Word counter for writers
Paste a chapter or a whole manuscript to count words, characters, sentences and pages, find the words you repeat most, and see how the length compares with what agents and publishers expect for your genre.
Counted in your browser. Your text is never uploaded.
- Characters
- 0
- Characters without spaces
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Average sentence
- 0 words
- Unique words
- 0
- Reading time
- 0 min
- At 260 words a minute, the average for silent reading of fiction
- Speaking time
- 0 min
- At 155 words a minute, about 9,300 an hour, an audiobook pace
- Manuscript pages
- 0
- Standard manuscript format, 250 words a page
- Paperback pages
- 0
- Estimate at 250 to 350 words a printed page
Most repeated words
Leaving out common words such as the, and, she and said.
Words you use more than once will show here.
Longest sentence
Worth a second look when it runs much longer than your average.
Your longest sentence will show here.
Novel length
Where your count falls, by story category and by genre.
Paste or write some text to see where it falls.
Typical literary fiction runs about 80,000 to 95,000 words across the sources below.
- 80,000 to 95,000The Manuscript Academy, with agent Noelle Falcis Math, for a debut
- 80,000 to 89,999Writer's Digest (Chuck Sambuchino), safest range; 71,000 to 109,000 workable
Word count goal
Set a target and a deadline to see the daily pace. Saved in this browser.
Set a target to see how many words a day it takes.
How many words is a novel?
The short answer
For its awards, SFWA counts any story of 40,000 words or more as a novel. Agents looking at a first adult novel usually expect about 80,000 to 100,000 words. Fantasy and science fiction run longer, often 90,000 to 120,000. Middle grade and series romance run shorter.
Story categories
The bands most writers quote come from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, which uses them to sort entries for the Nebula Awards. The Hugo Awards use the same lines. Flash fiction has no award definition; most magazines that publish it set the limit at about 1,000 words.
| Category | Length | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Flash fiction | Up to about 1,000 words | Flash Fiction Magazine accepts 300 to 1,000 |
| Short story | Fewer than 7,500 words | SFWA Nebula rules |
| Novelette | 7,500 to 17,499 words | SFWA Nebula rules |
| Novella | 17,500 to 39,999 words | SFWA Nebula rules |
| Novel | 40,000 words or more | SFWA Nebula rules |
Typical novel lengths by genre
Publishers have no single rule, so here are two widely cited sources side by side: the 2026 guide from The Manuscript Academy, built on advice from literary agent Noelle Falcis Math of Transatlantic Literary Agency, and Chuck Sambuchino's long-running word count post for Writer's Digest. Where they differ, treat the overlap as the safe zone.
| Genre | The Manuscript Academy | Writer's Digest |
|---|---|---|
| Literary fiction | 80,000 to 95,000 for a debut | 80,000 to 89,999; 71,000 to 109,000 is the full workable range |
| Commercial fiction | 80,000 to 100,000 | 80,000 to 89,999 |
| Mystery and thriller | 80,000 to 90,000 | 80,000 to 89,999 |
| Contemporary romance | 70,000 to 90,000 | 80,000 to 89,999 |
| Historical romance | 80,000 to 100,000 | Not listed separately |
| Fantasy | 90,000 to 120,000 | 100,000 to 115,000; 90,000 to 124,000 probably fine |
| Science fiction | 90,000 to 110,000 | 100,000 to 115,000; 90,000 to 124,000 probably fine |
| Romantasy | 90,000 to 110,000 | Not listed |
| Horror | Not listed | 80,000 to 89,999 |
| Young adult | 60,000 to 80,000; contemporary 60,000 to 75,000 | 55,000 to 79,999 |
| Middle grade | 40,000 to 60,000 | 20,000 to 55,000 |
| Western | Not listed | 50,000 to 80,000 |
| Memoir | 70,000 to 90,000 | 80,000 to 89,999 |
Debut or established author
These ranges describe what agents expect from a first novel. The Manuscript Academy says established authors can go longer, and mentions fantasy deals at 150,000 words for an author with a track record, not a debut. Writer's Digest makes the same point from the other side: famous long debuts are exceptions, and a first novel should plan to be the rule. If you publish yourself, the limits are your readers' expectations for the genre rather than a print budget, but those expectations are real.
How many pages is 50,000 words?
About 200 manuscript pages, or roughly 143 to 200 pages in a paperback. Page counts depend entirely on the format, so here are the assumptions behind every number on this page:
- Manuscript pages use standard manuscript format: 12-point type, double spaced, one-inch margins. That fits about 250 words a page, which is how editors have long estimated length (William Shunn's guide to manuscript format puts it at 250 to 300 at most).
- Paperback pages depend on trim size, font, spacing and margins. The estimate here uses 250 to 350 words a printed page, so the result is a range, not a number.
- Reading time uses 260 words a minute, the average silent reading rate for fiction in a review of 190 studies (Brysbaert, 2019). Non-fiction averaged 238.
- Audiobook length uses 155 words a minute, from ACX's guide that narrators record about 9,300 words per finished hour (ACX).
| Words | Manuscript pages | Paperback pages | Reading time | Audiobook |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 4 | 3 to 4 | 4 min | 6 min |
| 10,000 | 40 | 29 to 40 | 38 min | 1 hr 5 min |
| 50,000 | 200 | 143 to 200 | 3 hr 12 min | 5 hr 23 min |
| 80,000 | 320 | 229 to 320 | 5 hr 8 min | 8 hr 36 min |
| 100,000 | 400 | 286 to 400 | 6 hr 25 min | 10 hr 45 min |
| 120,000 | 480 | 343 to 480 | 7 hr 42 min | 12 hr 54 min |
Word count and character count
Agents, publishers, contests and magazines ask for word counts, because words track how long a story takes to read and how many pages it will fill. Character counts matter where space is tight: a pitch field on a submission form, a back-cover blurb, a social post. Characters include spaces and punctuation unless the form says otherwise, which is why the counter shows both.
How this counter counts
- A word is a run of letters or digits. Contractions and hyphenated words count once: don't, mother-in-law, 1,000 and 3.5 are one word each.
- Em dashes, en dashes, slashes, ellipses and spaces separate words, so two words joined by a dash count as two.
- Chinese characters and Japanese kana count one word each, as word processors count them. Korean is counted by its spaces.
- A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis followed by a space, and at a line break. Abbreviations such as Mr. and e.g. and initials such as J. R. R. don't end one.
- A paragraph is any line with text on it.
- Characters are counted as letters and symbols you see, so an accented letter or an emoji counts once.
Word processors handle a few edge cases differently, such as words joined by a dash, so expect small differences from Word or Google Docs over a long manuscript. For a query letter, round the count to the nearest thousand anyway.
Questions about word count
How many words are in a typical novel?
Most adult novels that agents take on run about 80,000 to 100,000 words, with fantasy and science fiction often 90,000 to 120,000 and young adult around 55,000 to 80,000. SFWA's award rules count anything of 40,000 words or more as a novel. The tables above give the ranges by genre with their sources.
How many pages is 50,000 words?
About 200 pages in standard manuscript format (250 words a page), and roughly 143 to 200 pages in a paperback, depending on trim size and type.
Is 50,000 words long enough for a novel?
By SFWA's definition, yes: a novel starts at 40,000 words. For a traditionally published adult novel it is short; most genres expect 70,000 words or more. It fits middle grade and the shorter series romance lines.
How long does it take to read 100,000 words?
About 6 hours and 25 minutes at 260 words a minute, the average silent reading rate for fiction. Read aloud at an audiobook pace of about 9,300 words an hour, it runs about 10 hours and 45 minutes.
Is my text uploaded or stored anywhere?
Your text is counted in your browser and never uploaded. It is saved in this browser's local storage so it is still here when you come back; press Clear to remove it.
Why is my count different from Word or Google Docs?
Every counter makes a few choices, such as whether words joined by a dash are one word or two. The rules this counter uses are listed above. On a long manuscript the difference is usually a small fraction of a percent.
Do chapter titles and notes count?
Everything in the box counts. To get the count an agent asks for, paste the manuscript text itself, without notes or a synopsis.
Plan the length as you plan the book
In Feldar a book is a set of pages, usually a chapter each, and every page has an outline of scenes. Set a word target for the page and write it yourself with the scenes beside you, or press Draft Page for a first pass at the length you set. Nothing enters your manuscript until you accept it. How scene planning works.