quote:
"Hunger's Brides," Paul Anderson's debut novel, is certain to be one of the biggest books of the fall. The question is how many readers will want to do the heavy lifting required to read it. At 1,360 pages (not counting 8 pages of titles and contents at the beginning of the book and 8 blank pages at the end, presumably added for production reasons) the book, quite simply, is massive. It weighs 4 pounds, 9 ounces, equivalent to two and a half copies of "The Da Vinci Code," and it is thicker than Verizon's Manhattan telephone directory (either the white or yellow pages).
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/books/23big.html?th&emc=th
I note with interest: first press run was 5,000 copies which quickly sold out. Second press run was 10,000.
An interesting comment about the hook:
quote:
"It is an elaborately beautiful, intricately baroque game that has at its center this mystery about Sor Juana's silence," said Anne Collins, the publisher of Random House Canada, which published the book last fall. Ms. Collins who said she fell in love with Mr. Anderson's writing in 1999 after reading a 50-page sample from the draft of the novel, in which he wrote lyrical passages in four distinct voices."Not many first-time novelists have even a clue how to do that," she said. "He totally hooked me."
So, MY question is: how big is big enough, how big is TOO big? Obviously if you have written a superior piece, no book is too big.
Fiction Factor has an article entitled "How long should your story be?"
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/length.shtml
... that article cites a novel at 50,000 to 110,000 words. I'm striving to bring mine in at 110,000 words, and have been wondering if I'm going to be able to do so.
But sheesh... my draft, set in Courier 12 point type measures 186 words per page. At 1360 pages, that alone would measure over 252,000 words.
I'm staggered. And here I thought 110,000 to 150,000 words would be pushing the envelope.
Granted, for us mortals who don't have contacts or current publicity, we're already going to have to come up with something pretty special to catch an editor's attention. To me, this means not taking unnecessary risks. There are traditional word count ranges that are more likely to get you looked at. In spec fiction, you want about 100k words. That's what I'm aiming for on my second novel, anyway. (My first was 80k, but it also qualifies as suspense and that genre looks for 70-90k.)
I like the conciseness (concision?) of short novels, that tell a story in forty thousand words or less and don't waste a word. (The good ones, anyway.) You don't see many things published in that length nowadays. (I loved the old Ace Doubles.)
You can estimate word count by counting the number of words in a few sentences and then averaging, and counting the number of lines on pages and averaging, and then multiply the averages. faster than counting every word (but of course just an estimate, not a precise count.)
Just when you think you got editors figured out, they go and do something wacky like that....
The NY Times article has a little fun fact set of pictures at the top of the page. "Hunger's Brides" weighs as much as a six-pack of beer, as much as two and a half copies of the Da Vinci code, more than a chihuahua, and almost as much as a quarter of a large watermelon.
I guess there is hope for the long-winded, as long as you are telling a captivating tale!
The author tells how this tale came to be:
http://www.hungersbrides.com
Not only has he thrown convention out the window with novel length, but he says he has tossed everything we've been taught about concise writing, as well.
quote:
It doesn’t take much of a stretch to see the ten-second sound byte as the oddity—the language of a technology, television, in which brevity has the cardinal virtue of preserving time for advertising. I don’t see it as the concern of literature to perpetuate or enshrine this (at least until it’s been around for a couple thousand years). -- Paul Anderson
[This message has been edited by Elan (edited August 25, 2005).]
Lisa
HOLY CRAP!!!!!
-Monolith-
I'm just wondering:
They say that literature has evolved during the information age, due largely to the influence of other media. Obviously if you compare today's novels with the likes of Henry James or Charles Dickens there has been an enormous swing in the concision 
of modern prose.
So, does Mr. Anderson's work represent a swing in the other direction? And what might be the cause of that swing? Perhaps the widening gap between watchers and readers? Perhaps the readers are tired of watching and yearn for a richness that can only be found in the written word, and which has become largely absent from literature in the past 50 years or so in an effort to keep the watchers reading?
In which case, there is hope for my WIP as-is. YAY!!!
If this author wanted to write in a lavish, baroque style, and it fits the story, I don't have a problem with it.
The only thing that irks me is the massive marketing campaigns designed to whip up a media feeding-frenzy, touting a book as an "event".
Bleh.
I can wait a while to see if it's for real. And so I will.
[This message has been edited by Minister (edited August 25, 2005).]
Once in a while, it must happen.
~LL
quote:
Obviously if you compare today's novels with the likes of Henry James...there has been an enormous swing...
For a moment there, I thought you said Harry James.
quote:
The only thing that irks me is the massive marketing campaigns designed to whip up a media feeding-frenzy, touting a book as an "event".
I bet you'd change your mind if it was your name on the cover.
[This message has been edited by Spaceman (edited August 26, 2005).]
(And, BTW, Vivien Leigh was wonderful, and Clark Gable was-- well, who WOULD want to kiss Clark Gable?! 
Now Timothy Dalton as Rhett was awesome, but who can say anything good about the book OR movie "Scarlett"?!)
Um, I think I've again delved into the irrelevant... 
~LL
quote:
I bet you'd change your mind if it was your name on the cover
No, I'd probably head for the hills before my head got bigger than a watermelon.
Sure, a story doesn't have to be big to be good, but dontcha just love that sensation of living for weeks and weeks in an author's imagined world?!
But that book was good. I'd read it again if I had a week to burn.
-Monolith-
If a book is really well written, I can read it in one day. Whether I will depends on whether I plan on doing anything else that day (unless it's a pretty short book).