Differences Between a Short Story, a Novella, and a Novel

If you’ve ever wondered what a short story is exactly, the first thing that likely comes to mind is that it’s a brief story, reduced to its minimum expression. Conversely, when thinking about a novel, you probably imagine a lengthy story, filled with rich characters and situations that immerse you in a new world.

But what about the novella? Also called a short novel, the novella exists in a grey area that has intrigued literary scholars for years. The most common definition describes it as a short story that’s too long or a novel that’s too short. However, the novella has distinct characteristics that set it apart as its own genre.

While their differences define them, all three forms have common traits. According to Kurt Spang, an emeritus professor of Literary Theory at the University of Navarra, all narrative texts share the following features:

The narration of a story
Subjectivity in the storytelling
Objective depiction of the material world
The deferred character of the communication
A diverse range of writing styles (not limited to verse or prose)

Indeed, short stories, novellas, and novels share these traits with other genres, such as the epic poem, the legend, and the myth.

But now, let’s focus on the differences between the short story, the novella, and the novel, their classification and some famous examples.

What Is a Short Story?

The short story is a narrative genre whose name wasn’t formally established until the 16th century, though its origins date back much earlier. A short story can be defined as a short account that:

can be oral or written
narrates a fictional or real story
has a reduced number of characters
has a “simple” plot
focuses on anecdotal, fantastical, or didactic elements

Short stories often revolve around fictional events, although they can also draw from social, historical, or media stories and themes. They usually follow a single plot line, so all the events narrated lead to a single outcome. This is one of the key aspects that distinguishes them from novels.

Famous Types of Short Stories

Short stories can be classified into two broad categories:

Folktales. They are the origin of the genre. They were transmitted orally and told universal stories and anecdotes collectively created and modified during transmission, without a defined author. The Brothers Grimm, for example, compiled many folktales into written form.
Literary short stories. Emerging during Romanticism, in the late 18th century, these are authored works that do not change over time. Writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Raymond Carver, and Alice Munro are known for their literary short stories.

Short stories can also be categorized by theme, including:

Fairy tales. They are based on folk tales transmitted orally and are located outside the realm of reality. Some famous compilers of this type of short story are Charles Kingsley, Franz Keim, and the Brothers Grimm.
Fantastic tales. These short stories transgress the rational order of events and introduce supernatural elements. Some authors of fantastic short stories are Jorge Luis Borges, Guy de Maupassant, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Science fiction stories. These short stories explore the possibilities of scientific advances and their potential impact on society and the human condition. They proliferated during the 20th century with authors such as Arthur C. Clark, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov.
Realistic stories. These short stories are subjected to the logic of what can and cannot happen in reality, and tend to reflect real-world social and political themes. Renowned authors of this genre are Roberto Arlt, Raymond Carver, and, of course, the Russians Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky.
Crime stories. Edgar Allan Poe is not only the main referent of this genre: he is also the one who inaugurated it in its modern form with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. This type of short story puts the reader in the same position as the main characters, who have to solve a mystery.
Horror. These short stories and tales can deal with a wide range of topics, but always have the aim of producing fear and panic in the reader. Its precedent is the 18th-century Gothic tale, which included supernatural characters such as vampires, ghosts, and demons. Among the most recognized authors, we can mention H.P. Lovecraft, Horacio Quiroga, and, once again, Edgar Allan Poe.

What Is a Novel?

The word novel comes from Old French novel, which came from Latin novellus, meaning “new, young, recent”. From its origins, it already referred to a narrative text of fiction whose length exceeded that of the short story, but was shorter than that of other narrative texts, such as the epic poem.

Although commonly attributed to Miguel de Cervantes in the 16th century, the novel as a genre was first developed by the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio in the 12th century, with his The Decameron.

Luis Beltrán Almería describes the novel as:

… a special literary genre. It was born with the open society, and its history is given by the aesthetic needs posed by that type of society. Those needs are expressed at three levels: the image of the character, the image of the world, and the image of the word. (…) The novel fuses those three images and becomes a world-class cultural event, especially in the modern world.

For her part, María Carmen Mayayo Aranda, a Hispanic philologist and professor of Spanish Language and Literature, defines its constituent elements:

A fictional or fictionalized story
A consistent internal logic, even when it incorporates fantastic elements
A multiform nature, encompassing various narrative styles
No fixed length
A predominance of figurative language
A variety of intertwining storylines and characters that progress to the same outcome
A blend of narration, dialogue, and other formats, such as letters or diaries

Types of Novels

Depending on their subject matter, novels can be classified as follows:

Historical novels. This type of novel recreates a non-fictional historical period in which the plot is developed with fictional or non-fictional characters and events. Here we can find works such as The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Süskind.
Fantastic novels. It develops a series of supernatural or magical elements that are opposed to the logic of reality. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, is the most famous example of this genre.
Horror and/or suspense novels. This type of novel is characterized by the use of fantastic or supernatural elements that appear as problems for the characters. It also uses a narration style in which suspense and tension increase. Since the second half of the 20th century, Stephen King’s novels have been the most recognized within this genre.
Romantic novels. They are organized around a romantic encounter. The characters must face obstacles and challenges to consummate or protect their love. Examples of this genre are The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks, or Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell.
Science fiction novels. In this genre, scientific advances or theories taken from the field of the sciences are developed to create a universe in which new or fictitious technologies have affected life. Here we can find Isaac Asimov’s novels, such as The Gods Themselves, Foundation, and The Caves of Steel.
Crime and/or mystery novels. The detective novel not only puts the reader in the same position as its main characters—in the face of a mystery or crime to be solved—but also poses the characters’ conflict with said mystery. Sherlock Holmes novels, by Arthur Conan Doyle, are a clear example of this genre.

What Is a Novella?

Finally, we come to the crux of the matter: what is a novella? As we’ve said, it’s usually treated as a narrative text that lies between the short story and the novel. That’s why it’s also called a short novel. Julio Cortázar seems to agree with this statement: the famous Argentinian author said that the novella was halfway between the novel and the short story, and he wasn’t referring exclusively to its extension, but also to its narrative structure.

Therefore, the novella is a short novel, as it has a certain relationship with this form of narration, but it’s not “short” only because it’s less extensive, but also because it takes only some of the resources of the novel, the essential ones, and it uses them differently to produce a condensed plot. Thus, the structure of the novella is denser, and it doesn’t intend to create a narrative world, but a narrative experience.

Ricardo Piglia refers to the novella as an “uncertain genre” because it’s difficult to define. He points out that the short story focuses on secrecy, while the novella focuses on enigma. For his part, Mario Benedetti states that it’s the gender of the transformation; a narrative text in which transformation and change take place, prioritizing the process over surprise and plot. Among other things, he suggests that:

The novella features a complex plot with multiple characters
It’s written in prose, and it mixes narration with dialogue and descriptions
It usually doesn’t include other discursive genres such as letters, newspaper cuts, etc.
It’s usually divided into several chapters, and each chapter can have its own thematic unit
It focuses on a discovery, with the resolution being integral to the narrative.

Novellas: Are There Subgenres?

The novella, as complicated to define as it is, doesn’t have subgenres, and it doesn’t usually respect the thematic categories that we mentioned for the short story or the novel. But there are examples of famous novellas that we can mention:

Los adioses, by Juan Carlos Onetti
The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
Confession de minuit, by Georges Duhamel
The Childhood of a Leader, by Jean-Paul Sartre