The Novel

Cards (45)

  • Novel - a piece of long narrative in literary prose
  • Novel - a long, fictional narrative which describes human experiences
  • Narrative prose - meant to entertain and tell a story
  • Narrative prose - a description of a chain of events which includes a cast of characters, a setting, and an ending
  • Flash Fiction - under 500 words
  • Short Story - between 1 000 and 8 000 words
  • Long short story - between 5 000 and 10 000 words
  • Novella - story that is between 10 000 to 40 000 words
  • Novella - a skilled reader can usually finish in a day
  • Novel - manuscript over 40 000 words
  • Novel - minimun word count is 50 000
  • Novel - between 60 000 and 100 000 words
  • Epics - books over the 110 000 word count
  • What makes a novel a novel?
    • The work should be complete narrative prose, and not a piece of non-fiction, shopping list/a laboriously long poem
  • What makes a novel a novel?
    • It should be long enought to distinguish it from a "short story"
  • What makes a novel a novel?
    • There should be at least 1 character and 1 POV. Not 1/the other. This is to discriminate against books that spend 300 pages describing the weather
  • What makes a novel a novel?
    • The narrative should follow a structure of some sort, eg, beginning, middle, end, but not necessarily in that order
  • What makes a novel a novel?
    • There should be at least 1 conflict/challenge that character(s) must overcome. They don't necessarily have to learn anything
  • What makes a novel a novel?
    • It should be finished. That is, the author is happy that the narrative arc has been satisfied
  • 11 Different genres/types of novels
    • Historical
    • Realistic
    • Romance
    • Mystery, Horror, Thriller
    • Crime Fiction and Detective Fiction
    • Fantasy
    • Science Fiction
    • Utopian
    • Dystopian
    • Children's Fiction
    • Young Adult Fiction
  • Historical - novel set in a period earlier than that of the writing and/or describes a particular time period
  • Examples of Historical Novels
    • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
    • Without Seeing the Dawn by Stevan Javellana
  • Realistic - also called as "Novel of Manners"
  • Realistic - genre consisting of stories that could have actually occurred to people/animal in a believable setting
  • Realistic - stories resemble real life, and fictional characters within these stories react similarly to real people
  • Romance - about love and passion
  • Romance - normally, the focus is on 2 characters who fall in love but have problems/obstacles keeping them apart, and there is a happy ending
  • Horror - focused on creating emotions of terror and dread in the reader
  • Thrillers - designed to make the reader's pulse race, to keep him/her turning pages
  • Thrillers - often about a crime that is going to be committed/a disaster that is going to happen if the hero(ine) doesn't prevent it
  • Mystery - genre whose stories focus on a puzzling crime, situation,/circumstance that needs to be solved, focusing on deception
  • Crime Fiction - refers to a fictional narrative where a crime is committed, followed by an investigation conducted by a professional/amateur sleuth to solve the crime
  • Detective Fiction - subgenre of crime fiction where the exploration of a crime committed focuses on a lead detective and their ways of investigating
  • Fantasy - about imaginary
    worlds. The imaginary part usually involves magic or
    supernatural beings
  • Science Fiction - fiction that imagines possible
    alternatives to reality. It is reality + "What-if."
  • Science Fiction - the imaginary part is based on known scientific facts
  • Utopian - community/society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities
  • Utopian - common literary theme, especially in
    speculative fiction and science fiction
  • Dystopian - unpleasant (typically repressive) society
  • Dystopian - often set in a post-apocalyptic world