What Makes a Novel Stand Out on Submission? Susan DeFreitas on Jane Friedman’s Blog

“It has to have a sense of meaning.

“Meaning is subjective, of course. But even so, there are story elements that intersect directly with issues that we as human beings tend to find important, moving, and compelling: Moral questions, and the way they stir strong emotion. Characterization, and what it reveals about human nature. The way the story reflects the truths of our own reality—and the sense that this story actually has something to say.”

Source: What Makes a Novel Stand Out on Submission? | Jane Friedman

If a story doesn’t have more going for it than an interesting tale to tell, action-packed thought it may be, it falls flat when all is said and done. DeFreitas focuses on four major areas:

Addresses moral issues
Reflects on the truth of reality
Has complex characters
Has something to say

There may be other considerations, but an author’s consideration and implementation of each of these brings his/her story into a higher, and more interesting realm of writing than the garden-variety novel.

In terms of something so say, for example, DeFreitas writes, “What I mean is that the story is conscious of the way it uses themes to make a complex point, whether that has something to do with the importance of gritty realism over pie-in-the-sky idealism (Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things), the impossibility of living as a queer woman under conservative gender norms (Megan Giddings’s The Women Could Fly), or the ways that secrets corrupt us from within (Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch).”

Needless to say (almost) is that something to say must be a solid part of the story rather than pasted into the work as an afterthought. What the story “says” has to be inseparable from the plot, theme, and characters like the air they breathe.

–Malcolm