The Extra Padding

[Thomas Grant Bruso]

Why is it that so many books are filled with pages after pages of extra padding, or fluff? Authors write an excess of flashbacks, or litter their books with complete rubbish just to make a quota of 300 pages or more. I read a lot, but I find myself skipping over dialogue, or prose, that I find doesn't prolong the story or even contribute to the plot. And yet, these books still get published. I find that 200 pages is sufficient for many of these books, mysteries specifically. What do you think?

[Dan Coleman]

Yeah, that would be kind of like Hemingway writing a mystery. Terse.

[Clay Morgan]

While I may or may not agree with you on ideal length, the novella presents quite a unique problem.

My personal opinion is that my two very best pieces of fiction are novellas. One hitting the 25K mark, and the other is about 35K. I can't see how to whittle them down, and yet I can't see how to fluff them. Therefore, I think my best work (in my opinion) is stuck in that gray zone between short story and novel, without much of a market to turn to.

[I. J. Parker]

The two can be combined in one volume. like novellas and may write one myself some day.

[Clay Morgan]

So, based on your market experience, is there a market books comprised of two very different stories - though both mysteries - of the aforementioned length? It was my impression that it was more difficult to sell a "collection" if indeed two are considered a collection.

[I. J. Parker]

There are some, but I have a feeling the situation is similar to short story collections: no dice until you've proven very good sales.

[B.R.Stateham]

Bu you know, the thing about padding is this: there are some writers out there I'll read anything they've got to say. Even if all they are doing is just stringing words together. It's how they string the words together that makes the difference.

And there are some great authors out there who have a fascinating story to tell and I'll never read'em. Their style of writing, for me, is just unbearable to wade through.

It's a POtatoes/poTAtoes kinda thing.

[Andrew Kent]

Where this jumps out at me is not so much in fiction, because if the writing's good, I'll go with it. And usually it is. But in non-fiction works that are expanded magazine articles, it's really pathetic (and pathological) these days. Even the best of them -- Gladwell, for instance -- are doing it. It's a supermarket mentality -- must have shelf space to sell. Now with 15% more verbs!!