Why the hatred for novellas?

[Feirefiz]

This is very, very tangentially inspired by the NaNoWriMo article. Repeatedly I have heard or read that novellas are unpopular. Conventional wisdom seems to be that readers don't like them. Apparently publishers go so far as to misrepresent books as novels because that's what people want.

Personally I like novellas, not only novella-length stories but also the novella form in general. They are long enough to present one relatively complex idea but short enough to keep it focussed. I became aware of this recently when I discovered Theodor Storm, who wrote mostly novellas.

Do you think it is true that novellas are unpopular? Do you have any idea why that might be?

[The Original An Gadaí]

Apparently publishers go so far as to misrepresent books as novels because that's what people want.

A lot of the chicklit (women's fiction) that I sell in my store has huge font text, double spaced. If it were in the same format as many of the "serious" literature novels I carry, they would probably qualify as novellas. I think they're dressed up as novels partly because people will pay €13.99 for a trade paperback novel and not nearly as much for a flimsy novella.

[pepperlandgirl]

Romance, chick lit, & urban fantasy all have room for novellas and the length is fairly popular. In my experience, it's the publishing world outside of "genre" that has little use for novellas. I guess it's because they're too long to pack the emotional punch short stories are capable of, but too short to be as interesting or developed as novels would be. Novellas are a fairly difficult length to write, too, precisely for those reasons, in my experience.

[OtakuLoki]

The problem I've seen with novellas is that short fiction, at the moment, seems to be on the decline. There aren't nearly as many large, regular markets I can think of that want short fiction as had been the case in the past. A lot of magazines that, today, are seen as ladies magazines, are almost entirely non-fiction, where they had been major fiction markets in the past. Setting up a magazine or an anthology, there's only so much space for stories. And there's always a balancing act going on between getting many stories in, and offering some longer pieces as well. But simply because of the size limitations there would be room for one, maybe two novellas in each printing project. At the same time there would be room for as many as ten shorter pieces.

Which meant that selling your novella was simply hard. The same magazine that would be buying as many as 150 short stories each year would only buy about 15 novellas, tops, in that same period. And it's harder, now, as short fiction seems to be getting further marginalized.

I like novellas. I miss them. But I miss how ubiquitous short fiction used to be, too.

[The Original An Gadaí]

I've seen or read several books that have included a novella along with a number of short stories but rarely stock novellas. Sometimes there are ones done here for adult literacy courses that would be somewhere between short story and novella format.

[Nrblex]

Aren't novellas an art form in and of themselves? Publishing has really muddied the waters by making a "novel" a matter of word length, but that's not it at all, really. A short story explores an idea, a novella explores a situation, a novel should explore the whole of human experience.

Why doesn't this distinction get any notice outside of having lit professors pound it into students' heads? Is it a completely meaningless distinction outside of academia?

[Feirefiz]

Aren't novellas an art form in and of themselves? Publishing has really muddied the waters by making a "novel" a matter of word length, but that's not it at all, really. A short story explores an idea, a novella explores a situation, a novel should explore the whole of human experience.

Why doesn't this distinction get any notice outside of having lit professors pound it into students' heads? Is it a completely meaningless distinction outside of academia?

Perhaps I should not have focused on the length aspect so much, but I was talking about real novellas. That they are, as you say, an art form in and of themselves is what makes this phenomenon so surprising. I can see why novella-length novels might not be considered ideal. However a proper novella is structurally different enough from a novel that you can't just turn one into the other, neither through labeling nor any modification short of complete rewriting.

[Nrblex]

Perhaps I should not have focused on the length aspect so much, but I was talking about real novellas. That they are, as you say, an art form in and of themselves is what makes this phenomenon so surprising. I can see why novella-length novels might not be considered ideal. However a proper novella is structurally different enough from a novel that you can't just turn one into the other, neither through labeling nor any modification short of complete rewriting.

Right. I'm a fan of the novella form itself, too. Some of the first stories I fell in love with in school were actually novellas. But it can't be entirely divorced from its length--part of a novella's strength is that is just the right length to explore a situation without getting bogged down in meandering sideplots.