Ahem, enjoy!
This is starting to sound like a book
review for The Game of Thrones…well it’s coming, but not here and not
today.
I’m here to talk about why books in
general should be toned down in length. Don’t get me wrong the story was
fantastic, but some parts were terribly slow and I even listened to the audio
of it I didn’t read it myself. If I would have started reading it, it would
take me a very long time to finish it especially through the political jargon.
The same goes for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it was a great story
to listen to, but I probably could not have read it all the way through. Way
too many Swedish names and the character building was way too broad, so many
characters to keep track of. Especially coming to the end of the trilogy, do I
really need to know the entire life story of some random detective? NO!
These stories are for very dedicated
readers and fans, but I think there is a way to bring in more readers and
create more fans. Occasionally we’ll see a trilogy or more get turned into one
big book. The Chronicles of Narnia is one example that comes to
mind. Also more recently The Hunger Games trilogy went from three
books to one. Why not go the other way? Why not take The Game of Thrones
which is an 800 plus page tome and turn it into three digestible volumes? I
think in today’s society with as little attention span as most people have
there would be more people to pick up a 200-250 page book then an 800 page
book. The Game of Thrones or rather The Song of Fire and Ice
series gets consecutively longer. The Clash of Kings which is
book two is over 1000, A Storm of Swords (book three) 1200 plus, A
Feast for Crows (book four) drops it back to 1100 pages. Seriously? Is
that even necessary? Would you pick up an 1100 page book, I wouldn’t…I don’t
think. I would have to be one dedicated fan of those characters. I listened to
book one and I pushed myself through book two, but I don't know if I'm ready to
go back to the seven kingdoms quite yet.
Alright so we’re in the digital age and
we don’t see “pages” anymore and listening doesn't convey the pages either, but
40 hours is a long time to listen to someone read you a story. Wouldn’t you
want to see that progress bar or percentage go up more quickly, though? I know
I would. Then sooner rather than later you’ve come to the end of The Game
of Thrones Volume 1 and you feel pretty accomplished. Now it’s time for
a nice reading palette cleanser and get the taste of those characters out of
your mouth for a little while. Why not go for The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo part 1 and, depending on your reading speed, you’ll be done in a
weekend or a week or maybe two. Some people are crazy fast readers and they
gobble up 250 page books in a day. And it's not like they sit around all day
and read, that's just an afternoon for some.
Of course these books are not broken up
like that, but if they were then you reading this right now could be picking up
Volume 2 of The Game of Thrones next week.
Let's put this in perspective The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is 3 large books, if they were broken up
into 3 more books we would have 9 total books in The Millennium series (It's
called The Millennium Trilogy for those playing along at home). Would that be
less intimidating to a reader to read 9 shorter stories than 3 giant stories,
possibly, but not necessarily. I think it's more attractive, myself.
The Song of Ice and Fire is supposed to be a 7 book set. If we broke those up into 4
parts each that would be a total of 28 books in the series. In some eyes a 200
page book is more attractive than a 1200 page tome. But then again some people
just crave those epic fantasies put together in one massive text.
I have friends in all the spectrum of
reading abilities and attention span and I would love to share these stories
that I’ve enjoyed myself with them, but it’s like trying to convince a shark to
play nice in the water…IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Most people I know just want
nothing to do with these giant tomes. So why not play to our low attention span
siblings? Granted some people will see this article and decide it's too much
for them. There's not much you can do about them. Give them The Foot Book,
because Green Eggs and Ham is too much for them.
That’s my take on the situation at
hand. Normally Natasha has someone who is selling their book or
something to that affect, but I do not have a book to sell. Maybe someday, in
the mean time take a look at some of these great indie books.
Of course Natasha Larry herself
author of Darwin’s Children and Unnatural Law. James
Crawford author of Caleo. Nova Sparks author of theDOME
and theDOMErevelation. David Beem author of The
Abyss of Chaos.
All of these books are short in stature
unlike those others, but massive in quality and action.
William Green is a semi-advanced, aspiring professional. He is the founder of Wayward Things. The curator of daily quotes and interviewer of almost famous authors.
Check Out Wayward Things on Facebook
Follow Will Green on Twitter
William Green is a semi-advanced, aspiring professional. He is the founder of Wayward Things. The curator of daily quotes and interviewer of almost famous authors.
Check Out Wayward Things on Facebook
Follow Will Green on Twitter
7 comments:
Thanks for having me today Natasha. I hope people find this interesting and possibly somewhat informative.
I think this is a great post. I would have to agree, after trying and failing to read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo three times. Its just too much... stuff on top of the story, or something.
I tried watching one episodes of Game of Thrones, having gone into it thinking it was going to be some epic, sword and battle drama, but the entire thing was about politics, and I fell asleep.
So, naaah. :)
Tasha! Fell asleep during Game of Thrones! BLASPHEMY! ;) Nice article Will, I agree getting through a long book is a challenge sometimes. Even the classics like LOTR can be challenege sometimes (The Two Towers was a chore in spots) and don't get me started on some of the Wheel of time books.
Auido books are a great idea and I've listened to plenty. That way you can do 2 things at once (like walking or driving). I believe WOT has been split up into smaller volumes and you'll be pleased to know my book is a nice digestable 80,000 or so words :-)
LoL, blasphemy really? But.. it was sooo boring lol. Oo! Good call on Lord of the Rings, I tried reading... got about 60 pages into the first one and fell asleep.
*ducks out of wa
Hi Tasha :-)
Ok I admit a couple of Game of Thrones episodes are a tiny bit slow :) It is really a FANTASTIC show, you should really give it a chance.
There is so much out there to read, this is why when a movie is done well (and accurate to the book) it can be a wonderful experience and a great time saver :) LOTR is a case in point, I HOPE you've seen the movies. If not for the movies many people would never know the wonderful world Tolkien created.
I have seen the movies. I thought the first one was boring, but the last two blew me away, which is when I tried reading the books :(
It failed.
Hi Tasha =)
I thought the first movie was excellent and "Return of the King" a masterpiece (it did win 11 Oscars :). I read LOTR in high school and fell in love with the world. The first book does have some slow parts but it is worth it. LOTR is a physical, mental & spiritual journey that does take a while to get going, but it's worth it in the end :-)
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