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Fiction has suffered the same bloat. Used to be that letting an author ramble for 200,000+ words was considered indulgent. Dune told it's entire story in around

Fiction has suffered the same bloat. Used to be that letting an author ramble for 200,000+ words was considered indulgent. Dune told it's entire story in around 180,000 words, I can hardly say anything more intriguing is going on in Song of Ice & Fire at 1.7 million words.

emodendroket 8y ago
I'm not very interested in fantasy, but the idea that writing is more long-winded than it used to be doesn't really survive even the most cursory survey of literature from the 1800s. Or if that's not your speed check ancient literature and see if you find it more to-the-point. You're the second person I see in this thread complaining that texts have become too bloated and using this exact example. Perhaps the guy is just a hack.
- bowlich 8y ago
  I picked Dune/Song of Ice and Fire because they're thematically similar. In terms of bloat, excluding the Tale of Genji or the Story of the Stone, I can hardly think of anything in the 1800s that pushes into the 1M+ word mark in order to tell a complete story. I mean, people used to joke about War & Peace being long and it's hovering around 1/2 a million words -- and at least when I read it, Tolstoy seemed to be using every last one of them.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    In absolute length of the longest works I can't really tell you. But the style of diction is much wordier and can often be trying for modern readers. I feel bad about this, being a proud New Englander, but I find the transcendentalists practically unreadable.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    David Copperfield is 360k. Two Cities is 140k. (http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/12/a-dickens-of-a-list.html http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/12/a-dickens-of-a-...)
SCdF 8y ago
That's not a perspective I expected someone to argue, and I'd argue directly the opposite. I find the older the book, the slower and more waffly (if you want to be uncharitable) its prose. I haven't looked into this at all, but it always feels to me like editors are a new edition to the writing process. Ironically I usually really enjoy the actual prose they wrote, because it's often beautiful, but after dozens and dozens of pages of hearing about how pious some bishop is you have no context for you really start to wish Victor Hugo would just move the fuck on.
- zeroego 8y ago
  >I find the older the book, the slower and more waffly (if you want to be uncharitable) its prose. In some cases older writers were actually paid per word. Dickens comes to mind.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    The ancients were not paid by the word but didn't think much of a couple pages of genealogies.
- pnathan 8y ago
  The term is purple prose. It peaked around 1920 or so, I think. Our aesthetics have changed, that is for sure.
lev99 8y ago
Dune and A Song of Ice & Fire use very different narrative techniques. In Dune most of the narration follows a protagonist that navigates the world. In A Song of Ice & Fire there is not a single protagonist. There are multiple characters that are elevated to the same level of importance. Covering world events from each point of view requires more pages. Having multiple characters that are the same level of importance is one of the hallmarks of the series. When starting to read the series a person is usually told that they will not be able to predict who will die. This is a key element of the story telling process. A Song of Ice and Fire has more named minor characters and a wider range of named minor characters. In my opinion this makes the world more rich and represents a deep understanding of the entire society. Dune deals primarily (99% or more) with aristocrats and their servants/warriors. A Song of Ice and Fire will talk about everyone from Kings to poor fisherman.
smogcutter 8y ago
Come on, the Song of Ice & Fire books are particularly long, but you're still comparing an entire series with a single book. Dune is a series too, and I'll argue that the quality drops off much more sharply after the first one than ASoI&F does. For what it's worth, in SF & Fantasy short fiction is still hanging in there: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com http://clarkesworldmagazine.com http://dailysciencefiction.com http://dailysciencefiction.com http://www.analogsf.com http://www.analogsf.com
mcguire 8y ago
Dune is about the size of Game of Thrones, no?
pastor_elm 8y ago
There are actually 6 Herbert Dune novels and over a dozen others.

emodendroket 8y ago

I'm not very interested in fantasy, but the idea that writing is more long-winded than it used to be doesn't really survive even the most cursory survey of literature from the 1800s. Or if that's not your speed check ancient literature and see if you find it more to-the-point. You're the second person I see in this thread complaining that texts have become too bloated and using this exact example. Perhaps the guy is just a hack.

bowlich 8y ago
I picked Dune/Song of Ice and Fire because they're thematically similar. In terms of bloat, excluding the Tale of Genji or the Story of the Stone, I can hardly think of anything in the 1800s that pushes into the 1M+ word mark in order to tell a complete story. I mean, people used to joke about War & Peace being long and it's hovering around 1/2 a million words -- and at least when I read it, Tolstoy seemed to be using every last one of them.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  In absolute length of the longest works I can't really tell you. But the style of diction is much wordier and can often be trying for modern readers. I feel bad about this, being a proud New Englander, but I find the transcendentalists practically unreadable.
- mcguire 8y ago
  David Copperfield is 360k. Two Cities is 140k. (http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/12/a-dickens-of-a-list.html http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/12/a-dickens-of-a-...)

SCdF 8y ago

That's not a perspective I expected someone to argue, and I'd argue directly the opposite. I find the older the book, the slower and more waffly (if you want to be uncharitable) its prose. I haven't looked into this at all, but it always feels to me like editors are a new edition to the writing process. Ironically I usually really enjoy the actual prose they wrote, because it's often beautiful, but after dozens and dozens of pages of hearing about how pious some bishop is you have no context for you really start to wish Victor Hugo would just move the fuck on.

zeroego 8y ago
>I find the older the book, the slower and more waffly (if you want to be uncharitable) its prose. In some cases older writers were actually paid per word. Dickens comes to mind.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  The ancients were not paid by the word but didn't think much of a couple pages of genealogies.
pnathan 8y ago
The term is purple prose. It peaked around 1920 or so, I think. Our aesthetics have changed, that is for sure.

lev99 8y ago

Dune and A Song of Ice & Fire use very different narrative techniques. In Dune most of the narration follows a protagonist that navigates the world. In A Song of Ice & Fire there is not a single protagonist. There are multiple characters that are elevated to the same level of importance. Covering world events from each point of view requires more pages. Having multiple characters that are the same level of importance is one of the hallmarks of the series. When starting to read the series a person is usually told that they will not be able to predict who will die. This is a key element of the story telling process. A Song of Ice and Fire has more named minor characters and a wider range of named minor characters. In my opinion this makes the world more rich and represents a deep understanding of the entire society. Dune deals primarily (99% or more) with aristocrats and their servants/warriors. A Song of Ice and Fire will talk about everyone from Kings to poor fisherman.

smogcutter 8y ago

Come on, the Song of Ice & Fire books are particularly long, but you're still comparing an entire series with a single book. Dune is a series too, and I'll argue that the quality drops off much more sharply after the first one than ASoI&F does. For what it's worth, in SF & Fantasy short fiction is still hanging in there: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com http://clarkesworldmagazine.com http://dailysciencefiction.com http://dailysciencefiction.com http://www.analogsf.com http://www.analogsf.com

mcguire 8y ago

Dune is about the size of Game of Thrones, no?

pastor_elm 8y ago

There are actually 6 Herbert Dune novels and over a dozen others.