I have in mind to write a novella with a view to serialisation - maybe ten instalments?

Was just wondering if anyone had done anything similar and had any advice, examples or general pointers?

Possibly online as well.

Sarah

What exactly is a novella? I think it's a misused term, but I'm not sure what the correct definition is.

People usually think of a novella as not-quite-a-novel and more-than-a-short-story. But I'm not sure this is exactly right. Isn't there something to do with themes in it, too?

I always understood a novella was around 30,000 words.
A lot of children's fiction comes in series - Tracey Beaker and The Worst Witch spring to mind. But off hand I can't think of any Adult series in novella form.

Yes but Sappholit is right - rather more to it than word count. I thought I'd better find out more so have been looking things up - thank you for helping!

Sarah

According to Wikipedia, a novella is more to do with character than plot. Kind of quieter than a novel, and often set over a single day/short space of time.

Woman's Weekly magazine runs serialisations, though I don't know the details. Might be worth asking for their guidelines. They do take unsolicited stories.

Ah, forgive me. For some reason I thought you were planning a series of ten little novellas

As Sapph says, they are more of a short story, in that there is one or two plot threads and a denoument or twist at the end, but not necessarily resolving the conflict, nor mapping out a character's journey, as in a novel.

Sidestepping the traditional Mills&Boon love interest theme, they can be fairly claustrophobic; restricted in time or space: the forensic probing of a dark family secret over the course of a weekend, the decent of a relationship.

Although boardering on M&B, probably Bridges of Madison County is a classic in the genre.

However, saying that quite a lot of 60's Sci-Fi (Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham, Ted Hughes) and Westerns (Louis L'Amour) could be classified under the novella tag, where a large proportion of the story comprises setting the scene/alien environment and describing the characters.

I haven't read many novellas, expect one by Jane Smiley called 'Ordinary Love'. It was heartbreaking.

We studied D H Lawrence's Three Novellas at school, and I've just looked up "three novellas" on Amazon and there are loads of books either called that or with those two words as part of the title, so plenty to choose from if you want to read some examples.

Judging from that, three in one book seems a popular number and fits with the idea of each being typically 30,000 words.

It's a very long time since I read Lawrence's ones, but from what I do remember they are more short story-like (as opposed to novel-like) in their structure - just longer.

Isn't Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain a novella? Or is it classed as a short story? I think I've heard it called both TBH but am not sure which is more accurate (I suspect novella).

Deb

I think in terms of word count 'Brokeback Mountain' would be a novella but I've always heard it described as a short story...

Obviously more to this than I thought! Apparently Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' and 'Animal Farm' are novellas - and 'Death in Venice' as the example.

No, not a series of ten! Help! One at a time...

Sarah

So if you wrote a series, how would you market them? You could write a series of 9 in 3 books, which would seem like a trilogy at a glance, but each book would actually have 3 distinct novellas in it?

I think that could work. But would a publisher be interested? This is when it would be really nice to have a tame agent to discuss it with...

I'd worry that (unless for a very specific market where it wasn't unusual) it would be harder to sell to a publisher than novels, and they seem hard enough to sell!

How distinct/connected would the novellas be? Could you possibly market it as 3 books, each with 3 parts? Book buyers are probably quite set in their ways and might find it more appealing that way?

Deb

<Added>

Oops - re-reading the thread I realise that like Naomi I thought you meant a series of novellas, not one novella which you could serialise in 10 parts. Apologies.

I thought Brokeback Mountain too, but for some reason assumed it was from a collection of short stories.

A novella is what a mini-Snickers is to a fun-size bar.

JB