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About This Author
Battywyn🎶Prep!  , also known as Michelle Tuesday, is a musician, educator and writer hailing from Columbus, Ohio.
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La Bene Vita
I am a professional musician  , worship leader , small business owner , songwriter , aspiring author and freelance nonfiction writer with a chemical engineering degree .
But that's just my resume.
My profile of qualifications is only one of the ways in which I am unique. Here I chronicle my personal and professional goals and my efforts to achieve them. Occasionally I fail. Mostly, I take daily baby steps toward all my long-term goals. Much like the stories I pen, the songs I compose, and the businesses I run, I am always a work in progress.
October 4, 2025 at 5:49am October 4, 2025 at 5:49am
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Do you feel like all the plots have been written? That we're just recycling stories?
I asked two chatbots to offer lists of novels that were considered innovative or groundbreaking at the time of publication, to prove that brand new plots are still possible. The compiled* list is below, highlighting innovations in plot, genre, theme, and storytelling methods.
Note that if you asked again, you would probably get a different list. This list is not meant to be accurate. It's meant to be enlightening and encouraging. And maybe a bit of a gauntlet.  Will you write the next groundbreaking novel?
17th–19th Century: Breaking Early Conventions
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605–1615)
A man loses his mind from reading too many chivalric romances and sets out to live as a knight — blurring fantasy and reality centuries before postmodernism. Often called the first modern novel, blending realism, satire, and metafiction.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
A scientist creates life from the dead — the first narrative to explore artificial creation, science ethics, and “playing God.” Created a new genre: science fiction. Shelley's novel is a foundational text of both science fiction and Gothic horror. It was innovative for exploring the consequences of scientific overreach and grappling with themes of creation, morality, and ambition.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
A multi-generational Gothic tale of obsession, revenge, and destructive love told through layered narrators — shocking for its brutality and moral ambiguity. Unconventional narrative structure and dark romanticism.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848)
Brontë's novel was shocking for its time due to its frank depiction of a woman leaving her abusive, alcoholic husband. It was a pioneering work of feminist fiction that challenged Victorian social conventions and a woman's right to self-determination.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857)
A bored provincial wife seeks meaning through adulterous affairs and consumer fantasies — scandalous in its time for realism and female agency. Introduced modern realism and free indirect discourse. A masterpiece of literary realism, this book was groundbreaking for its focus on the mundane, psychological, and emotional aspects of its characters' lives. The realistic style was so shocking that Flaubert was prosecuted for obscenity, though he was ultimately acquitted.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
A surreal, logic-defying fantasy with no moral lesson — an absurdist inversion of Victorian children’s tales.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
A seminal work of science fiction, this novel was innovative in its use of time travel to explore themes of social decay and evolution.
A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison (1896)
As a key work of naturalism, this book was innovative for its unromanticized and gritty portrayal of slum life in Victorian London.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899)
This novel was ahead of its time for its frank exploration of a woman's sexuality and her rejection of traditional motherhood. It was met with controversy and condemnation upon its release for its "immorality," but later came to be recognized as a groundbreaking work of feminist modernism.
Early 20th Century: Modernist Shifts in Reality
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (1900)
Often called the first modern American novel, it was innovative for its naturalist perspective, portraying characters as products of their environment and driven by social and economic forces. It defied moral conventions by allowing its heroine to find success without being punished for her choices.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915)
A man wakes up as a giant insect — no explanation given. The plot’s absurd simplicity launched modern existential fiction.
Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
A single day in Dublin parallels Homer’s Odyssey — transforming an ordinary man’s day into an epic of consciousness. Revolutionized the stream-of-consciousness technique and narrative structure.
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)
A single day in the life of a woman planning a party, mirrored by a veteran’s suicide — ordinary events used to explore time, trauma, and identity. Broke linear time with interior monologue.
The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925)
A man is arrested and executed for an unnamed crime — an allegory of faceless bureaucracy and existential guilt. Questioned authority, bureaucracy, and meaning itself.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
A genetically engineered society where pleasure replaces freedom — an early dystopia critiquing consumerism and conformity.
Mid-20th Century: Reality, Morality, and Madness
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)
A totalitarian future where language itself controls thought — its “Big Brother” concept redefined political fiction. Defined dystopian fiction as political prophecy.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
A middle-aged man’s obsessive relationship with a young girl — narrated with disturbing beauty and irony. Shocked readers with unreliable narration and linguistic artistry.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)
Children stranded on an island descend into savagery — a grim inversion of adventure tales like Treasure Island.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
Soldiers trapped in bureaucratic paradoxes — the plot’s circular logic made absurdity itself the story.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel GarcĂa Márquez (1967)
The cyclical rise and fall of a family across generations in a mythic town — time itself becomes the plot. Defined magical realism and multi-generational storytelling. The book's use of magical realism and its cyclical narrative structure were highly innovative. It blended history and myth to become a touchstone of Latin American literature and a worldwide sensation.
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
A man becomes “unstuck in time” during war — looping through past, present, and alien abduction in nonlinear order. Collapsed time and genre boundaries.
Late 20th–21st Century: Postmodern and Conceptual Innovation
Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)
This is a groundbreaking work of speculative fiction that blends science fiction with the slave narrative genre. Butler's innovative use of time travel makes her novel a uniquely impactful and intimate exploration of racial history.
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (1979)
This experimental postmodern novel is unique for its second-person narrative, with the reader as the protagonist. It consists of ten different novels, whose opening chapters are interrupted just as the narrative begins to develop.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
A theocratic regime reduces women to breeders — dystopian fiction told as a recovered historical record. Feminist dystopia that blurred speculative and literary fiction.
Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
A mother haunted by the ghost of the baby she killed to save from slavery — blending the supernatural with historical trauma. Merged ghost story, historical fiction, and collective trauma.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001)
A boy stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger — an allegory that questions the nature of truth and storytelling.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004)
Six interlocking stories across centuries — each nested within the other, showing the repetition of human ambition and oppression. Nested narratives spanning centuries and styles. Mitchell's novel is notable for its complex, nested narrative structure and for spanning multiple timelines, genres, and writing styles. It is considered a highly innovative work of postmodern fiction.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (2003)
A nonlinear love story between a man with a genetic time-travel disorder and the woman who experiences his life out of sequence.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
Cloned children raised to donate organs — a quiet, emotional take on science fiction ethics.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012)
A missing wife’s diary and her husband’s guilt twist mid-story to reveal an unreliable, manipulative narrator — revitalizing the psychological thriller.
* Disclaimer and boring details: This list was consolidated from multiple chatbot conversations. Specifically, I asked Google for "novels that were considered innovative at the time". For comparison, I asked ChatGPT, "Please provide a list of novels that were considered innovative or groundbreaking at the time of publication". The lists provided were more about innovations in the storytelling strategies, genres and themes rather than plot, so I clarified, "Please provide a list of novel plots which were considered innovative at the time of publication". The list above was generated by the third query, but elements of the first two queries were interesting enough that I included them. Output from Query #1 (Google) is blue. Output from Query #2 (ChatGPT before I added the word "plot") is magenta. |
© Copyright 2025 Battywyn🎶Prep! (UN: tuozzo at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Battywyn🎶Prep! has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
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Tragedy can bring people together.
Comment • View 4 comments ![Merit Badge in Music
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To a dear friend whose talent for writing music is sensational. May you have a fabulous New Year, (((Brandi)))!!! *^*Kiss*^*
Big hugs,
Sherri *^*Heart*^*](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Music-1050.gif)
![Merit Badge in Organization
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I don't know how you do it, but I assume there's magic involved *^*Bigsmile*^* I have really enjoyed this month of planning and preparation for NaNoWriMo and I love how organized it all is. Thank you for hosting a great challenge and for your dedication to helping so many of us prepare with confidence and trepidation for National Novel Writing Month (known to sane folks as 'November' *^*Laugh*^*) at your [Link To Item #1474311]](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Organization-1150.gif)
![Merit Badge in Leadership
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For your hard work, commitment, talent and innovation in running the October NaNoWriMo Preparation each year, which helps many of us get our scattered thoughts together for November's novel-writing. And also because this badge has ducks on it.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Leadership.gif)
