There are no Connie Willis or Ted Chiang stories included

[threemonkeys]

I wonder about novellas/short novels. I know the sf genre is supposed to be almost a last bastion of the form. I'm not entirely sure if that is true, but it is the only place where a real market exists for writers. A few really big names in other genres get theirs published just on the strength of their names, but in sf a work can get published on its merits. In saying "sf" I suspect that I actually mean "science fiction" rather than some broader definition of the genre or at least a subset of the genre covered by the more established magazines.

But the real thing I wonder about is why they get written. Does an author start out thinking "I think I'll write a novella"? See, I think that this is a pretty rare scenario. I'd love to hear from the writers out there whether this is the case, but I suspect that novellas/short novels are either failed novels that couldn't be stretched to the distance or short stories that just got a way from the author. I know that stories do take on a life of their own and this is why something intended for one length ends up at another. But if I'm right, then work of this length always represents a failure of planning. Even if it is an artistic success, and many are, I'm wondering if there is always a tinge of disappointment that the work didn't pan out as intended.

All this is by way of saying that I read Gardner Dozois' Best of the Best Volume 2 which is an elbow destroying collection of short novels from his best of collections. There are lots of great stories here and it is an excellent collection. But like the first volume of short stories there is also a feeing of being let down. It should be superlative. A "best of the best" should be enough to blow the mind. Yet it isn't - it is merely very good - about as good as any given year's "best of" collection. Again, just that tinge of disappointment.

By the way, I don't usually explain my titles, but I should point out that Connie Willis and Ted Chiang have just won the Hugos for best Novella and Novelette. Anything by those two is automatically a best of the best in my book. Congratulations to them and the others.

Comments

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Now that is really interesting - thank you!. See, I hear this assertion about SF being the last bastion of novella length material quite often. It was made again in this Dozois book too. I repeated it here with a "supposed to", and "not entirely sure" to see if anybody would contradict me. I'm really glad you did - even if you did prove me wrong about why the assertion is being made ;)

[chaosmanor.livejournal.com]

I suspect romance is invisible to people outside the romance industry sometimes, despite being a huge slice of the publishing pie.

For reference, here're my publisher's submissions guidelines, including their length requirements: http://www.torquerepress.com/submissions/index.html They're calling for both novelettes and novellas. They buy genre content (including cyberpunk, much to my delight), as long as it meets the requirements of the romance genre as well. Their reading time is amazingly short (they bought my first novel in twelve hours), and they publish work fast because of the huge demand. It's not like SF at all.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I suspect you suspect correctly.

Thanks for the link - I am always interested in submission guidelines. Seriously - I have no idea why as I don't write anything that can be submitted although it might be to do with trying to get inside an editors mind.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Novella length is also popular with YA and children's fiction (maybe kids prefer thinner books).

That said, sf/fantasy and romance may be the only adult genres in which a writer who wasn't already a bestseller could write a novella on spec (rather than on editorial request) and have some chance of finding a market for it.

And to answer your other question: the only novellas I've written were sf. One of them accidentally went over the line and couldn't be cut back; the other was commissioned and originally intended to be serialized.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I have wondered if the rules are different in YA and children's fiction. At the visible store front level, there seems to be an avoidance of the terms "novel", "short story" etc - there are just stories and books. Of course it may be different at the editorial level.