# Do you believe that novels should be a certain length?



## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

When is a story too long? There are books that have 60K words, while others have over 250K (Tom Clancy). Do you have a cut-off point where you'll say "OK, this book is way too long?"


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

As a reader, I think a book should be as long as needed to tell the story. No longer and no shorter. I don't read short stories as much, but read pretty much anything else from barely a novelette to massive doorstopper.  The length is not as important to me as whether the story is well told.

I have read short books that I felt could be longer -- the author could have filled out the book without losing anything. Often the story is done but the characters were so well portrayed that I just would have been happy to learn more about them. 

I've read some where it seemed pretty clear to me that the author did think "this is way too long" and just came to an end without any real regard to the story he'd told so far. Maybe worried it'd be too long to sell well.  Or maybe just got tired of writing it. This is particularly a shame when it's been a really good story up to that point.

I've read books that were more or less 'standard length' but it felt like they'd really been padded: they had a darn good novella but someone told them they needed to make it so it would be a 250-300 page paperback to sell.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> As a reader, I think a book should be as long as needed to tell the story. No longer and no shorter. I don't read short stories as much, but read pretty much anything else from barely a novelette to massive doorstopper. The length is not as important to me as whether the story is well told.
> 
> I have read short books that I felt could be longer -- the author could have filled out the book without losing anything. Often the story is done but the characters were so well portrayed that I just would have been happy to learn more about them.
> 
> ...


When I was introduced to THE HELP from a friend, at first I was discouraged when I saw how big the book was. When I read it and got near the end, I wished that it was longer because I fell in love with the characters, and loved to hate a few others.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I've enjoyed long novels and short, so there is no single correct length for me. That being said, I find myself more likely to be aggravated by bloated, overly long novels than I am by short novels that I wished had a bit more meat on their bones, in cases where they were not (subjectively) the right size.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Russell Brooks said:


> When I was introduced to THE HELP from a friend, at first I was discouraged when I saw how big the book was. When I read it and got near the end, I wished that it was longer because I fell in love with the characters, and loved to hate a few others.


Exactly!

Though, I do see where 'big books' can look intimidating to some. That's one thing the kindle helps with. You don't physically notice how long a book is while reading. And if you really don't want to know _anything_, you can toggle the page/location/time counter to OFF. When you do, it doesn't even show the percentage on the right side.

I guess the only time _I've_ thought a book was too long was when I was just bored with it. But usually that happens fairly early in and it's not really a function of length. I've thought some really short books were too long because, for me, they were just bad.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Since I never read The Help I had to look up the length and it says its 476 pages. That isn't really very long to me. Its in the upper end of what I call regular size books which are anywhere from 300-450. That is just from my reader experience reading for many years. Then there are the King novels, Outlander type novels that are much longer than that. But on average, the majority of regular sized books I read are in the 300-450 length. Maybe up to 550. Could be of the genres I read a lot of, romance, but that is where I always ended up in. 

I don't really have a clue what that means in word count though, I am just a reader so I think in page count. 

Now for me I do think novels have to be a certain length and not be too short. A minimum of 200 pages is what I look at. That's the booklet length the category harlequins are they have at the checkouts. 

I will read the rare novella that is shorter than that by authors I like, but only then. Otherwise in the genres I read that short would not be satisfactory for me. 

My husband reads sci fi, so he reads shorter stuff. That is when he does read. So maybe its a genre thing. 

Otherwise a book should be the length the characters, plot and story dictates. If a story is getting stretched out I would be able to tell. Thankfully I only came across those padded types a handful of times in my reading life. So I will probably rarely say a book was too long, but I have said on more occasions that a book was too short. Meaning that it ended abruptly, or the plot was thin, or the characters where shallow and cardboard like and then the book was over, bam. 

In general though I have to say I never think about how long a book should be. Its not a question that really comes to my mind. The books I read just are as many pages as they are and they fall into what I listed in page count. But then I never read short stories before and before ebooks that short stuff wasn't really in the book stores anyway unless it was in anthologies like the Stephen King ones. Can't recall though seeing many others like that though.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

For me when the story is losing its spark or is not just not moving fast enough to keep my interest, that's when a story gets too long for me. There have been cases where I've read thrillers where there was obvious padding, it's as though the author just didn't know what to write or was pressured by their editor to increase the word count. At times I get the impression that the author did a rush job in order to meet a deadline. I don't know if anyone else has noticed the same.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Atunah said:


> But then I never read short stories before and before ebooks that short stuff wasn't really in the book stores anyway unless it was in anthologies like the Stephen King ones. Can't recall though seeing many others like that though.


This is a good point, I think.

Before ebooks, to read short stories, you had to either read a collection or anthology. If there was a particular writer you liked, who'd contributed to an anthology, it was always a risk. There are a bunch of stories, that cost as much as a whole book. You're pretty sure you'll like at least the one, but what about the others? Are you 'wasting' your money on one short story. For folks with tight book budgets, that often meant skipping the anthology.

And authors who usually write novels don't usually have enough short stories to publish their own collection. So unless you subscribed to some periodical that would publish short stories in the genre you prefer, you missed 'em.

With ebooks, though, authors can write and sell shorts that fill in the time between major releases. Not a bad thing!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I agree with everything that's been said already.  I dislike stories that seem to end abruptly as if the author's deadline was looming and he or she just resolved everything rather suddenly.

Betsy


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## martyns (May 8, 2014)

I read 'Pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follett recently. That dragged on. It was a great book, a modern classic - but it got to a stage where the only reason I was reading on was so I could read about certain really annoying characters getting killed.


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## sstroble (Dec 16, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I agree with everything that's been said already. I dislike stories that seem to end abruptly as if the author's deadline was looming and he or she just resolved everything rather suddenly.
> 
> Betsy


Not sure if this applies to other authors but when the manuscript:
starts to get boring
writing further feels like beating a dead horse or watering a dead plant
has characters who refuse to continue any longer as a part of the "plot," "story arc," etc.
it seems like a good place to end it.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

sstroble said:


> Not sure if this applies to other authors but when the manuscript:
> starts to get boring
> writing further feels like beating a dead horse or watering a dead plant
> has characters who refuse to continue any longer as a part of the "plot," "story arc," etc.
> it seems like a good place to end it.


For me though in a case like that, when characters get boring and plot and all that, it wouldn't matter if that particular book was 400 pages or 200. If its boring, it won't get fixed by making it shorter. Its just boring period. 
Its the book, not the length.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

sstroble said:


> Not sure if this applies to other authors but when the manuscript:
> starts to get boring
> writing further feels like beating a dead horse or watering a dead plant
> has characters who refuse to continue any longer as a part of the "plot," "story arc," etc.
> it seems like a good place to end it.





Atunah said:


> For me though in a case like that, when characters get boring and plot and all that, it wouldn't matter if that particular book was 400 pages or 200. If its boring, it won't get fixed by making it shorter. Its just boring period.
> Its the book, not the length.


I agree with Atunah. If the author doesn't like where the book is going, and doesn't care enough about it to try to end it properly, maybe it should be set aside for awhile.

Betsy


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I saw a booklet the other day that I wish had been much longer.
I have also seen books that had so much padding you could sumo wrestle with them.

I started one book that read more like a screenplay and set design.  3 to 4 lines of describing everything around for one line of action.  Note it was written in first person and most of the descriptions would not have been noticed by the main character.  
Note: I thought it would make a great movie.  As a book, meh.

And let's not get into info dumps.  One or two per book is fine.  One, every three pages is not.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

I'll join the crowd and say that there is not any specific length that I think novels should have. It's pretty much up to the author to decide how much space his story requires to tell, but there are a number of authors out there who apparently get paid by the word. Their stories seem to be padded out with extraneous material masquerading as sub-plots or "characterization". I'm not against characterization _per se_, but there seem to be many contemporary authors who can't or won't pay that much attention to plot, so they add a bunch of character stuff in there. IMHO. 

Here's an interesting piece of advice from an award-winning author to a newbie (who later became a well-known writer himself):

http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2014/05/poul-anderson-shares-clifford-simaks.html

Mike


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

jmiked said:


> ...
> Here's an interesting piece of advice from an award-winning author to a newbie (who later became a well-known writer himself):
> 
> http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2014/05/poul-anderson-shares-clifford-simaks.html
> ...


I like this bit:



> New writers tend to start their fictions with way too much expository material. (How much should you have? None is about perfect.)


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

I love me some Brandon Sanderson wall supports but again it depends on the book and if it needs to be that long or not. His usually do. Just glad the Kindle has saved my back!

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/12/words-of-radiance-manuscript









makes dinosaurs look small!


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

If it's not over 300 pages, it's not a novel, at least to me. You need that much space to flesh out the bones. Anything less is a novella, but there's certainly nothing wrong with novellas, some of which are downright excellent, like The Mist and Fahrenheit 451.

I tend to giant books, anyway. Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle or Anathem, for example. Because, if you're going to read, then read.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

"As long as it needs to be" is a good statement. For me, though, "as short as it needs to be" doesn't always work. I will rarely knowingly by a stand alone novella. Anything shorter than about 3500 locations doesn't feel like a true book to me. Partly that's because I read from 2k to 2500 locations a day so that's a day and a bit of reading - and anything that I can finish in a day is too short. Now, if it's a novella anchoring a short story collection, then I'm fine - but by itself I feel cheated.

And it's really not just the amount of time it takes to read it. At that amount of space, I don't feel I've had a chance to get to know that character or the world they inhabit. I don't need backstory just for the sake of it, but if a story is worth telling, it's worth telling in sufficient detail to paint a good mental picture.

On the other side of the coin, I don't mind a book that's long - so long as there's a reason for it. Edward Rutherfurd's _Sarum_ is about 24k locations long and worth every word of that; Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer is half that at 12k and likewise needed to be. Stephen King, however, could use an editor with a sharp cutting knife.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

jmiked said:


> I'll join the crowd and say that there is not any specific length that I think novels should have. It's pretty much up to the author to decide how much space his story requires to tell, but there are a number of authors out there who apparently get paid by the word...
> 
> Mike


Getting paid by the word. That's something I've long suspected. I didn't know that that still went on today.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

Geoffrey said:


> Stephen King, however, could use an editor with a sharp cutting knife.


My friend and I were just talking about Stephen King earlier this week. Yes, his books could do with a lot of cutting.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Russell try Kathy Reichs.  She needs a butcher knife and a scalpel.  She is queen of the info dumps.


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## Mark Bannion (Jul 8, 2014)

To put what many have said in the anime context...Bleach's first and second seasons are highly regarded, and yet its third season is just as strongly disregarded.  The obvious reason is that the third season is "filler" material that was not adapted from the comics like the others, but the reason why filler is bad is because (and this is where it becomes applicable to novels) there's not much at stake.  

Only a few genres are tolerant of low stakes, foremost of them literary.  SF/F shows a high tolerance for "worldbuilding"; even so, such passages are frequently the weakest in strong SF/F novels.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

cinisajoy said:


> Russell try Kathy Reichs. She needs a butcher knife and a scalpel. She is queen of the info dumps.


I've only read one or two of hers . . . . I think the _Bones_ TV series is much better.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I've only read one or two of hers . . . . I think the _Bones_ TV series is much better.


I literally threw her book across the room. At least the Tv editors leave out most of the dumps. But I think they put in too much fluff (for lack of a better word).


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I must admit, I've never understood, "I don't have time to read a long book." You read until you have to stop and then pick it up where you left off at the next reading session. I've _always_ done that. It's why I have a veritable plethora of bookmarks! (Though they're pretty much un-loved since I went "kindle".  )

OTOH, if you're a person who likes to read a 'whole' in one sitting, then, yes, shorter books are going to work better for that. But it's not a case of not having time, more just not wanting to leave a thing not finished.

I've known folks who are just wired to prefer to _finish_ things as much as possible. They like shorter because they can finish more in the same amount of time. I'm convinced some people are that way because they got points in school for how many books they read with no consideration given to how long they were.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ann,
It could also come from the "if you start something, you MUST finish it no matter what" school of thought.  That is one I never understood and I always felt sorry for those kids.
I had parents and grandparents that would let us start anything we wanted.  If we liked it great, if not try this instead.  Do not ask about my foray into paint by numbers on velvet.  I did finish the one picture I started, but I never did another one.  A painter I'm not.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

cinisajoy said:


> Russell try Kathy Reichs. She needs a butcher knife and a scalpel. She is queen of the info dumps.


 I haven't read any of hers yet. But I'm intrigued.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Russell Brooks said:


> I haven't read any of hers yet. But I'm intrigued.


FWIW re: Kathy Reichs. I don't mind background and information when it's something I'm interested in. But I found the characters bland. Decent mysteries, though.


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## lmroth12 (Nov 15, 2012)

I think it depends on the story and the genre. Fantasy novels tend to take longer to tell their story as so much time goes into world building and the back story of those worlds, not to mention what is usually more characters than in the typical bestseller. Romance novels are usually shorter as the typical story usually involves just a few characters with a simple plot. A book like *The Help * (which has been mentioned on this thread a few times) is one that needs a lot of time to tell because it's more like historical fiction where several characters are caught up in the events of their time in addition to relating whatever is going on in their personal lives. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that those events impact their personal lives and help to shape their growth as individuals as they are confronted with choices as a result of those events. *Gone With the Wind * was another such novel.

And I also hate the books where I feel they have been padded just to meet an editor's demands. Those are the kind I start and give up halfway through. A pity, because some of them could have been gems if they had just been cut and polished a bit!


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## Tristan Cruz (Apr 2, 2014)

I feel anything over 90k words is a novel. But if the story is good, I don't care what it is. Give me a good story, that's what I'm looking for. Tracey Graves wrote a nice Novella to her first Novel, On The Island, and it was pretty short. But it worked extremely well, playing into her first novel perfectly. The story was excellent and when it was over I didn't have the feeling that it was too short. It was just a enough.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

lmroth12 said:


> Romance novels are usually shorter as the typical story usually involves just a few characters with a simple plot.


Nope. I see this written often, but its just not true. Category booklets from Harlequin are on the shorter side, 200 pages or so. No clue what that is in words and many of those don't have a simple plot. But harlequin and other new category type romances are just a fraction of the romance market. 
In all the years I have read romance I have come across very few "simple" plots. That is because there are so many sub-genres to it like sci fi, time travel, historical, suspense, steampunk, paranormal, etc. Nothing simple about any of those in majority of cases. I can look at my home library now and only very few are on the shorter side and those are a selected older harlequin I am holding on to. Everything else is 300-450 and even longer.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ann, the one I tried I could not find the mystery for the let's make sure the reader knows everything about this.  Oh and now must go into detail about that.  Oh and we must not forget they need to know everything about this poison.  Oh now must tell you more about that.  
Literally looked like a medical text book, history book on certain poison murders and a travel/history guide to a town.  There was a dead body but he kept getting lost amongst the other stuff.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Tristan Cruz said:


> I feel anything over 90k words is a novel.


Interesting - 40,000 words is the minimum novel length for SFWA Awards and membership criteria. For me as a reader, the minimum satisfying length is 60,000.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

PaulLev said:


> Interesting - 40,000 words is the minimum novel length for SFWA Awards and membership criteria. For me as a reader, the minimum satisfying length is 60,000.


When I first saw "official" definitions of a novel that included such low word counts, I was surprised. All my life I tended to be with whoever posted above that they think 300 pages is pretty much the minimum. The skinny books stayed on the shelves when I was browsing. I read _The Help_ sometime ago, got it from the library as a hard cover, and have no memory of thinking it was a long book, not when I checked it out and not when I read it. I'm not going to argue with anyone that 60,000 words isn't a novel, but if I were describing such a book to someone, I'd mention it was short.

So, no, I don't think novels have to be a certain length, but for me as a reader, my choice is a longer story. If I like it I'll be happy for longer, and if I don't like it, I'll abandon it long before 50,000 words anyway.

Edited to take out references to my own books. Sorry, forgot I was in The Book Corner.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

I think what's happened is that readers' expectations of novel lengths - at least, in science fiction - have expanded.  In the 1950s, most science fiction novels were not much longer than 60,000 words.  Ace published a very popular series for several years called "Ace Doubles" - in which the small mass market paperback contained two novels, each starting from a different side of the book.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

cinisajoy said:


> Ann, the one I tried I could not find the mystery for the let's make sure the reader knows everything about this. Oh and now must go into detail about that. Oh and we must not forget they need to know everything about this poison. Oh now must tell you more about that.
> Literally looked like a medical text book, history book on certain poison murders and a travel/history guide to a town. There was a dead body but he kept getting lost amongst the other stuff.


See, I like that. I like to learn stuff from books. If it gets to be too much it's easy to skim.

But I also want there to be interesting characters. And a _reason_ behind why they do things. I felt the actions the characters took seemed random and the romance -- such as it was -- had the most predictable tropes of the genre. So, not liking _that_ version of Temperance Brennan, it was hard to root for her to succeed. I think they've created a much better character in the series, done more interesting things with her backstory and her romance with Booth (who's not even in the books) and the Squint Squad characters really fill it out. There was not supporting cast like that in the books as I recall -- just one perosn who did what she wanted.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Well now here is the thing.  I love learning stuff too.  I guess I wanted a mystery not a dozen dissertations.  If I want to know about poisons, there are any number of non-fiction books that will go into detail about them and even better if it is how they were used on various people.    If I want to learn about any given city, I am sure I can find a travel book on that city.  Or even better call the city and get their information.
I guess after 40+ years of reading mysteries and watching them on TV, I get a wee bit picky in my expectations.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

Tristan Cruz said:


> I feel anything over 90k words is a novel...


My editor told me that the minimum word count for a book to be considered a novel was 60,000 words. Anything between 20K-59,999 words is a novella. My favorites are thrillers, so they're normally a minimum of 75K words.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I think most readers who are not also authors don't think in terms of words.  It may be more precise, but it's not practical.

With paper books . . . . we look to see how thick they are, how many pages -- and judge them that way.

With kindle . . . the locations are proportional to pages -- and we can see on the product page how many pages the paper book has.  File size doesn't help as it could be bigger or smaller depending on how it was produced and whether there are images and such.

So, honestly, talking about the number of words and whether it's a novella, novellette, short story, massive tome, etc. may make sense for folks who are writing and are thinking about marketing and pricing -- but for we readers, it's not useful information for the most part.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

I think Mitchell could have cut half of Gone with the Wind and still had a great novel, but it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy everything she wrote. Length is up to the author as long as they are not writing filler to meet a word count, in my opinion.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Russell Brooks said:


> My friend and I were just talking about Stephen King earlier this week. Yes, his books could do with a lot of cutting.


 I was just saying on another thread that I skip whole pages trying to get to King's point and I'm a huge fan of his.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I've only read one or two of hers . . . . I think the _Bones_ TV series is much better.


I agree mainly because David Boreanaz is hot if that's allowed.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> With paper books . . . . we look to see how thick they are, how many pages -- and judge them that way.


I understand doing that, did it myself for many years. However, it finally hit me how much number of pages can be controlled to fool the reader. Particularly in hard covers, I see a lot by the superstar writers that have large type, large margins, and large line spacing - all of which up the page count and make the reader think she's getting more than she is. I never counted, but I suspect some of these stories are actually at the minimal 60,000 words or so and set up to fool one into thinking more like 90,000. I'm pretty sure I tumbled after a book that left me thinking _is that all there is_? Kindle locations and word count really are more honest ways of judging.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

For me personally, it would be very difficult to trick me so to speak into pretending more pages. I say this because I read very evenly as far as how fast I read. It takes me almost the same time each time I read a book. I mean so many pages take me this long, this many pages take me that long. Its like a inner clock for me and if there was a large discrepancy, I would notice. I do notice. Its just how I am tuned in to reading. 

I have noticed that with ebook only books recently actually where they were shorter than the pages they had listed. And that is just going by my inner reading clock. Time wise and feel wise it was like 60-100 pages shorter than listed. 

20-40 pages here and there wouldn't really make that much of a difference if we talking about full books, so there is leeway for me with type setting and such. So of course I know that different fonts and spacing and such make a difference, but overall in my reading years, I haven't found that to be a huge problem and it usually stays within a certain amount of pages. Hopefully that won't change in the future though.   I guess I'll depend more on the locations then. If there are no funky things going on with the file, the amount of locations is pretty spot on. I can tell by them how long a book is on average. 

But I will always think in pages with books. Books have had pages in them for what I assume is a long time. Its been the method of counting for readers for a long time. Word count just isn't useful for readers. What it will be like in 100 years from now? Who knows. But considering how long page count stuck around, I'd like to think it will continue too. But I won't know probably, don't think I can stick around that long. Even if my TBR pile suggests even more time needed than that. 

All this is why I consider books to be full books. I don't call short stories books for example, they are short stories. As long as there are print books of any kind in existence, the visual will be there to see the length.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

ellenoc said:


> I understand doing that, did it myself for many years. However, it finally hit me how much number of pages can be controlled to fool the reader. Particularly in hard covers, I see a lot by the superstar writers that have large type, large margins, and large line spacing - all of which up the page count and make the reader think she's getting more than she is. I never counted, but I suspect some of these stories are actually at the minimal 60,000 words or so and set up to fool one into thinking more like 90,000. I'm pretty sure I tumbled after a book that left me thinking _is that all there is_? Kindle locations and word count really are more honest ways of judging.


That may very well be . . . . but I still maintain that many readers really don't care about that. They may notice "oh the print is bigger" or something like that, but if it's still a decent story they won't care. They might have a niggling impression that they read it faster than usual or something. But the physical book is nice and fat and if that's what they like to read they're happy.

OR, if they prefer shorter stuff, they won't pick up a nice fat book and if someone points out, "look, it's really only as long as what you usually read it just seems bigger because the print is big and the margins are wide," well, they may understand that intellectually, but psychologically, it still feels like a big book.

The ones who do care, pay attention. Based on being on this board for going on 6 years, many readers were thrown a bit by locations. Which is why the Zon now has page numbers based on linking to a paper book. Others have adjusted to locations and have learned to use them much the way they used pages with paper. I agree they're more accurate. But, still, _word count_ is very foreign.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I'm one who pays very little attention to novel size except when they reach either extreme. I probably couldn't tell you if a given book was long or short if you told me how many locations it had in spite of the fact I've been almost exclusively reading on my Kindle for several years now.


Sent from my Galaxy S4 via Tapatalk 2


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

NogDog said:


> I'm one who pays very little attention to novel size except when they reach either extreme. I probably couldn't tell you if a given book was long or short if you told me how many locations it had in spite of the fact I've been almost exclusively reading on my Kindle for several years now.
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy S4 via Tapatalk 2


Yeah I don't know locations, I use the length of the bar under the book title on the home screen as a rough estimate of book length


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Chad Winters said:


> Yeah I don't know locations, I use the length of the bar under the book title on the home screen as a rough estimate of book length


+1


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Chad Winters said:


> Yeah I don't know locations, I use the length of the bar under the book title on the home screen as a rough estimate of book length


That definitely works.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

katrina46 said:


> I was just saying on another thread that I skip whole pages trying to get to King's point and I'm a huge fan of his.


 The Tommyknockers was the first Stephen King book I've read. I skipped the entire Part 2 because it was nothing but fluff and padding, yet I didn't miss any of the story.


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## cynthiarayne1 (Jul 5, 2014)

I love Bones, too, but I think that's because I adore David Boreanaz....loved him since Buffy. I don't like long books full of filler. Sometimes the descriptions can go on and on....Stephen King sometimes does this. Laurell K. Hamilton sometimes has wandering books with a point that we sometimes never get to (at least lately). The first 7-8 Anita Books? Were some of my favorites ever!


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## Kay Bratt (Dec 28, 2011)

I'm in the camp that used to pick my books off the shelves by which were the thickest. I'd actually get an electric shock of excitement if I knew I was going to get to spend a few days buried in a huge, thick novel. Almost a type of high. (yes, I'm so lame) These days I can enjoy a novel of any length, as long as the character development is there.

_The Snow Child _was a novel I read last year that was over 400 pages but made me so sad when it ended. I read it in two evenings and then wanted to kick myself for not stretching it out longer. The author did a fantastic job wrapping up the story, but I just loved it so much I wanted more. If you haven't read it, you should. Lovely story.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

Russell Brooks said:


> When is a story too long?


When it doesn't need to be that long.



> There are books that have 60K words, while others have over 250K (Tom Clancy). Do you have a cut-off point where you'll say "OK, this book is way too long?"


Only if I feel like it didn't need to be that long, like when it drags and I just want the author to get on with the story. I have loved certain 1000+ paged books, other books I feel 600 pages is too long.


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## PandorasParanormalBox (Aug 10, 2014)

I think a book should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story with enough clarity that the reader isn't lost. It also doesn't need to be so long that the reader loses interest. I think some of this is part of personal interest as well.


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## PandorasParanormalBox (Aug 10, 2014)

KayBratt said:


> I'm in the camp that used to pick my books off the shelves by which were the thickest. I'd actually get an electric shock of excitement if I knew I was going to get to spend a few days buried in a huge, thick novel. Almost a type of high. (yes, I'm so lame) These days I can enjoy a novel of any length, as long as the character development is there.


The largest book I read didn't intimidate me in the least. It was the first trilogy of the Dragonlance Saga. I saw a friend reading it all the time back in HS and thought if that book was so interesting I needed to know what it was about. She let me borrow her book over the summer and I spent every day reading bits and pieces of it and learning a new world and the characters and just falling in love with everything. I've been hooked on that series since and those authors have become some of my favorites and part of the reason that I'm an author today. I know the high you are speaking of. Book nerds are awesome! Lame has nothing to do with it.


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## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

As an author, I can say this is 100% true! I've learned to cut a LOT out of my writings over the past few years. And yes, it's always better for it.



NogDog said:


> I like this bit:


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## mmurphy (Aug 14, 2014)

martyns said:


> I read 'Pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follett recently. That dragged on. It was a great book, a modern classic - but it got to a stage where the only reason I was reading on was so I could read about certain really annoying characters getting killed.


I'm glad you warned me about that - I was about to start reading it. 
Longer books in hard copy form can undoubtedly be intimidating, but I can shrug off the trepidation if the story grabs me from the start.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

Russell Brooks said:


> The Tommyknockers was the first Stephen King book I've read. I skipped the entire Part 2 because it was nothing but fluff and padding, yet I didn't miss any of the story.


Stephen King is in serious need to an editor willing to cut entire sections. Back story and sub-plots are great - I'm a fan of both. But, if your book has more of both than of the central plot, there's a problem.


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## martyns (May 8, 2014)

Geoffrey said:


> Stephen King is in serious need to an editor willing to cut entire sections. Back story and sub-plots are great - I'm a fan of both. But, if your book has more of both than of the central plot, there's a problem.


I used to read a lot of King. Great stories, but yes - they were often so SLOW to get going! You could fall asleep for the entire first 3/4 of the book in some of them! I still think he's a great writer though, maybe the slog through back-story and setup is what makes the climaxes more potent?


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## brianjanuary (Oct 18, 2011)

Lately I'm preferring shorter works, simply because I have so many constraints on my time. But I've also started writing novellas--the format is very appealing!


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2014)

I think stories should be long enough to tell the story well. I've also read books that are padded with words in order to satisfy some length requirement and it can ruin a story. When I was young and only allowed to go to the library twice a month, I would pick a thick book over a thin one so I wouldn't run out of reading material. Nowadays, I'm more likely to read an unknown author if the book is shorter. If it is a favorite author, the longer the better.


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## forsheisbeautiful (Sep 12, 2014)

I agree that it just depends on the book. I love reading so when I get close to the end of a really good book, I usually get a little sad knowing that the book will end soon so I prefer books that have a decent length to them, as long as they are engaging, compared to shorter books.


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## Russell Brooks (Dec 23, 2010)

cinisajoy said:


> Russell try Kathy Reichs. She needs a butcher knife and a scalpel. She is queen of the info dumps.


 Uggh. I haven't read any of her books yet, but I've heard as much.


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