Novel-whatzit

I have never written a novelette. ‘So what?’ some might ask, or even, ‘What the heck is a novelette?’

A novelette is, in essence, a long short story. Any attempt to give an exact measurement of its length will be arbitrary but typically the form is considered to be over 7,500 words up to somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000. If one goes higher, it is likely to be a novella—that is, a short novel.

At this point, the longest short story I’ve ever written stands at 5,100 words. It is always possible I’ll turn out something longer one of these days. There isn’t as much of a market for the novelette as there is for work both longer and shorter, but it was a popular form at one time. Some of the great golden age speculative fiction came as novelettes, some of the best known stories of Howard and Lovecraft.

And the novelette has had its mainstream popularity. Some of Alice Monroe’s stories fit the category. Oh, there are undoubtedly loads I could list if I felt like researching!

Why do I define the novelette as a sort of short story? Because it typically has the same sort of focus on a single plot line. It comes from the same mindset; I much suspect that most who sat down and wrote a novelette were thinking ‘short story’ when they started. It grew to whatever length was needed to tell the story.

I will mention that one of my personal favorites is ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ by Rudyard Kipling, weighing in at a bit over 14,000 words—near the top limit. In honesty, it sometimes feels more like a novella, but the narrative is kept just sufficiently focused to justify the novelette name. It really is the sort of story that could have been inflated into a novel, had Kipling been so inclined. I am glad he wasn’t; I do not think it would have the same impact.

You, of course, are free to call it what you wish. So, you ask me now, ‘What is a novella?’ It is simply a short novel. How short is, again, arbitrary. It starts where the novelette lets off, down around 15 to 20,000 words and goes up to, traditionally, 35,000 or 40,000 words. I prefer the lower number, but some now set it higher, at 50,000.

Not so long ago 50,000 was regarded as a perfectly good length for a novel. And there is more than one bloated contemporary novel that might benefit from being cut back to something like that size.

Enough of my curmudgeonly opinions. I have written novellas (and I am not counting those novels that run between 40 and 50,000 words). The first section of my Donzalo’s Destiny is a self-standing novella of some 21,400 words. I added ten more sections to finish the epic, some more self-contained than others but each with its own unique arc.

A true stand alone novella is not something for which I have any plans. But then, plans do change and new ideas do come along.

I could name a bunch of famous novellas here. A few, anyway, such as ‘The Old Man and the Sea,’ ‘A Christmas Carol,’ or ‘Of Mice and Men.’ All fitted to the story that needed to be told and none the worse for being shorter than what some would consider a proper length for a novel.

Indeed, maybe the better for it.

Although I have a handful of published short stories, my focus tends to be on longer form fiction. My short stories, admittedly, have had a tendency to morph into chapters in novels. But I continue to dabble at them and could even turn out one of those in-between novelette/novella works one of these days. As always, the material will dictate the final form.