Among Wolves Update – In Which Starbuck And Starbuck Meet At Tim Horton’s

Paper head
CC 2010 Drew Coffman

The last time I posted about Among Wolves (or is it “Among Wolves”?), I’d already realized this book would check in as a novellette, a word I absolutely despise. It’s either a short novella or a long short story. Anyway, I knew it would never crack the 20,000-word mark that makes a story a novella by most writers’ orgs’ reckoning.

For the uninitiated, flash fiction is under 1000 words, a short story is under 10,000 words, a novellette between 10,000 and 20,000 words, and a novella between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Tishla just misses being a novel by about 1500 words. The Marilynists is technically a novellette. And that word annoys me to no end.

But after I wrote my last blog post, I had the reluctant resistance leader Chapaan spotting the camp where she’s introduced in the current draft of Storming Amargosa and deciding she’s not done leading her “pack” yet. I had planned to do a couple more chapters where she goes back to convince her cell that she should continue as their leader.

But there’s a lot to be said for knowing when to leave, and I, my friends, realized this was the spot. Anything else would make this story even more spoilery than it is. Know when to quit. So I looked at it, tried to see if I was abruptly cutting myself off, and realized that, yes, Chapaan’s standalone story ends here. So I called it a novellette (which leaves a bad taste in my mouth) and put it in the can to ferment.

So now what?

Well, I’m going to have some very busy beta readers next year.