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I got about twenty or so pages into Christopher Paolini's Eragon and I had to put it down. Now, don't get me wrong, I thought the premise was good, but the style was just irritating me too much to want to continue.
I have to admit it's for two reasons, one of style and one for selfish reasons. First it annoyed me because, yes, I know it was written when he was what--fifteen or sixteen?--and yes, I know it's basically a kid's book, but it still bothered me that it read like a writer who really hadn't learned his chops yet. How do I know this? Because the style of writing is very much what my style sounded like when I wrote at that age. Very much along the lines of:
Character did this. He went there. He looked like this. He was wearing that. He thought this.
Next paragraph: Character thought this. He said something to someone.
Next paragraph...and so on.
Just very sparse, three-sentence paragraphs and a lot of boring noun-verb sentences. I really wish I could have gotten into it more, but it was just too damn frustrating to read.
Which brings me to the selfish reason: Hell, I wrote and the finished version of the IWN at that age back in 1987. Had I but known Eragon would get past the editors, that damn novel would have been finished and out of my head YEARS ago. ;)
I have to admit it's for two reasons, one of style and one for selfish reasons. First it annoyed me because, yes, I know it was written when he was what--fifteen or sixteen?--and yes, I know it's basically a kid's book, but it still bothered me that it read like a writer who really hadn't learned his chops yet. How do I know this? Because the style of writing is very much what my style sounded like when I wrote at that age. Very much along the lines of:
Character did this. He went there. He looked like this. He was wearing that. He thought this.
Next paragraph: Character thought this. He said something to someone.
Next paragraph...and so on.
Just very sparse, three-sentence paragraphs and a lot of boring noun-verb sentences. I really wish I could have gotten into it more, but it was just too damn frustrating to read.
Which brings me to the selfish reason: Hell, I wrote and the finished version of the IWN at that age back in 1987. Had I but known Eragon would get past the editors, that damn novel would have been finished and out of my head YEARS ago. ;)
