A Letter to Epic Fantasy Writers: Get over yourself, you’re not all that.

Recently a hugely successful author went on a public rant regarding a critical review for one of his books.

The reader said mostly positive things about the novel, but went on to say that he was tired of reading unfinished stories, and he wanted to be able to buy a book and know that it was going to come to a conclusion, not end with “to be continued”.

Well, the hugely successful author took that as a personal attack on his professional integrity. He pointed out that while some other authors failed to finish popular series, he, himself, had always written books quickly and completed his contractual obligations to his publisher.

And while that’s true, I think it misses the point.

The word “epic” properly refers to a form of poetry, but has gained a popular prose usage of “really long, and with swords.” For years traditional publishers promoted the idea that unending series of long novels was EPIC and somehow better than books that told a complete story in one reasonably sized volume.

Now, I don’t believe this had anything to do with what readers wanted. I think this was driven by the fact that traditional publishers made money by printing lots and lots of pages. And the marketing departments of traditional publishers were concerned with how to fit new product into the existing schematics at chain bookstores. And the operations managers of chain bookstores wanted books that were easy for minimum wage employees to shelve.

For decades now the reading public has been hammered with the expectation that OF COURSE any book worth reading was part of an EPIC series. Instead of marketing books to people who like to read books, the goal was to market series to fans who could be expected to buy Book #17 because they’ve already bought Books #1-#16.

Now, the hugely successful author referenced above became hugely successful by doing what the traditional publishers have been doing for decades, but doing it better. Which is praiseworthy and in itself quite the accomplishment. However, it means that he inherited certain unexamined preconceptions from the traditional press model.

When a customer brings a concern to a vendor it is often necessary to actively listen in order to understand the roots of the issue, because the customers don’t have the technical knowledge necessary to clearly express their concerns–if they did, they would do the job themselves and not have to hire the vendor.

So when a reader expresses concern over the possibility that a series might not reach a satisfying conclusion because the book containing that conclusion is not yet written one should not take that personally. Instead, consider the situation dispassionately.

The issue isn’t about whether or not this or that particular author is likely to deliver the completed story, the issue is that the reader wants to buy a story that is complete now, not later.

If I go to a restaurant and am told that I can have a salad today, a steak in six months, and dessert six months after that, my concern is not that I am wondering if the place will still be open in a year, my concern is that I am hungry now.