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Walter Mosley: “A Novel is Not a Machine”
On the Pleasure of Encountering Something New
Via The Craft of Writing
Walter Mosley
June 26, 2026
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here.<br>Article continues after advertisement
Very often one finds literary editors, critics, and some fiction writers talking about novels as if they were mechanical things, finely, or not so finely tooled machines designed to impart a multilayered series of events in which certain human beings, their works, actions, responses, and sometimes their very lives are in the balance, creating projects and problems destined to be toiled over until the issues they face are resolved—one way or another. To a great degree these technical interpretations of fictional narratives are valid, that is to say, yes, a novel is a construct of ideas that work together, attempting to tell a story via plot, characterization, physical description, dialogue, and motive—all ending in a resolution or a series of resolutions that, for lack of a better explanation, make sense to the reader.
When attempting to comprehend or create the subtleties of a work of fiction it is useful to try and understand the underlying structures of the work. Who is the main character? When were they born? Where do they live? What are her or his proclivities? What do they want? What stands in their way? Who is there to help or hinder this hero? When were these helpers born? Etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum…
If the structure-minded critic finds a flaw in any of these basic tenets they make a little check on the negative side of the interpretation of the work. This exposition might hurt the credibility of the story; it may end up rendering the entire structure (the novel-machine) inoperable in the minds of potential readers. Or, at least, that is what this particular brand of critic might desire. This is because when reviewing anything as one would a mechanical device, any flaw encountered is a grievous error.
But a novel is not a machine. Or, more accurately, it is not a device that has a singular function. In a way the novel might be seen to have a particular purpose, which is the story it tells. After all, the novel can be seen as a given concatenation of words designed to tell a story to one human, or many humans, one at a time. For instance, John reads a novel and thinks that the main character, Dorn, is a jerk who should have been put in prison at the end of the tale. Nissa, John’s friend, feels that Dorn is misunderstood and even though she agrees that he’s at least a fool, she believes that he has been hoodwinked by his friends and the system of the world he inhabits. Peter, Nissa’s stepfather, couldn’t get past page 37 of the book. He can’t make heads or tails out of what’s going on in the story.
Was it the intent of the author of Dorn that there should be so many, vastly different interpretations of her tale? Did the author know that somebody, somewhere in the future, would start a religion called Dorn based on her ideas but expressed in words never written in that book?
Every reader reads, and in some ways creates a different book in their mind. The characters have a unique look in each and every mind’s eye. The reasons that are given in the fiction are scrutinized and understood in as many ways as there are readers, maybe even more, seeing that even an individual reader might apprehend the world one way today and then, sometime later, they might have a completely different worldview.
Let’s not forget the original definition of the term, the word novel; it means that you’re about to encounter something original, different, unique.
Words, ideas, characters, and resolutions mean different things to different people. Taking this statement as true, but not actually truth—a novel is not, cannot be a machine. To judge a work of fiction as a finite, single purpose structure would be the one and only grievous error.
Okay, you say, you’re telling me that a novel might have some mechanical qualities, but it cannot be seen as a machine....