You may have come across the term “quiet novel” recently. As is usual with such words, there is no one definition that everyone in the writing world agrees upon.
Goodreads has a Quiet Novel Shelf. Jane Austen and Amy Tan are both represented, as well as Clyde Edgerton, so yes, quiet novels can be very good indeed.
In Publication Consultants books, Marianne Schlegelmilch’s very popular novels fall into this category.
In general, a quiet novel is one that is written around the protagonist’s internal journey, rather than the hero who deals with bad-guy thugs or drug dealers, things blowing up, car chases, who changes the world around him or herself.
In the quiet novel, the world changes the hero, while the hero may or not change the world. Yes, orphans may be saved, people rescued from a burning building, but the focus is on the soul of the protagonist.
If you’re writing a quiet novel, it’s important to understand where to put your writing emphasis, so to speak.
Here at Publication Consultants, we encourage novels of all kinds, and certainly encourage novels in which the soul of the protagonist undergoes a change for the better.
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