The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I've been thinking about your comment for a couple of days now, and of many helpful ideas in it, the one most helpful to me has been that different fiction writers like to emphasize different things. I mean, duh, but I never really thought about it that way. Which is weird, because I think about everything every which way and that's part of the reason I don't actually get much writing done.

Anyway, for some reason I never quite made the conscious connection between "some readers like X and some readers like Y," and its corollary among writers. I think I've always felt sort of guilty about liking world-building, and long, stately, detailed novels--I like to read them, and that's essentially the way I write. Somewhere in my head there's a "rule" that says first-time novelists must present works of no more than 50,000 words to agents and publishers, and all my novels run to 150,000 or more. The luxury of letting a novel grow to be as long as it needs to be has seemed reserved for the established Literary Greats--Umberto Eco and Gore Vidal--or the Such Bestsellers That The Rules Don't Apply--Stephen King and JK Rowling.

And yet, that "rule" is an artifact of the paper-publishing world of the late 20th century--and kind of a figment of my imagination. A guideline, at most.

My friend the soon-to-be tween novelist was able to get a list of the guidelines for her category and write to suit it. More power to her--she'll be published by real publishers sooner than I will. But your comment has helped me realize consciously that that still doesn't make it the right way for me to proceed. Thanks!