Is It Possible To Have Too Big A Story?

[theDamonfreak]

I have trouble with this. My plots always tend to be WAY bigger than I first plan them to be. For instance, (I can't yet comment on my fantasy trilogy, as it's HUGELY complicated with several different big plots swirling around each other), my horror trilogy, The Hybrid Theory, is quite complex. There are several main characters and their relationships with each other, the sub-plots with different characters feeding into the lives of the main characters, and yet more sub-plots feeding into those!

I guess a novel has to have more than just the main plot, to give the characters realistis dynamics. The sub-plots with more insignificant characters can be used to give the main guys their memories, fears, likes etc, rather than just basing those on situations.

Of course, there is, as everyone says, then always the danger of either moving away from the main plot for all of the story or most of it, as the writer/reader gets too tangled in the sub-plots to remember anything else, or simplifying them so much, glossing over the emotional impact on the main characters, that the sub-plots seem pointless in the first place.

'Tis a tricky balance... one I know I'm still working on. ^_^

 

[drosdelnoch]

No problem Teresa, but thats how it worked in the UK, Ive talked to a number of authors who each have said about how it came out. THey each have written numerous books so know about the renegotiating about previous percentages etc. So whilst it may be a bit much I had to jump in to defend authors from the people who think that they got paid per page or per word. Silly logic but it does need correcting.

 

[TheUltimateChosenOne]

Are you kidding! Theres some famous writer named Robert Jordan that writes over 1,000 page books. The books are thiker then my hand!
Stories come in all shapes and sizes, just like people!
Best luck on your story!

 

[ray gower]

Has to be said, there is another rather more famous writing Robert, Heinlein, whose books could often cover the whole history of a civilisation, their sociology, physiology and all the other 'ologies, a comparative critical prase in comparison with one or more other civilisations, plus a taught story, all in a volume only slightly more than a tenth of that

 

[Omphalos]

Ill bet that part of it is that if a writer writes a multi volume story, say 5 books, and the books are 200 pages or so, the reader will be pissed off that they had to make 5 purchases, and give the author 5 paydays. But if they write monsters, there is no reasonable complaint there (other than they are overwritten or padded, which is not as bad to author/reader good will).

 

[Malloriel]

Personally, I entirely admire what it was Robert Jordan was attempting to do, and hope to employ the idea of it in my own work. The problem I ran into was when you really get involved in the plot of one of the several dozen main characters only to have it jump to someone else, thus frustrating the reader. Then you settle down, reluctantly, to find out what's going on with this set of main characters only to have it jump yet again. I mean, my word! The end of one deals with Rand and the taint on the male half of the One Power, and in the next book it's hardly addressed! You end on such a compelling note, yet don't immediately address it in the first line of the next book?? Why on EARTH would you do that to us?

There were too many contributing stories and players to be crammed into one series, I feel. I admire how he was showing that people once connected obviously can lead separate lives with little to no contact with each other, direct or indirect, yet still play utterly integral yet independent parts within the overall scope and resolution of the conflict. It is entirely beautiful, admirable, and complex. I just feel he should have chosen one story to tell with the others as more supplemental material.

He, unlike others, though, was always working on a personal time limit with an unknown but inevitable end. It was all he could do to get them out before he passed, and nearly succeeded. I believe for that reason, if no other, the manner in which he chose to express the lives of his characters can be forgiven, no matter how frustrating a chapter by chapter progression may be.

I also think that a series of 27 books may not be considered too many, or a book of 2000+ pages may not be too many if the writing is well done and the story compelling. If the words used are those necessary, and the content not merely fluff. Anything well written to the size it should be, large or small, is exactly as it is meant to be and reading it won't leave one with the feeling they've been short-changed, or suffered through what could have been 8 chapters long and instead was 34.

Anything written well can defy the odds and conventions. I think it's when the writer is missing some point in themselves or their approach to writing that the reader begins to feel it.

 

[WafflesToo]

@ Malloriel: That is probably the biggest thing that killed the Wheel-of-Time series for me. I managed to slog my way through the first five books before giving up, and I never felt that it was all that good past book three.

It's a shame he will never get a second chance to do better

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Now bear with me on this one. I know in some circles Robert Jordan might be pretty well loved, but honestly, if it IS possible to have too big a story, the Wheel of Time would certainly be an example.....

 

[Malloriel]

I don't disagree with you, Manarion. I admire the man for what he attempted to do, but I think the jumbled, mashed up way he approached everyone's involvement could have been more limited, at least.

I just have to keep him in mind and NOT do what he did with my works. My epic, stretch-till-forever works that eat your eyes.

 

[kenpat]

Now bear with me on this one. I know in some circles Robert Jordan might be pretty well loved, but honestly, if it IS possible to have too big a story, the Wheel of Time would certainly be an example.....

I have started to reread these in preparation for the final ones release next year.
I haven't read them since they first came out and had read up to volume 8.
I'm now midway through book 3 and already feel differently than I did when I read them first. Whereas before I was totally wrapped up in the story this time I'm not finding it so engrossing and would now agree that a lot of it seems like padding. It may just be me.
However I have read almost all of Peter Hamiltons books and loved every page, so long books do not scare me.
I think the problem with long books with lots of characters and subplots is that you may cease to care about most of them because you can't keep track. Maybe that's just me again, with advancing age and senility approaching.
As a slight diversion but still on subject, I note that Brandon Sanderson (the author who will complete the WOT series) has already announced that there will be 2 books released not 1. Bet they're both giants.

 

[ray gower]

How about this for consideration?
Perhaps it is not the writer's fault, perhaps it is a publisher thing?

Fantasy has always lent itself to pages and pages of waffle, fair enough, the extra wordage is needed to define and create the world, though it is worth noting that Edgar Rice Burroughs (him of Tarzan fame) managed to effectively rewrite the whole of Lord of the Rings in to a single book of a mere 300 pages!

Of the acclaimed 'Masters of Science Fiction': Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein etc; Only Niven has individual books that take up more than 3/4" of my shelves. Which inclines me to suggest that Science Fiction tends towards shorter more succinct writing.

Swords and Sorcery is more popular than Science Fiction (at least there is a lot more of it) and/or publishers seem to think that Science Fiction is Fantasy with laser guns, consequently it gets lumped in to the fantasy shelves in the bookshop, where they are simply over-powered by their corpulent shelf mates.

Simply put: If you don't measure 3" across the spine you won't be seen and bought!

 

[kenpat]

"Simply put: If you don't measure 3" across the spine you won't be seen and bought"

Or maybe publishers think fantasy = epic. After all 4 of the top ten bestselling books are fantasy and Harry Potter is the only one that comes in at under 300 pages.

 

[DocFlamingo]

Can a work be too long? Hell yes! "The Old Man and the Sea" could (and should) have been a pamphlet.

 

[Boneman]

Can a work be too long? Hell yes! "The Old Man and the Sea" could (and should) have been a pamphlet

by Doc Flamingo

He he! If only! I had to study the damn thing at school, and a pamphlet would have been so much better. The only thing worse was 'Paradise Lost' by some pillock who should have known better.....Having said that, my all-time-favourite fiction work is SHOGUN, by James Clavell, It's one book, but 1243 pages long, could easily have been a trilogy!

I found with Robert Jordan, that as soon as I got to a page of dialogue, I'd keep skipping until I reached some action. Incredibly that could be up to seven pages, and I didn't miss a thing. Same with Terry Goodkind.... When I finish my own Trilogy, people will say "Not enough Dialogue/Too much action" and they'll be right..... In the end it's what publishers want, plus what we give them (and the two aren't mutually exclusive!) pls what the reader wants, plus whatever.....