Writing Novellas for Fun and Profit
Writing novellas can open up a ton of creative possibilities. Let’s look at what a novella is and how to write and market them.
What is a novella anyway?
According to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a novella is a from of fiction between 17,500 words and 40,000 words. Anything above that is a novel, while anything below that is considered a short story. It can be difficult to figure out what to make of these weird almost-novels. But the form has a long and storied (pun intended) literary tradition. In fact, many works published as novels — and still thought of as novels today — are actually novellas.
A brief history of novellas.
Way back in the long ago before time was time, when the phrase “mass market paperback” was as speaking in tongues to the simple, happy natives, short books of no more than 40,000 words were simply called novels. Many classics we still idolize today fall far south of the cutoff for actual novels today, including H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, and more.
In the less respected yet no less vibrant world of the pulps — so called for the cheap yellow paper on which they were printed — the novella reigned supreme. Edgar Rice Burroughs gave us, in his Tarzan and John Carter of Mars adventures, riveting tales that could be consumed in an afternoon, while writers Walter Gibson (The Shadow) and Lester Dent (Doc Savage) contributed one of these novella-sized ‘novels’ a month to their characters’ namesake magazines, producing millions of words a year and making a nice living in a time when any living at all was hard to come by.
The birth of the modern novel.
As time went on, and paper became more expensive, publishers needed to make more profit, which meant raising the prices of their books. To justify these higher prices, they encouraged their writers to write longer books. Slowly but surely, much longer books of 60 to 100,000 words or more became the norm.
But like its pulp predecessors, the scrappy little two-fisted, lantern-jawed novella survived, gleefully taking on all comers and sticking around where other more respected literary forms would have long since thrown in the towel.
What’s so great about writing novellas?
They’re short(er). The novella’s format — shorter than a novel, yet longer than a short story — let’s you explore new ideas you don’t have room for in a short story without the commitment required for a full novel. A novella lets you test out your ideas, both on you and on your readers. Then, if you come up with something that has legs for a longer format, you can expand it into a novel later.
They’re easier to write. While they contain more complex worldbuilding than a short story, novellas don’t have dozens of characters and multiple overarching subplots. They just don’t have the room. So with a novella you can focus in tight on one or two characters with just one overall plot to worry about.
You can still have themes and give your main character a problem or flaw to overcome, but your heroine probably doesn’t have time to worry about her love life while trying to find the magic stone to kill the zombies infesting her high school. This makes the novella much easier to plot and outline.
They’re faster to write. A novella’s shorter length naturally makes the writing go a lot faster than if you were working on a 100,000 word novel. The novella is the perfect form for writers who don’t have a lot of uninterrupted writing time. I have a day job and a family, but if I’ve got a solid outline I can bang out a novella in a week or two.
They bridge the gap between novels. You traditionally published authors take note. It can be a year or more between published books, and that’s a long time to wait for a royalty check. You could self-publish a novella in between releases to get some additional mony coming in and keep your audience exicted between releases.
They’re great for marketing. You could write a prequel novella that takes place before the beginning of your series and give it away for free to readers who sign up for your mailing list.
If you have a Patreon or other subscription service, you can serialize your novella for your patrons before publishing it. Write a novella a month and you can give them to your paid subscribers first, then publish and sell them afterwards.
Readers love them. Sure, publishers will tell you that novellas aren’t cost effective for them to publish, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for them. Especially with the rise of ebooks. Nobody can look at an ebook and tell how long it is the way you do a physical book. And busy readers love something they can digest easily in a week or less, without the commitment of a long novel or series. Just be clear in your book description on Amazon that a novella is what they’re getting. Otherwise you might get reviews saying the book is “too short.”
How to write a novella.
Writing a novella is similar to writing a novel, but with a few slight differences.
Focus in on one central character. Make sure that character is as compelling as you can make it, because you are going to be following this character through the entire novella.
Develop your supporting characters. Your main character needs a an antagonist and supporting characters to play off of. But keep this number small. You don’t have the room for a sprawling world with lots of head-hopping.
Structure your plot. I like to use a novel outline to plot out my novellas. That way it has the same three-act structure and the same story beats, only the timing of when things happen is a bit protracted. Keep things simple.
For my first novella, the basic plot was that the famous explorer Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton joins Captain Nemo aboard the Nautilus to go back in time to fight Cthulhu. Now, there’s a little more to it than that, but that’s what I started with (and telling people these exact words almost always gets them to purchase a copy).
And to give Burton some inner turmoil that would be resolved by the end of the story, I gave him a bought of wanderlust that made him want to keep exploring even though he had returned home from an arduous (and actual historic) journey that in real life had almost killed him.
Write your novella. Now comes the fun part. You’re a writer, so you know how to do this. I come from the pulp tradition, so I like to write short, punchy chapters with lots of action where possible, with never more than two scenes per chapter. But this is your novella. You do you.
Edit your novella. You knew this part was coming too. But it’s a novella. It won’t take you as long to edit as a novel, and if you started with a strong outline this step should be a relative breeze.
Publish your novella. Now comes the really fun part. Thanks to indie publishing you have a lot of options here. Even if a traditional publisher isn’t interested, you can publish it yourself. Or serialize it on your blog. Or…you get the picture.
Now get out there and do it! Write novellas like there’s no tomorrow. Have you written novellas before? Share your experiences in the comments.
