The time taken to write a novel varies from person to person, depending on the genre, plot, theme, and writing technique of the novel. A long novel might take months to years, while a short story might only take days to weeks. As for how many words the novel needed, it also depended on the genre and theme of the novel. A long novel usually required millions of words to write, while a short story might only need a few thousand to tens of thousands of words. Usually, the word count of a novel should be taken into account in the plan so that there is enough room to adjust the plot and characters during the writing process. In short, the time and number of words needed to write a novel varied from person to person.