Three of the books I read (or, in one case, tried to read and gave up on) last year were what's usually termed 'slow writing'. It's writing that doesn't provide continuous story development. We're never sure if what we're reading is actually progressing the main plot, or just an aside or a character moment. In extreme cases, we're not even sure what the plot is. Not, at least, until we're most of the way through the book, by which point a lot of readers have probably picked up something more immediately compelling.

Slow writing is a hard sell. Without action-packed plot points to drag a reader in, it has to rely on Voice or Premise to get a reader's attention, both of which hinge far more on the reader's personal taste than a good old-fashioned opening crisis. With a meandering, not-sure-where-this-is-going plot progression, it's a lot of work to maintain the reader's interest. I suspect the Hollywood movie formula and structures or techniques like Joseph Campbell's and Robert McKee's have trained us as readers to expect an immediate sense of purpose from the plot. We want to feel, even if only subliminally, that we know what this story's about. We're bored easily, and we want to be entertained. We don't want to have to wait for, or even worse, work for our enjoyment of a story.

The three books I mentioned - Ursula leGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Jacquiline Carey's Kushiel's Dart, and Neal Stephenson's Anathem - all used slow writing to various degrees and effects, and with various saving graces to pull it from the "bored, now" pile.

When slow writing kills your book

Stephenson's book came highly recommended from people I respect for the intellectual ability, rather than their literary taste. And, intellectually, it was certainly interesting. The premise was appealing. I am certain Stephenson had a great deal of fun reinventing history, philosophy and the completed works of mankind. I certianly would have, and in some ways wish I'd done it first.

The voice, however, worked against the book, fatally. I read about a hundred pages, and grew tired of having to constantly translate the story into Real English. It alienated me from the main character (whose name I can't even remember, now), who seemed to care rather little for anything that was going on. The premise had interested me, but I was a hundred pages in, and still only had half a premise. I couldn't see the point to anything, I couldn't see why I should care. With another four hundred pages to go, I said - Nope. Don't care enough. Bored now.

Slow writing coupled with a difficult read can kill definitely kill a book. There are people who heap praises upon Anathem, but I wonder how many of them actually read it through to the end and love the book, or just love the ideas behind it, and what Stephenson intended to do. I don't see anything wrong with praising it for the latter, but it is a very different animal.

When slow writing is forgivable

Kushiel's Dart was Carey's debut, and she took a hell of a risk. The opening chapters - a good fifty pages or so - is straight Info Dump. Breaking a cardinal rule of "good writing", she opens by telling us the character's life story up to now. Much as I enjoyed this book, those opening chapters made me cringe - I wasn't invested in this character yet, I really didn't care what their life story was. If I hadn't been loaned the book by a friend, I probably would have stopped there. As you read on, the story gradually - and I do mean gradually - shifts from info to story. We have a character, we have her situation, but we still have no idea where this is all going.

Which, when you get to the other end, makes sense, because it's a story of politics, and when politics is done well (in a story), you can't predict who's on whose side or when and where betrayal and boons will fall. If you can, it never satisfies. It's first-person-perspective, and if we had a sense of where the story was going, it wouldn't have been much of a story. 

The slow writing wasn't strictly necessary, though. The first two hundred pages or so (it's another long book) probably could have been pruned. A lot if it is in the voice of the novel: Phedre's story-telling is very wordy and takes its time to get to the point. There's a lot of lavish description of a rich, developed world, which is beautiful, but not always a bonus. The info-dump at the start certainly could have been relocated or reworded, or perhaps cut altogether, to the benefit of the book.

And yet, overall, it works. It forms a sophisticated story of intrigue that - in its later chapters at least - is compelling.

When slow writing makes your book

LeGuin's was a masterful examination of an aspect of humanity and existence that forms our core existence. The premise alone - a hermaphroditic society - was enough to keep me interested. My faith in leGuin as a storyteller certainly helped - A Wizard of Earthsea has long been a favourite of mine. Trusting to those, I read through a story that, for the first three quarters, really didn't give me a sense of purpose. The protagonist had a goal, but it wasn't really within his power to achieve or not achieve, and he wasn't even particularly emotionally invested in its completion. He wandered around the world, sidetracked from it by circumstance, with no forward progression, just a series of events.

I realised in the closing chapters that leGuin had performed some brilliant sleight of hand. The goal of the protagonist was, in the end, largely irrelevant. The real story was his own shifting emotions and psyche, and how his experience on Winter had changed him - made him arguably inhuman. But for that kind of a story to have an effect, it can't be out in the open. If your protagonist is sitting on a rock in chapter three thinking "Well, these people certainly seem to avoid an awful lot of bother by avoiding this whole sex thing, capital idea" you're neutering what could otherwise have been a powerful experience for the reader.

People rarely realise they're changing until they look back and see the difference. That's what leGuin gives us - the experience of a deep, irreversible and alienating change, without telling us. We feel the shock and revelation with Genly as he realises who he's become, and that slow, arduous and apparently meandering journey we took to get there suddenly becomes absolutely necessary.

That is slow writing at its best.