What constitutes a good novel? + Literary vs. Genre Fiction

[Lucas88]

I admit that I haven't read that many works of fiction over the last decade. Non-fiction books about philosophy, history, mythology and esotericism are more of my thing. I've read very few of the literary classics. I never cared for the English classics which I had to read in school. I haven't even read Cervantes' Don Quixote in full. Instead I've read only a few titles of lowbrow genre fiction and some Latin American novels from the second half of the 20th century. I particularly love to read novels in Spanish because I perceive that the language has a certain magic when it comes to depicting works of fiction.

However, even though I'm not much of a seasoned reader of fiction, I do have an interest in writing my own material. Thus far I have written a few novellas which fall into the category of speculative fiction and am in the process of writing a pretty bizarre novel about cosmetic surgery, murder and escaping justice. @Pixel--Dude, who has written some fiction of his own, has read my current material. He can attest to how dark and messed up my novel is. Sometimes I doubt my own sanity. I also have a few ideas for a supernatural or occult novel which I might begin to write once I have the plot and characters more fleshed out.

Most people who read my material tell me that I'm a good writer and some have even told me that what I write is better than many of the published books that they've read, but I actually don't intellectually know too much about literary technique. I've never taken a creative writing course or anything like that. I just seem to have good intuition when it comes to forming sentences, as though some force from within tells me how to write something and it just feels right.

That said, I would still like to do whatever I can to better intellectually understand the dimensions of the novel and more concretely what makes a novel good.

What do you think makes a good novel and what elements should a good novel include?

@Pixel--Dude, @Tsar, @gsjackson, @WilliamSmith

I've heard some say that a novel should reflect the social landscape of its setting, political themes, social commentary, etc. That seems to be the case with many modern novels.

I've also heard it argued that a true novel should encompass the totality of life. I imagine that that would entail the inclusion of philosophical and existential themes and insightful reflections upon the human condition.

When it comes to writing style, many seem to believe that the writing should be highly descriptive, but I personally find boring novels which excessively describe mundane settings. Reading through my own material, I notice that I don't often go into much depth describing the physical appearance of a scene. Rather I tend to describe in great detail the characters' feelings and mental states. Those things seem much more interesting to me.

I also think that brief philosophical reflections inserted into dialogues here and there make a novel much more interesting. My current novel isn't primarily philosophical (it's more about the vanity and hedonistic impulses of Miami's moneyed social elite, the illusion of such a society, murder and mystery), but I still make sure to include an occasional philosophical reflection on aesthetics, nature of reality, meaning of life, etc. Often different characters express different or contrary viewpoints on a single philosophical topic and in the novel I explore how such different viewpoints influence their actions.

What do you guys think?


Bonus question: What do you think is best between literary and genre fiction? Do you think that literary fiction really is superior or is it rather overrated and no better than many works of the more popular genre fiction?

[WilliamSmith]

I have to leave again for a brief period of time (will be back hopefully in 1-2 weeks) so will read all this more carefully next time, but have to throw out my recommendations:

Monkey (translation by Arthur Waley of Wu Cheng'en's "Journey to the West," the ancient Chinese novel from many thousands of years ago)

Robert E. Howard, especially the original Conan the Barbarian, but also his other stuff (Solomon Kane / Bran Mak Morn / Cormac / dialect Westerns / etc)

Jack Vance (especially the "Dying Earth" series and "Showboat World")

I could name a lot of other novels that impressed me or that I've at least enjoyed (and I particularly like the bodice ripper romance novels written by women for obvious reasons), but when it comes to terse, polished, masterful use of language, and pacing (especially in Robert E Howard's case), those ones above are very good.

Edit to add some thoughts: In REH's case, he had to nail everything down to fit in the pages of Weird Tales magazine and also make it impactful and polished enough that it wouldn't get the raspberry from picky editors in lean times. Weird Tales, of course, was in those days considered a lowbrow thing, yet REH's skill level totally blew modern writers so far out of the water that there's really no comparison. The completely undisciplined mess of meaningless verbiage from popular jew york times best-selling novelists, in my opinion, is not a good source to learn from.