Re: RARA-AVIS: Why books are over 200 pages

RMINOT@aol.com
Sat, 5 Sep 1998 10:05:03 EDT Writing longer is media slang for filling up more pages with words. An ediotr
will often assign a mag piece and say, "I want 1,000 words by Friday," then
tell the writer Friday morning, "Can you write longer? We lost an ad page,"
Or "Can you write shorter? We got a last-minute ad and need to cut
editorial." Same deal iin books except they never ask you to "write shorter."
We now live in a winner-loser-driven world (sadly) where a genre writer who
has any success at all is required (like P>D> James) to write long and
preferably only once a year to create a "buzz" (ugh!!) to jack up the price
of the hardcover and also to indulge the ubiquitous corporate mentality that
equates BIG with WINNER and small with loser. So you get these dictionary-
sized tomes from Ludlum et al so the CEO (or CEO wannabe) can heft it out of
his/her briefcase and feel IMPORTANT. Gone are the days of the short story,
the taut, well plotted genre books that enabled the writer to eke out a
respectable albeit meagre living on small but frequent and steady advances.
More on this later, I need coffee.
Reeves
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