Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
It's not so much that Jordan's writing style changed, as that the overall pace of the novels slowed. As the series moved along he kept adding characters and sub-plots and increasing the importance of existing characters. However he didn't really close out existing sub-plots or move characters off-stage to any real degree. As a result he had less space in each succeeding novel to devote to any one plot or character.
With less room, each part of the story moved less as the series went on and so things seemed to drag on. The fact that the series has been going on for about 16 years now doesn't help either.
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I would disagree with at least some of that statement. While the complexity of the story did increase with each novel, the amount of ground each novel covered also decreased. An environment that would take a few paragraphs to describe in the early books would take many pages in later books.
Robert Jordans ability to describe a fictional world will likely never be surpassed, but if he had written the Eye of the World at the same pace as later books it would have been 3x the size.
I also believe that if "The Eye of the World" had been written with the style and pace of later novels then it would never have been published, and even if it was then I doubt it would have sold.
It is my opinion though, that the universe should only ever be a backdrop to the story and I just got the feeling that as the series unfolded the story started taking a backseat to the universe. While this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing it should be consistent throughout the story.
As each new book from the Wheel of Time series was released then I found myself enjoying the story less and less. This hasn't happened with the Firestaff series. The pace is excellent and is consistent through each book. The universe is full and makes a great backdrop for the story, the characters are also well developed and have believable personalities. And most importantly it has a storyline that I am throughly enjoying reading.
As I have already said, I am no writing critic, but it just seems to me that if writing style is so important, and it must conform to the current standards of how something must be written, then how could anybody possibly enjoy Jules Verne, Dickens, Shakespeare, Tolkien, and dozens of others I can think of. How can someone so fixated on writing style and standards possibly enjoy reading a novel which has quite obviously been written without attention to the methods that some people would now consider essential for a good book.