Lesser of Two Evils?

Krazykat · Apr 11, 2012

I’ve read all the threads on querying for a trilogy I could find and they all say: present the first book only as a stand-alone book ‘with series potential’. This puzzles me because it seems that some trilogies are a rather different sort of animal; they’re not really a ‘series’ with three books in it. (Only a couple of people said if it has ‘one story arc’, a trilogy should be queried as a whole, but there wasn’t much discussion about that.)

Sure, I’ve also read all the stuff about how it’s riskier to take a chance with a new author if there’s three books involved instead of just one. But we all know that if you walk into the SF/Fantasy section of a bookstore and randomly grab one book, chances are probably greater than fifty percent that it would be part of a trilogy. (Especially if you were looking at fantasy alone, separated from sci fi.) It makes it seem kind of illogical that mentioning trilogies or series is considered ‘taboo’ in queries, since that’s precisely what’s being published the most . . .

But whether it makes sense or not, I know that trilogies from previously unpublished writers are frowned upon and considered difficult to sell, despite the fact that trilogies in general are very much in demand . . . (Silly me, why do I expect the world to be logical?)

So here I am, still reeling from the shock of discovering that the word count of my very polished science fiction novel (that I was feeling quite good about) is more than twice what seems to be the universally accepted upper limit (120k). Of course, some folks have suggested breaking the novel up. When I first toyed with the idea, I decided the first books would be real downers and it just wouldn’t work. But in the unending process of researching agents and reading countless blogs, I keep seeing more and more doom and gloom about word counts; everyone keeps saying that unless you’re already a wildly successful author, straying more than just a little outside the recommended word count limits is tantamount to a death sentence for a novel.

So I revisited the idea of splitting this novel up, and figured out where I could make the breaks to turn it into a trilogy that might actually work. But of course, it would be one of those trilogies that’s really a story told in three parts, where each book is not actually intended to stand on its own.

The big question now is: which is the lesser of two evils? Is it worse to say, “Here’s my 265,000 word novel,” or, “Here’s my 78,000 novel that’s the first part of a trilogy (and the sort that’s clearly part of a longer work, because you can tell there’s a lot more to come . . .)”???

Cyia · Apr 11, 2012

It's not as simple as splitting one cohesive novel into three parts and declaring them separate novels.

In a series, every novel has to have a sufficient resolution of its own main arc while contributing to the over-reaching arc. If there's a point around the 78K mark where the characters have set and achieved the goal pertaining to those 78K words, then you might have something workable.

Justin SR · Apr 11, 2012

You can change stuff around, mess with it, tear your hair out trying to find a way to get it in the door, or you can write the best story in the world and force people to pay attention to it, no matter how long it is.

Patrick Rothfuss sold the Name of The Wind, his debut novel, at 250,000 words and as the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicles.

It can be done. If your book is good enough, they'll have to take it.

Old Hack · Apr 11, 2012

But most first books aren't good enough, and many agents and publishers won't even look at a 265k-long debut so will have no idea how good it is.

When you're an established, successful author you'll probably be offered three-book contracts and you'll be able to sell all the trilogies you want to, so long as they sell in good number. When you're an untried, untested author publishers will almost certainly be cautious. If you offer them a good enough book which fits their requirements they'll sign it up and see how well it sells. If it sells well, they'll consider signing up another of your books. If it tanks, they'll not.

My advice? Write a new and better book, of a length more appropriate to the market. Sell that. When it's a huge success, see if your agent can sell your monster-book. He might well find a publisher who'll snap it up. You never know.

kaitie · Apr 11, 2012

It's also possible that the book itself could be cut down a very decent amount. Now, getting 265k down to something more manageable would be difficult, but at that length even getting it down to, say, 180k instead would at least give you hope that someone will consider it.

Is this your first novel? Or hell, even your fifth lol? I had to cut 70k words from a book once. I'd ended at 185, and right now it's sitting at 116k, which was about as low as I could get it without sacrificing story. And to be honest with you, I had thought it was polished as hell at that point.

Once I started looking to cut things, I discovered that I was a ridiculous over-writer and that the problem was that I had an awful lot of extraneous words. The vast majority of those cut weren't entire scenes, but just realizing I could take the phrase, "He reached out with his left hand and grabbed the cord and pulled it from the wall" could be easily turned into "He unplugged the cord."

I'm guessing that I could personally probably cut at least 60k from one as long as yours just by simplifying the wording. I haven't seen it, but it's a guess based on helping a lot of people work with cutting for length.

I've also done a beta read for a book that was over 200k, and that book could easily have been in the acceptable range. The author made a mistake I've seen often when I help people with this--lots of meandering plot things that go so far off topic that the reader loses track of what the actual focus of the plot is. Subplots are great, but it's really easy to go too far with them, to the extent that it's hard to tell what the main storyline is supposed to be. This is another possibility.

Now, it's entirely possible that your writing is so spectacular that you've managed to write a 265k book that doesn't drag and has good pacing the entire way through and doesn't use overly complicated writing, but it's incredibly difficult to do.

As Cyia said, just cutting a book into thirds won't really fix the problem unless the book should have been three to begin with. You'd need to do complete rewrites to make it work. What I would do, personally, is edit (more than once) and see how much length you can cut down. Then have a beta reader go over it and see if there are plot elements that can be cut down. Or maybe you can start the book at a later point (A lot of people start too early). Things of that nature. You could also post in SYW once you have 50 posts, or toss a chapter my way and I can see what kind of whack job I can do on it (I'm good at this sort of thing).

Something else you could consider to try to identify plot problems is to write a synopsis. You might find that you have more than one scene dealing with similar situations that can be combined, or that a subplot about a secondary character isn't really that important and can be cut out (save it! You might decide to write another book about them later). If you do all this and still can't cut anything, then I'd consider making it a trilogy, but again do that in a new file (so you still have the original) and know that it's going to take a heck of a lot of work.

If all else fails, and honestly skipping straight to this step is also acceptable, you could just write a new book, but plot it out so that you know it will be more within the acceptable range. That's what I did. I knew my long one wouldn't make a good first book, so I wrote a new one that was under 100k to use as my foot-in-door book. My thinking is that if I get a couple of other books published, that first longer book will have a better chance.

Hope this helps.

kaitie · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
It can be done. If your book is good enough, they'll have to take it.

This is sort of true, but the problem is that most people won't even consider it. They'll look at the word count and reject it based on that. There is always the one in a million exception, and I'm sure we can all think of one, but if the OP decides to query as is, he needs to have lower expectations--basically knowing that the book will not even be considered by most and that it would take being that long-shot.

The problem (I think some of this explanation is silly, but this is the problem as it's described by the professionals) is that most publishers won't take a longer book from a new author because a) the books cost more to produce, b) bookstores can't fit as many on the shelves and will thus stock fewer, which will likely limit sales, and c) debut authors don't have a throng of fans willing to pick up a giant book just because it has the author's name on it.

In other words, it's a bigger gamble. More costly to produce, as well as likely to sell fewer copies means a bigger risk. We might not always like that, but there is a reason behind it.

There's also the fact that the vast majority of first novels are out of standard length because the author is still getting a grasp on style and hasn't quite mastered pacing yet. Pacing is even more important for a long novel, and very difficult to maintain.

I think, in general, that when a word count falls vastly out of the average, the first thing the author should do is look to see if he/she might be able to improve the writing. Books that are too short often don't have enough description or are telling and not showing. Books that are too long often have too much description and have a bit of that everything but the kitchen sink feeling.

The best thing we can do is look to see if there are places we can improve before just going for it because someone else has managed it. And heck, this is difficult enough as is. We at least owe it to ourselves to see what we can do to help our odds.

Little Ming · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
You can change stuff around, mess with it, tear your hair out trying to find a way to get it in the door, or you can write the best story in the world and force people to pay attention to it, no matter how long it is.

Patrick Rothfuss sold the Name of The Wind, his debut novel, at 250,000 words and as the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicles.

It can be done. If your book is good enough, they'll have to take it.

That's not exactly a fair comparison. Rothfuss had previously published excerpts from the series as short stories and they won a Writers of the Future contest, so that was probably a huge factor in his book deal.

But to repeat what everyone else said, it's not as simple as cutting up your novel. They need to have logical ending points where conflicts come to a resolution (not necessarily a happy ending, just a resolution). I think a lot of fantasy book deals are sold as a series, but I think it's always better that your first novel is a "standalone with series potential" so you can be more flexible. If the publisher only wants one book, you have that. If they want a series, you can do that too.

And yes, edit, edit, edit. You might be surprised how much you can cut out.

Cyia · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
If your book is good enough, they'll have to take it.

No "they" don't.

No one "has" to take on a book, regardless of quality.

Justin SR · Apr 11, 2012

Little Ming said:
That's not exactly a fair comparison. Rothfuss had previously published excerpts from the series as short stories and they won a Writers of the Future contest, so that was probably a huge factor in his book deal.

He had one short story published five years earlier, as far as I know. I'm really not trying to argue. I'm kind of playing writer's advocate is all. While I completely understand and realize that many, many people need to seriously cut their books down (and I do understand this, on much more than an intellectual level, having beta read), I'm just saying it's not a rule. If every word of the story fits, like I think it does in both of Rothfuss' stories, then it only makes it better for every word that's in it.

I am sure that telling people to get their books within the guidelines for their genre is the proper advice most of the time, but I don't like the idea of those guidelines being enforced so much that something truly amazing can't get through.

The Kingkiller books are my favorite ones, of my favorite type, of my favorite thing. That is my favorite fantasy book. And I'm uncomfortable with the idea that if Pat Rothfuss was pitching it now, just five years later, everybody would be telling him to cut it in half.

Little Ming · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
He had one short story published five years earlier, as far as I know.

Yes. And that short story was an excerpt from the very series he got the book deal for. As stated above, he won Writers of the Future contest for that one short story. That is a prestigious award that very, very likely helped him get his book deal.

Justin SR said:
I'm really not trying to argue. I'm kind of playing writer's advocate is all. While I completely understand and realize that many, many people need to seriously cut their books down (and I do understand this, on much more than an intellectual level, having beta read), I'm just saying it's not a rule. If every word of the story fits, like I think it does in both of Rothfuss' stories, then it only makes it better for every word that's in it.

I am sure that telling people to get their books within the guidelines for their genre is the proper advice most of the time, but I don't like the idea of those guidelines being enforced so much that something truly amazing can't get through.

I can appreciate your enthusiasm, but you should not go into the submission process thinking you are the exception to the rule. Guidelines are there for a reason, and while everyone can think of exceptions to the rules, realistically most of us (99.9%) fall within the guidelines. You're far more likely to be shooting yourself in both feet by believing your novel is the exception.

Justin SR said:
The Kingkiller books are my favorite ones, of my favorite type, of my favorite thing. That is my favorite fantasy book. And I'm uncomfortable with the idea that if Pat Rothfuss was pitching it now, just five years later, everybody would be telling him to cut it in half.

HE WON THE WRITERS OF THE FUTURE AWARD.

I don't know how much clearer I can make that. If you win a very prestigious writing award, you can be given far more leeway when it comes to guidelines.

Seriously, if you win a Hugo or a Nebula and then approach agents/publishers you will get far more interest than the debut writer with no record. That's just the way it works. You will also be given more leeway when it comes to word count.

But until you win those awards or have a solid publishing record, you are just like everyone else and you follow the rules.

kaitie · Apr 11, 2012

You'll note that I didn't say "You have to cut it in half." What I said was that it's to the author's benefit to check and objectively try to see if there might be a problem that can be fixed. If an author is able to look at their work and say, "I honestly tried and it's impossible to cut, everything is necessary," then they ask outside sources for opinions. If the outside sources say, "This is amazing and brilliant and nothing should be cut," then they can start submitting to agents--with the awareness that they're going to get a lot of rejections based on the word count.

I love long books myself, and obviously some are published, and I wouldn't want to tell those people to change. Well, in some cases they actually could have done with a hundred or two pages being cut, but mostly I wouldn't say to change them. What I would say is that it's more important to an author to err on the conservative side and try to really examine their work for flaws rather than to say, "This person did it so I'm sure mine is in the same category." The truth is, for most of us, it's not.

Justin SR · Apr 11, 2012

Little Ming said:
I can appreciate your enthusiasm, but you should not go into the submission process thinking you are the exception to the rule. Guidelines are there for a reason, and while everyone can think of exceptions to the rules, realistically most of us (99.9%) fall within the guidelines. You're far more likely to be shooting yourself in both feet by believing your novel is the exception.

QUOTE]

How can you ever hope to published if you don't think this?

Justin SR · Apr 11, 2012

And I guess what I'm talking about is not whether a person will be given leeway to write what they want, but whether they should.

I've pretty much said everything I think about this anyways, but I just think that stories can transcend the guidelines that people set for them. I really do.

Ctairo · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
And I guess what I'm talking about is not whether a person will be given leeway to write what they want, but whether they should.

I've pretty much said everything I think about this anyways, but I just think that stories can transcend the guidelines that people set for them. I really do.

Of course there may be stories out there that are the exception that proves the rule. But does thinking your story is one of them make it so? And since some of writing is a crap shoot, you have to look at the odds.

That's all everyone's saying. Of course, should you ignore the odds, and find a home for your book (ah, publication!), you get to tell a marvelous story of how you pooh-poohed every piece of advice and believed in the power of your story. It'll be great press.

If it happens.

Little Ming · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
Little Ming said:

I can appreciate your enthusiasm, but you should not go into the submission process thinking you are the exception to the rule. Guidelines are there for a reason, and while everyone can think of exceptions to the rules, realistically most of us (99.9%) fall within the guidelines. You're far more likely to be shooting yourself in both feet by believing your novel is the exception.

Click to expand...

How can you ever hope to published if you don't think this?

Justin SR said:
And I guess what I'm talking about is not whether a person will be given leeway to write what they want, but whether they should.

I've pretty much said everything I think about this anyways, but I just think that stories can transcend the guidelines that people set for them. I really do.

Justin,

I think we are getting confused here about what rules and/or guidelines mean. No one is saying that the writer can't write whatever he wants, but this thread, this sub-forum is about increasing the chances of getting an agent and getting published. Guidelines are not there to be "transcended." They are there because agents don't have a lot of time and if you send them a query with a word count double their upper limit, you are very, very likely to be rejected without even being read. So how can you transcend the rules if no one will even read your MS? It won't matter if your MS really is that exception to the rule, because the agents won't read it in the first place.

And I really don't think it is helpful for you to tell others "Here's a guy who broke the rules and he's doing really well, so I think other people can break the rules too." Again, everyone can think of exceptions to the rule. But very, very few people are the exception to the rule.

So write whatever you want. There are no rules to that. But if you want to increase your chances of being published you follow the rules, you do not "transcend" them.

BethS · Apr 11, 2012

Krazykat said:
The big question now is: which is the lesser of two evils? Is it worse to say, “Here’s my 265,000 word novel,” or, “Here’s my 78,000 novel that’s the first part of a trilogy (and the sort that’s clearly part of a longer work, because you can tell there’s a lot more to come . . .)”???

Conventional wisdom would tell you that you must be able to query the first novel on its own.

And then there are the exceptions to conventional wisdom.

Fwiw, I am in a similar situation, having written (and I'm still working on it actually) a very long fantasy that I eventually came to accept would have to be split into volumes for publication. This is a one-story-arc-in-three-volumes kind of situation.

The first agent who read what I envisioned as being the first volume loved the writing but didn't get the story. He wanted it to be more complete in the first volume. And he wanted it to be a somewhat different story than the one I'd written.

The second agent I sent a full manuscript to read the whole thing (not just the first volume), although I still hadn't finished it (which he knew before he read it).

He offered representation based on a huge, incomplete manuscript.

And fwiw, Patrick Rothfuss did pretty much the same thing (wrote a long story that had to be broken up), although he's had to do substantial rewriting of the second and third volumes.

And Justin SR--there were many times when I despaired I'd ever get anyone to look at it because I knew what they'd say when they saw the word count. But I believed in it and so I kept plugging away at it, until one day the opportunity presented itself when not one but two agents agreed to read it despite its size.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, they read the manuscript based on client recommendation. I never queried them in the usual manner. So the recommendations got them to look at it. But the agent who took it on did so because he loved the story.

And that's really what it comes down to it. The writing and the story.

BethS · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
He had one short story published five years earlier, as far as I know. I'm really not trying to argue. I'm kind of playing writer's advocate is all. While I completely understand and realize that many, many people need to seriously cut their books down (and I do understand this, on much more than an intellectual level, having beta read), I'm just saying it's not a rule. If every word of the story fits, like I think it does in both of Rothfuss' stories, then it only makes it better for every word that's in it.

As I understand it, from what Rothfuss has said on his blog, the original manuscript was very long and it was decided to divide it into volumes to publish. Because of changes he made to what became the first volume, he had to do substantial rewriting of what would become volumes two and three. But you're right--these don't follow the mold of your average series, with resolutions in each volume. The Kingkiller Chronicles is really one long, long story, divided up. The first two volumes end at turning points, but there are no resolutions.

This is not without precedent. The Lord of the Rings did it first.

BethS · Apr 11, 2012

Little Ming said:
he won Writers of the Future contest for that one short story. That is a prestigious award that very, very likely helped him get his book deal.

It probably helped him get noticed in the slushpile when he queried his agent.

But what got him the book deal was the fact that editor fell in love with the manuscript. She said it was the best thing she'd read in 30 years. She would have felt that way whether he won an award or not.

KalenO · Apr 11, 2012

BethS said:
It probably helped him get noticed in the slushpile when he queried his agent.

But what got him the book deal was the fact that editor fell in love with the manuscript. She said it was the best thing she'd read in 30 years. She would have felt that way whether he won an award or not.

Nobody's arguing that it was the actual manuscript that got him his book deal though, is the thing. All that people are arguing is that without winning his very prestigious writer award, that 250,000 manuscript would never have gotten a read from that editor in the first place, so she had a chance to fall in love with it.

Old Hack · Apr 11, 2012

Justin SR said:
If every word of the story fits, like I think it does in both of Rothfuss' stories, then it only makes it better for every word that's in it.

If "every word of the story fits" and the writing is good and the story is good, I see no problem in submitting a huge book. There's a reasonable chance you'd find an agent who would fall in love with the book and offer representation. The problem is that very few books are good enough to carry such a length, and very few writers are good enough for them to be sure that "every word of the story fits".

Little Ming said:
I can appreciate your enthusiasm, but you should not go into the submission process thinking you are the exception to the rule. Guidelines are there for a reason, and while everyone can think of exceptions to the rules, realistically most of us (99.9%) fall within the guidelines. You're far more likely to be shooting yourself in both feet by believing your novel is the exception.

LittleMing speaks sense.

Justin SR said:
How can you ever hope to published if you don't think this?

You don't have to think you're an "exception to the rule" in order to get published. You have to write a really good book and submit it to the right places. That's all. Thousands of writers do it every year while still following agents' guidelines to the letter.

Justin SR said:
And I guess what I'm talking about is not whether a person will be given leeway to write what they want, but whether they should.

No one has to write what they don't want to write. No one.

Sure, if you want to be published then you'd be wise to keep the conventions in mind as you revise your work (and possibly as you write); you need to follow guidelines. But you can write whatever you want.

If you want to write books which don't correspond to the guidelines then you can expect to struggle to find representation and publication; you can resign yourself to remaining unpublished; or you can self-publish. But no one is forced to write what they don't want to write.

Krazykat · Apr 11, 2012

First I just want to say that I really appreciate all the comments; it’s so good to have this feedback—and it’s also rewarding when it starts a lively discussion.

Of course I know that if you split the book up, each part has to have a climax and some kind of resolution, and what I meant was that I did find places to break the novel where those elements were there, but of course they are still parts of one larger story . . . So I know it’s kind of borderline, however, it still seems to me, as some folks pointed out, that there are a number of trilogies out there—not just LOTR—whose parts really don’t stand alone that well . . .

I find it amusing that it’s very common here to see replies that essentially say, “Quit yer fussin’ and jus’ go write the best darn book you can!!!” (Even if it doesn’t address the question at hand, you can’t argue with that!) And I’m quite aware that there are probably far too many people on AW agonizing over the whole business of publication and finding an agent when they haven’t finished a single book yet (though I do sympathize with their impatience!) and I’m sure there’s innumerable queries being sent out for novels that are no more than rough drafts.

However, I can assure you that I’m not one of those folks, and I wouldn’t be posting on a forum about querying agents if I didn’t have a completed manuscript that’s ready for submission, and which I’m very confident is a darn good book. I want to laugh when someone starts launching into the classic spiel about editing (even if it’s a really good spiel!) when the subject is this book. Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not saying ‘this doesn’t apply to me!’. I’m just saying it’s ironic because this particular novel has been through so many revisions and been edited so many times. (The dang thing is so polished you could use it for a mirror.)

And no, it’s not my first novel. I was very fortunate to grow up in an environment where I was thoroughly immersed in good books and exposed to the craft of writing early on, and I think I learned a great deal by osmosis. I was eleven when I started what became my first novel. The earliest draft of this book was actually my third attempt at a novel, and since it has gone through a couple of huge transformations within those countless revisions, and I also started several other novels in between those revisions, the truth is it’s probably not unrealistic to call it my fifth novel!!! (So even though I don’t have any published novels, I can’t honestly say I’m a greenhorn at novel writing.)

You could argue that one of the reasons I haven’t sold a novel is that I’m such a perfectionist when it comes to revising; I have very high standards and I just keep tweaking things. So unlike most folks, I probably don’t need to be told to edit more—I need to be told to stop picking at the damn book and start submitting it!

(Okay, maybe endless editing is not quite the same thing as 'beating a dead horse', but that one is just so funny!!!)

And I’m in no position to whine about not being published yet, because I’ve barely even tried so far . . . I’ve only done a few stints of querying half a dozen editors or agents, and that was mostly when I was in college—which was a lot longer ago than I care to admit! (The manuscript I was querying then was in first person, and I got several replies saying they wouldn’t consider a first person novel, because at that time it was frowned on in fiction—boy, that sure has changed!)

I have tons of other stuff in progress, and I may have two more books ready to query by the end of this year. (Both unrelated stand alone books.) In the meantime, since finding an agent is such a slow and tedious process, and I do have this beautiful polished manuscript sitting here, it seems to me it would be foolish to give up without even trying to query it on account of the length . . .

Heck—what’s the worst that can happen? I find out that nobody wants to look at it? (It’s a pretty sure thing that nobody will look at it if it’s just sitting in the box!)

And since I am going to go ahead and query it (I've sent two out already), I’m certainly going to put my best effort into the process. So of course I’m just trying to figure out how to improve the odds of getting someone to look at it! (As Justin was saying, if a book's good enough you should be able to get around the length issue—but of course, as several other people pointed out, that doesn't work if you can't get anyone to read it in order to find out how good it is . . . :e2cry:

)

That’s why I’ve come down to wondering what’s worse: a doorstopper, or the first part of a trilogy that’s a three-part book and not an episodic series? What’s more likely to chase agents away? :scared:

KalenO · Apr 12, 2012

Krazykat, the reason no one's given you a definitive answer to your question yet is because there isn't one. 'It depends on the book' is touted around so much because well, its the truth.

At the end of the day, nobody else here has read the book. No one else here knows it like you do. So only you can decide what's best for the book. If the book needs to be 250,000 words for the sake of the story, well then you're just going to have to query it as such and see what happens. If there is a way to break your one big story into three smaller, continguous stories, then do that - as long as you're confident that you're not sacrificing your story for the sake of a shorter word count to sneak your MS across an agent's desk.

Bottom line...if you can query your book as a single 78K manuscript on its OWN merits, then go ahead. If agents request the full and make it to the end of the manuscript and see a cliffhanger ending, but still go 'man, that story was a good read', its not going to be a problem. My CP was an unpublished author with no credits to her name when she queried her YA manuscript, and she ended it with a cliffhanger and the words 'End Book One.' She still got multiple offers and ended up with a major deal, because the book still worked on its own.

But there's no substitute for that. If an agent reads through your 78K manuscript and goes 'umm, scuse me, but that's it? Where's the rest?'....then yeah, you're out of luck. But nobody here can say why one cliffhanger works and another one doesn't. Why one book feels complete with one while the next feels like it was shortchanged. We don't know which yours will turn out to be - and there's no way for anyone to guess which view agents will take when they read your MS. So you just have to suck it up and decide one way or another, because there is no hedging your bets here. There's no safe option with ANY manuscript. There are only options.

Best of luck either way!

Old Hack · Apr 12, 2012

Krazykat said:
Of course I know that if you split the book up, each part has to have a climax and some kind of resolution . . .

I wonder, then, why you asked your initial question?

I find it amusing that it’s very common here to see replies that essentially say, “Quit yer fussin’ and jus’ go write the best darn book you can!!!” (Even if it doesn’t address the question at hand, you can’t argue with that!)

When I suggested you wrote a new book, I was addressing the question in hand. I suggest you re-read my comment, and think more carefully when dismissing good advice in future.

I wouldn’t be posting on a forum about querying agents if I didn’t have a completed manuscript that’s ready for submission, and which I’m very confident is a darn good book. I want to laugh when someone starts launching into the classic spiel about editing (even if it’s a really good spiel!) when the subject is this book.

If you want to laugh at the advice you've been given here, then I suggest you think carefully about your future participation at AW. It's not appropriate to ask questions and then laugh at the responses you are given, or to dismiss the help you've been given as "classic spiel", and it's not respectful towards your fellow writers, either.

Judging by your comments here, I'd bet good money that a decent edit would significantly cut the length of your manuscript.

If your manuscript is ready for submission and you're confident it's good enough, stop asking for advice you're going to misinterpret and laugh at and go and submit the thing. Let us know how you get on with that.

You could argue that one of the reasons I haven’t sold a novel is that I’m such a perfectionist when it comes to revising; I have very high standards and I just keep tweaking things. So unlike most folks, I probably don’t need to be told to edit more—I need to be told to stop picking at the damn book and start submitting it!

Patronising.

... since finding an agent is such a slow and tedious process, and I do have this beautiful polished manuscript sitting here, it seems to me it would be foolish to give up without even trying to query it on account of the length . . .

Heck—what’s the worst that can happen? I find out that nobody wants to look at it? (It’s a pretty sure thing that nobody will look at it if it’s just sitting in the box!)

The worst that can happen is that it'll be soundly rejected by everyone you send it to, and that most of them will not consider it again if you later rework it and want to send it out again. You will burn your boats. But if you'd rather do that than consider the good advice that you've been given here, then be my guest.

And since I am going to go ahead and query it (I've sent two out already), I’m certainly going to put my best effort into the process.

If you're already querying it, why on earth did you start this thread?

That’s why I’ve come down to wondering what’s worse: a doorstopper, or the first part of a trilogy that’s a three-part book and not an episodic series? What’s more likely to chase agents away?

You've not considered all the options there. Try this:

What’s worse: a doorstopper, the first part of a trilogy that’s a three-part book and not an episodic series, or a monster of a book which is in need of much revision and has been written by someone who refuses to listen to good advice even when he asked for it if it goes against what he's already decided he's going to do?

Krazykat, you don't seem to realise how dismissive and disrespectful you're being towards the people who have offered you good advice in this thread. Nor do you realise that your comments here are twice as long as they need to be to convey your meaning, and that provides a good clue for the reason for the extreme length of your book.

If you want advice, then ask for it here. If you want people to pat you on the back and tell you you're brilliant, ask for it at home. But please: stop dismissing AW's members like this, and think carefully about the advice you've been given here.

Krazykat · Apr 12, 2012

kaitie said:
Once I started looking to cut things, I discovered that I was a ridiculous over-writer and that the problem was that I had an awful lot of extraneous words. The vast majority of those cut weren't entire scenes, but just realizing I could take the phrase, "He reached out with his left hand and grabbed the cord and pulled it from the wall" could be easily turned into "He unplugged the cord."

I got a kick out of this because I recently came up with something similar when I was talking to my brother about editing, except that my example was deliberately more extreme. The long version was: "When she went outside of the house, carefully closing the heavy front door behind her, she noticed that the air felt icy cold, probably because of the fact that the wind was very strong." And the revision is: "She went out. The wind was strong and it was icy cold." And of course, unless there is some significance about the way she 'carefully' closed the door, there is no additional information (or anything poetic or interesting!) in the first passage. I do sometimes find myself putting those meaningless filler words--i.e. 'because of the fact that'--in my freewriting, but I don't sweat about it because it's so absurdly easy and painless to fix (unlike a lot of other things)!

I also wanted to say that you had a lot of great points and really helpful advice in all of your posts here, even if much of it doesn't apply to my situation with this particular novel, since all of that work has already been done with it (and numerous times!).

The only thing you mentioned at one point that makes me uneasy is the idea of "too much description." I shudder when people say that, because I think that's a vague generalization that is potentially dangerous because too many aspiring writers take that kind of thing out of context and it contributes to the 'dumbing down' of style that is so frighteningly common these days. Because people are worried about using 'too much', they just avoid description altogether!

There is no such thing as "too much description" as long as it's well-written and you're not describing the wrong thing at the wrong time. The ability to seamlessly weave beautifully-crafted and vivid description into your prose is one of the hallmarks of a truly skilled writer.

My sister has an MPW from USC and she's always telling me how one of the instructors there would go on about writers who literally describe every single thing in a room, starting with the carpet and going right up to the ceiling . . . Obviously, that's absurd and meaningless! However, I'm afraid that simply saying that 'too much description' can make a book too long does not convey what that professor was talking about.

This subject also always reminds me of "Ill Met in Lankhmar". When I first read it (actually, I've only read it once--once was enough!) I was thinking, "Whoa! This thing really won both the Hugo and Nebula for best novella? It sounds like it was written by an eighteen-year old SCA nerd!!!" . . . And then I realized that the darn thing was such a classic that the reason why it sounded like an SCA nerd wrote it was undoubtedly because all the SCA nerds who try to write are copying Fritz Leiber . . . So maybe none of that stuff was as much of a cliche when he first wrote it!

But I digress . . . The point here is that one of the painfully dorky things Lieber does in that story is putting description in at the wrong time and place: rather than working the description in as he goes along, as each new character appears, he just stops and describes them from head to toe . . . Aaaaargh!!! (Of course, it's really quite funny! :ROFL:

)

Krazykat · Apr 12, 2012

Old Hack said:
Krazykat, you don't seem to realise how dismissive and disrespectful you're being towards the people who have offered you good advice in this thread. Nor do you realise that your comments here are twice as long as they need to be to convey your meaning, and that provides a good clue for the reason for the extreme length of your book.

If you want advice, then ask for it here. If you want people to pat you on the back and tell you you're brilliant, ask for it at home. But please: stop dismissing AW's members like this, and think carefully about the advice you've been given here.

WHOA! I am really sorry that I seem to have offended you, but to me this is completely out of the blue. You completely misunderstood me in a million different ways. I was not being dismissive or disrespectful of anyone, nor was I ignoring anyone's comments.

I honestly have absolutely no idea where you got this reaction from or why you interpreted what I said in such a way. Perhaps we have a very different sense of humor, and some of the stuff I meant ironically or playfully didn't come through that way for you.

All I can say is that I'm really, really sorry I upset you, and that just about everything you said here is a complete misinterpretation of what I was actually thinking.

I think AW is great and most of the folks who post on here are very helpful. My opening to that post was completely sincere.

Thanks again to everyone else for their suggestions, and when I get a chance I will respond to some of your specific comments.

Lesser of Two Evils?

Positivilly Movillis . . .

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Such a nasty woman

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With great power comes

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practical experience, FTW

Such a nasty woman

Positivilly Movillis . . .

practical experience, FTW

Such a nasty woman

Positivilly Movillis . . .

Positivilly Movillis . . .