novellas, games, and time
Oct. 29th, 2019 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twoelevenone of the reasons i went to a capclave panel on novellas is that to the extent that i read genre fiction any more (not much) they're about all i read. while i'll happily read the odd short story or ten, i'm looking for stories that are a bit meatier: more characterization, more plotting, and maybe even more worldbuilding. but not as much as a novel.
(aside the first: a couple of the authors have mentioned how much the novel has grown over the years. 90-100k words used to a common length. now it's too short to sell.)
why? time. carolyn ives-gilman mentioned during the discussion that she just doesn't have the attention span for novels any more. i rarely have the time, especially with modern (authorial) tastes. the last novel i read was andy weir's the martian, which went down smoothly: only a handful of characters to follow, a straightforward plot, and lots of crunchy hard SF.
but modern tastes run to casts of thousands, multiple points of view, and sprawling worldbuilding. if i could read a novel like that at a single sitting, it would be ok. but i can't. and then remembering what's going on, who's who, and where new east nowheresville is takes a while. by and large, if i need to keep notes on a novel, i'm not gonna read it.
(aside the second: by contrast, most nonfiction tends to be relatively well chunked by chapter. i grabbed my copy of the great sea, which is a history of peoples who have lived around the mediterranean sea. i rather liked it, but hadn't looked at it since reading it.
i opened to a random spot, and flipped backwards until i found a chapter heading. "chapter 10: 'the profit that god shall bring', (1100-1200)" this tells me all i need to know about what's going on, and if there's information i need for context, it's likely to be in one of two easy to find spots: the table of context or the index. none of this "who is minor character #17, and what's this about something nasty happening in a woodshed?".)
but a novella, even if it had the same complexity, can be read at a single sitting. i sometimes have a couple of hours for a novella or three. perfect.
keeping track of a lot of details is what's driven me to novellas and shorter games, both on boards and on the computer. i have too much on my mind these days to keep track of yet more stuff, especially if it's supposed to be fun. i make some exceptions for games i really enjoy, but even then, i tend to stop at points that allows me to forgot bunches of previous detail. ("oh, my king just died. guess it doesn't matter what his plans were, and i'll pick up with his heir next weekend.") novels haven't done that for years and years.
(aside the first: a couple of the authors have mentioned how much the novel has grown over the years. 90-100k words used to a common length. now it's too short to sell.)
why? time. carolyn ives-gilman mentioned during the discussion that she just doesn't have the attention span for novels any more. i rarely have the time, especially with modern (authorial) tastes. the last novel i read was andy weir's the martian, which went down smoothly: only a handful of characters to follow, a straightforward plot, and lots of crunchy hard SF.
but modern tastes run to casts of thousands, multiple points of view, and sprawling worldbuilding. if i could read a novel like that at a single sitting, it would be ok. but i can't. and then remembering what's going on, who's who, and where new east nowheresville is takes a while. by and large, if i need to keep notes on a novel, i'm not gonna read it.
(aside the second: by contrast, most nonfiction tends to be relatively well chunked by chapter. i grabbed my copy of the great sea, which is a history of peoples who have lived around the mediterranean sea. i rather liked it, but hadn't looked at it since reading it.
i opened to a random spot, and flipped backwards until i found a chapter heading. "chapter 10: 'the profit that god shall bring', (1100-1200)" this tells me all i need to know about what's going on, and if there's information i need for context, it's likely to be in one of two easy to find spots: the table of context or the index. none of this "who is minor character #17, and what's this about something nasty happening in a woodshed?".)
but a novella, even if it had the same complexity, can be read at a single sitting. i sometimes have a couple of hours for a novella or three. perfect.
keeping track of a lot of details is what's driven me to novellas and shorter games, both on boards and on the computer. i have too much on my mind these days to keep track of yet more stuff, especially if it's supposed to be fun. i make some exceptions for games i really enjoy, but even then, i tend to stop at points that allows me to forgot bunches of previous detail. ("oh, my king just died. guess it doesn't matter what his plans were, and i'll pick up with his heir next weekend.") novels haven't done that for years and years.