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Dec 20, 2009, 11:33pm

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Topic: Novelettes/Novellas (Read 117 times)

JP Dellova
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Novelettes/Novellas
« Thread Started on Dec 15, 2006, 3:41am »

Copied from Sage of Consciousness Chat Site:

I've got several of them. They're odd ducks, not a short story, not a novel -- and usually too long for most magazines to consider buying.

Two of mine have appeared in Sage, one, The Eternal Car Ride, running currently in 3 part serial form. Two others running serially at Worlds of Wonder and one other, not published, that I'm planning to turn into a novel.

-- The two running at WoW are Ringold the Luckless and New Earth.

The one published earlier here at Sage, The Haunted Pond, is also the story of mine that I like best. It first appeared in a truncated version, edited by John Thiel, which I'm grateful for, in Surprising Stories and, a few months later Michelle and Paul accepted the full version for Sage, along with a short story, Tom Thumb's Blues.

A long time ago I read an Aldius Huxley interview that appeared in The Paris Review. The great author said he never stopped rewriting his novels, not even long after they'd been published and it was too late to change what he'd originally written. At the time I thought that idea was a bit loony. But now I understand it, especially as I've read similar remarks by other well known authors, such as Truman Capote, who is believed to have rewritten his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, and was planning to have it published when he died unexpectedly.

So, here I am now with these several long works, that aren't quite long long enough to be marketed. What to do with them?

Haunted Pond is the final stages of a complete rewriting for the Better Fiction Quarterly. It's gained a few thousand words since it's Sage appearance and, along the way, the text has been rewritten and hopefully is a better work now than it was last spring. That version will also be used as the leadoff piece in a collection of short stories that, hopefully, will come out through a small press during the spring. It will include several other stories that saw daylight in Sage of Consciousness -- Footsteps and Wrong Numbers; Dreadful, Rotten, and Snitch; Tom Thumb's Blues; and the closing piece will be the novella appearing currently, The Eternal Car Ride.

-- Stories in the collection that have appeared at Worlds of Wonder, are -- Torquemada at the Celestial Court of Appeals, and, The Dreamers. A third story, The Skater, which appeared here in the June 05 issue, is currently being considered for trade publication and I'm keeping the anthology rights free to avoid conflict.

The Haunted Pond, from there, was supposed to be expanded into a novel, which I changed my mind on, deciding to go instead with a film script, but a few hours ago, in my delirium after several hours of revision, the nod went back to turning it into a full novel. Film treatments are too hard to sell, unless they're based on a commercially successful novel.

On a more encouraging note, I've noticed a resurgence of commercially published novellas, especially in science fiction, usually four of them put together in a single volume. I find that very promising, and a refreshing step away from Flash Fiction, a form I've never been a great fan of.

-- The two serial novellas currently running in WoW, New Earth, and Ringold the Luckless, are both slated for full novelization. I'm overjoyed to say New Earth is currently being considered for commercial publication some time next summer.

« Last Edit: Dec 15, 2006, 3:42am by JP Dellova »

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