Everyone has one great novel in them

[dynamiteninja]

Dunno how well known this phrase is, but is it true? That is, that if any one person dedicated the time and effort to writing a novel, that they could come up with something of passable worth?

[Silently Honest]

Some people have several.

[spirilis]

I agree with it.

[kyuuei]

I think so too, whether it be fictional or not. I know I've been writing a script (for a comic book actually..) for a couple years now.. I'm no where near done with it, but I hope it'll be something great one day!

[Colors]

I think so. Everyone has something that they have insight into... something that others can relate to and learn from.

[Colors]

Well this thread is gonna die: What's your one great novel about?

Mine: The intricacies of communication. The minute body language and the beats and the slang and the tiny little things we try to read and convey when we try to talk or listen or lie or convey. The comfort of the dark. The beautiful purple hiding in the sky. The loss of true memory when the human mind twists it around half-remembered dreams and the vivid fantasies we repeat until we don't know if they're real. Loyalty and friendship and ideals... And astronauts with laser guns. Eating freeze-dried fish ice cream.

[reason]

'there is no such thing as good writing, only rewriting', or so someone once said. Likewise, everyone (well, almost everyone), has a good novel "in" them, the question is how many crap drafts they'll need to go through first, and whether they'll have the patience.

[Bella]

Yes. Most people I've known came out with something, somewhere in a conversation that left me thinking 'wow, here I thought you were some ordinary joe shmo, but you went through all of THAT!'

[Oberon]

I once started a novel that I realized partway in was going to be so complex and arcane a novel that I rewrote it as a screenplay.

That did away with all the problems I was having with inscrutable details.

[Jack Flak]

I agree. Trouble is, mine would be a science fiction story, and since I don't actually read much fiction of any kind, I would probably write what someone else already has.