What is the difference between an essay and a novel?

Answer 1

Well, a compo is always shorter than a novel and usually used for primary. But a novel is like a book with some chaothers and a dozen of paragraph.

Answer 2

Essay is a short composition under 1,000 words, but most often between 250 to 500 words. While technically, most essays are non-fiction, so therefore factual, an essay could also be creative fiction. For example, if a teacher gives an assignment, "Write an essay of 500-600 words describing a family vacation", you could take it literally and write about your last family vacation. But it doesn't say "your last family vacation". So you could write an imaginary "family" and their vacation. However, most essays ask you to take a position on an issue, to express and support an opinion(s), or present facts.

A novel, however, is always regarded as purely fiction. Yet, most authors use their real life experiences to construct fiction stories. So with either essay or novel, there can be a lot of overlap between "fiction" and "non-fiction", including but not limited to: place, time, setting, real people versus characters, point or points of view, storylines, and conclusion (or in some novels, a hanging ending). One huge difference, though, will always be length: a novel could be 100-300 pages, versus a less than 1,000 word count.