Tag: slow books

Several people have told me that 9 Years Yearning and Pride Before a Fall are very slow. Too slow! And boring! And nothing happens!

My dear reviewers are correct. Perhaps not necessarily in the “nothing happens” front – things do happen, I suppose – but the other ones apply.

These books are slow. And this is boring to some readers.

I’m not offended. I did that on purpose.

As I’ve mentioned before, I wrote the sixth book in the series first, then realized I had more to tell. When starting these novels, I was already aware of the series’ progression to something darker, faster, and more intense.

Why, then, would I put out two snooze-fests first? There are several reasons that I’d like to share.

This isn’t intended to shame anyone into reading past these books. I write for myself, and while I’m always happy to invite others into my world, I don’t need external validation to continue writing. Rather, I’m curious about how certain story structures compel people and repel others. Let’s dig in.

My books weren’t designed for universal appeal.

If I were gunning for the best-seller lists, I certainly would not have put out a 33,000-word novella as the start of a ten-part series. This is obscenely short by tradpub standards; any literary agent would laugh at me if I brought 9 Years Yearning to them.

But let’s assume they were kind enough to keep reading out of pity. Then we’d get the claws.

“There are no stakes. There’s too much interiority. The story is mundane. The prose is too complicated. There’s no High Poetry yet.”

And the kill shot: “This is not marketable. Pass.”

Perhaps my debut book is not marketable. Is that a sin?

Nah. Because I have already internalized the most important thing any author can realize: no book has universal appeal. Even the most carefully crafted TikTok darling with a full complement of marketers will flop with some people.

Some books are polarizing on purpose because the authors were following their hearts. For example, here is a brutal one-star review of one of my favorite books, This Is How You Lose the Time War:

Weirdly, this sounds a lot like a review I got on 9 Years Yearning:

This Is How You Lose the Time War was also not designed for universal appeal, which is very evident when taking a gander at its profile. The book has a 3.84 rating with over 300,000 entries; it’s clearly polarizing.

People who love it (like me) would die for this book. People who don’t get it … are more than happy to rip its authors a new one.

And you know what? That’s wonderful. The authors took incredible risks that landed perfectly for some readers while sending others fleeing.

While I’m not narcissistic enough to put myself in the same league, I take the same approach to my work.

I write for a certain audience. I want my people.

So who are those individuals, exactly?

I’m looking for frogs to boil.

“The fuck?” you’re whispering. “Cameron, you’re a vegetarian!”

Point still stands.

“So you’re calling your readers frogs and you expect us to stick around?”

Yep. Come here, my sweet amphibians. Get in the pot.

What I mean in plain English is this: I want persistent readers who love escalating pressure.

This is a ten-part series, as I say in the first blurb. Technically an eleven-part series with Saint Luridalr and the Peony Phoenix, which I wrote on a whim because I thought it’d be fun. It will eventually be combined with Pride Before a Fall in the paperback versions.

Most commercial series wind down with three books, maybe six or seven at the very most. Ten?! Technically eleven?! That’s an author with pathological narrative stamina.

We tend to attract readers with our same mindsets, meaning my ideal audience is just as patient as me.

Someone who commits to a ten-part series can guess that the water temperature will ramp up slowly; they don’t expect to be thrown into the deep end right away. They will be patient through the first two books because they sense we’re going somewhere, even if they can’t see the event horizon yet.

And let’s be real. It takes a certain kind of insanity to write a series this long. An author afflicted with this type of obsession wasn’t destined for stardom. Oh well.

I own my weirdness, so I’m not offended when someone wanders in only to run out screaming – because I know why they do.

The Eirenic Verses is hard to compare, even within the fantasy genre.

That’s not me bragging that I’m special and unique and soo cool. It’s actually detrimental to my readership, and I haven’t figured out how to fix it yet.

My books are often comped to danmei novels because those are also gay fantasy romances. In fact, I set my ads up to target those readers, as I know they like hot men rubbing up on each other with a little sorcery thrown in.

However, there are some significant differences between typical danmei books and mine, which become huge stumbling blocks for some readers.

The prose is more challenging.

English-speaking danmei readers can expect clear-cut, simple prose because most of these novels have been translated from Chinese. I am a native English speaker who trained on Victorian literature, so my prose requires closer reading. Readers may get frustrated, which is totally fair.

I weave in the worldbuilding.

Danmei novels are notorious for throwing everything at you immediately. “Here’s the situation – better memorize it!” But I sprinkle stuff along the way in little hints. This is why some readers complain that there is “zero worldbuilding” because it wasn’t provided as an infodump. They’re not trained to look for worldbuilding in that way.

My magic system isn’t flashy.

Most fantasy novels have magic swords and dragons and fireballs and stuff. High Poetry isn’t like that because it’s based on literary analysis and symbolism. Stuff happens, but there aren’t huge explosions.

The politics aren’t obvious.

Danmei novels tend to give you the political situation up front rather than implying it. My books require readers to guess and piece things together, which is annoying for those who want a cheat sheet.

The characterization is subtler.

Eirenic Verses characters aren’t loud, melodramatic, or aggressive. Their characterization often comes in the negative space of what they don’t say. To readers who like dramatic fights, screaming and crying, they feel boring. But, idk, I’m an adult who has been to therapy, and I prefer characters solving problems like normal people.

There’s not a lot of sex.

And finally, we come to the fact that my books have, like, three explicit sex scenes across the entire series. Danmei readers like their smut. I don’t have that.

I struggle a lot to find comps when advertising because … I don’t find a lot of books like mine. There are some more well-known ones, but even they don’t fit quite right.

And I can’t read every single book I comp because then I’d have like five a year to add (given that I read a lot of books outside of the fantasy genre). This, of course, can give readers the wrong impression about what they’ll find in my books.

Which I apologize for, and will continue to work on, but I don’t have many options here.

Still, bad reviews give me some help in that regard (as I’ll discuss later), so I’m getting there.

Now, what you’re really asking: why the slowness? Okay, here we go.

My slower books are a test.

Gaining a readership for a very long series is much like dating: you have to find the right fit.

I can tell you all the things that readers will not like about my books – which are the same things some readers will like.

Interiority. Subtle worldbuilding. Quiet characterization. Lyrical prose.

So I throw them at you right away to see if you’re down with what I’m doing.

In fact, 9 Years Yearning has some of the slowest prose in the entire series – on purpose. It’s a very short book but the prose is extremely dense, the chapters are very long (because one chapter per year), and Uileac is thinking to himself a lot. And yes, there’s not a lot going on, which frustrates readers who want a nonstop barrage of magical fireball attacks.

Through this shorter entry, I set reader expectations, sort of like a tutorial. I’m telling you what kind of game we’re in, which has some of the following traits.

Authorial honesty.

I spoil the ending through the retrospective format. You can trust I’m not going to pull a switcheroo and randomly kill a character for no reason. There’s no “omg, it was all a dream!” or “actually the bad guy was the protagonist all along!” What you see is what you get.

Character-first plots.

Each book is based on one (or two) character’s experiences, seen entirely through their eyes. The plots don’t exist without the characters, so they remain front and center. They’re not passive observers.

Realistic fantasy.

My characters act like humans. They have the same annoying flaws and fears we do. Gravity works the same way. There’s magic, but no one can fly, instantly heal themselves, or shoot fireballs. Horses continue to exist after the protag jumps off them. People have to pee.

Things left unsaid.

Everything a character doesn’t say is just as important as what they do say. Nobody’s using therapy speak, and no one is a mindreader. Arguments make sense.

Plot based on pressure.

There aren’t sudden hairpin turns or random twists. Things ramp up as emotions escalate rather than being abruptly thrown out the window to start over again.

Quietly embedded details.

I am not going to stop and go “Okay, listen up, here’s what you need to know.” I don’t handhold readers or give a lecture.

Immersive worldbuilding.

You are seeing things through the character’s eyes, with their prejudices and blind spots. Sometimes they won’t explain things for you because they already know what these things are and have no reason to. Sometimes they don’t know what something is either.

Stake-dependent prose.

Now, the prose picks up as the stakes get higher because we need that energy. But if stakes are low, the prose slows down too. However fast the prose feels, that’s how high the pressure is. The two are interconnected.

Most importantly, I trust my readers. I let them figure things out on their own. I let them think and speculate and imagine. I don’t tell them everything because that’s no fun.

I trust readers to put the book down, too. As some do, with flavor.

Yes, some people will feel like their brain is leaking out of their ears. I don’t want them to suffer an aneurysm; they can DNF.

People who want something more like YA – low stakes, cutesy, fluffy, fast – are going to feel deceived and enraged. I’m sorry they felt tricked, but that’s not what we’re doing here.

Some people who want straightforward language will hate the odd metaphors, and they may assume I’m an idiot. Which is fine. Perhaps I am.

In short, they’re not my match. And that’s good. I’d rather someone bounce at the first book than get frustrated halfway through the series.

The first books are slow so the next ones hit harder.

I mentioned in my post about tonal shifts in the Eirenic Verses that we don’t stay with the same tone the whole time. There were hints that the plot’s getting icky in the third book, Funeral of Hopes, because it focused on very personal and painful things.

Things start to really pick up with the fourth book, What Is Cannot Be Unwritten, when we finally see Sina from the inside. One can guess that the next book will be a collision course of the two countries, given that we had an unprecedented infiltration at the supposedly impregnable border. We also get a hint of more complex themes, namely interculturalism and politics.

But would you care so much what happens in the fifth book, Absent All Light, if you hadn’t been with Uileac, Orrinir, and Cerie for so long? If you hadn’t watched them grow up together, fall in love, face family challenges, and change as people?

No, I don’t think so. These would just be characters in a bad situation, not people you’ve watched come together only to potentially be blasted part. You’d be meeting them in media res, with no idea how hard they’ve worked to build a stable life.

It’s possible to read every book separately; there aren’t cliffhangers. However, the second half of the series doesn’t hurt so much if you weren’t deeply invested in these characters.

The ninth book is especially heartbreaking for Uileac, though I won’t spoil why. We see him lose almost everything he cares about and have to rebuild himself from the ground up. Some readers may even question if it would have been kinder to let him die.

Having been with him for eight books at that point, his narrative is agonizing. I’m already dreading it.

You couldn’t get that buy-in without the slow immersion in his story. We couldn’t revel in Cerie’s arc without seeing her as a scared little girl. None of the characters would come as far as they do without that backstory, which is why it was crucial that I wrote as much of it as I could.

Every bad review brings me closer to my true audience.

I talked about this in my post about mean writers, so I won’t ramble too much. But each of those bad reviews is crucial data for the algorithm.

When someone doesn’t like my book and says so, then Goodreads and Amazon go, “Okay, a person with a similar reading history and preferences is not a good match for this series. Don’t recommend it to anyone like that.”

If someone does like my books, then readers with similar tastes may see a recommendation. Then I find more readers who like my things.

So yes, a bad review is a favor for me. Goodreads notes that my book is getting engagement (good or bad), and it also adjusts the algorithm to find new readers who want something like the Eirenic Verses.

Hate-reading is still reading. Amazon wants more people to read. Amazon pushes me more, with greater precision. And I get more sales.

I’m okay with you not liking my slow books.

I’ve explained the reasoning behind my series choices, but that has no impact on whether you, personally, will like them.

Because you might not. And that’s fine.

I am not entitled to your positive feedback, your devotion, or your sales. You, the reader, owe me nothing except not pirating my books. Not even a review if you don’t want to leave one. If you didn’t like the book, you are well within your rights to say so; I encourage you to.

You should enjoy everything you read – and quit reading things you don’t.

Some readers want something quick and light. Others want something they can sink their teeth into. Some want simple prose, others want a lyrical flow. And some adore slow, methodical worldbuilding and character development while others would rather throw their tablet at the wall.

All those preferences are valid. There’s something out there for you that pushes all your buttons and makes you feel alive.

That thing may not be my books. They might be too slow, too boring, too strange, and too dense. So please, DNF without guilt. I’ll wait for the right reader to come along.