A novel is a story of 40,000 words or more. That is the line used by two major fiction awards, the Nebula Awards and the Hugo Awards. Most adult novels are much longer than that minimum. Writer’s Digest calls 80,000 to 89,999 words a safe range for a first adult novel in mainstream fiction.
Below 40,000 words, a story counts as a novella, a novelette or a short story. Real books vary a lot, so we counted the words in 20 famous public-domain books. They run from about 22,000 words to more than half a million. The tables below show where your story fits.
- Novel: 40,000 words or more
- Novella: 17,500 to 39,999 words
- Novelette: 7,500 to 17,499 words
- Short story: under 7,500 words
- First adult novel (agent guidance): about 80,000 to 90,000 words
Word counts for each type of fiction
There is no law that defines a novel. The clearest official lines come from two groups. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) runs the Nebula Awards. The World Science Fiction Society runs the Hugo Awards. Both use the same four categories:
| Type of fiction | Word count | Famous example |
|---|---|---|
| Short story | Fewer than 7,500 words | Most magazine stories |
| Novelette | 7,500 to 17,499 words | A long magazine story |
| Novella | 17,500 to 39,999 words | A Christmas Carol (about 28,000 words) |
| Novel | 40,000 words or more | The Great Gatsby (about 48,000 words) |
These limits were written for science fiction and fantasy awards, but writers in every genre use them as a handy guide. Publishers and magazines can set their own limits, so always check the submission guidelines for the place you are sending your work.
How many words is a typical novel?
For a first novel aimed at adult readers, about 80,000 to 90,000 words is the safest target. That advice comes from Chuck Sambuchino’s word count guide for Writer’s Digest, which is written around what literary agents expect from new writers.
- Literary and mainstream fiction: 80,000 to 89,999 words is called a good range to aim for.
- Science fiction and fantasy: 100,000 to 115,000 words is called an excellent range, because these books often need extra space to build their worlds.
Why do agents care? A very short book can feel thin, and a very long book costs more to print. For a new writer, a word count far outside the usual range can be an easy reason to say no. Well-known authors have more freedom, which is why you will find bestsellers that are much shorter or much longer.
Word counts of 20 famous books
We counted the words in 20 well-known books using the free public-domain texts from Project Gutenberg. We removed Project Gutenberg’s notes, and any editor’s preface, before counting. Numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand, because different editions vary a little.
| Book | Author | Words (about) | Category by word count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metamorphosis (English translation) | Franz Kafka | 22,000 | Novella |
| Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde | Robert Louis Stevenson | 26,000 | Novella |
| Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | 26,000 | Novella |
| A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens | 28,000 | Novella |
| The Time Machine | H. G. Wells | 32,000 | Novella |
| Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | 38,000 | Novella |
| The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 48,000 | Novel |
| The War of the Worlds | H. G. Wells | 60,000 | Novel |
| Treasure Island | Robert Louis Stevenson | 68,000 | Novel |
| Frankenstein (1818 text) | Mary Shelley | 75,000 | Novel |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | 79,000 | Novel |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Brontë | 116,000 | Novel |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | 122,000 | Novel |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | 136,000 | Novel |
| Dracula | Bram Stoker | 160,000 | Novel |
| Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | 184,000 | Novel |
| Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | 184,000 | Novel |
| Little Women (both parts) | Louisa May Alcott | 186,000 | Novel |
| Moby-Dick | Herman Melville | 212,000 | Novel |
| War and Peace (English translation) | Leo Tolstoy | 562,000 | Novel |
A few results surprise people. The Great Gatsby is a famous novel but only about 48,000 words, so it clears the 40,000-word line with little room to spare. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are often called novels, but by word count alone they are novellas. Several of these classics, including Dickens’s, were first published in parts over many months, and they are much longer than the first-novel range agents suggest today.
How many words is a novella?
A novella is 17,500 to 39,999 words under the Nebula and Hugo rules. That is long enough for a full story with a real arc, but short enough to read in one or two sittings. A Christmas Carol (about 28,000 words) and Heart of Darkness (about 38,000 words) are classic examples.
How many words is a short story?
A short story is fewer than 7,500 words under the same award rules. Magazines, contests and school assignments often set their own limits, which can be much lower, such as 1,000 or 3,000 words. When a brief gives a limit, that limit wins.
How many words are in a chapter?
There is no rule. In the classics we counted, the average chapter ran from about 1,600 to 5,900 words, and around 3,000 words was common. Short chapters speed a story up. Long chapters give room for slower scenes.
| Book | Chapters | Average words per chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Moby-Dick | 135 | about 1,600 |
| Treasure Island | 34 | about 2,000 |
| Pride and Prejudice | 61 | about 2,000 |
| The War of the Worlds | 27 | about 2,200 |
| Great Expectations | 59 | about 3,100 |
| Wuthering Heights | 34 | about 3,400 |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | 20 | about 3,900 |
| Jane Eyre | 38 | about 4,900 |
| The Great Gatsby | 9 | about 5,300 |
| Dracula | 27 | about 5,900 |
How many pages and hours is a novel?
An 80,000-word novel fills about 233 double-spaced manuscript pages in 12-point Times New Roman. It takes about 5 hours to read and about 8.6 hours as an audiobook. Here is how other lengths compare:
| Novel length | Manuscript pages (Times New Roman 12, double-spaced) | Manuscript pages (Courier 12, double-spaced) | Reading time | Audiobook length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 words | about 146 | about 216 | about 3 hr 12 min | about 5.4 hours |
| 80,000 words | about 233 | about 345 | about 5 hr 8 min | about 8.6 hours |
| 100,000 words | about 292 | about 431 | about 6 hr 25 min | about 10.8 hours |
| 120,000 words | about 350 | about 517 | about 7 hr 42 min | about 12.9 hours |
The page counts come from our test of how many pages 1,000 words fills in different fonts. The reading time uses the average silent reading speed for fiction, 260 words per minute, from psychologist Marc Brysbaert’s 2019 review of 190 reading studies. The audiobook figure comes from ACX, Audible’s audiobook production service, which estimates about 9,300 words per finished hour of audio. That works out to about 155 words a minute, close to a normal speaking pace.
Printed book pages are a different story. A paperback’s page count depends on its page size, font and margins, so the same novel can have very different page counts in different editions. That is why writers and publishers talk in word counts.
Starting your first book? These basics of writing a book cover planning and drafting. If you plan to self-publish an ebook, this guide to ebook cover design with free software helps with the next step.
How to check your own word count
- Any text: paste a chapter into the Justwebworld Word Counter.
- Microsoft Word: the word count shows in the status bar at the bottom of the window. Click it for more detail.
- Google Docs: click Tools, then Word count.
- Reading time: the Reading Time Calculator turns any word count into minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Is 50,000 words a novel?
Yes. Anything of 40,000 words or more counts as a novel under the Nebula and Hugo rules. For a first adult novel, though, Writer’s Digest’s guidance suggests agents usually expect more, around 80,000 words.
Is 40,000 words a novel or a novella?
Exactly 40,000 words is a novel under both award rules. 39,999 words or fewer is a novella.
How many words is a novelette?
A novelette is 7,500 to 17,499 words. It sits between a short story and a novella.
How long is The Great Gatsby?
About 48,000 words in our count of the Project Gutenberg text. That makes it a short novel, just over the 40,000-word line.
How long does it take to read an 80,000-word novel?
About 5 hours at the average fiction reading speed of 260 words per minute. A fast reader may finish in 4 hours, and a slower reader may need 6 or more.
Can a novel be too long?
For a first novel, yes. Writer’s Digest’s guidance treats manuscripts far above the usual range as a risk, because agents may reject them on length alone. Established authors publish much longer books, as War and Peace shows.
