Today I’m pleased to host Beth Cato, an accomplished novelist, short story author, and baker.
About the Author
Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham.
She’s the author of THE CLOCKWORK DAGGER (a 2015 Locus Award finalist for First Novel) and THE CLOCKWORK CROWN from Harper Voyager.
Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.
Beth Cato on Writing Novellas
When Harper Voyager Impulse approached me about writing new stories set in my Clockwork Dagger world, I was really happy to tell one tale in particular. It had been stuck in my head since I wrote my last book, The Clockwork Crown. In that novel, a rather unpleasant fellow named Balthazar Cody played Dr. Frankenstein and cobbled together chimeras known as gremlins. He manipulated gremlins even more to create a part-metal war machine monstrosity.
Readers adore my gremlins. The green-skinned winged menaces are both hideous and cute, though the manner of their creation is cruel beyond comprehension.
The book’s plot pushed along pretty fast, and Mr. Cody was left with full power to continue his experimentation. I needed to change that.
To do that, I needed to figure out how to write my very first novella. Novellas tend to range from 17,500 to 40,000 words. It’s a length I have avoided in the past because it’s notoriously hard to sell. Most short story markets pay by the word, with 6-cents and up considered professional rates, and many have a word cap of around 6000 words.
Advantages to the Novella Format
Novellas have become a more popular format in just the past few years, though. Tor recently announced a novella-only imprint featuring some of the best authors around. Other major publishers are following similar models to that of Harper Voyager Impulse and encouraging authors to build out their novel worlds with novellas that will sate readers as they await the next full book.
Novellas have an advantage with size, too. They are about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the average fantasy or science fiction novel, but allow a lot more room for growth than a short story. Also, they can be competitively priced as ebooks for anywhere from 99-cents to $2.99. That’s a cheap, fast read.
Challenges in Writing Novellas
Pacing was my biggest concern as I set out to write my first novella. I had to think like a novel… but not. I needed deep development, but not an overwhelming cast of characters. It helped me a lot to read other novellas to get a sense of how they handled the development and pace.
I outlined my story in great detail, following the method I use for novels that I call “plot vomit.” I threw the whole rambling, messy story on the screen. From there, I broke it up into chapters.
I still felt very insecure as I wrote since the structure was far outside my comfort zone. It was a huge relief when I sent it to my first readers and they confirmed that the full story did work. By golly. I was a novella writer!
The end result is out as of November 10th: “Wings of Sorrow and Bone: A Clockwork Dagger Novella.” The final draft clocks in at about 27,000 words.
Future Novellas
Would I write another novella? I’m open to the idea. It’s a length I enjoy reading and from a business perspective, it’s becoming more viable, too. After all, this is a business; I want to be able to sell what I write.
I also want to take down the bad guys who abuse creatures, and that’s a big reason why I love how “Wings” turned out. Two teenage girls without any magical powers confront one of the most powerful scientists in their world as they fight to save gremlins.
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Wings of Sorrow and BoneA Clockwork Dagger NovellaA few months after the events of The Clockwork Crown… After being rescued by Octavia Leander from the slums of Caskentia, Rivka Stout is adjusting to her new life in Tamarania. But it’s hard for a blossoming machinist like herself to fit in with proper society, and she’d much rather be tinkering with her tools than at a hoity-toity party any day. When Rivka stumbles into a laboratory run by the powerful Balthazar Cody, she also discovers a sinister plot involving chimera gremlins and the violent Arena game Warriors. The innocent creatures will end up hurt, or worse, if Rivka doesn’t find a way to stop Mr. Cody. And to do that means she will have to rely on some unexpected new friends. Price: 99-cents Amazon |
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It’s fascinating to read about your process, Beth! Inspires me to try writing a novella! This was a delightful read 🙂
Great article. I love the “plot vomit” method!
What do you do when you have a short story that’s in that nowhere-land between 6k and 17k words? Flesh it out and get it to novella length, or chop it down to short fic size?