Size is important

I thought it was about time I started blogging properly again as opposed to just keeping this site for notification of when I sell manuscripts, or have new cover art pretties. You know, a vague attempt to be professional and all that. But then, I guess thinking people would be interested in anything I have to say on my blog is a separate kind of arrogance in itself.

One conversation that's come up recently in writing circles is that of size. Fnarr. Referencing my most recent sale, that of Temporary Position, I've gone from writing and selling five novels, to writing and selling a 16k short story.

Go read that again.

A 16k short story. Not a novella; certainly not a novel. Short. Story.

A while back I heard from a writer who was (rightly) excited about selling her first book, or as she had it, her first "novel". Turns out the word count was somewhere in the 40k region.

I've heard of other writers selling books of around about 20k words and claiming to be novelists.

Um...no. Just no.

Let's get one thing straight here: to be a novelist, you have to actually write a novel.

I'll be very clear: I am in no way dissing short stories (I've sold one) or novellas (love reading them; have a few outlined to write myself). What I am saying is this:

As writers, we work with words all day, every day. We search for the word, the phrase, the sentence, that cuts through all the bullshit and nails this, that or the next feeling, so the reader goes, "Yes! That! I know what she means!"

Should it not, then, be the case that we strive for accuracy when describing our own work? Why this aversion to calling things by their proper names?

And let's face it: if you sell a 20k book and say you've sold a novel, you're claiming to have done more work than you really have. That's just plain old dishonest. No matter how fast or slow you write, a 60-80k story will take you much longer to write than something one third or one quarter of that size. You're claiming to have done three or four times more work than you actually have. And that's an insult to real, you know...novelists.

That'd be like me selling a 75k-word book and telling people I've written an opera. Or writing a sonnet and telling people it's a ballet. No, no, no, no, no. Call things by their proper names.

Besides which, if I buy an ebook expecting to get a novel, and what I receive is actually a short story or novella, I'll be pretty pissed off as a reader and writer. Of course, price usually reflects book length before you even buy, but even so...it really rips my nips when people claim to have written a novel and they plain old haven't.

Does this make me a snob? No. It makes me a writer who, amazingly, wishes people would use the correct names for things.