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Originally Posted by Kevin8or
This agrees with what I've read elsewhere. Once an author is "successful," editors' demands become suggestions easily rejected. The tight writing of the early novels gives way to excessive exposition & other verbiage.
A great example is Terry Goodkind. I loved his first few novels, and although I've not abandoned him, his later novels sometimes seem to be written by someone else. It gets so bad that I sometimes skim ahead a few pages to get on with the actual story.
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How about the steaming turd Jim Butcher put out claiming to be the new Dresden files book? I almost died of embarrassment after talking up his ability to keep his stories tightly written, to Elizabeth Moon no less. Then a few week later Ghost Story came out.... I should throw myself at her feet and beg forgiveness.
And on that subject, writers need editors, dear gods they need editors. How can anyone expect to notice all the problems by themselves or with a small group of dedicated alpha readers who may well not have any qualifications for the task other than enjoying that type of novel? Sure fight with an editor over what really matters to you but maybe just maybe try and remember they're professionals and their job is to tell you where the problems are.
Oh and rhadin, Mission of Honor was a rambling mess that seemed to serve no purpose but to move you to the next book or possibly see how long of an info dump a person can put up with before they say screw it and switch to reading something else.
Dickens was paid by the word, what's Webber's excuse?