Is 4000 words a short story?
Most short stories are between 2,000 and 7,000 words long, with the most popular length between 2,500 and 4,000 words. Unlike a novel or even a novella, a short story is about just a small slice of life, with one story thread and one theme.
What are the different types of short stories? Short stories come in all kinds of categories: action, adventure, biography, comedy, crime, detective, drama, dystopia, fable, fantasy, history, horror, mystery, philosophy, politics, romance, satire, science fiction, supernatural, thriller, tragedy, and Western.
Word Counts For Short Stories, Novellas And Novelettes
Short story: over 1,000 words, usually less than 10,000. Novelette: 7,500 to 19,000 words. Novella: 10,000 to 40,000 words.
While there are many different short story styles, here we will consider three popular short story types: lyrical, flash fiction, and vignette.
A work of fiction between 20,000 and 49,999 words is considered a novella. Once a book hits the 50,000 word mark, it is generally considered a novel. (However, a standard novel is around 80,000 words, so books between 50,000 to 79,999 words may be called short novels.)
Answer: 4000 words is 8 pages single spaced or 16 pages double spaced.
Definition of a novella
The novella typically runs about a hundred pages, though it can run a bit longer. But usually the novella is designated by word count, not page count.
- Overcoming the Monster.
- Rags to Riches.
- The Quest.
- Voyage and Return.
- Comedy.
- Tragedy.
- Rebirth.
Between 40,000 and 50,000 words, some experts use the term “short novel.” It's also worth noting that most writers shouldn't write books longer than 120,000 words — especially not as a first novel. How many pages are 40,000 words?
Here's how 90,000 words (which is 360 pages at 250 words per page) breaks down by act: Act One: 90 pages (22,500 words) Act Two: 180 pages (45,000 words)
What is a 50000 word book?
A typical manuscript page (8.5×11 paper, 1-inch margins, standard 11- or 12-point font, doublespaced—like you would type in Word) is considered to be 250 words. So a 25,000-word manuscript is about 100 pages. A 50,000-word manuscript is 200 pages.
If you're writing your first novel, the general rule of thumb for novel writing is a word count in the 80,000 to 100,000 range. While anything over 40,000 words can fall into the novel category, 50,000 is considered the minimum novel length. Anything over 110,000 words is considered too long for a fiction novel.

However, the word “short” can mean different things, but generally speaking, a short story can be anywhere from 1,000–15,000 words, but most publications only publish short stories between 3000–5,000 words. Anything less than 1000 words is categorized either as a flash fiction or a micro-fiction.
In terms of length, a novella falls in between a short story and a novel and runs roughly fifteen thousand words to eighty thousand words. It's not quite short enough to be considered “short,” but it's not a full-fledged novel, either.
- Overcoming the Monster.
- The Quest.
- Voyage and Return.
- Rags to Riches.
- Rebirth.
- Rebellion.
- Tragedy.
- Comedy.
A story around 40.000 words is considered a novella, and one between 7,000 and 17,000 is a novelette. A short story length is typically around 5,000 words in length but maybe as long as 7000 words. Stories that range from 500 to 1,00 words are classed as flash fiction (here's a great example).
The length of a novella
A novella is defined as a work of narrative fiction that runs between 20,000 and 50,000 words (the average is around 30,000). Once a story exceeds 50,000 words, it is entering novel territory.
Among awards, a range between 17,500 and 40,000 words is commonly used for the novella category, whereas 7,500–17,500 is commonly used for novelettes. According to The Writer, a novelette is approximately between 7,000 and 20,000 words in length, anything shorter being considered a short story.
If you'd like some guidelines, you can assume that the average nonfiction book is about 50k words and that most nonfiction books have about 12 chapters. So around 4,000 words would be an “average” chapter length.
Writing 4,000 words will take about 1.7 hours for the average writer typing on a keyboard and 3.3 hours for handwriting. However, if the content needs to include in-depth research, links, citations, or graphics such as for a blog article or high school essay, the length can grow to 13.3 hours.
Is 4000 words too long for a chapter?
Based on this dataset of novels, we can establish some guidelines for chapter length: the average word count of a chapter generally ranges between 1,500 words to 5,000 words, with 3,000-4,000 words being the most common sweet spot.
As with general fiction, for a debut it's best to err on the side of caution and stick to 100,000 words where possible. For literary fiction, it can go the other way; anything from 55,000 to 100,000 words is acceptable.
novel, an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting.
A: The are no set-in-stone rules when it comes to the length of middle-grade and young adult novels. It varies from publisher to publisher and project to project. Middle-grade novels can range from 10,000 to 30,000 words, and young adult novels can range from 25,000 to 50,000.
What Makes a Good Short Story? The four elements necessary for your story structure are character, plot, setting, and tension. Balancing these elements is the first step to making your creative writing amazing.