction. And with the success of books like "Olive Kitteridge," "The Turing Test," and "Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful," maybe publishers will finally start to see that story collections can be just as viable a format as novels.

[Aussie T]

Not just story collections, but novels consisting of several sub-novels or novellas within the one book cover. Dangerous Days: The Autobiography of a Photojournailst, by J. William Turner is a good example; four stories each of 35,000-40,000 words in one book.

[Chris Warren]

I agree that short stories are a much under-rated form of writing, but like Michael Hartford (ciomment above) I also believe they are a specific form and not a training ground for writers of longer works.

I write both short stories and book length fiction and non-fiction. All require a different but equally professional approach.

Chris Warren
Author and Freelance Writer
Randolph's Challenge, Book One-The Pendulum Swings
http://www.randolphschallenge.com

[LeeAnne Hanks]

I just came out with my YA Fiction "Within the Flame" and I was worried that it was too short. Twilight and Harry Potter are so long, that has seemed to become the standard. My book is almost 80,000 words, but is still pretty thin compared to many others in this genre. I think the longer stories in the YA world have bridged a gap where adults can enjoy these stories too and encourage our young readers to really dive into a book. I think will all the instant gratification kids get today, it does them good to sit still and just read!
~LeeAnne Hanks
www.strategicbookpublishing.com/WithintheFlame.html

[Lee]

After determining the length of 43 novels, I've arrived at an average of 178,000 words per novel. However, the outcome is greatly skewed by "War and Peace," "The Remembrance of Things Past," "Les Misérables," "Middlemarch," and "The Brothers Karamozov." With these outstandlingly long novels removed from the equation, the average is 109,000 words. I hope this info is helpful.

It's also worth noting that mass market paperbacks generally follow a certain printing format that yields an average of 395 words per page.