I was poking around the internets the other day, and I discovered an amusing list of cliches that aspiring fantasy novelists should avoid — among them were making sure you didn’t have a character who could be described as a “forgetful wizard,” and steering clear of making up races that use the “half-” prefix.
But the one that caught my eye advised writers to avoid writing a book thicker than a New York City phone book.
There was a time when a decent-sized novel was about 400-500 pages. You felt like you were getting your money’s worth. Depending on how fast of a reader you are, it could be a journey that took you some time to complete. But recently it’s almost become the norm to create tomes of 1,000 pages or more, and anything less feels like easy reading.
How did we get here?
Well, the most obvious answer is that The Lord of the Rings, the seminal work of fantasy that basically created the genre, is a weighty 1,008 pages in its entirety, and that’s not including the 100+ pages of appendices. Of course, when it was first published, Rings was famously split into three books, and is often misconstrued as being a trilogy, when it fact it is meant to be read as a single novel.
Why so long? Tolkien was doing more than just writing a simple novel. He was also providing a window into a world no one but him knew, and that required a lot of description. Though touched upon in The Hobbit, light had to be shone more thoroughly on elves, dwarves, ents, and orcs, and while many people criticize the books for its large amount of pages in which characters are traveling to and fro (check out Kevin Smith’s Clerks 2 for a good laugh about the film version), it is that traveling that allows the reader to get to know this foreign terrain. And it’s a testament to Tolkien’s genius that it’s so engaging.
But as for the modern abundance of lengthy novels? I blame Harry Potter.
It’s no secret that J.K. Rowling’s beloved series began modestly with a few slim books aimed at young children, only to balloon into an epic, sprawling masterpiece meant for readers of all ages. (I recall Stephen King a few years ago writing that he was tired of hearing new works heralded as “Harry Potter for grown-ups.” As he pointed out, Harry Potter is Harry Potter for grown-ups.)
The series, which peaked page-wise with the fifth installment, Order of the Phoenix (almost 900 pages!), proved that there was a market for lengthy novels in the teen-to-young adult market, as well as for older readers.
Each one of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga books, for example, are increasingly long, starting with Twilight at 498 pages, and capping with Breaking Dawn, which came in at 756 pages.
Is this a good thing, this trend towards books heavier than most toddlers? It depends. While it can be a joy to take a long journey with a book, they can’t all be The Lord of the Rings. One of my favorite books of all time is The Mists of Avalon, which can put a small-town phone book to shame with its girth, but that’s not to say I don’t enjoy a book that one can finish on a long train ride, either.
I worry that aspiring fantasy novelists now might feel that they have to make their books long just for the sake of being long, and not in service of their story. To them I give this advice, start small. After all, the original British publication of J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was a svelte 223 pages, and look where she is now.
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I love the lengthy novel and its requisite “world-building” as much as the next geek, but when it doesn’t add anything to the story it is just filler. I had to start skipping over parts of Richard’s repetitive speeches in the Sword of Truth. He was literally talking his enemies to death. And there are 2-3 clunkers in the middle of the series that could have been cut entirely… or atleast condensed down to one novel.
Sorry you really can’t blame this one on JK Rowling! She’s just going where many have gone before. If I had to start naming names, I’d go back to Raymond E Feist, Robert Jordan and as you’ve pointed out, to Tolkien himself.
Problem is, I have to say I’m going to side with those who said a good story told well can sustain that length. Just finished Mieville’s “Perdido Street Station” and I think I would have hated it being shorter. So much richness and atmosphere, it would have been a shame if he had edited himself too harshly…
Completely agree with you on China Mieville.
Sometimes extra length is just an exercise in authorial puffery — “look how clever I am to create such a rich and detailed world, with a complex history and ecology which I feel compelled to dazzle you with because I spent years creating this world in my head”.
But sometimes an author really needs that longer form to explore big ideas and themes. Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy came in at a hefty number of pages over three books, but to my mind at least, it never felt like it was being “padded” just to get to that length. She had some incredibly complex interconnected stories to tell yet she never resorted to pages and pages of description of costume, history, flora and fauna, discussions about the economy. The detail is *there* but it’s subsidiary to the actual story - the story is the meat the details are gravy.
Other authors, mentioning no names of course (Robert Jordan, George Martin step to the head of the queue please), seem to have decided they like the taste of the gravy more than the meat. They focus on minor plot elements and characters, info-dump huge chunks of history and irrelevant detail into the narrative just to prove they’ve got a fully integrated world, and they do a great disservice to what is essentially a good story.
I’m happy to read 900 pages…if it’s all interesting and relevant and is centred on characters *and* it all serves the overall purpose of driving the narrative forward. I’ll let you build a big complex world over a long time…just don’t bore me with details for the sake of details.
I think the fame of the author leads to longer novels, because editors become nervous about editing their work. The Australian author Andrew Masterson once told me that the more popular you get as a writer, the more nervous editors become to actually edit your book beyond basic copy-editing, in case you take umbrage with their criticism of your great work. He said he once had to tell an editor ‘No, this really needs editing, I know that, I just don’t know where the editing needs to be, which is why I need your fresh eye to do it’.
My main problem with uber-long books, in any genre, is simply that their size is impractical. I don’t mind that a big book takes a long time to read: I mind that it won’t fit in my pocket and I need to hold it with both hands. That’s what makes them unsuitable for train journeys, not the fact that I won’t finish them by the time I get where I’m going.
Fantasy books should be as long they need to be. Funnily enough, one of the last books I remember reading in a day was Deathly Hallows! It might be long, but it’s definitely a page turner, and there’s not much filler, since they’re having to turn it into two films. In fact, a lot of the ‘filler’ in the other books is just the details of Hogwarts life, which is atmospheric world building.
Anyway, a lot of people only have a limited time to read - 20 mins on the train is never going to be enough to finish a book - so it doesn’t really matter how long it is. It can be off-putting to have to leave a world you’ve immersed yourself in too soon.
I can agree with some adult Fantasy epics, but leave YA Fantasy alone for length - they’re finally getting decent!
When I was a kid, YA Fantasy (when you could find some) was usually capped at 200 pages of big print, barely enough to sink your teeth into. I started venturing into the adult section at the local library at age 11 after I discovered The Belgariad by David Eddings and wanted to find more.
Yes, some epics have shoddy pacing, and could use a round with the clippers, but let’s just blame the editors and writers who don’t revise enough, and leave the extra length alone now that it’s finally here!
(And granted, I’m biased. Little 250 page books are like an appetizer to me these days; not satisfying enough to count as a meal, only whetting my appetite for more. I’m a fast reader.)
I’ve been very wary of long fantasy books and especially long series ever since Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. I got on booard just as book 5 was published….by book 7 the books were becoming just too long winded and drawn out. It does make me think twice about picking up any book/series thats A. too long or B. not yet actually finished.
I hate to say this, but write a fantasy book. “Some have,” I can hear you say. Okay. Try to write a fantasy story in fifty thousand words, and make sure it’s clean. No easy task. And to clarify, a mystery is not a fantasy epic! Fantasy is usually longer for a reason. It’s called world building. New York City, which almost anyone can imagine, is not Mahray. There went 10,000 words to show the reader Mahray. Oh, and is there magic? Yes? You are going to have to explain that. There went another five thousand words. And most writers double their word count from the first draft to the second.
And yeah, Tim, while I will agree that some stories could use a strong edit, some fans of Rowling wanted the books to be longer. If she wrote another many people on here would probably buy it, relishing in its 900 pages. I would!
Let me start out by saying that if J.K. Rowling wrote another Harry Potter book and it spanned around 2,000 pages, I would so be there at the midnight party at Border’s, waiting for the book’s release.
My point is that a novel should only be long if the plot absolutely requires it, as opposed to it’s simply the expectation.
You said, “My point is that a novel should only be long if the plot absolutely requires it, as opposed to it’s simply the expectation.”
I totally agree with you. But the question in the title of your article is “Why Are Fantasy Novels So Loooooong?” I was giving my answer to it. My first editor told me not to be concerned with word count. She said, “The story should be as long as it needs to be.”
Two things. One, since you mentioned reading about fantasy cliches I highly recommend you check out the travelers guide to fantasy land by Diana Wynne Jones (might have gotten the title a little wrong but I’m sure Amazon knows what I mean). It’s a book all about the cliches of fantasy presented in an A-Z order and it is a laugh to read. A couple of my friends actually stole it to read it and it’s fun to open it up to a random page and read about some odd cliche.
Second, one of the ways when I read YA lit that I can figure out a books age is length, the books are definitely getting longer these days. I rather like longer books and don’t seem to come across many where I say, yeah, just cut this whole subplot. I do think a story should tell the story in the most efficient way possible, but sometimes that does mean a bit more description and dialogue which shouldn’t be cut for the sake of shortening.
I happen to enjoy long series, as long as they are well written. Sure, there are stinkers in any length of book/series, but thats to be expected, but I enjoy being totally immersed in a world that is so big it needs lots of pages and volumes.
And I normally want more when I’m done. I read pretty fast, so I like to have a lot of meat to get through. “The Stand” by Stephen King has long been a favorite.
One exception was when Robert Jordan started writing a bunch of extra long books that didn’t actually push the storyline forward. I quit reading at that point (about book 8) and haven’t gone back. Maybe if Brandon Sanderson resurrects the original ideas and gives the story a good tie-up I’ll go back.
Thank you. Yes, overwriting is a terrible disease afflicting the fantasy genre. I don’t get it. It represents incredibly self-indulgent writing. I can understand why editors would go soft on JK Rowling, given her money-making success, but what about all these other fantasy tomes/series? I used to be a hard-core fantasy reader, but I’ve drifted into other genres and sub-genres, like urban fantasy and mystery, where the pacing is snappier and plot structure is tighter.
What I really don’t understand is how all these loose, meandering, unfocused, seemingly endless books that delve into all kinds of meaningless minutiae keep getting published.
Frankly, I think Rowling really really needed an editor with a few of the books, especially GALLOWS and GOBLET OF FIRE.
Interestingly, George R. R. Martin (who I mostly adore) completely lost control of his story in the latest FIRE AND ICE book. He had to split it into TWO books, and the first book, MURDER OF CROWS, still came in waaaaay too long and unfocused.
And as in so many things in life, they keep getting published because people keep buying them.
It’s like in politics: nothing ever changes unless a political party loses power. No institution can reform itself, alas. It ALWAYS to be done from the outside.
Agreed. I loved the first ones from George. But that last one was just utter chaos.
Obviously, there are exceptions, but it’s (mostly) a bad thing. Because it’s become the “standard,” it’s like there’s no editing. Editors never seem to say, “Less is more. Find the core of your story and leave it at that.”
I can’t tell you how many of these tomes are meandering messes.
The cliche — “I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn’t have time” — is true!