Robert Jordans Planning of the series

[Terez]

I'm sure Brandon has to consider that all the time. He's said that the parts RJ wrote are the hardest parts to work on, and it's easy enough to see why.

[MarkDiLillo]

I am really curious to know how much of the Perrin section RJ wrote from ToM. And likewise, what % of the ending key scenes from the last book he finished himself. Otherwise, some of the dialogue is annoying to me but certainly understandable. Overall, BS seems to be doing a fine job.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i'm finding myself having more and more empathy for what brandon's doing.

[MarkDiLillo]

i'm finding myself having more and more empathy for what brandon's doing.

 

Eh...I dont think he has it very tough at all. He has to fill in the gaps of an already completed story that he was a superfan of. And in being chosen to do this task, his career exploded from an unknown fantasy author to a superstar in the genre. I really don't think he has it that tough ;)

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

he has to deal with not only our expectations, but the burden of completing another man's legacy.

 

and he has to deal with the humans constantly. again, gah! blechh...

[Terez]

he has to deal with not only our expectations, but the burden of completing another man's legacy.

 

and he has to deal with the humans constantly. again, gah! blechh...

This. And he does it so well - any other author would have probably flipped the lid by now. Especially having to deal with people like me.

[Terez]

i'm finding myself having more and more empathy for what brandon's doing.

 

Eh...I dont think he has it very tough at all. He has to fill in the gaps of an already completed story that he was a superfan of. And in being chosen to do this task, his career exploded from an unknown fantasy author to a superstar in the genre. I really don't think he has it that tough ;)

The thing is, Brandon was more or less happy with being a relatively unknown fantasy author. He had modest ambitions. But now he's put himself in a position where he is judged against one of the greatest writers of our era, rather than just being judged just on his own work. Yeah, he got a career boost, but it has a potentially hefty price. Only time will tell how hefty. In either case, it was a great risk, and he's the one bearing the bulk of the inevitable criticism.

[MarkDiLillo]

i'm finding myself having more and more empathy for what brandon's doing.

 

Eh...I dont think he has it very tough at all. He has to fill in the gaps of an already completed story that he was a superfan of. And in being chosen to do this task, his career exploded from an unknown fantasy author to a superstar in the genre. I really don't think he has it that tough ;)

The thing is, Brandon was more or less happy with being a relatively unknown fantasy author. He had modest ambitions. But now he's put himself in a position where he is judged against one of the greatest writers of our era, rather than just being judged just on his own work. Yeah, he got a career boost, but it has a potentially hefty price. Only time will tell how hefty. In either case, it was a great risk, and he's the one bearing the bulk of the inevitable criticism.

 

Eh...he's got a lot of help between team Jordan from the sounds of it. I don't think theres that much weight on his back honestly considering all the help he has and the amount of the story and writing that's already been done. Either way, he's not doing a terrible job with it. I dont know that they could've picked a better author. I'm sure there are others out there with a writing style that is closer to RJ's, but if they weren't a die hard fan of the series then it's almost a given they would mess something up just from their lack of attention to detail.

[MauricXe]

I hear ya Cindy. I hope his feelings aren't hurt when he reads these message boards.

[Kal11]

i'm finding myself having more and more empathy for what brandon's doing.

 

Eh...I dont think he has it very tough at all. He has to fill in the gaps of an already completed story that he was a superfan of. And in being chosen to do this task, his career exploded from an unknown fantasy author to a superstar in the genre. I really don't think he has it that tough ;)

The thing is, Brandon was more or less happy with being a relatively unknown fantasy author. He had modest ambitions. But now he's put himself in a position where he is judged against one of the greatest writers of our era, rather than just being judged just on his own work. Yeah, he got a career boost, but it has a potentially hefty price. Only time will tell how hefty. In either case, it was a great risk, and he's the one bearing the bulk of the inevitable criticism.

 

Eh...he's got a lot of help between team Jordan from the sounds of it. I don't think theres that much weight on his back honestly considering all the help he has and the amount of the story and writing that's already been done. Either way, he's not doing a terrible job with it. I dont know that they could've picked a better author. I'm sure there are others out there with a writing style that is closer to RJ's, but if they weren't a die hard fan of the series then it's almost a given they would mess something up just from their lack of attention to detail.

 

 

You should check out his official blog, pretty interesting stuff there and I enjoy his style of blogging. The man has put in some serious hours, many days of 14+ hours writing while trying to balance WoT with his own numerous series. He does not have the freedom to just put his other writing obligations completely on hold. This project has been way more massive than he anticipated or was led to believe signing on. Even putting pressure and expectations from both fans and himself aside it is far from a stroll in the park for him.

[Terez]

Another thing to consider is that Team Jordan is accustomed to dealing with RJ, who not only came up with the series and wrote it but who was also a genius able to keep a massive amount of information in his brain. His notes are extensive, but far from thorough, and Maria and Alan have had to change roles from RJ's Helpers to Brandon's Keepers. They are getting the hang of it, but they're hardly doing everything for him. He can't start work on a plotline until he's immersed himself in that plotline no matter how many books it stretches over.

 

But aside from the writing, he has to deal with signing reports and things like JordanCon, where all of us expect him to be as forthcoming with the Q&A ad lib as RJ ever was. No simple task, considering that RJ was better at worldbuilding from the signing table than any other author I've ever heard of, and he has no Team Jordan to guide him most of the time. I have actually been pretty amazed that he has gotten so good at that, and I was amazed in the beginning that he was willing to step into that role. But in order to pull it off, he had to study up not only on the books - his WoT knowledge had gotten weak over the recent years when his career was on the rise - but also the interviews, which few people even among the fans have bothered to do. But because of those few of us who were hardcore enough to read all the interviews, he has to know those too. Not to mention, they really are helpful for giving him an impression of what RJ would want him to do.

[hazelkrs1]

I dunno, no offense intended Mark, but it seems you've come down with the punk rock fan gene. That's the gene that inherently makes you want to dismiss the newest album as not being as good as the first one, or think that BS is just meh compared to the awesomeness that is Robert Jordan. Of course he's not the same type of author that Jordan is, and I'm sure they have different writing styles. If you took the authors name out of the manuscripts, your average reader could read WOT and the mistborn series and recognize two separate authors easier than he/she could recognize the difference between coke and coke zero (that probably doesnt make any sense, just my attempt at humor ). That being said, I would agree with Terez that it's best not to assume we can tell who wrote which passage in the new novels. Although Sanderson has a different writing style, he's not trying to emulate Jordan's writing style in these books as much as put those finishing touches on Jordan's piece of art, as you so eloquently put. Because of this, his own writing style will not be that obvious. The story still might be expressed slightly differently I'll give you that, but that doesn't mean you can look at a sentence and say "Yeah, Brandon definiately wrote this one, Jordan did it better". Well, you still could say that, but it would be because you're looking for the difference between the two authors.

 

Nothing wrong with that either, if you're looking for the challenge. I would say that it's probably not right though, to belittle other people if they do not see as stark a difference as you do. First of all, you might be wrong, like with the ToG part, but not everyone else is reading these last couple of books and trying to dissect them to figure out what percentage was written by whom. I'm not at least. I'm just thankful that we are getting a chance to read the end of this fantastic series, and I'm even more thankful that we have been blessed with an outstanding author to fill the giant shoes RJ left behind (and it is a tough task considering the expectations many fans would be piling on top of him).

 

I know of another fantasy series, my favorite epic fantasy series of all time, as a matter of fact, which wasn't able to be completed by the author before he died: The Chronicles of Amber. The first 5 were completely stunning in their brilliance, the second 5 were not quite as good but still immensely entertaining, however the two sets of 5 tied into a story that did not quite feel finished. After his death, many years later a man by the name of John Betancourt picked the series back up, but unfortunately instead of finishing the original series like so many fans wanted, he wrote a prequel series. His books were very entertaining.... but they could not truly compare to the original Amber novels. Honestly his writing style mimicked Zelazny's a good bit, but his story just didn't have the same scope, the same feel.

 

This time around I think the transition hasd been somewhat seamless, and the story and scope was already there, so I believe Sanderson and team Jordan will have given us a gift that many might not truly appreciate until long after.

[csarmi]

Lots of words

Fantastic post Emilia. Couldn't agree more. Great series, but a lot of people take it way too seriously and seem to honestly think it's a true classic or something. I love the Wheel Of Time and it has some great things going for it, but it also has it's many flaws and I think it is good that I can see both the good and bad points of the series. It used to be my favourite fantasy series, but then instead of re-reading it for the fifth time, I read Game Of Thrones instead...what do you know, whole new series that I love (and now I think ASOIAF is much better than WOT). From there, I branch out even more, Prince Of Nothing, Name Of The Wind...and find so many new works that I love and enjoy. WOT still holds a special place in my heart, but reading other series' was amazingly good for me and my appreciation of the genre.

 

ASOIAF is a piece of crap (yea I did read it). Don't even mention it on the same page with WoT please.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

. . .any other author would have probably flipped the lid by now. Especially having to deal with people like me.

 

i think you've been a great resource to him, actually. and to us.

[Elan Tedronai]

series was flawed from the beginning. should have started with AOL first. may be then he wouldnt need all the filler from books 7-10 to keep the money rolling in from TOR and also spare us all that baloney in these books

 

Couldn't disagree more. The AoL works best with a bit of mystery and brief glimpses. Plus, it's a whole different set of protagonists. Would you care as much about our characters if we started the series with a different cast? If we hadn't seen them grow from the beginning? If we weren't discovering the wonders of the One Power along with the characters? If all those things had already been shown with the AoL we would view the current age the same way the Forsaken do (as primatives) and we wouldn't care as much about them.

 

An AoL series would be an interesting read but it would have to be a separate series. Mixing it with the current story wouldn't work well. Plus I'm not sure how drastically expanding the AoL from the tidbits that we get now would actually make the series shorter.

 

 

this whole mystery and few glimpses is just overrated. isnt new spring one the best books in the series? if jordan actually started the series from AOL we would have an epic series. Just imagine at the end when we all finished the book and thought yes, shaitan as been sealed up by lews therin and co only to find the terrible cost. It would have made a huge dramatic ending.

 

 

instead we start from the middle. and when we reached book 7, the train has spectacularly crashed in to realms of mediocrity, filler and general wastage of time. the series timeline was flawed. 14 books to finish one single stroy is stretching it. jordan and harriet wanted money in the end and just extended the series. i don't blame them for wanting more money but they way they went about it just a left bad taste in the mouth.

 

 

i can't wait for AMOL to come about so that we can finally put a rest to this particular story line.

[MarkDiLillo]

I dunno, no offense intended Mark, but it seems you've come down with the punk rock fan gene. That's the gene that inherently makes you want to dismiss the newest album as not being as good as the first one, or think that BS is just meh compared to the awesomeness that is Robert Jordan. Of course he's not the same type of author that Jordan is, and I'm sure they have different writing styles. If you took the authors name out of the manuscripts, your average reader could read WOT and the mistborn series and recognize two separate authors easier than he/she could recognize the difference between coke and coke zero (that probably doesnt make any sense, just my attempt at humor ). That being said, I would agree with Terez that it's best not to assume we can tell who wrote which passage in the new novels. Although Sanderson has a different writing style, he's not trying to emulate Jordan's writing style in these books as much as put those finishing touches on Jordan's piece of art, as you so eloquently put. Because of this, his own writing style will not be that obvious. The story still might be expressed slightly differently I'll give you that, but that doesn't mean you can look at a sentence and say "Yeah, Brandon definiately wrote this one, Jordan did it better". Well, you still could say that, but it would be because you're looking for the difference between the two authors.

 

Nothing wrong with that either, if you're looking for the challenge. I would say that it's probably not right though, to belittle other people if they do not see as stark a difference as you do. First of all, you might be wrong, like with the ToG part, but not everyone else is reading these last couple of books and trying to dissect them to figure out what percentage was written by whom. I'm not at least. I'm just thankful that we are getting a chance to read the end of this fantastic series, and I'm even more thankful that we have been blessed with an outstanding author to fill the giant shoes RJ left behind (and it is a tough task considering the expectations many fans would be piling on top of him).

 

I know of another fantasy series, my favorite epic fantasy series of all time, as a matter of fact, which wasn't able to be completed by the author before he died: The Chronicles of Amber. The first 5 were completely stunning in their brilliance, the second 5 were not quite as good but still immensely entertaining, however the two sets of 5 tied into a story that did not quite feel finished. After his death, many years later a man by the name of John Betancourt picked the series back up, but unfortunately instead of finishing the original series like so many fans wanted, he wrote a prequel series. His books were very entertaining.... but they could not truly compare to the original Amber novels. Honestly his writing style mimicked Zelazny's a good bit, but his story just didn't have the same scope, the same feel.

 

This time around I think the transition hasd been somewhat seamless, and the story and scope was already there, so I believe Sanderson and team Jordan will have given us a gift that many might not truly appreciate until long after.

 

Where did I belittle anyone? All I said was that it is rather obvious in some areas where a new writer is taking over. I repeatedly said that Sanderson is doing a fine job. The entire point of me bringing up where it's obvious a new writer took over has already been lost and the person I posed the question to never responded anyways.

[hjustinpace]

If RJ had taken out all the tea pouring I think it could have been a trilogy.

 

The British Empire was built on little cups of tea.

[hjustinpace]

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.

 

It didn't stop Ulysses S. Grant.

[hjustinpace]

If Jordan had finished WoT, what would he have done then? Started the Eastern fantasy epic he spoke of frequently. Written the outrigger novels. Those would have been bestsellers. Instead, he was putting out WoT novels at a slower pace. The "grubbing for money" theory doesn't even begin to pass the smell test. Think, then post, people.

[Vambram]

series was flawed from the beginning. should have started with AOL first. may be then he wouldnt need all the filler from books 7-10 to keep the money rolling in from TOR and also spare us all that baloney in these books

 

Couldn't disagree more. The AoL works best with a bit of mystery and brief glimpses. Plus, it's a whole different set of protagonists. Would you care as much about our characters if we started the series with a different cast? If we hadn't seen them grow from the beginning? If we weren't discovering the wonders of the One Power along with the characters? If all those things had already been shown with the AoL we would view the current age the same way the Forsaken do (as primatives) and we wouldn't care as much about them.

 

An AoL series would be an interesting read but it would have to be a separate series. Mixing it with the current story wouldn't work well. Plus I'm not sure how drastically expanding the AoL from the tidbits that we get now would actually make the series shorter.

 

 

this whole mystery and few glimpses is just overrated. isnt new spring one the best books in the series? if jordan actually started the series from AOL we would have an epic series. Just imagine at the end when we all finished the book and thought yes, shaitan as been sealed up by lews therin and co only to find the terrible cost. It would have made a huge dramatic ending.

 

 

instead we start from the middle. and when we reached book 7, the train has spectacularly crashed in to realms of mediocrity, filler and general wastage of time. the series timeline was flawed. 14 books to finish one single stroy is stretching it. jordan and harriet wanted money in the end and just extended the series. i don't blame them for wanting more money but they way they went about it just a left bad taste in the mouth.

 

 

i can't wait for AMOL to come about so that we can finally put a rest to this particular story line.

 

Clearly, the WOT is more than one single story. There are many stories, and scores of different plot lines in the Wheel of Time. That is one of the reasons that the WOT is my most favorite series of books for all time.

[Agitel]

The dragging on of the series by Jordan strikes me far more as unchecked self-indulgence than money-grubbing. With the success of the Wheel of Time he'd have had plenty of fans picking up the outriggers and the next series he had planned on writing.

[hazelkrs1]

name='Mark D'

 

Where did I belittle anyone? All I said was that it is rather obvious in some areas where a new writer is taking over. I repeatedly said that Sanderson is doing a fine job. The entire point of me bringing up where it's obvious a new writer took over has already been lost and the person I posed the question to never responded anyways.

 

 

 

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.

 

Def a slight patronizing tone there. Not trying to ruffle your feathers, but you do make it out to be obvious to anyone who reads it who wrote what when it can't really be said that it is obvious. And while you do say Sanderson has done a fine job, you've alternatively said that he didn't have a tough job, when it's fairly evident that many people (yourself included, perhaps) were expecting a disappointment. And once again, even though the two writers have different writing styles, I don't feel BS was trying to put his own stamp on the material as much as he was trying to complement the story and words that were already there. Plus Rand is obviously gone through a major metamorphosis, and I'm sure the overall tone and feel of the last few novels was going to be a little different whomever had written it.

[Suttree]

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.

 

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

 

Really? Thanks for proving my point...

[Bluedust9]

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.

 

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

 

Really? Thanks for proving my point...

 

Wow that's so hilarious since Brandon said the whole ToG part was written by RJ. It shows how stupid people are, man I love it. Freaking idiots.

[hazelkrs1]

Hey no need to get derrogatory here, he might have been a little too bold in believing something but that doesn't mean he's an idiot. People just get carried away when it comes to evaluating stuff like this I think, I really feel the important thing is to try and enjoy the last books and not even think about it being different authors. After aMoL, if the end of the series pales next to the first 11 then we can start to formulate judgements. Until then, I think were gettin too hasty trying to criticize Sanderson. Once again, be thankful this series is getting finished at all, and by someone as talented as Brandon Sanderson. Think of the many fans of the Canterbury Tales over the years in agony for lack of completion.