Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
If the novel continues as it has begun, I would have to describe it as an 80,000-word story squeezed into 440,000 words.
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785 pages (as mentioned in one of the "reviews") does sound ponderously long for a novel by someone who hasn't already established their mastery of the form. That's one of the good things about having a good copy editor-- extracting the good 200 page book (if there is one) from the 785 pages. Not being told what to cut out may be good for the author's ego, but it isn't often a favor for the reader.
The same goes for authors who have become big enough to get away with ignoring editors. I recently finished Connie Williseses new novel Blackout-- which is the first half of a long novel that was split in two (
Blackout ran 579 pages-- the second half, called
All Clear, will run 656, so over 1,200 pages all together.) As much as I enjoy her writing, I can not help thinking that the story would have truly benefited by someone cutting out some of the side stories to make a single book.
Doomsday Book was only 592 pages, and it said all that it needed to.