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/lit/ - Literature

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6271291 No.6271291 [Reply] [Original]

When does a novel become too long /lit/?

>> No.6271312

>>6271291
Just before it starts to get bad

>> No.6271319

When it becomes too long to economically publish in one volume with decent sized text or when it starts before the initial incident or continues past the denouncement.

80,000 words is the ideal length for a novel. 60,000 to 120,000 are acceptable, but anything over 100,000 probably isn't going to be published unless it's fantasy.

>> No.6271320

tbh imho
contemporary: anything beyond 400 pages
old: anything beyond 2000 pages

>> No.6271325

>>6271320
Do you enjoy reading the back of shampoo bottles?

>> No.6271384
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6271384

>>6271325

>> No.6273675

>>6271291
When an author has become so popular that the editors aren't allowed to do their jobs anymore: Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, George Martin, etc., all ballooned the size of their books when they became untouchable.

>> No.6273709

>>6271320
>to be honest in my honest opinion
>boring uninteresting opinion
Well, alright.

>> No.6273722

If its good then there is no such thing.
It's just that its hardly ever good.

Not sure why brevity is fetishized so much. Some things can be good and take a long time; like life, or an great orgasm.

>> No.6273728

>>6271320
>contemporary: anything beyond 400 pages
Wow

>> No.6273740
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6273740

>>6271325
Guilty

>> No.6273742

>>6273722
Personally I've never had a 400-page orgasm. It sounds scary.

>> No.6273750

>>6271325
>not reading the backs of the various bottles and boxes you have in the bathroom when you poop

Knowing what's in my deodorant makes it slip from my ring so much easier!

>> No.6273760

>>6271319
>When it becomes too long to economically publish in one volume

I hope you're talking about fiction and not non-fiction.

>> No.6273791
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6273791

>800 pages
After that's it's just pseudo-intellectuals waving their dick around.

>> No.6273808

>>6271320
hoist the sails and ready the harpoons, i've sighted the pleb

>> No.6273823

>>6273760
Read the OP again and see if you can spot why your question is fucking retarded

>> No.6274467

>>6271291
>ITT: NO STORY CAN EVER GO PAST [INSERT NUMBER]
>IM BRETTY SURE IT BREAKS TE LAWS OF LITRACHURE

>> No.6274472

>>6273791
This. 800 pages is the max for me in terms of what I'll put up with.

>> No.6274495
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6274495

did the "maximalism" novelty wear off or did he actually pull of writing a 1k+ word novel (inc. footnotes)[1] ?

[1] I think he did, there were some chapters that felt irrelevant and "show-offy", but they were at least mildly amusing

>> No.6274508

As long as a narrative is begun and completed, points are made, etc. then it can never be too long or too short. Whether it's good or bad for being too long/short is another debate entirely.

>> No.6274654

As someone who already published a novel and plan to publish the next (not a sequel but similar) I would say that anywhere etween 70.000 and 150.000 words is the best length. Of course it depends on the genre and story itself, but it's not long enough to lose itself in itself, and not short enough to fail to tell a complete, definite story.

>> No.6274666

Well, the best saying is a good novel is never too long and a bad one is never too short.

In terms of publishing, unless you're an established author, anything over 100,000 words is not getting published. Unless it's some knock out good shit, and you know how to sell it like a motherfucker. Even then, over 110,000 it's just not happening. At that point, they'd just advise you to break it up into two books.

If you're an established, profitable author then all the rules go out the window, but you wouldn't be on here if you were.

>> No.6274952 [DELETED] 

>>6271291

A novel is only as long as it needs to be.

>> No.6274962

>>6271291

A novel should only be as long as it needs to be.

>> No.6275015

>>6271325
Do you not? There's nothing to read in the shower

>> No.6275040

>>6271291
long enough to tell the story, short enough not to lose the readers interest. But that assume you are writing for people, not yourself.

I do know I stopped trying to write my book when the text file exceeded the 4 GB of RAM I had and my computer crashed every time I tried to open the file.

>> No.6275053

>>6274495
IJ doesn't really feel like 1k pages, since you finish each chapter's endnotes with that corresponding chapter. Only a few endnotes make the length annoyingly obvious, like Orin's phone conversation with Hal about the particulars of Quebecois separatism.

>> No.6275065

>>6271325
I do!
But I read every ingredient list I see, and I also like studying emulsifying agents and material science.

>> No.6275086

When there is one comma too many.

>> No.6275102

>>6274495
50% of Infinite Jest is irrelevant and annoying, but it's still good on its own.

>> No.6275161
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6275161

I've only put up with 800+ pages a few times. War & Peace, The Stand and Count of Monte Cristo. I think Gravity's Rainbow was a little over 800, I put up with that too.

But unless the first few chapters of a book are mindblowing I won't read anything above about 650.

>> No.6276775

>>6271312
So much this. As long as the story is still interesting and a reader can still keep up with the threads, who care about length?