What Size is That?
BY VIVIAN GILBERT ZABEL
Often the question is asked, “How long should a novel be?” Also people want to know how many words or pages a novella should be, how many a novelette is, how many for a short story. I found varying lengths advised, but the main number of words are listed below, and a page contains approximately 250 words.
Let’s start with the shorter writing, the short story, which can be up to 20,000 words in length according to Dictionary of LaborLawTalk. The article also broke the figures down by three countries: in the U.S. up to 10,000 words; in the U.K. up to 5,000; and in Australia up to 3,500. All sources agree that a short story should be at least 1,000 words. The “rule of thumb,” however for a short story is that it is a writing with all the components of a story (plot, characterization, dialogue, conflict, climax, resolution, setting) which can be read in a single sitting.
A novelette has 7,500 to 17,500 words, but that writing form isn’t mentioned much. It often is considered a “long” short story.
According to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, a novella contains 20,000 to 40,000 words. The dictionary cited above states that novellas are 17,500 to 40,000 words.
Novels, therefore, are writings above 40,000 words. In the past, novels were much longer than that, averaging 150,000 to 200,000 words. Now, they average around 100,000 words.
The best way to know how long to make a work is to write until it is finished, then delete redundancies and padding. If you, as a writer, know where you want to be published, check the guidelines for that publisher for the length desired. If you are entering a contest, abide by the guidelines for that contest.
After teaching composition for 25 years and becoming an author on Writing.com, an online community for writers, Vivian Gilbert Zabel (also writing as V. Gilbert Zabel) produced Hidden Lies and Other Stories, Walking the Earth: Life’s Perspective in Poetry and The Base Stealers Club, available through most bookstores and Amazon.com.
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