I love reading novellas. For me, the novella format perfectly splits the difference between short story and novel. I love to read a novella to get a taste of a new author, experience a complete story when I don’t have a lot of free time, or when I’m looking for a tight focused story. When reading I like to alternate between novellas and novels, so I read quite a few novellas in a year. Today I’d like to talk about some of the things I’ve learned for my own writing from reading these books. I’m going to be referencing three very different novellas, This is how you Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo, and All Systems Red by Martha Wells. In order to have a complete discussion I will be discussing spoilers for all three books. If you haven’t read them and you don’t want to be spoiled, I recommend reading them first. All three are well worth the read!

About the Books

Each of these books is a different style of writing, one incorporates epistolary story telling, one is told as a myth, and one is a more traditional genre book. The authors vary from debut to established and individual to a team. All of these books are gripping and engaging speculative fiction novellas. I’m looking for a common thread that makes them all work.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This book won a Nebula in 2019 and a Hugo in 2020. It’s written in a hybrid narrative and epistolary format. The premise of the book is two agents on opposite sides of a war, fought through time, meet through letters. At first the letters are taunts, but over the course of he story, they fall in love. It’s exciting and fast paced, but focuses on the characters.

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When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

This book is the second in a series, but the series is not sequential and a reader does not need to read the first book to enjoy the second. The story is a myth told by two unreliable narrators. The myth is of a human woman who marries a shape shifting tiger woman, and the narrators are a human and a tiger, highlighting the different ways the myth is told in the different cultures.

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Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

This is the first book in a novella series. So far, the series is four books long and contains a novel. The books in this series are sequential. The premise of the series is a security unit, a sentient being with mechanical and biological parts, hacks the code used to control it. Humans expect it would then go on to kill everyone, but it would rather just watch TV. Naming itself Murderbot, after what humans expect it to be, the series explores how it handles free will in a universe where it is seen as property.

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What I Learned

A Study in Tension

Managing the tension throughout a novel is important, but it is often on full display in a novella. Due to their short length, novellas can be read in only a few short reading sessions. When working with a full length novel, it is difficult to maintain the same tension throughout the story. A tense situation is usually used in the beginning to hook readers, but as the page count grows, new tense situations must be introduced and woven together to keep the reader engaged as the initial tension fades. Novellas are short enough that the initial punch that first hooked the reader is still vivid in the readers mind when they reach the end.

This is seen exceptionally well in All Systems Red. By the second page of the story, the main plot has started. This book is about Murderbot trying to keep a group of scientist from being killed. On the second page, something tries to kill them, and for the rest of the book, Murderbot is trying to figure out what’s trying to kill them while preventing them from being killed until they get away and figure out what was trying to kill them in the last chapter. Where a novel might have several sources of tension interwoven through the narrative, a novel has a single focus. There are sub-plots. Another source of tension is the interpersonal relationships, but this is also introduced on the very first page.

A novella makes it easy for a reader to follow one plot from beginning to end quickly and absorb everything without taking detours. As a writer, it is an excellent way to study how skilled authors manage the tension of a single plot. Even if a writer has no interest in writing novellas, that understanding of a single plot can help with full length novel writing, as it gives a strong scaffold to build out from when fleshing out a longer story.

Another novella that is a mater class in managing tension is The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson. A Hugo award winner from 2013.

The Importance of Character Voice

Because of a novella’s short length, the author relies on a strong character voice to provide characterization. A successful novella must convince the reader to care about the characters, without spending a lot of words describing the character’s inner world. This all must be conveyed via the character’s voice and how they interact with the plot and other characters around them. All three of the focus novellas have incredible strong character voice.

Murderbot of All Systems Red is a dry sarcastic character who draws in the reader with her apathy and insistence that she doesn’t care while very clearly caring deeply for the humans she protects. Red and Blue from This is How You Lose the Time War have two distinct voices. Chapters alternate between them as point of view characters and each is distinct, especially in the style of writing in the letters they write. The relationship between the two is even displayed in their voice, as their writing styles are quite disparate at the beginning of the story, and become more similar as they get to know each other and learn from each other. In When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, the human narrator and tiger narrators difference in voice not only shows their character differences, but the differences between their people.

Character voice is important in novel writing also. Novellas are forced into strong characterization through voice due to their length, but a novel with a similarly strong voice will be more engaging to readers. Learning how novellas can give life to a few focal characters utilizing voice will help novel writers strengthen a cast of characters and avoid characters that sound too similar.

The Importance of Choosing a Good Beginning and Ending Point

It’s important to start a story and and end a story at the right points. Novellas in particular can’t afford to belabor getting into a story. They don’t have the pages for that. They jump in at the beginning of the story, and get out as soon as it ends.

This is particularly on display in All Systems Red. The novella starts when the scientists Murderbot is protecting are attacked. It could have started on the ship on the way to the location where they were attacked. This would have allowed the author to establish the group dynamic, but by starting with the action that initiates the conflict for the story. The author frames the book well. The reader knows what is important and what the book is about. Similarly, the book ends quickly after the main plot is resolved. A little time is spent setting up the next book, but for the most part, the author wraps up the book as soon as the main conflict is resolved.

A novel allows more time for the author to enjoy their world, but it is important that the reader knows what story they are reading and where the author plans on going early so that they don’t get bored. Reading novellas can help a writer better understand when start and end their story.

Conclusion

Novellas are an excellent resource for writers. They allow snap shot studies in an author’s writing methods. Because they are short, a writer can read many novellas over a short period of time and learn from many different writers. It is important to remember that novellas are a different format from novels. Some tropes and techniques cannot easily be ported between the two formats, but there are elements of craft that can be passed between the two. It is well worth it to learn from many different writers and using novellas is an excellent way to facilitate that.