RAMBLING

In January, 2018, I had an article called Rambling On And On. In this article, I’m revisiting it because this is a subject near and dear to my heart and it recently came up on a fantasy forum on Facebook.
The question was about what sub-genres or how much fantasy do you read? I’m paraphrasing here.
My answer was that I hardly ever read fantasy, even though I write in the genre.
Why?
Many of the authors tend to ramble on and on too much and I find it a real slog to get through all of that to get to the point. Once again, I’m paraphrasing myself, but that’s the gist of what I said.
While I expected some flack from that, I was quite surprised to not only get several likes, but written responses with like-minded words to the same effect.
ONE LITTLE THING…
My most glaring example is an un-named author, who I struggled through four books in his series of thousand-word tomes. He would take one hundred pages just for one little thing to happen. I’m not kidding.
His books were a real slog.
I completely lost interest in the series, and cringe every time I see those thick books on the shelves.
Whenever I see a six-to-nine-hundred page fantasy novel, I automatically skip it.
Why?
The authors can’t seem to get from A to B in an efficient manner.
SOME PEOPLE LOVE IT
Undoubtedly there are many fans of these writers, otherwise what publisher would want to invest in these endless tomes which apparently sell enough to keep the publishers in business?
However, there are plenty of readers like me who would rather spend their time and money on a story that gets to the point.
There are two sides to this coin.
GETTING TO THE POINT
If you go to the bookstore and browse the fantasy/science fiction shelves, you’ll notice the majority of books are quite thick. The majority.
There are thin ones out there.
I guess for some fantasy readers, they feel cheated if the book isn’t at least five-hundred pages.
On the other hand, I’ve deliberately selected a thin one or two just to see the difference and ran into another issue. So far, they were all either first-person or present-tense!
I still haven’t found a thin fantasy novel that’s readable by my standards of third-person, past-tense yet, at least at the bookstore!
Once I do, I’ll let you know how it turns out.
I’M NOT DONE YET
I wouldn’t be fair, simply restricting myself to the bookstore.
I have read thin fantasy novels that never made it to the bookstore shelves because they were traditionally published, but by a small publisher.
I could list them, but I’m not here to plug any particular author.
Let’s just say they were great! I mean that sincerely because I not only loved them, I reviewed them to let everyone else know. These stories were true fantasy. They got to the point, told a great story, and didn’t need five-hundred plus pages of rambling to do it!
They’re written in solid third-person, past-tense, and are all available on Amazon. I wish they were available in the bookstore, but oh well.
A GREAT FANTASY (OR ANY) STORY ISN’T JUST ABOUT WORD COUNT
I’ve never bought into this idea that you have to describe everything including the kitchen sink. You don’t have to delve into ever characters inner thoughts and feelings, ad nauseum.
Give enough of everything to make the story come alive and absorb the reader, but get to the point. Your book is an escape, but not a prison!
Happy writing!