[@shylarah]

[quote=shylarah]
Heavy-handed, at least in my mind, has the connotation of being awkward, rough, and poorly done.  If it's done /well/, I would no longer call it heavy-handed.  Long-winded is slightly negative, but not as much.  What you speak of sounds more like complete, or thorough, possibly well-considered.  One gives you the entire picture.  The other slams it in your face and breaks your nose.
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It's got two - sort of contradictory - meanings. One of them involves being clumsy/awkward/insensitive in your presentation of something -- unfortunately, whether or not someone is this is almost entirely subjective to the reader. Someone who comes across direct and forthright might seem intimidating or tactless to some, but to me they're simply honest since I'm never intimidated by others and I hate people who wear masks. The other meaning is 'using too much of something' -- once again, this is entirely subjective. 'Too much' is in the eyes of the reader, not the writer. I hate one-liner based role-playing, while other people enjoy it and can't handle the walls of text I give. There's no objective 'too much' or 'too little'; no way to please everyone.

Nevertheless, I can see why people would use heavy-handed to describe me, since I put a lot more into what I do than many people can handle, and frankly I can really drop an anvil on people sometimes when I feel a point needs to be made -- I actually helped end a rather lengthy flame war in the 'bitchfest' thread at one point precisely by being blunt like that. The trope 'Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped' exists for a reason -- some people won't get the point unless you slam it in their face. I've dealt with more of these people than I care to count.

[quote=shylarah]
Not talking about anime and such for incomplete stories.  I mean solely books, where it feels cheap to make me pay three times for a story when you never said I was going to have to.  The reader who grew up with books as they used to be expects a story to usually finish in one volume.  The longer plot may take more, but there should be some sort of conclusion.  Not nothing but questions -- unless that is a deliberate stylistic choice (often for final endings, where there is not a book that comes after) and not merely a way to sell more books.
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Now that you've made it clearer that you're only referring to a single medium -- I don't really think people can [i]always[/i] find a good point where they can cleanly end a story without the bigger picture still being out in the open. Depending on how long an 'arc' is, you might not be able to finish it within a single book. If they can do it, sure they should do it. I also don't think there's anything wrong with leaving people with unanswered questions, as I explained earlier if you want to check that part of my post again -- I won't repeat it again unless requested. I will say that I do this (leave unanswered questions to create good foreshadowing for those insightful enough to notice the breadcrumbs) constantly, and yet selling my work is the [i]last[/i] thing on my mind.

[quote=shylarah]
I wasn't suggesting the books as research, but as something you might enjoy.  If you don't have time for reading, that's a separate issue.
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Yeah, time isn't my ally -- as I said previously, I don't even have enough free time to go take a walk down the road a lot of the time.

[quote=shylarah]
I don't think I've ever encountered an author where painstakingly thorough detail has been done well.  I've only seen it where it was handled poorly.  If you could suggest a book or two you feel does it and does it well, I'd like to take a look, just to see precisely what you mean by this.  Nor did I say anything about your story -- it's not even out yet; I'll read it or not but that won't be for a while yet, by the sound of things.  I'm not saying you should write anything other than what you see fit; certainly I dislike the idea of selling out as well.  But there is a difference between /missing/ details -- things that should be included and are not -- and the stylistic choice of how much detail is put into any description.  Necessary details -- ones with particular significance -- I would not consider optional.  It is the rest, the fine focus as opposed to the gross, where any flexibility might be found.  Missing details is simply poor writing.[/quote]
Like I said, an absence of thoroughness is often the very first thing to make me not give a piece of writing a chance. With that said though, I suppose you'll need to just wait until my project becomes available and then let what I do be the example -- I'm actually difficult enough to please in terms of writing that I don't think I can come up with a single novel - detailed or not - that I'd want to recommend to anyone. Yes, I'm [i]that[/i] difficult to please. I don't have any interest in a lot of the best-selling works out there. I also don't think many people have attempted to be as thorough as I have in general. Part of the reason I decided to create my project is I've never seen a single work of fiction I could truly call myself a die-hard fan of, so I wanted to create what I considered the perfect (in my eyes) story -- when all is said and done, I'm writing this for me and not for money. The decision to sell it will probably be determined by me needing the money -- if I somehow win the lottery (read: not gonna happen) I'll probably give everyone the bloody series for free.

Unfortunately, whether a detail is necessary or not is also a matter of opinion. The fact that my main protagonist likes pocket watches over wristwatches - and hates the feeling of tight clothing/accessories - might seem like a meaningless and entirely superfluous detail to some people, and while the pocket watch itself will play into the storyline that aspect about his personality never will unless a reason pops up. So is it unnecessary? To some people; it is. To people like me who want their characters to feel as fleshed out and human as possible; no way in hell.