What makes a novel a novel?

rupert.grint.love · Aug 15, 2009

Okay, I am writing a story and am starting to think it could just be a REALLY long short story.
So how can I tell if I really am writing a novel?
I am fifteen and doubt myself too much - i am probably just jumping to conclusions but oh well.

thankyou

Kurtz · Aug 15, 2009

A novel is a fictional contruct rooted in a narrative. This is what sets it apart from histories. Novels are written in prose rather than verse, making private reading preferable to oral recitation.

Length is relatively unimportant. What is important is the 'totality of life'. For the ancients in the Homeric epic this meant a fundamental structure and order, in the modern world it is the novel with its "fragmentary nature of the world's structure". Thus the Great Gatsby and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich are novels despite being very short.

A novel focuses on broader socio-political ideas, a novella is focused on a single point and a short story on a single event or feeling that is mostly left to the reader's own interpretation.

Novelist in Paradise · Aug 15, 2009

What's a novel? Good question at any age. There are probably as many answers as there are novelists, but you nailed a good one. A very long short story. Just a sequence of cause and effect, basically.

What's a good novel? Read and read and read and you'll get an idea. Maybe you already know.

James D. Macdonald · Aug 15, 2009

A novel is a book-length work of prose fiction.

If that's what you've got, that's what you have.

Kurtz · Aug 15, 2009

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

If that's what you've got, that's what you have.

Not neccesarily, Ulysses is a (large) book sized work of (mostly) prose fiction and it isn't a novel in the true sense of the word.

Prozyan · Aug 15, 2009

Novel

Seems like Ulysses fits. Thankfully readability isn't a requirement.

Kurtz · Aug 15, 2009

Ulysses, like many works from the Irish revival is a conscious act of rebellion against the idea of the 19th century novel. It is deliberatley sprawling, without as much narrative cohesion as the novel. Joyce made an attempt to kill the novel as a form in Ulysses and fuse it with the ancient epics to create something entirely new (the hubris of modernism).

Danthia · Aug 15, 2009

Rough answer:

Short stories run up to 10K words
Novellas run 10K to 40K words
Novels run 40K+

Note that some younger children's books are in the 500 word (picture books) to 25K words (chapter books) range, but that's a specialized market.

Your word count will give you an idea of what you're writing.

KTC · Aug 15, 2009

What makes a novel a novel?

a contract.

Just kidding. you have some good answers here already. WELCOME TO AW!

Chris Grey · Aug 15, 2009

With regard to the OP's question, Uncle Jim's answer is pretty much dead on.

With regard to the semantic question of the definition of a novel, maybe not so much, but as someone once said:

A novel is: A book length work of realistic prose fiction.

A romance is: A book length prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved in events remote in time or place and usually heroic, adventurous, or mysterious.

The thing that the two have in common are that they're book length (call it 50,000 words and up), prose (that is, not poetry or drama), and fiction (some people have said that fiction is when the author tells his own lies; non-fiction is when he tells someone else's lies).

The realism issue, then, is the core of the difference between a novel and a romance. The "realistic" books are the mainest of mainstream; they are the literary works.

The vast majority of the things you find in bookstores labeled "novels" are actually romances.

So, length.

veinglory · Aug 15, 2009

I think the question here is length. Novels are variously counted as starting at 40, 50 or 60,000 words--it depends on the market.

What makes a novel a novel?

rupert.grint.love

Kurtz

Fix up, look sharp.

Novelist in Paradise

Ah, the joys of dengue fever

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

Kurtz

Fix up, look sharp.

Prozyan

Are you one, Herbert?

Kurtz

Fix up, look sharp.

Danthia

KTC

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Chris Grey

Vagrant Story

veinglory

volitare nequeo