Too complicated

Hypothetically speaking, if I had something else to be working on, I'd put the complex novel aside and revisit later. But it really depends on where the feedback is coming from.

For me, it would depend on who's complaining. If it was someone I considered a target reader (e.g., someone who usually appreciates complexity in the genre), then I'd be worried.

+1 to Urban Spaceman. If able, I'd let the project rest for a while, *then* evaluate whether to tone it down or stick to my guns.

I would be concerned that a complaint of "too complicated" may be a euphemism for "I can't follow this story." Be sure the issue truly is complexity rather than lack of clarity before you attempt to correct it.

You may do well to set it aside for some drawer time while you work on another project. Then when you come back to it, whether it's complicated or just hard to follow should become clear.

Staugaard said:

For me, it would depend on who's complaining. If it was someone I considered a target reader (e.g., someone who usually appreciates complexity in the genre), then I'd be worried.

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This. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm not sure what denotes "non-high concept fantasy". However, if the criticism is not from a target reader, I would take that into account. Not everyone is going to appreciate your style and type of writing. That's whether they are in your target group or not. But, specifically listen to those who are within it and let them guide you more than someone who is not.

As others said, consider where your feedback is coming from. But don't be afraid to fix it if this feedback is coming from trusted sources. There's nothing wrong with a complex story, but there is something wrong if your story isn't coming across because of too much getting in the way. I've had to cut some threads from my plots before because of crowding. The point is to get your story across and to figure out how to do that without losing YOUR story. Take a breather from it, work on the other project, and give yourself some time to mull it over.

As a thought experiment, what would happen if you cut those opening scenes (or spinkled them in later)? Unless the opening provides an essential code to unlocking the universe/plot, then you might just skip the whole thing and start the book where most people enjoy reading it.

This might not work at all with your book of course. I recently cut two chapters from my own WIP that I used to think were essential to the plot - turns out they weren't. They were just a roadblock for some betas.

If these are people who read your genre, and it would put them off reading your book, it is worth understanding what the problem is. Readers will generally tackle complexity if the narrative rewards their attention.

If the story itself cries out to be complex, have you tried building to that point slowly? George RR Martin didn't throw everything about Westeros at us in the first chapter of "A Game of Thrones." Heck, he didn't even give us the whole mess in the first book. He established characters we could care about and built the complexity around them. Throwing everything at the reader in the first chapter is rarely productive. They're going to forget half of what you say anyway.

Nobody can tell you exactly what you should do, but I'd listen to Neil Gaiman "When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”

Maybe it's this story, and you can shelve it and move on. Maybe it's something about your style and you need to fix it. No one can really answer that question but you.

If I get a lot of complaints about anything, I change it. I want people to like what I write.

Of course, deciphering what "too complicated" actually means is another issue.

Harlequin said:

I don't have a single human character in the POVs. There are humans in the setting, but they're sort of in the background. When I waited to establish this, readers complained about their assumptions being rewritten (valid). If I mention some and not others, the ones not mentioned are assumed to be human (logical, valid). If I'm clear about what they are, readers complain about being overwhelmed (even when trying to be judicious with this.) Atm I feel like my hands are just tied however I turn.

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How important to the story is it that these characters are not human, & that readers should know this upfront? I remember a very interesting series some years back (by Paul Park, I think) where the characters are not human, and the "dogs," "horses," etc. were also not actually dogs, horses, etc., but these facts were slid in very subtly (e.g. by casual reference to a character's tail) in the context of some very complex world-building, so it's fairly late in the story that you realize just what he's done. Sarah Monette's The Goblin Emperor did something similar more recently. Unless the contrast of non-human & human is a critical component of the story, I think you probably don't need to stress about this issue too much.

Harlequin said:

Currently my first chapter introduces the main characters, the world, the problem, the plot - it's probably too much.

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Not too much at all. The following sentence, for example, contains MC, world, problem and plot: " Farmerboy Luke Skywalker looked down at the endless dunes of his home planet and wondered if he'll ever meet his dad during his forthcoming quest to save that beautiful Princess from the hands of the Evil Empire." The same information can also be written out in several paragraphs: about how in a galaxy far, far away, there is a planet that is all sand, and there are dunes on the sand, but also civilization, cities and farms; Luke was a farmer, altough he really wanted to do other things and go to other places, of which also there was an abundance in this galaxy; then an exciting thing happened and Luke learned about this Princess in distress and he kinda fell for her and for the idea of the quest, so he decided to leave his farming business for a while, because the damsel needed him; and all that happens during the times when the world was ruled by an Empire and in charge was an Evil Emperor.
So, bottom line is: when you want to tell the reader about the world, its not always necessary to spell everything out straightaway. But if you try, there always are ways to squeeze the same info into much less space. Even with consideration to the stuff below:

Harlequin said:

...
I remember first reading Martin years ago, and thinking "ah, it's THIS sort of fantasy" and knowing exactly where I was at, as well as what to expect.
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I don't have a single human character in the POVs. There are humans in the setting, but they're sort of in the background. When I waited to establish this, readers complained about their assumptions being rewritten (valid). If I mention some and not others, the ones not mentioned are assumed to be human (logical, valid). If I'm clear about what they are, readers complain about being overwhelmed (even when trying to be judicious with this.) Atm I feel like my hands are just tied however I turn.

I don't, I think, have much meta knowledge for people to rely on if that makes sense. Maybe I've just bitten off more than I can chew. the plot is pretty basic, though - it's more the setting and the world which seems to be the struggle for readers.

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"Pubba wriggled his large belly in pleasure, burped, and reached out for another tiddlywink. In front of him, the Dwilek twirled a piruet, the long appendage at the back of her head fluttering high in the air as she jumped over Pubba's tail. "
There. I don't need to tell you that Pubba is an alien, or a fantasy creature, or anything. I don't need to tell you what a tiddlywink is right now, because it's obvious that it's food. Maybe later we'll need to know more, but for the purpose of this particular scene it's enough. There isn't any description of the characters or the place as such, but the reader would easily understand that there is this Pubba creature, who is wealthy enough to have a dancer. He's also not very polite, because he burps. And he's sort of big, and has a tail. We could continue for quite a while without explanations about who Pubba is or why the Dwilek decided to dance for him, too. Even if those are not human characters, they still do very human things and those things are easy to understand. The "alien/fantasy/nonhuman" aspect is just a backdrop, which can be revealed on as-need-to-know basis. It's the human things they do that are interesting, the interactions, the relationships etc. And describing those is the same in all genres of fiction.

I don't feel like I can speak to the issue at this point, but I'm curious. I'd read your first few chapters if you feel like adding another voice. PM me.

Harlequin said:

I really did mean it as a more "general" question.

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The more I hear about this book, the more I think it's one worth writing But that doesn't mean write right now. If it's too much of an uphill struggle, give it a break for a while. No point of giving yourself a headache. And definitely get new betas. Opinions vary. I can only imagine the betas Mark Danielewski might have had with House of Leaves, "Mark, why is half the book printed upside down??"

I'm unsure about what you mean by 'complexity'.

Your story has a beginning and an end. Along the line things happen than push the story toward the end. If you have branches of your tale that don't contribute to the end, I suggest you trim them.

You could have your beginning, then several different things come from different directions, but they all move the story toward a singular ending.

The setting makes sense to the character in the setting, you only need to tell the reader as much about it as is important to that character in that scene. A person in a place at a time can only be thinking about what they are paying attention to, and attention is a very narrow beam.

There are plenty of books out there with blindingly complex settings that continue to unfurl like acid fractals. I doubt your worlds are more complex that those already being successfully writer (or that ever have been).

The trick is to never lose sight of character and narrative.

In my experience, readers are very good at noting the existence of a problem, but they are not always accurate at identification of the specific nature of the problem. At one point in the thread, you say readers who make it through the opening chapters have positive reactions to the manuscript. This suggests to me the problem isn't with worldbuilding.

The worldbuilding may be frontloaded. That's a tricky balance, and as you've already pointed out it can raise questions of expectation. It could circle back to a lack of grounding. Even die-hard fantasy readers need grounding in your world, an expectation of the normal, before they're introduced to the unusual, the abnormal, and the fantastic. Still, most genre-savvy readers should have experience dealing with worldbuilding over time. If spreading out the world details isn't answering the complaints, imo, this solidifies the conclusion that complexity isn't actually to blame.

Another possibility is a lack of engagement with the central narrative character. It may be that readers who put down your manuscript just don't connect to your PoV characters. Worldbuilding in absence of character engagement doesn't often, even for the absolute best of worldbuilders. Once you've engaged a reader's interest in your characters and milieu, on the other hand, the wealth of worldbuilding becomes a feature, not a bug.

In this latter case, I would suggest some consideration of your readers. You've indicated some read fantasy, but what kind of fantasy do they read? Which titles do you think best comp to your manuscript in terms of worldbuilding? Which title would be the best comp for your MC? Did your beta readers like those books? Did they like those characters? Their answers might help you illuminate where your manuscript has gone wrong -- if it has gone wrong.

Harlequin said:

The complexity is all to do with the setting and the worldbuilding. It probably doesn't help that I'm rigidly committed (maybe overly so) to not breaking POV, which can be difficult for conveying explanations to the reader.

Betas are unhappy with explanation/milieu given early - their complaints about complexity are directly proportional to how much information is given early, so proportional you could plot it on a straight line I reckon. But they're also unhappy if it's given late as it overwrites their preformed assumptions. And finally, milieu given as I go garners criticism that I'm throwing details at them, and still suffers from the sliding scale problem.

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It's possible you may be able to cut back the direct presentation of information early on, and provide it more indirectly via in-cluing (which allows you to use selected key details and POV focus to suggest much more about the world than you explicitly say without requiring a lot of exposition). It's a difficult technique to master if you're not used to using it, but if you have the chops it's an elegant way to immerse the reader painlessly in as strange & complicated a world as you please.

It's also possible you may need better betas who are more experienced with the particular type of book you're actually trying to write.