Giant Novels

There are very, very few books I can think of which I felt justified a 1000 pg wordcount, and none of them were published in the last few decades. But obviously I haven't read everything out there, so who knows.

As for marketability, if people like it then it will sell. Those Rothfuss books (sigh) were immensely long and people ate them up. Alternatively, finding a niche in self pub can always work.

I started reading a Rothfuss book and stopped less than half-way. I will most definitely go back to it but sadly it wasn't gripping me the way I had hoped. As for lengh, I agree, longer is better though not necessarily 1000 pages plus. I do think the current requirement for a 120,000 word limit is a bit on the short side. IMO for a book to get really interesting and to delve sufficiently into the characters we're reading about, it needs to be longer. I don't read books from kindle, I prefer a good old fashioned paperback, and when I look in the book shop I will almost always choose the fat book over the thin book. If I finish a book in a matter of days I want it to be because it was so damn good I couldn't put it down and not because it was too damn short.

With regards to self-pub, I guess a lot of them are shorter because - well, let's face it - it's easier to write a short book than a long book and if you're in it for the money then it makes more sense to keep them short. Personally I think the short ones are here to stay but as long as there are still meaty long ones to choose from I'll remain a happy bunny.

I think the length is less important than what's it's filled with.

Lady Fox said:

With regards to self-pub, I guess a lot of them are shorter because - well, let's face it - it's easier to write a short book than a long book and if you're in it for the money then it makes more sense to keep them short.

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I don't think this is true for everyone. It's certainly not for me. My rough drafts are about 30% longer than my final drafts, and it takes me a lot of work to pare them down.

It's a tangential point, but people who are financially successful self-pubbing tend to be prolific. If you're fast and you tend toward shorter work, you're going to have an advantage.

frimble3 said:

I think the length is less important than what's it's filled with.

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This^^^

120 needs not be the cap for epic fantasy. My CP queried a 180k epic fantasy and still go requests for it.

But if you're talking about most genres,there is a cap, yes. Romance can't be that long. If it is, it's either badly written, or no longer romance centric, something. Thrillers tend to be shorter, and crime, too.

The big books seem to come from established authors, who dont get edited enough in some cases. But editingis somewhat ass backwards, I think, in that the strictest standards and rules seem to apply to the newest authors.

Oh I loved the Rothfuss books, from page one I adored his writing and knew I would slog through, and I did so happily. But even then I did take some breaks. Long books are hard work.


My own experience is being absolutely certain that my 140k words were all needed, then shaving nearly 30k off without much hardship In all honestly I would love to add more literary description and more introspection, but as an unpublished writer I want to give myself the best chance of getting an agent, and I think keeping it as concise and tightly plotted as possible is sensible when handing over to people scanning an absurd amount of manuscripts.

pingle said:

Long books are hard work.

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Maybe you or someone else can explain this to me, but I don't see why it's any more difficult to read one 300K novel than it is to read three 100K novels.

What about six 300k novels tho

I'd say there's a content ratio in all seriousness. And t maybe changes how we process information.

Theoretically there should be no difference in content given for a sentence which is 160 words long versus four sentences which are 40 words long but in practice it changes how we read. I realise that's not a perfect example but there is some transfer of the concept.

BethS said:

Maybe you or someone else can explain this to me, but I don't see why it's any more difficult to read one 300K novel than it is to read three 100K novels.

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I suppose I meant long books are hard work for me

I read a lot and I read fast, but I mix up my books, rarely do I read the same genre twice in a row, and I quite like a fair bit of non fiction in the mix too. When I read loong books I take breaks and read something else for few days. If the long book isn't incredibly engaging there's always the risk that I might not go back to it. whereas I will usually keep going to the end with a shorter read.

pingle said:

I suppose I meant long books are hard work for me

I read a lot and I read fast, but I mix up my books, rarely do I read the same genre twice in a row, and I quite like a fair bit of non fiction in the mix too. When I read loong books I take breaks and read something else for few days. If the long book isn't incredibly engaging there's always the risk that I might not go back to it. whereas I will usually keep going to the end with a shorter read.

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I don't follow this at all.

What's the risk you may not go back to it have to do with anything?

If a long- or short- book isn't engaging, nobody will finish it.

It's got nothing to do with length - it's always content that matters.

Bufty

Bufty said:

I don't follow this at all.

What's the risk you may not go back to it have to do with anything?

If a long- or short- book isn't engaging, nobody will finish it.

It's got nothing to do with length - it's always content that matters.

Bufty

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My reply was simply a reflection of my own reading habits. I do finish shorter books that I don't think much of. Like I said, I read fast, fast enough that I can plough on through an average length novel without it feeling too arduous, before throwing it at the wall

I get what you're saying though, quality is the most important thing, and I agree.

I'm not against long books btw, if they are good I love them as much as any other wonderful book that sings to me, and I don't equate having a break from as a bad thing. I just don't really want to read 1000 pages in one go.

It makes sense to me, as a stance. Longer books have more going on and the plot thread running through it can sometimes be more tenuous.

A lot of longer books tend to be overwritten, imo, which is arguably a style preference, but still.

A series which is broken up into shorter novels usually has a complete arc for each novel.

Yep. It's keeping in mind the whole story (events and characters) spread over the time it takes to read a huge book.

I'm less forgiving of a longer book. If I'm feeling meh about a book-- or if I like it overall but there are some little things about it that bug me-- I'm much more likely to just push on and finish it if it's a 250-page stand-alone than if it's 800 pages and the first in a trilogy.

Or, you get to the end of the first 800 pager, only to realize that you've been set up: nothing is concluded, and there are hints of more to come. Not available, of course, but, someday, down the road....
Say this for a big book - they make a big thump when they hit the wall.

pingle said:

I suppose I meant long books are hard work for me

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You're not the only one. I've run into this before. But thanks for the explanation. It seems to be related to an effort/reward ratio. Shorter books obviously get a reader to the end more quickly. Longer books take more patience and more sustained attention to the characters and plot. I suppose to some readers, getting to the end is a stronger reward than taking the journey. A long book requires falling in love with journey itself, to the point where the reader isn't tempted to stray. I can see the appeal of preferring shorter books; you get a feeling of accomplishment at having finished. OTOH, a long book that is also engaging/gripping/emotionally compelling can become a place you'd have to pry the reader away from, and when they do have to put it down, they can't wait to get back to it. I've read some like that.

I read a lot of YA and thrillers, so I don't read many long books these days. I got 400 pages into GoT and realized I'm just not an epic fantasy person.

But when I read The Crimson Petal and the White, which is over 1000 pages IIRC, I got so attached to the book that I was sorry to finish. That was a case where the world (Victorian England) was compelling enough to keep me reading, combined with strong characters. It felt more like a TV series than like a three-act story, but that was okay.

In literary fiction, I think there's a recurring problem of authors believing sheer length will make their books more "serious" (which means critics love it and you get awards). I interviewed a famous author who said he'd had trouble stretching a book to 700 pages because the characters annoyed him. Guess what -- it showed. That book was not well received. It was stuffed tight with beautiful prose, but the characters and story weren't nearly compelling enough to justify the length. (There's a lesson here: long-winded, virtuosic prose is great and all, but for most readers, it's not enough by itself.)

I think readers can tell when an author is padding a book for whatever reason (reasons probably differ by genre). But not all long books are padded. Some are the exact length they need to be.

Length is important, but less important than content. If the writing is good, the characters likable, the settings interesting, the plot moves along neither too slow nor too fast, a lot of people will immerse themselves in the experience and stick with it even if it takes them days to finish it.

As a crude rule of thumb, 100k words is a good target to shoot for if it will be a debut publication. But that is only a popular novel length.

Think of it from your own perspective. When you enter a room you usually don't see, smell, touch, hear, and taste everything in the room. In most cases you only really notice one or two senses at a time.

So when your character enters a room they’ve never been in, what would they notice. But also HOW do they notice it. If your character is angry they would react differently then when they are happy to the same stimuli. For example, if they are in a bad mood they might not notice the smell of fresh cut flowers. But if they are happy they might stop and smell the roses.

It's also important to know what kind of a mood you want to set. If there are one or two senses that would bring that mood out better than the other, focus on them. But don't describe everything. It just leads to a sensory overload and the reader will just skim over it and forget about what mood your trying to set.

I have definitely found, in the past, that if I was having trouble becoming engaged in a book, how thick it was would influence how much I was willing to slog through.

Now that I primarily read ebooks, though, I don't have a good sense of how long the book is when I start it. I can think of at least one bestselling novel (which I won't name) that I suspect I'd have DNF'd if I'd held the print copy. I'm glad I didn't - it was a decent potato chip in the end, although it had some pretty serious flaws.

So I guess I'd have to revise my earlier opinion and say yes, my visual perception of a book's length does make a difference. (The ARC for my third book was ridiculously fat - I still don't know why; it's 2K words shorter than the second - and I had a strong sense people were going to find that discouraging in terms of picking it up. The final print run was normal thickness, but it still nags at me how many photos of the ARC binding were circulated.)