Novel Writing

 

All literature is written in a recognizable language. literature's main goals is sharing ideas, concepts, and stories with a larger audience. There are over 6,900 distinct languages in the world. so literature exists in tons of different linguistic forms, too.

A novel is a prose narrative of significant length and complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience.  But language can also be an important tool in understanding the meaning of a book, too. 

A novel can accommodate an almost infinite number of elements such as

the story or plot,

the characters,

the setting,

the narrative method and

of view, and

the scope or dimension.

The novel has an extensive range of types,. They are being: historical,  sentimental,  psychological, novel of manners,   romance,  cult, detective, mystery, thriller, western, modern and  fantasy.

Plot

The plot of a work is defined as the sequence of events that occurs from the first line to the last. In other words, the plot is what happens in a story. The best plots are both original and interesting. Complexity of the plot is a matter of taste and the setting .

All literature has a plot of some kind. Most long-form literature, like a novel or a play, follows a typical plot structure, also known as a plot arc.

This type of plot has six elements:

Beginning/Exposition: This is the very beginning of a story. During the exposition, authors usually introduce the major characters and settings to the reader.

Conflict: The conflict of a story is the problem that the main characters have to tackle. Conflict in a story is a struggle between opposing forces. 

There are two types of conflict in a plot.

External conflict refers to the obstacles a character faces in the external world. 

Internal conflict refers to a character's internal or emotional obstacles. Moral or philosophical conflicts are created between a character’s worldview or belief system and the world around them.

Characters must act to confront those forces and there is where conflict is born. If there is nothing to overcome, there is no story. Conflict in a story creates and drives the plot forward. 

WHY IS CONFLICT IMPORTANT IN STORIES:

It creates and drives the plot

It reveals opposing beliefs and truths about life

It entertains by creating relatable contexts in emotional, dangerous, or exciting ways.

 

Rising Action: Rising action is literally everything that happens in a story that leads up to the climax of the plot. Usually this involves facing and conquering minor

conflicts, which is what keeps the plot moving forward. More importantly, writers use rising action to build tension that head to the plot's climax.

Climax: The climax of the plot is the part of the story where the characters finally have to face and solve the major conflict. This is the "peak" of the plot where all the tension of the rising action finally comes to a head.

Falling Action: Falling action is everything that happens after the climax but before the resolution. This is where writers tie up any loose ends and start bringing the action to a close.

Resolution/Denouement: This is the conclusion of a story. But just because it's called a "resolution" doesn't mean every single issue is resolved happily—or even satisfactorily.

 

2.  Character Development

Bringing the characters to life in the reader’s mind. They can range from thumbnail sketches to deep, wordy, highly detailed biographies of each character. It’s important to note that different genres and stories require different types of character development.

3.  Writing Style

Style should always be appropriate for the genre or story. An appropriate style adds to the texture of the novel. Literary fiction tends to lean toward complex sentences with original language. Thrillers tend to use shorter, more efficient sentences, especially as the pace quickens in the novel.

4.  Length

On Writing, eneral rule of thumb is to cut 10%. According to Hemingway's advice was to take the first fifty pages of your novel and cut them down to five pages. Sometimes when writing, less is more.

Books that are too long are the sign of laziness by the writer and also imply an arrogance of sorts, one that essentially says to the reader, Efficiency is one of the characteristics of quality writing.

Setting : The background in which the story takes place. There are several aspects to setting:

(a) Place: This is the geographical location of the story. Since novels are lengthy, the story may move from one place to another. When asked to describe the setting, you may give the general geographical location

(b) Time: First, this refers to the period of history, if the story is set in the past. If the story could happen now or at some recent unspecified time, we say that it is "contemporary. When describing the setting of a portion of the novel, you may be able to specify the season, month, and even time of day.

(c) Climate/Weather: This is an aspect of setting, but it can be important to the novel.

(d) Lifestyle: This refers to the daily life of the characters. If a story takes place in a particular historical period, the lifestyle of the characters is part of the setting.

Style

Romanticism:The Romantic movement in European literature is usually associated with those social and philosophical trends that prepared the way for the French Revolution, which began in 1789. The somewhat subjective, anti-rational, emotional currents of romanticism transformed intellectual life in the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods and remained potent for a great part of the 19th century.

In the novel, the romantic approach to life was prepared in the “sentimental” works, if it historical novels, turned the past into a great stage for the enactment of events motivated by idealism, chivalry, and strong emotional impulse, using an artificially archaic language full of remote and magical charm. Realism

Certain major novelists of the 19th century, particularly in France, reacted against romanticism by eliminating from their work those “softer” qualities—tenderness, idealism, chivalric passion, and the like—which seemed to them to hide the stark realities of life in a dreamlike haze.

Realism in this sense has been a continuing impulse in the 20th-century novel.