Short stories and novellas. Are they harder to write than longer books? Personally, I think they can be. Am I saying that long novels are easy to write? No, not even close. Any form of writing has unique challenges, and that’s a good thing because it helps us to keep getting better. But we all have our best and most well-fitting niche.

This is a viewpoint conundrum. I understand the overall concept of novellas and short stories. They are interesting and completely valid forms of the craft; many Sherlock Holmes stories come to mind. To date, however, I’ve never found it easy to actually write that way.

Short Stories and Novellas

Going in order from small to medium, let’s start with short stories. Short stories are beloved little nuggets of reading delight. (When skillfully written of course. Even a small piece of turd is still a turd.)

Short Stories: a bite-sized snack

They are glimpses into lives and situations that typically don’t delve too deep but still manage to convey that something is afoot and someone is impacted by it. I would say that parables fall into this category, the shortest of the short perhaps, but they can really pack a punch.

I read a collection of short stories the other day that I quite liked. It read a bit like an old television serial, you followed the character through a series of minor adventures. You didn’t come out knowing her deepest fears and most cherished desires but that wasn’t the point of it. It was nice, something you could read and enjoy and come back to later without really losing your place in the story.

Novellas: literature’s version of brunch

These are typically longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. You won’t likely find a multi-strand plot or any subplots to speak of but there’s more meat on the porkchop than with a short story.

I was looking at a series of books recently that were each around 50+ pages in length. There were over 20 books in that series. I stared for a moment and scratched my head. Deep inside I was wondering why they didn’t just write 3 full length books and be done with it. That’s a lot of cover design, character reintroduction and brief background reestablishment for 50 pages worth of story.

Some of the reviews mentioned that the characters were superficial. While doubtless true, I think that would be a tricky pitfall to avoid. You have so little room to work with. Perhaps it’s more about the what and how than it is about the who. That is a style choice and any reader going in needs to know that or they may end up unexpectedly running out of book.

Do I ever write them?

Yes, but not terribly often. While I wrote a few when I was a child, they were what you’d expect from my age and experience level. They weren’t great and I didn’t hold onto them. I tried again several years later and was genuinely startled by how creepy my little story ended up being. I hadn’t set out to write anything sinister but that’s what came out.

Typically, I start out trying to write a short story and it ends up turning into an outline for a novel. I start with a simple premise and keep adding things in until it’s not simple anymore. If you’ve ever read one of the variations of ‘Stone Soup’ you’ll know what I’m talking about. (It’s not a long tale, ironically.)

I like character development, I think that’s what gums up the works when it comes to the brief narrative. In my books I explore a lot of viewpoints, emotions, reasonings and motivations. Including many that I don’t agree with – I am a murder mystery writer, after all.

However, I have more recently written a novella called Blood and Money for my Maiden Harlow series. Writing this particular novella was a unique challenge in many ways but I’m very happy with how it turned out. If you want to check it out for free, sign up to my mailing list and I’ll send you the download link.

It’s also worth noting that, if you publish shorter books individually, you might give some thought to where you want to publish them. This is mostly due to Amazon’s royalty rates system. They will cut your royalties in half, from 70% to 35%, if you price a book below $2.99. And that might be too steep a price to ask for a 50 page book. I discuss that topic more thoroughly in my post on publishing wide vs exclusive.

Ultimately, I respect authors that can write well in any style. That’s always a goal worth pursuing. Some may feel that starting with novels and then working on novellas is a backwards approach, but who cares as long as you end up where you want to be?