Maybe it's a librito

 I have been thinking about novellas, probably because I have written a draft of something that might pass for one.

There are many ways to learn. One, not highly recommended, is by ignoring sound advice and just doing it. You write something that is like something you admire and try to figure it out as you go. When you finish the draft, you try to figure out what you’ve done.

I don’t like the word novella. The -ella ending, like the -ito in Texan, is a diminutive. I think — thinking in Texan — that it should be librito or bookito, not novelito. The specimens I like are little books, but I don’t think they are derived from the novel. (It seems equally plausible that they might be derived from a short story, but I don’t find that helpful either.)

To me, the craft in this project is like that of a photo essay. In the early days of photography, the artist simply framed a photo. Photographers who were trying to make documentary records — archeologists and sociologists, for example — took a lot of photos. You’d find as many photos in their archive as scenes in a novel.

By contrast, a photo essay might cover two facing pages in a newspaper. By moving in and out of the event or place, the photographer shows overall views of the subject and highly tightly cropped images. This form provides context and a sample of telling details.

One craftsman is trying to provide a complete picture, while the other is trying to be suggestive. They are after different goods.

I can spend an evening looking at a photo essay. I wouldn’t really want to spend an academic term on it.

I’m no scholar, so apply the appropriate warning label to this note. But having gotten some ink on my hands, I’m dubious that the novella is derived from the novel. That notion doesn’t help.