This is so true. Some long books seem short. That's true of Rowling's later Harry Potter books. Though they got longer and longer, they felt short because her stories were told in-scene, on stage, with lots of action and dialogue.
Fully agreed. And it’s not about “commercial” versus “literary” either, I don’t think. I’ve read books that were supposed to be page turners that bored me and novels thick with character development and ideas that riveted me. This will possibly annoy some people but I remember reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and thinking, if this guy tells me about another sandwich. And there was a whole paragraph about how she packed her backpack and I thought, this must be relevant later. It wasn’t!
I agree! When I finished my novel it was about 123,000 words, and I loved it. However, I set it aside for a while and when I came back to it I was able to cut it to 112,000 without losing anything of value. I think I'll have a much better chance of getting an agent with the lower word count.
This was a necessary post. Sometimes I find that books are too short. Other times I find that authors who make 20 novellas could have just as easily fit the whole story into like 5 good-sized books. Thanks for sharing.
This is so true. Some long books seem short. That's true of Rowling's later Harry Potter books. Though they got longer and longer, they felt short because her stories were told in-scene, on stage, with lots of action and dialogue.
Fully agreed. And it’s not about “commercial” versus “literary” either, I don’t think. I’ve read books that were supposed to be page turners that bored me and novels thick with character development and ideas that riveted me. This will possibly annoy some people but I remember reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and thinking, if this guy tells me about another sandwich. And there was a whole paragraph about how she packed her backpack and I thought, this must be relevant later. It wasn’t!
I agree! When I finished my novel it was about 123,000 words, and I loved it. However, I set it aside for a while and when I came back to it I was able to cut it to 112,000 without losing anything of value. I think I'll have a much better chance of getting an agent with the lower word count.
Very smart to set it aside for a bit and terrific that you were able to trim so much! I always say that I've deleted more words than I've written :)
This was a necessary post. Sometimes I find that books are too short. Other times I find that authors who make 20 novellas could have just as easily fit the whole story into like 5 good-sized books. Thanks for sharing.