I find writing a novel to be the toughest thing I have to do as a writer. I also think I would be excelled at the form 50 years ago when most novels were just 40,000 words. I’m certain I would have been doomed a little further back in time, when 150,000 words was the average length of a novel.
Short stories come easiest to me and I enjoy them quite a bit. I’ve written three this year, which is more than last year when I was devoting all of my writing time to other miscellaneous projects. Yet I hear from some friends that writing a short story is the hardest thing for them to do. Too little space to spread their wings and create a world.
If I could devote all of my writing time to short fiction, I believe I could build a pretty good (if small) collection each year without repeating myself too much. Many authors, when dealing with the short form, tread the same ground — themes, ideas, concepts, and most importantly structure — a lot. It’s not as obvious in their novels, especially with genre or commercial work, due to the bigger scale, but in a short story collection, it all starts to taste the same very quickly if you’re not careful. So if someone uses the same formula for their novels, book after book, their publisher will probably love them, assuming the books sell well. If you use the same formula or structure for a bunch of short stories and then collect them together, it can get very boring very quickly.
My favorite form, by far, is the novella. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of them again, and last year I wrote a new one, which I sold to an independent publishing for $3000.
20,000 to 50,000 words just feels like the right length for a good story to me. Enough room to develop real, living, breathing characters and give the reader a tale with a nice arc, but not a lot of filler. Just character and story.
My novels often have a very slow build to them, with the first third developing the characters and “worlds” very fully — and then the last two-thirds have been described as a “wonderful rollercoaster” and an “express elevator to the surprising, wonderful conclusion.”
I think this is because it takes me those first 30,000 words to really get into a groove and find the characters and their world when I’m trying to tell a bigger story. Maybe I need to get better at going back and cutting from that first 1/3 because my slow build is rarely described as an asset by people in the New York publishing business. If it’s going to sell well, it has to start with a bang and speed up from there — or so they seem to think.
I have a friend who once said he writes 50,000 words before he finds the beginning of the story — and then he cuts everything before that point. I’m such a slow, deliberate writer that I can’t imagine “throwing” that much text away. It boggles my mind. Yet he’s very successful with his approach and he writes very enjoyable books.
Several people along the way have suggested I should try my hand at young adult books because of the length. I’ve considered it, but I don’t feel like I know that field very well at all. Yet, when I’m at the bookstore, I look around that section and I think, “Wow, these books have really changed since I was a kid.” Especially the growing hardcover selection of new releases. A lot of those look like books I would have read when I was a kid. Dark and mysterious.
Anyone else here dabble in young adult fiction? Do you enjoy it? How’s it different from the other things you write?
I can see where you’re going with book length. I have a similar problem in that my first novel hovers under 50K words. I hate to call it a novella since it is a complete work (novella sounds to me like “nice try but….”) I’m hoping that after revising it further I can crack that barrier and it will sell.
Good luck with YA.
ralfast, if the story is complete as it is, I would just go with it. Don’t add padding or additional layers unless those layers actually add something to the experience. i receive a review copy of at least one “adult” novel each week that is barely 50K. I say, if you think your MS is polished enough and the story is what you want it to be, take it out there. My first novel was 80K, the one my agent is shopping is 85K, but I’ve written two novellas in the 25K range, too. It takes all kinds of stories.
Maybe don’t mention the length in your query letter, though. I know a lot of the template examples suggest saying, “I’ve written a 90,000 word romance” or whatever, but if your HOOK and SALES PITCH are exciting enough to get the agent to request the MS, no agent is going to write you back and say, “Never mind, I don’t want an ‘almost novel’.” He or she will still look at the first page and see if the opening GRABS his/her attention. And if your book is awesome and rocks the agent’s world, trust me, you’re going to get offers.
Plus, publishers do love shorter books when it comes to their printer bills.
Certainly I made some additions, but that is because I am a “puter-inner” kind of writer when I revise. But I agree nothing more than what the story requires. Right now I’m waiting on the Betas (only one answered so far) and hoping that I can make the right changes that will make this work shine.
Meanwhile I’m working on my second WIP which will certainly be over 50K (it started as a NaNo) and I hope the first draft will be finished by May, so that after two months or so I can attack it with relish in August or September and have a Beta by the end of the year.
Work and play!
Thanks for the advice.
Sounds like you’re definitely on the ball! My manuscripts also always grow during editing and revising.
Have fun and enjoy the process.
If you’re considering dabbling in YA, I’d recommend picking up a few books that interest you so you can acclimate yourself to the tone and voice of a YA book. The set-up is very different from an adult novel and not just word count alone constituted YA. In YA you don’t have the luxury of waiting around for 30,000 words to get your story to pick up. You’re lucky if you can get the space of two chapters to get that kind of momentum.
There are also rather prevailing themes that span YA; coming of age, first love, finding yourself – everything that a teen goes through, basically. The MC has to be relatable to teens and there’s a fuzzy age range of MCs from about 13 (lower YA or very upper middle) to around 18 or 19 which is closing in on pushing it).
So pick up a few and see if it’s a voice and style that fits your own writing. If it is, have at it. On word count alone if’s definitely the category for me since my works come in between 50,000 and 60,000 alone and I just love writing about teenagers. I had a huge wake up moment last week realizing just how central high school is to a teen and just how important it is. Sure when you’re out of it and look back you actually see the insignificance but having the right friends, wearing the right clothes and dating the right people are the central forces of your life then. There is nothing more important because it doesn’t exist yet (superficially speaking anyway). It really makes you tap back into your teenage self to dredge up those high school feelings.
Hi Donna!
Thanks for the awesome notes. Yeah, if I tried my hand at a YA novel, it would definitely be racing right out of the gate. And much of my fiction deals with coming of age themes, which is why I suspect I often get asking if I’m going to write YA. (And that novel I posted about a few days ago, the one I wrote when I was a teenager, has a lot of very YA themes… including a properly aged protagonist!)
I don’t know your age, but do you find it’s difficult to properly “describe” the current teenage culture in terms of the technology they use (FaceBook, etc)? Or are your themes and stories kind of universal in the sense that, even though technology changes, a teenager 10 years from now would still “get” what you were writing about? I suspect, although trends and technology changes, the basic “teenage high school” experience is very much the same from generation to generation.
Thanks again for sharing such great thoughts!
I wrote a YA novel almost a year ago and it was a lot of fun! I’ve yet to go back and polish it, but I’m really looking forward to it.
Glad you didn’t disappear for too long!
Novellas are a great length, I totally agree with you on that one. I really enjoy writing them, and reading them is enjoyable as well because they don’t take forever to wade through.
Loving seeing all these posts from you again
Thanks, JC! I actually have another post ready for tomorrow. Not sure where all of this has come from, but I’ve also written two short stories and an essay that’s due this week, so I’ve been really productive all of a sudden!
Does anyone have an online source for the structure of a novella. I read conflicting advice like no chapters in a novella – three major incidents – that sort of thing. Most of the books I read as a kid turns out they were novellas – not novels. I have about 50k written and I am thinking maybe this is a novella and not a novel. I would like to put it in the right structure. Thanks
I don’t think there is a definitive structure. I’ve read plenty of novellas with chapters. I’ve read 100 page novellas with more chapters than a regular old novel. For commercial fiction, I think the most important thing is that there’s a beginning, middle, and an end — just like a novel. Good luck!
Where’s the market for a novella? I think my work will only be between 30 and 50K and am terrified that there will be no market for it.
30K is definitely on the short side for a novel for New York, but I’ve seen plenty in the 50K range. It all depends on genre. There are also many independent publishers who work with shorter books.
Wow. After reading all this I think I need to pay more attention to the actual lengths of books. I’m eighteen and just starting out with serious writing (well, more serious anyway). When I starting looking at sites I was actually thinking my story was short, but it’s already over 70k and it’s not done. As early as eighth grade I’ve been writing stories on my computer, and the ones I finished were upwards of 100K. I can only imagine my writing getting longer in the future. Am I weird?