N is for Novellas (and then some)

I can’t believe how quickly April is flying by! But here we are, more than halfway through the month, and jumping into letter N for the A to Z Blog Challenge. I’m being a bit cheeky here and using the word “novella” to go with the letter of the day, but I want to talk about more than just that. Let’s talk series/standalones and their potential ancillary materials.

Standalone or a series?

Some story ideas work best as standalones. There’s nothing wrong with that. You aren’t obligated to write a sequel, prequel, or series, and trying to draw out a story that shouldn’t be can ruin the experience, as I talked about in my post on duologies (found here if you’re interested).

On the other hand, some stories require a great deal of scenes and character experiences to get to the end result. Trying to squish everything into one novel can also be detrimental, whether you rush through everything to keep the novel length reasonable, or you write a 200k manuscript that few people with pick up (some genres have typically long narratives, but even sci-fi and fantasy shouldn’t top more than 120k-125k at the very outside—unless you’re already a well-established author who might be able to get away with it). So you might be better off with two, three, or even more books to tell the story.

Fortunately, if you have more small ideas for your characters, it doesn’t matter if you wrote one book or created a series—you can still tell the story.

Novellas & more

Sometimes, you have a brilliant idea as you’re writing a story about something that happened in a character’s past that you want to mention. Or maybe even their future. You could have an epiphany while you’re planning or outlining your story (if you’re a plotter, that is) but know there isn’t a good way to work it in without being forced or out of place. Worse, what if a lightbulb goes off about some critical event, but your book is finished (or even published), and you can’t squeeze it in?

Well, my friend, ancillary materials to the rescue!

You have numerous options if you don’t have enough story to justify a whole extra book. You could write a novella instead! Perhaps you only had a single scene in mind. Then perhaps flash fiction is better. Below are several options for writing shorter works that support your novel/series, though they also stand on their own. Some people choose to only write these types of work, so they are definitely not just for support pieces.

Keep in mind that most of these word counts are approximate. Different sources vary slightly in where they cut off word count for each type, but they’re usually within a thousand words or so. There are even more types than this, but these are the more common ones (there are also dribbles, six-word stories, etc.)

Categories and word counts

Micro – 100 or less

Flash – 100-1,000

Short Story – 1,000-7,500 (or more if including novelettes in this category)

Novelette – 7,500-17,500

Novella – 17,500-40,000 (sometimes up to 50k)

Novel – 40k-110,000 or more

You can certainly publish these shorter works, perhaps in a collection if you have several, or as a novella/novelette by itself, but there is also another option that lends itself beautifully to writers automatically, and that’s FREEBIES.

Everyone loves free stuff

There are a few different ways to take advantage of this (and probably more I don’t have listed), or you can do any combination of them.

One of my favorite options is to use them as giveaways to readers who sign up for your newsletter/email list. If you have several shorter ones or just one long one, they can be great giveaways. You can also use them as incentives for people who sign up for pre-orders or who order your book on release day or within the first week, or whatever timeframe you want to put on it.

If you don’t feel like doing either of those things, or you already have a freebie you provide, you can always just post them for free on your website or wherever else you can be found. Perhaps you make them free stories with their own special section, or even as blog posts. I’ve done a version of that in this blog challenge where I’m giving brief backstories for some of the characters in my upcoming novel, Capturing the Wylde Wolf, that won’t be covered in the book. This gives readers who check out the blog inside info that others won’t have. I didn’t write them as scenes or stories, but it’s still bonus info.

My plans

If you read my April 4^th post on duologies, you’ll know that I intend on writing a duology that starts with Capturing the Wylde Wolf. I also have a novella in the planning stages that will cover the backstory in depth of a key character in the novels. Then, I had an idea I wanted to share about a critical set of events that happened over twenty years before the first novel that set EVERYTHING into motion that happens in these other three stories. That will be a short story (maybe a novelette), and will be a freebie exclusively for those who sign up to my list (that is upcoming).

There are so many choices, and I love them all! And who knows? Maybe I’ll get more ideas in the future for pieces to add to this mini-series.

What’s your take on writing either ancillary or just-for-fun support pieces to your other works? What do you like to do with these shorter types of stories? Let me know in the comments!