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Short Stories & Novellas
A short story is currently defined as anything up to 7,500 words, while a novella is between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
The span between 7,500 and 17,500 is often defined as a "novelette", although some authorities state that a novella starts at 10,000 words.
Since it's all rather arbitrary, and defined mostly by literary contests, we are using the term "short novella" for novelette, because the term "novelette" is sometimes viewed as a work that is frothy or silly, or of limited literary value. One doesn't want one's work to be viewed as silly, now does one? :-). A reference on word counts is listed on the Rules page of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Awards.
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~ a short story (4,239 words) that will one day become a short movie, starring the author ~
by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Dec 2, 2012
Hiram Hazlacker's last living memory was the sight of the Revenue Men coming down the path to his cave. Hiram called it his Whiskey Cave, even though it was just a bunch of rocks that he’d thrown together to hide his still. The woods of Northern Maine didn’t have too many caves, so a body had to make do with what was handy.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Jul 5, 2011
Zebediah Clump was doomed. Knowing this, his interest in life had taken a sharp left turn into the toilet of resentful destiny. All that was good was flushed away. He had never been a happy man. Aging, overweight and bald, Zebediah had spent decades drinking from a glass that was half empty. Every bird dropping that fell on his fine new automobile convinced him that Chicken Little was a depressingly prescient bird of death.
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~ A short, short story ~
by Kimmy Sophia Brown ~ Mar 9, 2011
He heard the doors open behind him and he turned to see another family entering the foyer - a mother, a father, and the most beautiful little girl he had ever seen. She was wearing a pink dress and pink shoes with yellow socks. In fact, she herself was pink and yellow. She had yellow hair, pink cheeks, pink lips and blue eyes. She seemed to float there among the people waiting for tables.
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[a novella: 22,402 words, approx 35 pages]
by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Nov 7, 2010
He was very surprised when he died. No amount of death scenes can prepare an actor for the real thing, even a Shakespearean actor. One can rehearse being stabbed, and poisoned, and shot, and even hung. But how can one prepare to be hit by a truck as one crosses the street? It is especially grievous if it is the street that one lives on. Edward had carefully locked the door of his theater on Grove Street, and had paused to admire the new sign that proudly declared to the cultured wits of Greenwich Village that the Wild Theatre was at the top of its form.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Feb 8, 2010
Can an orchid forget?
One might not think so, but this one forgot. She was born next to a thicket of vines in a forest that echoed with the whine of bullets and the screams of men. When she was very young, a boot had fallen on her body, exhausting her in a bewilderment of panic as she struggled to free herself. Eventually, the boot had been dragged away, leaving behind scars and confusion in her delicate heart.
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~ The Chivalry of a Thief in the Time of Charlemagne ~
[a short novella: 13,943 words, approx 25 pages]
by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Sep 21, 2009
He had been shunned and kicked and spat upon. He had been chased and tortured and had lived alone, unwanted and unnoticed by the world. To have a knight and the grandson of an emperor trust him and look to him for help was beyond his imagination.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Aug 9, 2009
Members of the Devil Bug Gangs are very smelly creatures, rank with old sweat and an atmosphere of curse words not spoken in our parts for a very long time. They are very old, and very vain, and angry.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Jan 11, 2009
It was a mad scheme. The Count knew this, for he was not at all mad. Grim. Formal. Humorless. Boring. But not mad. Even his enemies at court admitted that the Count was a fount of common sense. His only friend, as well as his sixty-year-old mother, would sigh in unison as they bit into their crumpets at tea time. They would sigh, and nod, and admit that the Count was too boring to be mad.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Apr 22, 2007
The Master of the Moon was just finishing a detailed sketch of a dimple when the light over the message tube flashed red. He paused, and thoughtfully erased a smudge on the paper, trying to ignore the insistent flashing. He had been expecting it for days.
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~ A Sarah Kim Escapade ~
by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Apr 21, 2007
It’s not every day that you find a Republican corpse stuffed upside down in a broom closet on Capitol Hill. The fact that the head of the victim was rudely jammed into a dirty mop bucket caused even more stir among the faint of heart gathered that morning in the Ways and Means Committee room on the first floor of the Longworth House Office Building.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Feb 23, 2004
Being naked, hot and dirty was normal for the small tribe that lived on the edge of the foothills on the East African plain. The daily struggle and violence of life a million and a half years ago made novelties like bathing entirely unnecessary. Thus, the actions of two of the women in the tribe seemed to the others to be an incomprehensible waste of time. Even the leader of the group, possessed as he was with superior strength and intelligence, gazed in bewilderment whenever the women walked into a river and bathed.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Oct 17, 1999
It was the expression on the woman’s face that had caught the monk’s attention. It was one of those quiet, inscrutable expressions that gnawed at one’s mind, begging to be understood, yet at the same time running in full retreat from the cruelty of gawkers.
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by Peter Falkenberg Brown ~ Jun 5, 1999
The man woke suddenly, surprised that it was still dark. He rubbed his head as he glanced at his wife sleeping next to him, wondering if it was his headache that had awakened him. He could see their four children sprawled across the other bed and the floor of the motel room, limbs askew in impossible positions.
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Feel good about life
and feed your soul some vittles...
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from the columns and essays of Significato.
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Transport your soul...
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by curling up with a short story or poem.
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Increase your bliss
and nourish your soul...
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with tidbits on nature, music, books, films, health and writings from bygone days.
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Feel good about life by helping the world...
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