-ELS, -ELLAS, AND -ETTES, Part II: How novellas may be hyper-profitable

Read Part I

By deduction, one could assert that a novella should be more complex than a short story, and less complex than a novel. Now, there are infinite ways to debate and rebut those points, but I mean to focus on the latter half of the comparison—that a novel is simply a longer, more complex novella—and how that has in fact been undermined, in some instances, by the industry’s reluctance to publish novellas. For debut authors especially, publishers all but require that a fiction manuscript be a novel over 40,000 words (but really, more like 50,000—the gap supposedly represents the even grayer world of “short novels”). Consequently, that’s what authors strive for. Reach that 50,000-word mark, and you’re safe (well not safe, maybe, but at least you’ve got a shot).

It’s not difficult to imagine the countless works of fiction that were once tightly coiled springs of 30,000 words, stretched and pulled to cross that 50,000-word threshold so that, in the publisher’s eye, a customer could stand in a bookstore with a book in each hand, estimate their difference in weight, and go with the heftier one. Better value.

Of course, this is all hypothetical; who can say whether Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping would’ve been better as a novella? (It would have.) What is clear is that authors have been hesitant to write in that word range, and perhaps rightfully so, if they have aspirations of getting the book picked up. Granted, novellas do get published by contemporary authors, but really, the big houses will only begin to show interest if you’re an established literary figure like Annie Proulx or Jim Harrison, or if you’re Steve Martin, and the weight of your name can make up for the physical lack of it in a reader’s hands.

Which brings me to a separate but related point: Brokeback Mountain and Legends of the Fall, aside from being novellas written by contemporary authors, also have in common that they’ve been some of the most successful book-to-film adaptations in recent history (and yes, I’m leaving out Steve Martin, because even Jason Schwartzman couldn’t really save Shopgirl). The most common criticism for full-length novel adaptation into film is one of logic; in translating 350 written pages into 120 minutes on screen, it’s inevitable that something of the novel’s emotion will get lost. The forms are disproportionate in scope.

The novella, on the other hand, lends itself much better, as evidenced by the aforementioned titles, though it makes for an interesting disconnect between the industries; publishers resist publishing novellas, but the film industry (and adaptation continues to be one of the most lucrative ways for authors to make money) is in a constant search for literature from which to work—a story that can be told under two hours, which is, most reasonably, a novella.

As a young house, Flatmancrooked has the luxury of observing the long-standing industry reluctance to publish novellas and regard that shortsightedness as a historical oddity—like prohibition. If the reasoning ever made sense, it’s ceasing to. In fact, if you’ve been following our reviews in High Horse, you’ll note two of our favorite recent releases have been novellas—Josh Weil’s debut, The New Valley and Matt Bell’s The Collectors (you can read the respective reviews here and here). That both of these young authors were willing to take the risk of writing novellas is encouraging; that the work is very, very good, and is getting the attention it deserves is even more so. It demonstrates a commitment to a narrative that’s as long as it needs to be, rather than a narrative that stretches to fill an arbitrary word count.

Thus, as is our wont at Flatmancrooked, we’re more than ready to abandon old industry standards if they have ceased to make sense. If there are talented writers writing in this range despite the publishing climate, we want to be that vehicle. In addition to our ongoing search for excellent short stories and novels, over the next few weeks we’ll be re-outlining our new New Novellas imprint in addition to announcing a novella contest (which is to say, we’re preparing a fleet). If you’ve been keeping up, our debut under the New Novellas imprint was Emma Straub’s Fly-Over State, which we released through our unprecedented author promotion program, LAUNCH. If we were believers in the form prior to establishing the new imprint, the response to and success of our inaugural release has transformed our optimism into absolute conviction that the novella is a viable form. We’re currently preparing for LAUNCH round two, LANDED (which we’ll explain soon enough), and a novella that will erase its carbon footprint.

In short, we hold the belief that literature should not be dictated by word count. That a work of fiction must be long in order to be respectable is an outdated pretension; there’s room for 110-page works of fiction, as well as the 400 page beasts. There may be something nostalgic and comforting about lugging Inherent Vice around and having a sore back because of it, but if a work of fiction is meant to and able to move you in less time, it ought to have that right.

By Deena Drewis