Quote:
Originally Posted by derangedhermit
JKR has Tom Clancy disease. Tom Clancy disease is when you are so popular you think (and in fact you can, to the detriment of the book) blow off your editor, or pick a weak one.
Main telltale symptom: books proceed from breakthrough novel and sequel of normal page count. Further additions to the series and other new books get progressively longer, when a good editor would have cut out all the fat and kept the story tight and moving. I dropped out of both JKR and Clancy around book 4 or 5. Compare against the LOTR trilogy: a six-part work in three books, each of approximately equal length.
|
I believe LotR was just one epic tome broken into 3 books for practical reasons.
One writer who suffers from lengthenitis is Elizabeth George. Her Lynley books keep getting longer and longer and more exhausting. If you look at her amazon listing, her star ratings keep going down. Her editor needs to step in and read her the riot act.