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2:39

excuses. Hey

2:43

listeners, we want your input on

2:45

season 20, which I have to be honest does

2:47

not sound like a real number. What

2:50

elements of the craft do you want us to talk about?

2:53

What episode or core concept do

2:55

you use or reference or

2:57

recommend the most? What are

2:59

you just having trouble with? After

3:01

20 seasons, we've talked about a lot of

3:03

things. What element of writing

3:05

do you wish we'd revisit for a deeper

3:08

dive on the podcast? Email

3:10

your ideas to podcast

3:12

at writingexcuses.com. Season

3:15

19, episode 17. This is

3:20

Writing Excuses. Novellas,

3:22

the Goldilocks of Publishing. I'm

3:25

Erin. I'm Mary Robinette. And I'm Dong

3:27

Won. And I

3:29

wanted to talk a little bit in

3:31

this wildcard about Novellas because I

3:34

feel like as I was coming up

3:36

in the publishing industry in Spec-Fic, Novellas

3:38

went from like a thing that occasionally

3:40

showed up in a magazine

3:42

like Asimov's or Analog to

3:45

a huge category with actual books that

3:47

you can buy on the shelves. And

3:49

I wanted to understand a little bit

3:51

more about like, when do you

3:54

know something should be a Novella versus a short

3:56

story or a novel? And

3:58

for me, it's one of the things that is

4:00

interesting about it is that

4:03

it reflects the kind of fashion of

4:05

writing because some of the books that

4:07

I loved most were incredibly short books.

4:10

And so I feel like for me what a

4:12

novella does is that it allows me to go

4:14

a little bit deeper and more immersive in my

4:16

world building, take some of those side trips that

4:19

I want to take that I don't have space

4:21

for in a short story, but

4:23

I don't have to sustain

4:25

an idea over an entire novel

4:27

that there's this sweet spot where

4:33

it's got enough other

4:36

things happening in it that you want to explore,

4:39

but also you don't want to live there for 120,000 words.

4:45

That makes sense. I'll be honest, I at one

4:48

point studied a bunch, like I took a few

4:50

novellas to try to figure out what was inside

4:52

of them. I did

4:54

little surgeries on them. And what I

4:56

found was that they were usually like in the

4:59

ones I've seen like eight to 10 scenes total,

5:01

and like two to three characters. So

5:04

I don't know if like that's like

5:06

if what you and like not really any

5:08

subplots, it was usually like, we're gonna follow

5:10

these two to three characters on one

5:12

particular journey over eight or nine scenes,

5:14

and then we're gonna kind of wrap.

5:17

But I'm curious if like you found that when you were

5:19

writing the novella or a maria rabinet or in the ones

5:21

that you've seen or read in the industry, is

5:23

that true? Or were those just the one? Yeah, I mean, I

5:25

think about it in terms of layer cakes is the metaphor

5:27

I always go back to where like, you know, a short

5:29

story is kind of like a sheet cake, right?

5:31

And a novel like a mille foy where

5:33

there's like a million different layers of like,

5:35

characters and subplots and all of these things.

5:38

And a novella, you know, as the name

5:40

would apply, kind of falls somewhere in between

5:42

where you it's like a wedding cake, you

5:44

got a few tears, it's a few layers

5:46

in here. But it's not so dense that

5:48

you require the full length of a novel

5:50

to sort of get that through, right? So

5:52

there's usually one main narrative thrust, maybe

5:54

a B plot, maybe a C plot, if

5:56

you're really stretching it, handful of

5:58

characters, right? whatever it is,

6:01

certainly not more than a couple POVs.

6:03

I mean, obviously, all these rules can be broken, as

6:05

with anything that we talk about. But generally,

6:08

when I am looking at a pitch, and or, you

6:10

know, a writer comes to me and they're like, hey,

6:12

I'd like to tell this story. And

6:14

sometimes I'll be like, this feels a little bit more like

6:16

a novella, I think you need to complicate this at other

6:18

POVs. If we want to punch up to a novel or

6:20

something, someone will come to me with a novel pitch and

6:22

be like, I don't know about this

6:24

C plot. I don't know about this thing over here.

6:26

What if we cut that and make it a novella?

6:28

You know, be like a lean, leaner, meaner version. And

6:30

the story. So for me, a lot of times I

6:32

am like kind of looking at where it fits in

6:35

that way. And those what you're talking about are exactly

6:37

the levers I'm pulling on in terms of how

6:39

many POVs, how many plots, those kind

6:41

of things. So

6:44

I have this formula that

6:46

I've talked about on the

6:48

podcast before, that I

6:50

use as a diagnostic tool

6:53

sometimes when I'm trying to figure out like how

6:55

to when I was trying to figure out how

6:57

to do this, which is looking

6:59

at the number of characters in the scenic locations.

7:02

And I think

7:05

that one of the things that I don't

7:07

account for in that,

7:10

but that is one of the pieces

7:12

that tips it from being short story

7:15

to this

7:17

novella is not

7:20

just the number of characters and locations, because you're

7:22

right, you can have a novella that's like, you

7:24

know, this is how you lose the time where

7:27

it's really two characters. It's a ton of locations.

7:30

But I think one of the

7:32

things that a novella has is that there's

7:34

often a longer timeline

7:36

than there is in a short

7:38

story. Not always, because you can have a short

7:41

story that will can span decades. It's just harder

7:43

to do. But

7:45

that it is reflected in kind

7:47

of the number of trifail cycles. So I

7:50

think of it, again,

7:53

in the embellishments, the

7:55

flourishes, that there's just

7:58

more. nuance to

8:00

a novella, then sometimes you can have

8:02

in a short story where you have to

8:04

be so constrained and you can't

8:07

have anything extra there, that you can

8:09

have some extra bits in there that just may,

8:12

you know, that are the decorative flourish on the icing.

8:15

I'm going to flip it a little bit from one way

8:17

I sometimes talk about it. If

8:20

you think about, so when we're selling movie rights,

8:23

right, or selling film and TV rights, a

8:25

lot of times when it's a full novel

8:27

will be like, this feels more like a

8:29

series, there's too much information here to fit

8:31

into a movie. Whereas a novella is kind

8:33

of like a perfectly movie sized little snack,

8:36

you know what I mean? Because when you're

8:38

watching a film, you really only have a

8:40

couple hours to get that across. So the

8:42

kind of amount of character and content you

8:44

have in a film is

8:47

about the right size for what you want

8:49

in a novella, right? So if you think

8:51

about the difference between Blade Runner, the movie

8:53

in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the

8:55

novel, there's a radically different amount

8:57

of information and content in those two stories.

8:59

One is much more laser focused on one

9:01

major plot line, right? So you can kind

9:03

of like, that's, that's one

9:05

way to think about it. You know, we often like

9:07

to compare things to movies and TV shows on this

9:09

podcast. So it's funny to like inverted a little bit

9:12

of like, would this make a good movie, then maybe

9:14

it's more novella sized. I love

9:16

the way that you're thinking about that. Because when

9:19

you started out talking,

9:21

I thought you were going to say that a novella felt

9:23

like an episode of a series to you,

9:25

because I always think more in television

9:27

than movies. And I was like,

9:29

it kind of does feel like like a like, I'm thinking about

9:31

like an episode of Star Trek Trek, like an

9:33

episode where a lot is happening. Whereas a

9:35

short story, it's almost could just be the

9:37

climactic scene in an episode that has

9:39

like, it pulls in just enough that you

9:41

understand who the people are. But it doesn't

9:44

necessarily have like that part in an episode

9:46

of a TV show where they're just kind

9:48

of like, doing their walk and

9:50

talk from like the West Wing days where they're kind of

9:52

catching up a little bit on things that are

9:54

slightly extraneous to what the three moment is,

9:56

but helps to build out the world of the

9:58

character a little bit sells short story writes,

10:00

it is often like we have

10:03

half of a movie or the pilot episode of

10:05

a TV show. And then we got to do

10:07

a lot of extrapolation past that. The question we're

10:09

always answering when somebody is like, we want to

10:11

acquire the rights for this story is, how

10:13

do we expand this, right? Versus when we're selling

10:15

a novel is, how do we get this to

10:18

fit into the container that we're trying to put

10:20

it in? Right? And so that's, in

10:23

part, just because this is a conversation to have a lot,

10:25

it's how I think about it. But you know, we all

10:27

have a lot of familiarity with these forms, so it might

10:29

be helpful. As

10:31

we're talking, I'm thinking about another piece

10:33

that goes into a novella that does

10:35

not go into a short story, which

10:38

is that often novellas have

10:40

chapters. And

10:42

that there is a, there's a

10:45

function that chapters have, which

10:47

is to provide a larger

10:49

break. So

10:51

novella has scenes, short stories can have multiple

10:53

scenes, but you don't see a short story that

10:56

has like a chapter break. And those, those represent

10:58

for me, a pacing

11:00

thing, that it's one of the

11:02

ways that you control pacing by saying, okay, we're gonna, we're

11:04

gonna do a real hard line

11:06

under this important point, we're going to give

11:08

you a breather, and then we're going to

11:10

move on. And, and in thinking

11:13

that through, as we're talking, I think that

11:15

part of what the novella has over

11:18

the short story is room to breathe. The

11:21

short story is meant to be read in one sitting,

11:24

by and large, you sit down, you read this, if

11:26

you leave halfway through the story, you're probably not coming

11:28

back to it, it feels like something went wrong there,

11:30

right? versus a novella, what's nice is

11:32

you're meant to read it over a weekend or

11:35

a couple days over the course of a week,

11:37

versus a novel, which will take you weeks to

11:39

months, depending on how fast you read, right? Yes,

11:41

I know some people read novels and weekends or

11:43

in a night, but in

11:46

general, you're thinking about the reading experience,

11:48

how long do you want people to

11:50

sit in this world? How long are

11:52

you expecting them to remember stuff, right?

11:54

You know, something like this, how you

11:57

lose the time war. It's a very

11:59

dense story. And so but there's

12:01

a more you can rely on the reader to

12:03

remember more because they've probably read it more recently

12:06

then if that were 150,000 more

12:08

novel. Yeah, and I also the idea of reading that

12:10

as a 150,000

12:15

word novel I don't think it's sustainable. Oh, I

12:17

get tired just thinking about that. Yeah Yeah,

12:21

cuz form like one of the things that short stories

12:23

can do that I always love is play with form

12:26

and I feel like novella still Fall

12:28

into that where you can do something that you might

12:30

not want to do forever Yeah, but

12:33

it's just long enough to be like, okay.

12:35

I'm okay with looking for a different

12:37

format or a different type of voice Yeah, then I

12:39

would in a long-term novel That's another thing I'll tell

12:41

people when they're like I'm thinking about this idea and sometimes

12:44

I'll say maybe this works better as a novella If

12:46

it is high formalist, right if it

12:48

is experimental in some way, I'm like

12:50

that might overstay its welcome at 200

12:53

300 or you know 400 pages But

12:56

if you say under 200 pages if it's

12:58

under you know 40,000 words

13:00

then you can get away with being

13:02

a lot weirder a lot more experimental

13:04

Play with voice a lot more and when

13:06

I think on some of my favorite novella reading

13:08

experiences They're ones that have been pretty

13:10

buck wild as a reading experience, right? Like

13:12

Kai Ashanti Wilson, you know source of the

13:15

wild age is written in this hugely elevated

13:17

tone, right? That would be so hard to

13:19

sustain at a greater length But at that

13:21

size I was like this is delicious. I'm

13:23

rolling around this having a great time Bobo

13:25

Landers kind of like that, too the

13:27

voice of the their

13:30

novella is Hard

13:32

to sustain over that length, but in a

13:34

small bite size capsule is so delicious Yeah,

13:36

you were making me think about Fonda leaves

13:38

the untethered sky Which

13:40

is very it is

13:43

both epic and very quiet. It's it's someone

13:46

who's a falconer and and

13:50

It would not work as

13:52

a novel Even

13:54

though it is dealing with you know

13:57

vast distances big empires stuff all

13:59

sorts cool things, but it's so

14:01

intimate and so personal. And that's

14:04

the reason that you're reading it, that

14:07

if you try to do it at a longer

14:09

length, it would become a totally

14:11

different book because you would have to put in these

14:14

really big steak moments in order to keep the

14:16

tension, in order to keep escalating.

14:20

And speaking of escalation, we will do

14:23

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17:51

the Banquet Hall. This

17:53

is a role-playing game about

17:56

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17:58

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18:02

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It has an incredibly strong focus on

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family dynamics and on the

18:15

process of blending in or trying

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to fit into a culture that

18:19

is not originally your own. Role-playing

18:22

games are most interesting

18:24

to me when their mechanics directly

18:27

address the story and incentivize

18:29

a certain kind of storytelling.

18:32

And Jiangxi does this beautifully. For

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example, instead of having stats like strength

18:37

and constitution and intelligence and stuff, you

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have got stats for how well you

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can speak Chinese, how well you can

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18:59

understand because you come from very different

19:01

backgrounds. It is an

19:03

incredibly fun game, has really great

19:05

horror elements. And

19:08

again, that is called Jiangxi, blood

19:10

in the banquet hall. All

19:13

right. We are back. And I am going

19:15

to escalate by getting down to brass tacks,

19:18

which is on a mercenary

19:20

level. Like in the terms of

19:22

the publishing industry, our novella is something that

19:24

we should be aiming for. Can we all get

19:27

rich this way? The novella is just no.

19:29

No, obviously we can't. No, obviously. Publishing

19:31

in general is a great way to get

19:34

rich. Novella

19:36

is just such an interesting thing because they have

19:38

been a category forever and I have always loved

19:40

reading them. It is one of my favorite formats.

19:43

But as a traditional big five publishing

19:45

option, that is new. We are

19:47

talking in the last five, ten years,

19:50

they have really risen as the thing

19:52

primarily because of tor.com. So

19:55

tor.com is a sub imprint of the

19:57

Tor Publishing Group. It is connected to...

20:00

toward the main imprint but it's it's its own

20:02

little thing right with its own editorial team whatever

20:04

and it grew out of the tour.com website sorry

20:06

this is too much history but they

20:08

started a publishing program and i think

20:10

to distinguish themselves from what tour prime

20:12

was publishing the end because they don't

20:15

short fiction on the website for so

20:17

long they started with sort of works

20:19

with novellas. I'm in the

20:21

were being very experimental on how they were

20:23

produced how they were printed and how they

20:25

were sold they were they were experimenting on

20:27

lots of different ways with the tour.com imprint.

20:29

That has eventually settled down to a more

20:31

traditional model they're now printing books the same

20:33

way everyone else does and the doing the

20:35

contract and ways everyone else does but. The

20:38

end result was they published a

20:40

ton of novellas very quickly that

20:43

were all from authors who weren't the tradition

20:45

getting published in other avenues.

20:48

End were publishing a lot of very experimental fiction

20:50

there's a lot of weird stuff in there you

20:52

know both books i just mentioned before the break

20:54

are toward a common of others right. Neon

20:57

young black eyes of heaven is

21:01

also like a very experimental queer novel

21:03

or novella that is also published in

21:05

that category right so it was just

21:07

carving out this this exciting little space.

21:09

Where some author got to build really

21:12

successful careers right mark the wells is

21:14

a great example of somebody who had a

21:16

long career publishing but hadn't quite hit the

21:18

mainstream success and then with the murder bot

21:20

diaries those novellas. Just lost her to a

21:22

completely different level in terms of where she's

21:24

at in terms of publishing so novellas

21:27

became viable. That

21:29

said only really toward calm does

21:32

novellas most of the other major

21:34

imprints don't just weren't used to

21:36

doing sort of fiction, especially in genre

21:38

fiction. So you know

21:40

when we pitched this is how you this the time

21:42

where we were pitching to a lot of publishers

21:44

and it was a little bit of a struggle with

21:47

most of them who couldn't really imagine doing something that

21:49

sort right so. Obviously there are

21:51

things that have worked very very well in the

21:53

novella space and done enormously

21:55

have sold a lot of copies

21:58

and been very commercially successful. But

22:00

that is still viewed as a fairly difficult thing

22:02

to pull off. So the short answer is, I

22:05

wouldn't advise going into it to get rich. However,

22:08

there's a cool opportunity of a

22:10

very innovative publisher who's willing to

22:12

take on novellas that may not

22:14

get a shot in other

22:17

venues. And I find one of

22:19

the things as you were talking, that

22:21

I find interesting is that there's kind

22:23

of two different modes that you can sell a

22:26

novella in. You can either sell

22:28

it in this

22:30

thing where it is considered a standalone book and

22:32

you have a book publishing contract.

22:35

And then you can sell it as a short story,

22:38

which you don't get royalties on, and it's

22:41

just a per word rate. And

22:44

they are such different landscapes

22:48

for also not only the

22:51

monetary income, but also the longevity of the

22:53

piece. If you publish

22:55

something in Asimov's or any of

22:58

the magazines that take novellas, it

23:00

goes out and

23:03

then it fades away. It vanishes as the

23:05

next thing comes out. But something

23:08

that is published in book form, it will

23:11

stay on shelves often. It's

23:15

an interesting trade off though. I had a long

23:17

debate with friends about sort of, where's

23:19

your sort of ideal novella market?

23:21

Because on the one hand, yes,

23:23

it fades if it goes out in sort

23:25

of a traditional magazine. But on the other

23:28

hand, you get the eyeballs of all the people

23:30

who read that magazine free of

23:33

charge. Whereas if you do it as

23:35

a book, tor.com has a great marketing

23:37

arm, but if you do it through

23:40

a smaller, there are other smaller presses that

23:42

do novellas as well, like I think Neon

23:44

Hemlock. Yeah, I was going to say Neon Hemlock, Kakyon. Kakyon.

23:47

And maybe it catches fire

23:49

and maybe it doesn't. And so

23:51

it lasts forever, hopefully, but you

23:53

don't really know if you'll find your

23:56

audience. Yeah,

23:58

and also the rights will get lost. tied

24:00

down when you go with the book publishing

24:03

mode that you because

24:05

they stay there whereas you

24:07

know I can anything that I've published

24:10

as in short story mode I can

24:12

send out for reprint I

24:14

have complete control over foreign rights and

24:18

it's like there's negotiation that happens in

24:20

other things. One thing

24:22

to think about strategically when you're considering publishing

24:24

a novella with a traditional publisher like tor.com

24:27

is to remember that you're publishing

24:29

a book right and

24:31

we like talking about novella as

24:33

their own little category but at the end of

24:36

the day you're publishing a book and that book

24:38

is competing with every other book that's getting published

24:40

including you know Brandon

24:42

Sanderson 200,000 word epics and

24:45

literary fiction and Reese book club picks right

24:47

you're going on the same shelf with all

24:49

those things right you're you're not in its

24:51

separate space where people are showing up to

24:53

look for shorter content like you would be

24:55

at a short fiction magazine right so a

24:58

lot of the effort that goes into launching

25:00

a novella is the same that you would

25:02

be doing as if you were debut novelist

25:04

right if there's a little bit

25:06

of like an asterisk if you're publishing a novella in

25:08

terms of when people looking at your sales track if

25:10

you publish a novella that doesn't blow the doors off

25:13

you're not going to be as penalized when you're

25:15

trying to sell a full-length novel as you would

25:17

be as if you publish a debut novel that

25:20

didn't do great but that's like marginal

25:22

you know so I would encourage

25:24

people to really think of like do I

25:26

run a run novella do I want to

25:28

run a novel if you're making that straight

25:30

choice in terms of you know publishing strategy

25:33

is the math is gets pretty complicated and

25:35

and I wanted also flagged that we're talking about these

25:37

in terms of traditional publishing notes when you're

25:39

looking at indie publishing I think that's one

25:41

of the other reasons that that

25:44

novellas started to take off is that

25:46

we were seeing indie publishers who are

25:48

putting out extremely short novels that were

25:51

by by the

25:53

award categories technically novellas but

25:55

they were putting out these extremely short

25:58

novels that people were excited about Yeah,

26:01

and because you can you can get in

26:03

you can experiment you can have

26:06

this tasty snack and then and

26:08

then move on to the next thing and

26:11

Being shorter means you can turn out more of

26:13

them which then every time you publish a new

26:15

book Makes

26:17

your backlist kind of live so there's a

26:20

lot of reasons to pursue Learning

26:22

to write in this this Goldilocks

26:24

zone. Yeah, I also think there's a little more

26:27

This could just this could be wrong don't come

26:29

for me publishing But I do think there's a

26:31

little more risk taking sometimes in in the like

26:33

small press and novella world Absolutely where

26:36

folks who are doing something

26:38

experimental or maybe coming from like a mart

26:40

like they're doing something different with language

26:42

or structure That isn't what people are

26:44

used to are being given a shot and

26:46

then maybe that helps them to get the book

26:48

Contract because I've seen several people who I'm like,

26:50

oh, I love that person I saw their novella

26:52

two years ago and now I'm seeing their novel

26:54

and maybe they would have done that anyway But

26:56

I think it also builds up a little bit

26:59

of your own Courage

27:01

plus if you're if your granny is asking you

27:04

did you write a book? Where can I find

27:06

it and you publish a novella

27:08

in book form? You can just hand it to

27:10

her at your next holiday party and honestly that

27:12

that's worth a lot You

27:15

know and you know I've a lot of

27:17

my clients are people who started out as novella

27:19

writers who then we were able to turn around

27:21

and sell a novel and In

27:23

most cases it was a lot easier to sell

27:26

that novel because we could be like hey this

27:28

novella won awards it sold really Well xyz right

27:30

like people love it. We got blurbs from so-and-so,

27:32

right and that does make it easier to sell

27:35

a novel Right. I'm not saying it's always a

27:37

stepping stone But I've been very

27:39

lucky with that in my career of being able

27:41

to turn you know Whether it's Nino Seapri or

27:43

neon young or somebody like that Who

27:45

had a successful novella and then being able to

27:48

turn that around and go to a you know

27:50

a publisher and say hey We have a debut

27:52

novel. Here's what it is and they're like, oh, we're

27:54

very excited to do this, you know, I Think

27:57

ultimately like you you can't force yourself just

27:59

for Much as I like to talk

28:01

about the money's like, you know You can't force your

28:04

your idea into a form that it's not

28:06

but it is something to think about like Especially

28:08

if you're on the edge like and you're on

28:10

the very edge like this is just between Maybe

28:13

novella and short story. I would say I

28:15

think it's harder to be maybe just between

28:18

novella and novel because like I

28:20

think there is a big leap in the amount

28:22

of depth and the amount of content Something

28:25

I was wondering earlier is I know Mary

28:27

Robinette You've said that like novels are really

28:29

about immersion right and short stories are about

28:32

something that's not immersion Describe

28:38

it but yeah great. Thank you. I couldn't remember.

28:40

What would you say? Do you have something like

28:42

for novellas? It has that same Put

28:45

you on the spot for business of my my my

28:48

pity. Um, a novella

28:50

is a short story told with novel pacing. Oh

28:53

I like It's

28:57

like I think it really is the

28:59

the combination of the two it

29:02

is There's a

29:04

there's a clarity to a novella in terms

29:06

of the emotional journey that it's going to

29:08

deliver for you That

29:10

there's generally not always but but

29:13

frequently like one Long beautiful

29:16

mood that's being built whereas novels

29:18

you you you have to hit

29:20

a bunch of different things Otherwise

29:22

you you get kind of taste

29:24

saturation and you don't have to worry about that

29:26

with a novella because you're you're in there for

29:28

less time But it

29:30

does give you a chance

29:32

to flirt with the immersion. Hmm so

29:38

one of the ways I often describe writing is

29:43

Is like a road map that

29:45

you're driving someplace and then there's these side

29:47

quests and If you're just

29:49

if you're running a quick errand you just

29:51

you're gonna go to the store you're gonna get the stick

29:53

of butter You're gonna come back at home and

29:56

every time you add a task to that You're

29:58

there longer And

30:01

so when you're doing the

30:04

short story, you're like, I cannot do any other

30:06

tasks. I just have to get the stick of butter and get out

30:09

because otherwise I'm going to burn everything that's at

30:11

home. And with the novella, you've

30:13

got the freedom to do

30:16

the side quests. You've got the

30:18

freedom to do the impulse buy and

30:21

still go and do the journey and then come home. That

30:26

to me is like one of the things about a

30:28

novella. I love this.

30:30

I'm thinking about this short

30:32

story, Get the Butter, the

30:35

wander the grocery store in the novella, maybe

30:37

rent it to a neighbor, but

30:39

you're still in the grocery store. And then in

30:42

the novel, it zooms out and the

30:44

grocery store is just part of a

30:46

large city worth of

30:48

things that you're actually going to be

30:50

focusing on. One

30:52

last thing, I know we're running a little long

30:54

here, but one more thing I want to add

30:57

on the publishing side is I'm calling a little

30:59

bit of a shot, but I've been seeing a

31:01

trend over time of novels getting shorter. There's been

31:03

more pressure from publishers to want shorter books. And

31:06

I think we're going to start seeing

31:08

this distinction between novella and novel breaking

31:10

down on the publishing side and people will just, it's

31:13

a book, this one short, that one's long.

31:15

And I think we're starting to see that more

31:18

and more publishers being interested in willing to

31:20

publish things that are shorter and shorter. Things

31:24

around 60,000 words and under has been very common in

31:26

the literary fiction for a long time. So

31:28

I'm seeing that trend even lower

31:30

as we see people with an

31:32

appetite for quick reads, slimmer

31:34

books, things like that. So

31:37

I think you are absolutely right. And this gets back to

31:39

what I was talking about right at the beginning

31:41

about fashion. Fahrenheit 451,

31:43

we all agree this is a novel,

31:45

right? It is 46,000 words. And

31:52

that's a novella. Yeah. That's

31:55

like by modern standards, that is a novella.

31:57

It has tipped just over. line.

32:00

But yeah. Just over the line for award

32:02

categories. But when you

32:04

think about a lot of those golden

32:07

age books, they're

32:09

really short. And

32:11

I think it's because I think

32:14

one of the things for the ones, especially

32:16

the ones that have stuck around, I think

32:18

one of the reasons is because they're short,

32:20

because they're the novella links. And

32:23

it's this opportunity to play. Exactly.

32:27

All right, let's give you an opportunity to play

32:29

with some homework. So take a

32:31

short story that you either

32:33

love or that you've written, and

32:35

just make a list of things that you

32:37

might add if you are going to turn

32:39

it into a novella. Then

32:42

do the same for a novel that

32:44

you've either written or love. And what is the

32:46

list of things that you might have to take out

32:48

if you wanted to make it into a novella? This

32:51

has been Writing Excuses. You're out

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