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A novella is a written
Writing

Writing is the representation of language in a textual Media through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as Magnetic tape sound recording....
, fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
al, prose
Prose

Prose is writing that resembles everyday Speech communication. The word "prose" is derived from the Latin prosa, which literally translates to "straightforward"....
 narrative
Narrative

A narrative or story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or Non-fiction events. It derives from the Latin language verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled"....
 longer than a novelette
Novelette

A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms, like a novella, is usually based upon word count....
 but shorter than a novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
. While there is disagreement as to what length defines a novella, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Science Fiction Writers of America, or SFWA , was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight. The organization has since changed its name to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., but continues with the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the acronym SFFWA....
 Nebula Award
Nebula Award

The Nebula Award is an award given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the two previous years ....
s for science fiction
Science fiction

Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
 define the novella as having a word count
Word count

A word count is the number of words that a document contains. Knowing the number of words in a document is sometimes important, for instance if the author is required to stay within certain minimum or maximum bounds, particularly in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising....
 between 17,500 and 40,000.

Although the novella is a common literary genre
Literary genre

A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, setting tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult fiction, or children's literature....
 in several European languages, it is less common in English. English-speaking readers may be most familiar with the novellas of John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck III was an American literature. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novella Of Mice and Men, published in 1937....
, particularly Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937 in literature, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant worker ranch workers during the Great Depression in California....
 and The Pearl
The Pearl (novel)

File:JohnSteinbeck ThePearl title.jpgThe Pearl is a novella by American author John Steinbeck. Like his father, and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor pearl diver, gathering pearls from the Gulf of California beds that once brought great wealth to Spain and now provided Kino, Juana, and their infant son Coyotito, with meager subsis...
, Herman Melville
Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet. His first three books gained much attention, the first becoming a bestseller, but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime....
's Billy Budd
Billy Budd

Billy Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1951 opera by Benjamin Britten based on Melville's novel...
, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German language-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary, presently the Czech Republic....
's The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect ....
 and In the Penal Colony
In the Penal Colony

"In the Penal Colony" is a short story in German language by Franz Kafka, first written in 1914. It is set in an unnamed penal colony. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden as an influence....
, George Orwell
George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an England author. His work is marked by a profound consciousness of social injustice, an intense dislike of totalitarianism, and a passion for clarity in language....
's Animal Farm
Animal Farm

Animal Farm is a novel by George Orwell. Published in England on 17 August 1945 in literature, the book reflects events leading up to and during the History of the Soviet Union before World War II....
, Truman Capote
Truman Capote

Truman Capote was an United States writer whose short stories, novels, plays, and non-fiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "non-fiction novel"....
's Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote first published by Random House in 1958 in literature....
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, France, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation"....
's The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella by Ernest Hemingway, written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952 in literature. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime....
, Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson , was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and Travel writing. Stevenson was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov, J....
's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann

Paul Thomas Mann was a German literature, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature, known for his series of highly symbolic and irony epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual....
's Death in Venice
Death in Venice

The novella Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann, and was first published in 1912 as Der Tod in Venedig.. It was first published in English in 1925 as Death in Venice and Other Stories, translated by Kenneth Burke....
, Philip Roth
Philip Roth

Philip Milton Roth is an United States novelist. He gained early literary fame with the 1959 collection Goodbye, Columbus , cemented it with his 1969 bestseller Portnoy's Complaint, and has continued to write critically acclaimed works, many of which feature his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman....
's Goodbye, Columbus
Goodbye, Columbus

Goodbye, Columbus is the title of the first book published by the American novelist Philip Roth, a collection of six stories.In addition to its title novella, set in New Jersey, Goodbye, Columbus contains the five short stories "The Conversion of the Jews," "Defender of the Faith," "Epstein," "You Can't Tell a Man by the Song He Si...
 and Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was a Polish novelist, writing in English. Many critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in the English language, despite his not having learned to speak English fluently until he was in his twenties ....
's Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Poland writer Joseph Conrad. Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine....
.






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A novella is a written
Writing

Writing is the representation of language in a textual Media through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as Magnetic tape sound recording....
, fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
al, prose
Prose

Prose is writing that resembles everyday Speech communication. The word "prose" is derived from the Latin prosa, which literally translates to "straightforward"....
 narrative
Narrative

A narrative or story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or Non-fiction events. It derives from the Latin language verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled"....
 longer than a novelette
Novelette

A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms, like a novella, is usually based upon word count....
 but shorter than a novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
. While there is disagreement as to what length defines a novella, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Science Fiction Writers of America, or SFWA , was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight. The organization has since changed its name to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., but continues with the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the acronym SFFWA....
 Nebula Award
Nebula Award

The Nebula Award is an award given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the two previous years ....
s for science fiction
Science fiction

Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
 define the novella as having a word count
Word count

A word count is the number of words that a document contains. Knowing the number of words in a document is sometimes important, for instance if the author is required to stay within certain minimum or maximum bounds, particularly in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising....
 between 17,500 and 40,000.

Although the novella is a common literary genre
Literary genre

A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, setting tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult fiction, or children's literature....
 in several European languages, it is less common in English. English-speaking readers may be most familiar with the novellas of John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck III was an American literature. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novella Of Mice and Men, published in 1937....
, particularly Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937 in literature, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant worker ranch workers during the Great Depression in California....
 and The Pearl
The Pearl (novel)

File:JohnSteinbeck ThePearl title.jpgThe Pearl is a novella by American author John Steinbeck. Like his father, and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor pearl diver, gathering pearls from the Gulf of California beds that once brought great wealth to Spain and now provided Kino, Juana, and their infant son Coyotito, with meager subsis...
, Herman Melville
Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet. His first three books gained much attention, the first becoming a bestseller, but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime....
's Billy Budd
Billy Budd

Billy Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1951 opera by Benjamin Britten based on Melville's novel...
, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German language-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary, presently the Czech Republic....
's The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect ....
 and In the Penal Colony
In the Penal Colony

"In the Penal Colony" is a short story in German language by Franz Kafka, first written in 1914. It is set in an unnamed penal colony. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden as an influence....
, George Orwell
George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an England author. His work is marked by a profound consciousness of social injustice, an intense dislike of totalitarianism, and a passion for clarity in language....
's Animal Farm
Animal Farm

Animal Farm is a novel by George Orwell. Published in England on 17 August 1945 in literature, the book reflects events leading up to and during the History of the Soviet Union before World War II....
, Truman Capote
Truman Capote

Truman Capote was an United States writer whose short stories, novels, plays, and non-fiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "non-fiction novel"....
's Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote first published by Random House in 1958 in literature....
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, France, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation"....
's The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella by Ernest Hemingway, written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952 in literature. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime....
, Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson , was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and Travel writing. Stevenson was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov, J....
's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann

Paul Thomas Mann was a German literature, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature, known for his series of highly symbolic and irony epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual....
's Death in Venice
Death in Venice

The novella Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann, and was first published in 1912 as Der Tod in Venedig.. It was first published in English in 1925 as Death in Venice and Other Stories, translated by Kenneth Burke....
, Philip Roth
Philip Roth

Philip Milton Roth is an United States novelist. He gained early literary fame with the 1959 collection Goodbye, Columbus , cemented it with his 1969 bestseller Portnoy's Complaint, and has continued to write critically acclaimed works, many of which feature his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman....
's Goodbye, Columbus
Goodbye, Columbus

Goodbye, Columbus is the title of the first book published by the American novelist Philip Roth, a collection of six stories.In addition to its title novella, set in New Jersey, Goodbye, Columbus contains the five short stories "The Conversion of the Jews," "Defender of the Faith," "Epstein," "You Can't Tell a Man by the Song He Si...
 and Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was a Polish novelist, writing in English. Many critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in the English language, despite his not having learned to speak English fluently until he was in his twenties ....
's Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Poland writer Joseph Conrad. Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine....
. Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was an American author, poet and Painting. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he is considered a pioneer of the Beat Generation....
 has written many novellas such as Pic
Pic (novel)

Pic is a novel by Jack Kerouac, first published in 1971.Pic is the story of a small child, Pictorial Review Jackson, from North Carolina. When his grandfather, with whom he lives, dies, his older brother appears and plucks him from the disfunctional home of his aunt....
, Tristessa
Tristessa

Tristessa is a novella by Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac set in Mexico City. It is based on his relationship with a Mexican prostitute ....
, The Subterraneans
The Subterraneans

The Subterraneans is a 1958 novella by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with an African American woman named Alene Lee in New York in 1953....
, and Satori in Paris
Satori in Paris

Satori in Paris is a 1966 novel by United States novelist and poet Jack Kerouac. It is a short, Autobiographical novel#Semi-autobiographical novel tale of a man who travels to Paris, then Brittany, to research his genealogy....
. Most of the best-known works of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an United States author of horror fiction, fantasy fiction, and science fiction, known then simply as weird fiction....
 are novellas, including The Shadow out of Time
The Shadow Out of Time

"The Shadow Out of Time" is a short story by American literaturehorror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 in literature and February 1935 in literature, it was first published in the June 1936 in literature issue of Astounding Stories....
, The Dunwich Horror
The Dunwich Horror

"The Dunwich Horror" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928 in literature, it was first published in the April 1929 in literature issue of Weird Tales ....
 and The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow Over Innsmouth

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is a novella by H. P. Lovecraft. Written November-December 1931 in literature, the story was first published in April 1936 in literature; this was the only fiction of Lovecraft's published during his lifetime that did not appear in a periodical....
.

Like the English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 word "novel", the English word "novella" is derived from the Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 word "novella" (plural: "novelle"), for a tale, a piece of news. As the etymology
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
 suggests, novellas originally were news of town and country life worth repeating for amusement and edification.

History

The idea of serialized
Serial (literature)

The term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a succession — namely, its sequence. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication....
 novelas dates back to the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, from around the 10th century. The novella as a literary genre
Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
 later began developing in the early Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 literary work of the Italians and the French
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
. Principally, by Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italy author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanism and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular....
 (1313–1375), author of The Decameron
The Decameron

The Decameron is a collection of 100 novellas by Italy author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a Medieval allegory work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic....
 (1353)—one hundred novelle told by ten people, seven women and three men, fleeing the Black Death
Black Death

The Black Death, was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis , but recently attributed by some factors to other diseases....
 by escaping from Florence
Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
 to the Fiesole hills, in 1348; and by the French Queen
Queen regnant

A queen regnant is a qualifying reference to a female monarch possessing and exercising all of the monarchical powers of a ruler, in contrast to a "queen consort", who is the wife of a male reigning as monarch and who is without any official powers of state....
, Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), [aka Marguerite de Valois, et. alii.], author of Heptaméron
Heptameron

The Heptameron is a collection of 72 short stories written in French language by Marguerite of Navarre . It has the form of a frame narrative and was inspired by the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio....
 (1559)—seventy-two original French tales (structured like The Decameron).

Not until the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth centuries did writer
Writer

A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms....
s fashion the novela into a literary genre structured by precepts and rules. Contemporaneously, the Germans
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 were the most active writers of the Novelle (German: "Novelle"; plural: "Novellen"). For the German writer, a novela is a fictional narrative of indeterminate length—a few pages to hundreds—restricted to a single, suspenseful event, situation, or conflict leading to an unexpected turning point (Wendepunkt), provoking a logical, but surprising end; Novellen tend to contain a concrete symbol, which is the narration's
Narrative

A narrative or story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or Non-fiction events. It derives from the Latin language verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled"....
 steady point.

Novella versus novel

See the article novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
 for the historical generic debate.


German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
 uses the word Novelle for "novella" to distinguish this prose form from Kurzgeschichte ("short story") and Roman ("novel"). In Norwegian
Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
, Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
 and Dutch
Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
, the word for "novella" is novelle and the word for "novel" is Roman. In Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
, the word for "novella" is "novela" and the word for "novel" is "romance". In French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 "novella" is nouvelle (but a "nouvelle" is actually a short story, not a novella) and "novel" is roman; in Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 too "short story" is novella and "novel" is romanzo, while "novella" rather corresponds to romanzo breve. In Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
 "novella" is nuvela and "novel" is roman. In Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
 "short story" is novell and "novel" is roman. In Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
 and Norwegian
Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
"novella"/"short story" is novelle and "novel" is roman. In Finnish
Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....
 "short story" is novelli and "novel" is romaani. In Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
, novella is "povest" (???????), while "novel" is "roman" ; short story is "rasskaz" (???????) and it is the extremely brief form that is called "novella" ('???????'). In Polish
Polish language

Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
 "short story" is opowiadanie, "novella" is "nowela" and "novel" is powiesc. This etymological distinction avoids confusion of the literature
Literature

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" . In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and non-fiction....
s and the forms, with the novel being the more important, established fictional form. The Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
n writer Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer....
's (1881–1942) Die Schachnovelle
The Royal Game

The Royal Game is a novella by Austrian author Stefan Zweig first published in 1942, after the author's death. The novella was Zweig's last stand, his last testimony to the world which therefore carries the heavy burden of representation....
 (1942) (literally, "The Chess Novella", but translated in 1944 as The Royal Game) is an example of a title naming its genre.

Commonly, longer novellas are referred to as novels; Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Poland writer Joseph Conrad. Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine....
 are sometimes called novels, as are many science fiction
Science fiction

Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
 works such as The War of the Worlds and Armageddon 2419 A.D.
Armageddon 2419 A.D.

Armageddon 2419 A.D. is Philip Francis Nowlan's novella which first appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories....
 Less often, longer works are referred to as novellas. The subjectivity of the parameters of the novella genre is indicative of its shifting and diverse nature as an art form.

Stephen King
Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King is an United States author of contemporary horror fiction, fantasy fiction and science fiction.Having sold an estimated List of bestselling fiction authors of his books, King is best known for his work in horror fiction, in which he demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the genre's history....
, in his introduction to Different Seasons
Different Seasons

Different Seasons is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more serious bent than the horror fiction for which King is famous:...
, a collection of four novellas, has called the novella "an ill-defined and disreputable literary banana republic"; King notes the difficulties of selling a novella in the commercial publishing world, since it does not fit the typical length requirements of either magazine or book publishers. Despite these problems, however, the novella's length provides unique advantages; in the introduction to a novella anthology titled Sailing to Byzantium, Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg is a prolific United States author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both the Hugo Award and Nebula Awards....
 writes:

[The novella] is one of the richest and most rewarding of literary forms...it allows for more extended development of theme and character than does the short story, without making the elaborate structural demands of the full-length book. Thus it provides an intense, detailed exploration of its subject, providing to some degree both the concentrated focus of the short story and the broad scope of the novel.


In his essay "Briefly, the case for the novella", Canadian author George Fetherling (who wrote the novella Tales of Two Cities) said that to reduce the novella to nothing more than a short novel is like "saying a pony is a baby horse."

See also

  • List of novellas
    List of novellas

    This is a selected list of novellas that have gained fame and/or critical and public acclaim. The generally accepted length of a novella is 20,000 to 40,000 words, differing from a short story , a novelette and a novel ....
  • Novelette
    Novelette

    A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms, like a novella, is usually based upon word count....
  • Chain novel
    Chain novel

    A chain novel or "Chain Story" is written collectively by a group of authors. The novel is passed along from author to author, each adding a new chapter or section to the work, with the rule that each subsequent chapter or section should elaborate and follow the plotline of preceding chapters or sections....