What's a Novel; a discussion on story length and what it means (I hope)

[ShelbyDawn57]

There have been a few threads about story length and a few mentions of people writing novels in the last day or so. It got me thinking how much my personal system of classification varies from everyone else's lately and I'm curious.

I found this online somewhere, and used it as the basis for how I catalog my stories.
Here's a breakdown:

• Short Story:Generally ranges from 1,000 to 7,500 words, but some publications may accept up to 10,000 words.
  • Novelette: Typically falls between 7,500 and 17,500 words.( I chose to combine Novelette into Short Stories just because, well, because.)
• Novella: Usually between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
• Novel: Begins at 40,000
  
  What I'm curious about is where do you draw the lines and what other criteria do you use for qualifying a story as a short story or a novel. Are there subtleties besides length that delineate short stories from novelettes or novellas?
  Especially where novels are concerned, story complexity has to come into play, maybe number of characters or sub story lines.
  I'd think this is even more important with shorter novels. I mean who doubts that GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, most with a minimum of about 300K words are novels. I seem to remember "The Great Gatsby" is only about 45K, and Hemmingway's "The Old man and the Sea" is less that 30K. Both are considered classic novels, so...
  
  I'm as curious about your opinions as I am about where this is going to go.

 

[Bazzle]

As printing has got cheaper, novels have got longer?

So many classic novels were originally weekly or monthly serials, eventually combined.

Sure if putting the story on the scales is the best way to determine if it's actually a novel?

 

[OffNSFW]

40 or 50k seems like a decent lower limit to me. I think novel also implies a certain richness and complexity, but that's harder to measure.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

I'm currently reading Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas, so out of curiosity, I looked up its word count. A bit over 100k. But it's a fantasy story, so there's lots of world building and longer novels are kind of the norm because of it. But, the blog post where I found this tidbit also said the original manuscript started at 240k words. (And we all know all blog posts are 100% true!) But, damn! That's some editing!

 

[Kelliezgirl]

40k just seems on the low side. Full disclosure, I just finished the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Stephen Erickson, the shortest book of the 10 is 210k and the longest is 391k. So my frame of reference is a little skewed right now.

I was going to say novels start at 75k words for me, about 300 pages, but I went to one of my bookshelves and pulled a few novels. There were several that are unquestionably books, but are right around 200 pages, so around 50k.

I've written a few things right around 40k, and I just don't feel like that's a book. Maybe part of that is a resistance to saying, "I wrote a book!"

 

[iwatchus]

I had learned a conversion of 500 words per printed page, roughly, which is mostly consistent my word processor pagination. Meaning 75K is only 150 pages. I think of anything in the 50-60K range as pretty murky between novel and novella. More dependent on its complexity than length. But as @OffNSFW said, that is hard to measure and quantify.

 

[Bamagan]

To my understanding, genre has a big impact on how long publishers expect novels to be. Fantasies (and SF) tend to be quite long and/or multiple books, and that's partly thanks to a need for world building. Historical novels also, because of world re-building, in a sense. Contemporary novels can get away with being on the shorter end of the spectrum, as can those targeted at teens and/or young adults. I believe publishers are reluctant to publish novels much under about 75k words... something about skinny books being considered not worth the price of binding.
All of that might well be out the window in the case of e-books, and even less important for pure online publishing like we do here.
I think I personally would consider novels to start around 60k words, with grandfather clauses for novels published in earlier eras. Maybe we can call The Old Man and the Sea a dwarf novel... that shouldn't be too contentious, right?

 

[ronde]

There have been a few threads about story length and a few mentions of people writing novels in the last day or so. It got me thinking how much my personal system of classification varies from everyone else's lately and I'm curious.

I found this online somewhere, and used it as the basis for how I catalog my stories.
Here's a breakdown:

• Short Story:Generally ranges from 1,000 to 7,500 words, but some publications may accept up to 10,000 words.
  • Novelette: Typically falls between 7,500 and 17,500 words.( I chose to combine Novelette into Short Stories just because, well, because.)
• Novella: Usually between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
• Novel: Begins at 40,000
  
  What I'm curious about is where do you draw the lines and what other criteria do you use for qualifying a story as a short story or a novel. Are there subtleties besides length that delineate short stories from novelettes or novellas?
  Especially where novels are concerned, story complexity has to come into play, maybe number of characters or sub story lines.
  I'd think this is even more important with shorter novels. I mean who doubts that GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, most with a minimum of about 300K words are novels. I seem to remember "The Great Gatsby" is only about 45K, and Hemmingway's "The Old man and the Sea" is less that 30K. Both are considered classic novels, so...
  
  I'm as curious about your opinions as I am about where this is going to go.

These definitions of story length are just the innate drive by humans to put everything into neat little boxes that are easy to sort. I think the reality is more complicated.

I think the definition of a short story is pretty fluid though your upper limit for a Novelette seems like a valid number. For me, short stories are limited to a single experience, sometimes a single scene, and while a short story had a plot, it's pretty narrow. The number of important characters tends to be low.

I think the distinction between a novella and a novel is also pretty fluid because it depends upon the plot and often plots, the interactions between the characters and to the circumstances created by the plot. Novellas tend to be a little more fleshed out than a short story as far as characters and plots.

Novels are a full-blown relating of a tale involving multiple characters and follows those characters through a series of situations that ultimately come to an ending.

Novels can be too long as well. Some novels end up being several hundred pages because the publisher expects that from a particular author. Often those very long novels are filled with repetition or just plain filler to drive up the page count.

I do remember reading on this forum years ago that the publishers of romance novels typically look for 40k to 50k words. 40k words holds a reader's interest. More than 50k words means readers don't buy the romance novels as often and profits go down.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is my view.

Short Story 3k-10k words. Everything below I don't consider a story but a vignette.

Long Story 10k-30k words

Novella 30k-100k words.

Novel 100k+

 

[iwatchus]

I think e-books are getting shorter. When buying at a bookstore, there is a visceral recognition of length, how thick the book is. And most book readers want to be reading so more is better, given everything else is equal, which it is certainly not. So publishers could charge a little more for a long book than a short one.

Even if you check the length of an e-book, numbers don't interact with us the same way the physical size does. So there is much less price adjustment for length. So if, as an author I get paid the same amount for 75K or 125K, there is definite pressure to write the 75K. And the reader will be back for more sooner, so it is even better for the author.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is my view.

Short Story 3k-10k words. Everything below I don't consider a story but a vignette.

Long Story 10k-30k words

Novella 30k-100k words.

Novel 100k+

Shock horror, shark eats quads!! EB fully agrees with AS on these definitions/thresholds. Which will not only put a cat amongst the pigeons, but render these definitions unreliable forever, because if we agree, what is everyone else going to do?

EB carries on with his breakfast.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I seem to remember "The Great Gatsby" is only about 45K, and Hemmingway's "The Old man and the Sea" is less that 30K. Both are considered classic novels, so...

I always thought of Old Man and the Sea to be a novel until I found out it was really a short story. I remember seeing the movie when a young child with my parents at a drive-in. I knew what fishing was and to see the man pull in a big fish with the lines cutting his hands hit me. I'll admit when I found out years later it was a short story, I wasn't interested.

At the same time, one of these days I intend to read Shawshank Redemption. Because of the movie, I want to see how Stephen King did that as a short story.

I thought novels were much larger than it turns out they are.Apparently I've written several and never realized it. I thought I was telling a short story.

 

[Gamblnluck]

There have been a few threads about story length and a few mentions of people writing novels in the last day or so. It got me thinking how much my personal system of classification varies from everyone else's lately and I'm curious.

I found this online somewhere, and used it as the basis for how I catalog my stories.
Here's a breakdown:

• Short Story:Generally ranges from 1,000 to 7,500 words, but some publications may accept up to 10,000 words.
  • Novelette: Typically falls between 7,500 and 17,500 words.( I chose to combine Novelette into Short Stories just because, well, because.)
• Novella: Usually between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
• Novel: Begins at 40,000
  
  What I'm curious about is where do you draw the lines and what other criteria do you use for qualifying a story as a short story or a novel. Are there subtleties besides length that delineate short stories from novelettes or novellas?
  Especially where novels are concerned, story complexity has to come into play, maybe number of characters or sub story lines.
  I'd think this is even more important with shorter novels. I mean who doubts that GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, most with a minimum of about 300K words are novels. I seem to remember "The Great Gatsby" is only about 45K, and Hemmingway's "The Old man and the Sea" is less that 30K. Both are considered classic novels, so...
  
  I'm as curious about your opinions as I am about where this is going to go.

Also as a kid, I was into reprints of pulp fiction stories. Most of it was written in the late 30's. Doc Savage was one my favorites. YOu could always tell the antagonist and you knew Doc would win in the end. But reading it happen was still fun. Oh, most of those paperback books were barely a 100 to 125 pages long.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I think e-books are getting shorter. When buying at a bookstore, there is a visceral recognition of length, how thick the book is. And most book readers want to be reading so more is better, given everything else is equal, which it is certainly not. So publishers could charge a little more for a long book than a short one.

I'd like to know how many words some of those old paperbacks I read in my youth really were. I think I'd be disappointed. I'd get a book and read it in a day or two. Sometimes, I'd get caught reading late at night and be told to put it away and go to sleep. But they were BOOKS. I could hold them and feel a bit of weight. An ebook might have the same or more words but doesn't feel the same.

 

[iwatchus]

I was poking around and it is very hard to get a word count on current e-books by looking at the store. So I grabbed an old classic off of gutenberg (A Tale of Two Cities) 136K words, A hardback copy on amazon is listed as 306 pages. So about 450 words/page. By page counts vary by edition (print size, page size, margin size). It will also vary by amount of dialogue, which is less dense.

 

[PennameWombat]

There have been a few threads about story length and a few mentions of people writing novels in the last day or so. It got me thinking how much my personal system of classification varies from everyone else's lately and I'm curious.

I found this online somewhere, and used it as the basis for how I catalog my stories.
Here's a breakdown:

• Short Story:Generally ranges from 1,000 to 7,500 words, but some publications may accept up to 10,000 words.
  • Novelette: Typically falls between 7,500 and 17,500 words.( I chose to combine Novelette into Short Stories just because, well, because.)
• Novella: Usually between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
• Novel: Begins at 40,000
  
  What I'm curious about is where do you draw the lines and what other criteria do you use for qualifying a story as a short story or a novel. Are there subtleties besides length that delineate short stories from novelettes or novellas?
  Especially where novels are concerned, story complexity has to come into play, maybe number of characters or sub story lines.
  I'd think this is even more important with shorter novels. I mean who doubts that GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, most with a minimum of about 300K words are novels. I seem to remember "The Great Gatsby" is only about 45K, and Hemmingway's "The Old man and the Sea" is less that 30K. Both are considered classic novels, so...
  
  I'm as curious about your opinions as I am about where this is going to go.

That's a summary of this guide that I usually point to.

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>

I do remember reading on this forum years ago that the publishers of romance novels typically look for 40k to 50k words. 40k words holds a reader's interest. More than 50k words means readers don't buy the romance novels as often and profits go down.

As to this, I recently read "Some Murders in Berlin," which I guess we'd call "detective/crime/romance," by an author who generally focuses on Romance. It's definitely up toward 100,000 words, and the Romance element is very key to the story. Romantasy also skews much longer ("Fourth Wing" calling.)

So it depends on the specific Romance sub-genre. I'm familiar with other Romance writers who do hew to the 50,000 word mark more or less, and they seem to be more 'traditional' Romances.

 

[PennameWombat]

So long as I'm spewing away, a related thread where this subject came up a while back was on Estimating Story Length. I posted there:

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/estimating-story-length.1634867

One point for me was that these categories of length aren't something that guide me when I'm writing for Literotica. Because having a 'novel' here isn't really the point, it's where does it fit Category and thus theme=wise? The "Novels & Novellas" Category isn't simply for long works (if I stuck to that, 90% of my stories here would be there, instead of the two that I put there), but as a catch-all for themes that don't quite fit elsewhere.

For here, I think in these terms for length, as well as which Category (theme) dominates:

1. Short: 7,500 to 15,000. I don't generally do much shorter than that, but it happens (e.g.,The Night Train, where I had an idea for a very specific scene. Or, I'm doing a 750 word story, but I rarely bother with those, given the previous receptions .)
2. Medium: 15,000 - 25,000: this is where my 'series' entries hit, and for those I have a general 'template' I follow so I know the time spans and numbers of scenes. Also various stand-alones.
3. Long: 25,000 - 40,000: these are many of my standalone stories.
4. Epic: over 40,000: rare, but I know 'em when I see 'em. I have a few here.

 

[Britva415]

Are there subtleties besides length that delineate short stories from novelettes or novellas?

Novelettes? No - not even length.

Novellas and novels? Yes - structurally, a novel's narrative can include more threads and points of view than any short story.

 

[crookedletter]

From what I’ve seen in my travels, if you’re looking to get published by one of the big traditional publishing houses, if it’s your first novel and it’s not epic fantasy, they seem to be looking for around 80K words. I imagine exceptions are made if they’re really excited about your work, but from what I’ve heard if you net an agent with a work that’s much longer than that they’re going to advise you start cutting.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'd take The Great Gatsby as a pretty good benchmark. It's 48,000 something words and everybody regards it as a novel. It's not a novella. It's a short novel.

Somewhere around 40k words is the dividing line between novella and novel.

In the publishing industry novels are generally quite a bit longer than that. Something closer to 75K to 100K would be nearer the norm.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

"A photograph is the short story. A full feature film is the novel." Julio Cortázar.

Man, this quote loses its charm translated to English.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'd take The Great Gatsby as a pretty good benchmark. It's 48,000 something words and everybody regards it as a novel. It's not a novella. It's a short novel.

Somewhere around 40k words is the dividing line between novella and novel.

In the publishing industry novels are generally quite a bit longer than that. Something closer to 75K to 100K would be nearer the norm.

The Great Gatsby was published a century ago. Since there never has been any firm formal classification of works by length, it stands to reason that these things evolve and change over time.
So The Great Gatsby probably isn't a good example. It might have once been a benchmark for the size of a novel, but I doubt it can be used as such today. Novels are typically much longer these days and have been for a while.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

So The Great Gatsby probably isn't a good example. It might have once been a benchmark for the size of a novel, but I doubt it can be used as such today. Novels are typically much longer these days and have been for a while.

I've read Gatsby and it is definitely a novel and it is definitely long enough to be a novel. Every reference that I have ever looked up to define novel length states the minimum somewhere between 40k and 60k. These are all current modern online sources, be it literature sites or actual publishers guidelines.

 

[TheLobster]

This entire thread strikes me as little more than novel gazing.