Novel vs Fiction  

When you get inside a book store, you see lots and lots of books. The world of books can be quite overwhelming for the uninitiated. There can be many categories of books in which the subdivision of novel and fiction is an important one. We all, at one point of time or other, have read novels and feel we know what they mean and how they are different from fiction. Many think that novel and fiction are one and the same while some even use these terms interchangeably. Let us find out if there are indeed differences between these two concepts called fiction and novel.

Novel

A novel is in the form of text written as prose rather than verses. It is one of the many types of fiction. The word novel comes from the Latin Novella, which means new. The content of a novel is such that it looks real or factual, but the fact is that the information is all flight of imagination of the writer though it may be inspired by a real life incident.

To classify as a novel, a piece of prose has to be at least 100 pages in length. Those books having shorter lengths are called novellas. The content can draw on real life incidents, but a novel never claims to have real characters and the facts mentioned in a novel cannot be verified in real life.

There are many characters in a novel and the story also has many twists with events and incidents taking place in the lives of the main characters that are linked with each other. There are sub stories and sub plots running in parallel to the main story which is the beauty of a novel. There are many genres in which novels are written, and the word count for all genres is different for a book to be called a novel. However, in general, the minimum word count for a book to be labeled as a novel is 40000.

Fiction

That form of literature that is made up or is a flight of imagination of the writer is labeled fiction. In contrast, books containing facts or real life incidents are called non-fiction. There are many different forms of fiction such as flash fiction, short stories, novellas, and finally novels. However, the common thread running through all these different categories of fiction is the fact that the content or the story is made up by the author and the story or the characters cannot be verified in real life.

What is the difference between Novel and Fiction?

• Fiction is imaginary writing by an author in the form of prose and could belong to many different genres such as romance, mystery, horror etc.

• Novel is a type of fiction as it is a lengthy story containing many characters and plots and subplots

• Novel is the lengthiest of all fiction types and a novel contains at least 40000+ words.