Novels are different from stories, poems, and narratives in a number of key respects. Though they are presented in the form of a book, they are much more than that — in most cases, any bound paper constitutes a book. All novels are books, therefore, but not all books are novels.
Most literary scholars define novels by what they contain and how they are presented. First, a novel must written down rather than told through an oral account. Many ancient stories were passed down from generation to generation through story tellers, and though many of these may have been long enough or complex enough to be novels, they do not qualify unless they are recorded in some permanent way.