Why I write novelettes

Now I'm going to address a question which everyone (and by everyone, I mean no one), has been dying to hear my thoughts on. Why do I write novelettes?


First of all, it's just a lot more fun for me right now. I have three completed novels, one of which I thought I'd edited to perfection, but I now realize needs a rewrite, and two finished drafts. I've also got countless outlines and recorded ideas with a few completed chapters here and there. But a lot of the ideas I've come up with, and really liked, just weren't plotty enough to warrant an entire novel. So I'd sit and try to invent new obstacles to throw at the characters, or new characters to spice up the cast, and it just felt unnatural. After a while, I'd be writing for word count, as opposed to quality, and it sucked.

I'm also an editing addict. This doesn't mean I don't miss the occasional misplaced apostrophe or forgotten word (I do!), but I have a tendency to read and reread a story five hundred times, changing two words each time, and never feeling like it's complete. I do this with my shorter works, so when I'm looking at a novel, it just gets out of control. And I'm not sure when I'll get back to the point of feeling like one of my novels is ready for the world, so I started feeling really frustrated. I love writing, and I can't seem to stop myself, but I was really getting unhappy with the fact that I've been seriously pursuing writing for three years now, and still no one was reading my stuff. It wasn't out there for anyone to even consider reading. I didn't have a book deal to look forward to, or an agent encouraging me that she could sell it when it was finished, so it got to feel like writing in a black hole. I'd complete a novel, obsess over the editing, and in the end, retire it to live on my computer for the forseeable future because it didn't feel ready for public viewing.

Then it hit me. I didn't have to keep writing novels.

Friends With Words was completed in two weeks and it's the most fun I've had writing in a long time. I can still be an editing maniac, but it doesn't take me nine months after a first draft to feel like I'm anywhere near a finished product. And now that my final word count goal is between 10,000 and 20,000 words, as opposed to 50,000 or more, it's about a thousand times easier to keep track of all the little things (That character needs a different name. Make sure to explain why that one is so mad. What is that one's motivation for lying in this scene?) And I say final word count goal because my process is to overwrite first, explaining every tiny point and detail, then trim the fat in editing. Including rewrites, I actually wrote about 23,000 words for Friends With Words, and cut it down to a lean, mean 12,000. I prefer a slimmer story that really packs a punch over a longer one with unnecessary additions. I mean, seriously, do you guys want a two page description of what the room that my characters are standing in looks like? I know I don't wanna read that.

So that's why I write novelettes. They're fun, they capture great stories which don't require 100 pages to develop, and they allow me to produce publishable content much faster and more often. I love the way that Kindle describes their Singles: "Compelling ideas expressed at their natural length." That's pretty much my motto right now.

I think I may have found my niche. And it feels good. :)