Yes, I need you, well, I need your help.
I’m currently writing a feature article for The Canberra Times on the problem child of literature – the novella. It seems to me that down the ages the novella has had a tendency to well and truly punch above its weight. Stories like Thomas Mann’s Death In Venice (1912), George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952) have had a massive impact on Western literature and each has very firmly found its place in the literary canon. But are they long short stories or short novels? For example, my 1993 Arrow Classic edition of The Old Man and the Sea contains references to this amazing gem being a short story, a long short story, and a novel. It’s a bit like a motor-bike manufacturer describing its latest model as a mono-cycle, a very fast mono-cycle, and an open-air rocket on wheels.
I’m intrigued about all this because by some extraordinary miracle I’ve written one, a novella, that is. I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote the thing other than I just sat down to tell a story and by the time I’d finished it I had 40,000-word manuscript on my desk, a manuscript, I was convinced, would have a life in the bottom drawer. To me, Fall On Me feels like a novella because it has a focused scope, which is common to the short form of the story, but it also has narrative depth (at least I bloody well hope so), which is common to the longer form. Further, it might have a moral purpose, but who I am to judge.
I’m also intrigued with the novella because it is such a misunderstood little beast, and I completely love misunderstood…anything really.
But enough about me.
What are your thoughts on the novella? How would you define the thing? When you choose fiction to read, do you prefer the expansiveness and long journey of the novel? If you’re a fan of the novella, do you have a favourite?
Do you not care about definitions?
Do you not care at all – would you rather just go fishing?
Under the counter or a flutter in the dovecote 
13 comments
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July 16, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
alecpatric
I think most writers like writing them and reading them. Readers don’t because they generally want more of a meal when they sit down to eat. Gluttons that they are, it’s hard to convince them that eating is not always about filling the belly to bursting. And publishers want a unit of sale they can put a proper price on. Hard to justify charging the punters full price for a 100 pages. Which is of course ridiculous, since just as much much work can go into those pages as 500. The novella has a proud history and it will continue to have a vibrant future, but I’ve got the feeling that it will still always be writers that like writing them and reading them. And then occasionally brilliance breaks through and defies boundaries.
July 17, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Alec, thanks very much for your considered comments. I think you’re absolutely right: we choose our books with our stomachs in mind: big book equals big ‘feed’. And your point that publishers find it hard to justify full price for such a slim book. I do hope that novellas have a vibrant future, and not just for those who write them.
July 17, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Mark William Jackson
My 1972 Johnathan Cape hard cover edition of the Old Man and the Sea (formerly owned by the Doveton High School (wherever that is) and bought for $4.00 from a great second hand bookshop, called Book Affair, in Geelong, 1991) describes it as ‘shorter than the conventional novel, longer than the longest short story, Hemingway’s new work of fiction eludes classification.’ However, my Pan copy of ‘Of Mice and Men’ classifies that work as a novel.
I think the story should have as many words as it needs (easier said than done). I just want to read good stories, I don’t care if you call them novels, novellas, short stories, call them George if you want, just give them to me.
July 17, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Mark, great comments, thanks heaps. I totally love that description of ‘The Old Man and the Sea’: ‘shorter than the conventional novel, longer than the longest short story, Hemingway’s new work of fiction eludes classification’. What’s wrong with calling it what it bloody well is: a novella?
By the way, I’d love to have the time to write a story called ‘George’ and send it to you. Bugger it, I may well make that a mission to be achieved by the end of the year: one story called ‘George’ sent to Mark Willam Jackson.
July 18, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Mark William Jackson
I’ll remind you of the impending deadline around the end of November!
July 17, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Agnes
As a rule I tend to prefer the traditional novel format. It’s not so much a ‘more bang for your buck’ kinda thing (though I must admit, I have found myself standing in a bookshop thinking “there’s no way I’m paying $32 for 120 pages!”) but I often find short stories just too damn short!
And so many of them seem a little pretentious to me, like the author is trying to say a lot in the least amount of words possible, taking great delight in being obscure and doing a whole lotta ‘showing’ and not a lot of ‘telling’. Which isn’t to say that I need to have everything spelled out to me of course, but the majority of the reading I do is to escape and to be entertained and sometimes I just can’t be bothered trying to decipher obscure passages, I just wanna get on with the story, dammit!
And so many of them seem to end abruptly as well, like the author knew that there wasn’t enough material for a novel, but they didn’t want to write so much that their story ran the risk of being called a ‘novella’!
Speaking of which, I’ve never come across a book that I’ve knowingly thought of or described as a novella. I adore ‘Of Mice And Men’ but have never labelled it a novella – for me it’s just a short book! I guess there’s a part of me that finds the word novella a wee bit pretentious as well, which I didn’t realise until I started writing this. Hope this doesn’t offend!
July 17, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Agnes, this is totally brilliant.
I completely get that many readers want the longer journey that the novel offers, and that the compression – which can come across as difficult writing – often found in novellas puts people off.
Interesting that you’ve never come across a book described as a novella, and also that you find the word ‘novella’ a bit on the pretentious side, and no it doesn’t offend in the slightest. Perhaps ‘novella’ is a writer’s term, not a reader’s.
To make a bit of a crap music analogy, to me the novella is like an EP: it offers more than a single (remember those?), giving the listener the opportunity to sit down and be engrossed for a short time, but it’s not the whole box and dice as the LP. Okay, I’m completely mixing up my metaphores now, but I reckon you of all people might understand!
July 18, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Agnes
Yes, compression is the right word. I am a big admirer of tight, concise writing (Notes On A Scandal is an off-the-top-of-my-head example) but more in the novel format I guess than in a short story.
I think I have come across a book described as a novella before, but I guess it’s just not a term that I tend to use myself – perhaps it is more of a writer thing.
Loved the music analogy though – spot on!
July 18, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
TF
The writer in me wants to agree with Mark, that a story should indeed be as long as it needs to be, but it’s not always how I feel. The reader in me is wary of big books – they can be unwieldy and require a commitment I’m not always capable of. Maybe it’s that there’s something serious about them, that they’re not mucking around. Inevitably, one tendency informs the other – I do value economy in writing, but I don’t know if this speaks to my writerly interests or if I’m the kind of person who likes to be left wanting more and just prefers a good, short read.
I also wonder how this “digital age” will affect the length of stories and the way a reader chooses them. The novella is characterised by it’s small size – on a book shelf it’s the slim one. But in an E-reader, size is relative (Amazon still gives print length as a measurement for its Kindle ebooks). If you’re not enjoying the story you’re reading, you have the rest of your library with you or you can buy a new book right now, wherever you may be. Whatever impact it does have, I think it might be useful in showing if the distinction between long and short, novel and novella are important and, if so, if it’s the reader they’re important to, or the writer.
It’s an interesting discussion, Nigel – I can understand why it’s been on your mind!
July 18, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Tristan, thanks for your expansive responsive.
Yes, it will indeed be interesting to see what impact the digital age will have on the length of works. Will they become almost endless, because there are no physical constraints (i.e. binding)? Or will we like bite-sized pieces of story, because that’s all we have time for, or that’s all that will fill our computer or iPhone screens?
But I’m particularly intrigued by your question about length being important to the writer or the reader. Surely works of fiction just have to be as long as they need to be, and they have to be finished; the latter seems innane but it’s actually very true.
Perhaps no one cares, as long as the work is good, that is, it creates a world and it engages the reader in that world.
By the way, I too am wary of massive novels. I love it when I’ve read one (even more when I’ve actually enjoyed the story!), but mostly I look for the shorter works, because my little brain can wrap itself around what’s happened on the page.
July 19, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Gabrielle Bryden
I like the length of the novella 🙂 I think your average Joe would not know what novella means – even people who read a lot.
July 19, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Jul
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Gabrielle, you may well be right: the names of things are probably only important to the writers of these things. Do we worry about the length of a film? Do we care that some films are only 70 minutes long, while others are 120 minutes? Probably not. Though I’m sure people wouldn’t be impressed with paying $20 to see a half-hour film, even if it was the best film of the decade.
August 20, 2011 at 9:16+00:00Aug
The little book of suspicion « Under the counter or a flutter in the dovecot
[…] thanks to John Clanchy and Mandy Brett. Thanks also to Alec, Mark, and Agnes, who commented on an earlier Under the Counter post about the novella and are quoted above. Share this:EmailPrintFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to […]