But novels have certain characteristics that take them out of the real world. In fact, the existence of any story is outside real life. A transformation process takes place. This transformation process is the craft of novel writing. But realize that the process is not simply a description of real-life events.
Dialogue is an abbreviated or edited version of normal conversation.
That's all you should get from this first section. To follow the discussion on the following pages, you should have an idea for a novel. From here on you will be developing your idea into a novel. But the central most important fact you should retain from this first section is that the real world and the fictional world are radically different and that you can only get into the fictional world through narrative craft. Copyright 1999 by David Sheppard.