#20 Does Word Count Matter in Your Middle-Grade Novel?

In today’s episode on the Middle Grade Made Easy(er) podcast, we’re going to talk about middle-grade book length. The reason for this is because it’s been something of a hot topic over the last few years, and it’s also a question I get often from the authors I edit or coach. Specifically, the types of questions I get are:

• How long should my middle-grade novel be?
• Can I write more than 50,000 words if I’m writing middle-grade fantasy?
• Is word count really important? Can’t my book just be as long as I need to tell my story?

These are all good questions, especially if you’re new to writing middle grade, or just wondering about all the conflicting information out there. So, let’s dive right in and have a look at how long your middle-grade novel should be and why word count matters.

Standard Middle-Grade Novel Word Count

We’re going to start by looking at what’s generally accepted as the norm for middle-grade book length.

As middle grade is for readers between 8 and 12 years of age, word count is going to differ depending on whether you’re writing for the lower category of middle-grade readers, aged roughly between 8 and 10, or the upper category, aged roughly between 11 and 12:

• Lower middle grade (readers aged 8 to 10): 35,000 to 50,000 words
• Upper middle grade (readers aged 11 to 12): around 50,000 words
• Genres like fantasy, sci-fi, and historical: between 60,000 and 80,000 words

You’ll notice that I used the word ‘roughly’ when talking about the ages of kids reading in each category because, while readers of different ages can be expected to read at certain speeds and proficiency levels as they acquire literacy skills, every kid is essentially different. You may know an 8-year-old who speed-reads through one upper middle grade novel a month, or a 12-year-old who is more comfortable reading shorter books from the lower middle-grade category, and reads only one book a year.

But individual behaviour aside, it’s best for you, as an author, to stick to the publishing industry standard word counts for lower and upper middle grade because they exist for a few reasons. The most important reason is that these word counts are what have been found to work best for kids at different stages of their cognitive development.

If you’ve been paying attention over the last five years, you’ll also have noticed that there has been a lot of talk about how the publishing industry is trending more toward publishing shorter middle-grade novels than longer ones. Word on the street is that 35,000 is the sweet spot at the moment, and the reason for this is because screen time has replaced reading for pleasure for a lot of kids over the last decade.

As the publishing industry is all about selling books, publishers are adapting to the fact that kids are spending less time reading than before. So, it makes sense to give them shorter books that will hold their attention for the least time it takes to tell a story, rather than longer books they may not finish.

Three reasons why word count matters

While the most important reason to stick to industry-standard word count for your middle-grade novel is so that you are meeting kids where they’re at in their cognitive development, there are also other important reasons.

Your middle-grade novel’s word count is important for you, as an author, during the drafting and publishing process too.

So, let’s have a look at three reasons why knowing your target word count before you start writing can help you reach your goal of writing, finishing and publishing your novel:

Reason #1: Having a target word count in mind can help you be realistic about your writing schedule, and get you to the end of your first draft.

For example, imagine that you want to write a 35,000 word first draft, and you know that you are able to write 500 words in one hour. This means you can, more or less, expect your first draft to take 70 hours  to write. Or, if you plan to write 500 words three times a week, you can expect to total 1,500 words a week, and that your first draft of 35,000 words will take you roughly 24 weeks (or 6 months) to finish.

While that sounds neat and tidy, and easy to achieve, don’t forget that I’m talking about writing forward consistently to finish your first draft, not stopping to research, edit or revise scenes that you’ve already written. You need to be realistic about this because, if you’re the type of writer who likes to research during the drafting process, or take time to read through what you’ve already written, then build that extra time into your schedule so you don’t set yourself up for disappointment.

Reason #2: Having a target word count can help you build a framework for your novel, and help you pace your story. Basically, you can use word count to shape your story’s acts, and the number of scenes within each act.

For example, if you’re writing a 60,000 word historical novel, and you’re a fan of the three-act structure, you can divide those 60,000 words into three parts. This means, the first act of your story, which should represent 25% of the whole book will be about 15,000 words, the middle, which should be about be 50%, will be 30,000 words, and the end, which should be about another 25%, will be 15,000 words.

Using those numbers as a base, you can then also calculate how many scenes will fit into each act of your novel, if you wanted to. Given that scenes in a middle-grade novel are normally between 500 and 1500 words, you’d have about 15 scenes in your first and last acts and 30 scenes in your middle act if you wrote scenes of about 1,000 words in length.

Reason #3: Having a target word count will help you sell your book, whether you’re submitting to publishers or self-publishing.

Agents and acquisitions editors take note of word count when they’re deciding whether they want to take on a new client or buy a book. Of course, given an engaging enough premise, many agents and publishers might read longer-than-the-norm manuscripts but many are hesitant to tackle higher word counts when they have packed inboxes, especially if you’re a new author and don’t have a successful track record. If you stick to the average word count for middle-grade fiction, it shows that you’ve done your research as an author, and that you understand the market that you’re writing for.

Also, you need to factor in how the issue of funds, or the lack of funds, might sway a publisher’s or agent’s decision to stand behind a book with a high word count. The hope is that a manuscript will eventually become a printed and bound book. Every page costs money to produce, stock, and ship along distribution networks. It’s important for authors to know that, when deciding if they’ll acquire a book or not, publishers actually create a Profit and Loss Statement, and the length of your middle-grade novel factors into this calculation.

Of course, publishers make exceptions for fantasy, historical, and science fiction because everyone knows that these types of stories usually tend to have more worldbuilding, and that means more detail, which means more words. But, be careful! You still need to be economical with your word count if you write in these genres. If an agent sees that you’ve included paragraph after paragraph of irrelevant description about how your world works, and no dialogue or scene breaks, it’s not going to matter that you’re writing in a genre that gives you a higher word count to tell your story; they will reject your submission.

Now, middle-grade fiction is notoriously difficult to sell, so there are fewer self-publishing authors in this category of kidlit than in picture books, for example, but, if you are self-publishing, I would still advise that you follow word count guidelines. While it’s a fact that you technically have the freedom to do as you please with your book when you self-publish, you’re still going to bump up against two important obstacles: editing and printing fees and reader expectations.

When you hire an editor and proofreader to polish your book before you publish, the longer your manuscript, the more they’ll charge to review your work. Similarly, if you sell physical copies of your book, it will cost you more to self-publish, and you’ll have to either charge the reader more, or take a smaller profit margin on your book.
The last important element to consider is what your readers are expecting from you and your book. By readers, I don’t only mean the kids reading your book but also the adults who will be the ones actually buying your book. If parents, teachers, librarians and kids are expecting a 35,000-word, contemporary novel for lower middle grade, and you self-publish a book of 80,000 words, they might not be willing to pay for or read such a long novel.

To sum up…

So, that’s it for the topic of how long your middle-grade novel should be, and why word count matters. Before I let you go, let’s quickly sum up the reasons to watch your word count:

1. The designated industry-standard word counts are what have been found to work best for 8 to 12-year-old kids at this particular stage in their cognitive development.
2. Watching your word count can help you be realistic about your writing schedule, and get you to the end of your first draft.
3. Having a target word count can both help you build a framework for your novel, and pace your story.
4. A target word count will help you sell your book, whether you’re submitting to agents and publishers or self-publishing.

All of that said, ultimately, your middle-grade book length is up to you as the author. While everything we’ve been over today is true, it’s also worth knowing that sometimes it’s not only about how many words you use to tell your story, but what you do with those words that counts. Basically, word count matters, so make each word count!

Links

• Middle Grade Made Easy(er) podcast
• The Kidlitter Letter