I have added a couple of children’s picture books as Works and there isn’t anything in ‘Type’ that describes these books. It might be helpful to have a “Children’s Literature” Type.
The other 'Type’s that are desperately needed are Essay, Play and Screenplay.
Currently the list consists of:
Novel
Short Story
Epic
Poem
Article
Scientific Paper
Non-fiction
Anthology
Serial
Introduction
Novella
I feel that Poem and Epic are duplicates. An Epic is a lengthy narrative poem, however so far I have seen most contributors use Epic to describe lengthy novels.
The other thing to remember is Novel and Novella are not synonymous with Fiction, there is a genre of non-fiction novels and novellas.
As for Epic, there is an open ticket that requests a clarification of the term:
A quick glance at various dictionaries suggests both terms are specifically fiction terms, unless explicitly specified as “non-fiction novel”:
Merriam Webster
Novel: an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience[…]
Novella: a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel
The Cambridge dictionary says of novels:
a long printed story about imaginary characters and events […]
While Britannica explicitly describes:
The novel is a genre of fiction […]
I suggest we spell out “Non-fiction novel” as a type under “Non-fiction” (rather than repeating “Novel”, which would be less clear in my opinion and could become confusing.
“…broadly speaking, depicts real historical figures and actual events woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwise loosely defined and flexible genre.”
I have read many so called “novels” that fit within that definition.
The point I was really trying to make is the term novel is not always synonymous with the term Fiction.
I agree with that statement. And I also think we should have specific non-fiction types for them.
To be clear, what I suggested was not to avoid using novel or novella, but rather specifying clearly “non-fiction novel” and “non-fiction novella” like this:
That way at a glance, looking at a Work, I will see “Non-fiction Novel” as its type instead of simply “Novel”, which in my opinion would be misleading since the accepted definition of “Novel” coincides with fiction.