I wouldn't have thought that the techniques of story-telling, which is what the novel is after all, can vary much because there are two things involved.There's a story and there's a listener, whose attention you have to keep. Now the only way in which you can keep a reader's attention to a story is in his wanting to know what is going to happen next. This puts a fairly close restriction on the method you must use.

The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.

Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.

Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.

The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.

Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand.

Put simply the novel stands between us and the hardening concept of statistical man. There is no other medium in which we can live for so long and so intimately with a character. That is the service a novel renders.