Lazy Readers & Self-Indulgent Writers
Short chapters are another way to deal with the structural challenges of big fantasy. It’s only natural that out of a huge cast, a reader is going to care more about some than others. Writing short chapters allows (and forces) the writer to juggle. It keeps the story moving forward. It makes you ask the question: what does this scene accomplish? If you’re writing scenes that are only 2000 words and you realize you’ve written 2000 words of what some guy is eating, you’re probably wasting time.
I see the longer scenes, and the “I’ll give the reader some breathing space” as giving a writer a perilous justification to self-indulgence. Not that you’re doing this, but I think it is a real danger. If I want breathing space, I’ll take a nap.
Quite bluntly, I think self-indulgence is the greatest threat to epic fantasy writers. We spend every day with our characters. We know the things they’ve done that don’t make it onto the page, and things they’re going to do in the future—we have reasons to care about them that readers don’t. We need to remember that. Part of our skill set has to be knowing not just what readers know at a particular point in the story (so we can foreshadow effectively), but also what readers feel at a particular point. Shorter scenes can help with this:
If I really don’t connect with Perrin*, please don’t make me suffer through 200 straight pages of Perrin. I can handle him for 10 pages at a time, fine, especially if he’s doing something important, but then get me back to someone I care about.
As with all structural decisions, there are tradeoffs. Do short scenes exhaust some readers? Sure. But “That book is just too exciting!” is a complaint I’ll take any day. With shorter scenes, you have to very quickly orient the reader. Who is this, where are they, who’s around, and what are they all doing? So it might not work as well for fantasy with a truly enormous cast: in a George R. R. Martin story, each subplot can have dozens of named nobles, and the huge-length chapters give you more time to reintroduce who’s who—
Which only becomes a problem because there are too many characters. Please, epic fantasy writers, realize that every new character will have to be accounted for. I have a hard enough time remembering the names of all the people I know who actually exist. It becomes self-defeating. George R. R. Martin is masterful in handling an epic cast and keeping them memorable and different (seriously, study what this guy does, he’s SOO good), and yet even he reaches a point (for me) where his huge cast hobbles his storytelling. Another Lannister comes on-stage and I go: blond and self-serving. I don’t even try to remember the names. Mentally, there become just five Lannisters, not dozens: Tyrion, Tywin, Cersei, Jaime, and Everyone Else. In most books, when a character is named, a reader can take that as a clue that This Person is Important. With GRRM, you learn that’s not the case. What he gains in Omigosh he works with this ginormous cast, he’s amazing. He loses in, Who the heck was this guy again? He did one reveal that was like, This guy is actually THIS guy from the other continent! And I was like, uh yeah, I’ve read that name somewhere… No punch, at least not for me. But then, maybe I’m a bad reader. And I certainly am a particular one.
Cast lists and genealogies are fine to add extra color—but I’m not going to memorize some list just so I can enjoy your book. If I have to flip back to a cast list frequently just to understand the action, I think you aren’t doing your job. If it’s been three years since you published your last book, that was your decision, so it’s your job to throw a few reminders in to help me regain my footing in your story—not my job to re-read your first nine books so I can understand book 10.
Brandon, do you agree, or do you divvy up the burden between writer and reader differently?
Do you think the way you’re dividing plot lines and shifting focal characters in The Stormlight Archives helps you surmount those difficulties, or maybe dodge them altogether?
Other readers of this post, what do you think? Short scenes, or long? Do you like the gradual unfolding of a big world, or a fast ride to the finish? Am I a lazy reader? Are you?
*I actually did tire of Perrin, but I just use him because more people know him than know my characters. The same rule applies to my characters as well: some readers just won’t like some of my characters, especially nuanced or mixed-motive characters, and it’s something I should keep in mind.
**Yes, I did use the word “ginormous.”
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