Could anyone please help, as I'm fairlly new at this, what is the maximum amount of words a short story can be before it becomes a novella and the maximum amount of words a novella can be before it becomes a novel? Phew, glad I got that one out of my system, It's been bugging me for weeks now. I just don't know. If anyone could help I'd appreciate more than words can describe. Thank you.

Steven

Someone with more experience might be able to correct me, but I have always been under the impression that a short story is under 5,000 words, a novella between 5,000 and 50,000 and a novel above 50,000.

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I have just done a quick search, and there seems to be a variation - one site says 17,500, one says 5,000, one says 20,000 - but it all is approximate.

Steven

It's so weird how you've asked this question. I was about to post the same thing when you beat me to it. I'd be interested to hear the answers.

Nahed

Daisy,

Thanks for the info. I think 17,500 words for a short sotry MAX sounds about right. I know Clive Barker has written some short stories around about that length. And H.P. [my hero!] Lovecraft also completed some short stories at similar lengths. I will use that as my maximum short story length. Thank you for finding out.
And a novella between 17,500 and 50,000 and a novel above it, that sounds about sorted enough for me. Cheers.

Nahed,

Yeah, it's been puzzling me for a while I can tell you. Great minds think alike, oh what a cliche lol

Steven

The numbers above sound about right to me, but I know from experience that if you send an extract from a novel of less than 90,000 words to Piatkus Books they'll return it with a letter saying that they were unable to read it as they don't accept short stories! (Or maybe they hated it and that was just a feeble excuse.)

Aw Nell,

Send it back and inform them that many of Stephen King's books are the same length as your novel. 'Thinner' is around the 90,000 word mark. I haven't had the mis-fortune of submitting a novel to a publisher yet, I have to finish it first I'm dreading the anticipation of having to wait for replies *eek*

Steven