---
title: "How Long Should a Novel Be? Word Counts by Genre"
description: "The word-count ranges agents and readers actually expect (fantasy, romance, thriller, YA, literary), and what to do if you're way over or under."
source: https://usegalley.com/blog/how-long-should-a-novel-be
---
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# How Long Should a Novel Be? Word Counts by Genre

August 1, 2026 [Craft](https://usegalley.com/blog/tag/craft)

![A stack of manuscripts of different thicknesses](https://usegalley.com/images/blog/how-long-should-a-novel-be.png) TL;DR Most adult novels land between 70,000 and 100,000 words. Fantasy and sci-fi run longer (90k to 120k), romance and thriller sit around 70k to 90k, and YA is 50k to 80k. Being wildly outside your genre's range is the single easiest way to signal 'first draft' to an agent, so know the number before you start querying.

There’s no law that a novel must be a certain length. But there are strong
conventions. Reedsy keeps a [genre-by-genre breakdown](https://reedsy.com/studio/resources/how-many-words-in-a-novel/)
that matches what agents see, and readers and agents feel them even when they
can’t name them. A
book that’s the “wrong” length often gets rejected before anyone reads a
sentence, so know where your genre sits.

## The ranges, by genre

- **Literary / upmarket fiction** - 70,000 to 100,000

- **Fantasy & science fiction** - 90,000 to 120,000 (epic fantasy stretches higher)

- **Romance** - 70,000 to 90,000 (category romance can be shorter)

- **Thriller / mystery / crime** - 70,000 to 90,000

- **Young adult** - 50,000 to 80,000

- **Middle grade** - 30,000 to 55,000

These aren’t hard walls. They’re the fat middle of the bell curve, which is
exactly where an agent’s eyes relax instead of narrowing.

## Why the number matters more than it should

[Word count](https://usegalley.com/glossary#word-count) is a proxy for craft, and agents read it that way. A 150,000-word
debut thriller doesn’t say “epic,” it says “this writer hasn’t learned to cut.”
A 45,000-word “adult novel” reads as a novella that isn’t sure what it is, which
is a harder sell than either a real novel or a real novella.

None of that is fair to the actual book. It’s just the pattern a slush pile
teaches you, and you’re being read by people who’ve seen a lot of slush.

## What to do if you’re over or under

**If you’re over,** the fix is almost always cutting, not splitting. Do a
[self-editing pass](https://usegalley.com/features/revise) looking for scenes that don’t change anything, subplots that
could be one subplot, and description doing work the reader already did. Most
bloated drafts have 15 to 20% of pure air in them. Splitting a long book into
two only works if book one has its own real ending, which most don’t.

**If you’re under,** resist the urge to pad. Thin books are usually thin on
story, not on words, so add plot and consequence, not adjectives. Ask what your
protagonist wants, what’s stopping them, and whether you’ve made them
earn it.

The exception to all of this is established authors, who get to break the range
because a publisher already trusts the length will sell. Your first book doesn’t
have that credit yet. Hit the range now, break it once you can.

If you want to keep an eye on the number while you draft, Galley shows a [live word count](https://usegalley.com/features/write) per chapter and for the whole book, so you always
know where you are without pasting into a counter.

Outside the app, [novel word count by genre](https://usegalley.com/resources/novel-word-count-by-genre)
puts your number against the range agents expect for your shelf, and the
[reading time calculator](https://usegalley.com/resources/reading-time-calculator) turns it into the
hours it costs a reader.

## More on craft

- [Sending Your Novel to Beta Readers](https://usegalley.com/blog/sending-your-novel-to-beta-readers)When to send a draft out, how many readers you actually need, the brief that gets useful answers, what file to send, and why every copy should carry the reader's name.
- [What Is a Story Bible, and Do You Need One?](https://usegalley.com/blog/what-is-a-story-bible)The reference document that keeps names, timelines, and world details consistent across a novel or series, what goes in it, and when you actually need one.

[Every craft post](https://usegalley.com/blog/tag/craft)

[← All posts](https://usegalley.com/blog)

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