Technical features

Abstract

A novel is a lengthy and complex construction. It has to be firmly built and held together. It also has to hold the reader’s attention. Probably the most effective way to construct the work and make sure the reader doesn’t get bored is to tell a good story. This may seem terribly obvious. Yet not all novelists set out to hold our interest by an energetic storyline: they may be more concerned just with people and their relationships; or they may be primarily interested in ideas, in philosophical or religious notions and using the novel as a vehicle for these. They may even despise the story as being something rather crude and limited, all right for a thriller or detective novel but not worth serious attention in its own right.