The Sword and Laser discussion
slow going... bad?
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I do not mind slow beginnings. I hate bad beginnings. To me they are not the same thing. LotR started off very slow, but I thought the beginning was very important.
I don't mind slow beginnings but not 70% until it gets good (I recently read a book that got good in its last 30 pages while I chugged through the first 250 ok pages). But I have had really long books (400+ pages) where the first 100 were slow and by the end I appreciated the slowness at the beginning as a necessary part to get to the rest. For example, 2312 was one such book, I was about to abandon it around 100 pages when it really started and by the end I was really glad I didn't put it down.
Tastykimchi wrote: "I dont think it is a good review of anything to state that "you have to get through the first 70% of the book then it gets good"I'm assuming this is in response to another thread stating Boneshaker starts slow and doesn't payoff till around 70%. While a disagree that Boneshaker starts slow depending on what you mean by "slow" - apart from my OCD I don't have a problem discarding a book well before 70% if I'm not enjoying it at any level. I have read too many books where I have held out to the finish and wished I hadn't bothered.
I don't really mind slow beginnings as long as I think they are good. However, if a beginning is slow then there have to be some very strong recommendations to convince me to go to the end. For instance, I keep meaning to read Chalion, but every time I start I feel as though I have to hype myself up to begin.
I think there is a question of proportions. If you have a 300 page book, you should grab me pretty quick. If i am reading a 1k page book epic, you should grab me in the first few hundred pages.
Proportions are important, I agree. But I think a really good solution/revelation needs its time to build up.I mean, take a very simple straight forward genre, the murder mystery. The success of the revelation in the end comes from the impact the revelation has on the reader.
To be successful, you need a bit of build-up first.
If you then get into SF/F you need to account for world-building. If you just hand out a revelation at a point, where the reader isn't fully aware of what that revelation means, it's pointless to have it.
I agree that it shouldn't draging on and on and I judge books that do that quite harshly, but you need a certain amount of build-up.
absolutely, resolutions and revelations must take their time. but I feel many sf/f writers fall in love with world building a little too much.
You can definitely see when there are former Dungeon masters writing a book (i have been guilty of this in my writing attempts) and they spend too much time building the world. But, take for instance harry potter. Lots of build up, lots of world building, but you knew about voldemort in the first few pages.
in chalion, it took 180 pages to figure out that there is a guy who hates caz and this might be trouble.
Still don't see this as starting slow. After reading the first 10% according to my Kindle;The Prologe has (view spoiler)
Chapter One (view spoiler)
Chapter Two (view spoiler)
Chapter Three (view spoiler)
Chapter Four(view spoiler)
Through it all Priest is establishing plot. Establishing story. And establishing character. This is a man (woman)versus environment story as much as it is anything else. I think complaining that there's too much world building in a story like this is missing the point, especially when the information is spread pretty evenly over most of the book
One of the things I really like about this book is that it takes three genres that naturally lend themselves to man versus environment stories (fantasy, survival horror, and westerns) and mashes them up.
There is definitely a difference between a slow read and a bad read. I had Blue Remembered Earth by Reynolds on the go for two months. It is a good book with excellent pacing and two characters I cared about, but for whatever reason something I would normally have finished in a week took a lot longer.Is 70% bad worth 30% good? Probably not. If it takes that long to get hooked it is probably literary Stockholm's. The book must be good if you've spent all your time reading the thing that far, right?
If you think a slow start is a bad start, then no, you shouldn't bother. A lot of people look on a slow start as meaning it takes time to build up a picture of the world, and will likely read it differently - say, a chapter a day, or reading it when alone and able to mull things over, or whatever. For a lot of people, this is a good thing. Letting people know it starts slowly is providing information other than whether it's good or bad.
Personally, as someone who's perfectly happy to start a book anywhere in it, if I know it gets really good at 70% I'll probably read the first few pages to get a grounding, then go to the 70% mark and read a chapter, then read the last chapter or two, then fill in between 70% and the end, then randomly backtrack to read more. If, after all that, I liked it, I'll start at the beginning and (more or less) read it straight through.
This method really aggravates writers who spend lots of time working out pacing. I don't mind this in the slightest. ;-)
Define start. Define beginning. For me, that's about the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the book. In a 400 page book, I'm fine with establishing plot, character and world, but around 100 to 150 pages I should be seeing things start to unfold. If the setup takes until page 250 or 300, that's not OK as it almost always means one of two things - either a rushed ending or I'm being setup for a sequel. All that said I don't expect books to necessarily start off right on page one with a bank or even by page 50. It depends on the book. Some DO start like that (Altered Carbon for example), but some don't and for the story they are, shouldn't.
I use the first couple of pages as a guage for how the pacing will be and how detailed the author is going to be in their world building. This sets my expectations and I either settle in for a long detailed story (Terry Goodkind-ish) or sit down for a rip roaring jaunt through a face paced story. I have to agree, 70% seems too long for a book to "get good". I would say at least 10-15% would be about right. At that point we should be seeming some progression either of the main character or of the overall story arc.
Slow start is fine as long as the slow start is somewhat interesting. There is a difference between "slow build up" and "boring" slow build up is still building to the plot, boring is just obsessing on small details without moving the plot forward. I admit I'm having problems with boneshaker simply because I'm not finding the world that interesting. However, thats more of a personal taste thing.
I don't mind slow starts. I don't like boring starts. If the characters are compelling, I'll read about them drinking tea for 400 pages. If they're boring and I can't engage with them, then I have problems.
dara I am almost there. I found caz compelling from chalion but I couldn't keep with it on they one
I think a slow start is one that doesn't hook me in some way by about 10-20% of the way into the book. If after about 20% I'm not interested in the characters or the plot then I'll probably give up. Unless...and this is rare... I'm just really loving the writing. A very few books have me literally drinking up the beautiful flowing language, or the really witty dialogue or something. I'll keep reading then. But if a quarter of the way in a book just isn't doing anything for me then I'll just give up. Life's too short for bad books (I have limited reading time - if I had more time I might be more inclined to keep reading).
The enjoyment for books exists much beyond the few hours it takes to read them. Sometimes there is a lot happening that only comes together in the last few pages of the book in such a way that the book becomes something very different than you thought it was.A book may seem one way or one thing for 70 or even 80 or 90 percent of the time you are reading it and then completely change. This can be in a good way or a bad way. I know books that have done the reverse, I have been really in to them, interesting world, interesting characters, compelling plot and then the resolution of the plot completely undermines the world, characters, and plot to such a way that the book changes from something good to something bad.
That said if you want a book to be compelling throughout then you are probably best reading books wherein that is the case and there are plenty of SF books that are able to be exciting pretty much from page one and are no less as books for doing so.
ben - I think it's one thing to have an involving story for 90% of the book and then a twist toward the end. It's very much another thing to have the book drag with little in the way of story for that long. Take a fairly recent example, Assassin's Apprentice. It's slow for much of the book because we're growing with Fitz and things change quite a bit in the last 20-30% of the book. But Hobb did a good job of showing us Fitz' growth and laying foundation for the end, so it worked for the most part (there were some parts I'd have shortened, but that's nit picking).
However, that book *also* introduces us to a series and I think it's more satisfying when viewed that way. Had she done that toa book billed as a standalone I might have liked it but been more harsh on the pace.
Nowadays everything has to go fast.....i thought that literature was safe from it.Slow start/bad start can be subjective but if it's bad for you don't wait till 70% to close it down.
And i completely agree with the progression factor/story stagnation. A book take you somewhere, if he goes in circle, i close it down and grab the next in the pile hopping for a nice journey.
When I first started reading fantasy, I noticed that a lot of the first books in a series didn't get get good until around page 200. If something isn't interesting 200 pages in, I know I can give up on it
Modern readers are more impatient than readers 200 years ago, I'd wager. That said, a slow beginning is okay, as long as it doesn't stay slow for too long. How long is too long depends on the reader.
For any book, if the reader does not feel like the plot is progressing, then the book would be considered slow.
It depends on the book--are the slow parts interesting or boring?
it got me with chalion, and boneshaker.