Must a novel be formulaic?

Hublocker

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Does a novel have to follow the standard formula?

You know what I mean; you have a protagonist, he encounters a problem, he has to achieve some goal, there is a crisis that stops him, and he attempts to overcome it, fails, tries again, and after several efforts, setbacks and possibly other complications succeeds. Happy ending.
 

Curlz

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Have you read novels that don't follow this formula? And did you enjoy them? (yes, they do exist)
 

Justobuddies

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I suppose that depends on your goal as a writer.

Do you want to write a novel that sells well or a piece of literary art?

If the former is your goal then, typically, yes the market will demand that certain scenes appear in your novel; these differ depending on your genre. However, if you're making a literary artwork, and you're unconcerned about it's commercial success then break all the rules you want and make sure that the blue curtains have a deeper meaning.
 

cbenoi1

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> Does a novel have to follow the standard formula?

No.

-cb
 

indianroads

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I think a novel should have something to say, how you go about doing that is where the art of writing comes in.

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, and Breakfast of Champions were pretty unique (to my eye) in composition, and did well in terms of sales.
 

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Some novels work really well with the approach outlined in the OP, but not all do. I can think of plenty of commercially successful (as well as critically acclaimed) authors who depart from it for some, or all, of their work. Authors like Margaret Atwood come to mind. Even within so-called genre fiction, not all novels follow that format. Do GRRM's or Joe Abercrombie's (just to name a couple of popular fantasy writers) books follow that format? Are they literary fiction? Not hardly.

Use the structure that works for the story you want to tell. There's no guarantee your work will sell, let alone be commercially successful, no matter what approach you take to plot structure. Write to please yourself, and write as well as you can. Those are the only things you can really control.
 
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frimble3

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In general, yes. That's what readers expect.
But, there are also 'novels' that are collections of interwoven vignettes, individual episodes strung together, or short stories connected by a common theme. Sort of 'slice of life' stuff, centered around a particular place, or time, or group of people. (I think some sort of continuity is needed, or its just a collection of short stories.)
The 'Miss Read' village stories, or 'Lake Wobegon' by Garrison Keillor. Or 'Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town' by Stephen Leacock.
There are others. Gregory Clark did collections of his magazine columns, usually referring to his life and friends. Sort of folksy recurring characters. (Very popular in their day, they now appear to be out-of-print.)
 

JackieZee

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Nope! Some people really love a good novel that turns regular formulas on their heads. It can be harder to pull off, but if you do it the result can be delicious.
 

blacbird

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Does a novel have to follow the standard formula?

You know what I mean; you have a protagonist, he encounters a problem, he has to achieve some goal, there is a crisis that stops him, and he attempts to overcome it, fails, tries again, and after several efforts, setbacks and possibly other complications succeeds. Happy ending.

Certainly not the final (bolded) part.

caw
 

Fuchsia Groan

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The "formula" you're citing originated with classical drama, I suspect (Aristotle's Poetics; the French notion of "unity of action"). Today, it's reinforced by the modern descendants of ancient drama: Hollywood screenplays. Hence the common demand that a novel have a three-act structure with a midpoint, basically following screenplay manuals.

(ETA: The happy ending, however, is totally optional. That's only ever been a "requirement" in particular genres, like classical comedy and much romance. It's commercial, but it's hardly universal.)

There's nothing wrong with this structure. It's lasted thousands of years (with many variations) because it works. In a two-hour film or three-hour play, economy and unity are paramount, and such formulas help writers root out rambling subplots and the like. They can be helpful for many types of novel, especially anything where suspense is important. I use three-act structure myself.

However, the novel, from its very inception, has offered many other possibilities, including long, rambling, branching narratives and forms of parody and experimentation that turn the dramatic formulas on their heads (Don Quijote, Tristram Shandy, etc.). Many postmodern novelists have taken their cue from those early weirdnesses.

Some novels were serialized (like Dickens') and arguably offer no more of a traditional dramatic structure than a typical serialized TV show does today. Others were epistolary, like Pamela or Les Liaisons dangereuses — what we might now call novels composed of "found" material. Others were first-person narratives that masqueraded as memoirs, and so forth.

I'm sure a critic could argue that, at their root, all novels follow a version of the formula you cited. It's hard to have a compelling novel without some form of protagonist(s) and some form of conflict. But within those parameters, there are an unimaginable number of possibilities.

But, rather than getting hung up on formula, I would simply ask whether the novel has enough conflict to keep someone reading. Don Quijote is rambling and digressive, but the basic conflict of delusional dude versus reality is compelling. I look at a lot of self-published literary novels, and I would say the No. 1 problem that makes me put them down is that the author is way more interested in exploring a world-view or a voice than in creating conflict. Chapters and chapters of introspection work if you are Virginia Woolf, but rare is the writer who knows how to make "a character sitting around thinking" compelling, in my experience.
 
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amergina

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No, it need not be formulaic.

But there are ways humans tell and consume stories, so there's also nothing wrong with using those methods.
 

Putputt

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Read more novels.
 

mccardey

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OP here. I've been reading novels since 1963.
Read different novels! Read novels from different shelves of different bookshops or recommendations from different reviewers. (And now I get to make my favourite book recommendation - read Marilynne Robinson's Gilead.But there's a multitude of others that would also answer your question.)
 
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Lady Ice

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I think people are making that assumption (as opposed to assuming you're asking for the sake of discussion) because it's often the root cause for such questions.

This! You've surely read enough to know that the standard formula doesn't always have a happy ending.

Think- are you not using that formula because it doesn't work for your story or are you not using it simply for the sake of being different? You can use formulas without having a formulaic novel and you can write a formulaic breaking-the-formula novel.