Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulpmeister
Word bloat isn't unique to self-published books. I recently worked my way through one of the late Tom Clancy's more recent titles, "The Teeth of the Tiger." At the end of the 600+ pages (around 150,000 words) I discovered that this was just the first half of the story. So the total length would be around 300,000 words, assuming Part 2 is about the same size.
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I stopped reading Clancy several years ago for similar reasons. Endless monotonous technical background that contributed nothing to the plot or enjoyment of the story. I think a huge number of men buy his books based on the films and then abandon them half way through. I know many who have done this.
To me it's cheating. It just adds up to doing a huge amount of research, probably done by someone else anyway, and including it in what is basically a very ordinary story of very modest length ... turning it into a monster book that is trying to pose as a serious piece of work based on it's poundage alone.