Word Count

There have been many questions about novel word counts. It's a difficult question to answer, the base line for a novel is 50,000 words, anything lower is going into the boundaries of a novella and short stories.

Another question I have heard a lot is how many words to a chapter. This varies once again, they are as long as they need to be. As long as they cover all the action and they move the story along it could be ten words to ten pages.

Taking the words of the Writers Digest Magazine and website this is what they say-

Sci-fy and fantasy - 100,000 - 115,000 (it might seem a lot, but to be straight with you all, mine range between 40,000 to 60,000 they are aimed at the Young Adult Audience)

Young Adult - 55,000- 80,000

As long as the over all word count is over 50,000 you can officially say you have written a Novel! But it depends on your writing style, perhaps you are sparse with the dialogue and use more description it might be longer. Or vice versa, it could be a little shorter, it really does depend on you and how you feel when you have finished.

My main piece of advice is, if it feels too short, have a scout through, see if there are places that might need a bit more description. When I start a new project I just get the foundations of the plot line down, then bulk it up with added speech and description. This way I can monitor how much description I have and where the line sits between speech and description.

I never worry myself what the word count is until I'm on the final edit, then if it's too low I move things around and see what I can do. It's not a question to worry you when you first start writing a new project.

But if you are worried and you want more information, please don't hesitate to get in touch, I'll do my best to help you!

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