# Fantasy novel length?



## Aqua Buddha (Mar 17, 2011)

What is the ideal length for a fantasy novel?  What do readers (or publishers) prefer?


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## Ophiucha (Mar 17, 2011)

It is certainly the norm in the genre for at least a moderately thick book. Something in your standard Mass Market Paperback side. 300+ pages, or 90,000+ words, is what you are generally looking at. You can go up pretty high, even as a first timer, in the genre, since it is just part of the market. That said, most publishers are not opposed to publishing shorter titles. There is definitely a market for fantasy novellas and shorter novels, although it is not as big as your thicker titles.


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## Donny Bruso (Mar 17, 2011)

Look at your typical fantasy novel in the bookstore. Most of them run 300+ pages, Like Ophiucha said. I somehow got this thing of 100,000 words stuck in my head. It is a nice, round number after all. (I've got a thing about symmetry that borders on OCD.)

I'm not sure about markets, since I have done zero research, but I've always been told the way to break in is short stories. They can be cranked right out if you have a good idea, and are quick and easy to polish up for presentation, unlike the 100,000 word novel I've been working on for ten years and has gotten nowhere. Once you have a few short stories under your belt, if they are good, people will start asking for a novel. Again, this is just what I have been told.


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## Abomination (Mar 17, 2011)

For the record, this is not my opinion but the guidelines of the industry.

First time authors are generally advised to stay in the 80-100,000 word length.  If you look at the submission guidelines (and blog advice) at most agent/publisher websites those are about the numbers they give.  For fantasy, I've seen that pushed to 120,000.  Baen Books seems to be the most tolerant, their guidelines say 100,000-130,000.

Some agents and publishers will automatically reject something outside that range. Many say that they will a longer work if it is really, really exceptional.  But they usually say this in the theoretical sense, as in "I would accept a 200,000 word book, if it were really good, but it's never happened."


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## Ravana (Mar 18, 2011)

As long as it takes to tell the story well, and not a single word longer. 

There seem to be some people <cough>Jordan<cough> who believe that every fantasy novel must be of "epic" length–or else a trilogy–and this has conditioned the buying market into accepting this more or less uncritically. I'd far rather read 200 tightly written pages than 500 pages of drivel… and so will the editors you're trying to sell to. I doubt any editor out there is going to reject a book because it's "too short," unless it is genuinely so short they won't be able to fit the title on the spine. New authors in particular will be better served with brevity, since the publisher is going to sell it at the pretty much same price no matter how much you save them on printing costs, so they'll be more willing to take a chance on a shorter than a longer work.

This applies to all writing, not just novels: yes, magazine markets pay by the word… but you get paid a lot more for the stories that are accepted than for the ones that aren't. Since magazines always have set page counts, brevity is invariably seen as a plus by them. That doesn't mean you shouldn't write the story as long as it needs to be–just never, _ever_ pad it to try for an extra few cents.


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## Rachel. (Mar 19, 2011)

Bam.

That link includes recommended word counts for adult commercial and literary fiction, adult fantasy and science fiction, middle grade, young adult, etc.


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## kjjcarpenter (Mar 23, 2011)

Okay, I have first-hand experience here.

When I was first picked up by my publisher, my first novel was at 103,000 words. The original draft stretched little over 50,000 and over the rewrites I managed to snake my way up, adding in detail and descriptions. While they are confident in the story, they basically said it's too long and I need to shorten it because it's going to intimidate readers because of the time it will take to read it, and impact on sales. This is especially true for a series; if the first novel is smaller, the audience is more likely to pick it up and give it a go.
They hypothesised splitting my book in two, but I said no. It couldn't be done, so my only other choice was to rewrite it and make it tighter. 70,000 words was the intention, however, I could only squeeze it down to 78,000, so we'll see how that goes.

In the 21st century, over 100,000 words for a first novel is, more than likely, going to be too high, unless you're a master of fiction, and even then rare.


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## kjjcarpenter (Mar 23, 2011)

Ravana said:


> As long as it takes to tell the story well, and not a single word longer.
> 
> There seem to be some people <cough>Jordan<cough> who believe that every fantasy novel must be of "epic" length—or else a trilogy—and this has conditioned the buying market into accepting this more or less uncritically.


 
Ravana, that made me giggle. I tried giving Jordan a go and got to the second book but couldn't press on. I lost interest when, after 200 pages, little to nothing had happened, and not to mention it took me an audiobook to get through the first one. He is definitely not an author who should be used as an examplar.
A valuable lesson in Australian school: KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 24, 2011)

kjjcarpenter said:


> When I was first picked up by my publisher, my first novel was at 103,000 words. The original draft stretched little over 50,000 and over the rewrites I managed to snake my way up, adding in detail and descriptions. While they are confident in the story, they basically said it's too long and I need to shorten it because it's going to intimidate readers because of the time it will take to read it, and impact on sales. This is especially true for a series; if the first novel is smaller, the audience is more likely to pick it up and give it a go.


 
Really? I've had the opposite experience, as an editor. I've had several people ask for help on bulking a manuscript up, not knocking it down, after some failed attempts at publication. For fantasy, it seems a lot of publishers are still hesitant about works that are in the 50k to 80k range. Lord knows I'd love to find a book under 100,000 words in the "New Releases" section of the fantasy bookstore downtown, but it seems like half of the ones that are are just supplementary materials (Paolini's Guide to the _Inheritance_ series, Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard, etc.).

But, then again, it could just be a different market in Australia.


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## kjjcarpenter (Mar 24, 2011)

Ophiucha said:


> Really? I've had the opposite experience, as an editor. I've had several people ask for help on bulking a manuscript up, not knocking it down, after some failed attempts at publication. For fantasy, it seems a lot of publishers are still hesitant about works that are in the 50k to 80k range. Lord knows I'd love to find a book under 100,000 words in the "New Releases" section of the fantasy bookstore downtown, but it seems like half of the ones that are are just supplementary materials (Paolini's Guide to the _Inheritance_ series, Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard, etc.).
> 
> But, then again, it could just be a different market in Australia.


 
I think the Australian market for reading isn't overly huge. For a book to make our bestseller's list, it needs to sell 3000 copies, which is not a lot at all. It makes sense by what they are saying, though. The first Harry Potter book was under 80,000—look how many readers that hooked—and Stephen King's "The Gunslinger" is under 60,000, and that still remains one of my all-time favourite novels. So it isn't rare when looking through history, but recently, I've noticed this trend in bulking fantasy starters. As an editor, I've also been taught of the benchmark 100,000 words for a first-time author, but it doesn't seem to be the case for much longer in this society where reading is dwindling. Although, half of the books I see on the shelves never get anywhere and are unheard of, so the argument goes both way.

Regardless, I listen to my publisher. They're the one who will be writing the cheques.


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## Mdnight Falling (Mar 24, 2011)

kjj- have you read the entire Dark Tower series yet? IF you haven't... don't read the last chapter LMAO it pissed me off so bad even though King WARNED the readers that it would >.< Still my all time favorite series though. I've even collected all the King books that tie into it LOL


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## kjjcarpenter (Mar 24, 2011)

Mdnight Falling said:


> kjj- have you read the entire Dark Tower series yet? IF you haven't... don't read the last chapter LMAO it pissed me off so bad even though King WARNED the readers that it would >.< Still my all time favorite series though. I've even collected all the King books that tie into it LOL


 
I thank you for the warning Mdnight ... unfortunately it's 3 years too late! Hahaha. I remember I felt sick for weeks after reading the Coda. Dear god, was I distraught or what. Still an amazing series though, and by far one of the greatest reads I've had.


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## Kelise (Mar 24, 2011)

Looking at the books I have, the first book is generally shorter. 

I would think that a lot of people would have to cut a lot out of their manuscript, but then add parts in where they need to be more interesting, or build up to the adventure/finale, or such. So in my view, it would be a bit of both. The question is, how much you need to cut out, and how much you need to add in. 

In a way I think it's kinder in Australia. There's not as much competition - though there is a lot - and it seems publishers are more willing to help you through the final step if you have promise, but aren't quite there just yet.


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## kjjcarpenter (Mar 24, 2011)

starconstant said:


> In a way I think it's kinder in Australia. There's not as much competition - though there is a lot - and it seems publishers are more willing to help you through the final step if you have promise, but aren't quite there just yet.


 
In my experience, it's more on a publisher-by-publisher basis. Take Allen & Unwin for example. They care about money, and as such, take on roughly ten new authors a year without any prior publishing history. However, out of these ten, they will only put their effort, time and money into one of them, because they believe the other nine will never get anywhere. They could buy the rights to your book and never publish it, publish only a first print run, or distribute your book with low advertisement. They're quite stuck-up.

And as for removing and adding content, I would have to agree. I was surprised by the sheer amount of seemingly pointless detail or information I had accumulated. By any right, it could have been published with said material intact, but the book now seems much tighter and direct. There was a generous amount of material I added, too. I got to expand on character quirks, add in an epilogue to tie in to the following books, include some interesting excerpts and more. In the words of Stephen King: "The editor is always right," so when a publisher picks you up and tells you to rewrite or remove content, do it! You won't regret it.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Mar 31, 2011)

With the industry in such flux right now, I think it's important to keep timelines in perspective, too. If you finish a book tomorrow, you might be looking at actually seeing it published 2-4 years from now. Meanwhile, a lot of the current studies and guesses on ebook growth place ebooks for fiction passing 50% of per unit sales _this year_. Even if that's wrong, and it passes 50% early next year, it still means that by the time the book you finished today is actually in front of readers, a lot more than 50% of the copies bought will be digital.

From a writer's perspective, that's not really a bad thing when it comes to book length. Digital books don't have to worry about taking up shelf space, and don't need to worry about higher printing costs for fatter books. So we could see publishers raise the cap some for maximum lengths of books. At the same time, ebooks are generating a renaissance in short fiction and novellas, along with short (40-60k word) novels. Short fiction and novellas don't seem to sell as well as novels, but the short novels seem to be working well. Because it's faster and easier to produce shorter books, we could start seeing a resurgence of shorter novels as well.

It's interesting that the technology seems to open up both ends of the word count spectrum, rather than closing off any avenues.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 31, 2011)

I don't know, how long could these novels possibly get? I mean, the industry doesn't seem to have any problem with 120k novels for relative newbies as long as it is fantasy, and if you've made a name for yourself, you can get away with absurdly thick novels. I will agree that a novel that long is easier on the ebook format - although my eyes don't care much for that, I must say - but honestly?, I've found most of the 110-130k novels to be long enough, often far _too_ long. More short novels/novellas? Yes please. _Longer_ books? ... remind me again, does Kindle have a "only search for books under XXXX pages" feature? I think they'll be needing one soon, if they don't.


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## The Realm Wanderer (Apr 24, 2011)

I reckon between 80,000 and 95,000 words seems like a decent amount for a first novel. It's not too short as to be called a novella and not too long to make the publisher think a little harder than required on whether to buy the rights or not.
The novel that I'm currently writing is planned to be 85,000 words


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## Jess A (Jul 15, 2012)

*Thread revival*

I searched Google and it gave me this very thread - on novel length. -chuckle- 

I just read a chapter I wrote the other day. It's nearly 6000 words. Luckily, I'm good at cutting things, and I wrote it to get into the characters' heads more than anything. Most of it can be cut. 

What sort of length do you think a fantasy chapter for a good-sized novel would be? How many words would you aim for per chapter? Robin Hobb's book has 26 pages in one chapter I just randomly picked out. There are about 400 words per page by my rough count. This makes her chapter roughly 10,000 words, give or take a few thousand. Her book is 480 pages (given, some pages are half-pages). This makes, give or take 10,000 or so, 192,000 words. This is the first book in the series.

However, I must note that it certainly isn't Robin Hobb's first novel. Must first novels be so short? 

Cheers.


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## Steerpike (Jul 15, 2012)

I don't see where first novels have to be that short, at least in fantasy:

Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon - 688 pages, mass market paperback
Patrick Rothfuss, Name of the Wind - 736 pages mass market paperback
Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself - 531 pages (larger 9x6 paperback)
Scott Lynch, Lies of Locke Lamora - 736 pages, mass market paperback
JV Jones, The Baker's Boy - 560 pages, mass market paperback
Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule - 848 pages, mass market paperback
Brandon Sanderon, Elantris - 656 pages, mass market paperback

Mass market paperbacks have 300-335 words per page (those are figures I found from publishers and authors; it varies, of course, based on font, margins, and the like; the numbers will serve for our purposes).

Looks like the debuts fantasy novels, above, run maybe 168K to 248K (not counting Abercrombie because I don't know the word count for those longer pages). You can probably back off that a bit if the page counts include parts of the book that aren't the story, and to take into account blank pages or chapter beginnings and endings.

Still, it doesn't take much looking at the fantasy shelves, even if you're only looking at first novels, to see that they tend to be longer than in other genres. I think fantasy readers are more likely to buy thicker novels.


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## Steerpike (Jul 15, 2012)

I'm guessing Robin Hobb's first novel, which would have been published under the name Megan Lindholm, was probably relatively short by today's standards. I think fantasy novels in the early 80s had word counts that tended to be much lower than now. I know she wrote some fairly long ones later under that same name, however.


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## Jess A (Jul 15, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> I don't see where first novels have to be that short, at least in fantasy:
> 
> Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon - 688 pages, mass market paperback
> Patrick Rothfuss, Name of the Wind - 736 pages mass market paperback
> ...



Yes I thought as much. I sell books so I know the fantasy section very well. I have been reading the above posts and the numbers seem so short compared to what I am used to, even though there are indeed many good books which are quite short.

I think I will have a look at some of the publishers' guidelines, but I will ultimately write what serves my story.


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## Jess A (Jul 15, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> I'm guessing Robin Hobb's first novel, which would have been published under the name Megan Lindholm, was probably relatively short by today's standards. I think fantasy novels in the early 80s had word counts that tended to be much lower than now. I know she wrote some fairly long ones later under that same name, however.



Yes I have some of her Megan Lindholm books. They are indeed very thin in comparison!


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## Steerpike (Jul 15, 2012)

Well, Baen's guidelines says 100,000 to 130,000. But they actually say they don't like works under 100,000, but might consider one if it is really good. So that takes out a lot of the ranges cited above, at least with respect to Baen.


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## Ireth (Jul 15, 2012)

That's weird. I've seen several websites that say a first novel should be between 80,000-100,000 words, no less and no more. My first novel is 85,000 words. *shrug*


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## Jess A (Jul 15, 2012)

Ireth said:


> That's weird. I've seen several websites that say a first novel should be between 80,000-100,000 words, no less and no more. My first novel is 85,000 words. *shrug*



As I said, I will do some research. I suppose it depends who I try to go with. In the end, I am writing my book for myself and publishing is a secondary thing - highly desirable, but secondary. It does, however, serve to have some guidelines to work with on the way. I know that in the science and journalism world, publisher recommendations and word count are important and often provided to the person submitting.


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## Steerpike (Jul 15, 2012)

A lot of times those word ranges are given in general, and fantasy seems to me to be longer than the norm. On the other hand, if you're doing urban fantasy then I see a lot that falls back into those ranges.


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## TWErvin2 (Jul 16, 2012)

I recently sat on a panel at FandomFest discussing epic fantasy. On it were two long established writers. They indicated that their contracts (with major publishers, not small presses) called for them to submit works over 150,000 words in length for their epics. But again, they're established in the fantasy field, and writing epic fantasy per contract requirements. It's based on the desires of the targeted reading audience.

I state this to emphasize if one is going to examine the book shelves for current lengths for fantasy novels being published, it may be best to remain focused on the debut novels of authors where possible, if one is writing a novel to break into the market.


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## psychotick (Jul 16, 2012)

Hi,

My first fantasy novel came in at 187k (which was after some pruning). I've had comments back both that its too long and too short. I can't see my current one coming in at under 200k.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jul 16, 2012)

Mine's just about 190k. A few minor edits left to make, but I might gain or lose a few hundred words at most at this point.


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## Jess A (Jul 16, 2012)

Okay so my target length of 150-200k is not too unreasonable, then, even after my severe pruning.

TWErvin2 - True - I see a lot of new fantasy debut novels at my work. On average, they seem to be a fair length.


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## Philip Overby (Jul 16, 2012)

I think 80K-100K seems fine for most other genres.  But fantasy leans towards doorstops, so they tend to be bigger in volume.  I'm hoping to get my current novel to maybe 100K, maybe more.


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## JonSnow (Jul 16, 2012)

I'm in the process of FINALLY writing my first fantasy novel, after more than a decade of outlining, thinking, and scribbling garbage on paper, only to start over again. I am not a particularly wordy writer. I do include thick description when necessry, but generally everything is clean and to-the-point. Even my action sequences are fairly quick and dirty. Where I spend the bulk of my writing space is on dialog. I will EASILY go over 150k words (I'm guessing that will end up around 400 pages of manuscript)... and that is just the first of at least 3 novels that I already have in my head... and I'm only using 4 perspectives for the first book (only 1 perspective for the first 4 chapters). 

I'm actually surprised at how short the guidelines are. 100k words hardly seems like enough to complete any sort of complex plot with multiple viewpoints. Much less so if you want to develop history and lore along with the main story. When I look at the fantasy shelves in a bookstore, I see it full of 700-1000 page books.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jul 16, 2012)

JonSnow said:


> I'm in the process of FINALLY writing my first fantasy novel, after more than a decade of outlining, thinking, and scribbling garbage on paper, only to start over again. I am not a particularly wordy writer. I do include thick description when necessry, but generally everything is clean and to-the-point. Even my action sequences are fairly quick and dirty. Where I spend the bulk of my writing space is on dialog. I will EASILY go over 150k words (I'm guessing that will end up around 400 pages of manuscript)... and that is just the first of at least 3 novels that I already have in my head... and I'm only using 4 perspectives for the first book (only 1 perspective for the first 4 chapters).
> 
> I'm actually surprised at how short the guidelines are. 100k words hardly seems like enough to complete any sort of complex plot with multiple viewpoints. Much less so if you want to develop history and lore along with the main story. When I look at the fantasy shelves in a bookstore, I see it full of 700-1000 page books.



Fantasy novels don't have to contain multiple viewpoints or have a super-complex plot. If my NIP had only a single POV it probably would have been around 100k words. (Not that it's 400k now, just that the main story would only have taken that long to tell.)


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## JonSnow (Jul 16, 2012)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> Fantasy novels don't have to contain multiple viewpoints or have a super-complex plot. If my NIP had only a single POV it probably would have been around 100k words. (Not that it's 400k now, just that the main story would only have taken that long to tell.)



In the case of mine, the viewpoints are vastly different branches of the story, from different parts of the world (3 of the characters start out together, but get split up, and their individual viewpoints begin from that point). I gues what I"m saying is, being a somewhat minimalist writer, I'm still having a hard time grasping a fantasy novel that is deep, being written in under 100k words (that is 250-300 pages). They will converge at certain points in the story, and some of the characters may even  disappear for long stretches, so I don't have to pour over every detail of their travels. My worry has ALWAYS been that my plot was overly simplistic, and I'm still looking at 150k+ (400-450 pages) per book. Maybe I am crazy, but 100k just seems too short for a full-length fantasy novel.


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## J.P. Reedman (Jul 17, 2012)

Mine is just over 120,000 words; I wish it could be shorter but I have ended up putting in as much as I've taken out in the editing. Due to it being set in a not-very-well-understood prehistoric time period, it needs quite a lot of background to make it come to life and seem realistic. As it is, I envisioned it as one book originally, but it is going to end up as two. Thank goodness there was a natural 'break' at one point.


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