The graphic looks at the length of some famous novels, poems, and plays from literary history. I really dont consider word count when choosing what to read. How many pages do the lord of the rings books have. Reading length provides a calculation for the word count of this book, find out how long it will take you to read. The hobbit, prequel and origination story to the lord of the rings trilogy, is about bilbo baggins a shireling that is used to an ordinary and wellmaintained life. Id guesstimate that nonfiction books generally yes, this is very rough run perhaps 150450 pages, and at about 350 wdpage that works out to something like 50150k words. Rowlings harry potter and the goblet of fire 190,858, harry potter and the half blood prince 169,441, and harry potter and the deathly hallows 198,227 plus about half of albert camus the stranger 36,014. Is there an ideal length of a movie based on the books word count. Not only do you need to know how many words are in a novel, but also why and how the genre youre writing it can change this word count.
Interestingly enough, all three books share the same top three words. For a few examples, lets start on the low end of word count where we have the great gatsby clocking in at approx. Harry potter and the philosophers stone 76,944 words. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. This graph is a representation of the journeys in the hobbit and the lord of the rings. And as you can see, it varies, depending on the story. Also, heres another list i may swipe and add in here. Suddenly inspired, he wrote the words, in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. To simplify things, i divided the total word count for the hobbit 95, 022by three and used that count for each of the three hobbit movies 31,674 because run times for the next two hobbit movies are unknown, i reused the run time for the first hobbit movie 169 minutes, or 10,140 seconds for the next two installments. As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf.
All of stephen kings work, ordered by word count im not sure what this quarantine has done to me. How many words are there in the harry potter book series. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. I was so bored i decided to compile the list of all of stephen kings work most of it anyway and organize it by word count, largest to smallest. Some of these essays can be done in one day and others in one night. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. Top 10 longest novels in the english language listverse. But for each book its 398 pages for the fellowship of the. The average reader will spend 6 hours and 26 minutes reading this book at 250 wpm words per minute.
The title with the shortest chapters, on average, was whirlwind in the thorn tree, averaging just 2,900 words each. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. For a ballpark figure, you have approximately 10,000 words per 50 pages of manuscript if you are using 12pt font and 1 inch margins and doublespaced. By the fifth book, harry potter and the order of the phoenix, the word count had grown to 257,000 words. Apr 11, 2015 stephen king word count 112263 274,672 bag of bones 203,3 black house 252,270 blockade billy 15,917 carrie 60,718 cell 121,931 christine 193,602 cujo 121,150 cycle of the werewolf 15,955 desperation 195,011 doctor sleep. There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters.
The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Ive put together word counts for every book of the bible. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. What isnt often considered is the sheer number of words a person who reads the entire series consumes. I included only books originally written in english, since it is easier to achieve a high word count in some languages than others, and english is the language i. How many pages are all of the lord of the rings books. Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. For book length, i chose to go with word count rather than page count, since theres so much variability when it comes to the number of words. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of. For example, if an author has to write a minimum or maximum amount of words for an article, essay, report, story, book, paper, you name it.
Andy serkis will give a continuous live reading of the hobbit online, to raise. However, since each tome blitzed the 100,000 word mark the fellowship of the ring has177,227 words. Tolkien 18921973 is the creator of middleearth and author of such classic and extraordinary works of fiction as the hobbit, the lord of the rings, and the silmarillion. Let me tell you about how i had to remove my membership from a childrens writer forum because i responded to a newbie about this topic. Jackson made the lord of the rings trilogy with a one book to one film ratio. Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. Chapters 2 through 10 depict bilbo, gandalf, and the dwarves traveling out of the hobbit lands toward the lonely mountain far to the east. If youre working on a novel length book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least but its better to aim for 90,000.
The vary in length from about ten pages to as much as 30 pages. It was published on 21 september 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the carnegie medal and awarded a prize from the new york herald tribune for best juvenile fiction. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. The hobbit, or there and back again is a childrens fantasy novel by english author j. The final hobbit film is an unprecedentedly gratuitous. The word count that your computer gives you is not a standard word count like they use in publishing. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876.
Words to pages determine page length from words count. It may be the case of defining epic fantasy in different ways. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. But i think i captured enough emotion and consideration, and the prose is realitively wellpolished for a first draft. Mark lee at overthinking it follows up his words in books per second of movie analysis of the hobbit, the lord of the rings and other successful movies with some additional analysis examining imdb ratings, plus. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. I have rounded the averages down slightly, both to account for twilights outlier status and. However, since each tome blitzed the 100,000 word mark the fellowship of the ring has177,227 words, the two towers. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. For those who like to keep track of their reading word count. To obtain the double spaced length, multiply the values in the last column by 2. I looked online out of interest and found the information for you from the lotrproject 1website.
I have rounded the averages down slightly, both to account for twilights outlier status and my own preference for brevity. The hobbit has more unique words and a higher unique word density than both the silmarillion and each volume in the lord of the rings. The entire lord of the rings series including the hobbit 576,459 words word counts of the books in j. He enjoys a peaceful and pastoral life but his life is interrupted by a surprise visit by the wizard gandalf. The bible is more than 600,000 words long in its original languagesbut how are those words distributed across the 66 books of the bible. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Time and distance travelled in the lord of the rings and. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. The binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular.
The story began as a sequel to tolkiens 1937 fantasy novel the hobbit, but. Page counts arent always the same among editions, but were just looking for an estimate of length. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Ive been doing some research into epic fantasy word counts recently, especially to get an idea of debut novel figures over recent years.
I cannot find an epic fantasy debut published in the past 5 years that was as small as that. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. The word count of 175 favorite novels broke by books. The the fellowship of the ring, the first book of the lord of the rings series, swelled to 177,227 words. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. Can jackson legitimize his second trilogy with the hobbits much slender 95,022 word count. It makes quite a difference whether you want to publish a childrens picture book, a 50recipe smoothie book, a science fiction novel or a technical encyclopedia. But chapter word count is something that you want to keep in. Words counts of bestselling novels better novel project. The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 words. A single novel can be longer, but once the length is above 110,000 words publishers may look at cutting it back, unless it is a particular kind of book books over the 110k word count are usually considered epics. If you liked electric literatures game of books infographic that compared the length of a song of ice and fire to classic novels, you might enjoy this infographic created for cartridge discount. The latter tend to have larger, and therefore fewer, pages.
The hobbit is the story of bilbo baggins, a hobbit who lives in hobbiton. Movie length, part 2 does the density of a movie adaptation of a book have any effect on its quality. Aug 09, 2019 a dance with dragons, the fifth book in george r. Page count is determined by the publisher, not the writer. I think it stands as the longest fantasy trilogy to date.
Even with the extra pages from tolkien, its hard to imagine. Word counts of the most popular books in the world foster grant uk. Feb 09, 2010 publishers define middle grade fiction as being for 8 to 12 year olds. As the landscape becomes less hospitable and the group faces hunger, bad weather, and attacks from hostile creatures, bilbo often thinks fondly of home and questions his decision to come on this journey.
Martins a song of ice and fire series, is the lengthiest of the five currently released books, with a word count of almost 415. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. The original manuscripts, which total 9,250 pages, now reside in the j. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. I do as i said yesterday avoid long series with complex worldbuilding, but for an individual book ill read pretty much any length if it seems as though ill like it. In any case, to see how authors use this tactic to set their pacing, we also mapped out the word count of every chapter in four famous books. His books have been translated into more than fifty languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Yes, having a book that is overly short or overly long for its genre will incrementally decrease your odds of finding traditional publication.
The harry potter books are popular, and once someone reads the first book in the series, they often end up reading the entire series. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales, but also cause fewer 5star. There is a big gap between the vocabulary and concepts an 8 year old has, compared with an 11 or 12 year old, hence the big gap in word count of novels. Ive spent the last week counting manually to give you an accuranot really. The shortest novels written by 20 authors you shouldve. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page count leading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Dec 17, 2014 i then found the page count for each book using the topselling edition on amazon. A father and his son walk alone through burned america. The lord of the rings is an epic highfantasy novel written by english author and scholar j. Word counts and other distractions griffin paul jackson. I built one logos word list like this for every single book of the bible. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common.
To get an accurate word count for your manuscript, take the character count and divide by 5. If youre talking about all three books together its 1008 pages for the story and with the stuff at the end its 17 pages. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k.
Coyne uses the nanowrimo word count length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. And i thought the stand was long its only 1168 pages. I should hope by the authors ive listed in the original post im very illustrative of what im talking about.
I used word count, not number of pages, as the measure of length, and 3. The first chapter, the unexpected party and flies and spiders are the longest. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. But because time sometimes slows down or speeds up when were engrossed in a good story, its very hard to compare the length of different. The hobbit 300 pages the lord of the rings trilogy is long and, in some places, difficult it took me many tries to get through the tom bombadil sections as a young reader. Jul 30, 2012 jackson made the lord of the rings trilogy with a one book to one film ratio. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. Anyway, heres the figures and facts i have so far looks like big debut novels are anything but unusual in epic fantasy now. The average reader will spend 6 hours and 26 minutes reading this book at 250 wpm words. Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication.
Click on the lines to view information regarding individual days. However, this does not necessarily mean it is more difficult to read. Jackson made the lord of the rings trilogy with a one book to one. At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. But again as a surprise to me, dune was a close second, averaging just 3,800 words per chapter. Their destination is the coast, although they dont know what, if anything, awaits them there. The silmarillion and the lord of the rings both introduce many times more new concepts, characters and locations which makes them more complex. But the hobbit, a prequel of sorts, is only 300 pagesthough youd never guess it.
I then found the page count for each book using the topselling edition on amazon. Analyzing chapter lengths in fantasy fiction creativity. No more than 90,000 words seems to be the editors mantra these days. The lowest wordcount i have so far is brent weeks at 156k with way of shadows. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. And i believe pams book is good enough to one day be in that category. Or are you a visually impaired reader who prefers largeprint editions. For instance, i know that steinbecks of mice and men is only 30,000 words and orwells animal farm is even less, so in my head i follow the twisted logic that goes if these short books earned such fame, surely i can write something of equivalent length and have a chance. Apr 23, 2018 standard word count ranges for various genres. Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling. Apr 03, 2016 for a few examples, lets start on the low end of word count where we have the great gatsby clocking in at approx. Before bilbo is really able to improve upon the situation, gandalf has invited himself to tea and when he arrives, he comes with a company of dwarves led by thorin. That left me with 66 logos word lists, each giving me every originallanguage word in a given book of the bible.
Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Theres the joy luck club and the hobbit at 91,000 and 95,000 words respectively. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Tolkiens initial novel, the hobbit, contained 95,022 words. I wanted to get a sense of average chapter length in books i know, ty for that btw, because i dont trust my word processor. The entire lord of the rings series including the hobbit 576,459 words. May 11, 2019 word count of the lord of the rings series. Is there a website that gives the word counts on books. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to.
Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. Since just comparing the number of unique words in a book does not take its length into account i decided to calculate the percentage of unique words of the whole text. The book remains popular and is recognized as a classic in. Tolkiens fourvolume lord of the rings series is 576,459. You can navigate back and forth between dates using the arrow keys. Sep 20, 2019 how many words in a novel vary depending on genre, audience, and the story itself but in general, the average words in a novel is between 60,000 and 90,000 words for most genres. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. The longest average chapter lengths were lord of the rings 7,500, prince of nothing 8,700, and the beefiest chapters were found in the black company, with. Stephen king word count 112263 274,672 bag of bones 203,3 black house 252,270 blockade billy 15,917 carrie 60,718 cell 121,931 christine 193,602 cujo 121,150 cycle of the werewolf 15,955 desperation 195,011 doctor sleep. A new versionrework of this post is available here this is my attempt at a rework of a post by umikehoa here as noted in the comments of that post, page count is highly variable based on text sizefont and other publication constraints and thus may not be the best measure of book length. More recently the fault in our stars comes in at 67,000.
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