This is a guest blog post by Linda Huber. She wanted to share her opinion on novellas vs novels and I was happy to have her featured on my blog! You can read the post below. Photos were provided courtesy of Linda Huber.
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Last year, as a kind of holiday from my usual psychological suspense novels, I started writing feel-good novellas. My father was terminally ill at the time; I was having health issues too – a nice romantic novella where no one is hurt or worried or scared seemed like a good idea. In the beginning I’d only planned one, but A Lake in Switzerland has somehow turned into a series of four, possibly five short books.
Definitions vary; a novella can be anything from about twenty thousand up to fifty thousand words. Mine are all around the 35k mark. They’re set near my home in N.E. Switzerland, and tell the story of Stacy, who arrives for a holiday and ends up… well, the series isn’t finished yet so I’m not sure exactly where she’ll end up, but three books in she’s still here by lovely Lake Constance.
Lake Constance | Photo provided by Linda Huber
I didn’t expect much from my novellas; they were really just a way to keep writing when life was tough. To my surprise, they’re doing all right – I don’t sell millions, but enough to make it worthwhile continuing the series – and I want to see where Stacy ends up too! I guess everyone needs a little light relief now and then, or a fun beach read, something you can be sure will turn out well – all reasons I started writing them, in fact, though I haven’t managed the beach holiday bit yet.
Writing a novella is different to writing full-length fiction. To compare – for my novel The Cold Cold Sea, I needed the main plot – three-year-old Olivia goes missing on the beach – which was really two plots, as the story follows two families as each struggles to cope with what life flings at them. (No spoilers here!) This meant two sets of main characters, the parents in each family, all of whom should become as familiar to the reader as their own families (almost). And not only familiar, I want the reader to care about what happens to those people, as well as working out what happens to Olivia, and what’s going on with Hailey, the daughter in the second family. Then there’s Katie, Hailey’s teacher, who has a problem of her own as well as one with her pupil. The story rises and falls, alternating between the two families and Hailey’s school, until at end…
In A Lake in Switzerland, the plot is less complicated.
It has to be, to reach a satisfactory resolution in 35k words. I have a storyline – Stacy goes to Switzerland on holiday, returns to England, and then goes back to Switzerland for another break. The story centres round Stacy and Rico, the hotel owner’s son, with a few minor characters to help them along the way. Stacy has one big, life-changing decision to make, and by the end of the first novella she has made it. A different storyline and different challenges await her in novella two, A Spa in Switzerland, which is also a complete story in itself.
It seems there’s a definite demand for short fiction, whether it’s feel-good or crime. People nowadays have busy lives, and I think this is one reason that novellas are so popular. Another reason is the rise of ebooks. People are happy to pay a small amount for a novella and have it on their kindle, whereas they may not have bought it as a (more expensive) paperback. My novellas aren’t out in print yet. When the series ends, we’ll look at making a compilation paperback, but until then, I’m very happy having them as ebooks only – even though part of me just longs to see them on my bookshelf beside my psych. suspense novels!
Linda Huber Biography:
Linda Huber grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, and teaching English in a medieval castle. Currently she teaches one day a week, and writes psychological suspense novels and feel-good novellas with (most of) the rest of her time.
Her writing career began in the nineties, when she had over fifty short stories publi
shed in women’s magazines. Several years later, she turned to psychological suspense fiction, and her seventh novel, Death Wish, was published by Bloodhound Books in August 2017.
Linda’s latest project is a series of feel-good novellas, set on the banks of Lake Constance and just minutes from her home in north-east Switzerland. She really appreciates having the views enjoyed by her characters right on her own doorstep!
Amazon Author Page: viewAuthor.at/LindaHuber
Want to know more about The Cold Cold Sea?
Blurb:
They stared at each other, and Maggie felt the tightness in her middle expand as it shifted, burning its way up… Painful sobs rose in her throat as Colin, his face expressionless now, reached for his mobile and tapped 999.
When three-year-old Olivia disappears from the beach, a happy family holiday comes to an abrupt end. Maggie is plunged into the darkest nightmare imaginable – what happened to her little girl?
Further along the coast, another mother is having problems too. Jennifer’s daughter Hailey is starting school, and it should be such a happy time, but the child is increasingly moody and silent. Family life has never seemed so awkward, and Jennifer struggles to maintain control.
The tide ebbs and flows, and summer dies, but there is no comfort for Maggie, alone now at the cottage, or for Jennifer, still swamped by doubts.
‘A psychologically astute, edge-of-the-seat story.’ Hilary Johnson
‘Unsettling and disturbing… I couldn’t put it down.’ Rebecca Muddiman
‘Breathtaking and utterly compelling.’ Debi Alper
Connect with Linda:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorlindahuber
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LindaHuber19
website: http://lindahuber.net/
Thank you for having me on your great blog!