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

[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.