World building

[StillStunned]

Heavy worldbuilding has been part of the genre from the beginning with Tolkien. The notion that going overboard with worldbuilding is why it's a niche category on Lit is preposterous.

The thing about Lit is that we're all amateurs. We don't have editors to reel us back in when we let the worldbuilding take over. You see the same thing with published mainstream authors if they reach the point where they don't think they need an editor. Robert Jordan springs to mind, and JKR too.

And sadly readers *will* nope out if they open a story and it begins with an infodump. They have no investment to keep them interested. And they'll probably avoid the author's other stories after that.

I'm not saying it's the only factor - clearly part of it is that sci-fi and fantasy lovers have other places to go to get their fix, whereas Lit is the place to be for sex stories in general - but poor writing makes for bad advertising.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The thing about Lit is that we're all amateurs. We don't have editors to reel us back in when we let the worldbuilding take over. You see the same thing with published mainstream authors if they reach the point where they don't think they need an editor. Robert Jordan springs to mind, and JKR too.

I'll fight you on that. In Jordan's case, worldbuilding was one of the best aspects of his series. It's his writing that was lacking, as was the fact that he would fill the book with endless, pointless scenes that did nothing for the characters or the story.

The middle part of the series is especially full of such content. It effectively murdered the pacing of the story and made many readers quit, so only those invested enough stayed until the series became better. You could probably shave off 3-4 books of text from the series and improve it considerably.

 

[StillStunned]

I'll fight you on that. In Jordan's case, worldbuilding was one of the best aspects of his series. It's his writing that was lacking, as was the fact that he would fill the book with endless, pointless scenes that did nothing for the characters or the story.

The middle part of the series is especially full of such content. It effectively murdered the pacing of the story and made many readers quit, so only those invested enough stayed until the series became better. You could probably shave off 3-4 books of text from the series and improve it considerably.

But that's what I'm talking about. He was so enamoured with his world and his characters that he lost sight of storytelling. The first four books or so - maybe even the fifth as well - balanced worldbuilding with storytelling. But beyond that, he was just mucking around in his playground.