I recently bought the Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market 2001, and upon glancing through the glossary was startled by the definition of a novella. It stated in the definition that a novella was a work 7,000 to 15,000 words in length. This is the only definition of a novella I’ve found that included word length, and I would have thought novellas would also include works of significantly longer lengths as well. Given this definition, does it follow that a novel is a work at least 15,001 words? While I’d like to think I’d reached my goal of writing a novel much sooner than I thought I would, I find it hard to believe that works of 17,000 and 45,000 words are truly novels.
I am sure someone will come back to you with alternate technical definitions of a novella, but I think you are correct: novellas can be much longer than 15,000 words. I have read literary essays that describe “The Great Gatsby” and “Catcher in the Rye” as short enough to almost be considered novellas, and each of those are about 50,000 words in length.
I have assumed (and assume I will be corrected in this thread) that “novella” was more of a concept than a technical definition - longer than a short story, shorter than a traditional novel (I wonder if they have words to describe extra-long novels, like War and Peace or Michener - “novelissimos” perhaps? Okay, bad joke). I would also assume that the structure/focus of a novella would differ,too: whereas a novel is typically about characters who have an arc, and short stories are typically about capturing a feeling or specific event in time, novellas are meant to perhaps be somewhere in between…
For science fiction awards, a short story is up to 7500 words, a novelette is 7501 to 17500 words, a novella is 17500 to 40,000 words, and a novel is 40,001 words or more. (Though most published novels nowadays usually run a minimum of 60,000 words.)
These are operational definitions; what a work is called also depends on what the publisher wants to call it. Jerzy Kosinski’s “Being There” was less than 40,000 words, but is considered a novel.
Fritz Leiber’s “The Big Time” was probably just a bit more than 40,000 words. However, if you’re writing your first novel, it’s best to aim for at least 70,000 words.
I once saw a great cartoon (in The New Yorker) I believe, with four progressively smaller books labeled “Novel,” “Novella,” “Novellette,” and “Noveleeny.”