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Rated: E · Article · Educational · #2282926
Information on word count guidelines as a general rule...

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This came up on scroll, and also I've seen it elsewhere:
Word counts!

Word counts differ from publisher to publisher, and from source to source. NaNo has a novel starting at 50k words.

In general:

Fast 55: exactly 55 words
Drabble: exactly 100 words (can incude or exclude title)
Flash fiction: up to 500 words or up to 1000 words
Short short: 500-1000 words; or 500-1200 words
Short story: 1000 to 12,500 or 17,500 words; or 500 to 7500 or 10,000 words
Novelette: 7,500 or 10,000 words to 17,500 words
Novella: 12,500 or 17,500 words to 40,000 words
Short novel: 40,000-60,000 words
Novel: 40,000+ or 50,000+ or 60,000+ words
Maximum novel length: 100k words or 120k words or 150k words
At or after 150,000 words, a book can be split in two, but this is not hard and fast at all. Some single novels can exceed 200,000 words!

Some genre have different definitions. Horror, fantasy and sci-fi generally have a novel start at 80,000 words. In romance a novel starts at 40,000 words, so no "short novel". Fantasy tends to have a higher maximum word count. But the above is pretty much it.

As an aside...
Chapters. The chapter length being pretty consistent is what beginner writers are told, to give them a guideline. But I have read a book recently from one of the Big 4 publishers which follows a 20-page chapter with a 2-page chapter. It's whatever the story needs and what works for the story in question. There are no set hard and fast chapter rules.
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