A Wedding need not be the Chief Aim of a Novel
Possibly it will come as a surprise to many amateurs when I tell them that the inevitable uniting of the lovers (or their disuniting, as the case may be) in the last chapter, is not necessarily the chief object of an experienced writer; often it is merely incidental.
The average beginner—more especially the feminine beginner—has but one aim when she embarks on fiction, viz., the marrying of her hero and heroine. That the wedding bells ringing on the last page may be an episode of secondary importance, so far as a book is concerned, seldom occurs to her. The result is the monotonous character of thousands of the MSS. offered for publication; and the weary reams of paper that are covered with pointless, backboneless fiction, that amounts, all told, to nothing more than the engagement (or the estrangement) of two colourless, nondescript individuals!
The Ideas behind Books are as Varied as Human Nature
Sometimes the author aims to show you either the inhabitants and manners and customs and scenery of some definite locality! or one particular class of society; or the virtues or failings of an individual type; or the beauty of an abstract virtue; or the pitiful side of poverty; or vice decorated with gloss and glamour.
But whatever the idea may be, one of some sort lies behind every novel of recognised standing.
Begin your study of a book, therefore, by looking for its central idea; then observe how this permeates the whole, and how the author utilises his characters and his incidents to demonstrate the idea.
Some writers explain themselves in the title they give to a book. The Egoist tells you at once what to expect. But whether the motif of a book be obvious or not at first apparent, it is important so far as the staying quality of a story is concerned. And it is not until you have studied standard authors, with this particular matter in mind, that you realise how much more important it is that a book should have a keynote, than that the hero should be handsome, or that the heroine should be dressed in some soft clinging material that suits her surpassing loveliness to perfection.
Look for the Framework of the Story
Having decided what is the central idea behind the book you are studying (I am not suggesting any particular book; choose any work of recognised merit by a dead or a modern writer and it will serve), next try to find the framework of the story—the plot if you like, though the framework is not always the plot.