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CapitalistCatholic
Guest
How long should my novel be. I’m going for something between 50,000 words and 60,000.
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Milt
Guest
Speaking as an avid reader but not an author I would say use as many words as it takes to tell your story the way you want it told.
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midori
Guest
Whatever it needs to be for your story and your audience.
A lot of Agatha Christie’s novels seem to land somewhere between 40k and 60k words. A lot of general fiction nowadays seems to be around 80k-90k. A lot of classics soar wayyyyyy past 100k.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle was under 23k words.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was about 31k.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was 36k.
Black Beauty and Lord of the Flies were around 60k words.
Treasure Island was around 67k words.
The first Harry Potter book was about 77k words.
Anne of Green Gables was 97k.
So-- get it down on paper first. Worry about plot and plot twists; worry about characters and dialogue; worry about all the internal stuff that you need to worry about. Presumably, you’re already familiar with the requirements of the publishers in your genre, and your readers’ expectations, and all that good stuff.
A lot of Agatha Christie’s novels seem to land somewhere between 40k and 60k words. A lot of general fiction nowadays seems to be around 80k-90k. A lot of classics soar wayyyyyy past 100k.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle was under 23k words.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was about 31k.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was 36k.
Black Beauty and Lord of the Flies were around 60k words.
Treasure Island was around 67k words.
The first Harry Potter book was about 77k words.
Anne of Green Gables was 97k.
So-- get it down on paper first. Worry about plot and plot twists; worry about characters and dialogue; worry about all the internal stuff that you need to worry about. Presumably, you’re already familiar with the requirements of the publishers in your genre, and your readers’ expectations, and all that good stuff.
C
CapitalistCatholic
Guest
Thanks for the advice. I first thought because of world biulding and all that good stuff, I had to include a lot of lore and in turn have a high word count.
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midori
Guest
Absolutely. Just do what’s right for you. If it’s fantasy and worldbuilding, wordcount can be all over the place— The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is at 36k, and the LOTR trilogy clocks in at 455k. 
Anyone who read books in the late 90’s-early 00’s saw how the Harry Potter books got bigger and bigger and bigger with each release, even though you’d think that, once the world was established, the plots would become more streamlined as you focused more on plot and less on setting. But that wasn’t the case.
If you’re churning out 300k worth of words, that’s a lot of paper, and a lot of patience for a new author to expect their readers to stay with him. Keeping things short and punchy and economical is probably a virtue in this case-- showing what you can do with lean writing.
Anyone who read books in the late 90’s-early 00’s saw how the Harry Potter books got bigger and bigger and bigger with each release, even though you’d think that, once the world was established, the plots would become more streamlined as you focused more on plot and less on setting. But that wasn’t the case. If you’re churning out 300k worth of words, that’s a lot of paper, and a lot of patience for a new author to expect their readers to stay with him. Keeping things short and punchy and economical is probably a virtue in this case-- showing what you can do with lean writing.
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