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Short stories vs. novellas

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Lucian Hodoboc
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Short stories vs. novellas

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Is there a word count limit where a short story becomes a novella? Are there strict criteria that differentiate short stories from novellas? I'm guessing that short stories would have less elaborate subplots or no subplots at all, but is that an actual criterion that publishers use to define whether a work is a short story or a novella? :hmm:
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Re: Short stories vs. novellas

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DWill

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Re: Short stories vs. novellas

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Does this depend on whether the work is issued separately rather than included with other works of fiction between covers? If the latter case, I think of a long piece as just a long short story. I have never heard of "novelette" (see Robert's link), which further confuses the matter.
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Re: Short stories vs. novellas

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DWill wrote:Does this depend on whether the work is issued separately rather than included with other works of fiction between covers? If the latter case, I think of a long piece as just a long short story. I have never heard of "novelette" (see Robert's link), which further confuses the matter.
Also ignorant of "novellette."
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Re: Short stories vs. novellas

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There is a form known as the novella, which is traditionally thought of as being around 30,000 words. Generally, though, a story is as long or as short as the writer decides - some writers think of the short story form as being only about a 'big bang', others look to formal structures like the 'wave' theory where the story builds to a crescendo from an undercurrent. The form does lend it itself to experimental writing quite well as the demands of brevity throw up interesting challenges to a writer as to how to express a though or meaning as succinctly as possible, yet still make a memorable impression on the reader.
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