"I wonder what type of fiction novel would you like to read; the one with more narrative or one with more dialogue; and why? Here the question is not about the quality of novel but of the style of writing. Thanks."
- Mehraan, India
Good question, Mehraan. The boring answer is that both narrative and dialogue are equally important in a well-written novel.
Narrative is like food and dialogue like wine - food with nothing to wash it down soon becomes heavy going, and a meal consisting of virtually all wine is unsatisfying.
But your question, I think, is about the balance between narrative and dialogue and, for me, I prefer fiction with more narration. Why? Because passages that stay with me from a memorable novel are nearly always narrative passages. They are where the good novelist can really shine with beautiful prose.
Of course, there are many different kinds of narrative - action sequences, interior monologues, descriptive passages. But given a good balance between these, narrative writing is essentially what novel writing is all about. (If you prefer writing dialogue to everything else, you should seriously consider writing for the stage or for movies.)
Fiction is fairly unique in that everything that is experienced has to come from the readers' imaginations. In a film, you have the setting portrayed on a screen in front of you (complete with sound) and actors playing the characters, but you don't get that in a novel. Words are the only medium that a novelist has at his or her disposal, and they must use them to create an entire living and breathing world.
Conversations between the characters are only a small part of a story. Other parts are thoughts, actions, and description. Therefore, a novel that is half dialogue and half narrative is, in my opinion, concentrating too much on talk and not enough on everything else.
Incidentally, genre novels tend to be more dependent on dialogue than mainstream or literary fiction (though I'm speaking generally, of course). So your balance between narrative and dialogue will be partly determined by the type of novel you are writing.
For me, though, a good book is always a balanced one. Most of the words (60 to 70 per cent, say) should consist of narrative, but always try to break it up wherever possible with a passage of dialogue, even if it is just two or three lines. Equally, try to achieve good variety in narrative passages, with some being fast-moving action sequences and others being slower, more thoughtful interludes.
Hope that has answered your question.
Harvey