Word Counts in Novels (by Lawrence J. Epstein)

Among the vast number of contradictory phenomena I don’t understand there is this: Why do Americans seem to have a decreasing attention span (witness the popularity of tweets and the fact that interest in a YouTube video declines after thirty seconds) while at the same time publishers and presumably readers want longer novels? For example, I read a lot of mysteries, and it turns out that between 1960 and 1979 the median length of novels that won the Edgar Award for Best Mystery was 72,001 words. However, since 1980 that medium length has been 102,533. There are a lot of theories about why the length of all novels has increased. One person in publishing told me readers feel cheated if they pay thirty bucks and get a thin novel. Or maybe novel readers take a look at the world and have a greater need to escape than they once did.

For those of you who enjoy or write novels under 65,000 words, I thought I’d compile a list of brief novels. I figured I’d list ten classic novels under 50,000 words to emphasize the point. Here are the titles, authors, and word count of those novels:

Animal Farm, George Orwell, 29,966

A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens, 28,944

Farenheit 451. Ray Bradbury, 46,118

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 47,094

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck, 29,160

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway, 26,601

The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane 47,180

A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf, 37,761

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, 49,459

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle, 49,965

There are also many great classic mystery novels that are relatively brief. James M. Cain was a master of brief novels. Double Indemnity, for example, had 30,072 words. I don’t have the exact word count for The Postman Always Rings Twice, but it was about 35,000 words. Cain wrote such tight prose with compelling narratives that I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the films made from these two novels are among the best mystery films ever made.

Of course, this is not to suggest that great novels need to be brief. In the 19^th century, without all the distractions of contemporary life and without radio, film, audio books, television, video games, and the internet to offer alternative ways for readers to find the pleasures of storytelling, novels were often much longer. War and Peace was 587,287 words. Tolstoy was, by comparison, a slacker in creating Anna Karenina. That was only 349,736 words. In the United States, Melville took 206,052 words to compose Moby-Dick. Emily Bronte was, by comparison, frugal with her words. She used only 107,947 of them to write Wuthering Heights. Jane Austen was somewhere in the middle. Emma was 155,887 words.

I personally often prefer shorter novels. I can carry the characters and the plot completely in my head throughout the story. I can finish a book in one sitting. A briefer novel can, at its best, carry the power of a poem. But, judging by novels now being published, I am in the distinct minority.

I’ve been thinking about writing a literary mystery. However, if I do, it will be brief, and I therefore wonder how it would ever be published and, if it were, whether readers would feel cheated, as though they bought a blouse or shirt only to discover a sleeve was missing.

What strange literary questions contemporary America engenders.

Comments

[The Best American Poetry]

Very thoughtful piece. Thank you, Larry. -- DL

[RM Burgess]

My fantasy novel, THE EMPIRE OF THE ZON (pen name RM Burgess) is about 235,000 words.
Most people tell me that it is very long, but I did not realize it was so much shorter than War and Peace.
I've be happy to send you a copy, if you like.
RM Burgess

[THE GREAT ONE]

In my view, it's quality, not quantity. I've recently completed a techno-thriller of approximately 32,000 words, and I strongly feel that to add more content to it--be it dialogue or exposition--would simply be padding and would actually detract from the readability and directness of the tale.

[Larry Epstein]

I suggest you put it away for a while and then go back. See if any of the characters can be fleshed out or there are plot points that need to be added. If not, then the book is complete as it is. I certainly agree with you that padding would hurt the book. Thanks for your comment and good luck with your writing.

[Ana Maria]

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[Larry Epstein]

Thanks!

[Oliver Tooley]

I just found this post in order to illustrate to another writer why they should not stress about making their fantasy novel longer than the current 59k words.
Thank you. I like this list which includes some of my all time favourite novels (although I'll never read "1984" again. Too traumatic).
I also like your commentary.
My longest work to date is just under 60k and frankly, I have no desire to write much longer.
For one thing a 256 page novel just fits in the Royal Mail "Large Letter" category, but any longer goes up to "Small Parcel" so it costs more to post!
For another thing I, like you, prefer shorter more manageable novels. I see the lengthening of novels as a bad thing, rather like the increasing size of a regular pizza or burger.
More is not necessarily better.
By the way, I believe "War and Peace" is actually a trilogy that is now always served up as a single course.
As regards publishing your shorter novels, the simple answer is, of course, self-publish and be damned.

[Traif Kashrut]

The poets I love include Denise Duhamel, Nin Andrews, Molly Arden, Mitch Sisskind, Terence Winch, and James Cummins. This provocative post kept me up all night!