great (saga) expectations
When writing a novel in a particular genre, how do you know when long is too long? What tropes should you use, or not use?
The first book of The Sapient Saga is slated for release in October 2026, and the number one things I have to doāas any creator would/should do for their intended recipientāis understand market expectations. If readers are expecting Hamlet and I deliver Flubber, readers will be understandably upset.
Last year, I did lots of deep dive research to find similarities between other science fiction novels to avoid making something so vastly different that readers go, "huh?" Such as, how long do readers expect a novel in this genre to be? How long are its chapters, on average? What are the most common tropes? What are things rarely attempted, but still beloved?
novel word count
Novel lengths vary widely depending on the earnestness of the author's literary ambition; more "serious" authors like Asimov, Banks, Heinlein, and Tchaikovsky wrote longer and deeper works, as opposed to briefer 50,000 word novels put out by many modern sci-fi writers. Many of the my favorite hard science fiction novels fall in the 90,000-115,000 word range. Nearly all of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels are an average of 120,000 words, while modern thriller science fiction comes in closer to 80,000ā90,000 words.
One tip I picked up from The Fiction Formula was selling all book formats and having double-digit audiobook lengths... this anchors audiobook prices to $25-$30, which has a halo effect to make the other book formats appear cheap:
- Seeing a book offered in eBook, paperback, and hardcover formats lends credibility to the publisher, thus making audiobooks appear more valuable.
- Audiobooks with 10+ hour length appear more valuable than audiobooks under 10 hour lengths.
If 10,000 words were narrated at 140 words per minute, then the narration would be 1 hour 11 minutes, meaning 90,000 words should be well over 10 hours.
Conclusion: total novel average word countā90,000 words minimum.
chapter word count
James Patterson's novels have super short chapters, sometimes as brief as just three pages. At 250 words per page, that's under 1,000 words per chapter. Patterson's books make for a quick read, maybe something you'd read at the beach?
That's fine... if you want a beach read. My novels won't ever be thatāI want to make meaty, epic, and award-worthy science fiction. I want to write stuff that makes readers think and you can't do that with breezy chapters. With only 1,000 words, there's barely enough time to dive into the meat of a scene.
Asimov and Heinlein tended toward 4,000 words per chapter, although Arthur C. Clarke had chapters as short as 1,600 words. Adrian Tchaikovsky clocks in around 3,000 words, but Iain M. Banks wrote entire short stories for his chaptersāsome going as long as 13,000+ words!
Chapters for thriller books feel like they should be between 2,500-4,200 words. More than that and chapters may feel too dense for a thriller.
Conclusion: On average, aim for 30 chapters @ 3,000 words/chapter = 90,000 words, with some longer chapters to explore more unique set pieces.
trope salad
A few tropes crop up repeatedly in hard science fiction thrillers and I'll be including many of these same tropes (with my own unique take, of course):
- An-answer-or-die scientific mystery to solve.
- Closed systems with hard inviolate rules (ring worlds, generation ships).
- Competence under pressure (intellectual, survival, social, etc.).
- Criminal procedural, but with a unique SF twist (e.g., AI detective).
- First contact / alien artifact.
- AI/robots acting as tool, ally, or independent entity.
- Factional politics in a unique SF setting.
- Uplifted species / genetic experimentation as threat to humanity.
- Relentless pursuit through radically different environments.
Conclusion: Use common tropes for your genre, but in a way unique enough to feel fresh again.
bonus tropes
One of my favorite films is The Usual Suspects. I've seen it many many times and I continue to marvel at its execution. It tells a complicated story but never gets boring because it's structured around four visually distinctive heistsāthe NYC corrupt cop robbery, the L.A. diamond robbery, the lawyer ambush, and the boat siegeāand bookended by Verbal Kint's expositional monologues at a police station. Not one action scene is gratuitousāeach heist moves the plot forward to reveal something new that impacts subsequent events.
I had The Usual Suspects in mind when reading Theodora Taylor's 7 Figure Fiction. In Chapter 16, her Rule #2 is:
Every Scene Should Be Bestie
and/or Instagram Worthy
I'm quite certain that Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie and Director Bryan Singer paced out the entire film to ensure that something interesting (or "Instagram-worthy") happens in every scene. If you're not interested in the story, the setting will get you, or the acting, or the dialog, or the music, or something else. Every. Single. Scene.
For novels, designing each scene to be so aesthetically diverse is far more challenging because literary stories aren't a visual and auditory medium with dialog, music, acting, lighting, choreography, etc. Authors are limited to using words to describe everything, so authors have to be judicious about which parts they tell and which details to focus on.
Conclusion: before writing, brainstorm super-engaging settings, characters, and storylines unique to that time and place, and make them so grand and/or exciting that readers feel compelled to share it with others.
