Writing: Words Add Up

Writers often ask:

What should my word count be?

The following are average word-count ranges per genre.

General

• Flash Fiction: 300–1500 words
• Short Story: 1500–30,000 words
• Novellas: 30,000–50,000 words
• Novels: 50,000–110,000 words

Fiction Genres

• Mainstream Romance: 70,000–100,000 words
• Subgenre Romance: 40,000–100,000 words
• Science Fiction / Fantasy: 90,000–120,000 (and sometimes 150,000) words
• Historical Fiction: 80,000–100,000
• Thrillers / Horror / Mysteries / Crime: 70,000–90,000 words
• Young Adult: 50,000–80,000

Children’s Books

• Picture Books: 300–800 words
• Early Readers: 200–3500 words
• Chapter Books: 4000–10,000 words
• Middle Grade: 25,000–40,000 words

Nonfiction

• Standard Nonfiction (Business, Political Science, Psychology, History, etc.): 70,000–80,000 words
• Memoir: 80,000–100,000 words
• Biography: 80,000–200,000 words
• How-to / Self-Help: 40,000–50,000 words

All of these are average ranges and should not be taken as the definitive word count you must reach in your book. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts.

Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals.

Know what readers expect in terms of your genre’s word count (even if the reader isn’t aware of their expectations when it comes to how long a book is).

Lastly, don’t let those commas instill fear. Fifty thousand words isn’t that much divided into five days a week for a year. That’s only 193 words per writing day!

About the Author: Blake Atwood

Blake Atwood is the author of Don’t Fear the Reaper: Why Every Author Needs an Editor and a freelance editor and writer with EditFor.me.