Member-only story
If You Add Up All Your Writing, Will it Equal a Novel?
Am I writing The Great American Novel, one 5-minute read at a time?
“If you added up all your writing,” my husband says, “I bet you’ve written a novel by now.”
Yes, Husband, I know I’m publishing so much writing these days, it’s hard for you to keep up with it.
But it got me thinking: Is it true? Can we add up all the little pieces we write, put them together — mentally, if not literally — and come up with a novel?
First, the obvious objection: novels are fiction. And essayists write the truth. (Or, I do, anyway.)
Next, those of you who have written an actual novel might point out it takes a certain stick-to-itiveness to follow one protagonist around for so long. To that I say, you’re right. You’re amazing. I’ll probably never write a novel. But also, I could argue that I’m my own protagonist, and, yes, it has taken quite a bit of perseverance to stick around so long, to keep telling my story.
Okay, but your novel has a beginning, a middle, and an ending — an ending satisfying enough to get someone to read a whole damn book. Again, you’re right; novelists are amazing. But essayists (and short story writers) have to come up with a multitude of engaging endings.
