I am bothered by the length of the pieces I am writing. It's no secret that I am writing short stories from different viewpoints in my story world. I am not writing commercially but to satisfy my own artistic desires, and yet I try to accommodate readers tastes where possible. And this is where I have a question. I've started with a new short, 'A Woman's Shadow'. The title may be familiar to you, but what you remember is an old version. I'm finally writing what stays, and the old version will be replaced by a new one. So. 'Aptitude', the prior short, is an unusual length. A bit over 10k, it's termed a novelette and I didn't set out for such a length but it morphed into it. There is no way I could shorten it, given worldbuilding and halfway-decent descriptions. Now I've written 3k of 'A Woman's Shadow' and I already see the projected length equalling 'Aptitude's. It will need a similar length for the same reason I couldn't shorten 'Aptitude'. Need I tell you that I am bothered? So, as a reader, if you encounter online a story with such a length that has a follow-up story, that the author in fact has a bunch of stories of about the same awkward length, what would you think? Would you just browse on? Or would you give the author a chance, provided the premise sounded interesting?
my inclination would be to publish them as a collection since they have a common theme - novelette isnt a term readers will be that familiar with - its normally a short story until its a novella (about 20k ish) on amazon
I agree wit @big soft moose. Just write them and publish them together. Some people would say that modern novel itself could be a collection of such separate bits of the story. I've read weirder.
I am currently working on a novelette as well. I'm just under 10k. I haven't tried to publish yet but I agree you can do several small ones and publish a collection. I would read. Sometimes I dont have time for a full length novel. I am writing to publish so if I do t succeed I can easily turn mine into a novel.
Isn't that basically a novel with more than one MC? A series of stories that are connected in some fashion, which may be as loose as a setting, or more tight knit by the parties actually interacting on more than a passing happenstance. IDK, but you can make it one large collection, or break it down into a connective series. Either way will work, unless the connectivity of each story to the next is too weak to be broken up in such a way that it will not be understood as easily as to how each part builds upon the whole.
