Episode 021: Find the Right Length for Your Story, Pt. 3

In the last installment of our 3-part series, we’re taking a look at longer forms of fiction, beginning with the basic building block, the novel.







Novels



The sweet spot for most novels is between 80,000 and 120,000 words, but within that window, different genres have more finely-tuned sweet spots where most of their novels live.



There are a number of ways to think about categorizing novels, and we’ve already talked about different types of novels on earlier episodes of this show. I invite you to check out the following for some deeper understanding of the different types of novels.




Episode 010 | Commercial vs. Upmarket vs. Literary





Episode 006 | Genre 101








Epics



Obviously, another way to think about novels is by length. Epics (sometimes also known as “Super Novels”) tend to be longer (120,000 or 125,000 words or longer) and often features some elements from the original epics like The Odyssey and The Illiad, such as a journey and/or a quest. This journey or quest can be physical, spiritual, or temporal. There is no hard and fast number for how long these can be, but I had a hard time finding books longer than 650,000 that had found a wide audience. Prominent examples of epics include:































Series



Most novels are stand-alones, meaning that they aren’t meant to be read as part of a collection of books and/or have no special connection to other books’ storylines. However, when two or more books are connected in some way, they become a part of a series. Series fall into two basic categories:



1 Overarching story arcs that are too big to fit into one book and require two or more books to tell the complete s...