The beauty of short stories and novellas

To my mind, short stories and novellas have advantages whether you write them or read them.

As a reader, you can explore writers new to you without investing too much time or expense. You can take a chance. You can explore new genres. If you’re short of time, novellas and short stories can be a wonderful way to switch off.

Short stories and novellas can give a very intense reading experience. Focusing on just a few characters and settings, the reader is quickly drawn in. there are no wasted words, no incidental plots, no distractions.

Writers can also exploit these advantages, because the shorter forms are becoming increasingly popular with the growth of ereaders, audio books and so on.

Short stories to me are jewelled moments – very intense, a moment of revelation or decision. I’ve recently put together a collection, A Rose of Midsummer and other Stories, and put them on Smashwords. I’m hoping to do more later, as a Christmas collection.


Novellas are fun to write, particularly in the romance genre. As Linda Banche said in her post this week, the romance novella gives the writer a wonderful chance to home in on the hero and heroine and their relationship. Any sub-plot can have a direct impact on their love, testing it and in some cases throwing them together so it can develop. My own novellas, A Secret Treasure and Holiday in Bologna, both use external threats to add to the romantic tension between my heroes and heroines.

If you fancy something a touch hotter, there are my Siren shorties set in ancient Rome, too.

So don't give up on the full-length novels, but long may the novella and the short story flourish!