What is the 300 page wall? A valid question, because it’s not a real term. It’s just something I started to recognize and thinking to myself on a fair amount of books.
Basically there will be an amazing story, well written, great style and use of language. But inexplicably that excellent use of language and story has what appears to be a growth on top, a sideplot written with the same vocabulary and technical skill but apparently there simply so the book isn’t “too short”
The Winter People was the most obvious recent one to me, because it has a whole “past and present” style narrative that I was surprised the editor didn’t recommend removing for pacing/story reasons…until I looked and saw the page was 300ish pages, removing the present day story would have put it at about half that. And I’m no publisher, but I’m guessing that there’s a marketing negative to books that “look too short”. Adding to the defense of my madness: a good number of reviews mentioned being able to *skip the whole modern day plat* and ended up having a *better* time for it.
Maybe I’m just getting impatient in my age, but I swear I love longer books too! I even appreciate a good “nothing happens for 700 pages but that nothing is written beautifully!” book.
I just find it jarring when parts of the story feel completely unnecessary, even accounting for tone and “vibes” and have noticed a trend that when I feel that way I check the book length and there it is: 301-380 pages long.
Writing that out I feel like a conspiracy theorist haha. Some of the recent books I’ve felt this way about were The Library at Mount Char, Long Black Veil, and The Night Circus.
by Otherwise-Public-959
4 Comments
Hi! I’ve noticed that you might be interested in Scott Hawkins, author of The Library at Mount Char. He [did an AMA here](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/3j8ndd/im_scott_hawkins_author_of_the_library_at_mount/?) you might want to take a look. [Here’s a full list of our upcoming AMAs](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/amafullschedule)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/books) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think that this relates to how novels have seemingly expanded compared to their typical length 50~ years ago. I have a lot of midcentury paperbacks that are slim, concise books of 180, 200, 220 pages. When I walk into Barnes and Noble, for example, it seems like every modern book is a doorstopper. I think that because the margins on publishing have become so thin, it’s not viewed as profitable to trad-publish a work of fiction which isn’t “thick.”
Clive Barker is a MASTER of this. I have lost count of how many of his books I’ve read 60-70% of. The stories start out with this incredible descriptive writing of fantastical things and magical settings, and then around the midway point of the book, that same descriptive writing is used to describe pages and pages of mundane shit that contributes nothing to the plot. No, I don’t actually need a three page excerpt on the rainy cab drive where the MC just recaps the last two chapters in her own head with 0 new plot points or progression. I do not need to know how boring the color of the wall in the boring hall on the boring floor of the mundane house was. Just get on with the damn story and write a 200 instead of 500 page book!
When I go into a bookstore to purchase a book, I’m going to find the bigger book because I read really fast and I want the perceived ‘value’ of time spent using the product. I imagine I’m not the only one who feels that way.
This is also the reason I rarely buy books anymore.