Long Novels

Nateskate · Nov 15, 2009

As a reader, I didn't like monster-sized novels. It seemed like too much commitment without knowing if it would be worth the wait.

I'm talking about the Tad Williams-length novels that were some 7-900 pages. I like his basic writing style, but there were always parts I thought could have been cut to make the story flow quicker.

Also, from an economic standpoint, it just seems to me that someone putting out ten good lenthed novels would make more money than someone putting out five monster-sized books.

Now, with that said, I think I now understand why they do that, and also why I'd be tempted to do that. If it's a long tale, I'd just want it over after awhile. I stop caring about word count and just want the whole thing done with.

I'm wondering what kind of word count Tad Williams has (range)? I'm also wondering what your thoughts are on these 800 page novels?

Sophia · Nov 15, 2009

Generally, I love them. There's something about settling down with a huge fantasy novel that feels really magical. I'd want lots of twists and turns, brilliant characters and huge emotional and plot arcs, perhaps more so than with a shorter novel, but I sit down with a greater sense of anticipation with the longer ones than the shorter ones.

This only applies to fantasy, for me. I don't feel the same thrill about a long SF novel, but I think it's because they don't tend to be "comfort reads" for me, whereas fantasy novels do.

GeorgieB · Nov 15, 2009

Nateskate said:
I'm also wondering what your thoughts are on these 800 page novels?

There are some that I love(d), some that I couldn't finish.

Peter Hamilton -- love 'em, waiting for more
S. King -- some okay (The Stand, It, etc), some not (Tower series -- :crazy:

)
Auel -- never finished the first one, never bought more.

I suspect you will receive a range of answers, but for me if the novel is well-done, I'll read it, no matter what length and if not ...

Kitty27 · Nov 15, 2009

I love a good sized book. There's nothing better than a hot cup of tea and a terrific book!

BUT-

It must be worth the effort. I am a life-long reader and adore books,no matter what their size. But they must have a good story and interesting characters. If those things are present,size doesn't matter. I'll happily read it. Some of these huge books lack that and reading becomes a chore instead of a pleasure. I recall one that almost made me cry. It became a competition between the book and me,to see who would give in first. Once I start reading,I can't stop and I endured to the bitter end.

As a writer,this is my range when I write. I can't seem to control myself and I can go on for pages and pages.

blacbird · Nov 15, 2009

What GeorgieB just said, dittoed for emphasis. I was about to say the same thing (especially about Jean Auel).

caw

Liosse de Velishaf · Nov 15, 2009

I don't mind big books, but it had better have very little padding.

Mr Flibble · Nov 15, 2009

Liosse de Velishaf said:
I don't mind big books, but it had better have very little padding.

Ditto

Capital · Nov 15, 2009

Liosse de Velishaf said:
I don't mind big books, but it had better have very little padding.

Same and assuming they don't end in a cliffhanger that makes you read another effing trilogy.

MattW · Nov 15, 2009

I just finished The Long Price quartet by Daniel Abraham. Concise plots, sparse even, but managed to tell a great story in each book of 3-400 pages, and only using 4 volumes.

Polenth · Nov 15, 2009

I don't like them, because they're too big to hold. I don't object to the story being long, but I don't see why it has to come in one book.

Liosse de Velishaf · Nov 15, 2009

Polenth said:
I don't like them, because they're too big to hold. I don't object to the story being long, but I don't see why it has to come in one book.

Well, a lot of people dislike split stories, so if it's long with no convenient mini-resolutions, it can be a hard sell to slit it up.

eyeblink · Nov 15, 2009

I find too many (not all) adult novels unnecessarily long and bloated. I started reading SF in the 70s when with occasional notable exceptions genre novels rarely exceeded 70k. Nowadays, you can't sell a SF novel to a major publisher in the UK that's much under 100k, and even longer for fantasy.

Some of my favourite writers in any genre write short - Jennifer Johnston immediately springs to mind. So does Alan Garner. One reason why I read a lot of YA these days is that you can publish a novel of 70k or even 40k if that's how long the story needs to be.

What tends to happen with longer novels is that readers have been educated to expect some padding. When previously someone might leave A at the end of one chapter and arrive at B at the beginning of the next, now we'll get five pages describing the journey. Also, novels gather subplots to increase their lengths - fine if you structure the book well and those subplots all work together to build the peaks and troughs the novel needs. But do it not so well and they end up conflicting with each other - I've seen too many novels do that.

That said, I do read long novels from time to time. This year, I read Hal Duncan's Ink (around 200k), and Dan Simmons's Drood (estimated at 280k) and volumes 2 and 3 of GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire, with volume 4 in the pile to read. Volume 3, A Storm of Swords, is the longest novel I've ever read that was originally published in a single volume - 425,000 words. I read it in nine days, but two 10-11 hour flights helped there, otherwise I'd probably have taken six weeks over it. I'm waiting for another long-haul flight before tackling Mary Gentle's Ash, which is probably even longer than that.

But when I look at something like The Wheel of Time (the Wikipedia page gives the wordcounts for each volume) I think life is much too short.

Nateskate · Nov 15, 2009

eyeblink said:
I find too many (not all) adult novels unnecessarily long and bloated. I started reading SF in the 70s when with occasional notable exceptions genre novels rarely exceeded 70k. Nowadays, you can't sell a SF novel to a major publisher in the UK that's much under 100k, and even longer for fantasy.

Some of my favourite writers in any genre write short - Jennifer Johnston immediately springs to mind. So does Alan Garner. One reason why I read a lot of YA these days is that you can publish a novel of 70k or even 40k if that's how long the story needs to be.

What tends to happen with longer novels is that readers have been educated to expect some padding. When previously someone might leave A at the end of one chapter and arrive at B at the beginning of the next, now we'll get five pages describing the journey. Also, novels gather subplots to increase their lengths - fine if you structure the book well and those subplots all work together to build the peaks and troughs the novel needs. But do it not so well and they end up conflicting with each other - I've seen too many novels do that.

That said, I do read long novels from time to time. This year, I read Hal Duncan's Ink (around 200k), and Dan Simmons's Drood (estimated at 280k) and volumes 2 and 3 of GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire, with volume 4 in the pile to read. Volume 3, A Storm of Swords, is the longest novel I've ever read that was originally published in a single volume - 425,000 words. I read it in nine days, but two 10-11 hour flights helped there, otherwise I'd probably have taken six weeks over it. I'm waiting for another long-haul flight before tackling Mary Gentle's Ash, which is probably even longer than that.

But when I look at something like The Wheel of Time (the Wikipedia page gives the wordcounts for each volume) I think life is much too short.

I do appreciate that you give estimated Word Counts. I've been reading the latest S.R Donaldson series. The books are much longer than the first two Thomas Covenant series, but nowhere near Tad Williams in length. But they're better written also, and I can't wait for the next book in the series.

Also, it helps me keep things in perspective. I've let my own novels grow, but well under 200 K. Initially I was thinking that 100-120 K at the most. Though now I'm not going to worry until an editor tells me to reduce the word count.

mscelina · Nov 15, 2009

Well, think of it this way.

Generally, the printed page holds an average of @250 words per page. So, a seven hundred page novel comes out to roughly 175k words. Just as an estimate. As a first time genre novelist, it's going to be really hard to sell a novel at more than app. 100k.

Just some thoughts.

Me&BacchusGoIntoABar · Nov 15, 2009

Rhys Cordelle · Nov 15, 2009

My first exposure to Fantasy was Terry Goodkind, followed by Robert Jordan and then George R R Martin. Consequently, when I go to the bookstores to buy a fantasy novel, I have this odd tendency to only look at similarly large novels. I picked up Kate Elliots series for the sole reason that it was larger than the other books in the section (though I'm glad I did, I enjoyed it). I'll have to make a concious effort to start reading some shorter fantasy novels.

I like books to have interesting subplots, but Wheel of Time definitely went overboard. The addition of the Seanchan waaaaay over-complicated things. If they hadn't shown up, Robert Jordan would have been able to finish his series himself.

LOG · Nov 15, 2009

Rhys Cordelle said:
My first exposure to Fantasy was Terry Goodkind, followed by Robert Jordan and then George R R Martin.

You picked yourself some monster-novel-length writers.

800 pages is long, but there are longer, Martin, Goodkind, Jordan, and others regularly produce 1K pages plus, Jordan's final book will be over 2K pages.

Liosse de Velishaf · Nov 15, 2009

JJM said:
You picked yourself some monster-novel-length writers.

800 pages is long, but there are longer, Martin, Goodkind, Jordan, and others regularly produce 1K pages plus, Jordan's final book will be over 2K pages.

Not a surprise considering Tolkien set the genre trends. And LOTR was how long?

defcon6000 · Nov 15, 2009

GeorgieB said:
S. King -- some okay (The Stand, It, etc), some not (Tower series -- )

Uh, oh. So Towers wasn't so great? I'm reading the series now.

I'm not a fan of the big an' long, but if I'm familiar with the author and like their style, I won't mind it too much. However, less is more.

Khimera9 · Nov 15, 2009

I'm not that much of a fan of extremely long books, but I've found that if you keep the book fast paced while you read through it, it becomes more fun to read.

And if you guys remember, the Harry Potter 4-7 books were extremely long for people to read and look how much it sold.

Me&BacchusGoIntoABar · Nov 15, 2009

defcon6000 said:
Uh, oh. So Towers wasn't so great? I'm reading the series now.

I'm not a fan of the big an' long, but if I'm familiar with the author and like their style, I won't mind it too much. However, less is more.

I haven't read King's Tower series, but I heard that the ending was horrible at not resolving the main thing that the whole series was about.

Jess Haines · Nov 15, 2009

As long as the writing's good, I'll read a novel of any length. One of my favorite scifi novels is 250K. I love Anne McCaffrey's DRAGONSONG and DRAGONSINGER as much as Goodkind and Martin's monstrous tomes. Just tell a good story, and tell it well.

LOG · Nov 15, 2009

Liosse de Velishaf said:
Not a surprise considering Tolkien set the genre trends. And LOTR was how long?

Depends on whether you're talking to Tolkien or not. Tolkien originally meant for there to be 6 books in his series. But his editor/publisher, I forget which, decided to collect them into 3 different volumes, with 2 books each. So the current volumes in the series should have be half as long.
That's why the PoV switches halways through each book. After the Fellowship of the Ring, we were supposed to swing back and forth between character sets with each book.

I know the motivation behind Martins ASoIaF novel lengths. I discussed it with him a few weeks ago. He used to write movie/tv scripts, not sure if he still does it regularly, but he was always forced to cut characters and events from his scripts because they were prohibitve to the budget and filming time. So he decided he would write a series with as many character and complicated a plot as he damn well desired.

knight_tour · Nov 16, 2009

If I love the story and the world then I want the book to be as long as possible. To me, LOTR was far too short, and the Silmarillion should have been broken up into a bunch of very long stories!

George R.R. Martin makes his books about the right length. When I see short fantasy books, I feel I am being ripped off. About the only short one I can recall loving is A Wizard of Earthsea.

Capital · Nov 16, 2009

SoloArtist said:
I haven't read King's Tower series, but I heard that the ending was horrible at not resolving the main thing that the whole series was about.

I thought the ending was fine. The few chapters before the ending... not so fine.

Long Novels

Nateskate

Sophia

GeorgieB

Almost a wannabe writer

Kitty27

So Goth That I Was Born Black

blacbird

Liosse de Velishaf

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

Capital

Doomthayer

MattW

Company Man

Polenth

Mushroom

Liosse de Velishaf

eyeblink

Barbara says hi

Nateskate

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

Me&BacchusGoIntoABar

Rhys Cordelle

LOG

Lagrangian

Liosse de Velishaf

defcon6000

Khimera9

Me&BacchusGoIntoABar

Jess Haines

Boldly going nowhere in particular.

LOG

Lagrangian

knight_tour

Fantasy Tourist

Capital

Doomthayer