word count

Oberon · Mar 2, 2009

I'm sure this is a very basic thing, and I should have looked for the answer, but I'm lazy. I have a first draft of a novel, a little over 50,000 words. Is that too short? Does it make it a novella? Do novellas get published?

Maryn · Mar 2, 2009

It's a bit short, but the appropriate word count depends on genre to some degree.

Maryn, gone to hunt up what somebody said about that

Gillhoughly · Mar 2, 2009

This thread might help!

Maryn · Mar 2, 2009

Found it! (For once I gave a document a meaningful name.)

Summarizing what agent Colleen Lindsay, blogging at http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-word-counts-and-novel-length.html, says about word counts: It’s all about the genre, often the subgenre.

YA Fiction: 50,000 - 80,000 words, rarely 90,000
Urban Fantasy: 80,000 - 90,000
Paranormal Romance: 80,000 - 90,000
Mysteries and Crime Fiction: Cozies 60,000 - 70,000; all others 80,000 - 100,000
Science fiction and Fantasy: 100,000; Epic Fantasy 120,000 - 130,000
Mainstream fiction depends on subgenre.Chick Lit 60,000 - 80,000; Literary Fiction up to 120,000 but lately trends to much shorter; Thrillers 90,000 - 100,000; Historical Fiction to 140,000.

Anything under 50,000 words is usually considered a novella, which isn't something agents or editors ever want to see.

Of course, somebody here will choose to argue with that, but I hope they take it up with Lindsay rather than me. I just parrot, you know?

Maryn, squawk!

word count

Oberon

Maryn

I Tried

Gillhoughly

Grumpy writer and editor

Maryn

I Tried