1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,120
This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.

2
00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:13,320
This is Story Over Everything, episode 11. The topic of discussion for this episode is,

3
00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:21,320
are longer books better and shorter books worse, or less than, or inferior in some way?

4
00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:26,440
And, yeah, I'm just going to launch right into it. First of all, I guess I'm going to

5
00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:31,200
stop myself from launching right into it and ask, what is your opinion? What are your thoughts?

6
00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:35,320
Tell me some of your favorite long books, short books. If you like only short books,

7
00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:39,440
tell me about that. Why? I'd like to know. If you like only long books, epic fantasy,

8
00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:44,960
that kind of thing, tell me what they are, tell me why. And if you enjoy both, let me

9
00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:48,080
know about that. Does it depend on your mood? Does it depend on the vibe that you're going

10
00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:52,720
for? Does it depend on genre? Do you like certain genres to be long and certain genres

11
00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:58,840
to be short books? I don't know. So, I will go ahead and let you know that I like some

12
00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:06,040
long books and some short books. The longest book I ever listened to was actually a novel,

13
00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:13,000
like a fan fiction novel adaptation of The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, which you

14
00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:18,640
can find in Dragonrand something something, some number. Dragonrand, Ocarina of Time novelization.

15
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:23,040
I think, I think, because they don't have it totaled up in a single file, I estimated

16
00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:29,280
that it's about 60 hours. That's different people reading the book at different paces.

17
00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:32,480
I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of consistency, but there's a, you know, there's a difference.

18
00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:36,440
But it was a very long book, a very long story. I think I took a couple of weeks to listen

19
00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:43,080
to it and I enjoyed it. And it was good, but there were parts where I thought, well, was

20
00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:49,680
this really necessary? Do I really like this chapter? Why is this going on so long? That

21
00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:56,520
sort of thing. And honestly, getting back into, you know, real fiction. No, it was a

22
00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:59,960
good book. It was a good book. I liked a lot of it. There were some things that were interesting

23
00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:03,440
or weird or that I didn't like, but I think that happens in every single book I've ever

24
00:02:03,440 --> 00:02:09,480
read. There have been things that I don't like. So anyway, realistically, the issue

25
00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:16,000
with long books is sometimes they just, they're too much. For example, I do love The Hobbit

26
00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:20,320
and The Lord of the Rings. And I'm saying that like, it's a new thing to me because

27
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:25,080
I only started reading them or listening to the audiobooks of them a couple of years ago.

28
00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:29,920
And I think I've gone through each of them three times now over the last couple of years.

29
00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:33,280
And probably like once a year, basically, is what I've done over the last three years.

30
00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:36,000
And that's a lot of fun. And yes, I'm sort of doing that because Christopher Lee would

31
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,960
do it. And I thought, that's kind of a cool habit to get into. I don't know that it's

32
00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:42,720
something I'll do every single year for the rest of my life or anything like that. Maybe

33
00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:46,440
I'll switch it up a little bit, but you know, they're good books and I had a lot to learn

34
00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:53,920
from them. I kind of wanted to dig into Tolkien because, well, first of all, I had no idea

35
00:02:53,920 --> 00:02:59,200
when he wrote, when he lived, I had no idea when he wrote. There's a meme going around.

36
00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:04,240
My kid showed me that apparently he died in 1971. There's one ring to rule them all, nine

37
00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:09,160
for the kings of men, seven for the dwarves and three for the elves. Or I guess it was

38
00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:13,680
1973 is when he died. And that kind of, you know, all combines together. And it's really

39
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:17,760
an interesting little fact to it. But anyway, so he died in 1971. I think he lived near

40
00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:22,760
his sixties or seventies. So that would have put him born at around, you know, 1900. Could

41
00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:25,360
have been older, could have been younger, but you know, 1900 at the earliest based on

42
00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:33,440
that estimation of mine. So, you know, he, like I said, I didn't know when he lived,

43
00:03:33,440 --> 00:03:39,360
therefore I didn't know about when he wrote his books. I thought they were older because

44
00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:45,920
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit seemed to dominate the zeitgeist of fantasy. Like most

45
00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:51,720
fantasy today, I think is derivative of Lord of the Rings. And I was curious as to things

46
00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:57,120
like, well, why did Tolkien put seven dwarf lords? Cause I know of the seven dwarves from,

47
00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:04,560
you know, the seven dwarves that were associated with Snow White. And I've since, you know,

48
00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:09,640
being exposed to that as a child, I've gone back and I've looked at the Grim Fairy Tale

49
00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:13,400
versions of Snow White. And I do say versions on purpose because there's more than one.

50
00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:19,000
There's Snow White and then there's Snow White and Rose Red, which is her sister. And in

51
00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:23,900
one there's a dwarf who's a jerk and they only encounter him over and over again in

52
00:04:23,900 --> 00:04:27,280
different places. That's Snow White and Rose Red. And then the other Snow White, which

53
00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:30,920
I don't, which is not called Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, it's called something else.

54
00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:34,160
I can't remember why. I think it might just be Snow White or like the Little Maiden Snow

55
00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:37,960
White or something like that. She does encounter dwarves, but I don't think there are seven

56
00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:43,520
of them. And it just seemed like it was something classical. And I thought, well, where did

57
00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:49,880
seven dwarves come from? Because it's featured both by Tolkien and by Disney. Although I

58
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:55,600
haven't looked at the dates, perhaps the Hobbit came out before Snow White and Disney had

59
00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:59,280
read that or somebody had on the creative team and said, hey, let's make it seven dwarves.

60
00:04:59,280 --> 00:05:04,460
Kind of like the seven dwarves in the Hobbit. Or sorry, the Lord of the Rings, not the Hobbit.

61
00:05:04,460 --> 00:05:08,080
There are 14 dwarves in the Hobbit, or I guess it's 13. They have an unlucky number and they

62
00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:16,800
want to fill it out, round it out with Bilbo. So anyway, I looked into that and it's a long

63
00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:21,400
walk. I listened to all of the Lord of the Rings before I went into the Hobbit and parts

64
00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:25,800
of Lord of the Rings drag on. Parts of it are bleak. Some chapters are an hour long

65
00:05:25,800 --> 00:05:30,660
or more, perhaps an hour and 15 minutes. That seems to be too long for me. I don't know

66
00:05:30,660 --> 00:05:37,200
if chapter length is genre dependent. I've looked up different things and anywhere from

67
00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:43,440
like a 2500 to a 4000 or somewhere between 2500 words and 5000 words seems to be the

68
00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:49,200
modern conception of a reasonable chapter length today. I believe a 2500 word chapter

69
00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:54,440
can be read in about 10 minutes. I personally think 10 minute chapters are the sweet spot,

70
00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:58,840
but we're actually talking about overall book length. So I won't get into that now, except

71
00:05:58,840 --> 00:06:04,240
for to say there's no way, well, Tolkien would have had to have hundreds of chapters maybe

72
00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:08,900
or at least, you know, high dozens or, you know, a hundred per book in order to have

73
00:06:08,900 --> 00:06:13,800
his books be the length they were if that's how they were broken down. And I personally,

74
00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:18,480
again, I'm talking about chapters. I don't want to do that. I personally felt like too

75
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:25,380
much or too much of Lord of the Rings dragged on in too many ways. And it was funny in high

76
00:06:25,380 --> 00:06:30,720
school, I actually read Paralandra, I believe, by Lewis. And I thought, man, this guy sure

77
00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:35,880
takes a long time describing things. And then when I went into Lord of the Rings as an adult,

78
00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:40,040
I, you know, like a decade and a half later, I loved it. And I loved the depth and I loved

79
00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:46,160
the, the detail, the level of detail and the level of myth and lore that were in each page

80
00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:50,680
and the world building and stuff. But honestly, you know, listening, having listened to them

81
00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:53,560
multiple times now, the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, I don't think there's a lot

82
00:06:53,560 --> 00:07:00,400
of time wasted on over-exhaustive detail. There are plenty of asides, but that's different

83
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:04,440
from, you know, going on describing a sunset for five minutes or, you know, a hundred,

84
00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:06,880
you know, 500 words or something like that. Maybe a hundred words would be appropriate

85
00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:10,720
to describe a sunset. I don't know. It depends on, on the, how large the scope is and what

86
00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:16,560
it does for the character who's observing it and such. But I think, you know, a third-person

87
00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:21,200
perspective omniscient narrator describing a sunset, a hundred words. I think that's

88
00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:25,280
unnecessary. I'm just going to say that right now. Yeah, I think it's unnecessary, especially

89
00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:29,440
if it's disconnected from a character, because if it's not connected to a character, I don't

90
00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:34,400
know that I want to spend any more time on it than I actually have to. The sun was setting,

91
00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:41,600
boom, you're done. It was a bleak sunset. Okay, that's fine. The bleak sunset filled

92
00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:48,160
those who looked upon it with a feeling of dread and foreboding as, you know, Carrie

93
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:56,660
and Val across the horizon telling them of approaching hordes of marauders and warriors

94
00:07:56,660 --> 00:08:03,520
who would soon bring death to them and their kin because they had no warriors among them.

95
00:08:03,520 --> 00:08:07,640
I didn't, what was that? 80 words maybe? Like you could do that. That sets the tone. It

96
00:08:07,640 --> 00:08:11,760
makes it foreboding. It, you know, does context in the world. That was extemporaneous by the

97
00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:17,560
way. Not that it was like some great thing, but just to let you know. So yeah, I don't,

98
00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:23,520
I don't want to have my time wasted. I will only live for so long. Then why are you listening

99
00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:27,020
to the same books over and over again? Because they're really good and they make me happy.

100
00:08:27,020 --> 00:08:30,480
And it's good to go through those things again and again. Why are you eating food again today?

101
00:08:30,480 --> 00:08:34,000
Why are you sleeping again tonight? Because you have to, right? I mean, it's what you

102
00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:41,360
do to survive. And sometimes reading is what we do to survive. But anyway, you know, Tolkien's

103
00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:47,960
books, even The Hobbit, I think is a fairly long book. I don't know. I think The Lord

104
00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:54,160
of the Rings all clock in at around 20 hours, but it could be more on the audio book version.

105
00:08:54,160 --> 00:09:01,640
In fact, hold on. If I take a moment, I can probably find out very, very easily. But I,

106
00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:07,280
to go to the other side real quick, to switch over to Lewis, his cosmic trilogy, I believe

107
00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:14,000
the first book is five hours long. That would be out of the silent planet. I'm going to

108
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:21,280
say five to seven hours long. And then it goes on to get longer and longer. And by the

109
00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:27,400
time we reach that hideous strength, I believe that hideous strength is a 14 hour long book.

110
00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:32,400
So I'm just trying to look through real quick and find my files. So I've got The Fellowship

111
00:09:32,400 --> 00:09:40,440
of the Ring, 19 hours, seven minutes. And that's if you listen to it at one speed. Okay.

112
00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:44,320
What am I going to find next? I don't know. Oh, The Hobbit is 11 hours to five minutes.

113
00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:50,160
I think an 11, I think a 10 to 13 hour book is very respectable and I can definitely handle

114
00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:58,240
that. Moving on to the next book on our journey. Man, I've dressed Parker, but it doesn't tell

115
00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:05,040
me how long it is, which is a little irritating because I like that book. That's a good book.

116
00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:14,280
Same with The Lost World. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Let me see. So as, okay, Paralanger, oh

117
00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:17,520
golly, Paralanger does not say how long it is. I guess I haven't listened to it long

118
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:22,800
enough that it doesn't say, but I'm just going to jump back. I believe it's like five hours,

119
00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:27,320
nine hours, and then 14 hours is the progression of Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy, which even if you

120
00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:33,640
put five, nine and 14 together, that's 23, 28, that's still only a little bit longer.

121
00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:39,680
Those three books together are only a little bit longer than The Lord of the Rings or,

122
00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:42,160
you know, one of The Lord of the Ring, you know, one and a quarter of The Lord of the

123
00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:47,280
Rings books and there's three of them. So those are really long books and I don't know

124
00:10:47,280 --> 00:10:51,740
that I necessarily like the long books. Like I said, I enjoy Lord of the Rings. I enjoy

125
00:10:51,740 --> 00:10:55,920
The Hobbit more. Is that because it's more concise? I'm not sure. The Lay of Luthien

126
00:10:55,920 --> 00:11:01,000
and the Cimarillian is a really satisfying story. The shorter stories, maybe because

127
00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:04,580
they're disconnected, they're just okay. I like some of them. I like the one where the

128
00:11:04,580 --> 00:11:08,600
guy has like an Oedipus thing where I think he ends up marrying his sister and they both

129
00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:15,040
like die. That was, that was pretty gnarly. Just the tragedy of it was like, I don't know,

130
00:11:15,040 --> 00:11:19,480
shocking and impressive and something I did not expect. But like The Lay of Luthien, which

131
00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:23,640
I don't remember off the top of my head how long it is, it might be an hour to three hours

132
00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:29,560
long. It's really good and it's really entertaining and it didn't need to be a full length novel

133
00:11:29,560 --> 00:11:36,200
to be entertaining and good. The length of the prose does not dictate, it's not directly

134
00:11:36,200 --> 00:11:42,520
proportional with the quality of the prose. In no way, by no means is that true. I've

135
00:11:42,520 --> 00:11:50,440
mentioned previously Greg Taylor's Red Panda books and I think I've mentioned recently

136
00:11:50,440 --> 00:11:55,860
here on Story Over Everything that I'm also listening to the Shadow novels. I'm two Shadow

137
00:11:55,860 --> 00:12:02,520
novels in and I'm working on a third and all of those have been about five hours long and

138
00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:07,340
I gotta say, I thoroughly enjoy those and I believe Greg Taylor's Red Panda novels are

139
00:12:07,340 --> 00:12:13,160
about five hours long as well. Pyramid of Peril may be longer, like seven or something like that,

140
00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:18,440
but I don't recall at this moment. But again, these pulp stories have a lot of adventure

141
00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:23,840
in them and a lot of excitement and a lot of interesting things happening and I really

142
00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:29,640
think, and again, that's pulp versus science fiction, I'm sorry, versus fantasy, epic or

143
00:12:29,640 --> 00:12:37,140
otherwise and that's one reason for the dissimilarity in length. But I thoroughly enjoyed those books

144
00:12:37,140 --> 00:12:43,000
and it feels like there's just enough and I would say Walter B. Gibson's Shadow novels

145
00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:51,160
are very well written. Well, as an aside, there's also the Oz books which I feel, L.

146
00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:56,520
Frank Baum's 14 Rivers of Oz books, they're all about five hours long. They feel, honestly

147
00:12:56,520 --> 00:13:02,400
to me, as if they are in some part an inspiration for some of what Tolkien did, maybe even some

148
00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:08,800
of what Lewis did. They both contain, well, so they're talking animals, there's adventure,

149
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:15,000
there's like mostly nonviolent heroes, there are wars and struggles and kingdoms and royalty

150
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:19,560
and things like that which are just kind of generic fantasy tropes, I guess you would

151
00:13:19,560 --> 00:13:27,520
say, or subject matter for them to touch on and which by the way, I like all of the Chronicles

152
00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:31,880
of Narnia as well. I almost prefer listening to Seven Chronicles of Narnia books, the whole

153
00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:38,280
set over one Lord of the Rings book because each one is short enough that you can go through

154
00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:43,780
them fairly quickly but they're long enough to hold my attention and to give me an adventure

155
00:13:43,780 --> 00:13:48,000
and would I have liked things expounded upon in certain areas? Yes, but they also just

156
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,760
move along at a good pace and then you get a story and you get more and more and more

157
00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:54,840
and more because there's a whole series of them and you get to experience a different

158
00:13:54,840 --> 00:14:01,440
vibe, a different emphasis, a different theme or subject matter that's being addressed in

159
00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:06,360
each book and they stand alone but they also work together and they build upon each other

160
00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:12,040
and I just, I kind of prefer that. I didn't know if there's like a mindset that makes

161
00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:17,600
somebody more interested in shorter run stories like the pulps or like the Lewis's, you know,

162
00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:24,640
chapter books for children or whatever but those adventure stories are very enjoyable.

163
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:30,220
So yeah, for me it kind of depends on genre but I also wouldn't be upset had Tolkien broken

164
00:14:30,220 --> 00:14:35,760
up the Lord of the Rings into a series of shorter books and added more definitive endings

165
00:14:35,760 --> 00:14:40,520
and beginnings to some of them, to some of the separations and in fact, Lord of the Rings,

166
00:14:40,520 --> 00:14:45,640
the Fellowship of the Ring itself has I think three books in it. It's book one, book two,

167
00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:49,960
book three, right? And the rest of the books have something similar but I think they build

168
00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:56,200
on, I think if Lord of the Ring, or Fellowship is books one, two and three, I believe The

169
00:14:56,200 --> 00:15:00,480
Two Towers is books four, five and six, maybe even seven and then Return of the King has,

170
00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:04,880
I don't know, that's probably three books right there. So like why not just do that

171
00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:11,460
and then have them all linked together in series telling a more, you know, the whole

172
00:15:11,460 --> 00:15:18,800
story takes place over about a year and that's from Bilbo's party basically to the scouring

173
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:23,560
of the Shire. Well, I mean, then it jumps farther because everybody separates and has

174
00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:32,840
their endings, which is good. But yeah, for me personally, I think I prefer the pithier

175
00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:36,320
length book, you know, 50,000 words I think is what it breaks down to, to about five hours,

176
00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:40,600
which tells me about 10,000 words is, or 10,000 words equals about one hour depending upon

177
00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:46,120
the reader, of course, and maybe descriptions versus dialogue and things like that. So that,

178
00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:52,920
to me that's the sweet spot. But I don't really see a benefit for going, you know, 90,000

179
00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:58,880
words, 100,000 words, 200,000 words. I don't really see a benefit unless there's going

180
00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:03,920
to be a lot of, a lot of good stuff. I don't know. I'd like to hear your opinions on it,

181
00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:10,040
but that's all my thoughts in it for the matter. I'm going to go ahead and, and get out of

182
00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:16,360
here. But yeah, I thank you for listening and I ask that you check out all my other

183
00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:22,440
stuff. I'm going to advise that you check out my other podcasts on other things where

184
00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:26,400
I analyze stuff and then also some of the art that I post over on MJwinners.com, but

185
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:29,960
I'm going to toss it to myself and that guy in, you know, past me is going to tell you

186
00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:35,320
about my Grow Bug books and all the books section, or the book section and how full

187
00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:39,800
it might be of various types of books that I've written on the website, MJwinners.com.

188
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:43,440
So with that, I ask that you give me some feedback. I'd love to hear your thoughts on

189
00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:47,720
book length, short, long, what do you like? What are your preferences? Do you like my idea

190
00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:51,040
of just having a series, like, you know, make everything a series, make everything a series

191
00:16:51,040 --> 00:16:55,400
where all the books are, you know, 50 to 80,000 words long and you can have, you know, three,

192
00:16:55,400 --> 00:16:59,120
five, seven, eight, 10, 12, whatever, and get to explore different things because you,

193
00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:02,600
you know, cap each one or you, you know, with the shorter book length, you say, I'm going

194
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:05,760
to address this in this book, then I'm going to address this in that book and so on and

195
00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:09,520
so forth so that you have more, like, I don't know, it almost feels like you're doing more.

196
00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:13,280
Like it's more productive or it's more meaningful or more rewarding potentially for the reader

197
00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:18,160
because well, I get to handle all these different things. But then what do you do about just

198
00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:22,640
like straight up adventure, thriller, crime novels, you know, maybe those can be shorter

199
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:27,480
too, like the, like the pulps, like the shadow and such. And if there's no message or whatever

200
00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:30,520
addressed in them, maybe it makes sense to just have them, well, this is a thrilling

201
00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:35,720
adventure that you're going to go on. There's like neat tricks and, you know, interesting

202
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:40,040
things that are going to happen in each book. And each book will be differentiated by, oh,

203
00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:45,040
this is the one where the villain, you know, made all these bombs and did this. This is

204
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:49,680
the one where the villain has powers very similar to the shadow and he goes after the

205
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:53,560
shadow because he's the only one who can stop him from world domination. This is the one

206
00:17:53,560 --> 00:17:57,480
where it's a very interesting heist that's going on and the shadow is trying to stop

207
00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:00,360
it and he's pulling in all these different things. Or this one where he's, you know,

208
00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:04,120
fighting the gangs. Well, which gang? Well, it's the Chinese gangs. Okay, now it's the

209
00:18:04,120 --> 00:18:07,720
Italian gangs. Now it's this gang, whatever. And you can kind of go back and forth between

210
00:18:07,720 --> 00:18:12,680
all of them and just have like a focus for per book and then so that you don't draw it

211
00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:17,720
out and exhaust your audience by belaboring everything. You just do, all right, it's a

212
00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:22,440
quickie. It's a 50,000, you know, 50 or, you know, 40 to 60 of these with the standard

213
00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:28,320
pulp size was for like the shadow magazine and such. And then you just, you just do that.

214
00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:33,200
I don't know. I'm going to be interesting once I get writing novels, novellas and novels

215
00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:37,680
to see how easy it is for me to put out. I'm going to target like 60,000 words and see

216
00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:42,080
how close I get to that and see how long it takes for me to get there. And if I can do

217
00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:44,960
that at like a regular pace, cause I think that feels like the best thing for me, but

218
00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:49,960
I'm also planning on writing dozens and dozens and dozens of books. So anyway, I'd like all

219
00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:55,160
your feedback on book length and on whether or not a book is better because it's longer

220
00:18:55,160 --> 00:18:59,840
or shorter. I would love all that perspective. Anyway, that's it. I'm getting out of here.

221
00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:04,720
If you enjoyed me talking about the writing process, then hopefully you'll enjoy reading

222
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:11,400
or listening to my writing instead. So go over to MJMunoz.com or MJMunoz.com slash books

223
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:16,240
and check out what I have there. My plan is to keep that updated all the time with the

224
00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:22,320
latest and greatest of my writing, whether that be books, audio books, uh, you should

225
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:27,680
be able to buy direct from me there. And uh, yes. So please go ahead over there to MJMnews

226
00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:42,240
or MJMunoz.com slash books and check out all the good stuff I have to offer there.