Judgments and secrets are what make a good novel.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A good novel should be deeply unsettling - its satisfactions should come from its authenticity and its formal coherence. We must feel something crucial is at stake.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
My view of an excellent novel was probably set in the golden age of fiction in the 19th century: narrative, character and voice are of equal importance.
A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.
Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.
A good novel is something that challenges perception, that allows you to see the world anew through a different point of view - something that genre fiction doesn't do, although it sells more because it doesn't disturb people's innate sense of what a novel should be about. Often, people want characters to be nice, for example.
I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.
I am a novelist. I traffic in subtleties, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn't have a point.
I think the main thing to remember when writing a novel is to stay true to the characters.
I find that most novels are not good all the way through. A story can be good all the way through, every sentence.