by Marie Valentine, Book Editor and Proofreader

What is a Novella?

Novellas are in the medium range of works of fiction that, although brief, often include as much variety and scope as full-length novels. Length can be anywhere from 17,500 to 60,000 words, but as David H. Richter notes in Forms of the Novella, numerical boundaries are arbitrary and “like middle age, the middle size in fiction is more a matter of character than of numbers.” In today’s market, a novella is a great length for electronic publishing, because a Web audience doesn’t always have time or patience to read a longer novel on-screen.

Novellas may include a range of forms, including drama, tragedy, satire, fable, and more within the order of fiction. As mentioned, stories can be mimetic, told for their own sake, or didactic, showing a moral. Didactic stories are often more effective when they are kept short – think of Jesus’ sermons or Aesop’s fables – thus the short story or novella are popular forms for telling such tales.

Character development in a novella is allowed to be simplified or less complex than those characterizations of a full-length novel. Other times, a novella may focus simply on character development and less on plot or moral event.

What is a Novel?

The largest item on the fiction menu is easily recognizable by most. Novels are book-length fictional prose narratives, usually having a plot that unfolds by actions, dialogue and thoughts of varied characters. Most publishers consider novel length to be a minimum of 40,000 words, but again, it’s relative to taste. Some might consider a book like Kate Chopin’s The Awakening to be a novella in length but a novel by other standards, such as due to the involved plot, which shows a major change in the consciousness of the protagonist.

Classification should not matter to an author until he or she comes to sell the book. My advice to authors is to try not to worry about it too much while doing the actual writing. The publishers, marketers, booksellers, and libraries will work on classifying it for you. You need only concentrate on your craft to make it the best it can be, no matter the final word count.

Read Part 1: Literary or Genre?

Read Part 2: What is a Short Story?

Marie Valentine is a fiction editor with more than a decade of experience in publishing. She enjoys working with writers to make their manuscripts publication-ready, whether an author is self-publishing or going the traditional publishing route. To check on her availability for projects, please use this form.