There are, however, some guidelines. Most publishers consider novel length as between 50,000 and 110,000 words. For example, a 75,000-word book is about 300 pages long. Self-Help and How-To: 40,000-60,000 words; Average Word Count by Age Group. Children's Books: Age Categories and Word Counts - Writing.ie Children's Books: Age Categories and Word Counts - Writing.ie I would limit the book at 100,000 words to be safe. Err on the side of caution; the younger the audience, the less the word count. Dear Editor | How Long Should my Novel Be? Word Counts in ... The YA word count sounds a bit high. 500-1500 for middle grade. Most writers have word count on the brain. Book Word Count Guide 2022: How Many Words Per Page in a Book I can't find the word count for The Fallon Blood, but it's page count is 381 so I'm guessing it's under 100k. It has to do with all the descriptions and world-building in the writing. A reasonable word count for a non-fiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. The average (mean) word count was about 73,000 words. young adult - What is the average word count for a scene ... How many words are in a non-fiction book? The genre can tackle G-rated issues or it can be very edgy. History book word count: 60,000 to 100,000 words (ideally 70,000 to 85,000 words). As Persuasion progresses, Jane Austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. Examples include: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (112,815 words), Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling (106,821 words), and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (100,609 words). But I can't edit any more out otherwise the story line is going to be way to fast paced or important plot threads are going to be missed, which is going to ruin the book and the sequel. The Best Fantasy and Science Fiction Books I Read in 2019; 5 Adjectives That Sell a Book to Me; The subgenres include high fantasy, a.k.a. Some areas short as 50,000 words, making them ideal beach reads. What's the Right Length for a Young Adult Novel? - Writer ... If it's a YA thriller, these 1000 word chapters make sense. Right now, when it comes to novel-length word count, it's all about 90,000 words. How long is TOO long to query as a debut author? As with higher-word-count books, however, good writing is a must. And some are in the middle, making exceptions if the story is well-written.-This is not set in stone, but in general, you will start having big-ish problems if your word count is over 125,000 or under 90,000 for an adult fantasy book by an unknown author. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. Adult Fantasy - 80,000-120,000 words (most averaging 100k-115k but editors would prefer to see them below 100k) YA epic/high/traditional/historical fantasy = 90k to 120k Finally, if you're curious about the word count of popular Epic Fantasy novels, you can check them out here. In mystery, I'm finding that word count varies. Virtually every book I try to shop by a debut author that's any longer than that—regardless of category—receives the same response from editors. Most mainstream YA novels stick to that word count. The problem I'm having is that I'm thinking it's to long. A huge personal favorite of the Ink & Fable crew-to write and read! 10) Was your debut young adult novel pitched as a series? The Rules Of Young Adult (YA) Genre Novels Young adult (YA) fiction targets boys and girls between the ages of 12-18. Novellas tend to fall between 40,000 and 60,000 words. Stephenie Meyer can do whatever she wants, but debuts are held to stricter standards. The average length of a fantasy book is 90,000 to 120,000 words. 2000-4500 for adult. For example, a 75,000-word book is about 300 pages long. YA contemporary averages 69,000 words, whereas fantasy averages 83,000. For most adult fiction, adult nonfiction, and YA novels, simply divide the total number of words by 250 to get a page count estimate. Most of the suggested word counts for fantasy seem to suggest 100k/130k/180k, which strikes me as reflecting epic fantasy or sword and sorcery. Re: Word/Chapter Count for YA (amateur question) Post. If you're writing a young adult fantasy novel, you should keep your word count below 90,000 words or 300 book pages. In the same vein, a non-fiction book of the same word count will have 348 pages. There are a lot of elements that go into writing a story, like fleshing out characters, piecing together the plot, and crafting the perfect ending. The Best Fantasy and Science Fiction Books I Read in 2019; 5 Adjectives That Sell a Book to Me; According to the Save the Cat! In "Outlining Your Book in 3 Easy Steps," editor Shawn Coyne says, "The average novel today is about 90,000 words. From my experience reading YA, chapters vary from about 1000 at shortest to 8000 at the very longest, with 3000 being the sweet spot. Towards the bottom, I also checked the (ongoing) epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire and the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. Flash fiction is a very short body of work, with a word count sometimes as low as a few hundred words. . On a related note, a historical fiction book word count may be 80,000 to 115,000 words. The commonly cited range, then, seems to be based specifically on contemporary YA. So what do you think? Thoughts on Fantasy celebrates fantasy fiction in all its forms: epic, dark, romantic, paranormal, young adult or otherwise. But there are MG novels in verse more like 30,000. It also depends on what sort of story you're telling. Twelve to sixteen pivots makes for a dynamic dramatic structure: twelve to sixteen chapters. #1: Fantasy. I'm writing a pretty short YA fantasy novel at the moment and the chapters have an average of 1000 words. I couldn't believe my favorite kids books were that short. Conventional wisdom has it that a typical novel is around 80,000-90,000 words long, but that's a lot shorter than most of the fantasy novels I've read in recent years, particularly traditional fantasy set in secondary worlds or any fantasy with an epic flavor. How many words are in a novel? Young Teen. Not every love tale is as epic as Wuthering Heights in romance novels. Love That Dog by Sharon Creech is only 4000 words. Middle Grade Word Count: 25,000 to 45,000. Other genres, taken together, are about the same length as YA overall (there aren't enough data points to break down genres like thriller, sci-fi, and historical fiction individually). 49,962. Writer's Digest recommends 80,000 to 89,999 words as a "100% safe range for literary, mainstream, women's, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror.". Age: 12-15. I post articles about the genre and its curiosities, conventions and magical worlds. Most young adult novels fall between 50,000 and 80,000 words. Approximate Word Count: 82,320 Do note that this is probably higher than what it actually is. Word Count: Less than 70,000 unless it's fantasy or sci-fi, which can stretch to 90,000 at a push. How many words should a romance novel be? I post articles about the genre and its curiosities, conventions and magical worlds. I'm having an tricky time finding information on the the min/avg/max word count for urban fantasy novels. Some areas short as 50,000 words, making them ideal beach reads. A good example of that is the Twilight series - the first book alone has more than 100,000 words! Adult: 80,000-125,000 words; Young Adult: 50,000-90,000 words (this also varies depending on the genre, for example, YA fantasy tends to be closer to 80,000-100,000 words, while the other genres range from 50,000-70,000 words) Middle Grade: 30,000-50,000 words Middle grade ranges from 20,000 to 55,000 words, with more allowance given to fantasy novels that require world building. George R.R. Putting a number on it is tricky. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. Age: 12-15. Our word count guide answers these qu. Like Like Now I'm seeing a lot more MG books with up to 60,000 words, so I think the water has become a bit murky here. Romance Book. Thanks for this post. Are you struggling with a high word count? However, science fiction and fantasy young adult stories are going to run longer than 80,000 words, due to the world building in those types of novels. Although the median word count of those novels was 73,000 — right around where conventional wisdom would suggest — the existence of 25,000 word novels in the YA genre is enough to show you, and hey maybe even me, that anything is possible. Sweeter cozy-style novels tend to be around 60-75K. The minimum word count for a novel is 40,000 words, although some people in the industry will scoff at a book that short. In short, it's just too long. The tone, style, and content of YA novels changes depending on the specific age of the target audience. Attempts were . A chapter should only be as long as necessary. I keep hearing that houses are looking for books around 200 pages long. A young adult book of 50,000 words will have a minimum of 166 pages. in MS Word. Middle Grade can be anything from 20,000 to 50,000 words or more, but average around 35,000 words. . Again, this depends on your expertise and the content, but this is a good number if you want something that's easy to digest. That number can be larger for 12-year-olds, with a range of 40,000-55,000 words. If you're writing an adult fantasy novel or an epic fantasy novel (like Game of Thrones) , your word count can skew higher at 90,000 - 200,000 words. But I'm probably over-thinking it. The word count for a high-end romantic novel is 100,000. The word count for a high-end romantic novel is 100,000. Generally, the word count range for a romance novel is 50,000 to 80,000 words. Most debut young adult novels are not pitched as a series. Word Count: Less than 70,000 unless it's fantasy or sci-fi, which can stretch to 90,000 at a push. If I remember correctly, potato chip length was anything between 2,000 and 4,000 words, so if your scenes are a bit . 48,978. Thoughts on Fantasy celebrates fantasy fiction in all its forms: epic, dark, romantic, paranormal, young adult or otherwise. Long Way Down is only 12,000. But there are MG novels in verse more like 30,000. . Some individuals won't touch a book because of its word count. Thrillers and epic fantasy often clock in at over 100,000 words. Also I'm English - and I've heard that the UK market caters for a fantasy standard word count much higher than the US (unfounded fact - read it on a blog), so much so that publishers/agents request revisions to ADD content. Anything pushing that limit is more difficult, particularly for a debut author. Self-help books of 40,000 words will have a minimum page count of 133. And for the 2,000 words. On average, non fiction books are around 50,000 - 75,000 words . With these genres, I would say 100,000-115,000 is an excellent range. storytelling method, each beat should appear at a specific place in your story (i.e. The average length of flash fiction in the world of writing competitions is around 500 words. Young Adult novels tend to be shorter than adult novels, so between 45,000 and 70,000 words, but the word count is flexible (especially in science fiction or fantasy). Romance: 65,000-80,000 words (Most romance imprints have specific word count requirements that writers should know and observe before they submit.) Middle-grade novels can range from 10,000 to 30,000 words, and young adult novels can range from 25,000 to 50,000. Recently, though, the Harry Potter series and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance trilogy have offered page counts exceeding what anyone though middle-grade readers could handle. Martin writes . ' How to Lose Friends and Influence People ', for example, is about 100,000 words long. It is not necessarily a problem that books are long in that genre. A chapter should only be as long as necessary. Pivots ideally turn once per chapter. Young Adult. Not every love tale is as epic as Wuthering Heights in romance novels. However, due to the variety of sub-genre YA has, it can exceed 80,000 words. General fiction novel (mystery, thriller, crime, historical, etc.) Here are some general MG word count guidelines: Young Middle Grade Word Count: 15,000 to 25,000. It was The Fallon Blood, writen back in 1980. Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk. One curious thing: though the number of words per page was different for each book, all the books seemed to have lots of scenes that were 2-4 pages long. 1500-3500 for YA. How long should your novel be? Err on the side of caution; the younger the audience, the less the word count. . That would put the word count around 40-50k." My upper-level YA novel is 211 pages, 61,078 words, TNR 12 pt. by Kimberley Stevens 11th January 2014 Is 109,000 words to long for a YA/ adult fantasy novel? I would strongly suggest that if your novel is sub-40,000 word count, you seriously consider expanding. And some are in the middle, making exceptions if the story is well-written.-This is not set in stone, but in general, you will start having big-ish problems if your word count is over 125,000 or under 90,000 for an adult fantasy book by an unknown author. The responses varied from 25,000 to 150,000 words. From my experience reading YA, chapters vary from about 1000 at shortest to 8000 at the very longest, with 3000 being the sweet spot. A novel has a number of major and minor dramatic pivots that ideally occur at points measured by word count. A reasonable word count for a non-fiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. "Huh. You will find differing but similar numbers when you search for ideal chapter lengths. 200-500 words for early chapter books. Fantasy novels have a lot in common with our oldest myths…which often provide inspiration for them. The 90,000 word count sweet spot. As you can probably guess by now, books come in such a wide variety of lengths, that it is hard to generalize on words in a novel. For fantasy novels, you are allowed to go slightly above this limit, but unless you are an established author, I don't recommend going too far above. YA is lower, at like . Now I'm seeing a lot more MG books with up to 60,000 words, so I think the water has become a bit murky here. And Ellen Hopkins' books are like 70,000. My first six chapters are all about that long. It's very rare for a book of flash fiction to be published. This makes me wonder if publishers choose book sizes based on average scene length, to create the illusion of a certain pace. Young Adult (YA) Age: 14-adult . Subgenres vary. Word Count Depends on Target Age. Your chapter length has to work well with the overall word count of the book — short chapters create an even distribution of both content and action. epic fantasy, and urban fantasy. Between different books, chapters in children's books are more similar in length, while the length of chapters between different . Reply. For novels in general, the accepted word count is 70-80,000 words. Mystery: 80,000 words (Subgenres like cozies tend to be shorter, often coming in at 70,000-80,000 words.) 4. But again as a surprise to me, Dune was a close second, averaging just 3,800 words per chapter. Like Like The Wheel of Time was his third fantasy novel series. FANTASY. Ideally, you want to give your reader something she knows . Only word counts are below, not page counts, as some novels vary between editions. This is due to the audience you're reaching preferring that length. Young adult genre novels like fantasy, historical, sci-fi, and dystopian tend to tolerate longer word counts because there's generally more plot and worldbuilding involved. That said, I usually find it hard to even reach the lower limit, and looking . 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