Imaginings
An Anthology of Long Short Fiction
Introduction: Novelette, Over EasyKeith R.A. DeCandido
Novelette is a really silly word.
Ask the average person on the street what a novelette is, and they're most likely to say that it's a kind of egg dish -- or they'll think it's a malapropism for novelty. Most people are familiar with the terms novel and short story, but once you get into the more esoteric subcategories like novella and novelette, you are met with looks of abject confusion.
However, a novelette is the ideal length for a speculative-fiction story.
My personal definition of SF -- which, for the purposes of this discussion, applies to fantasy, science fiction, and certain types of horror -- is that it's the world we live in with at least one major change. Sometimes that change is as simple as moving forward or backward in time. Sometimes it's that vampires exist. Sometimes it's that someone from our world falls down a rabbit hole or goes into a wardrobe or travels through a wormhole. Sometimes it's that the Axis won World War II. Sometimes it's t ... read full excerpt from: Imaginings: An Anthology of Long Short Fiction ebook
