What is a novel?

scarletpeaches · Nov 19, 2008

Barbara Taylor Bradford once said:

A novel is a monumental lie that must have the absolute ring of truth.

It's a quotation that's always stuck with me and I agree with it wholeheartedly.

But how would you define a novel, either in your own words or using someone else's?

maestrowork · Nov 19, 2008

Anything longer than 40,000 words?

scarletpeaches · Nov 19, 2008

Fnarr. I thought I was the one who gave smart-ass replies round here?

dclary · Nov 19, 2008

Anything made of paper, selling for $6.97 at Wal-Mart.

Willowmound · Nov 19, 2008

Damned lies and half truths that people believe in despite themselves.

I notice that this would mean that certain election promises are novels.

maestrowork · Nov 19, 2008

BTW, BTB stole my quote:

Fiction writers tell lies to speak of the truth.

Alpha Echo · Nov 19, 2008

I like that quote, and I agree. A novel is something untrue that you believe and feel anyway.

James D. Macdonald · Nov 19, 2008

A book-length work of prose fiction.

tehuti88 · Nov 19, 2008

Novel:

A timeless truth told using lies?

That strikes me as more accurate. But I'm kind of sappy that way.

seun · Nov 19, 2008

I'm with Blackadder:

"A huge, roller coaster of a novel in four hundred sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the eighteenth century, with some hot gypsies thrown in."

maestrowork · Nov 19, 2008

seun said:
"A huge, roller coaster of a novel in four hundred sizzling chapters..."

That's a pretty thick book.... or just busy.

Phaeal · Nov 19, 2008

A doorway into metareality. Or just a really long story. Depends on my mood.

Mr. Chuckletrousers · Nov 19, 2008

Something that is new, original and never seen before.

RainyDayNinja · Nov 19, 2008

dclary said:
Anything made of paper, selling for $6.97 at Wal-Mart.

In that case, I'm going to send out a family-sized pack of paper plates to some publishers. Wish me luck.

Gillhoughly · Nov 19, 2008

James D. Macdonald said:
A book-length work of prose fiction.

That makes me money.

blacbird · Nov 19, 2008

Alpha Echo said:
A novel is something untrue that you believe and feel anyway.

There's a difference between "fact" and "truth". A novel is a narrative made of artificially contrived events presented as "fact" (or at least disguised as such), but which the reader knows aren't real facts (or at least most readers know that). In good novels, those artifices are used to express "truth". Jesus Christ taught truth in parables, employing the same artifice.

caw

The Lonely One · Nov 19, 2008

A novel is an all-consuming black hole that demands your soul as you write it and eats away at your soul when you don't.

It tortures your very being, lies to you about how you aught to spend your time, makes you forget about the world you live in and sucks you into the one you and it have created together.

A novel is the door to a very scary place in the deepest cracks of your subconscious where things you've bottled deep uncork.

And, it is a chance that perhaps, maybe, someone else's soul will be taken as well.

Adam Hammonds · Nov 19, 2008

Someone (who knows who) said of this topic something on the order of: a work of fiction inherently flawed.

Meaning: novels are way too long to be perfect. Whereas a poem or a short story has at least the chance to be so.

It's in line with those old adages like 'I would have written something shorter but I didn't have the time.'

Shweta · Nov 19, 2008

Seems to me there'sa difference between the definitions that "feel" write and the definitions that are technically accurate.

Things other than novels aren't true, and have the ring of truth; but the definition still feels most right for novels. At that, they have the ring of truth, not factuality, and they don't generally pretend to factive status, so they're really not lies.

None of which stops the OP definition from ...er.... ringing true :tongue

maestrowork · Nov 19, 2008

A book-form story with a beginning, middle, and end about the human condition. Something preferably entertaining, but potentially may change lives or the world.

raydad · Nov 19, 2008

300 or so pages of test-marketed ghost writing pilth, namely about secret government organizations, enviro-terrorists plots and neo-Marxist assassins--oh yes, I forgot to add a couple of dozen hot gypsies. Yes, we mustn't forget the hot gypsies. You'll succeed if your initials are JP and you don't actually write the novels.

The Lady · Nov 19, 2008

Neil Gaiman is reputed to have said something like, " a novel is a large chunk of prose with something wrong with it."

otterman · Nov 19, 2008

See: compulsion.

Aschenbach · Nov 19, 2008

A (good) novel is a portal, to somewhere else or someone else.

When you read it, the imaginary world can seem realer than the real world, at least for a few minutes.

(I meant to post something jocular but I came over all serious and pretentious instead.........my bad).

mscelina · Nov 19, 2008

The four thousand or so things on my shelves that I have to dust every week.

What is a novel?

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I should be writing.

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Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

Sith happens.

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