Paolini's Writing gets Worse with Practice

[edward9]

I read the first three chapters of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars for sporking purposes. I was struck by how much worse the writing was. In terms of objective measurements like grammar and sentence structure it is worse than the Inheritance Cycle. The Inheritance Cycle seems to have had a copy editor and I cannot imagine To Sleep in a sea of Stars was copy edited. A copy editor edits into a certain style and just the use of punctuation defies any system I am familiar with. I am no expert but I have never seen punctuation patterns like that. For semi objective things like writing style and structure I think most editors and writers would find it worse than the Inheritance Cycle. As has been pointed out by others nothing of significance happens in the first three chapters other than introducing the main character.

What struck me the most is the degradation in an admittedly more subjective area. The story was really boring. I found it difficult and unpleasant to read too but it was really really boring. It was so boring I could not find much to spork. Everything is just too blah, empty, with nothing to it. It is hard to imagine so many words could say so very little. How do others find To Sleep in a Sea of Stars compares to the Inheritance Cycle? Am I the only one who thinks Paolini's technical writing skills have gotten noticeably to massively worse?

Comments

[edward9]

It's certainly gotten even more lifeless and soulless, which is probably half the reason why it's so paralysingly dull. The Cycle was often extremely boring, but never to this degree.

I found this as well. I do not understand how his writing cold have gotten worse. Practice may not make perfect but things should stay the same if not improve slightly. even if he was phoning it in I don't see why it should be worse then Brisngr or Inheritance.

[torylltales]

Lack of practice? He had almost 9 years off between Inheritance and To Sleep, even if he did have a tiny bit of practice with Fork Witch Worm. 9 years of no short stories (at least, none he's shared or published), no novellas (again, that's he's mentioned or shared), no writing practice or workshops or even NaNoWriMo, and then he tried to jump into a story the length of 3 already large stories almost without shaking the dust off (okay, so he h=got a little practice in with Fork Witch Worm, but you can't tell me he spent more than a day on each story) is not going to produce refined results. Especially when he also doesn't care about the art writing.

[edward9]

I see your point. It surprises me he fell so far back. I think perhaps the problem was not the little bit of practice that he got with The Fork, The Witch and The Worm but rather, as you say, he clearly threw those together over the weekend (or the equivalent) and they were accepted, published and sold well on a profit for hour of work basis. I think the problem is he learned he was trying to hard with the Inheritance Cycle (I seriously cannot believe I just wrote that) and realized just how low the bar was set for him. Now, if you will excuse me this makes me realize there is half a liter of vodka upstairs in the freezer...

[ultimate_cheetah]

I think he just has gotten more and more bored with this book, and has gotten more and more lazy. He hasn't learned how to take criticism, and at this rate, he never will. He's used the "adult" label to squeeze things in that he shouldn't have, like the juvenile cursing, and all the terribly written sex scenes. Aaand the whole thing with the Soft Blade.

Now, if you will excuse me this makes me realize there is half a liter of vodka upstairs in the freezer...

Just ginger ale for me, thanks.

[edward9]

I think he just has gotten more and more bored with this book, and has gotten more and more lazy.

I do not necessarily disagree with this. What I do not fathom, if this is the case, is why he would write To Sleep in a Sea of Stars at all. Writing is unpleasant enough when you are passionate about the story (at least if you are attempting good writing). Why write it all if he has so little interest? Need of money? Why make it so long? His last book shows he has no problem writing so little it can be construed as an insult to his fans. Why not churn out something half the size and just stop writing once it is boring? Why not break it into part one and two and try for more money that way? Either approach has the potential for more profit for less work and keeps him relevant (or whatever it should be called as an author). He can still go on interviews and brag about how great he is. In fact, the same work would result in twice as many interviews if it were broken up a sequel.

[epistler]

Writing is unpleasant enough when you are passionate about the story (at least if you are attempting good writing). Why write it all if he has so little interest?

The more cynical explanation I can come up with is that he just likes the fame and the money, and that's the only reason why he's still writing. The other, less cynical theory I have is that he actually does care, but doesn't have the talent to get it to show on the page.

Mind you, when I was depressed and no longer able to enjoy writing, the fact that my heart really wasn't in it absolutely showed. It resulted in lifeless prose, the rushed pacing you get when the author just wants to get it over with, careless mistakes and a general lack of effort across the board. I just didn't care enough to try harder. Of course, the important difference here is that nobody wanted to publish the results. Because I actually have to produce quality to get anywhere, unlike some people I could mention.

[anontu]

His social media highly suggests it's the latter. He talks about the books he wrote in his head rather than what's on the page.

Wow Epistler, I can relate to you about struggling with writing so much now. I like my stories. However I'm really having trouble with them.

[epistler]

His social media highly suggests it's the latter. He talks about the books he wrote in his head rather than what's on the page.

I had a feeling. It's a lot easier to write someone off as just cynical and greedy when they're rich and also mediocre, but my philosophy is never to put down to malice what you can put down to incompetence, because the latter is way, way more common, most likely because of the simple fact that it takes less effort.

Wow Epistler, I can relate to you about struggling with writing so much now. I like my stories. However I'm really having trouble with them.

I know what you mean, groan. People talk about how you should treat writing like a job and all that, but the fact remains that if you're not in the right headspace it becomes that much harder, or even downright impossible. You either don't have the mental energy to produce, or just plain don't care enough to even try any more.

[epistler]

I don't think we're really in any position to make judgements about his mental state. I think it's pretty clear though that he actually does believe he'd gotten better - that this is his big fanfare release, showing off how far he's come, how he's finally matured since his "practise novel", Eragon.
He just happens to be completely and embarrassingly wrong.

[epistler]

And you're completely right that material success doesn't necessarily make people happy. Generally it just seems to make them hungry for more and more of it, which is not good because with hollow prizes of that sort enough is never enough, and being deprived of it makes you miserable. It's probably a large reason why so may celebrities end up drinking or drugging themselves to death even when they seem to have everything.

[anontu]

Boredom isn't it. His social media shows a lot of passion for the space brick and his shiny new connected universe. Reading between the lines shows he doesn't care about writing more Eragon, which we all knew. It's been continuously pushed back. Book 5 was supposed to come after tsias. Now, however, he plans to write more books for his fractalverse first.

[anontu]

He may have been writing a lot of stuff we haven't seen though. That said I don't think he's mentioned anything outside of the space brick and fww.

[torylltales]

That's my thinking : if Paolini had been working on anything in the interim, he would have mentioned it, shared tidbits and ideas, any otherwise left some sort of clues that he was still writing. Does he really strike you as the type of person to spend 7 or 8 years writing short stories and other creative content and then keep it strictly secret?

[minionnumber2]

He kept his wife a secret, didn't he? I also remember seeing an attempt at a comic that seems to have disappeared from his site and a few mentions of screenplays and stuff. I don't doubt that he's at least started a few extra projects in the last ten years.

[torylltales]

That's a good point. He's very good at keeping personal details close to his chest. On the other hand, when he is actively working on something, he likes to drop hints, mention little details and character quirks, and so on. Just look at the hints he was dropping prior to forkwitch, for example. If he has something actively on the go, he likes to mention it.

[minionnumber2]

That's also a fair observation, but we don't even know if he does that with every project, or just the ones he's absolutely confident in. We have clues that he was talking to the studios well before announcing their plans for a TSiaSoS movie. I don't think he's completed any other projects, but my personal opinion is that he's probably started a few that didn't really get off the ground.