What is the difference between a novel and a short story? Genre Features

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In this article we will talk about how the novel differs from the story. First, let's define these genres and then compare them.

What is a novel and a story

A novel is a fairly large piece of prose fiction. This genre belongs to the epic. There can be several main characters, and their life is directly connected with historical events. In addition, the novel tells about the whole life of the characters or about some significant part of it.

A story is a literary work in prose, which usually tells about some important episode in the life of the hero. There are usually few acting characters, and only one of them is the main one. Also, the volume of the story is limited and should not exceed approximately 100 pages.

Comparison

And yet, what is the difference between a novel and a short story? Let's start with the novel form. So, this genre involves the depiction of large-scale events, the versatility of the plot, a very large time frame that includes the entire chronology of the story. The novel has one main storyline and several subplots that are closely intertwined into a compositional whole.

The ideological component is manifested in the behavior of the characters, revealing their motives. ActionThe novel takes place against a historical or everyday descriptive background, affecting a wide range of psychological, ethical and worldview problems.

The novel has several subtypes: psychological, social, adventure, detective, etc.

Now let's take a closer look at the story. In the works of this genre, the development of events is limited to a specific place and time. The personality of the protagonist and fate is revealed in 1-2 episodes, which are turning points for his life.

The plot in the story is one, but it can have several unexpected twists that give it versatility and depth. All actions are connected with the main character. In such works there are no pronounced links to history or socio-cultural events.

Prose is much narrower than in the novel. Usually it is associated with morality, ethics, personal development, the manifestation of personal qualities in extreme and unusual conditions.

The story is divided into subgenres: detective, fantasy, historical, adventure, etc. It is rare to find a psychological story in literature, but satirical and fabulous ones are very popular.

What is the difference between a novel and a short story: conclusions

To summarize:

• The novel reflects social and historical events, and in the story they serve only as a background for the narrative.
• The life of the characters in the novel appears in a socio-psychological or historical context. And in the story, the image of the protagonist can be revealed only incertain circumstances.
• In the novel, there is one main plot and several secondary ones that form a complex structure. The story in this regard is much simpler and not complicated by additional storylines.
• The action of the novel takes place in a large time period, and the story takes place in a very limited one.
• Novel issues include a large number of issues, and the story touches on only a few of them.
• The heroes of the novel express worldview and social ideas, and in the story the inner world of the character and his personal qualities are important.

Novels and short stories: examples

Let's list the works that are examples of stories:

• "Tales of Belkin" (Pushkin);
• "Spring Waters" (Turgenev);
• "Poor Lisa" (Karamzin).

Among the novels are the following:

• "Noble Nest" (Turgenev);
• "Idiot" (Dostoevsky);
• "Anna Karenina" (L. Tolstoy).

So, we found out how the novel differs from the story. In short, the difference comes down to the scale of the literary work.