Length divisions

[TomMazanec]

What are the dividing lines between short story/novelette/novella/novel?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Depends who you ask.

I found that Amazon and at least one big publisher stated they consider 50,000+ words as a novel. House styles may vary.

 

[Extollager]

I've seen 60,000 as the minimum for a novel in some stfnal place, I believe, with perhaps 20,000 as max for a short story, so a novella would be about 20,000-not quite 60,000. But I'm not sure of my source. Fifty-five thousand for a novella does seem a bit high!

 

[.matthew.]

I think genre counts as well, with sci-fi and fantasy books, in general, being longer than real-life fiction.

So for regular fiction, I'd agree with Extollager, but for sci-fi and fantasy, I wouldn't consider a book under 80k as a novel, and nothing over 30k as a short story.

 

[Venusian Broon]

What are the dividing lines between short story/novelette/novella/novel?

I normally take the Hugo awards as a sort of standard that we can all work with. They have the following length definitions:

• Best Novel: Awarded for a science fiction or fantasy story of forty thousand (40,000) words or more.
• Best Novella: Awarded for a science fiction or fantasy story of between seventeen thousand five hundred (17,500) and forty thousand (40,000) words.
• Best Novelette: Awarded for a science fiction or fantasy story of between seven thousand five hundred (7,500) and seventeen thousand five hundred (17,500) words.
• Best Short Story: Awarded for science fiction or fantasy story of less than seven thousand five hundred (7,500) words.

Although if I were doing a magazine for short stories, I wouldn't accept a short story of 7,500 words unless it was a big author. Personally I feel 5,000 is the upper maximum for a short

 

[Extollager]

That's interesting about the Hugo parameters. Those criteria help one to see how the magazines could herald, on their covers, the "Great New Novella by XXXXX" without perhaps being guilty of hype. It's ages since I read Leiber's "Snow Women," but I remember that as having been a longish short story; but on its magazine appearance it was called a "novel":

Or maybe the Hugo criteria followed the magazines' practices.

I wonder if the criteria reflect, too, the fact that many readers of sff are, or began as, young readers, for whom a 40,000-word story might indeed seem like a Novel.

 

[TomMazanec]

Then there is flash fiction:
Definitions of flash-fiction vary depending on who you ask, and at 365, we've been a little loose with the term. However, it's time to set some standards in stone: here, flash fiction is a self-contained story under 600 words.

Submit to 365 - 365tomorrows

365tomorrows.com

 

[HareBrain]

young readers, for whom a 40,000-word story might indeed seem like a Novel.

I defy anyone to think John le Carre's Call For the Dead (about 40k) is not a novel. It's got a full novel's plot, characterisation etc, it's just very tightly written.

Novella just means short novel. They're still novels, just short. It seems a pretty pointless distinction to me.

 

[tinkerdan]

This seems to agree with some of the above.

The Difference Between Short Stories, Novelettes, Novellas, and Novels

What's the difference between short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels? A short story contains 3,500-7,500 words, while a novel contains 40,000 - 320,000. Read on to learn all the differences between a short story, novelette, novella, and a novel.

owlcation.com

 

[farntfar]

sci-fi, in general, being longer than real-life

Yeah. I've never had a five year mission.

 

[Werthead]

I wonder if there could be a an additional category for books over, say, 350,000 words, like supernovel, megabook or gigatome.

 

[tinkerdan]

That's known as a first draft.

I wonder if there could be a an additional category for books over, say, 350,000 words, like supernovel, megabook or gigatome.

 

[Bick]

I wonder if there could be a an additional category for books over, say, 350,000 words, like supernovel, megabook or gigatome.

Unnecessary?

 

[Vince W]

I wonder if there could be a an additional category for books over, say, 350,000 words, like supernovel, megabook or gigatome.

It should be an Olympic lifting event at the very least. The press and read?

 

[Rodders]

There is already a category. It's called Peter F. Hamilton.