Novellas are a thing now

On my to-be-read list.

Once upon a time, I would only read something if it had at least three volumes. As a (very fast) reader, I felt like anything else was truly unsatisfying. And it really was: it felt to me that I barely had time to get into the story that it was over. Let's not even mention short stories that made me feel I only had to blink twice before they were over. So I looked for and read voraciously anything that came with more than one volume.
But strangely, for about a year now, I've realised that I'm reading more and more stand alone novels.

Of course, one could blame life: I don't have as much time on my hands as when I was a young adult. Nowadays, I go to bed with the intent of reading at least 100 pages and have to give up that goal 40 pages later because my eyes are closing on their own.
Some backward looking persons could also say that I'm too distracted by social media and that I would have been reading when nowadays I just check Twitter. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is completely untrue as the time I spend on Twitter more or less equates the time I used to spend playing video games.
Curiouser and curiouser: I've even found myself enjoying novellas lately. Novellas! That's around 100 pages. I can do 100 pages in one reading session, you know. Where are the days when I would get lost in trilogies for weeks?

And suddenly, at the turn of a Twitter conversation with a friendly Womble and Fred, I realised, as they said it: novellas are in fashion. I also remembered a blog post read (I can't remember where) a few months ago that was deploring everyone was doing trilogies nowadays even if it harmed the story with padding or formulaic "twists".
Novellas and stand alone novels are a thing at the moment. And because they are a thing but a lot of writers may not have realised it, what we have at the moment is the avant-garde, the ones who really thought about the format they wanted for their stories and that would be best for them.
Novellas and stand alone novels are a thing at the moment because they are frigging good!

And that's the thing: trilogies have now be done to death. I wouldn't go as far as saying that anyone could write a trilogy considering I've never been able to write a proper story, but the formula is well and truly tested.
But a short story, a novella, a stand alone that doesn't exceed 300 pages... Ah, now that requires your writer to master their writing, to stop their pen (as much as anyone writes with a pen anymore) from gushing any old description or inane flashback, to, instead, centre on their plot and tightly write their characters!

On my to-be-read list.

On my to-be-read list.

Novellas really are a wonderful format: they aren't as short as short stories, so they allow for some creative space and development. But they still remain short enough that a writer really needs to work on the architecture of the story and the characters. Brievety is an art (as proved by Maupassant, Saki, Borges, Chopin, Munro... ) and the writers that wrote longer novels are really showing their story telling skills by now turning to shorter formats.

Do I really need some exhibits as proof? Well, first of all, there was Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky: it was probably the second time only in recent years when I didn't feel frustrated at the end of a stand alone that also was truly epic because it felt complete and stood on its own. I honestly was flabbergasted at feeling this way. Recently, there was The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley that took me through a roller coaster in less than a hundred pages while I marvelled at how well she mastered the short format or This Census-Taker by China Miéville that was, as a novella, the perfect length for what he tried to convey.
I've actually realised that, so far in 2017, I've only reviewed stand alone novels or novellas, unless you count the two Emma Newman novels as a series.

But the fact that novellas are a thing now is also a wonderful way to discover new and diverse writers. You know, those who have been stuck to writing short stories because they wouldn't get a book deal... I sincerely hope that this sudden fashion in novellas will give them a much needed visibility.

I don't think the rise of the novellas is because we have shorter spans of attention or because of the stresses of modern life. I think it's simply that there are cycles (shall I really say 'fashions'?) in story telling and reading. The traditional long epic enjoyed a revival since Tolkien put it back on the map, but it's been used and abused. Though it certainly still suits certain stories and writers, we may very well be moving into a cycle that will favour shorter formats again.
And from what I've read so far, it's certainly a boon for readers.

On my to-be-read list.

All the reviews for the Stand Alone novels category on The Middle Shelf.
All the reviews for the Short Stories & Novellas category on The Middle Shelf.