Are Any Writers NOT Writing Epic Books?

I'm not, but I am trying to create a vast universe upon which I can write many short stories, and novels if I so desire.

My style is fairly tight. The things I write that are longer are because the story is complex, not because of loose writing.

Saladin Ahmed's debut novel is very short, while still having a lot of (pertinent) detail. Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch both write clean but descriptive prose. Robin McKinley, Cherie Priest, D.B. Jackson are also good examples of details where they need to be.

Different readers like different things. Detail and description doesn't necessarily mean bogged down or lack of story. Nor does sparse prose necessarily mean the writing is clean and story focused.

I don't. I'm too far the other way and sometimes much too barebones. I struggle to keep my wordcount from falling below 90k, and that's for my secondary world ms. The spec fic (real world) one is probably going to skate in at around 70k.

There are lots of non epic sff books around.

Yep, I enjoy reading epic books but it's not my writing style at all. It's a good day for me if I can hit 80k on a novel! Of course, that may be part of the problem since I'm not exactly a booming success yet, but oh well. I like the way I write and I know lots of other people do too.

I don't think my book qualifies as epic. It's 114K in size, but that's mostly plot and dialog, not baroque descriptions of the world, or meandering inner monologues about the characters' thoughts, they mostly just get on with it. It's also largely a heist story, so no universe-shaking stakes, or even a "save the world" plot, just a bunch of pros trying to get a job done. If I had William Gibson's command of the language, you betch'a I'd have every page filled with amazing, lyrical descriptions, but since I can't swing that, I keep it minimal.

amyall said:

Do you know of an author who has a more "trim" style? I'd like to get inspired by authors who are succeeding in the style I'm trying to write.

Thanks!
-A

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M. John Harrison is a great writer who more or less eschews the kind of intensive world building you're talking about. I'd check him out, especially the Viriconium series, which is a case example in watching a writer and project evolve.

Myself, I tend to avoid too much description. I very rarely describe characters or clothing, and usually only when it's integral to the scene.

I'm like that--a 'sparse' writer. I have to go through on my edit passes and add description so everyone isn't in a white room.

Early on I used to write way too much description. As I got older and my writing style developed more I realized that sometimes you don't need to describe every little detail. Now it's easier to fill in those details later after the main story is on the paper. It's what editing is for. That and I keep telling myself this is a first draft and not the final product.

amyall said:

This is it exactly! In my head everything is all filled out and wonderful. If only I could just let readers see what's in there ^_^

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The funny thing is for me that it isn't really filled out in my head. I guess I'm not that visual of a person!

noranne said:

The funny thing is for me that it isn't really filled out in my head. I guess I'm not that visual of a person!

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I have zero sense of architecture or urban layout. When I need to put my characters in a house, I go to Zillow and look up houses in the appropriate area with the appropriate number of bedrooms.

Also, no, I tend to skim over description. I write YA urban fantasy mostly, and I struggle to get my books up to 80k. To be fair, this is also a flaw in my writing, namely that I hate seeing my characters fall down and feel bad about it. Rewrites and edits mostly focus on throwing more rocks, or in some cases, hitting the characters with them until they break off a tree branch and start hitting them back.

(Metaphor comes from Kelley Armstrong, I believe--Act 1) Chase your character up a tree. Act 2) Throw rocks at them. Act 3) Let them back down.)

The novel in my sig line is non-epic S&S, reviews have chided me for insuffucient world-building. Also look at the work of CT Phipps, his stuff moves fast without a load of description.

I'm also an economical writer. My novels tend to be in the 80-100K range, and have found (to my delight) that that is a sellable range for SF novels. Your mileage may vary for fantasy settings, though, especially if you're introducing a new world or magic system. Happy to see I'm not alone!

I'm on vacation at the moment and working off a phone so can't paste links, but search Exile Owton on Amazon and you'll hit it

Well, I took my goodreads shelf containing sci-fi, which contains 61 books and sorted them by descending page count and made the publication date visible.

Some noticeable trends appear. The shortest books, under 300 pages, were mostly published prior to 2000. Most of the books published after 2000 of that length are marketed as novellas. Most of the books a little over 300 pages are young adult or middle grade. This, however, may just be a result of my past reading preferences which leaned towards books written for younger audiences until recently.

A fair number sci-fi books published in the last 5 years marketed as adult do come in at under 400 pages according to what I've read on goodreads. They're just not in the majority. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "not epic". If your definition means under 300 pages then maybe not. If your definition means under 400 pages then certainly. I guess 400 pages translates to about 100,000 words?

Again, I'd like to emphasize that this could all be a reflection of my reading preferences as opposed to the market as 61 books isn't the largest sample size.


In terms of me personally, the longest MS I've written has come in at 90K words, and I struggled to reach that 90K. Generally, I tend to write on the shorter end of the spectrum.

Edge publishing, who are a mid sized Canadian press, only accept SFF books between 75-100k words. Adult.

Try their entire catalogue, perhaps ;-)

bluejaybooks said:

Some noticeable trends appear. The shortest books, under 300 pages, were mostly published prior to 2000. Most of the books published after 2000 of that length are marketed as novellas. Most of the books a little over 300 pages are young adult or middle grade. This, however, may just be a result of my past reading preferences which leaned towards books written for younger audiences until recently.

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Page count is an unreliable metric. The ARC for my third book is ~35 pages longer than my second, and it's actually 2,000 words shorter. Layout and interior design can make a huge difference.

These days, you can get word counts on most well-known books via Google (there seem to be some sites that track these things).

lizmonster said:

Page count is an unreliable metric. The ARC for my third book is ~35 pages longer than my second, and it's actually 2,000 words shorter. Layout and interior design can make a huge difference.

These days, you can get word counts on most well-known books via Google (there seem to be some sites that track these things).

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I agree completely and use those sites to check word counts all the time. I love them. They're great. I probably spend a little too much time on them. However, I chose page count for my purposes because goodreads does not have a sort by word count function (please correct me if I'm wrong), otherwise I would have used word count for sure.

mrsmig said:

I've been following this thread since its inception and am curious why "epic" here seems to be equated with "long-winded."

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Excellent point. One of the most long-winded* books I ever read was The Old Man and the Sea, which is apparently a trim 26K words.

*My opinion, of course. I know I'm something of an outlier for despising Hemingway.

mrsmig said:

I've been following this thread since its inception and am curious why "epic" here seems to be equated with "long-winded."

I write epic fantasy - but I consider what I write to be briskly paced and written in an accessible style. To me, what makes epic fantasy "epic" is not the length of the book, nor an emphasis on description, nor a particular kind of heightened language, but its scope. The actions of the characters have a lasting impact not just on their own lives, but on their entire world. By that description, the Harry Potter books, which are among the most accessible of fantasy novels, could be defined as epic, since the struggle between Voldemort and Harry affects their entire society.

There's a good article about the definition of epic fantasy at Fantasy Faction.

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This. ^^^

I'm writing an epic fantasy, and my first book in the series currently sits at slightly over 90 k. But I'm doing a revision on the battle scene and expect it to drop down from that before the final version is ready for print since I'm scrapping some of the narration for dialogue to bring the reader in closer to the action. Personally, I hate reading pages of description, which is probably why I don't write pages of it.