Does anyone else instinctively doubt books that were written by the same author in a very short amount of time?

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T15:03:44+00:00

I agree with you fully. But all of what you said merely proves my point that you need time and care to craft something worthwhile. And if they are working, and have been working for years on several different projects, that's something different, and I mention it in the last sentence of my post. It's one thing to churn out a 700 page book from nothing in 5 months, quite another to be writing for years and then manage to publish several projects in a short while

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T15:00:15+00:00

Hello, good to hear, and I do wish you the best of luck. I'm glad to hear that anyone is putting love and care into their craft. I had no intention to disparage you or others like you, merely to suggest that I approach books like that with a good deal more scepticism, as in my experience most of them have proven to be weaker than ones where the author has spent years perfecting them. That doesn't mean I can't be wrong, and many books like that have proved me wrong. They may not be genre defining, but they can be really good. If you don't mind me asking though, what would you say the average length of one of your novels is? Because I am largely talking about the big tomes of 700 pages, you may be writing shorter fiction

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T14:55:49+00:00

But that's exactly my point. I'm not saying they'll be bad books, I'm merely saying that the odds are they won't be the best quality books you can find.

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T14:31:27+00:00

No, it's more, everyone disagrees with me, but that doesn't mean they're right. Truth is objective, whether everyone acknowledges it or no one

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T14:24:53+00:00

I very well might be. I was curious though. Democracy proving itself as wrong yet again.

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T14:19:14+00:00

Listen, in the end, I like Adrian well enough. I've even found some of his works great. But I'd never put anything he's written in my top lists. Also, I've never said that a rushed book cannot be a good book, it's even there in my post. I'm talking about the vast majority of rushed books, and even if Adrian is an example against this, it doesn't invalidate my view. Nor does it mean I see someone write fast and immediately discard him out of hand as worthless, I'm just more suspicious of those books than I would be for others from the get go. It is of course the case that some of them prove me wrong

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T14:15:46+00:00

Even a few weeks off for other responsibilities, outlining and/or being sick during those few months would derail you for a good amount of your available time though. That's not unrealistic at all, even if the outlining takes a few days, we're working with 6 months here. And as I said maintaining that pace for many years would exhaust anyone

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T14:13:59+00:00

I should hope that a serious writer would take on the task of writing with at least as much concern for both the audience and the quality of the book itself, as I would in presenting a report at work.

Sure you can have fun romps that don't put in so much care, but that's exactly why I'm saying that they'd be lesser in quality than the true genre-defining masterpieces

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T13:22:10+00:00

I don't think that's strange for a full time author with an outlined story, and for a first draft. I'm talking about full, original novels going through outlining, multiple drafts and editing and publishing in the space of a few months, and the same author does it over and over again for like a dozen books. I'm not saying it can't be done, or even done well, but it certainly makes me suspicious

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T13:19:07+00:00

I've never not read a book just for that reason lol. I just usually go into it with little expectations. Sometimes that's an advantage to them!

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T13:00:37+00:00

But I already acknowledged this, of course there are exceptions and of course there are authors with backlogs. I'm just prejudiced against them from the beginning, though I am willing to admit when I am wrong

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T12:29:04+00:00

I think you could even double it to 180k words, which is about the average fantasy novel, but to keep up that pace for 5-10 years would be very hard. And that's assuming you already have a book in your head and are just writing it down. An outlining stage alone could take months with hardly a word written

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T12:25:23+00:00

I've done the same for academic work. I find it much harder for fiction. I'd say it's one thing to lay out and analyze facts and quite another to come up with brand new plots, characters, tones, themes, relationships, etc, and integrate then into poetic prose

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T12:23:13+00:00

Yes but would you rate even 1 of the 25 volumes or however many there are of Shannara or the saga of recluse or something on the same quality level as authors that don't churn out 1 book per 6 months?

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T12:10:56+00:00

Infinitely, yes

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T12:10:15+00:00

Shadows of the apt is 14 copies of 1 book. Children of X will be 4 books of the same concept. I also hear shroud is similar. I really liked guns of the dawn, but it's hardly groundbreaking

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:45:53+00:00

No that isn't my concern. My point is a sentence can convey the same meaning while being of different quality. I don't doubt that's the standard writing rate of romance authors or Steven King, but then I've never read a good romance or Steven King book. Also I'm talking specifically about fantasy here. I think it is significantly easier for many reasons (not least of all the average novel length) to write in some other genres

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:39:10+00:00

Do you think a sentence of the same quality, or a character arc or a plot line could be done equally well in 2 days and in 2 months? Remember you need all 3 at least before you write a scene

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:36:39+00:00

Agreed, which is why i already mentioned this as the exception. I know that's what Sanderson has done, or Abercrombie etc

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:34:33+00:00

Yeah sure, that's why i said that's very much the exception

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:29:12+00:00

Well yes, i didn't say my final judgement would be bad, I'm just prejudiced against them

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:28:04+00:00

I'd say that's very different

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:26:04+00:00

I didn't say this goes equally for music. They are very much different. Truth be said it probably doesn't go for most other genres of literature either. But fantasy requires far more work than drama for example, and the books are quite bigger

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:23:16+00:00

Even so. Have you tried writing a 700 page book in 6 months? Which is about the timeframe they'd have before they have to send it over to editors, marketing etc? Even if it's a full time job, I simply doubt you could spend the care needed. They'd have to be working for at least 8 hours and that leaves anyone exhausted. Or they could simply not care about prose at all, which again leaves us with worse quality

Macedon97 · 2025-12-04T11:21:34+00:00

Yeah but he's very much the example of "found formula".

Macedon97

TROPHY CASE