I just finished reading a big political/espionage thriller by a bestselling writer. This author isn’t in the absolute top tier as far as sales go, but he’s still ’way up there. And I hope this doesn’t sound like sour grapes, but I didn’t think the book was very good at all.
The plot – a simple revenge yarn – was okay, although a little predictable. And there were a few nicely done action scenes. For the most part the style was strictly functional but effective.
The problem was that at nearly 700 pages the blasted thing was about three times longer than it needed to be. Scene after scene accomplished nothing, not adding to the plot, the characterization, or even the atmosphere. You’d get a long paragraph explaining what the hero was thinking, followed by another long paragraph restating what the hero was thinking, followed by yet another long paragraph summing up what the hero was thinking. The same thing was true of the assorted villains. Page after page was like that. I’ve heard readers of the Shadow pulp novels by Walter B. Gibson complain about the padding in them, as Gibson tried to stretch the word count, and I can see that at times in the Shadow novels. But I’ve never encountered anything in them as blatantly superfluous as I did in this novel.
And yet not only was the book highly successful, so were all the earlier ones by this author. I don’t get it. What’s there that I’m missing? There must be something.
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7 comments:
I'm missing it too, and all the other writers I know. We talk of this kind of thing in our writing group all the time. My personal opinion is that any book that is just decent can be made into a big seller if the publisher really puts an advertising campaign behind it, or if the author has name recognition, especially if movies have been made from his or her books.
A fan once suggested to me that a lot of marginal readers, if they are to make the effort to imagine a fictional situation and characters, want as much mileage out of that stage-setting as they can possibly get...hence megabookery, endless trilogies, etc....and why short fiction is relatively out of favor with the larger, occasional fiction-reading public.
You mean, Todd, that your friend tried to say that people are stupid and need things to be said over and over again? That may well be the case.
I read a year ago PARANOIA by Joseph Finder. It was okay (better than Ridley Pearson, at least), but the same padding was all over the place. I cried out loud when the guy packed his car: "He was able to put only a toothbrush and a towel into his Porsche. Porsche's trunk isn't large." (Or something to that effect.) Hey, you Finder guy, I *know* and so does everyone else - and if they didn't know, they just don't care!
We've talked before about those doorstops. Give me a nice lean Gold Medal any day.
I'm serious about this, James...I think there must be something psychologically reassuring in reading a book of considerable heft...the same kind of psychological reassurance you get when you've got plenty of shelter, fireplace wood, food, and warm blankets before an impending storm hits. You feel all snug and protected. In the case of doorstoppers, maybe you feel you'll never run out of pages. My current preference for a book's length is about 70-75,000. You can really develop characters and story but have no need to pad. of course I still love those 60,000 worders, too, and always will. --Ed Gorman
Then go ahead and read the first novel by Alex Bernson, "The Faithful Spy." No padding and it'll blow you away.
Not necessarily stupid, Juri, but not sophisticated readers, and not in the habit of recognizing the deft clues good writers use to fill in the background, much less being able to take those in without reinventing their own personal wheel with each book.
The literary equivalent of Madonna Ciccone fans.
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