Why are novella's not novels?
Novella
The novella is generally not as formally experimental as the long story and the novel can be, and it usually lacks the subplots, the multiple points of view, and the generic adaptability that are common in the novel. It is most often concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description.
Telenovela
Commonly described using the American colloquialism Spanish soap opera, many telenovelas share some stylistic and thematic similarities to the soap opera familiar to the English-speaking world. The significant difference is their series run length; telenovelas tell one self-contained story, typically within the span of a year or less whereas soap operas tend to have intertwined storylines told during indefinite, continuing runs. This makes them shorter than most other television series, but still much longer than a miniseries. This planned run results in a faster-paced, more concise style of melodrama compared to a typical soap opera. Episodes of telenovelas usually last between 30 and 45 minutes, and rarely more than an hour, except for final episodes. The telenovela combines drama with the 19th-century "feuilleton", and naturally evolved from the Latin American radionovela, according to Blanca de Lizaur.
Novel (Roman law)
In Roman law, a novel (, "new decree"; ) is a new decree or edict, in other words a new law. The term was used from the fourth century AD onwards and was specifically used for laws issued after the publishing of the "Codex Theodosianus" in 438 and then for the Justiniac Novels, or "Novellae Constitutiones". The term was used on and off in later Roman history until falling out of use during the late Byzantine period.
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a book made up of comics content. Although the word "novel" normally refers to long fictional works, the term "graphic novel" is applied broadly and includes fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work. It is distinguished from the term "comic book", which is generally used for comics periodicals.
Telenovela
Telenovelas have geographically diverged into two major groups - the Latinovelas, and the Asianovelas, portmanteaus of Latin and Asian with 'novelas". Telenovelas, in particular, are the most popular non-English-speaking scripted forms of entertainment in the world to date.
Novel
The rise of the novel as an alternative to the romance began with the publication of Cervantes' "Novelas Exemplares" (1613). It continued with Scarron's "Roman Comique" (the first part of which appeared in 1651), whose heroes noted the rivalry between French romances and the new Spanish genre.
Political fiction
The proletarian novel is written by workers, mainly for other workers. It overlaps and sometimes is synonymous with the working-class novel, socialist novel, social-problem novel (also problem novel, sociological novel, or social novel), propaganda or thesis novel, and socialist-realism novel. The intention of the writers of proletarian literature is to lift the workers from the slums by inspiring them to embrace the possibilities of social change or of a political revolution. As such, it is a form of political fiction.
Novel
The French churchman and scholar Pierre Daniel Huet's "Traitté de l'origine des romans" (1670) laid the ground for a greater acceptance of the novel as literature, that is comparable to the classics, in the early 18th century. The theologian had not only dared to praise fictions, but he had also explained techniques of theological interpretation of fiction, which was a novelty. Furthermore, readers of novels and romances could gain insight not only into their own culture, but also that of distant, exotic countries.
National Outstanding Children’s Literature Award
Novels
Novellas and short stories
Young readers
Poetry
Essays
Non-fiction
Sci-fi
Young authors
Novel
Romance or chivalric romance is a type of narrative in prose or verse popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight-errant with heroic qualities, who undertakes a quest, yet it is "the emphasis on heterosexual love and courtly manners distinguishes it from the "chanson de geste" and other kinds of epic, which involve heroism." In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love.
Short story
The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella (a shorter novel), authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques.
Epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use. The word "epistolary" is derived from Latin from the Greek word ἐπιστολή "epistolē", meaning a letter (see epistle).
Novella
Commonly, longer novellas are referred to as novels; Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886) and Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (1899) are sometimes called novels, as are many science fiction works such as H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" (1897) and Philip Francis Nowlan's "Armageddon 2419 A.D." (1928). Less often, longer works are referred to as novellas. The subjectivity of the parameters of the novella genre is indicative of its shifting and diverse nature as an art form. In her 2010 "Open Letters Monthly" series, "A Year With Short Novels", Ingrid Norton criticizes the tendency to make clear demarcations based purely on a book's length:
Hugo Award for Best Novel
The Hugo Award for Best Novel is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novel award is available for works of fiction of 40,000 words or more; awards are also given out in the short story, novelette, and novella categories. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing".
Word count
Novelist Jane Smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. However, novels can vary tremendously in length; Smiley lists novels as typically being between 100,000 and 175,000 words, while National Novel Writing Month requires its novels to be at least 50,000 words. There are no firm rules: for example, the boundary between a novella and a novel is arbitrary and a literary work may be difficult to categorise. But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer, lengths may also vary by subgenre; many chapter books for children start at a length of about 16,000 words, and a typical mystery novel might be in the 60,000 to 80,000 word range while a thriller could be well over 100,000 words.
Novel
The entire genre has been seen as having "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in classical Greece and Rome, in medieval and early modern romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella. (Since the 18th century, the term "novella", or "novelle" in German, has been used in English and other European languages to describe a long short story or a short novel.)
Webnovela
A webnovela or foronovela is a phenomenon in Latin American and European countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela among others. The term "webnovela", translated to English means "web novel". It is like a television soap opera with actors and soundtrack among other traits. Its base principally is fan fiction, where fans of a certain serial or soap opera (in Spanish telenovela) or certain actor or actress create a story based on them.
Noon Wine
While "Noon Wine" and its companion pieces, "Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," have been described as novellas, Porter referred to them as short novels. Porter, in the preface "Go Little Book . . " to "The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter", abjured the word "novella," calling it a "slack, boneless, affected word that we do not need to describe anything." She went on to say, "Please call my works by their right names. We have four that cover every division: short stories, long stories, short novels, novels."
Novella
This etymological distinction avoids confusion of the literatures and the forms, with the novel being the more important, established fictional form. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's "Die Schachnovelle" (1942) (literally, "The Chess Novella", but translated in 1944 as "The Royal Game") is an example of a title naming its genre.
Novel of manners
This near-simultaneous emergence of the novel of manners and the Gothic novel led to a crossover of characteristics between the genres. The main link between the novel of manners and the Gothic novel is the language of manners. In both cases, social and moral manners are dominating factors in the structure of the novel. In the Gothic novel, the starkest difference is the supernatural or the indication of supernatural events. However, many of the characters are often so far below the accepted level of social behaviour that it is considered horrific. Another feature that differs from the novel of manners is the outcome of the novel. In Gothic fiction, the outcome is not always the positive reinforcement of morals that the novel of manners offers. An example of this morally anti-climactic ending would be Charlotte Dacre's "Zofloya".
Novel in Scotland
The novel in its modern form developed rapidly in the eighteenth century and was soon a major element of Scottish literary and critical life. There was a demand in Scotland for the newest novels including "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), "Pamela" (1740), "Tom Jones" (1749) and "Evelina" (1788). There were weekly reviews of novels in periodicals, the most important of which were "The Monthly Review" and "The Critical Review". Lending libraries were established in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Private manor libraries were established in estate houses. The universities began to acquire novels and they became part of the curriculum. By the 1770s about thirty novels were being printed in Britain and Ireland every year and there is plentiful evidence that they were being read, particularly by women and students in Scotland. Scotland and Scottish authors made a modest contribution to this early development. About forty full length prose books were printed in Scotland before 1800. One of the earliest was the anonymously authored "Select Collection of Oriental Tales" (1776).
Mihai Ralea
On such grounds, Ralea concluded that Romanian writers "have had no deep spiritual experience", lacking "a comprehension of humanity, of life and death." In a notorious socio-critical essay, first published in "Perspective", Ralea asked: "Why Did We Not Produce a Novel?". He contended that the grand epic genre, unlike the short story, did not yet suit the Romanian psyche, since it required discipline, anonymity, and a "great moral significance". He also postulated a deterministic relationship between the staples of ancestral Romanian folklore and modern literary choices: in the absence of any ambitious poetic cycles (as found in Western literature), Romanian ballads and "doine" had naturally mutated into novellas. In order to mend such a historical disadvantage, he set himself the goal of writing his own novel, but eventually gave up on the idea. At the time of its writing, the essay claimed to count only a few living novelists; by 1935, however, there was already talk of an "inflation of novels".
War and Peace
Tolstoy said "War and Peace" is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle." Large sections, especially the later chapters, are a philosophical discussion rather than narrative. Tolstoy also said that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to call "War and Peace" a novel. Instead, he regarded "Anna Karenina" as his first true novel. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" states: "It can be argued that no single English novel attains the universality of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace"".
Light novel
Light novels are an evolution of pulp magazines. To please their audience, in the 1970s, most of the Japanese pulp magazines, which had already changed from the classic style to the popular anime style covers, began to put illustrations at the beginning of each story and included articles about popular anime, movies and video games. The narrative evolved to please the new generations and became fully illustrated with the popular style. The popular serials are printed in novels.
Josh Viola
Novellas
Novella
Dictionaries define novelette similarly to "novella"; sometimes identically, sometimes with a disparaging sense of being trivial or sentimental. Some literary awards have a longer "novella" and a shorter "novelette" categories, with a distinction based on word count. A range between 7,500 and 17,500 words is common among awards.
Light novel
A is a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting high school and middle school students (young adult demographic). "Light novel" is a "wasei-eigo", or a Japanese term formed from words in the English language. Light novels are often called or, in the West, LN. The average length of a light novel is about 50,000 words, the equivalent size of an American novel, and light novels are usually published in "bunkobon" size (A6, 10.5 cm × 14.8 cm), often with dense publishing schedules. A distinguishing characteristic of light novels is that they are illustrated with anime and manga art style, often being adapted into such media. They are mainly published in separate book volumes, while some of them have their chapters serialized in anthology magazines before collection in book form, comparable to how manga are published.
Fiction
In its most narrow usage fiction refers to novels, but it may also denote any "literary narrative" (see literary fiction), including novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, fiction has come to encompass imaginative storytelling in any format, including writings, theatrical performances, comics, films, television programs, animations, games (most notably, video games and role-playing games), and so on.
Literature
In purely quantitative terms, the novella exists between the novel and short story; the publisher Melville House classifies it as "too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story". There is no precise definition in terms of word or page count. Literary prizes and publishing houses often have their own arbitrary limits, which vary according to their particular intentions. Summarizing the variable definitions of the novella, William Giraldi concludes "[it is a form] whose identity seems destined to be disputed into perpetuity". It has been suggested that the size restriction of the form produces various stylistic results, both some that are shared with the novel or short story, and others unique to the form.
Literary genre
Often, the criteria used to divide up works into genres are not consistent, and may change constantly, and be subject of argument, change and challenge by both authors and critics. However, even a very loose term like fiction ("literature created from the imagination, not presented as fact, though it may be based on a true story or situation") is not universally applied to all fictitious literature, but instead is typically restricted to the use for novel, short story, and novella, but not fables, and is also usually a prose text. Types of fiction genres are science fiction and fantasy, historical fiction, realistic fiction and mysteries.
Novella
Some literary awards include a "best novella" award and sometimes a separate "best novelette" award, separately from "best short story" or "best novel". The distinction between these categories may be entirely by word count.
Occitan literature
Novels came to be extended to the proportions of a long romance. "Flamenca", which belongs to the novel type, has still over eight thousand verses, though the only MS. of it has lost some leaves both at the beginning and at the end. This poem, composed in all probability in 1234, is the story of a lady who by very ingenious devices, not unlike those employed in the "Miles gloriosus" of Plautus, succeeds in eluding the vigilance of her jealous husband. No analysis can be given here of a work the action of which is highly complicated; suffice it to remark that there is no book in medieval literature which betokens so much quickness of intellect and is so instructive in regard to the manners and usages of polite society in the 13th century. We know that novels were in great favor in the south of France, although the specimens preserved are not very numerous. Statements made by Francesco da Barberino (early part of the 14th century), and recently brought to light, give us a glimpse of several works of this class which have been lost. From the Occitan territories the novel spread into Catalonia, where we find in the 14th century a number of novels in verse very similar to the Provençal ones, and into Italy, where in general the prose form has been adopted.
Novel
The rise of the word novel at the cost of its rival, the romance, remained a Spanish and English phenomenon, and though readers all over Western Europe had welcomed the novel(la) or short history as an alternative in the second half of the 17th century, only the English and the Spanish had, however, openly discredited the romance.
Novelist
Novelists don't usually publish their first novels until later in life. However, many novelists begin writing at a young age. For example, Iain Banks (1954-2013) began writing at eleven, and at sixteen completed his first novel, "The Hungarian Lift-Jet", about international arms dealers, "in pencil in a larger-than-foolscap log book". However, he was thirty before he published his first novel, the highly controversial "The Wasp Factory" in 1984. The success of this novel enabled Banks to become a full-time novelist. Often an important writers' juvenilia, even if not published, is prized by scholars because it provides insight into an author's biography and approach to writing; for example, the Brontë family's juvenilia that depicts their imaginary world of Gondal, currently in the British Library, has provided important information on their development as writers.
History of literature
The form of writing now commonplace across the world—the novel—originated from the early modern period and grew in popularity in the next century. Before the modern novel became established as a form there first had to be a transitional stage when "novelty" began to appear in the style of the epic poem.
Telenovela
Telenovelas also have a different type of story from English-language soaps, the typical telenovela story being focused on a rivalry between two or more people or families in romance or business. Many of them use stock themes like a cinderella (who is a rival of the male protagonist's evil girlfriend), two brothers after one woman (or two sisters after one man) or mistaken/unknown parentage. Typically, the hero gets shot (or some form of fate equivalent to that).
List of novellas
This is a list of novellas that have been recognised as the best examples of the genre. A novella is a fiction work longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. It is generally thought to be between around 20,000 and 40,000 words in length.
Romance Writers of America
Of the 9000 RWA members, approximately 2,000 have seen their novels published in print. An unknown number of other writers have published their books through electronic publishers. Eight percent of all electronic books are romances, the RWA does not recognize vanity publishers who offer little or no editing or promotional help. Any RWA General or Honorary member in good standing who has earned at least: (1) $1,000 in the form of an advance on a single Eligible Novel* or Eligible Novella** (“Option One”); or (2) $1,000 in the form of royalties or a combination of advance plus royalties on a single published Eligible Novel* or Eligible Novella** (“Option Two”); or (3) $5,000 in the form of earnings for a Self-Published novel or novella (“Option Three”) that meets the definition of Romance Fiction shall be eligible for membership in PAN, the Published Author Network within RWA. In Spring 2010, because they've signed a contract to publish their manuscript, these published authors are not eligible to enter the unpublished Golden Heart contest.
Saga novel
A saga novel is a novel among various literary novels which is encompassing the wide scopes of stories and narratives such as religious saga, national saga, family saga, and human saga, etc.
Ilsa (novel)
Unlike virtually all of L'Engle's other novels, "Ilsa" has never been republished or reprinted. Although no official explanation has ever been given, the book's continued unavailability appears to stem from the author's own reported dissatisfaction with the book. As an early work, "Ilsa" lacks the positive themes of family, love, faith, and overcoming adversity that are so prevalent in L'Engle's later novels. The plot may also be considered somewhat unsatisfactory, with more happening "to" the characters than being done "by" them. Although this was probably a deliberate choice by the author at the time, the result is an unconventional, somewhat disturbing book.
Carlism in literature
Many of the wartime "novelas de tesis" were built upon action-packed intrigues, yet nagging moralising objectives and clear pedagogical if not propagandistic purpose usually prevailed over their adventurous features. This is not the case of another novelistic subgenre, where adventure is on the forefront; it might be cast in historical or contemporaty setting. In Spanish history of literature they are dubbed "novela de aventura" or - usually when romance threads prevail - "novela rosa", the latter intended mostly for female audience. This kind of literature was another one featuring the Carlist threads and Carlist protagonists; unlike "novela de tesis" works falling into this rubric were usually though not always cast against the historic framework, especially during the Carlist Wars of the 19th century. Especially in case of Carlist authors such background allowed more flexibility when promoting their political cause, subject to much more rigorous censorship scrutiny in case of the last civil war. This literature was on the rise since the 1940s, in mid-Francoism becoming the key platform of sustaining Carlist presence in culture.
Graphic novel
Responding to writer Douglas Wolk's quip that the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book is "the binding", "Bone" creator Jeff Smith said, "I kind of like that answer. Because 'graphic novel' ... I don't like that name. It's trying too hard. It is a comic book. But there is a difference. And the difference is, a graphic novel is a novel in the sense that there is a beginning, a middle and an end." "The Times" writer Giles Coren said, "To call them graphic novels is to presume that the novel is in some way 'higher' than the karmicbwurk (comic book), and that only by being thought of as a sort of novel can it be understood as an art form."
Nebula Award for Best Short Story
The Nebula Award for Best Short Story is a literary award assigned each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy short stories. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a short story if it is less than 7,500 words; awards are also given out for longer works in the categories of novel, novella, and novelette. To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration a short story must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The Nebula Award for Best Short Story has been awarded annually since 1966. The award has been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards.
Roman à clef
Roman à clef (, ), French for "novel with a key", is a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction. The "key" may be produced separately by the author or implied through the use of epigraphs or other literary techniques.
Novella
Stephen King, in his introduction to "Different Seasons", a collection of four novellas, has called the novella "an ill-defined and disreputable literary banana republic"; King notes the difficulties of selling a novella in the commercial publishing world, since it does not fit the typical length requirements of either magazine or book publishers. Despite these problems, however, the novella's length provides unique advantages; in the introduction to a novella anthology titled "Sailing to Byzantium", Robert Silverberg writes:
Novella
The novella as a literary genre began developing in the early Renaissance by the Italian and French "literatura", principally Giovanni Boccaccio, author of "The Decameron" (1353). "The Decameron" featured 100 tales (novellas) told by 10 people (seven women and three men) fleeing the Black Death, by escaping from Florence to the Fiesole hills in 1348. This structure was then imitated by subsequent authors, notably the French queen Marguerite de Navarre, whose "Heptaméron" (1559) included 72 original French tales and was modeled after the structure of "The Decameron".
Short story
Longer stories that cannot be called novels are sometimes considered "novellas" or novelettes and, like short stories, may be collected into the more marketable form of "collections", often containing previously unpublished stories. Sometimes, authors who do not have the time or money to write a novella or novel decide to write short stories instead, working out a deal with a popular website or magazine to publish them for profit.
Microblogging novel
A microblogging novel, also known as a micro novel, is a fictional work or novel written and distributed in small parts, defined by the system it is published within. A 'Twitter novel' would be published in chapters of 140 characters or less, and a 'Facebook novel' might be limited by Facebook's 'read more' limitations of 300 characters.
Radionovela
A radionovela (also known as serial radiofónico or simply serial) is a type of radio drama first broadcast in Latin America in the early 20th century. Radionovelas are typically melodramas or soap operas which are issued in chapters, in contrast to other radio dramas which may encompass different genres and are often broadcast as individual works, such as "The War of the Worlds".
Novel
Europe witnessed the generic shift in the titles of works in French published in Holland, which supplied the international market and English publishers exploited the novel/romance controversy in the 1670s and 1680s. Contemporary critics listed the advantages of the new genre: brevity, a lack of ambition to produce epic poetry in prose; the style was fresh and plain; the focus was on modern life, and on heroes who were neither good nor bad. The novel's potential to become the medium of urban gossip and scandal fuelled the rise of the novel/novella. Stories were offered as allegedly true recent histories, not for the sake of scandal but strictly for the moral lessons they gave. To prove this, fictionalized names were used with the true names in a separate key. The "Mercure Gallant" set the fashion in the 1670s. Collections of letters and memoirs appeared, and were filled with the intriguing new subject matter and the epistolary novel grew from this and led to the first full blown example of scandalous fiction in Aphra Behn's "Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister" (1684/ 1685/ 1687). Before the rise of the literary novel, reading novels had only been a form of entertainment.
The Novella
As the two friends discuss the matter (and deliver the plot's backstory), "diverse gentlemen" pass over the stage. Many of these are going to view a young beauty who has recently arrived in the city; she is the "novella" of the title. (Brome employs the term "novella" to mean "novelty" or "innovation.") The young woman in question is the newest recruit among the twenty thousand courtesans of Venice; she has offered her virginity to any man who will pay the enormous sum of two thousand ducats. Piso thinks he sees Fabritio's father Pantaloni among the curiosity seekers going to meet the Novella (the "dogs" seeking to "unkennel the handsomest she fox / In Venice"), though Fabritio is doubtful. There is no doubt when the two young men meet Francisco and his friend Horatio; what is at first a tense encounter mellows when Fabritio and Francisco realise that they have the same goal – to frustrate the arranged marriage of Fabritio and Flavia.
Novel
A market of literature in the modern sense of the word, that is a separate market for fiction and poetry, did not exist until the late seventeenth century. All books were sold under the rubric of "History and politicks" in the early 18th century, including pamphlets, memoirs, travel literature, political analysis, serious histories, romances, poetry, and novels.
Novel sequence
A novel sequence is a set or series of novels which share common themes, characters, or settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read independently or out of sequence. A novel sequence contains story arcs or themes that cross over several books, rather than simply sharing one or more characters.
Public library
In 1797, Thomas Wilson wrote in "The Use of Circulating Libraries": "Consider, that for a successful circulating library, the collection must contain 70% fiction". However, the overall percentage of novels mainly depended on the proprietor of the circulating library. While some circulating libraries were almost completely novels, others had less than 10% of their overall collection in the form of novels. The national average start of the 20th century hovered around novels comprising about 20% of the total collection. Novels varied from other types of books in many ways. They were read primarily for enjoyment instead of for study. They did not provide academic knowledge or spiritual guidance; thus they were read quickly and far fewer times than other books. These were the perfect books for commercial subscription libraries to lend. Since books were read for pure enjoyment rather than for scholarly work, books needed to become both cheaper and smaller. Small duodecimo editions of books were preferred to the large folio editions. Folio editions were read at a desk, while the small duodecimo editions could be easily read like the paperbacks of today.
Novel
The authors of this new type of fiction were accused of exploiting all available topics to thrill, arouse, or horrify their audience. These new romantic novelists, however, claimed that they were exploring the entire realm of fictionality. And psychological interpreters, in the early 19th century, read these works as encounters with the deeper hidden truth of the human imagination: this included sexuality, anxieties, and insatiable desires. Under such readings, novels were described as exploring deeper human motives, and it was suggested that such artistic freedom would reveal what had not previously been openly visible.
Ignacio Solares
The following are novels, unless otherwise specified.
Novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, normally written in prose form, and which is typically published as a book.
Novelist
Novelist is a term derivative from the term "novel" describing the "writer of novels". The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes other definitions of novelist, first appearing in the 16th and 17th centuries to refer to either "An innovator (in thought or belief); someone who introduces something new or who favours novelty" or "An inexperienced person; a novice." However, the OED attributes the primary contemporary meaning of "a writer of novels" as first appearing in the 1633 book "" by C. Farewell citing the passage According to the Google Ngrams, the term novelist first appears in the Google Books database in 1521.
Milan Kundera
Kundera considers himself a writer without a message. In "Sixty-three Words," a chapter in "The Art of the Novel", Kundera recounts an episode when a Scandinavian publisher hesitated about going ahead with "The Farewell Party" because of its apparent anti-abortion message. Not only was the publisher wrong about the existence of such a message, Kundera explains, but, "I was delighted with the misunderstanding. I had succeeded as a novelist. I succeeded in maintaining the moral ambiguity of the situation. I had kept faith with the essence of the novel as an art: irony. And irony doesn't give a damn about messages!"
Hugo Award for Best Novella
In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the novella was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Entries with a blue background have won the award; those with a white background are the nominees on the short-list. If the novella was originally published in a book with other stories rather than by itself or in a magazine, the book title is included after the publisher's name.
Interactive novel
The interactive novel is a form of interactive web fiction. In an interactive novel, the reader chooses where to go next in the novel by clicking on a piece of hyperlinked text, such as a page number, a character, or a direction. While authors of traditional paper-and-ink novels have sometimes tried to give readers the random directionality offered by hypertexting, this approach was not completely feasible until the development of HTML. For a discussion of paper novels that use a branching structure, such as Choose Your Own Adventure novels, see the Wikipedia entry on gamebooks.
Nebula Award for Best Novelette
The Nebula Award for Best Novelette is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to a science fiction or fantasy novelette. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novelette if it is between 7,500 and 17,500 words; awards are also given out for pieces of longer lengths in the Novel and Novella categories, and for shorter lengths in the Short Story category. To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration a novelette must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The Nebula Award for Best Novelette has been awarded annually since 1966. The Nebula Awards have been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards.
Paul Zsolnay Verlag
Frank Thiess' "Reich der Daemonen", although called a "Roman" (Novel) is by all means no Novel. It is a cultural summary of a 1000 years of European History (starting with the old Greeks) as there is no other. It deserves new publication (reprint); as does his follow-up "Die Griechischen Kaiser" with the Undertitel "Die Geburt Europas", last published 1958. See review in Die Zeit.
İnci Aral
During a speech at the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference in 2013, Aral presented her perspective of what the future holds for novels. In the speech, which can be found on "The Guardian’s" website, she claims that advancements in technology are a key determinate of how we live our lives and consume cultural goods. She believes that the world has become much faster paced because of technology and pressuring popular culture, leaving little room for the traditional novel to flourish like it once did. However the world may end up, which she says is unpredictable, she believes the novel will not be left unscathed by this intellectual revolution. While she knows novels are bound to change in length, she thinks there is plenty that can be done to save the novel. Aral advocates the idea of novels becoming more natural and “grasp[ing] life,” in order to regain a following in this new technological environment.
Irony
I do not know. This story I am telling is all imagination. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. ... if this is a novel, it cannot be a novel in the modern sense.
Mario Perniola
The initial period of Perniola's career focuses on the philosophy of the novel and the theory of literature. In his first main work, "Il metaromanzo" ("The Metanovel" 1966), which is his doctoral dissertation, Perniola argues that the modern novel from Henry James to Samuel Beckett has a self-referential character. Furthermore, he claims that the novel is only about itself. Perniola's aim was to demonstrate the philosophical dignity of these literary works and try to recover a serious cultural expression. The Italian Nobel Prize for Literature Eugenio Montale praised Perniola for this original critique of novels.
Novella
On a web search engine, input "novels" and "length" and you will find tables of word counts, separating out novels from novellas, even from the esoteric and still shorter "novelette"—as though prose works were dog show contestants, needing to be entered into proper categories. But when it comes to writing, any distinctions that begin with an objective and external quality like size are bound to be misleading. The delicate, gem-like jigsaw of Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Ray" could not be more unlike the feverishly cunning philosophical monologue of Albert Camus' "The Fall", but both novels are about the same length.
Les Rougon-Macquart
To study the Second Empire, Zola thought of each novel as a novel about a specific aspect of the life in his time. For example, in the list he made in 1872, he intended to make a "political novel", a "novel about the defeat", "a scientific novel", and a "novel about the war in Italy". The first three ideas led to "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon", "La Débâcle", and "Le Docteur Pascal", respectively. However, the last idea would never be made into a book.
Romance novel
Erotic romances' lengths run from short stories to single-title novels. Some of these are published as part of a category, such as Harlequin Blaze, while others are published as part of an anthology and are only novella length. Even single-title erotic romances may be as short as a novella, however.
Don DeLillo
DeLillo revised the novel in 1989 for paperback re-printing. Reflecting on the novel later in his career, he admitted, "I don't think my first novel would have been published today as I submitted it. I don't think an editor would have read 50 pages of it. It was very overdone and shaggy, but two young editors saw something that seemed worth pursuing and eventually we all did some work on the book and it was published." Later still, DeLillo still felt a degree of surprise at "Americana" being published, noting "I was working on my first novel, "Americana," for two years before I ever realized that I could be a writer [...] I had absolutely no assurance that this book would be published because I knew that there were elements that I simply didn't know how to improve at that point. So I wrote for another two years and finished the novel. It wasn’t all that difficult to find a publisher, to my astonishment. I didn't have a representative. I didn’t know anything about publishing. But an editor at Houghton Mifflin read the manuscript and decided that this was worth pursuing."
Telenovela
A telenovela ( or ; , , ) is a type of limited-run television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines "tele", short for "televisión" or "televisão" (Spanish and Portuguese words for "television"), and "novela", a Spanish and Portuguese word for "novel". Similar genres around the world include teleserye (Philippines), téléroman (Canada, specifically Quebec), or simply dramas (Asia and the rest of the Arab World). In Spain, they are also called "culebrones" ("long snakes") because of the convoluted plots.
Isamu Togawa
Togawa's works that were labelled as "novels" were actually all non-fiction that followed the historical facts scrupulously. Togawa said "I chose the form of a novel rather than taking it upon myself to write a critical biography. Politicians are people whose behavioral patterns are controlled by their character and personality. Thus, by depicting what kind of person they are we can understand for the first time the fact that they did what they did because of who they are."
Literature
Although there are many historical prototypes, so-called "novels before the novel", the modern novel form emerges late in cultural history—roughly during the eighteenth century. Initially subject to much criticism, the novel has acquired a dominant position amongst literary forms, both popularly and critically.
Mario Vargas Llosa
The works of Mario Vargas Llosa are viewed as both modernist and postmodernist novels. Though there is still much debate over the differences between modernist and postmodernist literature, literary scholar M. Keith Booker claims that the difficulty and technical complexity of Vargas Llosa's early works, such as "The Green House" and "Conversation in the Cathedral", are clearly elements of the modern novel. Furthermore, these earlier novels all carry a certain seriousness of attitude—another important defining aspect of modernist art. By contrast, his later novels such as "Captain Pantoja and the Special Service", "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter", "The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta", and "The Storyteller" ("El hablador") appear to follow a postmodernist mode of writing. These novels have a much lighter, farcical, and comic tone, characteristics of postmodernism. Comparing two of Vargas Llosa's novels, "The Green House" and "Captain Pantoja and the Special Service", Booker discusses the contrast between modernism and postmodernism found in the writer's works: while both novels explore the theme of prostitution as well as the workings of the Peruvian military, Booker points out that the former is gravely serious whereas the latter is ridiculously comic.
List of science fiction novels
This is a list of science fiction novels, novel series, and collections of linked short stories. It includes modern novels, as well as novels written before the term "science fiction" was in common use. This list includes novels not marketed as SF but still considered to be substantially science fiction in content by some critics, such as "Nineteen Eighty Four". As such, it is an inclusive list, not an exclusive list based on other factors such as level of notability or literary quality. Books are listed in alphabetical order by title, ignoring the leading articles "A", "An", and "The". Novel series are alphabetical by author-designated name or, if there is none, the title of the first novel in the series or some other reasonable designation.Jem (novel), a 1980 book by Frederik Pohl
Nebula Award for Best Novella
In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the novella was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist.
Short story cycle
A short story cycle (sometimes referred to as a story sequence or composite novel) is a collection of short stories in which the narratives are specifically composed and arranged with the goal of creating an enhanced or different experience when reading the group as a whole as opposed to its individual parts. Short story cycles are different from novels because the parts that would make up the chapters can all stand alone as short stories, each individually containing a beginning, middle and conclusion. When read as a group there is a tension created between the ideas of the individual stories, often showing changes that have occurred over time or highlighting the conflict between two opposing concepts or thoughts. Because of this dynamic, the stories need to have an awareness of what the other stories accomplish; therefore, cycles are usually written with the expressed purpose to create a cycle as opposed to being gathered and arranged later.
The Great Indian Novel
The phrase "great Indian novel" is an allusion to the long-standing idea of the "Great American Novel" and is also a pun, roughly translating "Mahabharata" ("maha" "great"; "Bharata" "India"). The "Mahabharata", which is not a novel but an epic poem, can be understood, according to Tharoor, to represent Hinduism's greatest literary achievement and thus serves as an appropriate paradigm in which to frame a retelling of recent Indian history.
Sefi Atta
Novels
Prosper Mérimée
In 1829, Mérimée found a new literary genre that perfectly suited his talents; the "nouvelle" or novella, essentially a long short story or short novel. Between 1829 and 1834, he wrote thirteen stories, following three basic principles; a brief story told in prose; a sparse and economical style of writing, with no unneeded lyricism; and a unity of action, all leading to the ending, which was often abrupt and brutal. In a short period Mérimée wrote two of his most famous novellas, "Mateo Falcone", about a tragic vendetta in Corsica, and "Tamango", a drama on a slave-trading ship, which were published in the "Revue de Paris", and had considerable success.
List of American novelists
This is not intended to be a list of every American (born U.S. citizen, naturalized citizen, or long-time resident alien) who has published a novel. (For the purposes of this article, "novel" is defined as an extended work of fiction. This definition is loosely interpreted to include novellas, novelettes, and books of interconnected short stories.) Novelists on this list have achieved a notability that exceeds merely having been published. The writers on the current list fall into one or more of the following categories:
Novelist
First-time novelists of any age often find themselves unable to get works published, because of a number of reasons reflecting the inexperience of the author and the economic realities of publishers. Often authors must find advocates in the publishing industry, usually literary agents, to successfully publish their debut novels. Sometimes new novelists will self-publish, because publishing houses will not risk the capital needed to market books by an unknown author to the public.
List of claimed first novels in English
The following are other early long works of prose fiction in English not generally considered novels:There are multiple candidates for first novel in English partly because of ignorance of earlier works, but largely because the term novel can be defined so as to exclude earlier candidates. (The article for novel contains a detailed information of the history of the terms "novel" and "romance" and the bodies of texts they defined in a historical perspective.)Owing to the influence of Ian Watt's seminal study in literary sociology, "The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding" (1957), Watt's candidate, Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), gained wide acceptance.
Verse novel
A verse novel is a type of narrative poetry in which a novel-length narrative is told through the medium of poetry rather than prose. Either simple or complex stanzaic verse-forms may be used, but there will usually be a large cast, multiple voices, dialogue, narration, description, and action in a novelistic manner.
Neula
The noun "neula" comes from Latin "nebula", that means "fog", because of its fine and light texture. Some documents show that neules exist before "torró", being "torró" shown to exist at least in the Middle Ages and eaten, for example, at Jaume I's daughter wedding.
Nebula Award for Best Novella
The Nebula Award for Best Novella is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novellas. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 40,000 words; awards are also given out for pieces of longer lengths in the novel category, and for shorter lengths in the short story and novelette categories. To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration a novella must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The Nebula Award for Best Novella has been awarded annually since 1966. Novellas published by themselves are eligible for the novel award instead if the author requests them to be considered as such. The award has been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards.
Non-fiction novel
The non-fiction novel is a literary genre which, broadly speaking, depicts real historical figures and actual events woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwise loosely defined and flexible genre. The genre is sometimes referred to using the slang term "faction", a portmanteau of the words "fact" and "fiction".
Novella of Uriel
A "novella" is a short novel or a short prose tale often characterized by moral teaching or satire. "Uriel" is one of the archangels named in the Apocrypha and in Hebrew tradition.
Don DeLillo
It is the form that allows a writer the greatest opportunity to explore human experience...For that reason, reading a novel is potentially a significant act. Because there are so many varieties of human experience, so many kinds of interaction between humans, and so many ways of creating patterns in the novel that can’t be created in a short story, a play, a poem or a movie. The novel, simply, offers more opportunities for a reader to understand the world better, including the world of artistic creation. That sounds pretty grand, but I think it’s true.
Next (novel)
"This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren't."
Internet linguistics
The cell phone has also created a new literary genre – cell phone novels. A typical cell phone novel consists of several chapters which readers download in short installments. These novels are in their "raw" form as they do not go through editing processes like traditional novels. They are written in short sentences, similar to text-messaging.
Authors of such novels are also able to receive feedback and new ideas from their readers through e-mails or online feedback channels. Unlike traditional novel writing, readers’ ideas sometimes get incorporated into the storyline or authors may also decide to change their story’s plot according to the demand and popularity of their novel (typically gauged by the number of download hits).
Despite their popularity, there has also been criticism regarding the novels’ "lack of diverse vocabulary" and poor grammar.
Vicente Aranda
For Aranda, adapting a literary work does not involve complications of faithfulness, or lack of the same, to the original text. For him the novel is raw material with which to create new forms: “ As for adaptations, I feel very comfortable doing them. I don’t have problem with authorship. I don’t think I am more of an author if I write a screenplay of something I’ve read on the news papers or seen on the street that if I take a novel and make a movie based on its contents”.
Nova (novel)
While awaiting publication by Doubleday, "Nova" was submitted to "Analog" editor John W. Campbell for potential serialization. Campbell rejected the novel, saying in a telephone conversation with Delany's agent that, though he'd enjoyed the book, he did not feel his magazine's readership "would be able to relate to a black main character."
Because there was no magazine serialization, however, in its first six months the novel did not get the initially wide exposure to readers that might have helped gain it a Hugo Award—though it was nominated and soon regularly referred to as "the perfect science fiction novel". In the pages of "Galaxy Magazine" ("Analog"'s rival), the August after it appeared, resident critic Algis Budrys would write, "Samuel R. Delany, right now, as of this book, "Nova", not as of some future book or some accumulated body of work, is the best science-fiction writer in the world, at a time when competition for that status is intense. I don't see how a writer can do more than wring your heart while explaining how it works. No writer can"—heady praise for the work of a young man completed before his twenty-sixth birthday.
Persepolis (comics)
Due to the nature of artistic choices made in "Persepolis" by virtue of it being an illustrated memoir, readers have faced difficulty in placing it into a genre. The term "novel" most commonly refers to books that are fiction. Thus, there is some controversy surrounding how to classify the genre of "Persepolis", being that it is non-fiction. Nima Naghibi and Andrew O'Malley, professors of English at Ryerson University illustrate this by stating how bookstores have had issues with shelving "Persepolis" under a single label. Furthermore, scholars like Hillary Chute argue that "Persepolis", like other similar books, should be called a “graphic narrative” instead of a “graphic novel.” She argues that the stories these works contain are unique in themselves and challenge popular historical narratives. Professor Liorah Golomb from the University of Oklahoma states about Persepolis and related books; "As time went on the comics still tended towards the autobiographical, but storytelling gained importance. Most of the women creating comics today are still doing so from a woman's point‐of‐view, but their target audience seems more universal.
Don DeLillo
In a January 29, 2010, interview with the "Wall Street Journal", DeLillo discussed at great length "Point Omega", his views of writing, and his plans for the future. When asked about why his recent novels had been shorter, DeLillo replied, "Each book tells me what it wants or what it is, and I'd be perfectly content to write another long novel. It just has to happen." While DeLillo is open to the idea of returning to the form of the long novel, the interview also revealed that he currently has no interest in doing as many of his literary contemporaries have done and writing a memoir. DeLillo also made some observations on the state of literature and the challenges facing young writers:
It's tougher to be a young writer today than when I was a young writer. I don't think my first novel would have been published today as I submitted it. I don't think an editor would have read 50 pages of it. It was very overdone and shaggy, but two young editors saw something that seemed worth pursuing and eventually we all did some work on the book and it was published. I don't think publishers have that kind of tolerance these days, and I guess possibly as a result, more writers go to writing class now than then. I think first, fiction, and second, novels, are much more refined in terms of language, but they may tend to be too well behaved, almost in response to the narrower market.
Novelization
A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of home video, but continue to find commercial success as part of marketing campaigns for major films. They are often written by accomplished writers based on an early draft of the film's script and on a tight deadline.
Chhinnapatra
Joshi has himself considered it as a "a draft of novel" instead of novel. So it rejects conventional canon of novel writing. Two of the critics have said that the depiction of the characters in this novel is 'phenomenological'. Shirish Panchal wrote that, among Joshi's longer works of fiction "Chhinnapatra" deserves a special mention. Aniruddh Brahmabhatt wrote that, this type of modern novel has negated the age old concept that a novel can't survive out of its social milieu. K. M. George considers it as an intended anti-novel which ended up only as an experiment difficult to read or comprehend.
Émile Zola
In "Le Roman expérimental" and "Les Romanciers naturalistes," Zola expounded the purposes of the 'naturalist' novel. The experimental novel was to serve as a vehicle for scientific experiment, analogous to the experiments conducted by Claude Bernard and expounded by him in "Introduction à la médecine expérimentale". Claude Bernard's experiments were in the field of clinical physiology, those of the Naturalist writers (Zola being their leader) would be in the realm of psychology influenced by the natural environment. Balzac, Zola claimed, had already investigated the psychology of lechery in an experimental manner, in the figure of Hector Hulot in "La Cousine Bette". Essential to Zola's concept of the experimental novel was dispassionate observation of the world, with all that it involved by way of meticulous documentation. To him, each novel should be based upon a dossier.With this aim, he visited the colliery of Anzin in northern France, in February 1884 when a strike was on; he visited La Beauce (for "La Terre"), Sedan, Ardennes (for "La Débâcle") and travelled on the railway line between Paris and Le Havre (when researching "La Bête humaine").
Romance novel
Some romance novel authors and readers believe the genre has additional restrictions, from plot considerations (such as the protagonists' meeting early on in the story), to avoiding themes (such as adultery). Other disagreements have centered on the firm requirement for a happy ending; some readers admit stories without a happy ending, if the focus of the story is on the romantic love between the two main characters (e.g., "Romeo and Juliet"). While the majority of romance novels meet the stricter criteria, there are also many books widely considered to be romance novels that deviate from these rules. Therefore, the general definition, as embraced by the RWA and publishers, includes only the focus on a developing romantic relationship and an optimistic ending. Escapism is important; an Avon executive observed that "The phone never rings, the baby never cries and the rent's never overdue in romances."
Tie-in
If a film is based on a story shorter than a novel — such as a short story, novelette, or novella — a tie-in book may be published featuring the adapted story as well as other stories from the same author. For example, when Stephen King's novella "Apt Pupil" was adapted to film, the book originally featuring the story — "Different Seasons" — was republished as "Apt Pupil: A Novella in Different Seasons". Similarly, tie-in novels were published to promote the films "Minority Report" and "Paycheck", featuring the original "Minority Report" and "Paycheck" short stories, both written by Philip K. Dick.
Novel
However, one of the earliest English novels, Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), has elements of the romance, unlike these novels, because of its exotic setting and story of survival in isolation. "Crusoe" lacks almost all of the elements found in these new novels: wit, a fast narration evolving around a group of young fashionable urban heroes, along with their intrigues, a scandalous moral, gallant talk to be imitated, and a brief, conciseness plot. The new developments did, however, lead to Eliza Haywood's epic length novel, "Love in Excess" (1719/20) and to Samuel Richardson's "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded" (1741). Some literary historians date the beginning of the English novel with Richardson's "Pamela", rather than "Crusoe."