The Differences Between the Story and the Most Important Novel

The Differences between the story and the novel Are closely linked to their extensive or intentional characteristics.

While the story is a shorter story, with few characters and a moral at the end, the novel stands out for being more extensive, have more characters and keep the reader entertained.

Both stories and novels can be for children or adults and have different topics ranging from adventure and fantasy, to romance and suspense.

The story is a narrative that tells the details of a real or imagined event. The most basic feature of this genre is that it is a short way of telling a story. The narration takes place in a few pages, without it being necessary to separate them into chapters.

Generally, stories can be attributed to a particular author, or be anonymous, which demonstrates their characteristic of cultural and social element. In the story we find events that may be rare, exotic and even supernatural.

Their focus usually shifts from one place to another, or from one character to another. These transitions are written in the text instead of being provided through cuts of scenes. The facts simply"happen"to the characters and it is not necessary to explain them or to be united to others.

When the story belongs to the oral tradition, it usually carries a meaning, a lesson or a moral advice, which tells readers that the same events can happen to them but follow the warnings of the story or do not learn the lesson indicated.

Main differences between the story and the novel

The story and the novel are very different in the objective, the impact of its texts, its approach to the fact and its purpose with the reader.

Differences in structure

The chapters of a novel should not look like stories, because the focus of the story is different. While both styles seek to tell us a story, the narrative of the story is much more limited.

In addition, it is considered that the root of the stories is the oral tradition, when searching with their stories a moral, a lesson or a teaching. For this reason, they are shorter and have a specific goal.

Depending on the region or country where the story was written, the moral and events may be different, since the stories are representative of the moral norms of a certain society. However, being linked to the oral tradition, the words they use do not have to be fundamental. In its place, the background will predominate rather than the form and can be applied to different cultures.

Differences in content

Many of them despite their simplicity have significant psychological content in relation to children's anxiety and learning to overcome obstacles to get a result that is expected.

In this oral sense, stories are not necessarily exclusively in books because they are part of the daily mouth-to-mouth, for example, when a person reads a story that happened to"a friend of a friend"in social networks, or arrives That information through a group conversation.

In contrast, a novel is not transmitted through oral narratives but creates a world through chapters, and all its components. In addition, you know the reactions and emotions of the characters, as well as their motivations and why events occur.

This complexity of situations does not occur in stories, where chance or chance is usually used to describe the way in which events occurred. In novels, chance is almost not present, but there is an explanation behind the facts and a sense that provokes the reactions and relationships of the characters.

While the story shows an event, a significant and important fact that would probably have gone unnoticed if there had been a narration with its history; The novel gives us a complete world with all the details to develop the plot that the writer wants to capture.

Objectives in readers

Both story and novel styles seek to generate emotions in their readers. The story can make us laugh or make us think, reflect on its meaning, try to apply it in our life, if it is striking for us.

Novels, on the other hand, have the power to make the reader live a whole range of emotions, from joy to deep sadness. In fact, there are novels that have changed lives by having the power to modify the reader's emotions, provoking their reactions.

In the story the emphasis is on storytelling rather than dialogue or action. His characters do not need to be very characterized, just his name or his profession, and his motivations should not be explained, in a single line the story gives to understand the role of the character in the story.

Story development

In the novel the emotions And the events that occur in that particular world unfold in a totally real way before the reader.

Unlike the story in which we only talk about a fact, in the novel we see it unfold as the story unfolds. Readers can be involved in this development of the facts, feel emotions and see the repercussions of the actions in the narration.

In the fairy tale genre, for example, short stories have a well-defined beginning, middle, and end where supernatural characters such as fairies, elves, dragons, magic, enchantments, and other elements are included.

On the other hand, the novel is not only important to talk about the important points of an event, but the writer must create a whole world with all its components: the characters, their personality, emotions, past and relationships and the events that are Happening at this moment in that imaginary world.

Through its pages, the novel gives us several"photos"of that world, to be able to put together the complete film. It is these"photos"that allow the story to develop in a coherent and harmonious way. In this sense, not only seeks to narrate a fact, but give us all the details so that we know very well its antecedents and their implications.

The objective of the novel - especially of the well elaborated - does not seek to take the reader through a series of events to reach simply the end of them. His approach is that the reader feels that the end result was the logical outcome of the events that were happening during a specific moment in the lives of the characters.

In a novel, events, characters and the world must feel real, as if they really were facts that happened to some people. Therefore, reality should not be distinguished from fiction, that is one of the attributes of the novel.

In addition, it can be written in both prose and verse and there may be dialogues in satire, tragedy, epics, pastoral, just to name a few. It is said that the novel is the most flexible of all literary genres.

Differences in length

Although the novel is characterized by being longer (between 40000 and 50000 characters approximately) compared to the story that is a much shorter story (from 100 to 15,000 characters). It is important to consider that not by its extension should be full of words that do not contribute interesting content.

That is one of the most attractive challenges of the novel: to tell a story in an extensive way, with all the details of the past, present and future of the facts explained, but without boring the readers.

The structure of the novel allows us to go into detail and expose in a very specific way all the events that take place in that space. Ensuring that the goals remain clear and that the plot remains coherent and appealing to readers.

It is essential to remember the organization of three acts that has every story that you want to write. However, in the novel, this structure can be much broader, full of details and with the possibility of being very specific. In the structure of the novel in addition, the inclusion of many characters is allowed.

In the story, probably, the writer can only narrate one of the acts of this structure, the one that has the most important events or where the"moral"or"advice"that the stories are given.

Characters

In the story there can only be one main character in which the whole plot focuses, without having time to dive into his thoughts or explore all areas of his life. Unlike novels that while they have a main character, they can also refer to the lives of those around them, their relationships and their motivations.

If a writer wants to write a story, he can not narrate the biography of his character, but focus only on the facts he wants to tell, so as not to risk losing the purpose of his story.

Instead, the novelist can unleash his imagination and build the literary world with as many colors as possible. Provided that at the end of the story, the final result of the events is consistent with the succession of events and motivations that have had the characters since the beginning of the novel.

References

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3. Tale (defined) The Bedford Glossary of Critical and LiteraryTerms. Retrieved from hawai.edu.
4. What is a novel? Retrieved from blackwell publishing.com.
5. What's the difference between a novel and a short story? Recovered from quora.com.
6. ThreeWays Short Stories are DifferentThanNovels. Retrieved from letswriteashortstory.com.
7. Fairy Tale. Literary Terms and Definitions. Retrieved from web.con.edu.