American – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

If you have been reading my blog regularly, you know that I believe that a work should be as short as possible, because, like a bullet, the smaller it is, the more powerful it is. I try not to have a preconceived notion of how long a story should be. I try to just write the story, keeping it as short as possible, and let the story decide its own length.

To market my works I use duotrope.com, who uses the following categories of length, which often vary from publishers’ definitions of these same categories:

Flash fiction: less than 1,000 words
Short Story: 1,000-7,500
Novelette: 7,500-15,000
Novella: 15,000-40,000
Novel: Over 40,000

One of the first things I have learned is that there are no hard and fast definitions for each of the above categories, only generally-accepted guidelines that change over time. My rule of thumb is that flash fiction is anything under 1,000 words; short stories are generally 1,000 to 17,500-20,000; novellas are 17,500-20,000 words to 40,000; and anything over 40,000 is a novel.

Now it seems that the Duotrope guidelines are reasonably accurate with the following exceptions: short stories are still often considered to be works up to 10,000 words; novelettes are generally from about 10,000 to 17,500 or thereabouts; novellas from 17,500 to 40,000-50,000 or even higher; and novels beginning sometimes at 40,000-50,000 or even 70,000 or greater.

However, as several websites, authors, critics, and publishers point out, categories by length are often arbitrary guidelines produced by publishers. From an artistic standpoint, what determines the category of a work is its length compared to the complexity of its plot.

A short story of 2,000 words does not have space to explore character development, subplots, or multiple events. A 2,000-word short story usually describes only a single event and may give some insight into the characters. The even shorter category of flash fiction and its subcategories, such as smokelongs and microfiction, have no space for anything more complex than a good twist to its ending. Examples of some of the more famous short stories are:

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
“The Lottery Ticket” by Anton Chekhov
“To Build a Fire” by Jack London
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce

A novelette can have some of the complexities of a novel, but usually deals with a single event, and it is briefer than a novella. Maybe novella lite is a more appropriate term than novelette. In my humble opinion, “novelette” is either just a little more complex form of a short story or it is just a term to boost the egos of those who write a bit more complex short stories but haven’t progressed to writing novellas.

A novella can have many of the complexities of a novel, but usually deals with a single event. In the US, I think this is an underused classification, perhaps because novellas are less marketable in the US than the longer novels. That is a shame as some of the most famous and most powerful works in world literature are novellas. Here are a few examples:

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

At the other end of the scale from the short story sits the novel, which can include all the aforementioned complexities of character development, subplots, and multiple events. Examples of famous novels are:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Unfortunately, trying to categorize a work based on its relative complexity is a complex task in its own right, which is undoubtedly why the much simpler method of categorization by word count dominates the literary world.

So what does all this mean for the writer?

There must be a balance between length and complexity in a work if it is to be considered as serious writing by the literary world. If a work is too complex for its length, it may be seen as muddled, confused, puzzling, or even unintelligible. If it is not sufficiently complex for its length, it may be seen as wordy, boring, and unnecessarily long.

The best a writer can do is to keep the work as short and powerful as possible, making the story only as complex as is necessary in order to bring out the intellectual and emotional nuances that will enable the reader to live the work vicariously. If that is done, the length and category will take care of themselves.

How will the writer know when a work is of sufficient complexity compared to its length?

There can be no hard and fast rule or guidance on this. It is subjective, therefore the writer must have an innate “feel” for this balance. The best way to develop this feel is probably just to read as much as you possibly can of the acknowledged masters of each category. Yes, you could obtain a Ph.D. in World or English Literature, but to get that, you will still have to read a lot of novels, novellas, and short stories, but you will also have to listen to a series of professors teaching the accepted views on each, when you want to develop your own creative viewpoint. I am not saying that is without merit, because in order to think outside the box, you have to be familiar with the box, which is what any degree teaches. This, of course, begs the question of how essential a college or post-graduate degree is to write well. All I can say is to look up the biographies of those considered masters of the art and find out what degrees they had. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Poe, Flaubert, Conrad, and many others had no academic degrees. Many, like Hemingway, had experience in journalism or just felt compelled to write since they were children. This is a fascinating subject and would be well worth your time to research.

AI generated image from Pixabay

Sign on Arkansas Route 1 signaling the entrance to Rohwer Relocation Center.

On July 5, my family and I drove 28 miles to visit the Rohwer Relocation Center, the site of an internment camp where 8,275 Japanese-Americans lived from 1942 to 1945.

To stand now in the middle of the immense expanses of heat-soaked cotton fields surrounding the site and to imagine what life must have been like can be heart-rending.

The wayside exhibits give a poignant portrayal of the harsh existence for these people, who happened to be of the wrong race when war came upon the US. Many, if not most or maybe even all, of these people came from California, a much milder climate than that of southeast Arkansas (I now live in Arkansas but I have lived in Alameda and San Diego). Most of the waysides have a recording describing some aspect of camp life narrated by perhaps the most famous former resident of Rohwer Relocation Center, George Takei, a.k.a. Mr. Sulu of Star Trek fame. Born in 1937, Mr. Takei lived here from the time he was about five years old to when he was about eight.

The inhabitants of Rohwer Relocation Center lived in military-style barracks, modified somewhat to accommodate families, but still exceptionally Spartan for any family. In one

Civilians arriving at Rohwer Relocation Center.

instance, Mr. Takei talks about his family’s arrival to find their new home a single room containing only a pot-bellied stove and five cots, one for each member of the family. Having been forced to leave their jobs behind, inhabitants struggled to find new ways to support themselves, because, while their former lives were left behind, their bills followed them. Most inhabitants found whatever jobs they could locally, maybe toiling on nearby farms or in other manual labor. Many jobs, even those within the camp, paid only $12-$19 per month, which was about half of what the non-Japanese staff of the camp was making. The move forced many people to sacrifice their life savings in order to survive. The few artists that were interned here were able to continue their professions, but I cannot say the market for art in rural southeast Arkansas during World War II was as lucrative as it might have been in California. Still, there was a hospital, so there was some medical care. And there was some schooling for the children, though I do not recall how this was arranged.

A few monuments exist today at the site, which honor the interned, along with the headstones of several that died here. The monuments honor the Japanese-Americans who served in the Second World War, with many of them coming from the Rohwer Relocation Center. Japanese-American soldiers were typically sent to the European front where, they would be less likely to side with or mix in with the enemy. In fact, Japanese-Americans made up the 442nd battalion and fought in some of the most vicious fighting experience by the US, specifically at Anzio, Salerno, and Monte Cassino. The names of those killed in action are listed on a few of the monuments along with memorable remarks about the Japanese-American experience at home and in war, fighting for the country that interned them and their families.

Visit the site if you have the opportunity. It can be found on Google Earth and Google Maps will give you the directions. Enjoy the photos here that I took during my visit and reflect upon the multi-layered composition of our nation as many of us struggle for a greater voice in the future of our nation during this time of racial unrest and political upheaval.