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There are multiple examples of novels that are little over 40,000 words. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is 46,118 words. Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - 46,333 words. Erich Ma...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-12T21:57:31Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40391 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T10:15:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40391 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
T **here are multiple examples of novels that are little over 40,000 words.** Ray Bradbury's _Fahrenheit 451_ is 46,118 words. Douglas Adams's _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ - 46,333 words. Erich Maria Remarque's _All Quiet on the Western Front_ is ~60,000 words. All are, rather obviously, novels. ([Source](https://indefeasible.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/great-novels-and-word-count/)) Which indicates that your assumption that a novel needs to be over 80,000 words is mistaken. For shorter works, the source you provide is a good guideline. In particular, this is the guideline followed by the Hugo and Nebula awards, (but notably, other awards use slightly different upper margins on a novella's length. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novella#Word_counts)) That said, Hemingway's _The Old Man and the Sea_ is routinely featured on "best novel" lists, although it is merely 26,601 words - on the lower side of the 'novella' length. I have seen the term **short novel** used sometimes, to describe a work that's comparatively short for a novel. However, I found no formal definition of the term.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-11-28T12:36:50Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 4