Short Fiction

by Jeanette O'Hagan

Christian Writers Downunder anthology

 2015

Less is more - or so they say. Often when we think about writing, we think about novels or memoirs, full length books that may take months, or more likely, years to write.

However, short fiction can often be a good way of honing writing skills and may be easier to have something accepted for publication.

Why bother with Short Fiction?

For Readers

At conventions, people often say they love to read but don’t have the time to do so. In a time-pressed word, short fiction can be enjoyed in one sitting. Readers an also sample a range of both known and unknown authors in an anthology.

Short fiction may leave a reader wanting more character development and/or world building or plot complexity. At its best, short fiction can be thought-provoking, evocative, original, experimental.

For writers:

Writings shorts can be a great way to break into the market, as there are many opportunities for competitions or anthologies or to self-publish.

While not necessarily easy to write , short fiction requires less investment of time and money (for editing etc) than a full length novel. It can give the freedom to experiment with subject, genre, approach without a huge investment in time (so it's not so critical if it doesn't work out).

Short fiction can help a writer to hone their skills - to write powerfully with less words, to set the scene or show character without the fluff, to better understand plot and story structure. 

And when short fiction is tied into the author’s other longer works or story world, it can be used to introduce the novel, continue momentum between books, fill out the story world or give greater depth for characters, and/or it can be offered as a freebie in promotions.

Short fiction can come in any genre - and a range of sizes, from six words up to 50,000 words. And while it may seem easier to write less, short fiction requires its own set of skills to do it well.

Types of short fiction:

Mirco-Fiction

Mirco-Fiction - up to 100 words.


Hard to write well, they fit well with the world of mobile phones and texting and twitter (240 characters). Clearly, every word must count.

 

Ernest Hemingway's famous example of a six-word story is as follows

'For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.'

Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction - between 100-1000 words.

Flash fiction can be used as 'palate cleansers' between longer stories or collected in anthologies (as with the Mixed Blessing books).

 

The Australia Writers Centre has a monthly Furious Fiction challenge – 500 words written between Friday and Sunday, and incorporating required elements (theme, words or some other element)

Writing flash fiction helps tighten one's prose. The focus is usually on one or two scenes or on the climax of the story. My Ruhanna’s Flight was originally a flash fiction (less than 1000) words which I later expanded to a 7000 word story.

Short Story

Short Story - between 1,000 - 7,500 words

This is often what we think of as a short story. Many competitions, periodical, 'zines and anthologies require this length - often around 2000 to 3000 words. Speculative fiction (sci-fi and fantasy) have bigger words counts of between 7000-10,000 words.

The Starlit Realms fantasy anthology edited by Elizabeth Klein

There is more room (or words) to manoeuvre, but focus and tight writing are still essential. It's important to streamline — limit the story to a short period time, small cast of characters, with few if any subplots, and start the story close to the finish.

Novelette

Novelette - 7,500 - 20,000 words

A novelette falls in between a short story and a novella. My Heart of the Mountain started life as a short story (my original attempt at the 7000 word limit for submissions for Glimpses of Light anthology) but blew out to over 11,000 words. Later, I expanded HOM to 15,500 words as the first book in a novella series.

 

The term 'novellette', is not well known and tends to cause confusion. For some, it means a novella. Many others have never heard of the term. So, I've called Heart of the Mountain 'short novella'.

Novella

Novella - 20,000 - 50,000 words

A novella (and to some extent a novelette) allows more complexity, with perhaps more characters and twists and it develops over a longer period of time.

 

Some famous classical works are novellas - for instance Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), H. G. Well's The Time Machine (1895), Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol (1843), Geroge Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) and many others. 

The other four books in my Under the Mountain series (sequels to Heart of the Mountain) are novellas.

Opportunities

Who Publishes Short Fiction

Periodicals, zines, collections and anthologies are usually the home of short fiction. However, short fiction can be published on its own either as e-books or even in print. Short fiction can also be collected in boxed sets.

Another innovative approach is publishing short fiction as a series (similar to TV series) in which 'episodes' within a 'season' are published with individual story arcs plus an over-arching series arc. Adam David Collings is taking this approach with his Jewel of the Star series, having recently published the third in the series, Legacy of War. Amazon's Kindle Vella also takes this approach - with authors publishing episodic short stories. In some ways, it's a return to the past - Charles Dickens books were published this way, serialised in a magazine rather than online.

Current Calls for Submission

Interested in having a go at some short fiction. Keep an eye out for various competitions. Here are some ideas to start with:

Furious Fiction - check it out here.
Elizabeth Klein is look for retellings of lesser known fairy tales for an anthology (due 1st April 2023)
Wombat in Rhiza Edge Short Story Competition want dystopian or steam punk stories for their anthology (open until May 2023) - More info here. 
Inklings Press are looking for Mystery stories for their next anthology - until 30 April 2033. See more here.

Please share in the comments below (or on the CWD FB page) if you know of other opportunities.

Have you written (or read) short fiction? What do you like (or dislike) about this form? Who do you think does it well?

Jeanette O'Hagan with Lynne Stringer

Jeanette O'Hagan has spun tales in the world of Nardva from the age of eight. She enjoys writing fantasy, sci-fi, poetry, and editing. Her Nardvan stories span continents, millennia and cultures. Some involve shapeshifters and magic. Others include space stations and cyborgs.

She has published over forty stories and poems, including the Under the Mountain Series (5 books), Ruhanna's Flight and Other Stories, Akrad's Children and Rasel's Song, the first two books in the Akrad's Legacy series - and new short story in the Starlit Realms: Fantasy anthology.



To get a free copy of Ruhanna's Flight - sign up to Jeanette O'Hagan's newsletter here.

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Exploring Genre: Romance Novellas and Novelettes

By Narelle Atkins @NarelleAtkins

A romance novella can be defined as a short and complete romance story with a typical word length that ranges between 20,000 to 40,000 words.

A novelette has a word count starting at 7,500 words. A story with a word count between 17,500 to 20,000 words may be defined as either a novella or a novelette.

Stories longer than 40,000 words are considered short novels.

Traditionally Published Romance Anthologies

Novellas and novelettes have always been popular in the romance genre. Pre-Kindle and the emergence of ebooks, romance publishers would often release trade length novella collections containing a number of stories. In 1997 Aussie author Mary Hawkins had a Christmas novella, Searching for a Star, published in the Christmas Dreams 4 story novella anthology by Barbour.

In 2017 Aussie author Lucy Thompson had her historical romance, Waltzing Matilda, included in a 9 story anthology The Captive Brides Collection published by Barbour. The stories are connected by a common theme: Can their captive hearts be freed to dream, to dare, to love?

Novellas that are connected to a series

A Tuscan Legacy is a multi-author contemporary Christian romance novella series that includes a family mystery plot. A Tuscan Legacy opens with a short novel length Book 1 - That's Amore.

My contribution to A Tuscan Legacy is Solo Tu (Book 7) set in Sydney, Australia. I've indie published four romance novellas and Solo Tu is my longest, coming in at just under 40,000 words.

Mary's Hawkins' Australia romance collection from Barbour included three short novels and a novella.

Nicki Edwards' Operation Mistletoe Magic and Operation White Christmas are part of her 'An Escape to the Country' rural romance series.

Novella Prequel to Book 1 in a Series

In recent years we’ve seen the rise in popularity of the romance novella being used as a marketing tool to launch a series. The prequel ebook novella is effectively a loss leader. It's often priced at 99c or free with the goal of funnelling readers into the new series. Alternatively, the prequel novella may be a 'reader magnet' and given away for free to readers who have subscribed to the author's newsletter. These marketing strategies are used in all fiction genres for both traditionally and independently published series.

Novellas in ebook multi-author boxed set series

Boxed sets started to gain popularity in the Kindle store in 2013 and they remain a favorite with readers. 'An Aussie Summer Christmas' was released two years ago. For a limited time we offered six ebook novellas for the bargain price of 99 cents. The novellas in the set included A Christmas Resolution, All is Bright, Falling for Maddie Grace, Melbourne Memories, Santa Next Door and my novella Seaside Christmas.

My Inspy Romance author friends have put together A Christmas to Remember - on sale for Christmas 2018.

Print book single author collections

Authors sometimes combine their books into one print book collection. Meredith Resce has included two novellas and two short stories in Four Short Stories: Falling for Maddie Grace; And Where There's Smoke.

Standalone Romance Novellas

Tips for writing a romance novella or novelette

Ensure the plot isn't too big and complex

There's only room to develop a single romance plot in the shorter length romance novellas and novelettes. The shorter the word length, the larger the focus of the story will be on the hero and heroine. The word length puts limitations on the amount of time the minor characters can be on-stage in the story.

Limit the point of view characters to the hero and heroine or a single viewpoint.

In a typical romance novella or novelette there isn't space to include a minor character point of view. An exception would be a romantic suspense that may include short scenes in the villian's point of view.

Shorter time frame stories often work well

A good example is Amy Matayo's romance novella Christmas at Gate 18.

Reunion romances are popular tropes

If the couple already know each other and have an established history, the romance plot can get moving at a faster pace from the start without losing plot plausibility with readers.

External conflict and forced proximity is important

The shorter the story, the more the balance between scene and sequel will skew toward shorter sequels. The external conflict is what pushes the hero and heroine to be on-stage together in the scenes.

Tight writing and fast scene transitions

Every word counts in a shorter length story. The tighter the writing, the more space the author will have to write the important sequels that allow the reader to take a breath and reflect between the fast paced action scenes in the story.

Any Questions?

Have you written a romance novella or novelette? Do you enjoy reading them? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

A fun loving Aussie girl at heart, NARELLE ATKINS was born and raised on the beautiful northern beaches in Sydney, Australia. She has settled in Canberra with her husband and children. A lifelong romance reader, she found the perfect genre to write when she discovered inspirational romance. Narelle's contemporary stories of faith and romance are set in Australia.

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Exploring Genres - Short Fiction

by Jeanette O'Hagan

This year, the cross posts between Christian Writers Downunder and Australasian Christian Writers are focusing on genre. So far, we’ve had posts on meeting genre expectations, in Space Opera and Superheroes, Portal Fantasy and Secondary World Fantasy, Poetry, Free Verse and Verse Novels , Regency and Historical Romance, Rural and Medical Romance and Supernatural Fiction.

This month we are exploring 'short fiction'.

Short fiction can come in any genre - and a range of sizes, from six words up to 50,000 words. And while it may seem easier to write less, short fiction requires it's own set of skills to do it well. 

Types of short fiction: 

1. Mirco-Fiction - up to 100 words. 

Though hard to write well, these are becoming increasingly popular with mobile phones and texting and twitter (140 characters). Clearly, every word must count. 

Ernest Hemingway's famous example of a six word story is as follows 'For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.'

2. Flash Fiction - between 100-1000 words. 

These stories can be used as 'palate cleansers' between longer stories in magazines. 

The Faith Writers Challenge requires no more than 750 words on a weekly theme (and the best are collected and published by Breath of Fresh Air Press in the Mixed Blessing books). A number of members have appeared in the pages, including Nola Passmore, Simon Kennedy, Jo Wanmer, and myself. 

Writing flash fiction helps tighten one's prose. The focus is often one or two scenes or on the climax of the story.

3. Short Story  - between 1,000 - 7,500 words

This is often what we think of as a short story. Many competitions, periodical, 'zines and anthologies require this length - often around 2000 to 3000 words.  Speculative fiction (sci-fi and fantasy) have bigger words counts of between 7000-10,000 words. For instance, two spec anthologies that I had successful submission to - Tales from the Underground and Quantum Soul preferred stories around 10,000 words.

There is more room to manoeuvre, but focus and tight writing are still essential. It's important to streamline --- limit the story to a short period time, small cast of characters, with few if any subplots, and start the story close to the finish. 

4. Novellette - 7,500 - 20,000 words

A novellette falls in between a short story and a novella. Heart of the Mountain started life as a short story (my original attempt at the 7000 word limit for submissions for Glimpses of Light anthology) but blew out to over 11,000 words, so I wrote Ruhanna's Flight instead (7000 word exactly). Later, I expanded HOM to 15,500 words.

Yet, I think there is confusion with the term 'novellette'. For some, it means a novella. Many others have never heard of the term. So, I've called Heart of the Mountain 'short novella'.

5. Novella - 20,000 - 50,000 words

A novella (and to some extent a novellette) allows more complexity, with perhaps more characters and twists and  develops over a longer period of time. 

Some famous classical works are novellas - for instance Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), H. G. Well's The Time Machine (1895), Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol (1843),  Geroge Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) and many others.

Presentation

Periodicals, zines, collections and anthologies are usually the home of short fiction.  

However, short fiction can be published on it's own. For instance, I and others (like Aussie authors Adam Collings, Sue Jeffreys or Meredith Resce) have published short stories or novellas as stand alone e-books. Novellas, particularly, can be published on their own --- both as e-books and also as print books. 

When I decided to publish Heart of the Mountain, I planned on an additional three novellas with the intention of combing all four into a single print volume. I thought that each novella would be too small to publish on their own (especially in the case of HOM). However, I have now published both Heart of the Mountain and Blood Crystal as stand alone print books and am very happy with the result, especially as the books are aimed at the Young Adult market. I chose a smaller cover size (8x5 inches rather than 9x6). 

Short fiction can also be collected in boxed sets - as for instance An Aussie Summer Christmas Boxed set - which allows fans to sample fiction from a range of authors - in this case Andrea Grigg, Narelle Atkins, Rose Dee, Meredith Resce, Marion Ueckermann and Lacey Williams. 

Another innovative approach is publishing short fiction as a series (similar to TV series) in which 'episodes' within a 'season' are published with individual story arcs plus an over-arching series arc. Adam David Collings is taking this approach with his Jewel of the Star series, having so far published the 'pilot' Earth's Remnant which sets up the series, and a prequel episode.

Short fiction has advantages for both readers and writers. 

For readers:

• In a time-pressed word, short fiction can be enjoyed without a huge time investment - often over half an hour or a couple of hours. One can start and finish a story without having to worry about when one might get a chance to read again.
• It also gives the reader a chance to sample a range of unknown authors. This is especially true for anthologies or boxed sets, which include a range of authors, one or more of which may be already known to the reader. 
• At its best, short fiction can be thought-provoking, evocative, original, experimental.
• On the other hand, short fiction may leave a reader wanting more character development and/or world building or plot complexity. 

For writers:

• It's a great way to break into the market, as there are many opportunities for competitions or anthologies or to self-publish.
• While not easy to write, short fiction requires less investment of time and money (for editing etc) than a full length novel.
• Short fiction can help a writer to hone her (or his) skills - to write powerfully with less words, to set the scene or show character without the fluff, to better understand plot and story structure.
• Short fiction can be an opportunity to experiment with subject, genre, approach without a huge investment in time (so it's not so critical if it doesn't work out).
• Short fiction tied into the novel world can be a way of either introducing the novel, continuing momentum between novels (and keeping fans happy), filling out the story world,  and/or as a freebie in promotions. 
• It can be fun to write.

Perhaps short fiction are like an artist's sketch compared to a fully developed painting. Both can be beautiful, both have different functions, both tell a story.

Over the last four years, I've enjoyed playing with short stories at different lengths and have had several published in a range of anthologies. Generally, a story has it's own innate length. The trick is limiting the complexity or the number of needed scenes for the word count and then paring back the excess wordage. Sometimes this means sacrificing scenes or elements you like (or deciding to try again with another story).

Have you written (or read) short fiction? What do you like (or dislike) about this form? Who do you think does it well?

---------

Jeanette started spinning tales in the world of Nardva at the age of eight or nine. She enjoys writing secondary world fiction, poetry, blogging and editing. Her Nardvan stories span continents, time and cultures. They involve a mixture of courtly intrigue, adventure, romance and/or shapeshifters and magic users.

Recent publications include her novellas Heart of the Mountain and Blood Crystal and short stories The Herbalist's Daughter and Lakwi's Lament and her novel Akrad's Children. Other short stories and poems are published in a number of anthologies, including Glimpses of Light and Futurevision with three anthologies coming out this month - Redemption anthology, Tales From the Underground, and Quantum Soul.

Jeanette continues to write her Akrad’s Legacy Series—a Young Adult secondary world fantasy fiction with adventure, courtly intrigue and romantic elements.

Find her at her Facebook Page or at Goodreads or on Amazon or on her websitesJennysThread.com or Jeanette O'Hagan Writes . if you want to stay up-to-date with latest publications and developments, sign up to Jeanette O'Hagan Writes e-mail newsletter.