My take on the length of novels

By Rick Blechta 

This week’s post is a riff on what Douglas wrote yesterday. You should read it.

I’ll start with no doubt the widest-selling series of all time, Harry Potter.

The first book in the saga, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, at 223 pages was a short, snappy read that was wildly successful. The next book got longer, the next longer still all the way to the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which, while not the longest in the series, was still a whopping 607 pages.

As I made my way through the series — and don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the story — I got the strong feeling that because of the author’s incredible success, her editors backed off on whittling the novels down to more manageable lengths. Remember, these were supposed to be children’s books. Surely they could have been made less “imposing” for the young readers demographic.

I’ve seen the same sorts of things happen with many other successful authors. As their success increases, so does the length of their novels. One of Type M’s staunchest commenters, Anna, said that she stopped reading one series because the novels were becoming exhausting to read. Surely someone at the publishing house noticed that too and might have done something about it. (I have a pretty good idea who that particular author might be, but sadly there is no lack of candidates.)

I acknowledge as series go on there is a thirst among the loyal readers to spend more time with their favourite characters but to me there comes a tipping point. That tipping point is when the stories begin to seem overly indulgent. When unnecessary subplots litter the path forward to the conclusion of the story, I become what I might call skeptical whether it’s worth going on to the end. When I begin skimming to get to the next salient plot point, then I know the end is near for my continued interest in the series.

While Douglas’ choice of iconic authors is the worthy Ed McBain, mine is Rex Stout. Both share one commonality too often absent in modern authors: they now how to tell an utterly satisfying story with a minimum of words.

Sure, tastes change. I get that, but when a plot becomes littered with de rigueur characters and scenes, I begin to rethink whether I wish to continue with the series. Lately, I have tended to vote with my feet heading towards the door.

With less successful authors, publishers tend to build word limits into contracts and it can be a pretty big deal to get permission to breach that limit. I used to bristle at that, but lately I’ve been thinking it might not be a bad idea for all authors to be held to limits.

It just might keep novels more readable in the long run.

Old friends

I really enjoyed Aline’s post yesterday. There are a lot of former bestselling crime writers whose literary light has dimmed over the years. Sometimes it’s for a good reason: their work has gone out of print, just wasn’t that good, or possibly their stories don’t related to the world we now live in. But for some of these writers, there’s just no explanation. They simply faded away – usually after they died or stopped writing.

I remember quite clearly when I started reading a lot of crime fiction. It was in my 18th year and I was working as the “pool attendant” at a resort in Maine. The clientele was older and many never came down to the pool. My job was to hand out towels, serve soft drinks out of one of those great, water-filled coolers that were once very popular, and take food orders which I’d phone up to the kitchen. I guess I was also supposed to be the life guard, although I didn’t have any official papers in that regard. I did have to fish out the odd youngster who got down to the deep end without sufficient swimming skills.

Needless to say, many of my days were filled with mostly nothing work-related.  Unless it was raining, I had to be there at all times from 9:00-6:00, if memory serves, and there were whole days where no one came down. (Sidebar: I wish I’d been a writer then. I probably could have written an entire novel that summer!)

Like many resorts, there was an unofficial library full of books, donated by patrons who’d finished them while vacationing. Looking for something to fill my otherwise vacant days, I raided the shelves religiously. Since I’m a fairly fast reader, this was often a daily occurrence.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of crime fiction. People tend to read it while on vacation. I remember a whole shelf of Agatha Christie. Once I’d gotten through the Poirots that were there, I moved on from her, not enjoying the Miss Marple novels.

I also found a lot of Nero Wolfe novels. I didn’t understand at the time why it happened, but I instantly fell in love with Rex Stout’s writing. In looking back at my own work, I can now see how the seed was planted for my penchant for telling stories in first person. When I first began writing seriously, I also studied Rex Stout to understand exactly how his crisp dialogue moved the story along and described the action so well. He didn’t need paragraphs of descriptive prose when he could tell you so much about surroundings using what his characters said. I also identified with the real places about which he wrote. I could “see’ Archie driving up the Saw Mill River Parkway to a weekend at Lily’s country home since I knew that road very well.

Archie Goodwin remains a character favourite with me. I never really warmed up to Wolfe, but I don’t think Stout wanted readers to necessarily do that. Kramer, Fritz, and Saul became like old friends.

That golden summer, I read every single Stout book on the resort’s shelves and bought the very few they didn’t have.

Today, Stout is not all that popular. The last time I went to a (non-mystery) bookstore up here in Canada, they didn’t have even one of his books. Many are out of print.

I’m not equipped to judge whether Stout’s day has past, because I have too much emotional investment in his novels. There are real events and things he mentions that are lost in the mists of time. Certainly a young reader would find much that wouldn’t be understood unless you undertook some research. The characters speak in a way and use vocabulary that is long out of style.

For me, though, these books remain quite delightful whenever I pick one up to reread again. Perhaps it’s because they represent a time in my life that was really wonderful. I had a very pretty girlfriend whom I loved desperately. There were long summer evenings (in Maine!) with her. I had a job that allowed me, basically, to spend almost every day reading — and I got paid for it!

Now, my question is this: Aline has Margery Allingham and I have Rex Stout. Do you have a favourite author whose books have fallen out of style or favour? Come on! Don’t be shy. Tell us all about them.