与传奇小说、话本小说、章回小说这三种小说类型相比,子部小说的文本指向以诉诸理性为主,而不是以诉诸感情为主;与诸子中“可观”的“九家”相比,子部小说更多关注日常生活中的治身理家,而不是天下兴亡、军国大事。诉诸理性而以治身理家为关注中心,可以视为子部小说的基本特征。与此相关,子部小说还有其他三个重要面相:一、可以适度虚构,但须回避细节和现场感;二、小说人物的生平是否完整并不重要,人物社会关系也往往可以忽略;三、第三人称限知叙事始于六朝志怪,这是子部小说的一个重要创获。 Compared with the novels of storytelling, storytelling and chapter-novels, the texts of sub-fiction novels mainly focus on appealing to rationality rather than appealing to emotions; Compared to the “nine”, the sub-ministerial novels pay more attention to the daily life of the rule of law, rather than the rise and fall of the world, military affairs. Appeal to rationality to rule the body as the focus of care, can be regarded as the basic features of the novels. Related to this, there are three other important aspects of fiction: one, can be modestly fictitious, but to avoid the details and the sense of the scene; two, the life of the novel character is not important, social relations of characters can often be ignored; three , The third person limited narrative began in the Six Dynasties Zhiguai, which is a sub-ministerial novel an important achievement.