Photo credit: Susan Burdick
How does National Novel Writing Month define a novel?
We define a novel as a minimum of fifty thousand words of fiction. Which is just kind of a ridiculous definition, but it creates a sense of structure, and the boundaries of the game are set. That’s about as close as we want to get to coming up with a definition for it. Leaving it malleable and open fits in well with the idea that, really, what we want to do is be sort of a creative kick in the pants for everybody.
We get a lot of emails saying, “I’m doing X. Am I allowed to do that in your contest?” And the answer’s usually, “Well, as the official keeper of the Great Rule Book of Month-Long Creativity Escapades, the answer is no, but as somebody who understands the joys of making stuff, we’re gonna pretend we didn’t get this email, and you just go about your business.” [laughs]