Why Novellas To Novels

Even before I started writing I knew I wanted to start with novellas there were many reasons why. The obvious one was the gratification of being able to cut a story into small sections and put up something regularly. We are all human, and when we take on large overwhelming projects, it is easy to quit before we complete them. I liked being able to put up a chapter, and if I needed more time to work through the next section, I just do another project. For Hill’s Hades the ability to walk away has been necessary to get my mind around where I wanted her to go. A year ago when I started to layout her story I envisioned it being a more of a love story but the last section she is finding her evil side. I prefer the development of who she is becoming. 

Pulp fiction novels have always held an appeal for me, and I am trying to incorporate some of the backbone rules into my stories. It is a challenge to try and create a story within a story. I enjoy being able to develop stories on a changing basis. I do not write off of an outline; instead what I do is create my titles for each chapter. In my mind, I have already worked out the whole novel, but that does not mean it stays that way as I go from chapter to chapter. I am also writing erotica, so I want my books to have a large number of fun times in them while still holding onto a real storyline. Utilizing novella to novel formatting keeps my writing honest with what I want it to be. In my longer novellas five thousand to six thousand words I can put in two sex scenes with enough character development to move the story forward. In my short three thousand word stories, I try and keep the two scenes worrying less about the characters because these are meant to be stripped down to the bare bones of erotica.  

When I was first researching erotica and talking to readers, I asked them what they wanted whether they enjoyed long novels (I define 150 to 200 pages) or short novellas (I define 20-30 pages). The surprising part was there are two distinct groups for both long novels and short novellas. I am doing this to make money so I can write other genres that are harder to break into. The solution I came up with was novella to a novel so far the few loyal people who have been with me for over ten years have given me excellent feedback. The one significant change I am making is I started with 5,000 words and have increased it to 6,0000 words per novella. If you write with a different method, I will enjoy hearing what you utilize and why you chose to do it the way you are. If you are a reader what is your favorite way for an author to present a new story.