How long should you story be? You’ll get different results depending on who you ask, but a good general rule to follow is this: don’t let word count harm or hinder your story. Your story should be as long as it will be naturally. Don’t add fluff or takeaway any important plot points that make your story unique.

A Good Guide to Story Length

Word count is the the easiest counter available and generally a good judge for length. Page count seems like a good measurement too, but you can have some pages with lots of text and some pages with no text. Still, the general guideline is to estimate each page has 250 words. The following length guide, however, will just be given in word counts.

• Micro-fiction (0-100 words) : this is meant for extremely short pieces. Many publishers and writing groups will include this as part of short stories. So if you want to submit a story of this length, try submitting it as part of a group or as a short story.
• Flash Fiction (100-1,000 words) : This is also a shorter length. this format is great for short, stream-of-conscious pieces or practice pieces. Many publishers and writing groups also consider stories of this length as a short story.
• Short Story (1,000-7,500 words) : This is a common story format, meant to go over one, maybe two, small plot lines. Short stories are usually found in anthologies and compilations and can be written in virtually every genre.
• Novellette (7,500-20,000 words) : This is the hardest length to find a publisher for. It’s too long for magazines or compilations and too short to full-scale publication. It may be worth taking a story like this and spiting it into three or four parts to better submit to publishers.
• Novella (20,000-50,000 words) : Most people associate Novella with Spanish soaps, but this is a recognized length for stories. This length is difficult to get printed, but is prefect for the e-book format.
• Novel (50,000-110,000 words): Some publishers really don’t consider the piece a novel until as much as 70,000 words, but other publishers will print books at 50,000. Nanowrimo‘s length is set at 50,000 (speaki,g of which, are you signed up yet?). Most printed books are within this range.
• Epics/Sequels (110,000+) : This length is not for the feint of heart. It requires real commitment, but leaves lots of room for sagas and epics and sequels. Publishers definitely like sequels, it encourages repeat customers. The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring word count is 187k. And that’s just the first book! The entire trilogy had a whooping 473k words.

Check fictionfactor.com for more detail on story lengths.

Genre Guidelines:

Writer’s Digest has their own take on good word count. They even take into account page counts for certain genres. Their advice is this:

• Adult Fiction Novel. Aim for page count of 80,000 to 90,000 is a very safe range. This particularly good for writers seeking their first publication with a publishing house. The range can be extended to 70,000-109,000 and still be in a good range for an Adult Novel.
• Science-Fiction and Fantasy can be expected to be longer with a recommended range of 90,000 to as high as 124,000 words.
• Middle Grade novels are typically shorter. Their recommended range is 20,000 to 45,000 words.
• Young Adult novels are longer that Middle Grade novels at a recommend range of 55,000 to 70,000 words.
• Picture Books should be around 32 pages and 500-600 words.
• Western novels are shorter adult fiction books with a recommended range of 50,000 to 80,000 words
• Memoirs recommend range is similar to adult fiction novels at 80,000 to 90,000 words.

Got any more tips on word counts? Add them in the comments below!