How to write a Novella?

Writing a novella is slightly more ambitious than writing a short story and not as burdensome as writing a novel, so the saying goes. A novella is roughly thirty thousand words designed to bridge the gap between the two. So what's the big deal? If you apply yourself, most writers can whip one of these out in just a few days, right? So, you clear your schedule and prepare your writing area so you may focus completely on your novella. Follow along as I share with you what my process looked like when I wrote Gabriel's Sword.

Day One: Getting ready to write

I already had some idea that I wanted to write a novella which is basically the same thing as a novel only more condensed. I had read somewhere that my total word count needed to be a minimum of thirty thousand and no more than fifty thousand words. So I decided to begin writing on a Friday. I figured I could begin writing on a Friday morning and write into the wee hours of the night, sleep in on Saturday morning, rinse and repeat and then on Sunday start fluffing it out. Like a lot of well-intentioned writers, I actually began writing on the following Monday, late in the day, after I had cleaned the house, fed the pets, did the laundry, washed the car, shopped for groceries, binge-watched Netflix™, reluctantly decided there was nothing else to do preventing me from actually sitting down and writing.

Professional writers tell us to let our thoughts flow freely through our fingers and onto paper. I've always interpreted that to mean just start writing about anything that comes to your mind. I never really understood the point though, because I often have a lot of disconnected thoughts, and looking back at my journals I would humbly submit more than one doctor of the mind might suggest medication for me. I digress. It has also been my experience the more I write, eventually, a common theme emerges and my writing begins to take shape around a limited number of subjects. This is a good thing because it helps to identify those wispy little things we call ideas that make for good reading material further down the process.

Take for example my novella, Gabriel's Sword. It began as a rather drab crime story aptly titled, The Arrest. Over time, it evolved into an elaborate science fiction adventure tale that if I maintain my sanity, will continue to evolve into a series of books. At least that's my plan for now. When I first began my writing project, I didn't set a goal for hours to write or words to complete on that first day. Instead, when I did get started I decided to write for as long as I physically and mentally could go. For me, that equated to roughly five hours and I produced 5455 words. I don't know how that measures up and frankly, don't really care. I was glad to get those thoughts out of my mind and onto paper.

Day Two: Idea Generation

Now that the initial work was out of the way, day two began a little differently. I awakened with the plan to spend the morning reviewing what I had written the day before. I wanted to strike through anything that didn't make sense, circle those words and sentences that might be conjoined into a larger story, and highlight those profound statements of wisdom that I could use anywhere and everywhere I decided to sign my name.

Bear in mind, I'm an old man and arthritis is a well-known friend of mine. You might say, that cretin knows more about me than I know about me. So, I sat up on the edge of my bed and quickly realized the pain in my neck, shoulders, arms, hands, and fingers could mean only one thing. Arthritis had shown up for an unplanned visit. This meant a delay and it was only day two. Not to worry though, I could still read and mark things up. I just wouldn't get much writing done. By the end of a very painful day, I had selected my topic and had some solid ideas on how I wanted my story to proceed. I retired early hopeful the next day would bring enough relief that I could get back to the keyboard. Otherwise, I would have to teach myself how to use this fancy new feature my son had installed for me that allowed me to speak into a microphone and watch the word processor type the words out for me.

Day Three: Storyline Introduction

I had taken some arthritis medicine before going to sleep and it helped a bunch but it also made me a little groggy, so I ended up sleeping in longer than usual. When I did sit down ready to write, it was already mid-morning. But that's okay! I had a much clearer vision of how to introduce my novella to the world and how I wanted to open the storyline. I began writing and with the exception of the occasional pee break, I kept writing right up until dusk. For those that live here in NE Texas, that means right up until about 8:30 o'clock p. m.

That was a full day of writing for someone like me. The words seemed to flow from my noggin to the paper without much trouble. I was proud of my accomplishment, but I wanted to proofread it before shutting it down for the evening. So I grabbed a sandwich and water, printed off a copy, and retired to my easy chair where I could read a little, snack a little, and maybe catch a little television too. I sat down in this oversized leather recliner that is battery-powered. It's actually called a lift chair. I told you earlier I'm old. I forgot to mention I'm disabled too, so I need such things to function. Anyways, I sat down in this oversized recliner and placed my water and sandwich plate on the table beside the chair, and I began reading. It wasn't long and all three kittens were snuggled up beside me trying to figure out what I was so interested in and why I wasn't entirely focused on them. The older one kept smacking the papers with that "look at me right now" attitude, so I had to pause for a few and give them the attention they demanded. I snacked on my sandwich some and after a few minutes, I was able to start proofreading.

I was completely disappointed by what I read. The storyline was readable and it was complete, but it was boring. There was no panache, no excitement. The entire thing read like an episode of the 1950s television show, Dragnet. I realized very quickly I had done an excellent job of communicating what it was I wanted to write, but I had reported it. I had not truly written a novella where the scenes explode in front of you, daring the reader to turn the page as quickly as they can. Nor had I developed the characters to their fullest potential. Oh, it was easy enough to tell who the good guys were from the bad guys. And it was even easier to figure out the plot because I pretty much gave it away in my "after the fact" reporting style. No! This was not going to do.

I did not want to abandon what I had already written, but if I wanted to truly communicate the story in the manner that I saw it in my own mind, I needed to slow way down and describe everything, well almost everything, that I saw in my mind. After all, how else would my readers see what I wanted them to see if I didn't take the time to describe it for them? Right?

Day Four: Scene Development

I believe there's a novel-writing exercise that members of NaNoWriMo use where they take a book or novel that has already been written and completely change the setting to see how it affects the outcome of the story. In fact, television producers have used this same technique for years when recycling television sitcoms. The point I'm trying to make here is that scene development is a critical part of writing your novella. It's an opportunity for you to describe the minute details that your characters are dealing with in your story.

In my novella, Gabriel's Sword, most of the book takes place in Texas in the summer. For those that have lived in Texas in the summer, that's probably all that needs to be said. But what about the readers who've never been to Texas or who've only been to Texas in January. You'll have to trust me when I say Texas is a much different place in January and February than any other time of the year. For the author, this is my opportunity to dig deep into scene development. Everything from the weather to clothing to food to attitudes changes in Texas according to seasons. It doesn't mean one season is better than another. It just means they're different. If you visit Texas in the summer, you're liable to see and hear things that you won't see and hear in the winter. I'm sure that can be said for a lot of different places. Again, the point is to not overlook how you build out your scenes. And for those that have no idea about anything about Texas, you'll be surprised to learn that Texas is so large that in some parts of the state the weather seldom changes. It's just always hot and humid down along the Rio Grande for instance. But if you venture up into the panhandle, you'll see tornados, snowstorms, and droughts that will humble the toughest of cowboys. Speaking of cowboys, yes we have our fair share of ranches. But we also have plenty of large metropolitan areas complete with the latest and fanciest restaurants and entertainment centers a person could ask for. My readers would never know this though if I didn't take the time to explain where in Texas a story was developing and if I didn't fully craft my scene to deliver to my readers what I see in my mind.

The lesson here for any aspiring novella writer is to focus on your scenes!

Day Five: Character Development

When I read my draft, I was embarrassed by the lack of character development. I have become accustomed to writing short stories so there's very limited space to fully develop a character or a scene. Most of the short story writers I know, try to impress our readers with wit and comedy or horror and shock. Very few have the time to build out a character without sacrificing a significant part of the storyline. With longer prose, that is not an issue. I forgot that with my draft.

There are several free tools available to anyone interested in really building out their characters. A quick Google™ search will produce more templates than you could ever possibly need or want. Personally, I think any good character should include as much demographic information to fully understand current behavior. Does your character walk with a limp? Why? Does she have a proclivity toward bad guys? Why? Readers like to understand who they're reading about. I'm convinced this is why some television series do better than others and why actors get typecast. I won't provide any examples here but I know my more thoughtful readers catch my drift.

Just like good scene development, good character development allows you the author to build a backstory while staying focused on your storyline.

I've also learned that characters tend to morph when writing my stories. In my novella, the original primary character who I originally planned to be the story's hero morphed into a protagonist and worked better as one of the story's bad guys. Don't ask me why. It's just the way the words moved from my brain to my fingers and it made sense when I was finally finished. When I was actually done, a new hero had emerged, one that didn't actually appear until later in the novella. Such is the nature of writing when using your imagination. One other aspect of character development is the plausibility of developing additional stories and novellas later based on those characters. It happens all the time. An author writes a book that begets another book and before long there's an entire series.

Days Six through Days Whenever: Finishing the Novella

I suppose it's possible to write a 50,000-word novella in five days, but it's highly improbable. That's a lot of work. What I've attempted to show here are the working parts that any author needs to be working on during the initial days of writing. I intentionally left off the development of the plot because hopefully, that is something you already have in your mind when you first sit down to write. If not, stick with short stories until you come across an idea that deserves your attention and hard work worth more of your words.

I've found that the longer the finished product is, the more of a process the work becomes. Organization is key. There are so many different software packages available today that all claim to do everything but write the story for you and all of them offer different ways of organizing your work. It doesn't matter what you choose for your tools as long as you use them. One tool won't make you a better writer over another tool. Even pen and paper still work wonderfully as long as you're organized. Remember, organization is your friend!

Before I let you go, I want to leave you with one other thought. I often struggle with dialogue, especially in longer stories. I understand the grammar part. That's easy. What's difficult is remembering who said what to who and when did they say it. With my novella, I experimented with something called multi-perspective narration. It's a difficult technique to accomplish, but when done correctly, it is smooth and cuts down on a lot of unnecessary words exchanged between characters. Here's how I used it.

Most authors rely on one narrator to control the storyline. So do I. However, instead of always using dialogue between characters, I sometimes exchange the narrator role for that of the characters. For instance, if you've developed your characters, it's assumed they have the ability to act and think right? I may use the primary narrator to introduce a scene or I may use one of the characters to introduce a scene. Depending on which character is primary in a scene, I may use that character as the narrator. It allows me to dig deeper into the character's psyche without having to interrupt the storyline with dialogue and then have an impartial narrator explain what everyone was thinking. You may want to try this sometime. As I said, it's difficult to use at first, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be whipping out novellas like Hemingway in no time at all.

I'm a novice writer who enjoys reading as much as I do writing. I just finished my first novella and it wasn't as easy as I first thought it would. I'm also an old disabled dude who wants to get as many of my life experiences on paper as I can before I'm unable to. If for no other reason than to help me remember them when I forget. If you find any of my stories interesting please leave me a heart or a like. I'll even accept coffee and diet dr. pepper tips if you want to feed an old man's habits. I do have a blog and I also participate in the Vocal Creator's Support Group on Facebook and I recently joined NaNoWriMo.