Sunday, 3 May 2015

How to classify your story?

It is important for readers to know the difference between a novel, a novella and a short story so that they don’t get confused or disappointed. Sometimes reviews are based solely upon the readers disappointment when they thought they bought a novel, and it turned out to be a novella. It is important when a book is promoted to use the right descriptions. This will create the appropriate expectations in readers and help guard against disgruntled reviews.

According to Wikipedia, the common fiction classifications based on word count, are:

Novel: over 40,000 words
Novella: 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette: 7,500 - 17,500 words
Short Story: under 7,500 words
Flash Fiction: 500 - 1,000 words

A novel should be 40,000 words and more. I did not know this when I started my research for this blog. I was always under the impression a novel had to be 50,000+ words. This assumption was based upon the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards and NaNoWriMo where completed novels need to have a word count of 50,000 or more words. This means I have written more novels than I thought I did :o) happy days

All Over Again

After Elizabeth is in a car accident, she goes into a coma. Then she meets Devlin and it as if she met him just the day before on the fallen tree trunk, in their hidden place, away from the rest of the world. She does not realise 300 years have passed and that she has regressed back to a previous life, where Devlin is still waiting for her. Then she must choose: Return to today and Jared, or stay with Devlin and it will always just be the two of them.

My Recycled Soul

Sometimes life can seem unfair... But what if everything really did happen for a reason? Elizabeth is a happy seventeen-year-old girl, until her step-dad announces, "We are moving to Ireland". Elizabeth feels as if her life shatters and falls down at her feet in a million splinters. She would have to leave her room, her house, the street where she lived all her life, as well as the boy she has had a serious crush on for the longest time. All she wants is for things to go back to the way they are supposed to be. Little did Elizabeth know that things are indeed changing to how they are supposed to be and that sometimes, even bad things, happen for a reason.


Fifteen-year-old Caitlyn had just met Shayne, and, even though, her best friend, Sophia warns her to stay away from him because he could be contagious, Caitlyn is drawn to his haunted eyes. Now she is stuck in those memories, she cannot escape and she can feel the darkness coming for her. Hannah is orphaned after her dad dies, and her mother leaves her with family Hannah has never met before. Then Nathan is a little friendlier toward her, and in him she finds an ally against the darkness. As their worlds are layered, will they learn that hope always prevails?

Soul Drifter

More than just a dream. Gaby is convinced her soul leaves when she is fast asleep. Gaby has vivid, three-dimensional, mega screen dreams, but they seem too real to merely be dreams, and it feels as if she actually does experience the things she dreams about. Then she starts dreaming of a building, which terrifies her, and she knows she needs to find something or someone - who or what she does not know. In the building, she encounters a thing, and she knows that if it gets her, she will die, even if it is only a dream. Then she finds Barclay, the one she has been meeting under the lemon tree in her dreams. What Gaby discovers has the possibility to be frightening, and will she find what she is looking for even if it makes her afraid?

Guardian Angel

Yesterday everything was simple. Taylor's name appeared on Daimhin's list just after she was born. Daimhin had to escort Taylor across the Valley of the Shadow of Death. However, when he looked down at her in her crib, cocooned in pink, he could not get himself to just do it. Now, seventeen years later, Daimhin no longer has a choice. The system made sure that this time he would have to escort her. Unbeknown to Daimhin, this was his test set by the voice he heard that day he arrived here and stood balancing precariously on the lip of a great chasm. A voice whose plan was beautiful and simple. He wanted Daimhin to find joy. He did not expect Daimhin to be perfect. He knew he wouldn't be.

William The Damned (A Vampire Pirate)
The Vampire Pirate Saga

Terrified of being sent off to marry a man whom she has never met, Susanna boards The Majestic to travel from England to France. A deadly vampire should not fall in love--but that is exactly what happens to William. With a lady hidden in his cabin, a crew who is getting restless, William has a lot of decisions to make. Keep her or kill her? When Susanna meets Francois, the meanest man she has ever met, she is sure he will discover she has been lying about knowing William. When he begins to suspect the truth, she makes the most dangerous decision.

The Vampire Pirate's Daughter
The Vampire Pirate Saga

When Susie turned sixteen, the vampire virus which was dormant in her grew stronger and suppressed her human cells. Amanda and Shayne came to her rescue. She had to either step over the final barrier to becoming a vampire or succumb to the virus and die. However, when Amanda held her wrist, dripping with blood, in front of Susie's mouth, she could not resist. Two hundred years later, Susie is lonely and bored. Shayne and Amanda have kept her safe and protected her from life and from the savage vampires who have not adapted to living in the light, and all Susie wants is to be mortal. She wants to be like the mortals surrounding her and be daring. To challenge death and to purposefully defy it. Most of all though, she wants to experience love.

The Vampire Virus
The Vampire Pirate Saga

Susie and Amanda return to France and the dilapidated château, where she comes face to face with the savage vampires who have not adapted to living in the light. During an attack, the virus in her body turns against her and then she discovers unconditional love where she never even looked. As she settles in her new circumstances, surrounded by her dysfunctional family, would she choose mortality or immortality?