I often describe my books as being short and sweet. But what does that actually mean?
Let’s start with the word sweet.
You will find that when you read one of my books, the tone of the story is not dark. In fact, it is often quite light and might venture into the Hallmark-y rom-com realm. When you finish one of my books, I hope you are left with a sweet sigh and a desire for more. (Kind of like when you get to the end of a favourite sweet treat.) But I mean more than how a story feels when I use the word sweet.
When I describe my work as being sweet romance, I mean that the romance is going to focus on the emotional intimacy of my characters and not their physical intimacy. While the story will contain some sexual tension or desire, as is normal between two people who are falling in love and thinking of marrying, none of my books include on-screen physical intimacy. Some might include what are called fade to black moments where you know that physical intimacy is about to happen, but then, the screen goes black.
If I were to describe my books in a movie rating sort of fashion, I would say that they are all PG-13 or lower. While both the tone and the heat level of my stories are sweet, the obstacles and evil villains in them often aren’t and may at times be quite bleak and exceptionally evil.
Now, let’s tackle that word short.
My natural tendency as an author is to write with an economy of words. I like reading stories that are tight and focused, and I tend to write what I like. This means that my stories fall on the shorter end of the story classification spectrum. Do not, however, assume that because a story I have written is short that it has not been crafted with the same amount of care with which a longer story would be crafted. While you may not need to flip a large number of pages to come to the end of one of my books, what you will find on those pages is a complete and satisfying story.
Here is how I classify my books.
| Classification | Word Count |
| Novel | 40,001 words or more |
| Novella* | 20,000 to 40,000 words |
| Novelette | 7,500 to 19,999 |
| Short Story | Under 7,500 words |
*The dividing point between novella and novelette can vary widely. If you’d like to see some examples of word-length classification guidelines for various literary awards for novellas and novelettes, there is a handy chart at the bottom of this Wikipedia article about novellas. I have gone with the dividing line used by the Romance Writers of America because I write romance. 🙂
And there you have it. Everything you need to know about what I mean when I say my books are short and sweet.
Happy Reading!
Leenie