Bloat

[Liadin]

On plot bloat, when I was reading the WOT books, at some point I started to feel like a beleaguered supervisor--nothing would ever happen unless I was standing there looking over the characters' shoulders. (And even then they'd drag their feet, damn characters.) Whereas when I read ASOIAF, I was like, "Awesome! I don't have to be there to make things happen!" This probably makes no sense but it was exactly how I felt. I treasured those off-screen important events. It make me feel like things were moving.

[Curethan]

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.

Ah yes. The Silmarilion and LotR have none of the type of bloat that I'm complaining about. And thanks for a defining example of how epic fantasy can be done in one volume. :)

What is bothering me most with bloat is books that have been written with these size targets in mind, rather than 'however long it takes'. Enforced bloat, if you will.

e.g. "Yeh, good book, we'll publish it buddy. But the readers want more pages. Could you add in some extra books/chapters, mebe do a little bit of a rewrite. Don't worry no one expects the next one within two years any more, take your time. It builds hype anyway..."

Williams writes bloat, but its genuinely how he writes. No problem with him, you know what to expect from a random page test.

Looking at Rothfuss - the dude had the whole trilogy written ages ago. Is this an obvious case where thousands of pages have been force fed into an already complete story?

@ Relic; haha, I nearly tipped over into that same reaction a couple times.

[SkynJay]

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.

Except for Tom whats his name. When i reread the books I skip that section every time.

As for bloat, I have skipped most the larger series because of it. My problem is once I start reading a series, I want to finish it all and skip the rest of my reading list. Currently doing it with Glen Cook, but most of his early books are 200-300 long. Where as i really want to read Gardens of the Moon, but dont want to lose 3 months to nothing but one series, and i know i will. For proof of this, I actually finished Goodkind.

But when it comes to short series, I dont care how big the books are. I loved Name of the Wind, and eagerly await my turn at Wise Mans Fear. But i Know that these monsters books SHOULD end at 3, so I am not stuck forever.

[Herr Fick]

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.

God, is it that bad? I'm currently reading Dust of Dreams with The Crippled God scheduled to arrive next week. Since the series' middle books there is this growing sense of doom, a feeling that Lundin will fail to put even the principal plot lines together. I've been hoping, though. Was I wrong?...

[Grack21]

God, is it that bad? I'm currently reading Dust of Dreams with The Crippled God scheduled to arrive next week. Since the series' middle books there is this growing sense of doom, a feeling that Lundin will fail to put even the principal plot lines together. I've been hoping, though. Was I wrong?...

I thought he tied a lot more together then I was expecting, but yeah, book 9 and some of 10 is bloat tastic.

And I've been thinking. You know what bloat is? Attack of the Clones. That's some fucking bloat.

[Curethan]

I thought the last Malazan volume just revealed how much extra stuff had been inserted.

The overall result really felt very diluted.

I challenge anyone to read the epigraphs end to end without their frontal lobe imploding - that shit is bloat.

[Shryke]

I thought the last Malazan volume just revealed how much extra stuff had been inserted.

The overall result really felt very diluted.

I challenge anyone to read the epigraphs end to end without their frontal lobe imploding - that shit is bloat.

No dice. I got my fill of shitty poetry reading LOTR the first time.

If your book includes your poetry actually written out, it automatically loses points.

[Shryke]

On plot bloat, when I was reading the WOT books, at some point I started to feel like a beleaguered supervisor--nothing would ever happen unless I was standing there looking over the characters' shoulders. (And even then they'd drag their feet, damn characters.) Whereas when I read ASOIAF, I was like, "Awesome! I don't have to be there to make things happen!" This probably makes no sense but it was exactly how I felt. I treasured those off-screen important events. It make me feel like things were moving.

That's odd, because I get what you are saying, but I don't think you have it right.

WOT does in fact use the same sort of technique as ASOIAF where it jumps in on a character, follows them for a bit, then goes somewhere else and returns to that character later, after time has passed and stuff has happened and is like "this is what you missed, now onwards!". All sorts of stuff happens off screen.

The difference is that while with Martin we get short, tight little pieces whenever we check in, Jordan generally has the reader meander about for awhile. It's not that a bunch of stuff doesn't happen while you aren't there or a bunch of time doesn't pass or the like, it's just that in WOT you tend to get a few chapters with the character and it's alot slower, with more stopping to smell the flowers and peruse the local fashion.

[Shryke]

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.

God damn yes, that book was bloated to all shit. Some really bad writing in many sections of that book (I remember the prologue's prologue being the worst for useless bloat).

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.

I don't think it's a modern phenomena or anything. But it is effected inversely by attention spam.

In my experience, the leaner the book, the more you have to pay attention. Stuff flies by and you need to read carefully to get all the details.

This tends to make them bad for reading in short bursts though.

[Curethan]

It's not restricted to epic fantasy here btw guys. I'm not as well read in other genres omnibus goat-crushers, but..

Harry Dresden, Sookie Stackhouse and co might be character driven but I'm sure they get their share of filler.

Even Harry Potter resorted to MacGuffins almost every damn time.

Licenced properties seem to be mostly bloat filled poison candy. Probably written with TVtropes open. (I only read them on recommendation nowadays so this assumption relies on 2nd hand experience).

Sci-fi has plenty of massive series these days too - Dune seems an obvious example of death by bloat.

eta- mm i guess eposodic stuff doesn't really count. It's more when your waiting for the overarcing narrative to advance and there's the feeling that the author has inserted some spurious character or device in order to prolong things. So disregard the above where appropriate.

[emberling]

Curethan obviously knows not of what he speaks, but there is some serious bloat potential in episodic rather than epic series. The trap is that the author wants, or expects the fans to want, to check in with every reasonably beloved minor character that's occurred throughout the series, leaving precious little time to actually have a story.

The other trap, and I put this one solely as the fault of the reader rather than the author or the book, is expecting something that is not meant to be provided. No shit, if you're reading the Dresden Files from the epic-fantasy perspective - that is, solely because you want to see how the 22-book arc ends, and not because it has wizards riding zombie tyrannosaurs through the streets of Chicago - you're going to say stupid shit like "What's the deal with this dinosaur?" But that only proves that you have no soul.

And an episodic series has also brought us the best possible kind of bloat: the latest book in the Vlad Taltos series, remarkable in its tendency towards super-slim volumes and unapologetic refusal to waste time on extraneous characters from past books, tells the final third of its story in the inimitable style of fictional scribe Paarfi of Roundwood, who was paid by the word.

Also: McGuffins - nothing to do with bloat. Completely at odds, even. A McGuffin is a plot device that moves things forward. One that inspires conflict. It's something that makes people stop paying attention to their sunbathing and lemoncakes and prehistoric zombies and start worrying about the plot.

[Liadin]

That's odd, because I get what you are saying, but I don't think you have it right.

WOT does in fact use the same sort of technique as ASOIAF where it jumps in on a character, follows them for a bit, then goes somewhere else and returns to that character later, after time has passed and stuff has happened and is like "this is what you missed, now onwards!". All sorts of stuff happens off screen.

The difference is that while with Martin we get short, tight little pieces whenever we check in, Jordan generally has the reader meander about for awhile. It's not that a bunch of stuff doesn't happen while you aren't there or a bunch of time doesn't pass or the like, it's just that in WOT you tend to get a few chapters with the character and it's alot slower, with more stopping to smell the flowers and peruse the local fashion.

Well yeah, it's not literally true that nothing happens off-screen in those books. At least a couple really important events that I recall were off-screen. And I'm not arguing that off-screen is always better either--sometimes it's disappointing and anti-climactic. It's a balancing act. I think I mostly just felt the way I did because it would take so long for a plotline to move forward in the later WOT books, but then you go to ASOIAF and can skip over an entire journey simply by not having chapters with that character for a bit, then get a one-paragraph summary of everything that happened. Martin balances on-screen and off-screen events really well and that helps keep the plot from feeling bloated--enough happens off-screen that it doesn't get tiresome or feel bloated (not every battle need be dramatized) but not so much that it feels like we're being cheated.

[jdiddyesquire]

Well yeah, it's not literally true that nothing happens off-screen in those books. At least a couple really important events that I recall were off-screen. And I'm not arguing that off-screen is always better either--sometimes it's disappointing and anti-climactic. It's a balancing act. I think I mostly just felt the way I did because it would take so long for a plotline to move forward in the later WOT books, but then you go to ASOIAF and can skip over an entire journey simply by not having chapters with that character for a bit, then get a one-paragraph summary of everything that happened. Martin balances on-screen and off-screen events really well and that helps keep the plot from feeling bloated--enough happens off-screen that it doesn't get tiresome or feel bloated (not every battle need be dramatized) but not so much that it feels like we're being cheated.

How interesting is Rothfuss though?

In his most recent book he left the whole shipwreck scene off-screen which sounds a lot more interesting than his sex fantasy with Ferulian that took 150 pages. Gotta wonder about whose call that was... editor or writer.

Editor, "Uh Pat.. we need more sex with demon elves. What can you do?"

Author, "Hmm... well I could cut this shipwreck scene where Kvothe wrestles with pirates and manages to crawl out of the sea when everyone thinks he's dead."

Editor, "Perfect."

[Liadin]

How interesting is Rothfuss though? In his most recent book

he left the whole shipwreck scene off-screen which sounds a lot more interesting than his sex fantasy with Ferulian that took 150 pages. Gotta wonder about whose call that was... editor or writer.

Editor, "Uh Pat.. we need more sex with demon elves. What can you do?"

Author, "Hmm... well I could cut this shipwreck scene where Kvothe wrestles with pirates and manages to crawl out of the sea when everyone thinks he's dead."

Editor, "Perfect."

Haven't read Rothfuss, but this sounds like an instance of an author going too far the other way, leaving readers feeling cheated. It really is about balancing. If a book involves 5 battles, fully dramatizing all of them would in most cases be bloat, because it becomes repetitive; dramatize 2-3 and you don't have that problem, and can give readers the sense that you're only making them sit through the really important and interesting stuff. OTOH, don't dramatize any battles and we're left thinking :bs: .

Edit: to hide potential spoilers

[Relic]

guys, please edit the previous posts to include spoiler tags.

[jdiddyesquire]

guys, please edit the previous posts to include spoiler tags.

Apologies.

[williamjm]

God, is it that bad? I'm currently reading Dust of Dreams with The Crippled God scheduled to arrive next week. Since the series' middle books there is this growing sense of doom, a feeling that Lundin will fail to put even the principal plot lines together. I've been hoping, though. Was I wrong?...

I was mostly happening with the ending, it did a good job of resolving many of the series' major plotlines and I thought the last 500-odd pages of The Crippled God were probably among the best in the second half of the series. Some plotlines don't get any sort of resolution, although since it's been known for some time that, for example, Karsa's story wouldn't get resolved in the "main" series, I was expecting that and it didn't really detract from the book. However, although I liked the ending of the series to get there you have to get through hundreds of pages of tedium early in both DoD and tCG.

Haven't read Rothfuss, but this sounds like an instance of an author going too far the other way, leaving readers feeling cheated. It really is about balancing. If a book involves 5 battles, fully dramatizing all of them would in most cases be bloat, because it becomes repetitive; dramatize 2-3 and you don't have that problem, and can give readers the sense that you're only making them sit through the really important and interesting stuff. OTOH, don't dramatize any battles and we're left thinking :bs: .

The bit in Rothfuss' book being referred to was left out (in both Rothfuss' book and Kvothe's in-book storytelling) because it didn't actually add to the story, while it sounds like a fun subplot from what we know of it there's no significant character development for Kvothe and nothing happens that impacts on the main plot. In the previous book a lot of reviews did criticise Rothfuss for including a lengthy section towards the end that was presumably meant to add a bit of entertaining action to the book but didn't have any overall plot relevance, he perhaps didn't want to do the same thing in the next book. Although I'm not that keen on the other section jdiddy mentioned that was included in the book in full, it does have more character development and more plot significance than the the bit that was skipped over.

[Curethan]

Also: McGuffins - nothing to do with bloat. Completely at odds, even. A McGuffin is a plot device that moves things forward. One that inspires conflict. It's something that makes people stop paying attention to their sunbathing and lemoncakes and prehistoric zombies and start worrying about the plot.

Oh yeh, except when there is no point to them but to lengthen the story. If it turned out Sauron had six other rings that needed to be found and destroyed in a companion series to LotR would you accept it was bloat? Bloat is anything added simply to increase the pagecount in my view. Anyway, this thread is about opinions before facts.

[emberling]

If bloat is only things that are deliberately added to increase pagecount, then surely there is hardly any bloat in any literature except that which needed to have words added to slip into 'novella' from 'short story', or 'novel' from 'novella'?

Or do you really have such a poor view of authors and publishers that you think they would add shit that they don't even like to their novel, increasing the cost of production, just to fit a marketing ideal slightly better?

The vast majority of bloat is surely there because the author thinks it's good and adds to the story, not because they wanted to pad their book. Poor editing is not malicious, and it seems the vast majority of writers naturally write on the too-long side.

[Liadin]

The bit in Rothfuss' book being referred to was left out (in both Rothfuss' book and Kvothe's in-book storytelling) because it didn't actually add to the story, while it sounds like a fun subplot from what we know of it there's no significant character development for Kvothe and nothing happens that impacts on the main plot. In the previous book a lot of reviews did criticise Rothfuss for including a lengthy section towards the end that was presumably meant to add a bit of entertaining action to the book but didn't have any overall plot relevance, he perhaps didn't want to do the same thing in the next book. Although I'm not that keen on the other section jdiddy mentioned that was included in the book in full, it does have more character development and more plot significance than the the bit that was skipped over.

My impression of those complaints about the first book was that people felt like the climax came out of nowhere. Most of us wouldn't object to a random action scene in the middle of the book being dramatized even if doesn't add much to the plot or character development, but many of us would object if that same sequence is placed at the end and felt like it should be built up to. As far as leaving out that kind of thing--I probably would feel cheated if I was reading a book without action scenes and then something that colorful happened to the main character but was glossed over. If there are other more relevant action scenes it would be okay. If it's just not an action-oriented book, then why include the episode only to skip over it?

Or do you really have such a poor view of authors and publishers that you think they would add shit that they don't even like to their novel, increasing the cost of production, just to fit a marketing ideal slightly better?

The vast majority of bloat is surely there because the author thinks it's good and adds to the story, not because they wanted to pad their book. Poor editing is not malicious, and it seems the vast majority of writers naturally write on the too-long side.

Right, this is probably true. Bloat isn't defined by the author's motives for including it.