The List: A Novella (Slough House) (Soho Crime)

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Novellas are also a popular choice for genre fiction, and I imagine that if you’re reading this post, genre novellas are what you’re interested in writing. As an example, you can read my steampunk novella, The Floral Underworld, in the Coterie library, or choose any of the winners of the Hugo, Nebula or World Fantasy Awards. The novella form has been embraced by the science fiction and fantasy communities, as these awards suggest. Because electronic publishing takes the cost of physical printing out of the equation, it’s now easier for novellas to hold their own and be just as profitable as longer novels. How many words are in a novella?

Many writers resist creating a book outline for their novella. But this is a critical step for learning how to write a novella, as a concise story and low word count are hallmarks of this format. a b c d e f Carswell, Beth (2012). "The Best Novellas: Literature's Middle Child". AbeBooks . Retrieved 18 May 2016. There are countless ways to outline a story, but one storytelling model that has its fingerprints in lots of novellas is ‘The Hero’s Journey’. It has multiple incarnations — including the three act structure, the story circle, and the seven beat structure — but they all follow the same pattern: The key point is that novella writers write with intent: all elements introduced in the story are likely to hold a function in the overall narrative (see Chekhov's Gun for more on this). Example: Chess Story/The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig Chess is a popular metaphor in fiction (Photo by Hassan Pasha on Unsplash)Now Joey, still a teenager and under the watchful eye of Evan Smoak, lives on her own (with Dog the dog) and attends college. A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word novella derives from the Italian novella meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. A novella generally features fewer conflicts than a novel, yet more complicated ones than a short story. The conflicts also have more time to develop than in short stories. They have endings that are located at the brink of change. Unlike novels, they are not divided into chapters, and are often intended to be read at a single sitting, as the short story, although white space is often used to divide the sections. They maintain, therefore, a single effect. Fetherling, George. "Briefly, the case for the novella". Seven Oaks Magazine. Archived from the original on 12 September 2012. {{ cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown ( link)

There may be a handful of side characters but any major character development is reserved for the star of the show, because of the logistical factor of word count. Trying to develop too many players in a condensed word count can lead to a shallow, one-dimensional cast of characters. If the author spends time developing side characters, you can bet that they’ll be significant to the central conflict (at which point we should ask ourselves if we can still call them side characters). As we mentioned, a novella is usually between 10,000 to 40,000 words. For comparison, here are the word counts generally associated with other types of fictional prose: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Carswell, Beth (2012). "The Best Novellas: Literature's Middle Child". AbeBooks. Archived from the original on 30 August 2016 . Retrieved 18 May 2016.

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Start by identifying what types of characters your novella needs and how many. Then develop them with some of these questions: Despite their contracted size, novellas can tell the exact same story as a novel. Novels include a lot of extra detail that isn’t strictly necessary to the narrative, but that work to build a deeper relationship with the reader (by drawing them in, convincing them to invest more time, attention, interest, etc.). However, we can’t ignore the fact that the novella also needs to build this relationship, and it has a tougher job because it has less time and space within which to do so. Time, pacing & repetition a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Haber, Gordon (29 June 2015). "The 20 Best Novellas Ever Published In The History Of Humankind". Thought Catalog . Retrieved 18 May 2016. scenes that introduce the character, show how they’re struggling in their ordinary life, and set them off on the story journey. (Stasis and Trigger) It helps to keep your cast small. Define your protagonist, then decide on one or two central relationships that serve an essential function. Whenever you introduce a new character, make sure that they contribute either to the central plot or to your protagonist’s arc. If they don’t, you’ve got two options: cut them completely, or amalgamate them with another character. 2 Become 1: Merge your characters