Longer Books... and God
And Now for Something Short
So there I was, listening to The Hobbit audiobook, and thinking, "Wow! I haven't read this in twelve years*." It's great.
There were vicious Goblins; tricksy Bagginses; treacherous Elves; Eagles; were-bears... you know the drill. It was absolutely action packed. There were so many events that there is no possible way the whole story could possibly fit into 384 pages.
Or rather, no way it could fit into 384 modern pages.
The thing is, most of us 21st century readers have acquired an addiction to first-person, or tight third person narration. In order to feed this habit, writers have to rely on a bag of long-winded tricks to explain what everybody beyond the hero is up to. For example, why did the Elves of Mirkwood imprison the Dwarves? Where did Gollum come from?
Tolkien had no need for bloated dialogs to get this information across: he hopped joyfully from head to head and not a bother on him. He'd give us whatever point of view was most relevant to the story and, if necessary, he could always fall back on a good old omniscient third-person narration: a view of the action that only God would have.
It gets the job done and done quickly.
More Favorable Reviews
Yes, yes, I'm bringing out the boast again. My story Heartless has garnered a few more favorable reviews. Terry at Fantasy Literature, said: "This story is new, challenging, exciting, unlike anything I’ve read before. I’ll be keeping my eye out for more by O Guilin."
Meanwhile, anthology editor, Rich Horton , listed it as one of his favorite tales from Beneath Ceaseless Skies in 2011.
Happy days!
*And even then, I was reading passages of it in a desperate attempt to trick a child into loving books.
So there I was, listening to The Hobbit audiobook, and thinking, "Wow! I haven't read this in twelve years*." It's great.
There were vicious Goblins; tricksy Bagginses; treacherous Elves; Eagles; were-bears... you know the drill. It was absolutely action packed. There were so many events that there is no possible way the whole story could possibly fit into 384 pages.
Or rather, no way it could fit into 384 modern pages.
The thing is, most of us 21st century readers have acquired an addiction to first-person, or tight third person narration. In order to feed this habit, writers have to rely on a bag of long-winded tricks to explain what everybody beyond the hero is up to. For example, why did the Elves of Mirkwood imprison the Dwarves? Where did Gollum come from?
Tolkien had no need for bloated dialogs to get this information across: he hopped joyfully from head to head and not a bother on him. He'd give us whatever point of view was most relevant to the story and, if necessary, he could always fall back on a good old omniscient third-person narration: a view of the action that only God would have.
It gets the job done and done quickly.
More Favorable Reviews
Yes, yes, I'm bringing out the boast again. My story Heartless has garnered a few more favorable reviews. Terry at Fantasy Literature, said: "This story is new, challenging, exciting, unlike anything I’ve read before. I’ll be keeping my eye out for more by O Guilin."
Meanwhile, anthology editor, Rich Horton , listed it as one of his favorite tales from Beneath Ceaseless Skies in 2011.
Happy days!
*And even then, I was reading passages of it in a desperate attempt to trick a child into loving books.
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