11 Contemporary Novels Where Nothing Really Happens (And That’s the Point)

I go to the beach most days. Same spot. I drop my backpack on a white rock, take off my shirt, wade in. Waist deep, I dive — surface on my back — and paddle slowly out to the count of 100.

It’s far enough to be quiet and solitary, but not so far that I wonder what’s underneath me.

Some days I float there. Still water. Still mind. Everything else — the shore, the days, the rest of life — recedes. The moment stretches out, before and after everything.

That feeling — of observing something subtle change, of sensing a shift so small it barely counts as an event — is what first made me ask:

Could you write a novel that feels like this?

Could you describe the sea’s movements — its texture, its silence, its moods — as a kind of story? Could you create drama out of stillness?

“If you can't see the joy and wonder to be found in genre fiction, that's your problem, not mine.“

William Meikle