Developing your Narrative

Abstract

We now come to the question of the long narrative, the novel, and how we can approach the writing of one. I must admit this is the fence I do not want to jump, for though I know there are new novels that succeed, I am at something of a loss to describe, in reasonable critical terms, why they succeed. The novels that have moved me most (Tillie Olsen’s Yonnondio, F. M. Mayor’s The Rector’s Daughter, Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple) leave me with the impression that a miracle has happened — a ‘How could it be done? Oh! She has done it.’ I am surprised whenever a good novel comes to be written because I understand the odds it was written against.