The thing about these annual memes is that the questions became somewhat the same, which is fair enough as new bloggers appear on the scene as do new ideas. However, my challenge is whether I have anything to add to what I have written about novellas before? The answer is not a lot, but I did listen to the beginning of the 20/40 winners’ interviews on the Finlay Lloyd website. I didn’t listen for long, because it’s a combined interview and I haven’t finished reading the second book. My preference, where possible, is to gather and write my own thoughts before I hear other ideas (including those of the authors).
However, the interview started on the topic of novellas, and the two winners did have some interesting things to say about them which add to what I’ve said before. I’ll recap those ideas first by (re)sharing the Griffith Review’s Julianne Schultz on novellas. She said they are
stories that are longer and more complex than a short story, shorter than a novel, with fewer plot twists, but strong characters. Condensed tales that are intense, detailed, often grounded in the times, and perfectly designed for busy people to read in one sitting.
Most of the novella definitions out there say things like this – in more or less words, and with different emphases here and there. In the 20/40 Prize interviews, authors Kim Kelly and Rebecca Burton put their own interesting spins on it.
Kelly said novellas are books you can read in a couple of hours, without racing but also taking your time. Yes! Good call, I thought, because I do like to take my time with what I am reading, and this works well with novellas. I can take my time but not take forever! Kelly also commented on the value of novellas from the writer’s perspective. As a busy person, she says, she has little time for writing, but once a story “presents itself as a novella” she can see the finishing line and get there faster! I love insights like that into the practicalities of a busy writer’s life.
The interviewer and, more relevantly, the publisher, Julian Davies, made a point about structure, suggesting that a novella is long enough for the writer to develop something but not so long that such development can get away from them. Burton picked this up, saying that, with a novella, writers have time to develop but can still retain “a fleetingness”, a sense of “capturing a moment in time, a breath, a mood”.
Somewhat less poetically, Kate Jennings, as I recorded in my in praise of the “taker-outers” post, described novellas as “sinew and bone”, which Davies captured in the interview by using my favourite cliche, “less is more”.
I agree with all these definitions, but I’d like to add that novellas can also offer writers the possibility of experimentation. Writers can try things out without getting lost in excessive verbiage, or they can simply be experimental without being constrained by any expectations of form. I’m thinking, for example, of Ida Vitale’s Byobu (my review) or of Kate Jennings’ Snake (my review).
For this week 2 of the meme, we are also encouraged to suggest works that best capture the ‘spirit’ of a novella. I have done that before (Little Treasures and Classic Australian novellas), but let’s just say that in recent years I could add some new memorable books like Sayaka Murata’s Convenience store woman (my review) and Jessica Au’s Cold enough for snow (my review) which are condensed, intense, detailed tales focusing on a limited set of characters. But I could also add experimental books like Byobu, that aren’t that at all.
What about you?
Written for Novellas in November 2023
Whispering Gums 
Great, great blogpost that captures many sides of a novella. I’m going to save this one on my “reference novella” document. Also thanks for yet more novella titles. I really hope that many readers and bloggers keep up this “novella” enthusiasm not only in November but during the entire year to come. I will do my best to incorporate more novellas on my 2024 reading list!
Thanks Nancy … I have loved novellas for as long as I can remember. I’m really glad you like this post.
I have nothing to add to your thoughts, but I did go ahead and download Cold Enough For Snow, because Pam mentioned it on her blog and now you’ve mentioned it at least twice, AND my library has a Kindle copy available. Looking forward to it and I LOVED Convenience Woman. I just read through my Goodreads review from 2022 and I am STILL mad that our American convenience stores don’t sell rice balls, meat dumplings, chicken skewers, or mango-chocolate buns. 😀
Haha Jinjer, thanks! I love that you are mad about your convenience stores not selling those things. I would love the rice balls (onigiri) too. They are staples for us then we travel in Japan. I am glad that you love that book too. It’s memorable isn’t it. I hope you like cold enough for snow.
You won’t be surprised to know that I skipped this one.
Yes, been there, done that, and I’d rather write about the books I’ve read.
Yes, fair enough. It was the Findlay Lloyd interview that mostly affected my decision to do it. But it’s why I’m combining week 2 and 3 of Nonfiction November.
I havent seen many posts about novellas, so I’m glad I came across this one 🙂 I would like to hear what you see as the difference between a short story and a novella, or why you think people always seem to include novellas in their short story collections (my least favourite surprise 🤭).
I think the most quintessential novella on my shelf is Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates. Have you read that one?
Thanks Liz, lovely to have this comment.
But this is a good question. In many ways I see that short stories and novellas are closer to each other, than novellas and longer fiction, though it’s all a matter of degree. So a short story is usually limited in characters, and can be about, as Australia’s Nettie Palmer said, focusing on what matters to people, which tends to mean detecting the character’s most revealing moment? For me, then, short stories tend to be about a moment (which can be an action, a decision, an event) in which something is revealed to us about a character (and sometimes, thus, about the society in which the character lives). One of my first most memorable short stories was Guy de Maupassant’s The necklace. They are necessarily less likely to play with with things like multiple points of view, or complicated structure, but they can.
Your comment about novellas appearing in short story collections being your least favourite surprise made me laugh. I have come across this but I hadn’t thought of it as always happening. I tend to feel a bit like you when I come across them, because I am in short form reading mode, and don’t want to shift gear, but I usually find I settle down and enjoy the offering. As to why they do it, I wonder whether in some cases the novella was the driving story, but because novellas are hard to get published they produce a short story collection. These are not necessarily much easier to market, but at least these collections can look more like a value-for-money book than little novellas can? There are probably, though, as many reasons as there are collections containing them?
I have read Joyce Carol Oates’ Beasts but not that one. I’ll add it to my list.
A footnote to the absorbing ‘novella in Novembe’r discussion:
For those interested in the novella… that difficult-to-define fictional creature which sits at some point along the spectrum between its two literary cousins: the short story and the novel… I recommend Richard Ford’s (1998) Introduction to The Granta Book of the American Long Story, of which Ford was the sole editor.
Ford’s Introduction Why Not a Novella? is a lengthy 20-page account of the history of the novella/nouvelle and an entertaining and intelligent attempt to define its distinctive character—a quest which ends in a confession of dismal failure. Hence Ford’s choice of The American Long Story as the title for his selection of the best US novellas.
Ford discusses many features of fictional writing (plot, character, theme, style, voice, dialogue, length… the usual suspects) that might provide a possible litmus test for saying, This is the distinguishing feature that makes this or that work a novella. Each candidate was disqualified by his quickly being able to cite any number of texts readily accepted as novellas which lacked that particular feature.
In the end, he decided… “to set aside [for the purposes of this collection] the term novella in favour of the less succinct, less memorable, but possibly less historically-infuriating and ultimately freeing expression: The Long Story..” He goes on to explain: “When I started this project I intended to read novellas, but I also wanted to emerge with a good spanking definition of the novella which I and others could use forever. And yet I could not through all my reading discern anything other than length [my emphasis] to distinguish these stories as a uniform genre. Or to distinguish them consistently from their seemingly better-defined narrative cousins.”
One can readily sympathize with Ford and his brave but frustrating and ultimately failed endeavour—though he at least has the consolation of knowing that he is not alone. An army of critics and literary historians have gone ferreting down the same rabbit hole over the years and returned similarly empty-handed.
And yet—in the face of all this earnest and skilled work—how is that when we sit down to read Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich or Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice or Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus or Cees Nooteboom’s The Following Stor…y we can say with strong conviction that we are reading a novella?
Yes, it clearly does have something to do with length, as Ford says. The innovative 2023 novella project initiated by Finlay Lloyd publishing wasn’t titled the twenty/forty prize for no reason. But can ‘length’ be sufficient by itself to constitute a useful definition of this wonderful fictional form?
Flicking the switch of discussion from the practice of reading novellas to the practice of writing them might be of some help here. In my own experience of writing novellas, I’ve often found that there arise points of inflection where the text wants to move in a different direction from the way in which I’d imagined it was heading in. It suddenly wants to grow another arm (e.g. to introduce a neat, un-thought-of sub-plot). Sometimes a key character starts to press their case for getting more prominence, more stage time, or some interesting data stumbled across in researching the setting for the story demands its place in the sun…
These are just a few of the tempting ‘prompts’ that can be dangerous for novella writers. Over the years I’ve learnt to respect my inner guardian angel’s protective voice which—while not dismissing any prompt out of hand—mostly ends up whispering: ‘Don’t go sideways. Don’t go sideways…’
Not ‘going sideways’ is a rough and colloquial way of indicating that one feature which distinguishes the novella may have something to do with its unique ‘shaping’, with the achievement and maintenance of a highly focused narrative arc in the delivery of the story. Which must be attended to constantly. In writing, in re-writing and in editing. Henry James declared the novella ‘shapely’ (alongside its untidy, rag-bag cousin, the novel). But that, too, is only part of the story.
Sometimes, in searching for watertight literary definitions, we look much harder at what commonly is there than for what commonly is not.
John Clanchy
Oh, this is excellent John, and thanks so much for taking the time to contribute with such care to the discussion. I’ll try to find that Ford work.
I have nearly, at times, just gone with short form and long form prose versus novella and novel, in other words just focused on length as being the main distinguishing factor. But length does, almost by definition, impose some characteristics, of which a main one does seem to be, as you say, not going “sideways”. (Love that.) I really appreciate your writer’s perspective, because showing just how writing a novella is a different experience from writing a novel, helps define what exactly it is. I like the description, “highly focused narrative arc”. In the end, there are no rules are there, but I think we can say there are characteristics (or general/common features).
BTW, I like Finlay Lloyd’s 20/40 title though I thought that was partly because they include nonfiction – and, I assume you agree, one fundamental aspect of the novella is that it is fiction – however we define that!
Thanks so much for commenting.
Thanks, Sue. Refeshing to see such an engaged and provocative discussionof the novella. It’s a wonderful, if neglected, literary form. I just regret the fact that it’s not it’s not more widely practised in Australian fiction writing – and publishing. Also, for Australian readers (not so for Europeans) the term itself may be a bit off-putting, perhaps suggesting something foreign/rarefied/elite…? I should btw have included an Australian example of a fine novella among the famous ones I cited. I’d opt for David Malouf’s Ransom.
Ps: apologies for the typos and poor editing in my earlier reply. The last sentence should have read:
Sometimes, in searching for watertight literary definitions, we look much harder at what commonly is there than for what commonly is not.
Thanks John … I’m glad you’ve made this point about Australian fiction because I’m writing the next general novella post and am making the point that I have read far more non-anglo novellas than anglo ones, though there are many good anglo ones I know. One of my favourite novellas is Fly away Peter, but you are right, Ransom is a great one too. I was a bit bemused initially, being uncertain about the value of that retelling but it’s one of those books that over the years has remained with me.
I will fix the last sentence. But you have surely seen many of my typos. Life is so busy and editing your own work is so hard!!
I’ve spent many hours debating over this short/long story and short novel question and have opinions that are surprisingly inconsistent. Heheh So, instead, I’ll wonder aloud if there are any in-person bookclubs dedicated to the novella form (with the varied, and occasionally contrasting, definitions possessed by all participants).
But overall, I suspect those definitions which include comments about appealing to a busy audience that doesn’t have adequate reading time because it sounds like the marketing department’s perspective…but, at the same time, I can see the truth in it. (And sometimes have selected a novella for its length alone.)
Fly Away Peter is one of the few Australian novellas I’ve read (with Au’s and also Helen Garner’s The Children’s Bach…but I just read a description of it the other day and don’t remember any of that, so I guess it’s time to request a copy for rereading then).
I think it’s easy to be inconsistent about definitions, particularly ones like this. In the end, I don’t think it matters much. The fun is in the discussion because it results in our thinking about writing and reading, why we do it and what it means to us.
Those are three great Aussie novellas Marcie … but I have read the Garner twice, not having remembered it so much some time after the first read. It’s now been ten years or more since my second read and I remember it now. The Au I read 12 months ago and I still think about it.
Yes, exactly. And, what you said in another comment thread, on another topic, it helps you articulate things differently and you carry that into future conversations.
That’s some consolation. I can only get one of Garner’s books easily just now, the non-fiction one about a murder, but hopefully I can fill the gaps and reread this one along the way.
Oops, as for the marketing point, that doesn’t bother me. I often argue that short stories are good for busy people. If that encourages more people to read them, well and good I say
Hahaha Well, yes. Or even just buying them and sending some royalties in the direction of a writer (who might just be starting out, with short forms, too).
My hesitation and suspicion is in that it feels a little like a trick, because people who read mostly novels are not going to find a short-novel when they read a short story, and I think that’s behind the popular sense of short stories being disappointing or dissatisfying, so I hate to think of contributing to that.
But I suppose there’s nothing really to be done about that. And one more tagline won’t make the difference. 🙂
No, but we can keep conversations going which hopefully ensures we all remain conscious of reading choices we are making and why.