Book proposal
May. 2nd, 2007 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdWell, this is the book proposal for the Eragon critique. I decided to combine both Eldest and Eragon into one book, as it seemed to make the most sense. After this is a detailed/annotated table of contents and sample chapters. I may include a couple of the essays that I wrote based on Eragon as well. I'm not sure yet. I know I'd have to keep out the ones that were more Paolini bashing than anything else, but I think some of the others might be useful. Or perhaps they could be their own book, once I get enough of them.
Inherited Journey: An analytical look at Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Trilogy.
Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon starting at age fifteen and got it published at age nineteen though his family's vanity press. From there it was picked up by Knof publishers and he has been advertised as a prodigy. Paolini has had very high expectations of his trilogy, saying that, "Eragon is an archetypal hero story, filled with exciting action, dangerous villains, and fantastic locations. There are dragons and elves, sword fights and unexpected revelations, and of course, a beautiful maiden who's more than capable of taking care of herself." Since then he has been hailed either as a wunderkind or a hack plagiarist depending on who was talking. The sequel to Eragon was even named the worst book of 2005 by Entertainment Magazine. Curious as to which of these declarations were correct, I decided to borrow a copy of Eragon from the library and take a look at it.
As I did so, I decided to analyze the story chapter by chapter, putting up my discoveries up on my LiveJournal. I discovered through reading the book that many beginning mistakes were made in the writing of the book, as well as an interesting interpretation of the hero's journey. Going through the book allowed me to explore what a good book needs and how to write a believable fantasy world, in a sort of learning from what not to do example sort of way. I was able to explore the dangers of too much purple prose, the abuse of the thesaurus, the need to have a coherent system of magic, and the problems of stereotypes. I stayed away from bashing the author and instead focus on the text as a piece of stand alone work, being compared to other fantasy works of its type.
The conclusions that came out of this were very interesting. Paolini has managed to get the basic idea of what a hero's story should be, but constantly fails in following through with the themes, being more interested in the building up of his hero as the ultimate fantasy hero, often times throwing aside plausibility to do so.
Another interesting thing that came out of this was that many of the readers of the critiques constantly commented on how I was giving them ideas and lessons on how to write their own stories. A sort of what to do list when writing a fantasy novel by looking at what not to do. They found the insights highly useful and intelligent. And at their encouragement I went forth and did the same thing to Eragon's sequel, Eldest. As book three has not yet been published, I would add a chapter on my theories as to how book three will turn out, based on what has happened before and interviews with Paolini.
One of the things that I have noticed about fantasy books is that there is a dearth of books that look at them as if they were literature. Instead they look at the fantastical elements, avoiding such things as homosexual undertones and the protagonist as hero, things that are often looked at in classical literature. Fantasy books are often just as developed and interesting as classical literature but are put to the wayside as genre fiction. Being a fantasy fan and an English Literature major, I'd like to rectify this in some small way.
Inherited Journey: An analytical look at Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Trilogy.
Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon starting at age fifteen and got it published at age nineteen though his family's vanity press. From there it was picked up by Knof publishers and he has been advertised as a prodigy. Paolini has had very high expectations of his trilogy, saying that, "Eragon is an archetypal hero story, filled with exciting action, dangerous villains, and fantastic locations. There are dragons and elves, sword fights and unexpected revelations, and of course, a beautiful maiden who's more than capable of taking care of herself." Since then he has been hailed either as a wunderkind or a hack plagiarist depending on who was talking. The sequel to Eragon was even named the worst book of 2005 by Entertainment Magazine. Curious as to which of these declarations were correct, I decided to borrow a copy of Eragon from the library and take a look at it.
As I did so, I decided to analyze the story chapter by chapter, putting up my discoveries up on my LiveJournal. I discovered through reading the book that many beginning mistakes were made in the writing of the book, as well as an interesting interpretation of the hero's journey. Going through the book allowed me to explore what a good book needs and how to write a believable fantasy world, in a sort of learning from what not to do example sort of way. I was able to explore the dangers of too much purple prose, the abuse of the thesaurus, the need to have a coherent system of magic, and the problems of stereotypes. I stayed away from bashing the author and instead focus on the text as a piece of stand alone work, being compared to other fantasy works of its type.
The conclusions that came out of this were very interesting. Paolini has managed to get the basic idea of what a hero's story should be, but constantly fails in following through with the themes, being more interested in the building up of his hero as the ultimate fantasy hero, often times throwing aside plausibility to do so.
Another interesting thing that came out of this was that many of the readers of the critiques constantly commented on how I was giving them ideas and lessons on how to write their own stories. A sort of what to do list when writing a fantasy novel by looking at what not to do. They found the insights highly useful and intelligent. And at their encouragement I went forth and did the same thing to Eragon's sequel, Eldest. As book three has not yet been published, I would add a chapter on my theories as to how book three will turn out, based on what has happened before and interviews with Paolini.
One of the things that I have noticed about fantasy books is that there is a dearth of books that look at them as if they were literature. Instead they look at the fantastical elements, avoiding such things as homosexual undertones and the protagonist as hero, things that are often looked at in classical literature. Fantasy books are often just as developed and interesting as classical literature but are put to the wayside as genre fiction. Being a fantasy fan and an English Literature major, I'd like to rectify this in some small way.
