How Long Should Your Story Be?

While I am updating our Writer’s Resources Word Glossary on our Member’s Only website (only available to our members.) I came across the definition for “Word Count”. Looking on the internet for the typical word count for books by genre is helpful to know when writing your story. These are considered averages and if you want to know how many pages these word counts will produce for paperbacks I always rely on the Kindle Publishing Cpver Calculator: https://kdp.amazon.com/cover-calculator

When writing a book, one of the key factors to consider is the length of your manuscript. The average word count for a book can vary greatly depending on the genre, but there are general ranges that can be helpful for authors to keep in mind. Here is a guide to the average word count by book genre:

• Romance: 80,000 – 100,000 words
• Mystery/Thriller: 80,000 – 100,000 words
• Fantasy/Science Fiction: 100,000 – 120,000 words
• Horror: 80,000 – 100,000 words
• Historical Fiction: 80,000 – 120,000 words
• Young Adult: 60,000 – 80,000 words
• Middle Grade: 30,000 – 50,000 words
• Picture Books: 500 – 1,000 words
• Non-Fiction: 80,000 – 100,000 words

It is important to note that these ranges are just averages and there is no strict rule that books must fall within these word counts. Some books may be shorter or longer and still be successful, but these ranges can serve as a guide for authors who are unsure of the expected length for their book genre.

– https://ebookfairs.com/Blog/post/word-counts

The average short story should run anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 words, but they can be anything above 1,000 words. Flash fiction is a short story that is 500 words or less.

Novella is a fictional piece between a short story and a novel with anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 words. There’s an even narrower story option—the novelette—that has a word count between 7,500 and 17,000 words.

– https://www.masterclass.com/articles/word-count-guide

Octobers Workshop Wrap-Up

This month’s writers workshop was a round-robin given by 4 of our members that culminating into “Ask the Author Anything Panel Discussion” with the authors pictured below: Abigail Sharpe, Melody Johnson, Karen Renee and Vickey Wollan. It was just as much fun to watch on Zoom as it was for the participants in the library. Next month’s will be Zoom only.

Next Month’s Workshop

For the month of November our webmistress and Director of Communications/Social Media Coordinator will be giving a seminar called:

The first presentation, “Canva vs. PowerPoint for Video Creation,” compares the two popular platforms for creating videos. Canva is an online graphic design platform that offers a variety of features for creating presentations, infographics, social media graphics, and more. PowerPoint is a Microsoft Office application that is primarily used for creating presentations.

The second presentation, “Top 5 Social Media Apps for Creating Videos on Mobile Devices,” compares the top 5 social media apps for creating videos on mobile devices. These apps all offer a variety of features for creating and editing videos, including video recording, editing tools, filters and effects, music and sound effects, text overlays, and sharing. Both presentations discuss the pros and cons of each platform and offer recommendations for authors and social media users. Depending on the time the participants are encouraged to bring their smartphones and/or iPads to practice creating and posting a video on the social media page of their choice.

If you write romance check out the education and support this non-profit organization provides to authors of all throughout their careers.
https://firstcoastromancewriters.com/workshops/