NaNoWriMo Beckons: Super-Short Classics That’ll Inspire You

Beautiful You, by Chuck Palahniuk
Love him or hate him, you can’t have a discussion about modern fiction without talking about Palahniuk: his style, his success, and his impact on literature. Beautiful You isn’t the first Palahniuk novel most people mention, but this story about a female sex toy so effective it has the potential to change the world—and perhaps not for the better—was famously written in ten days. Ten. Days. Next time someone claims you can’t write a marketable novel in a month, tell them Palahniuk did it with nearly three weeks to spare for editing and revision.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Haters say a 50,000-word novel isn’t impressive? Remind them that The Great Gatsby, generally regarded as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, clocks in at just over 47,000 words. Sure, it took longer than a month to write, but it proves that serious literature doesn’t always require a back brace to carry around.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
When the Haters suggest short fiction isn’t commercially viable, refer them to Roald Dahl’s classic 1964 novel. Short enough that it doesn’t even qualify for a NaNoWriMo “win” (barely over 30,000 words), it has remained in print for decades and inspired sequels, film adaptations, a candy line, stage plays, and video games, proving short novels can be as commercially successful as epic fantasy 10 times as long.

The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
Haters may suggest short novels are an affliction of the modern age, and claim that “serious literature” must be long and deep. To that, we respond with The Red Badge of Courage, a novel that ranks with the greatest war novels ever written and is still taught in many schools today—and happens to be just a hair over 47,000 words long.

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
If the Haters say a novel written in a month can’t possibly be ripe with lived-in experience and adventure? Show them On the Road, which Kerouac wrote in three weeks in 1951 on his famous continuous roll of paper. Kerouac had been traveling and taking notes for years beforehand, of course, but no one said you can’t prepare for NaNoWriMo—only that you’re supposed to write 50,000 words of one novel in one month. If you’ve got something to say, you, too, might become the voice of a generation—even if you write your novel in a single November.
For all of you tackling NaNoWriMo this year, we salute you.