How Many Words in a Novel?
Knowing your target word count is the first step to finishing a book. Here are the actual numbers, broken down by genre and format.
Standard word counts by genre
- Literary fiction: 70,000-100,000 words
- Thriller / mystery: 70,000-90,000 words
- Romance: 50,000-80,000 words
- Science fiction: 80,000-120,000 words
- Fantasy: 90,000-150,000 words (epic fantasy can go higher)
- Young adult: 50,000-80,000 words
- Middle grade: 25,000-50,000 words
- Memoir: 60,000-90,000 words
Words to pages
A standard book page holds about 250-300 words. So:
- 50,000 words = roughly 170-200 pages
- 75,000 words = roughly 250-300 pages
- 100,000 words = roughly 335-400 pages
How long to write that many words
Depends on your daily writing goal:
- At 500 words/day: 80,000-word novel takes about 160 days (5.3 months)
- At 1,000 words/day: same novel takes about 80 days (2.7 months)
- At 2,000 words/day: same novel takes about 40 days (1.3 months)
For a deeper look, see how long does it take to write a book.
What this means for your goal
Pick a genre, find the target range, and set that as your master goal. Then break it into daily word targets. That is how you turn a vague idea into a finished manuscript.
BookBeast lets you set your total word goal and tracks your daily progress toward it. You always know exactly how far you have come and how far you have to go.