Defining Your Fiction : Short Story, Novella, Novel, & More, a Humorous Look

Pictured Left : “Dirty Sixth Street, Austin“

Short story set in Austin, Texas.

7,864 Words

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“the intent of this blog is to incrementally build a body of thought that works toward integrating various topics, yoga, fitness, and the arts – it’s a process…”

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Defining Your Fiction –

Short Story, Novella, Novel, & More, a Humorous Look

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Categories : Fiction – Author Bio Info & Updates

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I’m Just Kidding!

This is a spoof folks. 😉

Just done for fun, not jabbing at anyone but myself and my efforts to categorize.

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So Why, Then?

I’ve come across some very serious conversations and articles trying to define whether one’s fiction work is a short story, a novel, novella.

It’s important for many reasons.

One of which is whether the work would qualify for certain contests or submission sites that want or need or particular length of work.

Another is, so the author can accurately describe a written work to a potential reader so they won’t feel cheated or tricked or just plain confused, expecting the work to be long or short, and isn’t.

But, thinking (again) about this topic, tripped the humor wire in my brain.  So, below, are my tongue-in-cheek give-me-another-round what-language-is-that take on, definitions of fictional work.

Feel free to share, but please give me credit for trying. 😉

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Accepted Standards, Source : Wikipedia

Word Counts

Short Story – Under 7,500

Novelette – 7,500 to 17,500

Novella – 17,500 to 40,000

Novel – Over 40,000

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Suggested Definitions

Experiential Count

Flash Fiction – Quick and short, won’t get bored, even if I don’t like it.

Short Story – Commuter, easy can’t go to sleep on stuff.

Novelette – Rough week, gonna need something for more than one day.

Novella – I can say I read a whole book.

Novel – Ok, I’m in it to win it, uh, nope, that’s on TV.  I’m it it for the long haul, maybe settle down.  But marriage?  I don’t know, is this part of a series?

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Suggested Additions

Note: Don’t forget, being Hispanic and Texan is gonna influence me. 🙂

Nano Fiction – The idea is there’s a story there somewhere.

Flashy Fiction – Pictures.

Drive By – Take a shot, see if anything hits.

Drive In – Hanging around, sampling the words, see if I know anyone.

Storiette – Cute, reminds me of any of my daughters or granddaughters when they were very young.

Storio – Cute, reminds me of my son or grandson when, oops, one of them is still less than a year old.  Sorry.

No-no-ella – Short enough to give a try, but didn’t get past the first bite.

Nutin-ella – Tried it, no enticing response on my part.

Novelitta – Well developed story, promising,  Worth watching, uh, reading.

Novello – Ditto.

Noveton – Plenty of bulk, but possibly misleading in terms of quality development.

Nova – The real thing.  A keeper.

Uh-no – Politely reject-able material, ie, not worth fuming about or tossing into the digital ether.

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Other Posts You May Like

I don’t typically list other site’s posts unless I’ve checked them out and like them.  Below, along with links to some of my own work, are a few sites/posts that appealed to me.

• Dirty Sixth Street, Austin – A Light Crime Mystery Laced with Humor (Short Story) (felipeadanlerma.com)
• Writing Longer – Novellas and Novelettes (griffinwords.com) – has a link to a very interesting short story
• Processing My Fiction – Non-stop or Stop-Start? : Part 2, Slumming in Paris (felipeadanlerma.com)
• The Novel Versus the Novella (derekalanwilkinson.wordpress.com) – short reminder of history of the novel
• Presenting New Creative Work – Through 2013 : Audio Books, Gift Items (felipeadanlerma.com)
• Short stories vs. novellas vs. novels (inventingrealityeditingservice.typepad.com)

The last link above, “Short stories vs novellas vs novels” has a nice quote,

“Clearly, there’s far more to consider than word count when selecting which story format you’ll use. As science fiction author and editor Jack Williamson once said, ‘Jim Gunn said a long time ago that the novelette is the best length for science fiction because it has space to develop the characters and the idea and pose the question but doesn’t have to answer the question. A novel should.’”

I like that.  It seems that definition could work for any genre. 😉

Best wishes everyone.

Adan

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Titles You May Like

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Texas Shorts, Vol 1

Slumming in Paris, Part One

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namaste´- con dios – god be with you

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YouTube Videos

List of My Author Pages

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*** INTEGRATING YOGA FITNESS AND THE ARTS

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