‘Everyone has a novel in them …’

A lot of people believe that this is true, whether or not you add the second half of the sentence, which is something along the lines of:

‘… but in most cases that’s where it should stay.’

Apart from the likely truism that most of those hidden treasures would probably not be future classics, what about the idea that we have one book, and one book only, inside of us?

This might be true if the book is a non-fiction account of a life, or a part of history, which the author loves and knows with a passion. But, for pure fiction, it doesn’t make any sense to me.

There are as many stories as there are atoms in the universe and they are all there waiting to be uncovered and told by any of us. We can tell one or we can tell many.

What makes a difference is the motivation, desire, concentration and pig-headed stubbornness needed to grind through the process of writing and re-writing tens of thousands of inter-related words and to immerse yourself in the world of your story and your characters.

As to whether the resultant novel will be ‘good’. Well that is a very different matter and, at least partially, subjective. There is no doubt, however, that the motivation required to write a second and a third, will be easier to find if the feedback given to the writer is positive and encouraging.

How many people write purely for the sake of art and without any concern for their readers? I doubt there are many and I doubt even more that I would want to read their books.