Can you write a super complex book?

Darzian · Aug 12, 2009

There are some extremely complex fantasy books out there with, literally, hundreds of plot lines. The example that jumps to mind is the Wheel of Time. Anyone who's read at least half the series would know what I'm talking about.

The Lord of the Rings is long but not necessarily as complex as the WoT. Another complex series would be A Song of Fire and Ice.

And the question: Can you write such complex books? I find it fairly difficult to incorporate more than a handful of plotlines and make sure that everything concludes in an acceptable timeframe. I simply cannot fathom the thought of writing something like what Robert Jordan and GRRM have managed to do.

How many of you can pull it off?
Just curious.

Vespertilion · Aug 12, 2009

Nope. If one I'm reading gets too complex, I get distracted and stop reading.

Mine are pretty straightforward, with an exterior plot to move the story along, then a secondary (or parallel, I guess) one for emotional exploration and growth of the MC. My last one had a couple small subplots involving secondary characters, but I think it really slowed the pace down, and I ended up taking them (the subplots) out.

Lisa Cox · Aug 12, 2009

I doubt I could. My WIP is the first in a three-part series, and in part one there's the main plot/conflict, two romance subplots, and a handful of mystery-type lines. It's going to get more complex as the series goes on, with bigger antagonists, more mystery, romance complications, etc.

I'd get too bogged down if I had too much going on.

Kitty Pryde · Aug 12, 2009

Not right now, but one day I will be able to! Right now I stick to one main plot, one main character. I have a book with a complicated plot halfway outlined, but I'm not good enough to write it yet.

On the other hand, I would argue that WoT is not very good (RIP Robert Jordan a fine writer and a fine human being). It sprawls too much, and everyone says that nothing at all has happened in the last 3 books. People read it, but I think it lost forward momentum some years ago. ASOIAF is an awesome series, but the action slowed down in the last book and GRRM keeps saying he needs a few more books to finish. IMO the series is in major danger of falling into the same problem WoT has, dragging out and never ending. There will always be fans, but the Neverending Epic is not a good thing.

red_panda · Aug 12, 2009

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Higgins · Aug 12, 2009

red_panda said:
I'm trying to. That's a lesson I never learned from high school English.

Breaking it down into readable chunks is difficult. I'm starting to doubt my chapters-as-short-stories approach. The TV mini-series seems to be a better model. I'd like to just bust loose and write a Henry Darger style tome of epic insanity.

Dense is probably better than complex. Tighten the plot while hinting at the sprawling breadth of the world. I'd like to give the impression of a heavily-footnoted front line report that references an epic history.

Darger is a lesson to us all...as in how it is best to avoid epic insanity as a complete narrative mode. One needs to modulate fairly often in composing a narrative.

Greenify13 · Aug 12, 2009

How much is complex? Wouldn't it be determined personally, as to what complex is? I guess what I'm saying is what comes off as complex to one person may not be to another (person). Just saying, or curious...

Juliette Wade · Aug 12, 2009

I tend to try to grow complexity on the side of depth rather than breadth. The character gradually finds his/her way into a situation that confuses, but proves to link all kinds of people together and later comes to clarity. This can definitely be done, though it's challenging. I would have difficulty dealing with a diffuse set of plotlines.

Parametric · Aug 12, 2009

Honestly, I don't want to. I grew up reading the fantasy epics, but if writers as good as those can't write a complete and satisfying story arc of that size, I sure can't. I'm happier wrapping up a complete story within 100k (or less, ideally).

Gudanov · Aug 12, 2009

My personal taste is to have a limited number of subplots. When I read a story that has loads of subplots, there are bound to be several I don't care about. Also, I think it's very easy to bring the plot to a standstill (i.e. WoT) with too many subplots going on.

Gudanov · Aug 12, 2009

Can you write such complex books? I find it fairly difficult to incorporate more than a handful of plotlines and make sure that everything concludes in an acceptable timeframe. I simply cannot fathom the thought of writing something like what Robert Jordan and GRRM have managed to do.

I just noticed I didn't answer the question. No, I couldn't write something that complex and wouldn't want to. In what I've written, I really wanted to keep things near the main plot.

Darzian · Aug 12, 2009

Greenify13 said:
How much is complex? Wouldn't it be determined personally, as to what complex is? I guess what I'm saying is what comes off as complex to one person may not be to another (person). Just saying, or curious...

True. I've read my share of fantasy books and I would say that the Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire are both marginally more complex than, say, Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy and Liveship Trader's trilogy.

I believe that there are at least fifteen POVs in ASoIaF and probably well over 30 POVs in the Wheel of Time. That would be my definition of 'highly complex.'

There are probably other complex books but I chose the above two as examples simply for the huge number of sub plots and characters.

To add to the discussion, what other books would you all say are super complex?

Kitty Pryde said:
On the other hand, I would argue that WoT is not very good (RIP Robert Jordan a fine writer and a fine human being). It sprawls too much, and everyone says that nothing at all has happened in the last 3 books. People read it, but I think it lost forward momentum some years ago. ASOIAF is an awesome series, but the action slowed down in the last book and GRRM keeps saying he needs a few more books to finish. IMO the series is in major danger of falling into the same problem WoT has, dragging out and never ending. There will always be fans, but the Neverending Epic is not a good thing.

Yes I agree. I have read both series up to their latest books. I was sorely disappointed with the Wheel of Time after book 5 and A Feast for Crows was very unsatisfying (and yes, I have read all of GRRM's explanations). But I will remember both forever as attempted masterpieces. Supposedly, the last Wheel of Time book is so huge that it is to be split into 3 parts(volumes). Sheer insanity.

Liosse de Velishaf · Aug 12, 2009

I think that I will be capable of writing complex stories in the future, but for now, I've had to put my one somewhat complex project on the back-burner. As much as I love ASOIAF, it's not necessarily the type of story I write or want to write. I tend to have large casts, and even complex events, but I try to focus on having as few povs as possible. I think a trilogy is one of the largest sustainable forms, and I am resolved to tell my individual stories with as few words as would still leave them complete. That's not to say I don't write complex worlds, but I don't go out of my way to throw stories together that could be told just as well apart.

Series rot is one of the things that means a book gets re-shelved, to possibly be read after I hit a slow point in my reading list. WoT falls into that category, though I eventually read as far as it went. GRRM's epic doesn't rot, but it did drag a little in places. In the end, complex can be short or long, good or bad, it just depends on the book and the author.

Kitty Pryde · Aug 12, 2009

Darzian said:
True. I've read my share of fantasy books and I would say that the Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire are both marginally more complex than, say, Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy and Liveship Trader's trilogy.

I believe that there are at least fifteen POVs in ASoIaF and probably well over 30 POVs in the Wheel of Time. That would be my definition of 'highly complex.'

There are probably other complex books but I chose the above two as examples simply for the huge number of sub plots and characters.

To add to the discussion, what other books would you all say are super complex?

Dune series (though I've only read 2 and a half of them). The assorted X-Men series (and the whole Marvel Universe or DC Universe more generally, though I think the X-Men win for most tangled-up plotlines because there's so darn many of them--Exhibit A is here), though it has many authors. I'd say The Sandman too (the pasty one who likes to wear black, not the one with the gas mask, nor the one who turns into sand), for the sheer quantity of POV characters, gods, mythological folk, historical goings-on, random superheroes, and stories it contains. Less wordy than those other epics, though

mommyjo2 · Aug 12, 2009

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game gets more and more complex when he started writing the midquels- the books between his first and second one. So complex even HE couldn't remember details, so they reissued the first book (Ender's Game) slightly altered to make the universe fit!

His Homecoming series was also somewhat complex IIRC but the plots all worked together towards an end. Frankly, some of WoT subplots bored me so much I would skim the first sentence of the chapter, and if it was say, Matt's POV, just skip to the next one! I didn't make it through the whole series.

Straka · Aug 12, 2009

My first trilogy I would say was super complex. Nearly fifty characters, 10 of which you saw through their eyes. So yes I can. Was it sell-able? Helllll no.

So I've scaled back my ambitiousness, to fight the smaller battles of writing good prose. I'm not trying to save the world here. Just trying to write a cohesive and sell-able book.

dclary · Aug 12, 2009

I'm reading this book, the 5th in a series (I've never read any of the others in the series). The book is enormous (just shy of 800 pages). Pages 120-280 involve side plots and court intrigue from characters that are incidental to the hero's journey, and tertiary to the main plot altogether. In fact, NONE of the main characters of the series appear in that 160 page (20% of the total length of the book) block.

To me, that's not complex. It's master-class filler. It's indescribable levels of fluff and padding. The book would have been at LEAST 20% better had I never read about or learned a thing about Fitch, Morely and Duncan Campbell.

Kitty Pryde · Aug 12, 2009

dclary said:
I'm reading this book, the 5th in a series (I've never read any of the others in the series). The book is enormous (just shy of 800 pages). Pages 120-280 involve side plots and court intrigue from characters that are incidental to the hero's journey, and tertiary to the main plot altogether. In fact, NONE of the main characters of the series appear in that 160 page (20% of the total length of the book) block.

To me, that's not complex. It's master-class filler. It's indescribable levels of fluff and padding. The book would have been at LEAST 20% better had I never read about or learned a thing about Fitch, Morely and Duncan Campbell.

All I can say is, the tv show is way better. And has less people eating their own testicles.

dclary · Aug 12, 2009

Kitty Pryde said:
All I can say is, the tv show is way better. And has less people eating their own testicles.

Yeah, I just discovered the series and am very happy about it. Especially the introduction to the Mord-Sith episode. Way kinkier than they appeared to be in the novel (of course, I'm only getting the story of them in hindsight infodumps, having never read books 1-4.)

Zachariah · Aug 12, 2009

I challenge this notion of 'complex'. Just because a story has a fearsome wordcount and a massive cast-list doesn't make it complex. Wheel of Time is the most basic fantasy storyline there is, orphan boy raised by farmers turns out to be saviour of the world. ASOIAF is a standard 'Which Noble Gets To Be King Next' saga.

What you're calling complexity is just a shedload of characters and POVs used to pad out these simple stories. This isn't difficult.

You want real complexity? Go read Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

sunandshadow · Aug 12, 2009

Those complex books always seem to be about politics and/or war, with a prophecy added here and there. Since I don't really write about any of those topics, I don't think I could possibly come up with anything as complex.

geardrops · Aug 12, 2009

I did. Mine contains politics, hints of war. No prophecies though.

I'm not saying I did it well. But I did it

Liosse de Velishaf · Aug 12, 2009

Zachariah said:
I challenge this notion of 'complex'. Just because a story has a fearsome wordcount and a massive cast-list doesn't make it complex. Wheel of Time is the most basic fantasy storyline there is, orphan boy raised by farmers turns out to be saviour of the world. ASOIAF is a standard 'Which Noble Gets To Be King Next' saga.

What you're calling complexity is just a shedload of characters and POVs used to pad out these simple stories. This isn't difficult.

You want real complexity? Go read Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

Just because you can summarize the plot simply, it doesn't mean that the stories themselves are simple. Let's try it for Christie's story: "Ten Murderers Meet Vigilante Justice". That description could be easily applied to a much less complex story with the same end result. But that doesn't make Christie's book any less complex. Now, WoT was not really complex, I agree, but I would argue that ASOIAF is complex.

Parametric · Aug 12, 2009

Kitty Pryde said:
All I can say is, the tv show is way better. And has less people eating their own testicles.

The TV show is bland with awful dialogue and eye-gouging fight scenes. But it does have Bridget Regan's cleavage. :tongue

It's definitely less offensive than the series though. I was crushed when the protagonist failed to shatter an eight-year-old's jaw with a single kick like he does in the book.

Ruv Draba · Aug 12, 2009

I think that it's easy to write complexity. Soap operas do it all the time. Keeping it out of melodrama is perhaps harder.

I believe that the main reason to write complexity is to prolong the story. I don't know that it improves the entertainment, but it does give readers thicker books and more reading.

My suggestion: write good, small stories before you write complex long ones.

Anyway, here's how I think you can do it...

Start with a 6-12 characters with very different motives and personalities, and put them in different places
Introduce two or three distinct situations that don't necessarily connect. Have characters react to those situations and come into conflict over them
Cut between the conflicts frequently and find ways to prolong and complicate them so that nothing resolves for a good while
Have the characters involved in different conflicts trip over each other, help each other, complicate each others' lives. Start a few romance, rivalry and enmity sub-plots to add yet more complexity
Keep doing it...
Keep doing it...
Keep doing it...
Take a few characters out in shocking ways; add a few more in
Keep doing it...
Keep doing it...
Add a new situation when you can't help but resolve an old one
Keep doing it...
Don't forget to wring every. single. wretched. drop. of pathos. you can. from each. conflict.
Keep doing it...
Eventually realise that you've so debased the integrity of your original concept and made your readers such jaded, cynical, forebrain-burned zombies that they're calling you to The Hague for Whorecrimes... at which point wind it up quickly in the following fashion...
Join the dots between outstanding plots in a surprising yet inevitable way. Reveal that person X from plot A has been colluding with person Y from plot B all along.
Put all the allies in one camp and all the enemies in another and let them duke it out. Marry off the lovers, see off the bad guys, and kill off at least one favourite character in a tragic way so it feels like the heroes paid a really high price to win.
The End.

Can you write a super complex book?

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