Novel vs Story

[wetair]

So the other day my teacher made a distinction between a story and novel. She said a novel is not a story. I had a WTF moment when she said that. It seems like an artificial distinction to me. I thought (still think!) that a novel is a type of story. Is she right? If she is, why? What is a story than? Or she is wrong?

[Nick]

I'd agree. A novel is a sort of story. Story is a rather broad term. Novel, not so much. Now if she'd said "A story is not necessarily a novel" we could be in business here, but otherwise, I disagree.

[cheekychook]

sto·ry 1 (stôr, str)
n. pl. sto·ries
1. An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious, as:
a. An account or report regarding the facts of an event or group of events: The witness changed her story under questioning.
b. An anecdote: came back from the trip with some good stories.
c. A lie: told us a story about the dog eating the cookies.
2.
a. A usually fictional prose or verse narrative intended to interest or amuse the hearer or reader; a tale.
b. A short story.
3. The plot of a narrative or dramatic work.
4. A news article or broadcast.
5. Something viewed as or providing material for a literary or journalistic treatment: "He was colorful, he was charismatic, he was controversial, he was a good story" (Terry Ann Knopf).
6. The background information regarding something: What's the story on these unpaid bills?
7. Romantic legend or tradition: a hero known to us in story.

nov·el 1 (nvl)
n.
1. A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters.
2. The literary genre represented by novels.


Sure sounds like "Novel" is a form of a "Story".

[polymath]

E.M. Forster Aspects of the Novel 1927, coined the proverbial writing workshop phrase, "'The king died and then the queen died,' is a story. 'The king died, and then the queen died out of grief,' is a plot." The fundamental writing principle in play in the latter is causation. The former depicts two events not necessarily connected except by sequential events. While causation could be implied from context in the former, it is a logical fallacy of false cause, or non sequitur, meaning literally it does not follow.

Special cases of non sequitur fallacy, "post hoc ergo propter hoc: believing that temporal succession implies a causal relation . . . cum hoc ergo propter hoc: believing that happenstance implies a causal relationship." *

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, literally: "after this, therefore an account of it." **
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc, literally: "with this, therefore because of this." ***

A reinterpretation of non sequitur's meaning common in some writing consensuses; Correlation (in time or location or person happenstance or haphazard chance proximity) does not imply causation, causation meaning connected by causality's cause and effect. In Forster's plot example, the queen's death is caused by her grief caused by the king's death.

A novel by definition ought to depict causally connected events. "An invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events." ** Webster's is a little wishy-washy with "usually" though. Aristotle and Freytag are much firmer on causation's connection necessity for plot.

A story in the broader sense of the term requires no plot, no causation. Short stories in the narrow sense of the term do.

In my experience, entry level creative writers struggle with causation.

* Wikipedia: "Logical Fallacy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy
** Webster's
*** Wikipedia: "Correlation Does Not Imply Causation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlatio ... _causation
Paraphrased excerpts from Aspects of the Novel http://www.storyinsight.com/techniques/ ... rster.html

[wetair]

So you are saying a story doesn't necessarily have to have a plot? And a novel does?

[Mira]

Huh? What exactly did your teacher mean by that? I'd need to know more about what distinction she was making, how her definitions differed, before I shook my head in great confusion and said: "Huh?"

[wetair]

Huh? What exactly did your teacher mean by that? I'd need to know more about what distinction she was making, how her definitions differed, before I shook my head in great confusion and said: "Huh?"

lol if i knew that ... but this was after I'd turned in an essay on the Princess of Cleves and I'd referred to it as the story and she said never call it a story, it is a novel. It is not a story. She repeated that several times and I said something to effect that i thought all novels were stories and she said, no, novels are not stories.

[polymath]

So you are saying a story doesn't necessarily have to have a plot? And a novel does?

Yes. A three-year-old caught with a hand in a cookie jar tells a story. A politician asking for a bribe tells a story.

A story without a plot that made the rounds back in the day;

A young Eskimo couple holding hands walked out on an ice sheet. They went far out. They lay down tired at night separated for the sake of modesty. They woke in the morning on separate, drifting ice floes. The girl Eskimo waved goodbye and said, "Chocolate milk."

A man planned a brick barbeque down to the last brick. When he'd finished building it, he had a brick left over. He shrugged and threw the brick over a fence.

A business man smoking a cigar and an old woman with a lap dog boarded a bus. They sat next to each other in the only empty seats. The woman complained about cigar smoke blowing in her face. The man complained about the dog nipping at his coat sleeves. They compromised after lengthy arguments and dropped the dog and the cigar out a window.

When they got off the bus at the same stop, the dog came running up. What did it have in its mouth?

The narrator paused to allow the audience to answer, expecting the answer to be "The cigar."

"The brick," answered the narrator.

No payoff for the audience, an undesirable emotional response from the audience, raspberries, payoff for the narrator at the audience's expense. No causal connection. No plot. Absurd joke trick ending. Good for one in a lifetime. Fool you once, shame on you; fool you twice, shame on me.

[Edited for revision.]

[Bryan Russell/Ink]

A man planned a brick barbeque down to the last brick. When he'd finished building it, he had a brick left over. He shrugged and threw the brick over a fence.

A man smoking a cigar and an old woman with a lap dog boarded a bus. They sat in the only empty seats next to each other. The woman complained about cigar smoke blowing in her face. The man complained about the dog nipping at his coat sleeves. They compromised after lengthy arguments and dropped the dog and the cigar out a window.

When they got off the bus at the same stop, the dog came running up. What did it have in its mouth?

The narrator paused to allow the audience to answer, expecting the answer to be "the cigar."

"The brick," answered the narrator.[/i]

I must admit, I always kind of liked that joke.

[Bryan Russell/Ink]

Yes, a novel is a story. Whether the teacher has a technical reason for not wanting a novel referred to as a story in papers is something else, I'm guessing. I can see that being said, for reasons of clarity, though mostly I think it's needlessly limiting. But certainly, in a generic sense, a novel is going to be a story.

[Mira]

I like polymath's story too! That was funny and clever. I never saw the brick coming. :)

Wetair - that's pretty funny. Maybe she meant short stories? Well, clearly she has a definition for story not shared by the rest of us. Perhaps similar to polymath's politician. :)

[wetair]

she didn't mean short stories. she couldn't have, we are not reading any short stories in this class. lol yeah she probably has some obscure technical reason. and everything we have read has some sort of plot. even the lover by marguerite duras, where the story went back and forth in time and had an odd 1st person/3nd person thing going on (by the same character, in the same scene usually) and was just oddly presented. but there was a connecting thread, which i guess would be the plot . . . so yeah. a thin plot, but some really interesting writing.

[J. T. SHEA]

Wetair, your teacher is an idiot. By the way, if you're inside my head, how come you didn't show up on the MRI scan I had two weeks ago? Maybe you were on vacation.