Robert Jordans Planning of the series

[DocBean]

I started these books in the late 90s, by that time the first half of the series had been written.

When I read them, I read them back to back, and I was constantly annoyed during the first few books when things (like channeling) were reexplained over and over again.

It's basically like watching a TV series on DVD where the episodes are butted up to each other, but they don't take out the "Previously On"

 

If you read them back to back there is tons of "Previously On" style of writing.

 

Once Jordan got the the later half of the series he dropped that, but started really developing the secondary storylines. In my opinion, that's where he got out of hand describing everything in detail.

I loved the detail of his world; however, I truly believe that Harriet and RJ were getting a bit money hungry and stretched it further then it needed to go towards the end.

He was a great world builder, but that wasn't enough to dampen the disappointment I felt when I finished Crossroads of Twilight (best title in the series, but by far the worst book).

 

I have reread the series a couple times, and most likely I won't do it again.

I love the story, I just don't need take that much more time out of my life to relive it.

If the series was just 10 books long, I'd probably give it another read, but I've reached an age where the time I have to devote to reading let's me read new stuff and not much else.

 

If you consider that each audio book takes about 30-40 hours of listening time, then 14 books would take about 475-500 hours to listen to.

If you listen to them nonstop 16 hours a day, that will take 1 month of your life.

Granted most people read faster then voice-actors do on audio books, but I think that gives you a good idea of how big this series really is.

[capuga]

I truly believe that Harriet and RJ were getting a bit money hungry and stretched it further then it needed to go towards the end.

 

This is always such a cheap shot. Why assume some kind of monetary motivation? By the time those later books rolled around he was already a bestseller and presumably pretty well setup. I think he just started too many side plots and wasn't concise enough. The plot got away from him a bit but that doesn't mean that he was trying to milk extra money out of it.

[DocBean]

Exactly. We don't need to know every single aspect of the history and G.R.R. Martin apparently agrees.

 

The difference between George RR Martin's world and Robert Jordan's is – GRRM shows you a world after the valiant Knight wins the throne and marries the beautiful Maiden.

He shows that there isn't such a thing as Happily ever after. Jordan shows how each time the story happens, it changes, although it's still basically the same story.

 

I don't like comparing the two, but in this case I will.

Martin's world is WAY more realistic then Jordan's, and his storylines also develop and change way more then Jordan's in half the amount of paper.

Which are the two things that everyone seems to bring up when saying Jordan's books are as long as they need to be to tell the story.

 

 

With that said, Martin isn't done yet so we'll see what he does, and I put them on the same level – they are my two favorite authors.

I'm not saying I think Martin is a better writer, I actually think Jordan has a way with words that paints a prettier picture in your head.

[DocBean]

I truly believe that Harriet and RJ were getting a bit money hungry and stretched it further then it needed to go towards the end.

 

This is always such a cheap shot. Why assume some kind of monetary motivation? By the time those later books rolled around he was already a bestseller and presumably pretty well setup. I think he just started too many side plots and wasn't concise enough. The plot got away from him a bit but that doesn't mean that he was trying to milk extra money out of it.

 

That's true, it probably did get away from him, and I probably shouldn't blame Harriet and Jordan as much as I should blame TOR.

However, he's the author she's the wife and editor, the buck stops with them.

 

It probably wasn't a money thing as much as it was an opportunity for him to live a life writing the series he loved, and have a job he enjoyed.

I would have done the same thing, we should all be so lucky.

[capuga]

I truly believe that Harriet and RJ were getting a bit money hungry and stretched it further then it needed to go towards the end.

 

This is always such a cheap shot. Why assume some kind of monetary motivation? By the time those later books rolled around he was already a bestseller and presumably pretty well setup. I think he just started too many side plots and wasn't concise enough. The plot got away from him a bit but that doesn't mean that he was trying to milk extra money out of it.

 

That's true, it probably did get away from him, and I probably shouldn't blame Harriet and Jordan as much as I should blame TOR.

However, he's the author she's the wife and editor, the buck stops with them.

 

It probably wasn't a money thing as much as it was an opportunity for him to live a life writing the series he loved, and have a job he enjoyed.I would have done the same thing, we should all be so lucky.

 

That's something I could certainly buy. That he was "milking" it not necessarily for money but because he just didn't want to stop writing about this world he created and loved. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a reluctance on his part for the story to end.

[Muad Cheade]

You're mistaking my point. I was addressing criticism that we should have started in the AoL because we don't know enough about it. In Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, the event that shaped the current storyline, the War of the Usurper, is detailed in a similar manner. They past is not as important as the present but they use the past to inform and explain, if that makes sense. That was my point.

 

To be honest, I don't think you can fully compare their works.

[Mrjon3s]

I just read the series from beginning to end and have to say for the first 3 books I read every word. But as I started reading the rest of the series I found myself speed reading the series due to the fact that nothing really happens in every book except for like 2 things with the rest of the book being filler. You can seriously skip like 300 pages worth of words every books and not really miss anything to do with the plot. Its just to much detail and repetition. It was funny the first time Nyn pulled her braid or Rand, Perrin, and Mat said they wish they knew how to talk to women.

 

What I think RJ should have done was make it a 5 book series and then started another series about the AOL from the beginning to the breaking of the world with some stand alone books filling in the gaps after the breaking but before the present.

[MarkDiLillo]

I disagree with a lot of this. There are parts I do agree with though. Before I get into that, let me ask you this: What do you think of the parts of the book Sanderson wrote so far?

 

As far as I know in TGS and ToM, there are very few passages that we are definitively sure as to who wrote what...

 

Um...you really can't tell? There are parts that are questionable, but there is a pretty stark difference between RJ's writing and Sandersons.

Everyone thinks they can tell, but we know for sure that in many instances people are wrong. For instance, a good number of people bashed Brandon for the first scene of the TGS prologue, but RJ not only wrote that but read it - there's an audio recording of him reading it out there somewhere. Harriet got a kick out of that.

 

Also, part of the reason why it's difficult to tell in some places is that everything RJ wrote was in draft form and had to be edited by Brandon. There are some bits we're sure about (like Suttree said), but for the most part, it's probably best to assume that we don't know who wrote what.

 

(Don't bother telling us how you knew that RJ wrote that one scene.)

 

Do I sense a little hostility here? I am sorry if you can't tell the difference between the two writers, but it is pretty clear to me. I am unfamiliar with BS's writing style and I have not read his books, but I am very familiar with RJ's writing and the difference between the two is stark enough to pick out who wrote what in many cases. Not all cases though. I am pretty sure that most readers can point out the differences as well. They are mostly evident in the diction and dialogue of the characters - both their words and thoughts to themselves. To be clear, I look to Jordan as a vastly superior author and storyteller compared to Sanderson, but these differences are not because Sanderson is doing a bad job. He's just a different person. I think it's a shame that RJ passed away before he could complete his master work, but I also think that BS is doing a great job of finishing the story considering the predicament he's in. In other words, he's doing as good of a job as anyone could have.

 

Like I said, the stark differences between RJ and BS's writing is clear in the dialogue. Do you notice how some characters use the phrase "noted" or "your request is noted"? That is something that is new and definitely not RJ's work. Notice the prologue of ToM where we first see Jesus Rand. The dialogue is almost laughable. "Men often speak of me." Really!? Does that REALLY sound like something RJ would have Rand say? Even given his awakened state, it is not likely. The entire meeting with Rand at the White Tower reeks of the same differences. The things that come out of Rand's mouth simply sound like another person is writing the character - almost as if you were reading a work of fan fiction. Those scenes, specifically their dialogue, were handled poorly IMO. An example of a scene that was well done was the scene where Jesus Rand returns to Tear, roots out the darkfriends, and cries to Tam. It faintly had the "feeling" of Sanderon writing it, but at the same time it could have been RJ. A great job if it was Sanderson. Similarly, the other scenes were Jesus Rand shows up to put out fires throughout the book feel the same way. Unfortunately, the prologue scene started the book and kind of left a blah taste in my mouth, and then the meeting with Egwene and the Hall was setup to be one of the grandest scenes in the entire story...but it fell pretty flat. Another scene that was clearly Sanderson writing the dialogue? The scene where Rand and Nynaeve were talking about how Rand is aware that he's becoming too hard and will break, and relates it to a person climbing Dragonmount.

 

What else? The entire Mat/ToG portion of the last book was clearly Sanderson. BS just simply can't write Mat the same way RJ could. Specifically, the ending after Moiraine was rescued. Look at the dialogue and how it fits on the pages. It is very "fast" with few descriptions in between. It's just one set of quotes and then another. RJ never wrote conversation like this without descriptive prose filling the gaps. This is most clearly Sanderson and his writing style.

 

Now let's look at the entire Perrin sequence. Perrin was handled masterfully by BS. I have no idea if RJ wrote the majority of it or not, but there are very few cases where I read Perrin's story arc and thought to myself "this is definitely not RJ". So if that was all Sanderson then congrats to him because he really nailed one character dead on. He nailed it so well that I wonder if it wasn't mostly RJ material that he had written previously.

 

All in all, BS has been doing as good of a job as anyone could have except for RJ himself. That being said, a good number of scenes are very clearly Sanderson's work and it doesn't take a trained eye or any detailed analysis to pick them out.

[David Selig]

The Tower of Ghenjey scenes in ToM were written by Jordan, it was even mentioned in this same thread.

[capuga]

What else? The entire Mat/ToG portion of the last book was clearly Sanderson. BS just simply can't write Mat the same way RJ could. Specifically, the ending after Moiraine was rescued. Look at the dialogue and how it fits on the pages. It is very "fast" with few descriptions in between. It's just one set of quotes and then another. RJ never wrote conversation like this without descriptive prose filling the gaps. This is most clearly Sanderson and his writing style.

 

And this is one of the few sections that we have been told who wrote what. And RJ wrote most of the ToG scenes. So perhaps its not so easy to tell after all? I'm also curious as to how you determined that RJ is clearly a better storyteller than Brandon when you said that you haven't read any of Brandon's other works? I happen to think so as well but I've actually read (and greatly enjoyed) all Brandon's published work except for tWoK so I at least have something to compare RJ with.

[MarkDiLillo]

The Tower of Ghenjey scenes in ToM were written by Jordan, it was even mentioned in this same thread.

 

Including the dialogue afterwards with Moiraine? Link me to proof and I'll eat my own words, but I find that VERY hard to believe that all of the ToG scenes were written by Jordan and were not at least partially written by BS. And the entire part with Moiraine awake and talking at the end seems completely written by BS.

[MarkDiLillo]

What else? The entire Mat/ToG portion of the last book was clearly Sanderson. BS just simply can't write Mat the same way RJ could. Specifically, the ending after Moiraine was rescued. Look at the dialogue and how it fits on the pages. It is very "fast" with few descriptions in between. It's just one set of quotes and then another. RJ never wrote conversation like this without descriptive prose filling the gaps. This is most clearly Sanderson and his writing style.

 

And this is one of the few sections that we have been told who wrote what. And RJ wrote most of the ToG scenes. So perhaps its not so easy to tell after all? I'm also curious as to how you determined that RJ is clearly a better storyteller than Brandon when you said that you haven't read any of Brandon's other works? I happen to think so as well but I've actually read (and greatly enjoyed) all Brandon's published work except for tWoK so I at least have something to compare RJ with.

 

I went through the first book he wrote briefly and wasn't impressed enough to finish it really. Though I hear his later books were much better. Elantris I think it was?

[Sid]

ToG was the closest to RJ's Mat we've seen since KoD. I had heard that he wrote all of those scenes before he died from somewhere or another before I read the books, but when I read the chapters I knew it wasn't 100% him. Bloody ashes, but it wasn't.

[capuga]

What else? The entire Mat/ToG portion of the last book was clearly Sanderson. BS just simply can't write Mat the same way RJ could. Specifically, the ending after Moiraine was rescued. Look at the dialogue and how it fits on the pages. It is very "fast" with few descriptions in between. It's just one set of quotes and then another. RJ never wrote conversation like this without descriptive prose filling the gaps. This is most clearly Sanderson and his writing style.

 

And this is one of the few sections that we have been told who wrote what. And RJ wrote most of the ToG scenes. So perhaps its not so easy to tell after all? I'm also curious as to how you determined that RJ is clearly a better storyteller than Brandon when you said that you haven't read any of Brandon's other works? I happen to think so as well but I've actually read (and greatly enjoyed) all Brandon's published work except for tWoK so I at least have something to compare RJ with.

 

I went through the first book he wrote briefly and wasn't impressed enough to finish it really. Though I hear his later books were much better. Elantris I think it was?

 

Elantris (his first published book) and Warbreaker are decent. Mistborn series is excellent. And the Alcatraz books are a young adult series that are a quick, fun, and funny read.

 

For what it's worth I also believe that there are certain passages where it's safe to assume Brandon wrote them because they feel different to the previous books. But I also have heard that Harriet has said at signings that people are usually wrong when they have been guessing who wrote what. I just don't think it's fair to attribute any sections that people don't like to Brandon without us really knowing for sure who wrote which sections.

[Terez]

Which was, of course, my point. So, no hostility - just a bit of predictive power that comes from experience:

 

Towers of Midnight book tour, Dallas Borders 4 November 2010 - aurik reporting

 

Q: What was the most jaw-dropping scene (or scenes) to you when you read the material for Towers of Midnight?

A: Verin.

Q: That's what you answered for Book 12. I'm asking about book 13, which I've already read.

A: Everyone in line close your ears...The whole Tower of Ghenjei sequence. That was all written by Jim. Also, the surprise proposal at the end.

[Grig]

Including the dialogue afterwards with Moiraine? Link me to proof and I'll eat my own words, but I find that VERY hard to believe that all of the ToG scenes were written by Jordan and were not at least partially written by BS.

 

That's what we call shifting goalposts. You said:

 

The entire Mat/ToG portion of the last book was clearly Sanderson.

 

That is patently false. It has been stated that ToG was Jordan's work. It's tangential who wrote the scene outside the ToG. To me, the inside ToG scenes felt like something Jordan would have written several books ago, before he got so used to padding everything. I found myself wondering how long it had been sitting on the back-burner, possibly without Noal or with another character in his place.

[MarkDiLillo]

Well then I will admit I was wrong.

 

However, I find it impossible that the dialogue with Moirane and Mat afterwards was not mostly Sanderon. I also find it impossible that some portions of the ToG were edited by Sanderson. Unless RJ's writing style started to change dramatically, I just dont see how it could have been written by him.

 

Maybe we're looking at an early version of his writing before he got a chance to clean it up and rewrite it thoroughly then? And the powers that be decided to just keep it in the book since it was technically a completed scene. I don't know, but there are some serious chunks of that clearly do not have the feel of the rest of the books, and some of them jump out at you fairly blatantly.

[MarkDiLillo]

Including the dialogue afterwards with Moiraine? Link me to proof and I'll eat my own words, but I find that VERY hard to believe that all of the ToG scenes were written by Jordan and were not at least partially written by BS.

 

That's what we call shifting goalposts. You said:

 

The entire Mat/ToG portion of the last book was clearly Sanderson.

 

That is patently false. It has been stated that ToG was Jordan's work. It's tangential who wrote the scene outside the ToG. To me, the inside ToG scenes felt like something Jordan would have written several books ago, before he got so used to padding everything. I found myself wondering how long it had been sitting on the back-burner, possibly without Noal or with another character in his place.

 

I can see inside of the ToG being mostly Jordan. I really have a hard time buying that afterwards was Jordan too though. It really just doesn't read the same at all in my opinion. The dialogue, the whole "your request is noted", etc. just isn't the same. The same goes for some of the other scenes I mentioned above. Jesus Rand walking down from the mountain, Jesus Rand meeting with Egwene, Dark Rand talking with Egwene about knowing he's killing himself. Parts of those scenes just read differently than the previous dozen or so books.

[Terez]

Well then I will admit I was wrong.

 

However, I find it impossible that the dialogue with Moirane and Mat afterwards was not mostly Sanderon. I also find it impossible that some portions of the ToG were edited by Sanderson. Unless RJ's writing style started to change dramatically, I just dont see how it could have been written by him.

Like I said, Brandon has had to touch up every single thing that RJ wrote because all of it was in draft form. That's why it's hard to tell in many places.

[Grig]

I can see inside of the ToG being mostly Jordan. I really have a hard time buying that afterwards was Jordan too though. It really just doesn't read the same at all in my opinion. The dialogue, the whole "your request is noted", etc. just isn't the same. The same goes for some of the other scenes I mentioned above. Jesus Rand walking down from the mountain, Jesus Rand meeting with Egwene, Dark Rand talking with Egwene about knowing he's killing himself. Parts of those scenes just read differently than the previous dozen or so books.

 

Part of the reason the latter scenes read differently is because it's a dramatic departure in characterization. They are supposed to be different. As far as I'm concerned, the way Rand is supposed to be behaving at that point is so different than the Rand we've known for 8-9 books that it's impossible to filter through that enough to get a good feel for whether they are predominantly Jordan or Sanderson scenes (unless one is simply going by the "I didn't like the feel as much as older scenes, so it must be Sanderson). Also, I think you mean Dark Rand talking with Nynaeve, which didn't really seem "off" to me, at least not in a characterization way. It was off in an "omg someone other than Cadsuane is talking frankly" way, which was like the point of the scene -- to demonstrate Rand's trust in Nynaeve, which was necessary to support the decision to unquestioningly make her one of the two females he will take to SG.

 

On the opposite end of that is tGS Mat, whose vocabulary and use of cursing changed overnight. I think it is probably possible to tease out the author of some scenes due to word usage (with the possibility of error, of course), but doing it by characterization or plot development is much more dicey. Jesus Rand is weird because he's not the same Rand we've been reading in some time, but changing that behavior would have been RJ's intention in the first place. It seems like an insane proposition to think one can determine how RJ would write a character that for all intents and purposes we haven't met on screen (Jesus Rand) differently than how Sanderson would.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i hate to say this, but i think some of the issues of quality of the later material may stem at least partially from RJ's state of health at the time. or maybe just the first draft state of things.

 

except for gah! blech. . . zombies. but i think we're past that now.

[MarkDiLillo]

I can see inside of the ToG being mostly Jordan. I really have a hard time buying that afterwards was Jordan too though. It really just doesn't read the same at all in my opinion. The dialogue, the whole "your request is noted", etc. just isn't the same. The same goes for some of the other scenes I mentioned above. Jesus Rand walking down from the mountain, Jesus Rand meeting with Egwene, Dark Rand talking with Egwene about knowing he's killing himself. Parts of those scenes just read differently than the previous dozen or so books.

 

Part of the reason the latter scenes read differently is because it's a dramatic departure in characterization. They are supposed to be different. As far as I'm concerned, the way Rand is supposed to be behaving at that point is so different than the Rand we've known for 8-9 books that it's impossible to filter through that enough to get a good feel for whether they are predominantly Jordan or Sanderson scenes (unless one is simply going by the "I didn't like the feel as much as older scenes, so it must be Sanderson). Also, I think you mean Dark Rand talking with Nynaeve, which didn't really seem "off" to me, at least not in a characterization way. It was off in an "omg someone other than Cadsuane is talking frankly" way, which was like the point of the scene -- to demonstrate Rand's trust in Nynaeve, which was necessary to support the decision to unquestioningly make her one of the two females he will take to SG.

 

On the opposite end of that is tGS Mat, whose vocabulary and use of cursing changed overnight. I think it is probably possible to tease out the author of some scenes due to word usage (with the possibility of error, of course), but doing it by characterization or plot development is much more dicey. Jesus Rand is weird because he's not the same Rand we've been reading in some time, but changing that behavior would have been RJ's intention in the first place. It seems like an insane proposition to think one can determine how RJ would write a character that for all intents and purposes we haven't met on screen (Jesus Rand) differently than how Sanderson would.

 

The characterizations are not quite what I'm talking about. A lot of it is the dialogue that sounds off to me. The actual words coming out of the characters mouth don't feel like they're the same characters. I realize that Dark Rand and Jesus Rand are supposed to be both be new, but the phrases they use are a lot more...blunt. RJ's dialogue typically struck me as having a certain "real" feel to it. Some of the dialogue Rand uses (not all, but some in certain key scenes) just feels like something entirely different than anything from the books we've read. Like I already mentioned, anytime they say "your request is noted" or something similiar it just reeks of a different author. When Rand comes down from the mountain and says that "People often speak of me" it reeks of a different author. The conversation between Nyn and Dark Rand doesn't have a lot that jumps out to me screaming that it's a different author, but the entire feel of the dialogue and the way it was spoken just doesn't feel like a typical RJ scene.

[MarkDiLillo]

i hate to say this, but i think some of the issues of quality of the later material may stem at least partially from RJ's state of health at the time. or maybe just the first draft state of things.

 

except for gah! blech. . . zombies. but i think we're past that now.

 

I doubt it had to do with his health. Perhaps he hastily wrote some sections because he knew his clock may be ticking and wanted to get it done. I prefer to think of it more as we are reading an unfinished masterpiece with finishing touches provided by another artist. If you ever watch certain artists work, sometimes what they're painting isn't obvious until the last 10% of their painting goes onto the canvas. We're missing that last 10%, so another painter stepped in to finish it up and try to make it true to what he was told it should look like. It's going to be the same work of art, but it's also going to be slightly different than what was originally intended.

[Terez]

I think that Brandon probably edited dialogue in particular a lot just for consistency. That's a guess, but it would be wise from an editing perspective, and since Harriet is the boss I don't doubt they went that way. For the record, RJ never wrote Moiraine using contractions, so we know for sure that Brandon touched up the dialogue at the end of TOM. How much? We have no clue. We can guess at which bits he touched up with varying degrees of certainty, but again, for the most part it's unwise to assume without knowing for sure who wrote what.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i'm not trying to insult RJ in any way. while he did a great job of maintaining his fighting spirit, he was very ill. it's a devastating disease. i won't go on, just wondered if anyone considers that he wrote for us from, well, his deathbed.