Just found out the average novel is way shorter than I thought

I was looking at some old publishing data from 2018 and saw that the average published novel is only about 80,000 words. I always pictured them being over 100k, easy. This makes me wonder if we put too much pressure on word count when starting a story. Do you guys aim for a specific length, or just write until it's done?

3 comments

3 Comments

dylanh812mo ago

My first draft of a mystery novel hit 120k words before I realized half of it was just people drinking coffee and describing weather. Seeing that 80k average made me cut so much fat. Evanh27 has a point about genre needs though, because my friend's fantasy epic really did need all 150k pages to build its magic system. I used to pad scenes to hit some imaginary word count goal, but now I just let the plot find its natural end. Sometimes that's 70k, sometimes it's 90k, but it always reads better than when I was forcing it.

evanh272mo ago

Ever think about how different genres push different lengths? A fast paced thriller might feel right at 70k, but a big fantasy world needs more room to breathe. I tried cutting my sci-fi idea down to 80k and it just made the plot feel rushed. Maybe the "average" hides how much the story's own needs should decide. What kind of story are you trying to tell?

emery6031mo ago

And that's kind of the thing @dylanh81 touched on about genre expectations. The average number hides all those 150k fantasy books and 65k crime novels pulling it in opposite directions. I think the real takeaway is just write the story you need to write and worry about word count later.