# Is a novel 50,000 words? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 21, 2002, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175 "2002-06-21T00:57:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/1 "2002-06-21T00:57:50Z")
I remember hearing this from somewhere. To be considered a novel, a book must have at least 50,000 words. Who is responsible for this definition, and when was it adopted? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/2 "2002-06-21T03:55:50Z")
1. [Yes.](http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-terms/bl-lit-glossary-n.htm) > [@](#): > > Novel > An extended prose fiction narrative of 50,000 words or more, broadly realistic – concerning the everyday events of ordinary peopler – and concerned with character. “People in significant action” is one way of describing it. Another definition might be “an extended, fictional prose narrative about realistic characters and events.” It is a representation of life, experience, and learning. Action, discovery, and description are important elements, but the most important tends to be one or more characters – how they grow, learn, find – or don’t grow, learn, or find. 1. No idea, but I’m guessing “the book publishing industry as a whole arrived at a consensus as to how big a book constituted a novel”. 2. No clue, but since the “novel” as such was only invented in [1740](http://www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0252.html), it had to have been since then. ---
**Author:** ![ski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@ski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ski)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/3 "2002-06-21T09:42:58Z")
The requirement of the above quote for the story to be “realistic” confuses me. Are sci-fi books not novels? How about fantasy books (Harry Potter-type books included)? ---
**Author:** ![Jabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Jabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jabba)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/4 "2002-06-21T10:31:06Z")
The definition of the novel ( like most definitions in the art-world) is not universally agreed. The simplest is simply _une fiction en prose d’une certaine étendue_ ( “a fiction in prose of a certain extent”)[sup]1[/sup], with 50,000 words marking the rough cut-off point between the short novel and the long novella. Another trend in criticism is to distinguish prose fictions according to their subject-matter and style. A novel is then a realistic work in the which the primary focus of interest is the moral development of one or more of the major characters. The main trend of the novel is then that containing Defoe, Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Conrad, Henry James and Lawrence and other similar writers. To say that a book is not a novel by this definition is not ( necessarily) to dismiss it: none of _Animal Farm, Gulliver’s Travels_ or _Frankenstein_ counts as a novel, but they are all still great books. Other categories include the satire and the fable. Popular or genre novels which portray realistic events but which concentrate on plot rather than character development would probably be described simply as books, stories or fiction ( if they are discussed in works of literary criticism at all.) As for the first novel, why _Pamela_? What about _Robinson Crusoe (1719)_ or _The Princess de Clèves (1678)_? 1. Abel Chevally, _Le Roman Anglais de Notre Temps_, quoted in E M forster, _Aspects of the Novel_ ---
**Author:** ![KXL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@KXL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KXL)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/5 "2002-06-21T13:56:22Z")
According to the rules of the Nebula Awards (given by the professional association, The Science Fiction Writers of America – as good a temple as any), a. Short Story: less than 7,500 words. b. Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words. c. Novella: at least 17,500 words but less than 40,000 words. d. Novel: 40,000 words or more ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/6 "2002-06-21T14:05:26Z")
Just to join the history debate, here have been novel in ancient Rome already. ---
**Author:** ![refusal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/7 "2002-06-21T14:22:59Z")
Regarding the requirement from realism, I believe this is to distinguish the novel from the medieval romance (e.g. Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory) rather than from modern fantasy literature. The extended prose work that is known as the modern novel first became a serious literary form in the early 18th Century, although prose fiction is far older, dating back to classical antiquity. The development of an educated literate middle class in Britain (and other places) around 1700, together with improved printing technology, led to the growth of the novel as a popular form of literature (along with the appearance of magazines and later newspapers). What distinguished the novel from earlier fiction is that 18th century works by people such as Fielding and Richardson are more or less about the lives of people like their readers, rather than tales of myth and legend. Hence the new art form, which was differentiated from medieval prose romance. But any quoted length requirement is essentially bogus. Probably a novel is anything that can be published alone in book form. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-novel-50-000-words/115175/8 "2002-06-21T14:48:08Z")
Publishers these days rarely publish novels less than 60,000 words. Short novels look “thin” to book buyers, especially at current prices, so they pass. There is no requirement that a novel be “realistic” (whatever that means). That’s an utterly false requirement, primarily put forth to ghettoize fiction that seems disreputable to the self-appointed gatekeepers of great literature (no one has ever said that, say, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” or “Slaughterhouse Five” aren’t a great novels because they’re not “realistic.”).