Novels-in-stories play with form in inventive ways. Their structural in-betweenness can provide pleasure and agency for both the writer and reader. But how do they work? And what makes the effect of novels-in-stories so distinctive?
As writing accountability partners who, by coincidence or perhaps a shared sensibility, gravitate to novels-in-stories, we’ve spent a lot of time considering this question. We’ve synthesized some of the points we return to in our own writing and in conversations about this hybrid genre.
Standing Alone, Working Together
In our books, Helen Georgas’s Inventory and Nicole Haroutunian’s Choose This Now, each chapter is designed to stand on its own as a story, with a beginning, middle, and ending. Each of those stories, when read together, though, build into a larger narrative arc. This cumulative effect—the sum being greater than its parts—is what separates novels-in-stories from linked collections.