Write a Novella? Easy Peasy �
by Ane Mulligan @AneMulligan Or so I thought. Why didn't someone tell me? Sure, a novella contains fewer words�about one quarter of a full novel to be exact. And I thought that meant less work. Ha! I mistakenly figured I wouldn't need all that goal and motivation stuff. After all, this was short and a romance. Sugar, I had a lot to learn. I mean, you can put your boots into the oven, but that doesn�t make them biscuits. And throwing words willy-nilly onto a page does not a novella make. It took a weeklong binge of Hallmark Christmas movies to open my narrow mind to an ugly fact: It takes the same amount of time to work up the character interviews, learn their goals, motivations, lies, wounds, etc. And that list doesn't even include the plot. Help! I didn't think of that part when I signed up. No, when some friends called for submissions for a collection, I just opened my big mouth. The deed done, I needed to figure out how writing a novella was different . ...