What kind of book is this?

I have written 5 separate stories that takes place on a island.
However, each story has minor connections to one another.
For example:
Alex from story 1, follows his journey into killing the president in a act of revenge. Bobby from story 2, follows his journey to get clean of drugs and fix his broken relationship with his mother. And Riley from story 3, follows his journey to solving a murder. Sam from story 4, follows his journey to becoming a MMA fighter. and Tyler from story 5, follows his journey to escaping his abusive parents. The minor connection between these stories is Bobby, Riley, Sam and Tyler hears about the murder of the president on the news and in the newspaper and during Riley investigations of solving a murder, he comes into contact with Bobby mother BUT doesn't come into contact with Bobby. Sam has his first televised MMA match and Bobby watches it because Tyler is facing Bobby favorite MMA fighter and Bobby becomes a fan of Sam because Bobby admires Sam for following his dreams as Bobby once wanted to be a MMA fighter. Tyler also listens to Sam first MMA match from a radio he has hidden in his room in the basement.
The problem is, none of these stories are long enough to be classified as a novel. So instead of contriving the stories and making them unnecessarily long to be a novel i decided to just put them all in one book as some sort of collection.
But this doesn't seem to me as a ordinary collection of stories. Most collection of stories i read, all the stories were from different genres and different times etc.

This collection i have can fit one genre, takes place in the same city and same time and each story now runs simultaneously in chapters.
For example:
Revenge I (Alex)
Bad Habits I (Bobby)
Revenge II (Alex)
Never Let Me Go I (Riley)
Bad Habits II (Bobby)
Never Let Me Go II (Riley)
However, none of the characters will meet in book 1 but in book 2 i plan to have some of them meet each other.

What can i call this collection of stories? I feel like i can just say its a novel.... but whats your guys opinion on this?

 

it doesn't look like a novel to me, rather an anthology of novellas (or peraps novellettes).

 

The connections seem loose at best. With no single element to connect them all, such as a single, all encompassing larger plot, like in Heroes or something, then there may as well be no connection between the characters at all, and you keep these stories and the characters separate.

 

Could it be a frame story?

 

I've seen books like this marketed as both a short story collection and as a novel, so I would say it's a grey area.

If the complete book is not larger than the sum of its parts, that is to say if your connections are loose and largely trivial, I would personally not call it a novel.

However if you plan to link the stories in a sequel, that complicates matters again.

These are unusual creative choices though. I think you also have to ask yourself if it's necessary and really justifiable.

Are you really doing your work a service by lumping all these stories together in such a peculiar way?

 

I think The Girl in Hyacinth Blue follows this general structure, and that's marketed as a novel.

 

Thanks everyone

I decided to just call it a Linked Anthology in comparison to Sin City (Movie). Sin City has the exact type of story structure i was going for...weird i never realized it until an agent pointed it out lol