Novel

A Novel is a written fictional work that tells an extended narrative through prose form featuring developed characters, plot structures, and thematic elements.

• AKA: Fictional Prose Narrative, Book-Length Fiction.
• Context:
  • It can typically be created by a single novelist through sustained creative effort and narrative vision.
  • It can typically present fictional world through setting description, character development, and plot progression.
  • It can typically explore human experience through emotional journeys, moral challenges, and social interactions.
  • It can typically contain narrative elements such as exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
  • It can typically address universal themes such as love, death, power, identity, and human condition.
  • It can typically structure narrative flow through literary scenes that function as dramatic units containing unified action, consistent setting, and continuous time.
  • It can typically organize narrative content through literary scene constructions that present dramatic action, character interactions, and setting establishment.
  • It can typically transition between literary scenes through narrative bridges, temporal shifts, and perspective changes.
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  • It can often employ literary techniques such as point of view, symbolism, foreshadowing, irony, and metaphor.
  • It can often utilize modernist literary techniques such as stream of consciousness, free indirect discourse, and temporal manipulation.
  • It can often incorporate dialogue through character speech, interior monologue, and narrative voice.
  • It can often present conflict through character versus character, character versus self, character versus society, and character versus nature.
  • It can often reflect cultural context through historical setting, social norms, and political environment.
  • It can often engage reader response through emotional identification, intellectual stimulation, and moral questioning.
  • It can often produce literary quotes that become cultural references, philosophical maxims, or character-defining statements.
  • It can often contain literary quotes that capture thematic essence, character voice, or philosophical insight.
  • It can often achieve quotability through aphoristic wisdom, emotional resonance, linguistic beauty, or thematic crystallization.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Minimalist Novel to being a Maximalist Novel, depending on its stylistic approach.
  • It can range from being a Linear Novel to being a Non-linear Novel, depending on its temporal structure.
  • It can range from being a Plot-driven Novel to being a Character-driven Novel, depending on its narrative emphasis.
  • It can range from being a Single-perspective Novel to being a Multiple-perspective Novel, depending on its narrative viewpoint.
  • It can range from being a Commercial Novel to being a Literary Novel, depending on its artistic intention and market positioning.
  • It can range from being a Single-Draft Novel to being a Multi-Revision Novel, depending on its editorial process.
  • It can range from being a Standalone Novel to being a Series-Based Novel, depending on its narrative scope.
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  • It can exist in physical formats including hardcover novels, paperback novels, limited edition novels, and large print novels.
  • It can exist in digital formats including e-book novels, audiobook novels, interactive novels, and app-based novels.
  • It can contain structural components such as chapters, prologues, epilogues, footnotes, and appendices.
  • It can undergo publishing processes including manuscript preparation, editorial revision, book design, and market distribution.
  • It can receive critical assessment through literary reviews, scholarly analysis, reader ratings, and award recognition.
  • It can integrate with AI-powered literary analysis systems for thematic extraction, style analysis, and narrative structure mapping.
  • It can undergo computational narrative analysis through natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and plot structure detection.
  • It can serve as training data for large language models in creative writing tasks and narrative generation systems.
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• Examples:
  • Novel Relationship to Realitys, such as:
    • Realist Novels, such as:
      • Mimetic Realist Novels, such as:
        • Madame Bovary (1857), depicting provincial life with psychological realism.
        • Anna Karenina (1877), examining social constraints through detailed observation.
      • Social Realist Novels, such as:
        • Hard Times (1854), criticizing industrial society and utilitarian philosophy.
        • The Grapes of Wrath (1939), portraying great depression hardship and economic injustice.
    • Speculative Fiction Novels, such as:
      • Science Fiction Novels, such as:
        • Hard Science Fiction Novels, such as:
          • The Three-Body Problem (2008), exploring astrophysics concepts and first contact scenario.
          • Seveneves (2015), depicting orbital mechanics and human evolution.
        • Soft Science Fiction Novels, such as:
          • Dune (1965), blending feudal politics with messianic prophecy.
          • The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), examining gender constructs through alien biology.
      • Fantasy Novels, such as:
        • High Fantasy Novels, such as:
          • The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), creating secondary world with comprehensive mythology.
          • A Song of Ice and Fire (1996-present), subverting genre conventions through political intrigue.
        • Urban Fantasy Novels, such as:
          • American Gods (2001), integrating mythological beings into contemporary america.
          • The Night Circus (2011), combining magical competition with victorian setting.
      • Dystopian Fiction Novels, such as:
        • Political Dystopian Fiction Novels, such as:
          • Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), warning against totalitarian surveillance and thought control.
          • The Handmaid's Tale (1985), depicting reproductive oppression in theocratic regime.
        • Technological Dystopian Fiction Novels, such as:
          • Brave New World (1932), examining pleasure-based control and genetic engineering.
          • The Circle (2013), critiquing digital surveillance and social media influence.
      • Alternative History Novels, such as:
        • The Man in the High Castle (1962), imagining axis powers victory in world war ii.
        • The Underground Railroad (2016), blending historical oppression with fantastical elements.
      • Magical Realism Novels, such as:
        • One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), interweaving supernatural events with colombian history.
        • Midnight's Children (1981), connecting personal narrative to indian independence.
  • Novel Genres, such as:
    • Literary Fiction Novels, such as:
      • To the Lighthouse (1927), exploring stream of consciousness technique and family dynamics.
      • One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), exemplifying magical realism and multi-generational saga.
    • Historical Novels, such as:
      • War and Peace (1869), depicting napoleonic wars and russian aristocracy.
      • Wolf Hall (2009), reimagining tudor england through contemporary prose.
    • Mystery Novels, such as:
      • The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), featuring detective protagonist and atmospheric suspense.
      • The Name of the Rose (1980), combining medieval setting with semiotic investigation.
    • Romance Novels, such as:
      • Pride and Prejudice (1813), portraying social manners and romantic misconception.
      • Jane Eyre (1847), combining gothic elements with female bildungsroman.
    • Satirical Novels, such as:
      • Don Quixote (1605), mocking chivalric romance through picaresque adventure.
      • Catch-22 (1961), critiquing military bureaucracy through circular logic.
  • Novel Structural Types, such as:
    • Epistolary Novels, such as:
      • Pamela (1740), constructed through character letters and journal entries.
      • The Color Purple (1982), presenting narrative through correspondence and personal writing.
    • Bildungsroman Novels, such as:
      • David Copperfield (1850), chronicling protagonist development from childhood to adulthood.
      • The Catcher in the Rye (1951), portraying adolescent alienation and identity search.
    • Experimental Novels, such as:
      • Ulysses (1922), employing multiple literary styles and stream of consciousness.
      • To the Lighthouse (1927), utilizing tripartite structure and parenthetical death technique.
      • House of Leaves (2000), utilizing unconventional typography and nested narratives.
    • Graphic Novels, such as:
      • Maus (1991), addressing holocaust experience through anthropomorphic characters.
      • Persepolis (2000), depicting iranian revolution through personal memoir.
  • Novel by Historical Periods, such as:
    • Early Modern Novels, such as:
      • Robinson Crusoe (1719), considered an early english novel with realistic narrative.
      • Gulliver's Travels (1726), combining fantastical voyage with social critique.
    • Victorian Novels, such as:
      • Great Expectations (1861), exploring class mobility and moral growth.
      • Middlemarch (1871-72), presenting provincial society with psychological depth.
    • Modernist Novels, such as:
      • To the Lighthouse (1927), revolutionizing narrative time through stream of consciousness and tripartite structure.
      • Mrs. Dalloway (1925), utilizing single-day structure and psychological interiority.
      • The Sound and the Fury (1929), employing fragmented chronology and multiple perspectives.
    • Postmodernist Novels, such as:
      • Gravity's Rainbow (1973), featuring paranoid narrative and encyclopedic reference.
      • Infinite Jest (1996), exploring addiction themes through footnoted digression.
    • Contemporary Novels, such as:
      • The Road (2006), depicting post-apocalyptic journey with minimalist prose.
      • Cloud Atlas (2004), presenting nested narratives across different time periods.
  • Novel Scene Types, such as:
    • Opening Literary Scenes, such as:
      • "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" Opening (A Tale of Two Cities), establishing thematic duality.
      • "Call me Ishmael" Opening (Moby-Dick), creating narrative intimacy.
      • "Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow" Opening (To the Lighthouse), establishing conditional promise.
    • Climactic Literary Scenes, such as:
      • The Plaza Hotel Confrontation (The Great Gatsby), revealing character truths.
    • Literary Quotes from Novels, such as:
      • "All happy families are alike" (Anna Karenina), expressing universal observation.
      • "It is a truth universally acknowledged" (Pride and Prejudice), establishing ironic tone.
      • "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself" (Mrs. Dalloway), establishing character agency.
      • "She had had her vision" (To the Lighthouse), marking artistic achievement.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Short Story, which maintains narrative fiction but with condensed length, limited characters, and focused incident rather than the extended development of a novel.
  • Memoir, which presents personal experience through non-fiction narrative rather than fictional invention.
  • Poetry, which employs verse structure, heightened language, and rhythmic pattern rather than extended prose narrative.
  • Drama, which is primarily designed for theatrical performance through character dialogue and stage direction rather than readerly consumption.
  • Essay, which presents authorial argument, personal reflection, or information sharing rather than fictional storytelling.
  • Academic Treatise, which focuses on scholarly analysis and factual presentation rather than imaginative creation.
• See: Fiction, Narrative, Literature, Prose, Character, Plot, Setting, Theme, Literary Genre, Publishing, Literary Scene, Literary Quote, "To The Lighthouse" Scene, "To The Lighthouse" Quote.

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References

2023

• Bing search "A novel is a "
  • A novel is a type of literary work that is usually written in prose and tells a long and complex story about human experiences. A novel typically consists of a connected sequence of events involving a group of characters in a specific setting. Novels can belong to different genres, such as romance, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, and more. Novels are different from other forms of fiction, such as short stories, novellas, or fables, in terms of length, scope, and realism. Novels are considered to be one of the most popular and influential forms of art and entertainment in the modern world. ¹²³⁴⁵
  • Source: Conversation with Bing, 11/8/2023
    1. Novel | Definition, Elements, Examples, Types, & Facts. https://www.britannica.com/art/novel.
    2. Novel Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/novel.
    3. What Is a Novel? Definition and Characteristics - ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-novel-4685632.
    4. Novel - Examples and Definition of Novel - Literary Devices. https://literarydevices.net/novel/.
    5. Novel - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel.

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