1. What is the novel?
E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel cites the definition of a Frenchman named Abel Chevalley: "a fiction in prose of a certain extent" and adds that he defines "extent" as over 50,000 words.
The word "novel" (which wasn't even used until the end of the 18th century) is an English transliteration of the Italian word "novella"--used to describe a short, compact, broadly realistic tale popular during the medieval period (e.g. The Decameron).
The novel deals with a human character in a social situation, man as a social being.
The novel places more emphasis on character, especially one well-rounded character, than on plot.
Another initial major characteristic of the novel is realism--a full and authentic report of human life.
The traditional novel has:
a unified and plausible plot structure
sharply individualized and believable characters
a pervasive illusion of reality

2. A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century.
Further definition of the genre is historically difficult. The construction of the narrative, the plot, the way reality is created in the works of fiction, the fascination of the character study, and the use of language are usually discussed to show a novel's artistic merits. Most of these requirements were introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to give fiction a justification outside the field of factual history.

3. elements of the novel
A novel aims for a comprehensive unified effect in which all of the elements of fiction intertwine to make a comment on the human condition. The elements of fiction are :
Plot: what happens in the story
Character: who is involved in what happens in the story
Point of View: how the story is told
Setting: where and when the story takes place
Theme: what the point of the story is
style: Style is not so much what is written, but how it is written and interpreted. Style in fiction refers to language conventions used to construct the story or article. A fiction writer may manipulate diction, sentence structure, phrasing, dialogue, and other aspects of language to create style or mood. The communicative effect created by the author's style is sometimes referred to as the story's voice. Every writer has his or her own unique style, or voice (Provost 1988, p. 8). Style is sometimes listed as one of the fundamental elements of fiction.
An ability to identify these elements in a novel and then understand how all of these elements work together to provide the effect of the novel on the reading leads to a critical understanding of a novel.

4. plot
Plot was and is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect.

5. character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art (such as a novel, play, or film) derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr

6. Point of view
Narrative point of view in the creative writing of fiction describes the narrator's position in relation to the story being told.
In a first-person narrative the story is relayed by a narrator who is also a character within the story, so that the narrator reveals the plot by referring to this viewpoint character as "I" (or, when plural, "we"). Oftentimes, the first-person narrative is used as a way to directly convey the deeply internal, otherwise unspoken thoughts of the narrator. Frequently, the narrator's story revolves around him-/herself as the protagonist and allows this protagonist/narrator character's inner thoughts to be conveyed openly to the audience, even if not to any of the other characters

7. The rarest mode in literature (though quite common in song lyrics) is the second-person narrative mode, in which the narrator refers to one of the characters as "you", therefore making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story. Another common place to see this is in preschool television shows in which characters will tell the audience to follow them, or ask the audience questions. Second-person narrative mode is often paired with the first-person narrative mode in which the narrator makes emotional comparisons between the thoughts, actions, and feelings of "you" versus "I". Often the narrator is also a character in his or her story, in which case it would technically still be employing the first-person narrative mode; an example of this form is A Song of Stone by Iain Banks.

8. Third-person narration provides the greatest flexibility to the author and thus is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature. In the third-person narrative mode, each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they", but never as "I" or "we" (first-person), or "you" (second-person). In third-person narrative, it is obvious that the narrator be merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, but not a character of any kind within the story being told

9. Setting, the location and time of a story, is often listed as one of the fundamental elements of fiction. Sometimes setting is referred to as milieu, to include a context (such as society) beyond the immediate surroundings of the story. In some cases, setting becomes a character itself and can set the tone of a story. (Rozelle 2005, p. 2)
Theme, a conceptual distillation of the story, is often listed as one of the fundamental elements of fiction. It is the central idea or insight serving as a unifying element, creating cohesion and is an answer to the question, 'What did you learn from the piece of fiction?' In some cases a story's theme is a prominent element and somewhat unmistakable. (Morrell 2006, p. 263)