Average Story Lengths

As I begin my adventure into story telling, I figure a good staring place is to become familiar with the different types and lengths of stories. That way I have something to aim for as I'm practicing and working on prompts.

I'm familiar with novels and short stories of course, but as I started digging, I found several other categories as well. Based on the sources I checked, there isn't an official world length for each type of story, and it often depends on the publisher as to what the official values are. That being said, there are some generic rules of thumb.

Flash Fiction

Flash fiction is the shortest type of story, and has sub-categories within it. The general consensus seems to be that flash fiction consists of less than 1,000 words.

The sub-categories include:

• Sudden Fiction / Short Short: 750 - 1,000 words
• Micro Fiction: Less than 300 words
• Drabble: Exactly 100 words
• Dribble: Exactly 50 words

Short Story

Next up is a short story, which generally has between 1,000 and 7,500 words, with average counts between 3,000 and 5,000.

Short stories are typically self-contained, not part of a series, and focus on two - three characters at most. This is a good place to practice and hone your skills.

Novelette

A Novelette is slightly longer than a short story with word counts between 7,500 and 20,000. These are typically published as e-books

Novella

Novella's fill the gap between a Novelette and a Novel, coming in at 20,000 to 50,000 words. These, like Novelettes, seem to be published primarily as e-books.

Novel

Next, we have a novel. These have a fairly large range between 50,000 and 110,000 words with an average around 80,000.

Epic

Finally, at the largest end is an epic. These stories have more than 110,000 words.

In addition to story types (is that the correct word? 🤷‍♂️), I also came across some targets for various audiences and genres, which I thought were a good starting place to keep in mind.

Audience

• Children: 400 - 1,500 words
• Young Adult: 30,000 - 80,000 words
• Adult: 80,000 - 100,000 words

Genre

• Suspense: 70,000 - 90,000 words
• Romance: 50,000 - 100,000 words
• Historical Fiction: 100,000 words
• Science Fiction / Fantasy: 90,000 - 120,000 words

So where did I get my information? Well, I'm glad you asked! Surprisingly (or not...) AI was not and will not be used in any of my posts or narratives. It's strange because, you know, I actually like being able to research, know where the information comes from, and come to my own conclusions - even if it's not as fast or efficient 😄

Below is a list of posts and articles I browsed to get the numbers above.

TYPICAL LENGTHS OF FICTIONAL WORKS

Jodie Renner

Short Fiction Forms: Novella, Novelette, Short Story, and Flash Fiction Defined

When it comes to fiction, a short narrative can be found in many forms, from a slim book to just a few sentences. Short fiction forms can generally be broken down based on word count. The guidelines in this article can help you understand how short fiction is commonly defined. There are

Author Learning CenterNew Sudden Fiction

How to Write a Short Story: A Writer’s Ultimate Guide

LitReactor

How Long Is A Short Story, Novella, Or Novelette? – Jericho Writers

Find out the difference between a story, novella and novelette - from content to page count, and explore examples of each.

Jericho WritersSavannah Jackson

Six Types of Fiction and Their Approximate Length

The types of fiction are micro-fiction, flash fiction, short story, novelette, novella, novel. Know the expected length of each one.

Peter Lyle DeHaanPeter Lyle DeHaan

Where are standard wordcounts for different types of fiction found?

I’ve heard it said on here that 100,000 words is about right for a novel, 20,000 is about a novella and much too much for a short story... What are the sources for these numbers, are there more I…

Writing Stack ExchangeWeckar E.

Word Count | LitRejections

LitRejections