Welcome to the Novel, Novella, and the Novelette

Last week, I wrote about the different types of short stories. And, just like how short stories have been divided into additional categories to include flash and micro fiction, longer works of fiction also have additional categories. When writing fiction, it is a good idea to know where your work falls within these categories to better find a place in the market when you try to sell them (unless you don't plan on trying to sell your stories - which is okay too).

Examples of the different forms of prose and poetry. Some are novels, novelettes, novellas, poetry collections, and even an old pamphlet (that'll be Common Sense).

The three main categories of longer prose are the novelette, the novella, and the traditional novel. Specific word count lengths for each of these categories can be debatable. Some publishers feel that a short story caps out at 7,500, some will allow stories to be as long as 10,000. Once your story enters the 10,000 word range, you've entered into the Novelette territory.

Novelettes have an approximate word count range of 7,500 to 18,000 words - sometimes going a little higher. They might have chapters or breaks in the text to indicate a pause in the narrative. These stories are more of an exception to the rule of publishing.

Novellas, however, are more prominent and a lot more well known to the general public. Novellas have a word count range of approximately 17,500 to 40,000 words. There are many famous novellas known in popular culture and even part of a school's curriculum (here's look at you 1984 and Of Mice and Men). 

Today, I started reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and am nearly half way through it already (amazing given how slow I read). I like the quick pacing and am glad that the author didn't drag out the story any longer than it needs to be. Some stories just aren't meant to be stretched to a longer length.

My personal favorite novella is A Christmas Carol. Every Christmas season, I sit down and reread the old ghost story - which I totally recommend doing. Despite the many adaptations of the story to screen and stage, there is something wonderful about reading Dickens's prose. He writes in the same way a story teller speaks. Additionally there are a number of things that most adaptations can't pull off (depicting the Ghost of Christmas Past for instance) or chose to ignore entirely (the Ghost of Christmas Present's rant about how classism).

Finally, there's the well known and loved novel. Many a writer's goal is to see their novel published - including myself. The novel starts around 40,000 words (though the preferred minimum for publishers is closer to 50,000) and doesn't really have a word cap, but good luck trying to sell someone on a novel over 500,000 words unless your last name George R. R. Martin.

An excellent novel for people who like fantasy and adventure books.

Chances are high that you've read multiple novels over your life (a lot for school). I have a stack of "comfort mysteries" - as my dad calls them (I believe the industry knows them as "cozies") - next to my bed at any given time. Novels can be stand alone stories or have long series that span over 50 stories.

Novels are definitely the most well known of the three longer forms of prose. It even has the entire month of November dedicated to their creation. If you've ever heard of NaNoWriMo, this is what is being referenced.

However, you shouldn't pick the form of your story based on what you think is publishable. You should write your story because that is how it begins, progresses, climates, and then ends. Sometimes short stories need to be novelette or novellas. Sometimes a story ends up as a novella instead of a novel. What's important is that it is your story and that it is written to the best of your ability. If you don't hit that novel length, it's okay. Your story might not work as a novel.

If you're curious about novellas or novelettes, I recommend reading a few. There are anthologies created specifically for hosting novellas and novelettes. The books that contain my copies of A Christmas Carol and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are in books that have complied stories of similar length by the same authors. It's given me an opportunity to read stories I might not have otherwise considered.

Until next week!

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Welcome to short stories, flash fiction, and microfiction

So, you may have decided to try your hand at writing during this time. Awesome! More stories and voices are always welcome - especially from fresh and innovative writers. Are you looking to record your memoirs, start a blog, draft a play, or work on fictional prose? What kind of story do you want to tell? Who are you telling this story to?

There are a lot of options to chose from when you decide to take up writing as a hobby. I’m particularly found of working on different styles of poetry (there’s a lot more than limericks, haikus, and sonnets...many don’t even rhyme). Knowing what story you want to tell can help you narrow down what form to choose.

But before you sit down to write that 500,000 word epic novel, might I make a case for a slightly more manageable type?

This being the short story.

The short story is one of my favorites to read and write. As a kid I had many anthologies spanning multiple genres from horror, fantasy, and even biblical. These short stories were easy to read and often had really cool fully illustrated pages.

As time passed, I moved from the short stories, thinking them only for kids, until I was much older and picking up my first copy of Edgar Allen Poe stories. One book of short stories lead into two, then ten, and now I’m kicking myself for only valuing the novel for so much of my life.

I find short stories to be a lot easier to write then novels. Novels require a lot of time to plotting, character development, editing, and revisions. Short stories require all of these things too, but at a much smaller scale - which I find more manageable.

My first publication was a very short story that’s in an anthology. The story I wrote wouldn’t have fit in a longer style. I also wrote the story on a dare.

The short story has the bare bone structure of a novel, but on a compact scale. To practice, I started writing and practicing the form using fanfiction. This is here I learned more about pacing, writing comedy, and found a lot for scaring people. It also allowed me to receive feedback from commenters.

Yeah, fanfiction might have a bad rep, but this practice was invaluable when I was a new writer. However, fanfiction is copy right infringement (unless that work is in the public domain) that most authors don’t mind as long as you aren’t making money. It wasn’t long before I wanted to write my own original stories with my own characters, get published, and make money. In this case I started to go to writer’s groups to workshop these stories and get feedback from different people, some who had already published.

This is where I learned about the three main types of short story.

• The traditional short story - traditional short stories are anywhere from 1,000 or 1,500 to 7,500 words. Occasionally you’ll find a publisher who will take a short story around 10,000 words,  it htthese stories are usually considered novellas.
• Flash Fiction - most flash fiction is between 500 to 1,000 words. Some publishers consider anything under 1,500 words to be flash. They have a beginning, middle, and end - just like short stories. I love flash fiction, but it is a challenge to write.
• Microfiction - known by other categories or names such as drabble or dribble in fanfiction communities and two sentence stories on places like Reddit. Microfiction can hover around 100 words to as few as 50 or as high as 500 words. These stories still need all the trappings of a short story (beginning, middle, end, character development, and plot).

Guess what, you can get all three types of short stories published and get paid for writing them. However, if you’ve never written a flash or microfiction, you might want to get some peer or professional feedback first before submitting to publishers. 

Flash fiction and microfiction are incredibly difficult to write despite their short length. Each word matters and must be used strategically. It can be tough cutting out two or three sentences that you thought would rock the literary world all in the name of meeting a word count.

However, short stories are not for everyone. Some people have a need to write longer prose. That’s okay too. Hopefully, you’ll give consideration to short stories, flash fiction, and microfiction on your journey to write during these crazy times.

Until next week.