What are the factors that make up a novel?

The three elements of the novel: the characters, the plot and the description of the environment. Character image (the core of character image is the character's ideological character, and the description methods of character image are: portrait description, language description, action description, psychological description and expression description. The angle of character description includes front description and side description. Storytelling (Storytelling refers to the whole process of the development and evolution of the events described in the works, and the structure of the storyline is: (prologue)-beginning-development-climax-ending (epilogue)) Environmental description (Environmental description refers to the description of the environment in which the characters are active and the background in which things happen. Environmental description is divided into natural environment and social environment. The description of natural environment refers to the description of time, place, season, climate, flowers, birds, insects and fish of people's activities. The description of social environment refers to the description of the specific background, place, atmosphere and interpersonal relationship of people's activities. There are many factors that affect the development of novels. To sum up, it is nothing more than the internal and external causes of the novel. The internal factors of novels mainly refer to novel style and novel type. Novel style is different from poetry, prose and opera. It is close to historical biography in narrative level, but its style is still different. The style of vernacular novels has formed a relatively stable system since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, which requires novelists to conform to its various rules when creating. Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long talks about "establishing the general atmosphere" and Cao Pi's Essays on Dian Lun talks about "playing elegance, writing reason, being honest and poetic beauty", both of which emphasize different styles and expressions. The novels of Qing Dynasty inherited the Ming Dynasty and developed on the basis of the narrative experience of the previous generation in style. Novel style is relative to other literary categories, and there are different types in novel style. What needs special explanation here is that the "type" as a literary category is not only divided by subject matter. When we talk about "history", "ghosts and gods" and "human feelings", it is easy to misunderstand that it is just a difference in subject matter; Theme is an important factor, but it also includes genre (long and short stories), theme and narrative style. For example, the popular romance novels in the Song Dynasty and Yue Zhuan are both about Yue Fei's resistance to gold, but the former is a "story telling" and the latter is a "heroic legend". Genre is a literary norm formed by the tradition of novel creation. A novelist can't help but be influenced by it when he is writing, and no one can completely get rid of the inherent inertia tension of writing tradition. Therefore, his works are the latest achievements of the genre to which his works belong, or the variation of the traditional genre under the new historical conditions. Variation may become a new genre, but it still contains the genes of the old genre. The external factors that affect the development of novels refer to the environmental factors of novel creation, such as politics, economy, religion, ethics, rap, drama and other literary categories. There are many works devoted to the influence of external environmental factors on novel creation, so it seems unnecessary to talk about it here. But what I want to emphasize is that in the era of strict feudal culture, political factors played a great role. Political current affairs novels in the late Ming Dynasty are very active. After entering the Qing Dynasty, this genre still has strong vitality, but its theme has undergone fundamental changes, and Dingge has become the main theme in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. With the tightening of the "literary prison" network, this type soon disappeared. Even if you write about the world and family life, you should try to blur the background of the story and avoid the suspicion of mocking reality. During the Qianlong period, some works of Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio were translated into vernacular Chinese, and the original background of the early Qing Dynasty was changed to the former dynasty. The internal and external causes of all novels do not exist in isolation, let alone determine the face of the novel in isolation. All these factors should be concentrated on the subject of novel creation, that is, the novelist. Novelists, as a concrete member of society, must have been born in a certain class, family and family in the social structure at that time. His social status, experience and education will certainly affect his social status, attitude towards life, aesthetic concept and artistic creativity, which are very important to his works. Therefore, it can be said that novelists are decisive for the history of novel development. History is composed of a series of events with complex relations and time continuity, but it is human activities that determine the development of history. As a side of the whole history, the history of novels is no exception. The comprehensive quality of people engaged in novel creation determines the quality of novels, and the overall quality of creative groups in an era naturally determines the novel appearance of this era. The original form of China's vernacular novels can be found in the vernacular novels in Dunhuang Shishi Collection. Those works were written in the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties or the early Northern Song Dynasty, which shows that vernacular novels appeared very early. However, from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty and then to the Yuan Dynasty, vernacular novels were in a simple state for a long time, and there was not much progress in art. Why? Of course, there are many reasons, but one of the decisive factors is the author of vernacular novels. In the long historical period from Song Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty, the people who participated in the creation of vernacular novels were basically the so-called "book club talents" in the "speaking" circle, or bookstore owners and their related people. They may be familiar with the art of "speaking", but they are not good at the narrative of novels as written literature. Their social status is not high, and their cultural literacy is far less than that of literati engaged in poetry creation. They can only record and process those "talking" programs that are very popular with the audience. "Speaking" is a kind of oral performance art, and the vivid performance of the speaker on the spot is completely different from the narrative of the novel. The performance of "Shuo" may be touching, but if it is recorded in words, it may be unbearable to read. "Talking" in the Southern Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty has been very prosperous according to documents such as Dream of China in Tokyo, and has reached a quite mature stage in geisha art. However, the artistic level of Yuan Zaju is quite different. The crux lies in the author's poor skill in controlling words and lack of motivation in planning the layout of articles. This state was not fundamentally changed until after Jiajing in Ming Dynasty. What leads to this change is the improvement of the literary quality of the novel creation group. In order to let literati participate in the creation and criticism of popular novels, we must first change the traditional attitude of dismissing popular novels. Wang Yangming's theory of mind promoted this historic cultural change. Wang Yangming has a famous theory of "being close to the people". He believes that everyone has a conscience, whether a saint or a foolish husband or a foolish woman, whether a scholar, a farmer, a worker or a businessman, all have good knowledge and good ability. "Being close to the people" means that everyone in the world can be "virtuous", so we should teach for the public. Since it is our duty to educate, we must adopt an education method acceptable to laymen. In Wang Yangming's words, it is "to be a stupid man and a stupid woman before giving a lecture". In this way, popular novels have been chosen as one of the vulgarization tools. After Jiajing, Li Zhi, Yuan Hongdao, Xie, Feng Menglong, Ling Mengchu and other literati took part in novel creation and criticism, which is the trend of the times. It is precisely because of the participation of such a group of high-level literati that popular novels have produced a number of immortal works that praise elegance and belittle vulgarity, and have leapt to the traditional literary world where poetry and prose monopolize. During the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, most literati were attracted by the knowledge of the Gan family, and the group of novelists suddenly shrank. Influenced by the trend of the times, some writers regard novels as a tool to show off their knowledge, and novels fall from the peak to the trough. It was not until the end of the Qing Dynasty that a group of revolutionaries, reformists and professional editors who were influenced by western culture actively engaged in novel creation, and novels came out of the trough and became a temporary prosperity. From the historical development facts of the above novels, we can clearly see that many factors, such as social and cultural environment, novel tradition and so on, play a role through the subject of novel creation, and the novelist is of course the key factor to determine the appearance, style, ideological tendency and artistic level of novel creation. Therefore, when we describe the history of the novel, the text of the work is the main object of analysis and criticism, but the novelist, as the creative subject, should be at the core of the concept.