The Confussion between writing a Novella, Novelette, or just a Short Story!
There is really no reason that an author should be confused by these three distinctions when you set out to write.
I’ve been in the publishing world for over 25 years, and they have never given me any trouble, until someone asked me the other day.
“What’s the difference between a Novella and a Novelette?” she asked me…
My short response? I told the new author,
“They are the same thing! There’s just a casual variation in how we say it, not an official defined length.”
… but was I right?
Before I responded, I did look up a couple of the larger publishing venues to see how they define book length and size for a Novella or a Novelette.
I found that the big publishers today, Amazon KDP, Ingram Spark, and Book Baby, tend to group their information treating these first two categories essentially as the same thing. They are simply shorter versions of a novel.
The Short Story, however, has a bit of a distinction and history behind it. It is much more focussed and almost always less than 10k words.
How Long is a Short Story, Novella, or Novelette?
from the article by Jacqueline Harrett. to read the original article, click here
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Word Counts for Short Stories,
Novellas, and Novelettes
- Short story: over 1,000 words, usually less than 10,000.
- Novelette: 7,500 to 19,000 words.
- Novella: 10,000 to 40,000 words.
I realized my answer was a bit quick and not well thought out when she asked the question!
Just because I always considered them to be the same thing, in the eyes of. alot of bloggers out here, there is a real distinction!
Novels are 30k minimum, but usually 40k words or longer. So from a deisgn and technical perspective of a book designer, which is what I did for many years, everything else is just shorter.
But it seems in the writing and publishing world a distinction has been drawn over the years… although it’s a fuzzy line between what defines a Novella or a Novelette.
When it falls short of a Novel, it’s a Novella. And when it’s too long to be a short story, it’s a novellete.
So there is the line, in between the Novel and the short story.
It’s important to understand that short stories are focussed on a singular event or transformative experience, and primarily one, single character. Novels carry a host of events, story lines, plots, and characters.
Novella vs. Novelette: The Distinction!
While word count comes into it necessarily, I understand now where the confussion comes!
A Short story with its singular focus, can run too long to feel “short.” It becomes a baby novel—A Novellete.
But alternately, when. complex cast of characters that is novel worthy, doesn’t deliver the length of words needed for a novel, we call it a novella.
Now, go write your story!
Whether you are writing a Novella, Novelette, or just a Short Story, I want to help you publish!
