I have been researching the world of short novels and it seems to me that the time for them to make a comeback could be upon us because of the e-book revolution.
Folks are happy to read 30,000 words of story on their hand-helds - particularly on holiday when a book that can be finished in a day or two is welcome.
So what exactly is a novella? Well, it’s an extended short story in many ways, constructed in episodes but written in a tight and clipped way to guarantee pace.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards defined the novella as having a word count of between 17,500 and 40,000. Other definitions start as low as 10,000 words.
There are plenty of writers who can see the sense in the idea. I know some who would love us to run a short story competition with a word limit around that figure because they feel that 2,000 words simply does not give enough space for the story to breathe.
Why are novellas so effective? Well, an eight page scenes becomes two pages, a, 800 word passage of dialogue becomes 200, if that. It’s the mantra I teach to the many writers with whom I work across the world - does your story need those extra words, can they come out, will the story really suffer if they do?
I look at my early novels and it’s a lesson I have needed to learn on my own behalf as well. Hopefully, my writing has become crisper as a result of that growing sense of discipline.
Until recently the problem has been that there were still relatively few novella publishers but now there are plenty of examples of the shorter form in the world of e-books.
Maybe the time has come…
John Dean
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