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How Novels Are Built
Less about which books you have read, more about the devices every novelist has to choose between before the first page.
About this topic
A novel makes a handful of decisions before it makes any others. Who is telling this, and how much do they know? Where does the story open, and how much of the past arrives later? Are we watching the characters or sitting inside one of their heads? Readers rarely notice these choices being made, which is exactly the point, but they determine almost everything about how a book feels. The form also has an economic history that shaped it. Victorian novels were long and full of cliffhangers because they were sold in monthly instalments. Twentieth-century modernists shortened and fragmented them partly in reaction. These questions cover the vocabulary of narration alongside a few books that changed what the form was thought capable of.
Questions & answers
How Novels Are Built: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1A story told by a character using the word "I" is written in which narrative person?
- A Third person omniscient
- B First person Correct
- C Second person
- D Third person limited
Answer: B. First person
Why: It restricts the reader to what one character can know or admit. That limitation is why mysteries and confessional novels lean on it so heavily.
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2An unreliable narrator is one who does what?
- A Gives an account the reader has reason to doubt Correct
- B Addresses the reader directly
- C Changes tense in the middle of a scene
- D Appears only in the closing chapter
Answer: A. Gives an account the reader has reason to doubt
Why: Wayne Booth named the type in 1961. The signal is usually a gap between what the narrator reports and what the surrounding detail implies.
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3Which Spanish work of 1605 is often described as the first modern novel?
- A The Decameron
- B Robinson Crusoe
- C Gargantua and Pantagruel
- D Don Quixote Correct
Answer: D. Don Quixote
Why: Cervantes wrote a second part in 1615, partly to answer an unauthorised sequel someone else had published. Characters in that second part have read the first.
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4A bildungsroman follows what?
- A A single day in one place
- B A crime and its investigation
- C A character's growth from youth into maturity Correct
- D A family across several generations
Answer: C. A character's growth from youth into maturity
Why: The term is German and dates from the early nineteenth century. Jane Eyre and Great Expectations are the standard English examples.
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5The Tale of Genji, often called the world's earliest novel, was written in which country?
- A Persia
- B Japan Correct
- C China
- D India
Answer: B. Japan
Why: Murasaki Shikibu wrote it at the Heian court around the year 1010. That is roughly six centuries before Cervantes.
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6Stream of consciousness describes writing that does what?
- A Follows thoughts as they arrive, with little tidying Correct
- B Alternates between two time periods
- C Uses no dialogue at all
- D Is told by several narrators in turn
Answer: A. Follows thoughts as they arrive, with little tidying
Why: Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner developed it during the 1920s. The phrase itself was borrowed from the psychologist William James.
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7One Hundred Years of Solitude was written by whom?
- A Jorge Luis Borges
- B Mario Vargas Llosa
- C Isabel Allende
- D Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez Correct
Answer: D. Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez
Why: It appeared in 1967 and made magical realism a term general readers recognised. Its author was Colombian and had worked for years as a journalist.
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8Most long Victorian novels first reached readers in what form?
- A Newspaper summaries
- B Public readings only
- C Instalments in magazines Correct
- D Single expensive volumes
Answer: C. Instalments in magazines
Why: Serial publication explains both their length and their habit of ending chapters on a hook. Writers were commonly paid by the instalment.
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9In fiction, "in medias res" means beginning where?
- A Outside the story, with a preface
- B In the middle of the action Correct
- C At the narrator's birth
- D On the final day of the story
Answer: B. In the middle of the action
Why: Horace recommended the technique in his Ars Poetica. Whatever the reader has missed then arrives through flashback or conversation.
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10Things Fall Apart, among the most widely read African novels, was written by whom?
- A Chinua Achebe Correct
- B Wole Soyinka
- C Ben Okri
- D Ayi Kwei Armah
Answer: A. Chinua Achebe
Why: It was published in 1958 and set in Igbo communities facing British colonial arrival. Its title comes from a line in a Yeats poem.
Frequently asked questions about How Novels Are Built
How many questions are in How Novels Are Built?
How Novels Are Built has 10 questions and takes about 7 minutes to finish. It is rated Medium and sits in our Arts & Literature category.
How is How Novels Are Built scored?
Each of the 10 correct answers adds 10 XP, up to 100 XP for a clean run. Wrong answers cost you nothing, and your full question-by-question review is shown at the end.
Are the answers to How Novels Are Built explained?
Yes. All 10 questions carry a written explanation of why the correct answer is right, so the quiz works as a study sheet as well as a test.
Can I replay How Novels Are Built?
Yes, as often as you like. The questions and the answer options are reshuffled on each run, and you can use Practice Mistakes afterwards to retry only the ones you missed. No account is needed to play.
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