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Old 12th July 2006, 05:33 PM   #18 (permalink)
SJAB
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Staffordshire
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Re: Length and depth of a novel?

Quote:
Originally Posted by j. d. worthington
Nothing wrong with tremendously long novels, or even a series of such. But to make that any sort of criteria for accepting a novel seems to me very much to be circumscribing the literary gene pool to the point of endogamous extinction....
I don't think it is. It's just a trend at present.

John put it rather well in this thread;

http://www.chronicles-network.com/fo...-chapters.html


And I quote;

"Sophistication of writing and being in an area of the market that agents and publishers can sell come first, as well as all the often-enumerated parts: great characters, wonderful story, outstanding dialogue, narrative sweep and super-duper writing. But as I've said before many times, it's subjective - not a chemical formula. I spoke to one of the major SFF editors in London a couple of weeks ago - when asked what they were looking for, the answer was: 'I'll know it when I see it.' "

Since I read this, I have had quite a few troubled nights of little sleep and strange nightmares. How can I, of all people, come up with a novel that even comes half way to that???
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