Beginnings

Sometimes it’s hard to say what is a novel, what is a short story or novella. One generally points to matters of quantity - length. Most agree that novels consist of at least 50.000 words, mostly somewhere between 80.000 and near infinity; from Hearts of Darkness to Stephen King. In short stories, one is expected to write - or read - every word as if it is crucial to the larger meaning of the work, that if you take the word away, we shall all feel the loss. While in novels there is an assumpt