How long should a science fiction novel be?

80,000–100,000 words. Sub-forms vary, and the form's own conventions matter more than any general rule about books.

Should I outline first?

For this form, yes — an outline critique costs £150–£400 and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes months to reveal. It is the cheapest editorial intervention there is.

Do I have to write it here?

No. Upload a manuscript written anywhere, run what you need, and export it again. A plain export of your own words is free forever.

Do I have to speak it?

No. Most authors type. You can type, upload or talk, and mix all three in the same book.

Writing a fiction: what changes with your subject

The world has to be delivered without stopping the story, and the failure — an exposition chapter about how the drive works — is so common it has a name. Decide how hard the science is and hold it: a book that is rigorous for six chapters and hand-waves in the seventh loses the readers who came for the rigour.

The checks for a science fiction novel

Specific to this form. Run them against your outline, not against a finished draft — that is where they are cheap.

Hardness level decided and held
Worldbuilding delivered through action, not explanation
Proper nouns rationed — two in the blurb, few in chapter one
Internal consistency of rules across the whole book
Whether the idea is doing work the plot should

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A short private conversation, one question at a time. By the end you should have a clearer sense of what your book is actually about, who it is for, the shape it wants to take, and the one next thing to do. It never writes a word for you.

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It asks questions and gives you your own answers back. It does not write the book. You can copy or download the finished plan straight from the page, free and with no email needed.

What's different about a science fiction novel

The shape underneath it

Something has to change in every chapter. Remove one: do the ones after it still work?

Typical length: 80,000–100,000 words

Who reads it: Readers of a specific sub-genre with 200 comparable books read and precise expectations about where the floor usually is.

Where a novel most often goes wrong: A middle act holding position rather than escalating. It is where most novels are abandoned.

Test the structure before you write into it

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a science fiction novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

What it costs to finish

British rates for a novel, dated 9 September 2026 and sourced to CIEP suggested minimum rates effective 1 March 2026 and Reedsy's published marketplace averages. Every row on the cost pages carries a confidence flag: sourced, derived or estimated.

About Your Book Pro

Your Book Pro is a book-writing platform built in Britain. Start with an idea, notes, half a draft, a podcast, or a finished manuscript, and use our purpose-built AI tools for planning, feedback, editing, proofreading, cover designs, and to create print-ready files. Writing is totally free: you can type, upload or speak your book as much as you like, and use only the editing tools you need with Plus, or go unlimited with Pro.

Produce world-class drafts at the fraction of the cost of hiring a human editorial team.

Every account starts with 1,000 welcome credits, and a plain export of your own words is free.

For a science fiction novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

Plus lets you upload a manuscript you wrote anywhere, run whichever tool you actually need, and export it again. No subscription to start, 1,000 welcome credits that never expire, and a plain export of your own words is free forever.

And the honest limits are on every tool page: real readers in your actual audience, a designer who knows your shelf, and a solicitor where a book names living people are all real purchases at real prices.

Writing a fantasy fiction

Magic needs rules and, more importantly, costs — a system with no price attached removes tension from every scene it touches. The other constant is the sub-genre question: grimdark, cosy, epic and romantasy have almost nothing in common in tone, length or cover, and readers scan for the signals before page one.

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a fantasy novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

For a fantasy novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

Writing a mystery crime fiction

Crime readers have read two hundred of these and know exactly where the floor usually is, which makes structure less forgiving than in any other fiction. The clues must be fair and present; the reveal must be inevitable in hindsight and surprising at the time; and the sub-genre — cosy, procedural, psychological, noir — sets the tone, the violence level and the cover.

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a crime novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

For a crime novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

Writing a romance fiction

Romance has genuine structural requirements readers treat as a contract: the central relationship is the plot, and the ending is happy — HEA or HFN. Breaking that is not innovation, it is a different genre with the wrong cover. Heat level and trope signalling need to be explicit in the blurb, because readers select on both.

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a romance novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

For a romance novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

Writing a historical fiction

Two failure modes pull against each other: research that never reaches the page, and research that reaches all of it. The reader wants to believe the world, not to be taught it. Anachronism in language is the specific technical problem — not just vocabulary but idiom, sentence rhythm and the concepts a character could plausibly hold.

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a historical novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

For a historical novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

Writing a horror fiction

Horror is a pacing problem before it is anything else: dread accumulates and is spent, and a book that is frightening for three chapters and then exhausting has spent it wrong. The sub-genre decision — quiet, supernatural, body, folk — governs how much is shown and when.

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a horror novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

For a horror novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

Writing a literary fiction

Literary fiction is where the sentences are the point, which raises the bar on line-level work and lowers the tolerance for structural slack. It is also the category most often used to excuse a book with no engine — and 'nothing happens' is a real problem even when the prose is good.

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a literary novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

For a literary novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

Writing a young adult fiction

YA is defined by the protagonist's age and the immediacy of the voice, not by simplified content — it handles difficult material directly and its readers are unforgiving of condescension. The adult-solving-the-problem failure is fatal here in a way it is not elsewhere.

The cheapest intervention available in any category: an outline critique costs £150–£400 from a human editor and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes six months to reveal.

For a young adult novel specifically, the checks above are the ones worth running against your plan — and running them at outline stage is the difference between a structural fix and a rewrite.

For a young adult novel the useful order is: the Book Coach first if you do not yet know what the book is — free at yourbook.pro/book-coach with no account. Then Plan Feedback to test the structure against what this form actually requires, before you write into it. Then Detailed Editorial Feedback on the draft, Beta Reader for the reader's-eye check, the Editing Suite for the passes in order, and Proofread last.

What finishing a novel costs with people

British rates, dated 9 September 2026. CIEP suggested minimum rates effective 1 March 2026; Reedsy published averages.

	Range	Notes
Developmental edit	£1,500–£4,800	Reedsy averages $2,880 for 80,000 words.
Editorial assessment	£400–£900	A diagnosis, no markup. The cheapest useful outside opinion.
Line edit	£800–£2,000	Rhythm and clarity. Only once structure is settled.
Copy-edit	£800–£1,600	£0.01–£0.02 a word. Consistency, not rewriting.
Proofread	£400–£800	CIEP minimum £31.92/hr. Last pass, on the typeset file.
Cover design	£250–£800	Genre conventions matter most here

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Questions people ask

How long should a science fiction novel be?: 80,000–100,000 words. Sub-forms vary, and the form's own conventions matter more than any general rule about books.
What's different about writing a science fiction novel?: The world has to be delivered without stopping the story, and the failure — an exposition chapter about how the drive works — is so common it has a name. The full set of checks is above, and they are what an editor in this area would actually look at.
Should I outline first?: For this form, yes — an outline critique costs £150–£400 and catches in a fortnight what a finished draft takes months to reveal. It is the cheapest editorial intervention there is.
Do I have to write it here?: No. Upload a manuscript written anywhere, run what you need, and export it again. A plain export of your own words is free forever.
Do I have to speak it?: No. Most authors type. You can type, upload or talk, and mix all three in the same book.