Malloriel
Creative Mastermind
I find myself caught in a delicate position. On the one hand, I'm reluctant to buy any books in an on-going series, due to my impatience, and therefore prefer buying a whole trilogy on the spot. On the other hand, I'm at a developmental stage in my own stories and world building that I'm left with no clear idea how many books I'll end up writing when all is said and done. I love the idea of the stand-alone, yet interconnected novels that don't leave people in the dark while keeping repetition to a minimum, but I also love the long series that follows central characters closely.
I deeply, deeply respect what Robert Jordan was doing, and feel inspired by him, but it's the inspiration to keep his example in mind without following very closely. His idea was grandiose, intricate. He illustrated how lives can be more elaborately interconnected than can be seen on the surface, lives living dramatically different ways, independent of each other, but ultimately moving toward one final goal. I respect that a lot. It's no easy task. What I didn't like was the execution. The first few novels had their own sort of conclusions, so while the first book felt like an opening chapter to me, the next few had a bad guy to defeat, who was defeated, and the protagonists learned and grew and moved closer to their destinies. And then, as stated before, it sort of gets very muddled. The further these lives moved from each other, the harder it was to keep with it. I feel Jordan had the beautiful ability to draw the reader into the world and make them feel for the characters (whether that was affection or abject, smoldering hatred is left to the individual and the idiot character [read: almost every female character introduced]), but he also had the annoying habit of zipping and jumping around from individual story to individual story without reaching a stable enough point in that life that you didn't feel a little whiplash from the transition.
Similarly, through the years I've had the rather organic growth of world and story therein that leaves me with a grandiose situation where all life is at stake, and many lives must converge in order to prevent it, as well as an influential and lengthy history leading to "present" events. I haven't yet seen how I'll manage to sew it all together in a way that is pleasant, engaging, and fluid, but I keep Jordan's example in mind to help me steer clear of his method.
Knowing my own preference not to jump into a long series as a reader, I can't blame anyone who opted not to read my works (with the grand assumption I become a successfully published author), so I can only hope in addition that what I do manage to put out is of a quality to keep those of you who give lengthy series a chance dedicated enough to see it through to the end.
As a side, I hate deadlines and suck at getting things done "on time" with the quality I'd like to see given my name, which is why it will be VERY long from now that you'd see the first book at all. I'd rather know where I'm going and what I'm doing and have it more or less plotted and done before approaching people who will tell me when they want the next installment. In this way I also hope to write what I know should be included, and avoid filling in the space with useless information to reach an arbitrary length preference designated by someone who hasn't lived with these stories, these characters, and this world for half their life as I have.
So that's my . . . . how many cents is that? More than two. Thems be my cents. Spend them as you will.
I deeply, deeply respect what Robert Jordan was doing, and feel inspired by him, but it's the inspiration to keep his example in mind without following very closely. His idea was grandiose, intricate. He illustrated how lives can be more elaborately interconnected than can be seen on the surface, lives living dramatically different ways, independent of each other, but ultimately moving toward one final goal. I respect that a lot. It's no easy task. What I didn't like was the execution. The first few novels had their own sort of conclusions, so while the first book felt like an opening chapter to me, the next few had a bad guy to defeat, who was defeated, and the protagonists learned and grew and moved closer to their destinies. And then, as stated before, it sort of gets very muddled. The further these lives moved from each other, the harder it was to keep with it. I feel Jordan had the beautiful ability to draw the reader into the world and make them feel for the characters (whether that was affection or abject, smoldering hatred is left to the individual and the idiot character [read: almost every female character introduced]), but he also had the annoying habit of zipping and jumping around from individual story to individual story without reaching a stable enough point in that life that you didn't feel a little whiplash from the transition.
Similarly, through the years I've had the rather organic growth of world and story therein that leaves me with a grandiose situation where all life is at stake, and many lives must converge in order to prevent it, as well as an influential and lengthy history leading to "present" events. I haven't yet seen how I'll manage to sew it all together in a way that is pleasant, engaging, and fluid, but I keep Jordan's example in mind to help me steer clear of his method.
Knowing my own preference not to jump into a long series as a reader, I can't blame anyone who opted not to read my works (with the grand assumption I become a successfully published author), so I can only hope in addition that what I do manage to put out is of a quality to keep those of you who give lengthy series a chance dedicated enough to see it through to the end.
As a side, I hate deadlines and suck at getting things done "on time" with the quality I'd like to see given my name, which is why it will be VERY long from now that you'd see the first book at all. I'd rather know where I'm going and what I'm doing and have it more or less plotted and done before approaching people who will tell me when they want the next installment. In this way I also hope to write what I know should be included, and avoid filling in the space with useless information to reach an arbitrary length preference designated by someone who hasn't lived with these stories, these characters, and this world for half their life as I have.
So that's my . . . . how many cents is that? More than two. Thems be my cents. Spend them as you will.
