How many types of novel are there?

The answer might surprise you!

 First, a little bit of literary history. Don’t worry – it won’t take long! There is evidence that people have been writing for millennia, but the actual novel form is relatively young – probably only 300 – 400 years old, depending on what you consider the first novel to be. The word itself means ‘new’ (as in ‘a novel idea’) and the form really took off in the eighteenth century, when literacy rates were improving, people had more leisure time due to increased mechanisation, and travelling libraries started to become popular.

There were basically two types of novel: something known as ‘picaresque’ which was plot-driven (think Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, Mark Twin's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,) and the character novel (think Jane Austen and Samuel Richardson). The picaresque novels had a great deal happening but not a lot of character development. The reader satisfaction came from the twists and turns of the plot and how the events resolved. Its natural successors are thrillers, spy stories, horrors, crime and psychological suspense novels. In character novels, although we see characters reacting to events, it’s all about how the protagonists change and develop over time. Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends and Normal People might fit this category. So the short answer to my title question is ‘two’!

But where does this leave us as writers? Well, I suggest it might be worth exploring a third category – a hybrid of the picaresque and character if you like. That is a ‘page turner’ where there is an exciting plot, but with protagonists that are authentic and rounded (for an article on flat and round characters, click here). When readers can empathise with carefully created characters, then immerse themselves completely in those characters’ journeys, then we have that ‘unputdownable’ and memorable quality that seems to create a lasting and deeply satisfying reader experience. And we reach a much wider audience too.