How much is too many? (Pages)

Okay, I'm going to sound like my mother and father - "When I was a kid...(insert some sad story here)"

But seriously, when I was a younger man, novels were on average maybe 250 pages. For a typical SF or Fantasy novel, some were larger of course. But 250 pages was a standard. I must have read 30+ Conan novels in my teens that were in that range. Not to mention Piers Anthon's Xanth Series.

Now, much like drinks at fast food restaurants, page sizes are soaring!

Most publishers are asking for between 100,000 and 130,000 words! Thats 400-520 pages. WTH? 

From Baen.com - "Preferred length: 100,000 - 130,000 words Generally we are uncomfortable with manuscripts under 100,000 words, but if your novel is really wonderful send it along regardless of length."

By the way, I'm not picking on Baen, I love many of Baen's books - great publishing company.

I feel like rip van winkle - I woke up and book sizes have doubled!

Like everything, there's good and bad. Sure, some novels that are longer, are much richer: better character development, a few extra storylines to help immerse you in the storyworld etc. But in my opinion, many books are just padded with complete garbage. Innane dialog, boring characters, pontless tangetial story arcs - please, throw me a frickin life preserver here! 

A good example, is George Martin's hugely popular "A Song of Fire & Ice". I love his writing, it's great! His characters are beyond amazing! But there's just too much...after reading the first book, I felt like I had just gorged at a buffett, and didnt want to think of food for a month. Much of the book was great, but I think there were just to many extra bits thrown in there that distracted from some of the better storylines. Again, thats just my opinion. Obviously people love his books (as I do), but this whole massive book size plague is spreading.

So what does this tirade of mine mean for my writing? Well, I'm not pushing myself for word count. Obviously there has to be some critical mass - most publishers and agencies would peg a Novel at at least 40,000 words. My soft target is about 60,00 words for my first draft. After that I'll cut and add, and see where the chips fall, but I'm focusing on quality, not quantity.

Back to the wordprocessor!