Play-Novellas… have you read any?

One thing a lot of people gloss over in reading Steinbeck’s *Of Mice and Men* is that it is really a play with the stage directions taking the form of a novella. It doesn’t need much adaptation to stage or screen. It’s actually easier to adapt than a graphic novel. All of the characters speak their thoughts, often in dialogue. It has a three act structure with two chapters per act.

I always wondered why more writers didn’t adopt this dialogue-driven dramatic approach. Do you know of any others? I tried Googling “play-novelette” as Steinbeck called it, or “play-novella” and I don’t get much. Camus’ *The Stranger*? Really? I don’t mean book that simply ape the dramatic structure or themes of a play, but books (they would have to be novellas given the time restrictions of a play) that still make sense if you strip the prose down to the bare bones and keep only the dialogue.