Fantasy novel length?

[Jess A]

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 159K to 248K. 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.

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.

 

[Jess A]

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!

 

[Steerpike]

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.

 

[Ireth]

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*

 

[Jess A]

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.

 

[Steerpike]

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.

 

[TWErvin2]

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.

 

[psychotick]

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.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

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.

 

[Jess A]

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.

 

[Philip Overby]

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.

 

[JonSnow]

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.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

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.)

 

[JonSnow]

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.

 

[J.P. Reedman]

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.