I know the exact date AMOL 1st draft will be finished!

[RAbbott85]

I disagree...Brandon's books IMO has been far more enjoyable than the last 4 WOT books by Jordan. Which to put it mildly sucked. Not sure what polish everyone is talking about, but I found the last 2 books fine except for some minor typos, I can live with that.

 

Surely, you can't be serious. I've gotten to a point where I cannot re-read/listen to the latest two installments because it just makes me frustrated. The voices of these characters, that many of us know intimately, was completely lost in these last two installments. It seems like every character that had been carefully scuplted by a master wordsmith was pushed off the table and drawn in crayon. They lost the third dimension, turning them into predictable characters-in-a-box (some assembly required). After reading Elantris then the Mistborn books, it is obvious that BS needs a lot of growth to create 'real' characters. Am I the only person that cringed during Egwene's speech toward the end of TGS to the Aes Sedai "... It will be legendary!" Really? Come on.

 

I think too many people have this mentality of, "I just want to get to the end." Why? This story is so magnificent - the world, the characters, the plot - why do people want to rush toward the end? I want to lay back and enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts, knowing, unfortunately, that it can't last forever. I don't want the plot to be rushed, the characters to begin changing without reason, and the culture of the environment to be discarded. I cherish this series, and it saddens me to see the work of a master completed by an apprentice. Like van Gogh passing off a half-completed Starry Night to a 7 year old with a box of crayons.

[David Selig]

It may be a surprise to you, but not all of us think Jordan was that great of a writer. Especially in the last few volumes. I agree that Jordan at his best was a better writer than Brandon Sanderson, but the gap is nowhere near big enough to justify "van Gogh passing off a half-completed Starry Night to a 7 year old with a box of crayons " sort of comparisons.

[Suttree]

It may be a surprise to you, but not all of us think Jordan was that great of a writer. Especially in the last few volumes. I agree that Jordan at his best was a better writer than Brandon Sanderson, but the gap is nowhere near big enough to justify "van Gogh passing off a half-completed Starry Night to a 7 year old with a box of crayons " sort of comparisons.

 

Agree on RJ when compared to literary works outside the fantasy genre. As for RJ>BS while the gap isn't that large, it is fairly significant. Although I do think a lot of that can be chalked up to how rushed TGS and ToM were.

 

Also not sure why you would group KoD into his not so good volumes?

 

Edit: Removed response to a diff poster in it's entirety.

[duncanwright]

I would like to open with the statement that I am am a big BS fan so consider this bias as you read below. Also, it has been a few months since I read the last two books. Lastly, I have no experience of the literary process other than the little I have read on it.

 

Despite some of the problems that some of DM's critics have posted about here on these forums, it appears from my reading of the various threads in these forums that TGS and ToM were both very well received, and popular with DM's fandom as being 2 of the better books of the WOT series.

 

 

The issue with this is that the response is largely based on plot gratification. The things that happen in tGS and TofM are amazing. How they happen, and how that is dipicted is not--it's blunt, and ugly to read... which is fine to a degree, as Enteri shows--and for that matter I remember talking glowingly of TofM, sustained by the thrill of the plot revelations and developments... however, as time passes, the more that no longer holds true. Now knowing what happens, returning to them, I find them difficult to read. Lacking the polish Jordan gave his works, they loose the vitality which made them so great, and enables people to imerse themselves--and it is this quality which made his books so re-readable.

 

I'd shrug off all of this, and just be happy to know the conclusion at all, and thankful beyond words to Mr. Sanderson--except that I have seen him write polished material. He is capable of it. He just didn't--which, again, as I have said before is likely a response to the demand for speedy release, and I certainly don't envy Mr. Sanderson that pressure--but for all that it was still something I believe he accepted responsibility for when he accepted the role.

 

That may be harsh of me. Likely it is. But even so...

I agree with you, it was a little harsh ...

 

I believe PiotrekS made a reasonable statement about the situation:

 

I think that Brandon simply is not in the position to prolong the writing the way RJ could, so I don't expect him to be making the same number of drafts and writing a book for e.g. three years. He is contractually bound to produce a book within certain deadlines (I assume). He also is not able to commit as much of his time because, even though finishing WOT is a great honour, he can't totally abandon his own books for too long and therefore probably would not like to spend ten or more years on writing exclusively three last books in WOT, which is something RJ could have done.

 

Nevertheless, even taking the above into account, the quality of the writing can and should be better IMHO.

 

I found the small inconsistencies the most jarring in TGS and TofM (the 'mat ran to mat' type errors someone mentioned or when there was a clear mistake like Moraines channeling). I think that much of these mistakes were due to a rushed production time as Luckers mentioned:

 

Things like using more modern sounding language, using tempest excessively, using bloody ashes which has never been done before, etc. These types of things need to be caught by the editor. Making suggestions about not being so blunt with reveals (although this one doesn't really bother me personally). Suggesting that characters had previously not explained so much of things on page in their "thoughts". Yes, the author has ultimate responsibility. But editors aren't and shouldn't be just proofreaders. Let's not pretend that Team Jordan is blameless in some of these problems.

 

I don't think anyone is 'pretending that'--in fact Maria Simons and I have touched upon this in email, and she has stated as much, with the distinct undertone of frustration and embarressment. The editing team needs more time to do their jobs, and have not been given that time due to the demand for publication.

 

That being said, editors ARE proofreaders. Very capable, highly professional proofreaders... but that is the scope of their job. They are supposed to crosscheck the final draft of a book for mistakes. Lets not beat around the bush, they failed with TofM. That being said they were put in an impossible position. They had a stupidly small time to do their work. And they had been presented with a product that wasn't ready for publication by the author.

 

Both issues need to be addressed.

[sorry for probably messing up the quoting above, it was in an attempt to keep my post somewhat concise, though I know I have failed.]

 

Therefore the mistakes (I believe) most affected the feel of quality of the book (what I think of as the polish) were the responsibility of BS AND the editors - somewhat contrary to the tone of your first (harsh) post Luckers.

 

I may be wrong, but I think most of the feeling of writing quality disappointment is due to the change of feel for many of the characters. Though it may get me skinned, I liked some of the changes (Mat for example), but not all, and I agree that this makes the books feel different in a bad way. I also feel however that this is what should be expected with a change of writer. I would guess that for the writing to 'flow' for BS, as would be necessary to meet deadlines, it would require writing in a BS fashion and then require rereading to tweak the characters closer to RJs style. This would inevitably result in books with a different character and situation feel that would be extremely difficult (read impossible) to rectify.

 

The remaining writing quality I judge to be the ability for the book to sustain my interest and for me to be able to picture exactly what is going on, imagine the scene etc.

I think was difficult to compare because the books were so differently paced. The two BS books had a very fast pace of necessity and RJ's previous few were much slower paced as they were build up. TGS and TofM sustained my interest because I was hungry for the next revelation whereas WH, Cot and KoD struggled in this regard, this is NOT a reflection of the quality but simply a statement on the pace. Ignoring the change of characters and situations due to the writer change, as far as I recall I can imagine the scenes in all of these books quite well, hence I feel the writing quality was (at the very least) sufficient in all cases. I think perhaps people expected better character and 'setting' matching than was feasible with such a big production with a tight timeline.

 

This topic does make me want to reread TGS and TofM to check that what I am writing is still what I believe, I hope it is!

 

Please forgive the long post, it's been a while.

[yoniy0]

I completely agree that this book requires more revisions than were done for the last two. As mentioned above, it's not just about typos, and not even continuity problems. The writing is sometimes oversimplified and I get the feeling BS wasn't thinking of the entire plot when he wrote some scenes, but rather what he needed then and there.

 

Just one example, present in my mind because of the threads I've read today, is that of Perrin and Egwene's meeting in ToM. Ideally, Brandon shouldn't need to clarify that we shouldn't take that scene to mean that Perrin kicks Egwene's TAR-skills. His need to buff up Perrin's 'street-cred' shouldn't come at the expense of what we already know of the characters.

Similarly, as I've seen Luckers mention elsewhere, several characters seem to act in an overly childish manner, or one unfitting of their background and personality. The whole thing makes me think of Vin and Elend in HoA, where every chapter one or the other would be better at Allomancy, depending on what the plot required just then (yes, I know, Mistborn is on my mind because I'm doing a reread toward the release of M:AoL).

 

I want to clarify something. I do enjoy Brandon's work, and I am very appreciative of the fact that he's doing WoT. I think he does many things well (to me, the characters' motivations seem largely intact, which is a major plus). That doesn't mean that he's perfect, or even doing all I might expect of him, though.

 

except that I have seen [bS - yoniy0] write polished material. He is capable of it.

Surely you cannot mean Mistborn (as we've already established). Do you mean SA-I, then? I did find the writing more evolved, though I haven't done a reread yet.

 

@lordofsoup, I'm not sure an editor with dysgraphia is a good idea

And @RAbbott85, at least she didn't say "wait for it".

[Rcurran]

It's my opinion that RJ made it easy on Harriet and in actual fact she is not a brilliant editor. Tempest being over used, easy to fix that, a good editor would have spotted it, made a suggestion and got it fixed. I think she needs to do the job for the sake of continuity. In one read I could have spotted 90% of errors mentioned here and I'm no pro. Either the volume of mistakes was so high before or Harriet is not that good. unless I'm missing something.

[yoniy0]

Wasn't she also Card's editor? There's nothing wrong with Ender's Game, that I can see.

[Rcurran]

Well then I think it was just a mixture of all the different pressures that are on the whole team and a desire to meet the publication date they'd set. And editing has not been only down to Harriet afterall as Brandon has had to edit and write concurrently given that the story was already partly written, partly in notes and partly in a voiced story that RJ spoke to Harriet. Litterary surgery from the outset, surgery leaves scars.

[Orderofolde]

I think a lot of frustration of characters is getting translated into frustration with the writer. Rand sucked, he was being wool-headed, half mad, as he was supposed to. Now he's zen-Rand and there are other people not happy. But we all read it because there are more things in the books we like than dislike or else you would just be like..."meh, not for me" and wouldn't be a lurker/poster. Too many people pointing and blaming and criticizing. The voice will be different, they hired Brandon and not a Ghost Writer to finish. A FAN is getting to tell the story left to him. It is no different than RJ whispering in BS's ear, and him finishing the telling, a student becoming the master for lack of an appropriate eloquent comparison. If every part of the story pleased every person, it wouldn't be worth it.

[Rcurran]

Well put and I think you're right and a lot of people think like that. I have to say I honestly don't though it's just the blaming BS for editor's mistakes that get my goat. Also the team of proof readers don't seem to notice any typos...

[efmrem2005]

RJ choose BS, he felt he had the ability to finish his work he poured so much of himself into. RJ wasn't rushed to the choice either. I think BS is doing a great job. Heck, I know I couldn't do it. So I cut him some slack.

[Suttree]

RJ choose BS, he felt he had the ability to finish his work he poured so much of himself into. RJ wasn't rushed to the choice either. I think BS is doing a great job. Heck, I know I couldn't do it. So I cut him some slack.

 

RJ had nothing to with the decision, Harriet was the one that chose Brandon after he passed.

[efmrem2005]

RJ choose BS, he felt he had the ability to finish his work he poured so much of himself into. RJ wasn't rushed to the choice either. I think BS is doing a great job. Heck, I know I couldn't do it. So I cut him some slack.

Well shut my mouth :0

I always heard RJ choose him. Even more glad I joined this site lol

RJ had nothing to with the decision, Harriet was the one that chose Brandon after he passed.

[efmrem2005]

*chose

 

Sigh

[ajslide2929]

As.much as I'm dying to read the next book id rather wait the half year or more for a better book ect and not have sanderson burn himself out. In all honesty he's done an amazing job so far and I think the last book so be better then all the rest and make you just go blood and bloody ashes but that was good

[Suttree]

*chose

 

Sigh

 

All good, that's why you're on DM now right!

[efmrem2005]

Exactly!

[Suttree]

For those who said they didn't get what "polish" people were talking about, or that despite the criticisms of some on DM, TGS and ToM were two of the best books in the series. We have this from BS assistant.

 

That was the case with THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, but it's not how they're doing A MEMORY OF LIGHT. Instead, Brandon is writing a complete draft and then doing a revision or two before sending a polished draft to Team Jordan on December 31st (and that will be the first draft they see). This is more like Robert Jordan's process; he never showed anything to Harriet until it was finished. This does mean editing and revision will take longer, but rushing TOWERS caused a ton of headaches and stress, and Team Jordan and Brandon all want to avoid that this time. They have to get things RIGHT in this final book.

[Bob T Dwarf]

For those who said they didn't get what "polish" people were talking about, or that despite the criticisms of some on DM, TGS and ToM were two of the best books in the series. We have this from BS assistant.

 

That was the case with THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, but it's not how they're doing A MEMORY OF LIGHT. Instead, Brandon is writing a complete draft and then doing a revision or two before sending a polished draft to Team Jordan on December 31st (and that will be the first draft they see). This is more like Robert Jordan's process; he never showed anything to Harriet until it was finished. This does mean editing and revision will take longer, but rushing TOWERS caused a ton of headaches and stress, and Team Jordan and Brandon all want to avoid that this time. They have to get things RIGHT in this final book.

 

Resign yourself to this right here, right now.

 

THERE WILL BE ERRORS. Many of them glaring. Every time a person touches any project, errors are introduced. The more people who touch the manuscript the more errors there will be. Too many cooks always spoil the broth, so the best we can hope for is that however many cooks are involved in this particular broth, it's not TOO MANY.

[Suttree]

For those who said they didn't get what "polish" people were talking about, or that despite the criticisms of some on DM, TGS and ToM were two of the best books in the series. We have this from BS assistant.

 

That was the case with THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, but it's not how they're doing A MEMORY OF LIGHT. Instead, Brandon is writing a complete draft and then doing a revision or two before sending a polished draft to Team Jordan on December 31st (and that will be the first draft they see). This is more like Robert Jordan's process; he never showed anything to Harriet until it was finished. This does mean editing and revision will take longer, but rushing TOWERS caused a ton of headaches and stress, and Team Jordan and Brandon all want to avoid that this time. They have to get things RIGHT in this final book.

 

Resign yourself to this right here, right now.

 

THERE WILL BE ERRORS. Many of them glaring. Every time a person touches any project, errors are introduced. The more people who touch the manuscript the more errors there will be. Too many cooks always spoil the broth, so the best we can hope for is that however many cooks are involved in this particular broth, it's not TOO MANY.

 

Agreed.

 

I along with many others however think TGS and ToM suffered greatly from the rush job in both writing and editing. Not enough revisions were done by BS and the team didn't spend nearly enough time checking for errors. The fact that they are admitting this, changing the process and taking more time is a step in the right direction. They owe it to RJ to make this the best possible book it can be despite the circumstances.

[Gathering Storman Norman]

*chose

 

Sigh

?

[Bob T Dwarf]

For those who said they didn't get what "polish" people were talking about, or that despite the criticisms of some on DM, TGS and ToM were two of the best books in the series. We have this from BS assistant.

 

That was the case with THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, but it's not how they're doing A MEMORY OF LIGHT. Instead, Brandon is writing a complete draft and then doing a revision or two before sending a polished draft to Team Jordan on December 31st (and that will be the first draft they see). This is more like Robert Jordan's process; he never showed anything to Harriet until it was finished. This does mean editing and revision will take longer, but rushing TOWERS caused a ton of headaches and stress, and Team Jordan and Brandon all want to avoid that this time. They have to get things RIGHT in this final book.

 

Resign yourself to this right here, right now.

 

THERE WILL BE ERRORS. Many of them glaring. Every time a person touches any project, errors are introduced. The more people who touch the manuscript the more errors there will be. Too many cooks always spoil the broth, so the best we can hope for is that however many cooks are involved in this particular broth, it's not TOO MANY.

 

Agreed.

 

I along with many others however think TGS and ToM suffered greatly from the rush job in both writing and editing. Not enough revisions were done by BS and the team didn't spend nearly enough time checking for errors. The fact that they are admitting this, changing the process and taking more time is a step in the right direction. They owe it to RJ to make this the best possible book it can be despite the circumstances.

 

Let me start by saying that I do NOT appreciate many of the ways in which TOR chooses to conduct its business. TOR says nice things but, as always, the proof is in the pudding, ( today DOES seem to be my day for tired aphorisms. ) and their business practice is shoddy.

 

However, given the obsessive length both of time and verbiage that had already gone into this series, when James Rigney died, TOR had to get subsequent books on the shelves as close to yesterday as humanly possible or lose the audience for the series completely.

 

Thankfully nothing in either The Gathering Storm or Towers of Midnight was so egregiously wrong that they shot themselves in the foot, and the series' audience still remains.

 

Whether changing the methodology of the editing process results in a superior product this time still remains to be seen. Let's hope it does.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

definitely want this last one to be as good as possible, no matter how long it takes, or whether st peter has to order it for me from amazon.

 

cindy, you are my flaming' hero.

 

aw, wish i hadn't stopped watching this topic when i did.

 

[StefanR]

just asked brandon today and he said that harriet wanted more time for editing, and a memory of light would most likely come out october 2012

[Orderofolde]

The problem was all the editing on the fly...submitting a few chapters, everyone using different software, everyone passing the notes on to everyone else, even losing revisions and notes. It was a jumble. This time they get a full working draft and not a chapter or three to look through. This time they are all using the same word processing program, all looking it over at once and passing on their thoughts and ideas more cohesively. Then Brandon does the final draft, another round of editing, then ARC's come out for a final check with a select group of fans/professionals for any last continuity, spelling, grammar mistakes, and then shazam! Hardcover 1st editions. A long and lengthy process balanced by a writer, and lots of other behind the scene workings. TOR could get this thing out in 4 months if they wanted, but why push it when a later release will correspond with the possible movie venture starting up with filming at that time if it isn't dead. Not to mention being very polished as an homage to RJ, who deserves nothing less!

 

Always have to remember to look at the business angle, and business=profit and the good old dollar. I know, it sucks, but so close to the holidays for a release, if little Johnny can't afford it, grandparents or parents can get it for them as a gift. And little Johnny will be happy, and we'll be ecstatic because then we can read it!

 

I'm wondering how many people will buy the book and look at it day after day, resisting the temptation to read it for just another day,then some years down the road realize that they've still not read it.