a novel is a long fictional prose narrative. in english, the term emerged from the romance languages in the late 15th century, with the meaning of "news"; it came to indicate something new, without a distinction between fact or fiction. the romance is a closely related long prose narrative. walter scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". other european languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is "le roman", "der roman", "il romanzo"", indicates the proximity of the forms.