Quote:
| 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.....