Picture the scene. You’ve the luxury of some spare time and you love reading. You long to dive into a book, featuring characters you care about and an absorbing plot. It’s why you pick up that novel – only to put it down a few hours later, nowhere near finishing. Not only that, when you pick it up again, you’ll have forgotten who’s doing what and why. The thread will be lost, the momentum stalled. It’s frustrating and might even stop you reading in the first place.
If that’s you, then a novella is the prescription you need. This is a book that’s shorter than the average, but still packs a punch. You’ll often be able to finish one in a couple of hours or a weekend at the most. They’re ideal for a train journey en route to a short break in the country – or even to read when you get there. And, as per the advice from the King of Hearts in one of the 19th-century’s most famous novellas, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, you can begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the end, then stop.
Novellas vs short stories and novels
Technically, a novella sits between the short story (usually under 10,000 words) and the novel (usually over 60,000 words). Practically, this means that many classic works of fiction are novellas – you’ve probably read some yourself. For the reader, they offer more than the bite-sized satisfaction of the short story, yet are less overwhelming than a lengthier novel. ‘I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction,’ wrote author Ian McEwan in The New Yorker in 2012. ‘I doubt there is such a thing as the perfect novel.’
But what is the difference, aside from length? To start, a novella usually limits itself with its number of characters. McEwan’s many novellas, including his debut, The Cement Garden, Booker Prize-winning Amsterdam, and On Chesil Beach, pivot on the relationship between two protagonists. Additionally, novellas often contain only one premise, with the plot diving in a straight line from there. In George Orwell’s novella Animal Farm, the animals overthrow their human owners, with the aim of creating a more equal society. And even though there are several characters, each one serves the unravelling of the central story. McEwan likens the novella to a screenplay. ‘The analogy with film or theatre is a reminder that there is an element of performance in the novella,’ he writes. It is, he says, ‘the modern and postmodern form par excellence’.
Mix of genres
This is all very highbrow, you may be thinking. Yet there’s nothing inherent in the novella form to make it so. In fact, there’s a popular genre of novella that isn’t often considered in the same breath as Animal Farm or The Cement Garden: the romance. In general, romance novels tend to have a shorter word count than other genres. Mills & Boon, the publishing titan of the romantic-novel world, specifies that none of its modern romances be above 50,000 words – effectively rendering them novellas. And they might not be postmodern, but – as with their prizewinning counterparts – these short reads are often praised for their tightness of prose, reduction to one central plot and their focus on two central characters. Even though their themes tackle less the subject of euthanasia (Amsterdam) or the ills of totalitarianism (Animal Farm), and more how love conquers all, they are no less loved for that.
‘I LOVE insta-love trope,’ writes a commenter on the Reddit forum r/RomanceBooks. ‘Novellas are so easy and quick to read and also just pick one up [sic] when you have no time.’ Other commenters agree that novellas are ideal for those short on hours, but hungry for words and love. But if your tastes run neither to dystopian fiction nor romance, there are plenty more genres to choose from. Tara Gould, an artist, writer and writing tutor, from Glynde in East Sussex, UK, adores haunting, unsettling novellas such as The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (27,500 words). ‘I love the tone,’ she says. ‘It’s the only ghost story I’ve read that really frightened me.’
Tara also loves writing tales of the supernatural. Her award-winning novella, The Haunting of Strawberry Water, published in 2020 and set in a house overlooking a river, blends a tale of postnatal depression with a sense of the uncanny. ‘It began with a photograph of what the central character thought was a shadow of the mother she’d never met,’ she says. ‘That summed up something about the story for me, that photograph.’ Tara believes that each writer has a form most suited to them. Hers are long short stories or novellas. ‘I tend to write quite long pieces, so a 3,000-4,000 word story isn’t enough.’ In addition, a novella ‘feels less overwhelming than embarking on a novel… I like seeing the overall shape of it when I begin.’
Writing tips
If you feel the same, you could try turning your hand to writing a novella, as it may offer you the sweet spot between the necessary conciseness of a short story and the sprawl of a longer work. ‘There’s a sense of something being distilled,’ says Tara. ‘There’s often a very consistent style or atmosphere running through it.’
She cautions against trying to write to a specific word count. ‘Don’t try to shoehorn an idea into a certain length.’ Instead, start writing and see where you go. ‘The novella I wrote started as a short story… [but] I always felt there was a lot more to it.’ She suggests ‘feeling into’ the story as you write, and the length will reveal itself: ‘It might end up as a 500-page novel.’ Yet if you find yourself writing shorter prose, then, she says: ‘Don’t be overambitious with the number of characters, where the plot goes and the number of settings. For example, in The Haunting of Strawberry Water, I had just one main setting, all set in one particular house.’
She suggests beginning with one central idea, event or character that appeals to you. You can then start writing notes and let ideas generate. She suggests free writing to unleash your ideas, rather than trying to plot out every scene from the beginning. ‘Sometimes you need to surprise yourself. Have faith in your own powers of imagination… Once I’ve got a general idea for the drive of the story, I just start writing it.’
Then spend time away from your completed first draft – Tara says it’s useful to give yourself time to process it, then get feedback from trusted people. While this can be true for any work of fiction, if you’re aiming for a particular word count to fit a novella length, you can use a redraft to cut out words you don’t need. ‘You’ve got to stay tightly on your vision of [the central story],’ says Tara. ‘It could be thematically or with imagery. In The Haunting of Strawberry Water, I kept repeating the same kind of imagery all the way through, used it as foregrounding and focused on certain colours.’ Another benefit of this, she says, is that as you cut, ‘you make the reader do more work, and most readers like that’, adding that cutting a few thousand words from her novella ‘was a really good practice’.
McEwan himself, in a 2022 interview with The Guardian newspaper, says he is driven to write by the sense (‘probably an illusion’) of ‘the perfect and beautiful thing, probably a novella, that unwraps everything around it, the ultimate human story that illuminates our brilliance and stupidity’. From Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis to Mills & Boon’s One Night to Change Their Lives, the joy of the novella is that, if the one you’re reading doesn’t please you, you can finish it quickly and try another.
So, whether you’re short on time or long on ambition (or both), try picking up a novella and, if you feel so inclined, writing one, too. Whether literary or commercial, a slice of pared-down prose with an immersive setting and a few central characters might be the minimalist fiction your imagination needs.
Daily reads
Madame Bibi Lophile, a UK-based book blogger who hosts a novella-a-day project each May, shares her suggestions of under-the-radar globe-spanning miniature epics
La Bastarda, by Trifonia Melibea Obono (2016). Translation by Lawrence Schimel
Narrator Okomo gives a clear and engaging depiction of growing up as an outsider because of the circumstances of her birth and her refusal to conform to gendered roles. Banned in the author’s home nation of Equatorial Guinea, this novella is, according to its US publisher, ‘the first novel by an Equatorial Guinean woman writer to be translated into English’.
Winter in Sokcho, by Elisa Shua Dusapin (2016). Translation by Aneesa Abbas Higgins
Set in a South Korean coastal border town, out of season, the unsettling atmosphere of this novella lingers. The story of an unnamed young female hotel worker and a French graphic novelist remains ambiguous and unresolved, but this doesn’t detract from its power at all. The first novel from this French-Korean writer.
The Ice Palace, by Tarjei Vesaas (1963). Translation by Elizabeth Rokkan
One of my all-time favourite novellas. Two 11-year-old girls, Siss and Unn, are very different from one another yet close friends. When Unn goes missing, Siss is devastated. There are beautiful descriptions of their Norwegian village in winter and the girls’ feelings are sensitively portrayed.
Often I Am Happy, by Jens Christian Grøndahl (2016). Translation by the author
Seventy-year-old Ellinor is grieving her husband Georg when she decides to leave the suburbs and move back to the urban area of Copenhagen where she grew up. The novella provides a wonderful character study of an older woman, and a portrait of deep grief experienced within a life that still needs to be led on the individual’s own terms.
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, by Barbara Comyns (1950)
Although her work has been getting more attention, Comyns is still a relatively lesser-known writer. In bohemian London of the 1930s, artist’s model Sophia marries Charles, a painter. The grinding poverty they endure is portrayed through Comyns’ distinct voice, which can be almost surreal, as she describes painful events with a light, matter-of-fact tone.
The Haunting of Strawberry Water is published by Myriad Editions. Find more of Tara’s art and writing at tararagould.wixsite.com/tara
Discover more of life-long book lover Madame Bibi Lophile’s thoughts on novels, short stories and novellas on her blog at madamebibilophilerecommends.co.uk