EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT WORD COUNTS BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK
People who have read my novelettes (the stories between 8,000 and 11,000 words that were originally destined to be made into one hour audio books and eBooks) often ask, ‘Why are they called novelettes?’ Some people say, “Hey, I liked that novella you wrote,’ when they really read a novelette.
Since the tags given to different length pieces of fiction seem to cause a wee bit of confusion, I thought I might list the generally accepted definitions for fiction by word count. Just a note: These lengths are not always agreed upon by those who set forth unofficial definitions, but they’re all pretty close to the differing lists that each of the various experts call gospel.
Drabble- A story of exactly 100 words.
Droubble- A story of exactly 200 words.
Micro fiction- Up to 100 words.
Flash fiction- Up to 1,000 words.
Short story- 1,000 to 7,500 words.
Novelette- 7,500 to 17,500 words.
Novella- 17,500 to 45,000 words.
Novel- 45,000 to 100,000 words
Epic- over 100,000 words.
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