If you’re a fiction reader, you probably know fiction comes in a wide array of lengths and formats and that Skull Island eXpeditions already publishes stories in many of these formats. In this blog, I’ll tell you a bit about the various terms thrown about in the literary world—novel, novella, short story, etc.—define what those terms actually mean, and then introduce you to a new format for Iron Kingdoms fiction.

Most people are pretty familiar with the two most popular formats for fiction: the novel and the short story. But what exactly do those two formats actually mean, in terms of length? Well, there’s actually a lot of debate about that, but generally a novel is anything over 50,000 words, and a short story is anything roughly between 1,000 and 8,000 words. Once the length of your story is in between or shorter than these two well-established formats, things get a little more interesting. Then you get into the realm of the novella, the novelette, and the even more obscure terms tacked on to very short fiction.

You may be surprised to learn that Skull Island eXpeditions does indeed publish fiction in many of these formats. We’ve published a number of novellas (longer tales that range between 20,000 and 40,000 words, though ours are usually closer to the upper end of that), and we’ve even delved into the largely uncharted territory of the novelette, that odd beast of a story that lives somewhere between a short story and a novella and whose official word length is all but impossible to nail down. (For the record, we think 10,000 is a safe bet.) You can find a whole collection of novelettes in Called to Battle: Volume One.

Once you stray beyond the novel, novella, novelette, and short story, you enter a strange and wondrous land of very short pieces, often called “flash fiction,” whose goal as a story differs quite a bit from tales of greater length. A flash fiction story is usually between 500 and 1,000 words, a length that forces a writer to heavily focus on one particular element of a story or to think outside the box to craft a satisfying piece. Personally, I love flash fiction, and when I find time to write fiction unrelated to Privateer Press and the Iron Kingdoms, it’s a format often I turn to.

The question of story lengths has been on my mind a lot lately, and I’m excited to announce the outcome of those ponderings: a new line of fiction for Skull Island eXpeditions! Last Friday we released the first volume in the Iron Kingdoms Excursions line, which presents three flash fiction stories based on some of your favorite men, monsters, and machines from western Immoren. We’ll be focusing on some of your favorite WARMACHINE and HORDES models, adding narrative detail to the likes of High Shield Gun Corps, Iosan Houseguard Riflemen, Farrow Brigands, Skorne Immortals, and Blighted Ogrun Warspears, just to name a few. These short tales will be penned by a variety of in-house authors, including the illustrious Doug Seacat, as well as some of your favorite Skull Island eXpeditions writers.

Every month we’ll be releasing a new volume of Iron Kingdoms Excursions, which you can download individually for only $.99 at the Skull Island website, the Kindle Store, Barnes and Noble.com, and iTunes. We’re also offering a “season pass” exclusively on the Skull Island site that allows you to pre-purchase the entire season of six volumes of Iron Kingdoms Excursions for only $4.99, saving you a bit of money and ensuring that you get each volume as soon as it’s released.

Of course, we’ve got more novels, novellas, short stories, and even those crazy novelettes headed your way in the near future. Consider Iron Kingdoms Excursions a fun and different way to feed your appetite for adventure between those longer releases.

Regards from the island,

Aeryn Rudel