How Long is a Good Book?

Zoë Sharp

Are our reading habits changing? And, because of that, should our writing habits be changing too? Or is it vice versa? I’ve spent much of the last month planning my next two writing projects, and because of this, I’ve discovered that, actually, size probably IS quite important after all …

Increasingly, I find that many books I download in digital format feel shorter than the paperbacks on my shelves. Perhaps this is just my perception rather than reality because having to check the progress bar and finding it at 58% is somehow less informative than sticking your finger between the pages and guess-timating that you’re more or less halfway through. Also, a fatter spine stands out more on a shelf. I’ve even come across people who admit to being only occasional readers, who will make a final decision between two titles by the width of them.

Are today’s authors simply more aware of pace, so more of the type of novels I tend to choose are better at keeping me turning the pages? Or is the average length of a book really coming down?

To find out more, I started hunting around for details on word lengths, and found this amazing bit of research by BetterNovelProject blogger, Christine Frazier. I can recommend downloading the study if you’re at all interested in the length of books.

It’s a look at the average word counts of a few of the bestsellers in various different genres, from children’s picture books at a few hundred words in some cases, to fantasy epics at over 300k. It includes some well-known titles from the Mystery and Thriller world, which, according to Ms Frazier’s findings, averages out at around 128k words. It held a few surprises, for me. I would never have guessed that Gillian Flynn’s recent GONE GIRL would be a weightier tome than JURASSIC PARK or THE DA VINCI CODE, for instance.

For my own part, I wondered about the length of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books, and was amazed to learn that his debut novel, KILLING FLOOR, was a massive 178k words, compared to the latest, THE MIDNIGHT LINE, at less than 120k words.

To date, the instalments in my Charlie Fox series have usually come in at around 100,000 words, with the longest of them close to 130,000 and I’ve always felt that was about par for the course. But do people want to read books in this genre of this length anymore? When I wrote ABSENCE OF LIGHT at a little under 60,000 words, I initially labelled it as a novella because it seemed so much shorter than the others. Now, however, I realise that it’s far longer than many examples in the genre.

So, what classifies as a novel-length work, and what is a novella?

Generally speaking, it seems that these days a crime/mystery/thriller novel can be anywhere from 75,000 words up to 130,000, although I’ve spoken to many authors who tell me their crime series have never exceeded 65,000 words per book. There will always be exceptions to any rule, as with Lee’s early books, all of which topped 175k words. Long novels have to justify their bulk, just as very short novels have to make every word work that little bit harder.

Every year at CrimeFest in Bristol, I judge the FlashBang Flash Fiction competition, which is described as ‘an original crime story in 150 words’ and if it comes to a real tie-breaker, then one at dead-on (pun intended) the word-count nips in ahead of another that falls a word or two short.

Mind, you flash fiction is often described as up to 500 or even up to 1500 words, so very short stories then become micro fiction. Ernest Hemingway is often credited with the famous story told in just six words, although, there’s evidence this appeared in print in classified adverts going back to 1906.

Stories to be told in 50 or 100 words, or within the 140-character confines of a twitter post, also fall into the micro fiction category.

Short stories can be 1000 to 8000 words, with all the usual exceptions. If for a contest, they often set fairly tight criteria for submissions, particularly if they’re planning to gather the winning entries into a printed anthology. I’ve recently been asked for anything up to 10,000 words, but generally they’re designed to be read easily at a sitting. I suppose word-length then really depends on how fast you read.

Above short stories, but before the novella comes a strange category called the novelette, which I’ve seen described as low as 7,500 words, up to about 17,500. I would usually have called this a long short story, if that’s not a slight contradiction in terms …

After that come novellas, which I’ve seen described as anywhere between 17,500 and 50,000 words, although the cut-off point is often put at 40k. Until the rise of e-publishing, novellas were often a difficult thing to get published, as the cost of printing them sometimes outweighed the price that could be charged, but they were designed to contain more nuance and character description than a short story, but fewer complexities of plot than would be found in a novel proper.

As for novels themselves, it would seem that anywhere from 40,000 words to the sky’s the limit is the case. Ray Bradbury’s classic FAHRENHEIT 451 is a smidge over 46k, while Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE and Vikram Seth’s A SUITABLE BOY slug it out around the 600,000-word mark.

How long are the books you like to read? Or write, for that matter? Inquiring minds need to know!

This week’s Word of the Week is ubique, from the Latin meaning everywhere. It is the motto and later battle honour of the Royal Artillery and Engineers, given to them by King William IV in 1832. It was also the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling about the Boer War. 

How Many Words? How long should a novel be?

Zoë Sharp

I find myself at the moment in the midst of writing the next novel in the Charlie Fox series. The action for this book starts directly where the last instalment – the novella ABSENCE OF LIGHT – left off. At the start of this next one, Charlie even still carries the injuries she sustained during the course of A.O.L.’s storyline.

The previous full-length novel – DIE EASY – was number 10 in the series. Now I’m faced with the question of do I call this latest book number 11 or 12?

ABSENCE OF LIGHT could rightfully be called book 11, although labelling it as a novella was a deliberate decision on my part. It finished up at almost 60,000 words, which would make it a novel to many. But, the other Charlie Fox books ranged between 92,000 and 128,000 and I didn’t want anyone to be disappointed to suddenly find this one shorter.

As far as I know, nobody’s complained that it’s longer than they expected.

I’m a great believer in writing to the end of the story, then making at least one pass through to see how many extraneous words I can cut out. I’ve usually aimed roughly for 100,000 +/-10%, but I know some crime authors who rarely write past 50,000, and others who do at least 130,000 every time.

Equally, I’ve come across readers who are put off by weighty tomes, and others who, if they’re stuck between a choice of two books for a holiday read, will measure the width of the spine and go for the thickest.

Personally, if I’m enjoying being immersed in the world the writer has created, the more of it the better. Especially now I tend to do a lot more reading in digital format. It’s easier on the hands and – if I’m reading last thing at night – I know if I nod off with the ebook in my hands the device will eventually just switch itself off. There are no end of times I’ve fallen asleep reading a paper book and lost my place as it’s slipped from my hands.

But, there are general guidelines on the length of various different types of fiction, and I suppose it’s as well to know what the rules are before you decide to break them.

Of course, when I say ‘general guidelines’ these do vary enormously. Some have the length of a novel starting from as little as 40,000 words. Others specify a mystery novel as 60,000-80,000, with thrillers up to 100,000.

Below a novel comes the novella at 17,500-40,000; the novelette at 7,500-17,500; and anything below 7,500 counting as a short story.

Or does it?

The digital publishing revolution has caused a mix-up. When Kindle introduced their Kindle Single, they specified a work of fiction with a word count between 5,000 and 30,000, straddling short story/novelette/novella territory.

New writers who go straight into the indie market tend to want to build up their bookshelf space as quickly as possible, and there can be a tendency to put out several novelettes or novellas rather than a full-length novel. One just has to be aware of the old ‘quality before quantity’ maxim, but I can well understand the pressure to be more successful simply by publishing more work.

If a new writer is going down the traditional route into publishing, many agents and publishers prefer that their work falls into generally accepted word counts for the market they wish to enter. There’s nothing to say a debut crime novel of 150,000 words will fail to find a publisher purely because of its length, but busy editors do look for the obvious ways first to trim down their reading list, and cutting out a submission simply because it is too big is a danger, no matter how brilliant it might be.

So, I find myself left with more questions than answers. Does the length of a book have any effect on your reading choices? Are you reading longer or shorter books than you used to, or has there been no change?

Has the way you read changed the length of books you go for? Do you tend to read longer books in digital format because they’re lighter and easier to carry around with you for that spare five minutes in the dentist’s waiting room?

Do you read more short stories than you used to, purely because they’re now available more widely on line rather than in anthologies? Do you yearn for a return to more regulated sizes of novel, or do the new freedoms inspire you to try new works of varying lengths by your favourite authors?

This week’s Word of the Week is prolegomenon, meaning a preface to a longer work, usually a formal essay or critical discussion. The plural is prolegomena. It comes from the Greek verb prolegein, meaning ‘to say beforehand’.