Novels, Novellas and Novelettes: What’s the Difference?

Every writer of fiction has to answer one important question about his work: how long should it be?  Am I writing a short story?  Am I writing a novel?  Or am I writing something in between?

The website Letterpile.com and author Syed Meer offer some ideas on how to clarify these questions.  To amplify what Meer says, I’ve identified four dimensions of prose fiction that should be considered before the questions above can be answered.  And they should be answered  before the writer ever puts down the first word.

1. Word count
    
   One way of determining what level of writing is required is simply by word count.  According to Meer, a novelette should run about 7500 to 17000 words.  A novella is longer, allows more room and should run about 17000 to 40,000 words.  And a novel ideally is any work over 40,000 words.
   Obviously, these aren’t hard and fast rules.  Meer mentions A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) and The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) as examples of shorter fiction.  These works are usually published as (short) novels, but really should be considered as novellas instead.  And in today’s world of commercial publishing, you’ll seldom find anything called a novel for less than about 80,000 to 100,000 words.  Indeed, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix weighs in at over 250,000 words.  I’ve done works like this myself.
   Word count isn’t everything, but it is one easily understood dimension of modern prose fiction.
    
2. The Nature of the Plot

A novelette doesn’t have the room to have a lot of plot twists and turns.  A novella could accommodate a few.  Only in the novel can you engage in subplots and languid expositions of settings and philosophy. 

According to Meer, a novella or a novelette should deal with one or at most two characters and there isn’t room for detailed conflict or character development.  The shorter forms typically explore a single incident though with more nuance and complications than a true short story.  By contrast, a novel-length work has room for characters to change and grow (or not), subplots and threads to develop and be weaved together and a more leisurely approach to details of setting. 

 

1. How Many Characters?
    
   In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka describes the ordeal of a single person, one poor fellow named Gregor, who is transformed into an insect.  Presumably allegorical, this novella deals only with Gregor, his thoughts, actions, reactions.  There are no subplots, extra characters, or extraneous details.  Contrast this with some of my novel-length works, where my List of Major Players runs to several pages. 
   Novellas and novelettes deal with only a few characters and explore what happens to them, how they react and change or grow in relation to a single incident.  Novels can encompass entire lives, with all the complications that involves.  My general rule for novels is to limit the main characters to about three and go from there.
    
2. Shorter works are often read as a single story
    
   My current science fiction novel has twenty chapters.  Many chapters have multiple changes of scene, just to vary the pace and move the various plot threads along, more or less simultaneously.  A novelette and to a lesser extent a novella are often written without any breaks at all, no chapters, etc.  Stories like these are meant to be read straight through, often at one sitting.  By contrast, a novel is often an investment of several days, sometimes several weeks.  Pick it up, read a chapter or two, put it down. 
   Shorter works have a different rhythm in reading than novels.  Novels are sometimes like navigating a maze (often this is intentional; sometimes it isn’t).   Meers says, “The reader often feels that the story deviates and is affected by the involvement of different sub-stories and sub-plots, by the passage of time, or by the involvement of new important characters– this is considered the real beauty of a novel.  Novels wander.  They meander.  They should keep your interest when they do this.  And each meander should contribute in some way to the total story.
   Novellas and novelettes are more focused, more single-minded in their approach.  You go from point A to B to C in a more or less straight line. 
    
   When developing and planning your story, give some thought to what length and type of form will work best.  Often the idea may even develop itself; you may see an idea as purely novel length.  Or you may see it as somewhat shorter.  It may be plainly evident what length works for the idea.
    
   Each type of story form has strengths and weaknesses.  Nothing is harder than trying to force fit a story idea into a form and a length that doesn’t fit.  You don’t do this with shoes or clothes.  Don’t do it with story ideas either.
    
   Give your story idea room to breathe and grow. 
    
   The next post to The Word Shed comes on August 14.  In this post, I’ll look at book covers, including some of my own.  My contention is that you can and should judge a book by its cover.  We’ll look at what makes good…and bad covers.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.