Wednesday, June 15, 2011

There's a first time for everything--a novel and a novella?

Ever wonder the difference between a novel and a novella? According to thefreedictionary.com:

nov·el 1 (nvl)n.
1. A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters

no·vel·la (n-vl)
n. pl. no·vel·las or no·vel·le (-vl, -vl)
1. A short prose tale often characterized by moral teaching or satire.
2. A short novel.

If you've been around this blog, or me, any length of time, you know I'm a novel-writing fool. Or at least I try to be. Although Dark Tide Rising was complete at 77,000 words, the two paranormals contracted with Avon Impulse are over 100,000 words each.

To think about writing something for the Harlequin Nocturne Bites line, I need a complete, kick-ass, dark and wild story between 10,000 and 15,000 words. That's cutting down a lot for me!

I've learned two things about myself, after writing one complete chapter of the work:

1-I can't keep it short and sweet.
2-I have a serious problem with massive amounts of plot

I think I'm going to have to try to keep it as concise as I can, then go back and weed unnecessary things out. The hard part? Deciding what's unnecessary.

Side note: I got copy edits back for Intervamption yesterday. I'm going to be working on those this weekend, along with trying to finish the novella. Maybe I'll give you a hint what it's about when I get closer to knowing that myself. *grin

1 comment:

A. J. Larrieu said...

Good luck trying to keep it short. Seems hard to me. And congrats on copyedits. Exciting!