Tag Archives: Vikram Seth

How Long is a Novel?

Image by Hassan Nawaz from Pixabay

How long is a novel? I am at that stage in my current ms where I am starting to worry about novel length. A lot.

This is a story that has deepened and matured over time. The first draft umpty-um years ago was just over 100K words. Which I knew was too long for what it delivered. But is that still true?

I think it’s grown in complexity. But is it really delivering more, or is that just vainglorious fantasy because I’ve been working on it so long? AAARGH.

So I’ve been digging a bit to see what I can discover about novel length across time and genres.

Novel Length – in the Beginning

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What to choose for Reading in Lockdown?

Rather to my surprise, people have been asking me to recommend books for lockdown reading. Virtual strangers, some of them. I suppose they think a writer reads more than other people. Well, to keep abreast of the competition, if nothing else.

Now, I like talking about books. And I am congenitally incapable of ignoring a request for help.

But this particular question throws me into a quandary. I mean I can happily spout for hours on books I love. As you probably know. But…

Finding a story that somebody else might like, especially someone I barely know (not to mention that someone’s son, daughter or grandchild) is hard. To be honest, it has left me  with eyeballs swishing about, looking for the escape hatch.

So far I’ve blundered through, hauling up titles from the cellarage pretty much at random. Do people want books they can read together? Or are they trying to read to block out the effects of too much togetherness?

With a very uncertain Christmas coming, I thought I’d try to be a bit more disciplined.

New Lockdown Bookworms?

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Sentimental Romantic

Dirty draft readerThis week I have been considering the nature of a sentimental romantic – and wondering whether I qualify.

Let me put this in context. On Thursday a friend phoned me to say that he had just read a story which he had much enjoyed and thought very romantic. He had told the writer – whom he knew – of this response.

The writer said he was “intrigued”. My friend – let us call him Robert – explained his reasons. Eventually the writer decided that he was OK with the  romantic label “as long as he didn’t mean sentimental.” Continue reading →