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How many words is a novella?
A novella is 17,500 to 40,000 words, about 60 to 160 printed pages. You can read most in a single evening: 1 to 3 hours.
Work it out
pages, single-spaced, Arial 12 pt, about 500 words a page
- Handwritten pages
- 80
- Reading time
- 1 hr 24 min
- Speaking time
- 2 hr 13 min–2 hr 33 min
- Typing time
- 8 hr 20 min
- Paragraphs
- 100–200
- Sentences
- 1,000–1,333
- Characters with spaces
- about 120,000
Write it in the word counter with a goal of at least 20,000 words.
Open the word counterNovella in pages and minutes
| Length | Single-spaced | Double-spaced | Reading time | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17,500 words | 35 | 70 | 1 hr 13 min | 1 hr 56 min–2 hr 14 min |
| 40,000 words | 80 | 160 | 2 hr 48 min | 4 hr 26 min–5 hr 7 min |
Estimates for US Letter or A4 with 1-inch (2.54 cm) margins and ordinary paragraphs; reading at 238 words a minute, speaking at 130 to 150.
Where the line is
The most widely used definition comes from science fiction’s awards: the Nebula Awards (SFWA) and the Hugo Awards both treat 17,500 to 39,999 words as a novella. Literary publishers use the word more loosely for any short novel, often 20,000 to 50,000 words.
Famous novellas
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens: about 29,000 words.
- The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway: about 27,000.
- Animal Farm, George Orwell: about 30,000.
- Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck: about 30,000.
Novellas are harder to sell to traditional publishers than novels, but they do well as e-books, in magazines that publish long fiction, and from small presses.
Questions and answers
How many words is a novella?
17,500 to 40,000 by the award definitions; some publishers say up to 50,000.
How many pages is a novella?
About 60 to 160 printed pages, or 70 to 160 double-spaced manuscript pages.
What is between a short story and a novella?
A novelette: 7,500 to 17,500 words.