The Novel

• 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