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

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

Does an author start out thinking "I think I'll write a novella"?

I'm being too lazy to do the research for the exact passage, but I recall reading something by Howard Waldrop where he explains that the more he thinks about any idea for a story the more he realises it would work better at a shorter length. And I think that did include the scenario of starting with a novella idea.

Connie Willis and Ted Chiang

Again, this is an assertion rather than me bothering to do the research, but my impression is that it's quite rare for Connie Willis to be on the shortlist for any Hugo and then not win it. Personally I found that particular novella didn't work for me at all (and I like Willis's novels and stories more often than not); but I did think that the novella shortlist was significantly stronger this year as a whole than the shorter fiction categories. I did enjoy the Chiang novelette, though, and also the Abrahams, and the Baxter short story.

But I often find that short fiction doesn't work for me, and thus have a real struggle with the idea that it's the natural and true form of SF. I know I'm in a minority, though, and that was clearly partly true amongst the Hugo voters too. And even in my opinion there are some good winners in there this year; so, as you say, congratulations to all.

[chaosmanor.livejournal.com]

The romance industry is hip deep in novellas and short novels. I've had five pieces between 17 000 and 40 000 words published, and my publisher is re-contracting those pieces as they fall out of contract, two years later. They even bought a 22 000 word cyberpunk novella from me, last year.

In my case, I usually start out with a target word count in mind, because I'm writing for a particular call from my publisher. (We're buying 35 000 word novellas this month, light on the smut please, and no vampires or werewolves.) It's easier to sell that kind of word count to them because there's less competition for the short novel/novella publishing slots.

[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 ;)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Of course there is the question as to whether Howard Waldrop is typical of anything. ;)

Well Connie is very popular at a personal with the fan community and it would be foolish to dismiss the impact that has on the voting. But then I love her work, so I'm not going to argue. I've been even more slack than usual about reading the nominated stories before the voting so I have no other basis for comment.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Ah, so someone has heard of some of these Hugo winning people! :)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I've heard of most of them including all the fiction authors and editors - I just haven't read any of the works in question.

[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.

[darthsappho.livejournal.com]

Yes, the novella shortlist was very strong this year; I found it a challenge to rank. Willis' entry did seem a bit light-weight, but made up for it by being thoroughly entertaining.

Telos has published a couple of ranges of novellas (a Doctor Who series and a Time Hunter series), and anyone writing for those would of course have been aiming for novella length right from the start. But while mostly artistically successful, it's a commercially awkward format.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

"Commercially awkward." Yes, if you are trying to sell books - perceived value for money becomes an issue unless you bundle them together as a series within a volume like the Lukyanenko stuff.

[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.

[darthsappho.livejournal.com]

Especially for a small press that's already suffering from economies of scale. Even when they're physically very nice books. Big Finish, another Who-related company, does publish collections of three linked novellas for the Bernice Summerfield range, which seems a more practical approach.

[luciusmalfoy.livejournal.com]

the only scifi novella I've done was a case of aw crap my short story is too @#$@$ long.

erotica also takes novellas fairly reg'larlike

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Now that is exactly the scenario I was envisaging.

The erotica comment fits in with what Chaosmanor says above (although you might have to know chaosmanor to know why).