Paolini mocking. Because I can.
Nov. 1st, 2007 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdSo, I found a transcript (Thanks to someone on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
antishurtugal ) of Paolini talking about his fourth book and I thought I'd go over it, mostly for my own amusement's sake. So, thoughts?
Hi. I’m Christopher Paolini, and we’re here in my home in Montana. My desk where I wrote most of Eragon, most of Eldest, and now most of the third book in the Inheritance series.
Hi Chris! I'm Kippur. I'm here to take a look at what you've said to point out how silly you are.
*scene cut* 8/
As many of you know, I started writing the Inheritance series when I was fifteen, and at the time I plotted out the entire trilogy before I actually began Eragon. Now, Eragon I plotted out in fairly great detail, but the rest of the series, although I had the major events in place, I -- I left a little vague, because to be honest with you, I never actually thought I was going to end up writing the rest of the series. I didn’t even know if I could write a single book at the time. As I’ve progressed to the series, I’ve expanded my outlines and the story has developed with each book and sometimes gone in a few directions I hadn’t foreseen previously, and other times has followed my original outline.
This is fairly standard. Good for you allowing your story to actually evolve. *gives candy* Admittedly I've never actually plotted out any of my novel series except rather vaguely, but I don't do very good without lines. I just let the story go where it will and then stare at it going WTF? However, that way isn't the best way for everyone and everyone has their own way of creating a story.
Now when I returned from book tour from Eldest, I started working on the third book right away, and the first thing I did was to take my old outline that I’d worked up years ago, and I expanded and updated it for the third book. And that ended up being about 14 pages long. So it was a big outline, and I remember when I looked at it, thinking, “Boy, there’s -- there’s a lot of story here, this is going to be a big book.
Outline length =/= book length. It's all a matter of how much detail you put into it. I consider the short story I wrote, the first version of "Love Lust and the Apocalypse", to be my outline for the novel. It was twenty four pages long. The actual book is about four hundred. Pretty standard book length, if a bit inanely long for a thesis. Editing was a bitch. But editing is always a bitch. You're showing your lack of understanding in the writing processes here, Chris.
*cut* *paste*
It really struck home for me a few chapters into Book 3 when Eragon…uh…Eragon and Roran have attacked Helgrind where the Ra’zac are. And…during that sequence of events, Eragon encounters...a moral quandary.
*scene cut* \o/
And in order to resolve it in a way that felt consistent with Eragon’s character, ended up adding about 100 pages to the third book.
Edit. Edit. Edit. Cut. Cut. Cut. Learn to be more precise. And just because you really love something, doesn't mean that it has to be there. As for moral quandaries and Eragon's character they really don't last that long from previous experience. About a paragraph or two at the most. As Eragon doesn't seem to have any morals. He kills without remorse, he has no empathy for other people, and his wants and desires are paramount no matter what is best.
*scene cut* *makes snowflakes out of cuts*
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind big books. I like big books. I like books that are, you know, seven, eight, nine, a thousand pages long. But when it reaches a certain point, and 900 pages is about it for me, I really start thinking that a book is getting too long, it’s getting too big, it’s -- uh, it gets unwieldy or the words are too small to easily read.
Oh dear lord, he's showing signs of Robert Jordan Syndrome. uh, it gets unwieldy or the words are too small to easily read. Now this is an interesting statement. Does this mean that he stops using four syllable words and is forced to use one or two syllable words? Does he think that the print gets smaller the more pages you have? The statement makes no sense whatsoever. Any thoughts about what it could mean?
*scene cut* *tangos*
And at that point I began to realize that maybe instead of having just a third book to end the Inheritance trilogy, maybe the Inheritance trilogy should become the Inheritance cycle, and instead of three books it should be four books.
A cycle indicates that there's a circle and a repetition of events. There is nothing in your series so far that indicates a cycle. Robert Jordan's books could be called a cycle because he begins every book with the talk about a wheel turning and the events happening again. But here, in your books, these events have never happened again. *double checks Dictionary.com* However, it does say that a cycle can be "a group of poems, dramas, prose narratives, songs etc., about a central theme, figure, or the like: the Arthurian cycle." But I think you're using the word 'cycle' instead of series because it sounds... cooler. More ancient. etc.
*scene cut* *Scene two take three*
It was a big shift in my thinking to make that decision! Uh…it was very hard for me to decide that at first. But the more I thought about it and the more I realized that yes, the story is this big, it needs this much space for me to properly tell it and to do -- to do all the characters justice and all the story threads and questions.
Well doing your characters justice is an important thing. (If you actually had characters instead of plot serving NPCs and a great big Gary Stu.) I'm not to sure why it as such a big shift in your thinking though. I mean recently I just figured out that I had to completely rewrite book one and my thought process went like this: I just invalidated the entire plot of book one. Fuck. Of course, theoretically, it doesn't have to be that big if you were more precise in your writing and you know edited things and cut things. And stopped with the flowery prose and unnecessary descriptions. You could probably shave off a good hundred pages by doing that.
*scene cut* *scene band aid*
The challenge I faced then was to find an appropriate ending point for the third book. Something that was dramatic and satisfying and wrapped up the third book in -- in -- in a good way and led into the fourth book appropriately and --and you know not just a cliffhanger. I like cliffhangers but it needed to be more than that and I realized that since I started Eldest with the death of a major character, Ajihad, that a great way to end the third book would be with the death of another major character. I’m not going to tell you who it is, you’re going to have to read the book to find out, but that’s how I’m going to end the third book. And I think it’ll provide a suitable, summation for the third book and proper introduction and lead-in to the last volume.
Finding an appropriate ending for your book? Good. Finding a dramatic and satisfying way to end your book. Also good. Randomly killing off a character because you did it in the beginning of the second book? Bad. First of all Ajihad was not a major character. Major characters have to exist longer than the last fifty odd pages of the book. Other wise he's an important minor character. And he wasn't that at all, either, except to reaffirm how wonderful Eragon was. Death should happen because it's the natural outcome of the story, of the character's life and choices. Killing off a character for drama is a sad, sad reason to kill someone and definitely not being true to your characters.
*scene cut* *scene death*
So hopefully the third book is going to be as interesting and as exciting as Eragon and Eldest and hopefully more so. I’m just really ec -- ec-- excited to get it done and get it finished and have people reading it.
*scene cut*
So I hope you enjoy the rest of the Inheritance series.
Unlikely.
antishurtugal ) of Paolini talking about his fourth book and I thought I'd go over it, mostly for my own amusement's sake. So, thoughts? Hi. I’m Christopher Paolini, and we’re here in my home in Montana. My desk where I wrote most of Eragon, most of Eldest, and now most of the third book in the Inheritance series.
Hi Chris! I'm Kippur. I'm here to take a look at what you've said to point out how silly you are.
*scene cut* 8/
As many of you know, I started writing the Inheritance series when I was fifteen, and at the time I plotted out the entire trilogy before I actually began Eragon. Now, Eragon I plotted out in fairly great detail, but the rest of the series, although I had the major events in place, I -- I left a little vague, because to be honest with you, I never actually thought I was going to end up writing the rest of the series. I didn’t even know if I could write a single book at the time. As I’ve progressed to the series, I’ve expanded my outlines and the story has developed with each book and sometimes gone in a few directions I hadn’t foreseen previously, and other times has followed my original outline.
This is fairly standard. Good for you allowing your story to actually evolve. *gives candy* Admittedly I've never actually plotted out any of my novel series except rather vaguely, but I don't do very good without lines. I just let the story go where it will and then stare at it going WTF? However, that way isn't the best way for everyone and everyone has their own way of creating a story.
Now when I returned from book tour from Eldest, I started working on the third book right away, and the first thing I did was to take my old outline that I’d worked up years ago, and I expanded and updated it for the third book. And that ended up being about 14 pages long. So it was a big outline, and I remember when I looked at it, thinking, “Boy, there’s -- there’s a lot of story here, this is going to be a big book.
Outline length =/= book length. It's all a matter of how much detail you put into it. I consider the short story I wrote, the first version of "Love Lust and the Apocalypse", to be my outline for the novel. It was twenty four pages long. The actual book is about four hundred. Pretty standard book length, if a bit inanely long for a thesis. Editing was a bitch. But editing is always a bitch. You're showing your lack of understanding in the writing processes here, Chris.
*cut* *paste*
It really struck home for me a few chapters into Book 3 when Eragon…uh…Eragon and Roran have attacked Helgrind where the Ra’zac are. And…during that sequence of events, Eragon encounters...a moral quandary.
*scene cut* \o/
And in order to resolve it in a way that felt consistent with Eragon’s character, ended up adding about 100 pages to the third book.
Edit. Edit. Edit. Cut. Cut. Cut. Learn to be more precise. And just because you really love something, doesn't mean that it has to be there. As for moral quandaries and Eragon's character they really don't last that long from previous experience. About a paragraph or two at the most. As Eragon doesn't seem to have any morals. He kills without remorse, he has no empathy for other people, and his wants and desires are paramount no matter what is best.
*scene cut* *makes snowflakes out of cuts*
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind big books. I like big books. I like books that are, you know, seven, eight, nine, a thousand pages long. But when it reaches a certain point, and 900 pages is about it for me, I really start thinking that a book is getting too long, it’s getting too big, it’s -- uh, it gets unwieldy or the words are too small to easily read.
Oh dear lord, he's showing signs of Robert Jordan Syndrome. uh, it gets unwieldy or the words are too small to easily read. Now this is an interesting statement. Does this mean that he stops using four syllable words and is forced to use one or two syllable words? Does he think that the print gets smaller the more pages you have? The statement makes no sense whatsoever. Any thoughts about what it could mean?
*scene cut* *tangos*
And at that point I began to realize that maybe instead of having just a third book to end the Inheritance trilogy, maybe the Inheritance trilogy should become the Inheritance cycle, and instead of three books it should be four books.
A cycle indicates that there's a circle and a repetition of events. There is nothing in your series so far that indicates a cycle. Robert Jordan's books could be called a cycle because he begins every book with the talk about a wheel turning and the events happening again. But here, in your books, these events have never happened again. *double checks Dictionary.com* However, it does say that a cycle can be "a group of poems, dramas, prose narratives, songs etc., about a central theme, figure, or the like: the Arthurian cycle." But I think you're using the word 'cycle' instead of series because it sounds... cooler. More ancient. etc.
*scene cut* *Scene two take three*
It was a big shift in my thinking to make that decision! Uh…it was very hard for me to decide that at first. But the more I thought about it and the more I realized that yes, the story is this big, it needs this much space for me to properly tell it and to do -- to do all the characters justice and all the story threads and questions.
Well doing your characters justice is an important thing. (If you actually had characters instead of plot serving NPCs and a great big Gary Stu.) I'm not to sure why it as such a big shift in your thinking though. I mean recently I just figured out that I had to completely rewrite book one and my thought process went like this: I just invalidated the entire plot of book one. Fuck. Of course, theoretically, it doesn't have to be that big if you were more precise in your writing and you know edited things and cut things. And stopped with the flowery prose and unnecessary descriptions. You could probably shave off a good hundred pages by doing that.
*scene cut* *scene band aid*
The challenge I faced then was to find an appropriate ending point for the third book. Something that was dramatic and satisfying and wrapped up the third book in -- in -- in a good way and led into the fourth book appropriately and --and you know not just a cliffhanger. I like cliffhangers but it needed to be more than that and I realized that since I started Eldest with the death of a major character, Ajihad, that a great way to end the third book would be with the death of another major character. I’m not going to tell you who it is, you’re going to have to read the book to find out, but that’s how I’m going to end the third book. And I think it’ll provide a suitable, summation for the third book and proper introduction and lead-in to the last volume.
Finding an appropriate ending for your book? Good. Finding a dramatic and satisfying way to end your book. Also good. Randomly killing off a character because you did it in the beginning of the second book? Bad. First of all Ajihad was not a major character. Major characters have to exist longer than the last fifty odd pages of the book. Other wise he's an important minor character. And he wasn't that at all, either, except to reaffirm how wonderful Eragon was. Death should happen because it's the natural outcome of the story, of the character's life and choices. Killing off a character for drama is a sad, sad reason to kill someone and definitely not being true to your characters.
*scene cut* *scene death*
So hopefully the third book is going to be as interesting and as exciting as Eragon and Eldest and hopefully more so. I’m just really ec -- ec-- excited to get it done and get it finished and have people reading it.
*scene cut*
So I hope you enjoy the rest of the Inheritance series.
Unlikely.
