Bloat

[Hirgon]

The Iliad is an epic. It is the story of one man's anger, it stretches over a period of a only a few days. It doesn't need to be the retelling of the entire Trojan War to achieve the scene of scope and scale that I guess most people would associate with the word epic.

The Illiad is not a great comparison. The Illiad is an epic poem by definition. In short, an epic poem is "a long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds". It's a matter of definitions rather than personal preference or "what most people would associate with the word epic."

Epic fantasy is something different, and I concur with the first half of your post.

[Liadin]

I don't mind long books/series but I do mind bloat. I can't help but find it as lazy editing/writing when I start encountering pages/chapters/volumes where nothing of huge import happens. It's a lot easier/quicker to write a lot than to write something concise, coherent and good.

Agree. I do read series and sometimes I even enjoy them all the way through. But I can't help thinking about all the truly great books out there that the authors managed to finish in one book. Does the work of some average fantasy author really need as many pages as, or more pages than, War and Peace? In the time I could read some 2800-page trilogy, I could read 7 standalone novels of average length. Does the trilogy deliver as much as 7 novels?

So, no, not a fan of bloat really. If you have to write a whole trilogy to tell your story, let alone more, it better be a damn good story and well-written. ASOIAF fits the bill for me. But if people start talking about "setup books" and "transition books" I'm out of there. Plenty of authors can fit the whole story, setup, transitions, ending and all, into one book, and their books are bound to be worth more of my time than an entire book that serves only in its relation to other books in the series.

I occasionally love the standalone (see Tigana or Elantris), but at the end of them I always want more. What is going on elsewhere in the world? What about the mythology we didn't see? What about the history that is hinted at throughout? The worlds are often so vivid that I want to know more. Bloat delivers this.

I'm with Lummel here. In fantasy I want there to be a sense of a larger world, of other things I didn't see. If the author exhaustively catalogs every interesting facet of the world and shows us everything that happens in it, well then there's nothing of interest left. Tigana didn't need to catalog everything that happened in the 20 years between the prologue and the main story. Could Kay have gotten a trilogy out of it? Sure, but at the expense of the book's literary quality.

[jdiddyesquire]

I'm with Lummel here. In fantasy I want there to be a sense of a larger world, of other things I didn't see. If the author exhaustively catalogs every interesting facet of the world and shows us everything that happens in it, well then there's nothing of interest left. Tigana didn't need to catalog everything that happened in the 20 years between the prologue and the main story. Could Kay have gotten a trilogy out of it? Sure, but at the expense of the book's literary quality.

And that's what made Tigana great. But does everything have to fit into that box? It's definitely a matter of preference, but it's like the Star Wars Trilogy vs. 2001. Is Star Wars lesser because it's exhaustive and not particularly artsy? No, it's a great story and a lot of fun. It's not the best movie, in fact, in a lot of ways it's not really any good at all, but it's a lot of fun. 2001 is difficult, thematically challenging, and not a whole lot of fun. But it's a great film. There's a place for both in the catalog of movies I love.

Lets not get snobby about what literature should be. If you don't like bloated fantasy, that's fine, I don't much like romance novels. But I think it's a disservice to authors when we say bloated series are wrong and editors should annihilate them. They might just be wrong for you.

Personally, I'm a bit torn on this discussion because I enjoy both sides of the debate. I recognize Kay is a better compositionally than say Rothfuss, but I enjoy Rothfuss just as much in a fundamentally different way.

(As an aside, there are probably those who disagree Rothfuss is bloaty. I tend to think A Wise Man's Fear is about as bloaty as it gets.)

[Gormenghast]

What about the assumption that a big book has bloat? You people are simply filled with prejudices.

Why Fantasy has long books? Because it's a genre where multiple PoVs are a standard.

I'm reading A Moment in the Sun, by John Sayles, a hugely praised historical fiction. It's a thousand pages long, it has multiple PoVs.

I'm even reading THE INSTRUCTIONS. A book of 1030 pages, telling a story that develops in 4 days. With just one PoV.

[jdiddyesquire]

What about the assumption that a big book has bloat? You people are simply filled with prejudices.

Why Fantasy has long books? Because it's a genre where multiple PoVs are a standard.

I'm reading A Moment in the Sun, by John Sayles, a hugely praised historical fiction. It's a thousand pages long, it has multiple PoVs.

I'm even reading THE INSTRUCTIONS. A book of 1030 pages, telling a story that develops in 4 days. With just one PoV.

I know I'm using bloat to mean big because well... that's what it means. But then, I'm arguing that bloat isn't a bad thing.

[Grack21]

Didn't you guys here? Big books don't sell anymore, David Drake said so!

[Liadin]

And that's what made Tigana great. But does everything have to fit into that box? It's definitely a matter of preference, but it's like the Star Wars Trilogy vs. 2001. Is Star Wars lesser because it's exhaustive and not particularly artsy? No, it's a great story and a lot of fun. It's not the best movie, in fact, in a lot of ways it's not really any good at all, but it's a lot of fun. 2001 is difficult, thematically challenging, and not a whole lot of fun. But it's a great film. There's a place for both in the catalog of movies I love.

Lets not get snobby about what literature should be. If you don't like bloated fantasy, that's fine, I don't much like romance novels. But I think it's a disservice to authors when we say bloated series are wrong and editors should annihilate them. They might just be wrong for you.

Personally, I'm a bit torn on this discussion because I enjoy both sides of the debate. I recognize Kay is a better compositionally than say Rothfuss, but I enjoy Rothfuss just as much in a fundamentally different way.

The OP asked us for our opinions, so I gave mine. ;)

I mean, a minority of the books I read are really "literary," and sometimes I do like following the same characters for multiple books. And some stories are really long and intricate and it actually does take several books to do justice to them, ASOIAF being an example. So my main objections to bloat are, first, that I don't think an author should expect me to read multiple books to get the story unless the author is really good at storytelling and has a lot to say, and second, that it annoys me when an author is obviously writing more than is necessary. As, for instance, when a story that could be told in two books is expanded to three so it can be a trilogy, with a second book as a "transition book" where nothing really happens.

The default should be standalone books, not trilogies. Evidently the market thinks otherwise, but I have a tendency to get bored with series and not finish them--I've finished probably fewer than half of the fantasy series I've started. And that's because in all those series I abandoned after a book or two or three or eleven, the plot/characters weren't compelling enough for me to care about a story of that length. They were compelling enough to read at least one book about, and they could've been tightened, but the authors chose to cash in on the series thing instead. Fine, but I'm going to stop paying after awhile.

[jdiddyesquire]

The OP asked us for our opinions, so I gave mine. ;)

I mean, a minority of the books I read are really "literary," and sometimes I do like following the same characters for multiple books. And some stories are really long and intricate and it actually does take several books to do justice to them, ASOIAF being an example. So my main objections to bloat are, first, that I don't think an author should expect me to read multiple books to get the story unless the author is really good at storytelling and has a lot to say, and second, that it annoys me when an author is obviously writing more than is necessary. As, for instance, when a story that could be told in two books is expanded to three so it can be a trilogy, with a second book as a "transition book" where nothing really happens.

The default should be standalone books, not trilogies. Evidently the market thinks otherwise, but I have a tendency to get bored with series and not finish them--I've finished probably fewer than half of the fantasy series I've started. And that's because in all those series I abandoned after a book or two or three or eleven, the plot/characters weren't compelling enough for me to care about a story of that length. They were compelling enough to read at least one book about, and they could've been tightened, but the authors chose to cash in on the series thing instead. Fine, but I'm going to stop paying after awhile.

Fair. I wasn't trying to be difficult. Just trying to engage a bit. I don't disagree with you, I'm actually excited when I get to love a stand alone.

But I guess bloat implies "bad length". Personally I think a lot of people that say bloat mean long which is what I was railing against perhaps?

[Liadin]

Fair. I wasn't trying to be difficult. Just trying to engage a bit. I don't disagree with you, I'm actually excited when I get to love a stand alone.

But I guess bloat implies "bad length". Personally I think a lot of people that say bloat mean long which is what I was railing against perhaps?

Sorry, I can see how my response comes across as a bit confrontational, which wasn't what I was going for.

Yeah, some people seem to see bloated and long as synonyms where they're not. Even short books can be bloated, there's just less time to notice.

[Joanna vander Poele]

If an writer is compelling and deft enough, I will happily read about a character doing laundry. If not... then ahem. I don't know if bloat is inherently bad, it's just that some people really can't pull it off.

[Datepalm]

I quite like descriptiveness, when it happens - I like reading about what a city looks like and what people are wearing and what the banners looks like and what was at dinner - so long as it's interesting, and builds up some depth and intrigue to the world. GRRM's food decriptions are worldbuilding. Cecelia Dart Throntons or Robert Jordans endless descriptions of fabrics and salt cellars, not so much. What I can't stand though is plot bloat, where theres nothing happening thats important to what the story is ultimately about.

[MattD]

I was discussing a novelette with some people a few days ago, and several of us said that we thought it would have worked better as a short story: the 7,500-word story was bloated, it didn't do enough to justify its length.

I remember that when Larry posted his review of Sanderson's Way of Kings, he included an excerpt of a few paragraphs, and in the comments section I went through and noted all the redundancies in the excerpt. That excerpt, in and of itself, was bloated. I remember estimating that if Larry's excerpt was typical, more than 30,000 words could have been cut from the book solely in redundant words and phrases.

But yes, for some people bloat of this sort is a feature, not a bug. I suspect that paradoxically books may become longer as attention spans shorten, as it gets harder for people to carve out long periods in which to read in a focused manner due to smartphones, networks, etc. When readers read only in short bursts, writers have to keep reminding readers of who the characters are, what the places look like, what's going on in the story, etc., and all that adds bloat. It creates almost two different classes of book: those meant to be skimmed to find out what happens, and those meant to be read and engaged with more closely.

The poor economy has also probably pushed things in this direction: good editors let go; writers having less time to spend writing each book and planning longer series; publishers feeling the need to raise prices and seeking a carrot to justify that; readers who may be buying fewer books looking to maximize the perceived value of their purchases.

That said:

Modern fantasy seems fixated on minimum six volumes and 1000+ page doorstoppers.

Well, this board is fixated on those books, but there are probably more good stand-alone fantasty novels under 450 pages published each year than most people have time to read--certainly they occupy a large chunk of my fiction reading time.

[jdiddyesquire]

I was discussing a novelette with some people a few days ago, and several of us said that we thought it would have worked better as a short story: the 7,500-word story was bloated, it didn't do enough to justify its length.

I remember that when Larry posted his review of Sanderson's Way of Kings, he included an excerpt of a few paragraphs, and in the comments section I went through and noted all the redundancies in the excerpt. That excerpt, in and of itself, was bloated. I remember estimating that if Larry's excerpt was typical, more than 30,000 words could have been cut from the book solely in redundant words and phrases.

But yes, for some people bloat of this sort is a feature, not a bug. I suspect that paradoxically books may become longer as attention spans shorten, as it gets harder for people to carve out long periods in which to read in a focused manner due to smartphones, networks, etc. When readers read only in short bursts, writers have to keep reminding readers of who the characters are, what the places look like, what's going on in the story, etc., and all that adds bloat. It creates almost two different classes of book: those meant to be skimmed to find out what happens, and those meant to be read and engaged with more closely.

The poor economy has also probably pushed things in this direction: good editors let go; writers having less time to spend writing each book and planning longer series; publishers feeling the need to raise prices and seeking a carrot to justify that; readers who may be buying fewer books looking to maximize the perceived value of their purchases.

That said:

Well, this board is fixated on those books, but there are probably more good stand-alone fantasty novels under 450 pages published each year than most people have time to read--certainly they occupy a large chunk of my fiction reading time.

That's sort of interesting... longer books in response to a short attention span? That's a bit of a non-sequitur.

[Papirolle]

Bloat is Tad Williams. Bloat is Brandon Sanderson. Bloat was Robert Jordan.

[Switchback]

i love it. the more the merrier. i'm one of the 6 people in the world who enjoyed every page of crossroads of twilight. i guess because i don't read fast generally anyway, and read sff solely for the reason of escaping, i prefer to spend as much time in my books as i can. and with everything being equal, i will take the first book of a 10 book series over a stand-alone 9 out of 10 times...

[Grack21]

It's just as possible to have short books that are still bloated. They're even worse offenders.

This is the most profound and truthful thing ever uttered by man. I want to carve it into a table so future generations can find it after we blow ourselves up.

[red snow]

This is the most profound and truthful thing ever uttered by man. I want to carve it into a table so future generations can find it after we blow ourselves up.

I'm also looking forward to when this thread becomes 13 pages long...

[Relic]

I don't like the word bloat, i think it's too wide sweeping a term.

That said, Erikson's "bloat" broke me. Badly. I actually read 9 books (11 if you count ICE) and 200 pages of the 10th before it really hit me, and when it did it hit like a tsunami and all at once. Thousands of wasted pages, every word searing my frontal lobe like red hot bullets, all at the same fucking time. i turned into a ranting raving gibbering lunatic, threw my copy of the book across the room and built a shrine to ward off evil in the area the book fell. It is laying there to this day. And never again shall it be touched.

[Eponine]

So, no, not a fan of bloat really. If you have to write a whole trilogy to tell your story, let alone more, it better be a damn good story and well-written. ASOIAF fits the bill for me. But if people start talking about "setup books" and "transition books" I'm out of there. Plenty of authors can fit the whole story, setup, transitions, ending and all, into one book, and their books are bound to be worth more of my time than an entire book that serves only in its relation to other books in the series.

This is how I feel too.

What's more important to me than complete world building in fantasy is having the impression that the world in question is larger and deeper than the part in the book. Sometimes novellas and short stories succeed at this, and sometimes multi-volume series don't succeed. If I can believe that the world is complex and that there's history and places that exist but aren't part of the story, I don't need to know very much about them. This also applies to the plot in some ways. If there's a probable explanation for how someone got to a place or did something offscreen, I don't feel the need to read their travelogue. I prefer to be able to fill in some pieces in my imagination.

It's become my personal preference to not read fantasy series, because except for ASOIAF, none that I've read have been among my favorite books, and most I've ended up not enjoying past a certain point. Every now and then I pick up something because it's been so highly recommended on the board (or because it's discussed so frequently that I need to read it to know what the hell people are talking about, ahem, Bakker), and I haven't been that impressed with the board recs either, although I think that the recommended series are generally intelligent and well written, just not my thing.

[Nerdanel]

I think The Lord of the Rings is remarkably free of bloat. A lot of plot happens in those pages, so a large wordcount is only appropriate.

The most bloated thing I can think of and have personally read is Otherland by Tad Williams. It's four huge volumes largely filled with characters wandering around and having side adventures while trying to find the main plot. By contrast, Williams's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is not nearly as bad because there the bloat at least mostly advances the complex story, however slowly. Williams just cannot write concisely to save his life, but at least he writes otherwise good prose with interesting details, so he isn't THAT bad.

I think Wheel of Time was bloated even in the first volume, so I can only imagine how bad it gets later on after the point I stopped reading.

The Silmarillion is the least bloated fantasy I can think of. It is also my favorite book. Robert Jordan would have taken maybe 500 volumes to write the same story. I'm not a fan of bloat even though I prefer epics.