Whether it's your first time or your sixth time, writing a novella in 12 weeks isn't easy.
As a 2021 ONC Winner and 2023 Honorable Mention, I would know. After years of participation and reflection, I have lots of advice to share on how I did it. In...
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If you're like me, you've probably come up with a potential idea for your novella without having seen the prompts. This is a great strategy as knowing you have some plans or a heading allows you to a chose a prompt that you can include and adapt to fit your vision.
But how do you know if your idea is fit for a novel or novella sized piece of work?
First off, some definitions. A novel refers to a piece of prose that is over 50,000 words while a novella is anywhere from 17,000-40,000 words. For the ONC, entries have to be at least 20,000 words.
Another defining trait of a novel as opposed to a novella is that it's typically a journey. Novels cover a long, compelling story arc with multiple sub-arcs/plots that flesh out it themes, ideas, etcetra. Because of this, they generally take more time to read, somewhere from a few hours to a few months.
Novellas on the other hand, have limited scope. They can be read in a couple hours to a week and often focus on one event or experience that forces the main character to act and change albeit on a smaller scale.
Think of it like this: if novels are a full television series, novellas are just one season.
Keeping that in mind, here are some key questions to ask yourself when trying to navigate whether or not your idea is novel-sized or novella-sized.
- How does my main character change? By how much? - What does my structure look like? Do my characters need a lot of scenes to develop? - Is this a journey that takes place over a long period of time? - Do I want to use more than two points of view? - Does my idea revolve around one key event that leads to even more important ones? Or is it more focused on a single event where the characters spend the whole plot reacting to or trying to resolve it? - How many side characters does this idea need to function? - How many subplots do I have? (Romantic, friendship, mini-antagonist, detour-related, etc.) - How many chapters do I imagine this idea needs to be fully-realized?
If you said "yes," "a lot," "long time, "in a big way," or "many," in any of your answers then you might have a novel on your hands. Consider cutting back on the time frame of your idea or its scale if you love it. Otherwise, it might be time to dream up a new idea.
