How Many Pages Is 50,000 Words?
Trying to figure out how many words you can fit on a page is tricky, and there are a lot of factors that go into it.
This is especially true with longer pieces of text, and knowing how many pages you’ll need for a longer text like a novel can be confusing.
Luckily, we’ve done all the hard work for you already!
In this article, we’ll take a look at how many pages you’ll need to fit 50,000 words, along with some examples of 50,000 word texts and how you can write that much yourself!
So How Many Pages Is 50,000 Words?
When trying to figure out how many pages you need for 50,000 words, it’s hard to find a definitive answer.
There are several things that can influence this, meaning that there’s a fairly substantial range that the page count can come under.
For a double-spaced, size 12 font piece of writing, 50,000 words can fit in anywhere from 180-220 pages.
The general rule of thumb is 200 pages, but you might need more or less depending on things like word length, formatting, and other influences.
Similarly, a single-spaced 50,000 word piece of writing typically comes to around 100 pages in length.
What Factors Can Affect This Page Count?
As you may have noticed, 40 pages is quite a margin of difference – so why can the number of pages needed for 50,000 words vary so much?
Well, there are actually a couple of reasons why this is the case.
The most obvious factor at play is the length of the words used.
The average length of a word in a piece of text is approximately four letters, or around six to seven characters.
This lets you fit around 250 double-spaced words per page, which can be scaled up to 200 pages for 50,000 words.
However, if the majority of words in the text are longer/shorter than average, this can affect the total number of pages used.
Characters also play a role here, in a similar way to word length.
The difference here doesn’t have as much as an effect, but using more characters in a text can influence the amount of space used and either increase or decrease the number of pages.
Dialogue, in particular, is one of the biggest factors when it comes to how many pages you’ll need for 50,000 words.
Each line of dialogue is supposed to start on a new line; as a result, long conversations can easily take up lots of space very quickly.
Is 50,000 Words A Lot?
While 50,000 words can seem like a massive amount, in the grand scheme of things it isn’t really all that much.
When it’s put in the context of being around 200 pages, it feels like a lot less compared to larger books.
That’s not to say that writing 50,000 words still isn’t impressive, though, and it takes a lot of time and effort to hit that target.
Is 50,000 Words Novel-Length?
While novels tend to be longer than 50,000 words, you can still find novels out there that float around the 50,000 word count.
In fact, 50,000 words is often to be considered the minimum length for a novel, with anything below that falling into a novella or short story.
In general, a novel will tend to come in at anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 words.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that a book slightly above or below this range can’t be a novel, just that the standard novel length is generally accepted to be around 100,000 words.
What Does 50,000 Words Look Like?
To help put things in perspective a bit more, let’s take a look at some examples of real-life 50,000 word stories.
Some of the more famous books out there that are around 50,000 long include The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (47,000), Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (49,926), Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (49,459), and The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (52,000).
You can also think of 50,000 words as being two of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis (23,000), half of the first Hunger Games (99,750), or around 10% of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (576,459)!
There’s a lot that can be done in 50,000 words. You don’t need to hit a specific word count to make a great piece of writing – the content’s what’s really important!
How To Write 50,000 Words: Tips And Tricks
Writing 50,000 words can seem like a daunting task, but don’t panic – we’ve gathered some handy tips and tricks to make the writing process simple and painless! Here’s what you need to know when you’re writing 50,000 words.
1) Planning Is Essential
Having a good plan is crucial. Knowing how to structure your writing, where you want to go with it, and how you’re going to achieve that is the first step to actually getting the writing done.
Whether you’re writing an assignment or a novel, having a plan in mind is essential.
You should also plan the timeframe that you’re going to be writing in.
Writing 50,000 words in a day is a big ask, so schedule a certain amount of time per day that you’re going to write.
Adjust this to fit in any deadlines you’re facing, and try and aim for a target word count each day.
2) Edit At The End
Mistakes happen, and you’re going to make a few typos and silly errors along the way.
However, you shouldn’t be constantly going back over what you’ve written as you go – this is an easy way to waste your time and hit a roadblock in your writing.
Save your editing to the end, where you can look at the piece as a whole to see what needs changing.
3) Don’t Give Up!
It might sound a bit cheesy, but it’s the truth! Writing 50,000 words is a lot of hard work, and there can be times where it seems impossible.
But stick with it and keep working towards your goal. It’s worth it when you get there, trust us!
Final Thoughts
50,000 words can feel like a lot of writing, but in reality it seems a bit insignificant compared to some of the longer novels out there.
With that being said, though, 50,000 words (or 200 pages) is still a lot of effort and takes time and skill to achieve.
If you’re planning on writing 50,000 words – whether for a novel, essay, or other form of writing – now you know a little more about how many pages that will be.
And using the tips in this guide, you’ll be able to hit the word count in no time!
Good luck!
Alan Reiner
Hi, my name is Alan Reiner and I have been in the writing industry for almost seven years. I write articles that can span from 200 words all the way to 20,000 words every single day. How do I do it? With a lot of determination. All my way through school and college, I hated long-form assignments. I could never get into the groove of working on one piece for an extended period of time. My pieces were always late because I didn’t have the motivation to type them, let alone edit them.