How Long Should My Novel Be?
The length of a novel really varies depending on your audience. Specifically, you’ll need to consider the age of your average reader. If you’re focusing on children’s novels, keep in mind the attention span of new readers. You’ll want to keep your story relatively short, perhaps 15,000 to 40,000 words. Any longer and children under 10 years of age may be intimidated.
Older children, up to about age 14 or so, might be interested in longer books. But most of them are still not ready to tackle a full-length novel. These readers will expect a more complex plot, however, which usually means a longer book. A story from 50,000 to 75,000 words will satisfy their craving for a longer book without overwhelming them.
Teenagers and young adults are much more difficult to judge. Some of them are still reading 50,000 word novels, while others have moved onto adult books and ideas. It really depends on the person. Writing specifically for this age bracket is tricky, so don’t try. Those who are still reading fiction for children will continue reading fiction for children. The teenagers who are ready for specific adult genres, such as western fiction or romance, will make the effort to tackle longer works.
So how long should adult genre fiction be? The word count for a full-length can vary, but if you’re hoping to be published, you should be aware that most publishing houses won’t even look at your book if it’s below 80,000 words. This is a good minimum if you’re writing genre fiction.
Identifying a healthy maximum is more difficult. In general, your book will be as long as it needs to be. You may intend to write 100,000 words, then find that it took many more words to really tell your story. On the other hand, you may fall far short of your goal and struggle to create a novel of 80,000 words. There is no magic number.
That said, most novels will run about 100,000 to 105,000 words. This will typically give you an approximately 300-page book. A little shorter or longer doesn’t make much of a difference. However, some books run quite a bit longer, 150,000 words or more. These tend to be epic novels and are found in many different genres. Some examples include The Lord of the Rings and Pillars of the Earth. These are very long books (The Lord of the Rings was originally intended to be published as a single volume), but it works. So, if you’re writing an epic, and notice your word count approaching 200,000 words or even more, don’t worry about it. Epics do that sometimes.
How Long Will It Take to Write a Full-Length Novel?
This is a question I’m often asked and can rarely answer with any real accuracy. There are an incredible number of factors involved. Do you have a fully developed story or will you have to spend six months just ironing out the details? How quickly do you type? How many days a week can you devote simply to writing your book? The answers will dictate how long it will take you to complete your novel.
As an example, assume that you’re writing a 100,000-word novel. Also assume that you’re going to write 1000 words a day, 5 days a week. At that rate, it will take you approximately 5 months to write your story. That doesn’t include editing, revising, or encountering the dreaded writer’s block. If you can’t write 5 days a week, or you write slower than 1000 words a day, it will take you longer.
How long it takes isn’t necessarily the issue, nor is the relative length of your book. While there are authors who write 4 or more novels in a year, others produce only a single novel in that same time. And these works will all vary in length. If you’ve told your story in a way your intended audience will appreciate, then it doesn’t really matter how long it took or how many words your word processor tells you the novel is.
If the novel is too long, edit some of it out during the revision process. If it’s too short, give the reader some more information in crucial areas of the story. Either way, make sure you stay true to your story, telling your story with as many words as it takes.
