Too complicated, or too simple?

As You Wish has an unwieldy premise.  Maybe too big.

Too many inherent contradictions, dilemmas and paradoxes.  I may have to spend half my time just explaining things.

I'd rather have a premise with too much rather than too little, though that hasn't been a problem lately.  I've been dealing with big subjects -- and trying to do them in an entertaining way.  Trying not to get too heavy, but at least address the big subjects. 

Then again, what I liked about both Death of an Immortal and Led to the Slaughter, is that the storylines were relatively simple.  Death of an Immortal was a redemption story, Led to the Slaughter was a survival story.

One of the problems with Faerylander is that it has too many elements, especially clustered at the beginning.  It started off as a book about ideas -- clever ideas.  I forgot I had to have sympathetic characters and a clear story, and every rewrite since has been about trying to fix that initial misstep.

The temptation is to try to clarify, by adding material at the beginning, thereby making it worse.

What I'm trying to do with As You Wish is surf the line between too complicated and a clear storyline.

If I'm constantly trying to explain why something is happening, then I can't just let things happen.

I've decided that though everyone wants explanations -- that the explanations need to be implicit in the story rather than spelled out.

Story above all.