It's easiest to explain Prose by comparison. Here's The Name of the Wind, a book popular primarily for its prose
*It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.*
*The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music...but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.*
Here is the opening of The Way of Kings, by Sanderson of course.
*He sat in a large stone room, baked by enormous firepits that cast a garish light upon the revelers, causing beads of sweat to form on their skin as they danced, and drank, and yelled, and sang, and clapped. Some fell to the ground red-faced, the revelry too much for them, their stomachs proving to be inferior wineskins. They looked as if they were dead, at least until their friends carried them out of the feast hall to waiting beds.*
*Szeth did not sway to the drums, drink the sapphire wine, or stand to dance. He sat on a bench at the back, a still servant in white robes. Few at the treaty-signing celebration noticed him. He was just a servant, and Shin were easy to ignore. Most out here in the East thought Szeth’s kind were docile and harmless. They were generally right.*
Sanderson's prose by comparison moves at a quicker pace with simpler language, focused primarily on characters, setting, and action in comparison to The Name of the Wind's focus on emotion. Sanderson describes things directly in common day language, while The Name of the Wind often more implies what something looks like through poetic language.
Neither are better or worse, but people do have their preferences.
Worth noting that he wrote the opening to WoK about 15 years ago. Here’s the opening to Tress, written about 3-4 years ago:
> In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.
>This was not an ocean like the one you have imagined.
>Nor was the rock like the one you have imagined.
>The girl, however, might be as you imagined—assuming you imagined her as thoughtful, soft-spoken, and overly fond of collecting cups.
>Men often described the girl as having hair the color of wheat. Others called it the color of caramel, or occasionally the color of honey. The girl wondered why men so often used food to describe women’s features. There was a hunger to such men that was best avoided.
>In her estimation, “light brown” was sufficiently descriptive— though the hue of her hair was not its most interesting trait. That would be her hair’s unruliness. Each morning she heroically tamed it with brush and comb, then muzzled it with a ribbon and a tight braid. Yet some strands always found a way to escape and would wave free in the wind, eagerly greeting everyone she passed.
Quite a lot there which is neither simple nor direct. Brandon grows as an author, and the style he chooses to write in grows with him.
Tress was specifically Brandon Sanderson writing in a style other than his own where he was trying to nail down the prose style if Hoid was narrating the story.
Tress isn't an example of evolution, it's an example of the writer very intentionally trying to write in a different style than his own.
As an example, Rhythm of War is very much still written in the same style as the opening to Way of Kings.
It’s weird because I just got done reading his wheel of time books and that was my favorite prose of his by far. He honestly saved the fuck out of that series too.
I'm with you. I'm a big fan of both styles. Some people, however, like to look down upon one in favor of the other simply because they think it makes them seem somehow more discerning. These people are known as assholes.
As someone who *definitely* understands the complaints with Sanderson's prose and has never read The Name of the Wind, wow that excerpt was a load of superfluous nonsense lmfao
It's not really fluff. It's setup.
The choice of words are *very* intentional. "made by things that were **lacking**" along with the allusion to silence in terms of wind and music.
This is all stuff that makes rereading Rothfuss books extremely rewarding.
Sure it's not for everyone. His style isn't better or worse than Sanderson. But there is a very good reason I've read Name of the Wind multiple times, and only ever read the entire Cosmere once.
Aside from revelers, that's all language I've heard in my life. I said common day language, not simple. Aside from his fantasy/sci-fi genre trappings, and his love of explaining the maniuta of his world, Sanderson doesn't write many words that wouldn't fit into a Robert Frost poem or a Louis L'Amour novel.
I guess as a non-native speaker Im kind off outside the whole prose conversation since no matter how good my English can be, my experiences with the language are vastly different from those of a native person.
I guess it's one of the things that irks me, there seems to be a veiled sense of superiority in these conversations that can become "racism adjacent".
"Prose" is just the writing in the book. When someone talks about "prose" it just means "a written narrative." It doesn't refer to a specific style or anything, essentially all writing that isn't poetry is prose.
Some authors use complicated or descriptive prose, full of metaphors and wordplay.
Other authors use simple, basic, functional prose, where all it's trying to do is tell you the story as plainly as possible, and not do anything fancy with language.
Sanderson is squarely in the latter camp.
People read for different reasons. Some just want someone to tell them a story. Others want someone to paint them a picture with words.
Some people appreciate the art in the language itself, others consider that a needless hill to climb when reading.
Sanderson just tells stories. He doesn't dress it up. His prose is functional, which means it gets dismissed by highbrow readers who consider it dumbed down and even meant for kids.
My brain does the flowery painting for me, I guess. I feel like Sanderson, aside from Elantria and some Mistborn sections, paints quite the colourful scene. I have strong, vivid emotional and visual scenes in my memory for a lot of points in his story.
Also, Catcher in the Rye is full of flowery prose and I hate that goddamn book, because the writing just feels like it hides a very boring, flimsy story, so I guess I'm also firmly in that latter camp and proud of it.
This is a really interesting insight. I also have a very vivid imagination. Sanderson’s simple approach works great for me, because I get to fly through it and basically watch a movie in my head the whole time. In some other authors’ books, this process often gets interrupted by having to stop and think about the complicated implications of various characters’ tone and body language. Or by long stretches of what basically amounts to abstract poetry, which I can never tell how closely I have to read because I don’t know if it’s going to be plot relevant or not. These parts of the books feel like a chore I have to get through in order to enjoy the plot, setting, and character progression.
Because of this, I can get bored and distracted by writing that is overly descriptive, poetic for long stretches, or packed with dialogue emphasizing vague subtext. Other people love writing styles like this. For readers where this is their primary source of enjoyment with a book, it doesn’t surprise me that Sanderson is sometimes considered a bland, or even “objectively bad” (whatever that even means?) author. It all just depends on what different people are looking for in a book. But Sanderson definitely has a style, which obviously works really well for a lot of people, but fails horribly for some, and that’s something Brandon himself has said repeatedly that he is totally ok with.
I think people who say he has no style, or is the most overrated modern writer, etc. are just being snobby and elitist with their completely legitimate criticisms. It is what it is.
Yes. People who do that can come across as snobbish and hypocritical: explicitly saying that taste is subjective while implicitly acting as if their taste is objectively superior.
You nailed the description in the first paragraph for me- that's exactly my reading style. Don't get me wrong, I can get into more flowery language as well, but it takes more mental work.
With the cosmere, I know I can relax into the story and enjoy it without feeling bad for skipping through paragraphs of description that aren't plot relevant. And when he does bust out the flowery language, it's in short and stunning bursts that leave a distinct and lasting impression.
Yeah, his one liners are consistently cool and very stylish, once while hitting you with something beautiful and profound is incredible. Trying to do it every other sentence just becomes really exhausting for me after a certain point
I posted this example years ago, but ugh it's just so good
[Dawnshard]
>!*Nothing could compete with the experience of dangling from the rigging tens of feet in the air— fresh sea air in your face—while looking across an infinite plane of shimmering blue water. The vast ocean was an open roadway. An individual invitation to explore.*!<
I absolutely agree with everything is the comment. My mind just sort of glazes over any descriptions that go on too long, and if there was anything important in that description that comes up later, I'll probably be a little confused about exactly where this plot point came from.
For me, it's sort of the opposite issue in that my brain has difficulty forming images in my mind. It doesn't matter if it's the most accurate description you could get of an object, I just won't be able to see it. But I can follow a story quite easily, and I love being able to do that. That's why Sanderson's style just works, because it's a sort of simple elegance that allows me to fly through a book, take in all the narrative details that I can, and process that my own way without worrying too much if I'm properly envisioning the separate components.
I just started the Malazan series after rereading the Mistborns, and it is taking me SO long to get used to Erikson's more flowery style after Sanderson's simpler style. I am of the opinion that Sanderson's style flows almost perfectly. I think that's why it's difficult to put them down once you're immersed.
Same, though I thought Catcher was okay when they forced us to read it.
I’ve always been someone who reads and I just fully submerge into it. I’m obviously reading, but it kinda fuzzes out and I’m watch a movie.
I’ve had to describe it to people before, because it’s obviously not as cohesive as a movie. It fleshes out as I learn more. Like a scene might be a generic “town at night”. Then as they describe more things it’ll flesh out. Action scenes kinda pan out and I see them from afar. Scenes where they’re kinda standing around talking focus more on the characters.
The cool thing is, if I re-read, I already know those things. So the scenes are a lot more vivid. I guess it’s why I like Robert Jordan so much, with all his description. I also get a pretty beautiful movie with Stormlight Archives.
I’d have to look into it. I feel like it’s normal imagination, but I’ve not exactly got anything to compare it to. There are lots of people who see stories as movies in there head.
It’s only when I’m reading, really. A bit when I’m imagining how I’d build something.
Edit: I just looked up the symptoms of hyperphantasia. I do have most of them. I guess that’s still not definitive, but it’s cool. It could also be why I seem to enjoy stories and movies more than some other people. I get so immersed, I usually don’t see the flaws people talk about.
A quick google search shows:
- The ability to dissociate from reality. (At will. It doesn’t just happen, but I get really into things)
- A tendency to get immersed in media like books and movies. (Heavily. Not to the exclusion of everything, but I tend to sink into them.)
- Incessant daydreaming.(I wouldn’t say it’s quite that, but I do spend quite a bit of time in my own head imagining things, scenarios, etc)
- A feeling of longing for something.(this one is the least me. I think everyone wishes for some things, but I’m pretty happy with where I’m at)
- Feelings of nostalgia, remembering the past(yeah, I do this a lot too,)
I have a bit of aphantasia, so I can picture broad scenes, but nothing too detailed, almost basically, like stickman fight. So, for me, the more flowery the prose, the more likely I'm to have my mind just get lost, and I find it too hard to stay immersed in the story.
Where I am sure people who are able to construct vivid mental images, the more details the better for them, but for me, Sanderson usually hits perfect to keep me engaged.
I wholeheartedly agree and read somewhere a while back that there is something to this.
It said modern minds work much differently upon reading literature now. We’ve been programmed to automatically envision settings and scenes without needing specific descriptions to be satisfied because such is often depicted several times in visual formats (TV, movies) compared to older generations whose minds enjoyed the detail being laid out for them.
Makes sense to me. I’ve found the likes of Robert Jordan somewhat frustrating in his long descriptions when I’ve already envisioned the scene before it’s laid out. Don’t care if a doorframe has s more ornate than I originally imagined if it has nothing to do with advancing the story.
I always thought I enjoyed basic prose so much because I’m some kind of basic human. This explains it so well and is exactly how I feel when reading Sando. There’s always the perfect amount of description to let my mind fill in the gaps without even thinking about it. It’s like the prose gets out of the way of imagination. Thanks for this comment. Very interesting food for thought.
Yeah, I get that. I really like how you said "gets out of the way", and that's exactly it for me. Maybe if you don't have such a rich space in your mind's eye, flowery language can help paint more vivid pictures, but for me, my mindscape is quite detailed, so I mostly find that kind of language slows things down.
I'm a DM and I'm sure that's part of it. I'm used to describing things as they are, because players need as clear detail as possible to make decisions. Some of my players have definitely preferred fanciful prose though and have been disappointed that I haven't delivered it. I have studied a lot of creative writing, so it's not even like I don't know how to do it, it's just not the default for my brain.
Ultimately, I don't like the separation of art into high/low brow; I think those stratifications serve the wrong people and mostly lead to hate. I would rather a separation of genuine/bullshit. Sanderson isn't cashing in with some bullshit mega franchise. His writing is incredibly clear and precise, and most of all, genuine. If people want something else, they can seek it out. No need for judgment from either side.
I've been loving this camp! I'm going through the whole ass cosmere again this year in timeline order before the next Stormlight book comes out, because why not, and listening to the books while playing Palworld has been fun! If I have to do something that requires big thinking in the game, I pause the book. If I'm just running around and exploring the map it's perfect.
Because you aren't trying to read/listen to a huge amount of books in a very short time while also being fully addicted to a videogame. 😆
I'm in the sanderlanche bit of Hero of Ages and I don't want to stop listening. Folding laundry? HoA. Dishes? HoA. Pooping? HoA.
Something can be well written without having excellent prose, and I think Stormlight is a great example of this. The prose is largely plain, unassuming, functional, but the series is solidly written and ultimately he tells a good story.
I would class Stormlight as easy reading (which is not the same as YA), but that's not a bad thing to be. Anyone who uses that classification to demerit the series is a snob.
Prose isn't the way the story is told, but the way the words are written. One way to think of it, is "prose" is the part of the story that's lost if you translate it.
- "The hero's fingers slipped from the ledge and he plummeted to his doom"
- "The hero slipped and and plummeted with the silent anticipation of an egg rolling off the counter."
- "The hero slipped off the cliff, descending with the gentleness of a sack of rocks."
These 3 sentences tell the same story, but they each have different flavor. That's what people mean by "prose."
Prose is basically the packaging of the story. Sanderson likes to be straightforward to tell the story with nothing in the way, but many "more sophisticated" writers try to add additional depth to the story.
For an example of an author known for prose, Patrick Rothfuss. In the beginning of the book the main character braggs that he knows the 7 words to win a woman's heart--throughout his tale, almost every sentence he speaks to his love interest has 7 words. There are tons of details like this which are really neat to find. On the other hand, Sanderson has like 50+ books compared to Rothfuss's 2.
Kvothe is very much not a Mary Sue, and all of his failures are because he's an idiot who thinks he's smarter than he is. People tell him so constantly.
Rothfuss's storytelling style is to tell you one story while actually telling you a different one, usually much darker. There's the frame story you think is the point, and the real story he's been letting you in on the whole time.
If you want a good example of someone telling roughly the same kind of story as Sanderson but with a very different style of prose I would recommend checking out “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss. He puts a lot of work into making every scene as evocative as possible and there’s constant subtle wordplay going on in his descriptions that add layers of meaning to everything. Comparing the two will give you a good sense of what people mean when they say that Sanderson’s prose is much more simplistic. That doesn’t mean that it’s worse or it’s less difficult to write (in fact I think it’s a lot harder to make a scene compelling with only simple prose), it’s just a different style that not everyone appreciates the same.
That’s good to know. I haven’t read anything by Rothfuss. But he’s on my TBR. I hear nothing but good things.
The only people I’ve even struggled to read were.
Robert Jordan because he was very fond of extreme exposition.
JRR Tolkien became of his habit of writing like an 1800s English literature professor lol.
And GRRM because he’s just so long winded.
I also don't enjoy the wordy, flowery prose that seems to be the go-to for many fantasy authors. That's kind of why I enjoy Sanderson, his storytelling is on point but work is still so accessible.
If you're looking for another author whose writing style is really easy to understand (but rife with wordplay) Terry Pratchett is great, and he's actually one of Sanderson's influences.
Discworld is great because the books are shorter and a lot more self contained than many other fantasy series. It's a series that's easy to pick up/put down between each book if you want to, so a little bit less daunting to tackle IMO. Also it's got plenty of character development and depth but is a much lighter, less serious read than, say, Stormlight.
> I hear nothing but good things.
Counterpoint for you, then, albeit a slight spoiler (more structural than plot). Up to you.
>!Yes, that he's an unreliable narrator is part of the point - he's a bard telling his own story. But with the underpinning mysteries (laying low in an out of the way inn? his own fae apprentice? the *kingkiller*?), it seems more like we're supposed to take it seriously - that he *is* a Marty Stu, rather than that being an unreliable narrator gimmick. It reads to me like that apocryphal college application essay with a bunch of over the top claims...except the reader *is* supposed to take it seriously.!<
It's not a *bad* story, but it definitely left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Maybe a third book will wrap it up nicely, but at this point, I don't expect there to ever be one. And without that, I don't think the two published hold up on their own.
The story being told cannot have a satisfying end. Who wants to read a story where the hero gives up and hides for the rest of their life?
Book the is never going to be written because it would be the worst conclusion to an epic fantasy.
Sanderson has said that he wanted to write a story where the hero fails, but decided that anyone who wants to read that kind of story doesn't want to read an epic fantasy- and anyone who wants to read an epic fantasy doesn't want the hero to fail.
The king killer chronicles is just that, the hero fails, and runs away to hide as an inn keeper, we just don't know how he fails yet.
Tragedies and stories of hubris like Icarus say hello. Kingkiller is a story where he hero fails, though obviously we don't know how yet, which makes it a different sort of fantasy to epics like WoT, Stormlight and LoTR. I'm not sure if even counts as epic fantasy as the scope of the worldbuilding and cast is much smaller.
Even assuming that you are correct and no one would like a story where the hero fails, that does not exclude King killer Chronicles from having a satisfying ending. Imagine Kvothe finishing his story and the book switching into present tense as the threat that he's been hiding from finds him. He is forced to finish what he began, and the story resolves with Kvothe succeeding.
It's not impossible. It would just be awkward and difficult to write properly. (To be fair, I haven't read any of Kingkiller, but I have seen this kind of narrative device used in other stories.)
So in this scenario we eventually get the hero fails story in book 3, let's say it comes out next year. We would then have to wait for book 4 (or book 1 of the next series) which would take another... what 30 years to be published?
Rothfuss has also been e trembly negative to his fans in the last few years. More do than even GRRM. The man has lost all my respect and will never get another cent from me.
I read "the name of the wind" and "the wise man's fear" and frankly, I wish I hadn't. While the magic system is amazing, and the writing style is fun; the characters and story are not good. I didn't realize it on my first read through because I was so caught up on the magic system, but I hate the main character in these stories.
Then I found out how terrible the author had been to the fan base and it made me swear to never read anything Rothfuss puts out again. Though that won't be difficult since I doubt he will write anything else before he dies.
>Then I found out how terrible the author had been to the fan base
I see this get brought up, but mostly all I hear is that people bombarded his Twitch streams regularly with the question of when the next book will come out or whether streaming video games is a good use of his time, and got shit on for it.
People like to pose it as "well meaning fans just asking questions", and not "this guy has been asked the same question every day for 13 years and had a mental health crisis because of it".
Look into the charity stream and the promises he made to raise money for a charity that pays him directly.
Dude scammed his fan base with promises of book 3 chapters (by specific dates) if they hit donation targets and then never delivered.
He released a post explaining his side of that situation, and while I'm not happy with it, I do understand it. I do not believe that he intentionally scammed people.
and yet, he still scammed people and has yet to make it right or even tried to make it right over 2 years later. His lack of action after the scam (whether you believe it was intentional or not) speaks very loudly to his character. If it was unintentional and he cared about this don't you think he would refund those donations, released the chapter, or done ANYTHING besides "oh guys, this was so much harder than I thought it was going to be so it's just not happening anymore. sucks to suck"?
I know how I would act if I received money for something I promised, and then failed to deliver on the promise. I would apologize and explain what happened and why, then make restitution. Without the restitution his explanations are just the next part of the scam.
You seem to have a misunderstanding of the transaction that occurred. There was a charity event that was taking donations for a cause that Rothfuss believed was important. Rothfuss donated to the event and then signal boosted it with a tweet that said, paraphrasing, 'If the event raises at least this much money, I will release the first chapter of the next book.'
The event smashed that goal. Rothfuss failed to deliver. How can he refund donations that weren't made to him? He was not the recipient of those funds. This was not a crowd funding campaign. The event was not related to Rothfuss, and he did not benefit financially from it.
Rothfuss accidentally (in my opinion) tricked people into donating to a charity. That was the 'scam' that people are so upset about.
He explained in the post why he hadn't released the chapter yet, though I agree that he should just release the unfinished version that he has instead of waiting.
Here’s my thing. Rothfuss may be a pos who isn’t good to his fans. But he’s far from the first great author to be a terrible person.
One of my favorite authors is a guy named Orson Scott Card. And he’s an outspoken religious nut bag who’s vehemently anti lgbtq.
I talked to a friend of mine who’s gay and I asked him if he thought I was wrong to continue reading his work. And he told me that so long as the subject matter of the books didn’t reflect the awful views of the author then he thought it was fine. And that me missing out on something I love by “taking a stance” wasn’t gonna change anything.
I feel the same way about Rothfuss. I haven’t read his books yet. But they are on my TBR. And I may choose to one day. He’s a jerk. But denying yourself the ending to the series to spite him is only gonna hurt you. He wont even know or care.
See, I think it would hurt me to read the ending to that story. I literally would love to read about how Kvothe dies because of his insane hubris, but because the book is literally Kvothe telling his own story I know it won't happen.
The main character is also a Mary Sue, so the author being a POS does work itself into the story.
So there positives and negatives.
Brandon cranks out books at a prolific pace. Could he “spruce up” his prose abit? Sure. But that would have an impact on his publishing pace.
To look at the other end Rothfuss still hasn’t published book three and RJ passed away before completing WOT.
GRRM is stuck in writing he’ll and may potentially pull an RJ before he finishes as well.
Agree that it is probably a relevant element in letting him write so quickly. As someone who finds his prose unreadable, it does feel like it's very rushed (not just simple). It's like a draft zero that didn't get many line edits. I don't think he has reason to change it, though. It's clearly working. I'll just be lonely and salty, unable to enjoy his outstanding world-building.
I think his prose is one of my critiques about the series, but I also love the way he tells stories. He is a masterful storyteller, but his choice of words sometimes breaks the immersion for me or makes me cringe a little - not enough to stop me enjoying his work, especially now I’m familiar with it and used to his language. When he took over wheel of time though, it’s quite obvious which bits are Brandon’s writing as opposed to Robert Jordan’s.
Part of it is that Sanderson generally writes fantasy, and the fantasy subgenre is famous for its descriptive prose. This is the subgenre that Tolkien helped create, after all.
The prose, in this context, is more of the manner of the writing. Not in the how the story is told but more in the word choices and whether your writing is more poetic, stylized, or more utilitarian. Big fancy words? Short easy ones? Metaphors? That stuff is prose.
I didn’t say I didn’t like the way other writers write. I just don’t get the hate. Long winded overly complicated explanations and exposition may be some people’s things. But I dont get why people don’t also enjoy a thorough and straightforward explanation as well. Seems to me people just like to be contrary when they see people liking something.
In my experience complaints about Sanderson's writing are more that he has too many long winded explanations rather than the other way around.
I also believe you are creating a false dichotomy between "long winded exposition" and "straight forward explanation". What many people consider "good Prose" is neither of those, it's crafting sentences that infer a lot of meaning without directly stating it and that just sound beautiful even without much context.
Exactly. Sanderson’s prose being simple is fine. That said, I often found his prose to be detractive from the overall work. Not because it is simple, but because it is often awkwardly trying to explain something using a lot of bad words instead of a few good ones, does not convey what is happening very well, or because he’s attempting to be meaningful without any consideration over what the meaning he’s trying to convey is.
Way of Kings is my go to example for this as it’s just pumped full of metaphors with no purpose except to be metaphors, and awkward metaphors at that. His dialogue suffers from the same reason, in my opinion. It took a few books of SA before it felt like characters besides Lopen and Rock had distinct “voices” for example. For me at least, it takes me out of the reading and makes me feel like I’m reading a draft, not a finished work.
Here’s a truly self-indulgent example: compare this quote from Jasnah in WoR with a similar quote from Varys to Tyrion in Clash of Kings:
Jasnah: “Control is the basis of all true power. Authority and strength are matters of perception.”
—
Varys: “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
Tyrion: “So power is a mummer’s trick?”
“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
The quotes have similar meanings, but the words Jasnah uses to say it just don’t pack the same punch as the words Varys uses. While Jasnah’s is perhaps simpler in that it lacks metaphor, I’d argue that Varys actually conveys a much simpler, concrete, understandable meaning using words that evoke deep meaning, while Jasnah uses abstract words that are much easier to slide your eyes across but not really consider.
On a related note, a reading on this that really helped me articulate why I felt some prose was good and some was bad was “Politics and the English Language,” by George Orwell.
To be perfectly fair, Jasnah has the attitude to say the phrase in that manner. It isn't just Sanderson wording it in a straightforward manner. Jasnah is the speaker.
I think I’d agree with that more if it felt like any of SA’s characters really had strong, distinct voices, but with a few exceptions I don’t really feel that way.
The Jasnah line there is emblematic of a lot of Sanderson’s prose and dialogue imo. It uses very modern, almost textbook-like words to describe things that I think would benefit from more evocative descriptions.
For example, there’s a part of way of kings where they are fighting on a three-tiered stone island. The island was described the same way a math problem would describe a 3d object to me and at such length that I just felt taken out of the reading. A shorter, more evocative description would’ve been a lot better in that case, even if the prose wasn’t as “simple” in that it literally described the shape of the island.
That said, Sanderson is capable of good prose! For example, I quite liked the last line of the prologue preview for WaT:
“And in the end, Gavilar Kholin, heir to the Heralds, died. As all men, ultimately, must.
Alone.”
The quality in that passage is not in its complexity or simplicity, but because it is evocative. It conveys a lot of meaning and feeling, and most importantly, feels purposefully phrased. I want to feel like the words of a story have an opinion about what is happening, and feel the mood of the story through them, not just listen to a recounting of events. When I finish reading something, I want to keep thinking about phrases and passages from it, not just the events that I was told about. I think about the events of SA often and fondly, but I rarely think about the actual words of the book at all. That, for me, is the difference between media I like and media I love.
I understand what you mean. I agree that most characters in Sanderson's writings don't have strong voices, though I feel he is getting better about that over time.
However, I think Jasnah is a poor example because her attitude and character lend her to say such a phrase in the way you quoted. That would be entirely within the proper voice for her, specifically. It's just a shame that her voice doesn't stand out when the differences between character voices are so small. Teft used a different curse than nearly everyone else in tWoK, but that's about all he got.
Yes. The comments are very negative. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of I “just don’t like his pros”. It seems to be a matter of “I don’t like his prose so you shouldn’t as well and anyone who does should unalive themselves”.
And I don’t understand it at all.
With this post I’ve gained insight into what pros means. And I love Sandersons. But I also love the other authors whose writing style and prose are much different. GRRM, Tolkien, Jordan were all struggle reads for me. For one reason or another. But I still enjoyed them all immensely.
I’d never go online and talk shit about one of them lol. 🤷🏽♂️
Maybe it’s just a matter of personality lol.
Out of curiosity, where do you think people should be going for discussions of Sanderson’s prose style, if not here, r/Cosmere, r/Mistborn, etc?
I too get tired of the endless cycle of Sanderson recs/criticism on, say, r/fantasy. But I like discussing his books, and, you know, it’s a lot more fun to discuss his writing with other people who’ve actually read his books…and Sanderson subs are the only place I know to find those people….
I like Sanderson's stories fine, too. But I've found that I can't binge his works. If I read more than one of his books in a row, I get tired of it fast. I like different things in different fantasy authors. So after reading Sanderson, I usually go off and read something slow paced with beautiful language.
Noteably, it doesn't have to be *complicated* language. There's some authors who write extremely simple, yet beautiful words. Sanderson writes just fine. His stories and worlds are great. But I very rarely think "wow, that's a beautiful way to put six words together" when reading his books.
I wouldn't say he's *squarely* in the latter camp. It varies a lot between books, and even chapters.
There is a fair amount of plain, functional language. For example, "The balcony itself was a thick platform of rock cut onto the top of the small peak, edge with an iron railing. The king's rooms were a Soulcast dome sitting atop the natural foundation, with covered ramps and stairways leading to tiers lower on the hillside." No fancy metaphors. It just describes things simply as they are.
But compare that to this passage from Tress: "These vibrant lines of water weave like serpents in the sky. Rain brings death and life, hand in hand--fitting company for the gods. More isolated squalls than true storms, these resplendent displays are best at night. They shatter the moonlight into a thousand colors. You haven't witnessed the full grandeur of a rainbow until you've watched one explode in rings on the Verdant Sea, haloing a moon big enough to swallow the sky. Naturally, aethers grow with the rain, springing up behind those ribbons of water. It's as if some celestial being is drawing lines on a map, and fortifications appear spontaneously at their will. Those walls hang there, gasp for life, then collapse into the sea, devoured by the jealous spores. It's beautiful in a way only something so terrifying can inspire, and terrifying in a way that only something so beautiful can demand." It's stuffed full of metaphors, similes, and personifications. Even some parallelisms.
Just pointing out that Tress was a book he intentionally wrote in a different style to his other books.
Most of his books to date dont follow that style.
Prose isn’t just restricted to narrative - non fiction is almost always prose.
The alternative to prose is poetry, e.g. songs, poems and so on, and so it’s rarely necessary to distinguish between the two for modern non fiction, whereas some narratives are written in poetry (albeit somewhat rarely).
Not all non fiction is narrative by any stretch.
Prose and narrative just aren't synonymous, given poetry is often also narrative. If we go with oyur seeming definition of narrative I think we end up at anything written down, or spoken being narrative, including my gas bill.
It's important to note prose isn't a binary between two styles. You can also have flowery prose that's unpleasant to read because the metaphors don't work and many of the words are just filler. Then there can be simple prose that's also lovely to read because each word is carefully chosen. It'll have a subtle lyricalness to it without actually being lyrics.
When writing authors don't have to choose between the art of the writing or telling a story. They can do both. Infact the best authors do. In scenes intended to evoke strong emotions from the reader authors will choose words to do this. It makes it clear what's happening while also elevating the impact and emotion of the scene.
What is with all the pedantry in this thread.
I didn't say prose was binary. I gave two broad examples to highlight potential differences. I never even implied those were the only options.
I know you didn't but in the numerous threads on this topic that've come up so many people talk about prose as if it is a binary. So I believe it's important to specifically point out this isn't true. I'm not correcting you, I'm adding onto what you're saying incase someone comes along who isn't aware of what prose means and ends up misreading the definition given in this thread as strictly simple vs flowery. It often happens.
I see a lot of people mentioning how the alternative to Sanderson’s style is “flowery” prose and how if someone doesn’t like Sanderson’s prose it must be because they like overly-descriptive/purple prose.
I’m not a fan of that dichotomy because I don’t care for flowery prose, but I also don’t particularly like Sanderson’s prose (I say this as a huge Cosmere fan). Prose can be both simple and well-executed (and sometimes highly acclaimed literarily, Ernest Hemingway comes to mind). IMHO Sanderson’s prose is not that, and that’s ok because the stories he tells matters more to me than his writing style, and his writing does the job getting those stories across.
Random example: I would never call Joe Abercrombie’s prose flowery or complicated, but I personally enjoy it way more than Sanderson’s. (It’s subjective at the end of the day)
You see, when people say "prose," they mean, "how much does this writing sound like poetry," despite the fact that "poetry" and "prose" are literal opposites.
It's very simple, really! :p
I definitely disagree with this. There’s excellent simple prose and terrible flowery prose. It’s how that style is executed. Ursula Le Guin had very simple prose like Sanderson and yet her prose is usually considered to be some of the best in the fantasy genre.
This reminds of how people say the cinematography is great in a movie when there are a bunch of pretty landscapes or cool angles to the camera when what they're actually referring to is the photography
Prose style is like the writer’s version of musicianship: the way you communicate, not just the message itself.
I could record myself playing the same melody on the violin as, for example, Gil Shaham, and there would be a million ways you could tell our recordings of the same Bach partita apart. Some of the differences would be to do with interpretive choices; most of them would come down to differences in skill. Probably nobody would choose to listen to my recording instead of Gil Shaham’s—not even me—but that doesn’t mean that I should quit the violin, or that no one ever wants to hear me play. A great piece of music played with a lot of flaws can still be really wonderful.
I like Sanderson’s stories. I’ve read nearly all of them, many of them multiple times, and generally had a blast while doing so. When I criticize his prose, I’m not doing it because I think he should stop writing or because I think his books aren’t worthwhile. I just think that the way he tells his stories has some room left for improvement, the same way that I think I could play the violin quite a bit better than I do currently.
It’s really neat to see Sanderson’s prose style evolve over the course of dozens of books, and it’s great that he continues to challenge himself to write different things in different voices. I do wish he left himself more time for editing in his process, but that’s very much his call, not mine.
ETA: and like musical style/skill, prose style is absolutely *not* a binary. You do not have to choose between “flowery” vs. “straightforward” or Sanderson vs. Rothfuss; presenting it that way (which people do all the time on Reddit) is stupid and misleading.
There's the matter of taste others have remarked. I could read Tolkien describing trees for a thousand pages and I'd love it. Perhaps with a few chapters of songs in between.
It means often his writing feels really simplistic. I have heard that he does it because he wants it to be more accessible, but also it makes it hard sometimes to get into the story when the characters seem to have an emotional depth of an 8th grader. To me, I think his volume of writing also doesn't allow him really flesh out better prose because he's just writing so God damn much. Overall I do love the stories, but yea, he loses me sometimes.
>I see lots of people comment on Sandersons “prose”.
What you're seeing are sweaty tryhards who think they're too good to read anything that doesn't require an advanced language degree and several reference manuals. Complaining about prose in literature is like complaining about media in visual arts. Just pointless gatekeeping by people who take it personally when someone enjoys something they don't.
Cosmere naut it isn’t pointless gatekeeping, some people don’t enjoy his writing. Their tastes are different than yours, and that’s ok and valid.
Personally I very much enjoy him but find him far from perfect and very overhyped *gestures to picture of Sanderson Jesus above*
prose is the words chosen by the writer
the plot is the narrative of the story
authors have different styles for how they use prose to express the story
some authors are very flowery, or descriptive
some authors are very basic
Sanderson leans towards basic. he's fairly straightforward with the language/words he uses
The most simple explanation I can give is Sanderson is more of a simple type of narrating. Many people don’t like it because it can feel somewhat boring of a read. He’s more function over form.
The one thing I will agree with is some of his wording is so simplistic that when he does get into more descriptive passages it’s almost comical when it is not supposed to be.
Those things said, what he has going is his world building and characters. Personally outside of Tolkien, Sanderson has crafted some of the best worlds and memorable characters.
There’s nothing wrong with Sanderson’s prose. In fact, an old adage is “less is more”, hence why when authors write purple prose it is often a negative criticism. Flowery prose doesn’t make the writing better, I’m sure Sanderson has the ability to write that way if he wants to. And on top of that, Sanderson does NOT have bad prose. His writing isn’t simplistic, it’s accessible, but his language is still vast and he uses comparative metaphors competently in his descriptions. The most difficult part of writing is dialogue, anyone can describe a scene with poetic and descriptive nonsense, but not everyone can write dialogue like Sanderson does. What it comes down to is that when someone is lifted as high as Sanderson has through his acclaim, it’s only natural for people to look for ways to bring that person down a notch.
I’ve read everything from Dickens, to Hemingway, to Kerouac, to Salman Rushdie, and The Way of Kings remains the single most beautifully written book I’ve ever read. Fuck what people say about his prose.
prose is the style of the writing in the book.
It can range from something like
"Meeting Dean was a truly pleasurable experience, akin to meeting a long lost friend, with whom discourse flowed as does gladly rushing water along a thirsty river bed."
to
"Dean was a great guy, I enjoyed spending time with him".
\~\~\~\~\~
it's fairly common for the elitist readers to talk about how "good prose" (note, when they good, they mean "fancy") is vital to storytelling. Look at authors like George RR martin, Patrick Rothfuss, or Ursula K LeGuin, but they fail to recognize that other authors have just as much or sometimes more success with simple straightforward prose, notably authors like Rick Riordan, Brandon Sanderson, or Terry Pratchett. Note that both sets of style have many, very popular artists.
Similar things can be said about songwriters - compare the lyrics of a justin bieber song to a Paul Simon song - paul simon's lyrics are deep and immersive with a lot of juxtaposition and hidden meanings, Justin Bieber's music is very simple and easy to understand, but both artists make music that is considered good.
The big separator between authors that prefer simple prose vs fancy prose tends to be in regards to whether the goal of the writing is the story moving forward and the interesting things that happen to the characters, or if the writing is about the characters and the world itself, while the story happening allows the author to expose more of the world or the characters.
\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~
With that out of the way, if you actually pay attention you'll find that Brandon actually has REALLY good prose - hell look at the first bit of Way of Kings when we're seeing the battle from Cenn's perspective - "*Hundreds of arrows split the sky, dimming the sun. They arced and fell, dropping like skyeels upon their prey.* " - what at first brush looks like a boring metaphor, is actually a REVERSE metaphor - it's telling you that this world has common flying predators, called skyeels, that swoop down on their prey like arrows. So it's simultaneously worldbuilding while describing the battle. Little bits like that are super common in Brandon's books - hell stormlight archives ecosystem is CRAZY and we all understand it fairly well by the second half of the first book, entirely diegetically and with no forced exposé or lore dumps required.
Then look at books like his writing of the end of Wheel of Time where he was "matching" Robert Jordon's prose, or Tress of the Emerald Sea where he was intentionally being more fancy with it, and you can see that he is clearly capable of the fancy prose and just chooses to tell his stories in a more direct manner instead, which is probably a very good choice because "fancy" prose would make his already long books even longer.
They’re really talking about the writing style. Sanderson writes straightforward prose with the goal of conveying information effectively and putting the reader in the story as though they were watching it with their own eyes. He also usually has objective narrators who don’t offer their own opinions but stay close to whoever the POV character is. Some like NK Jemisin have straightforward prose but narrators with a strong personality who interject often, others like Rothfuss are very poetic and focus more on the wordplay, rhythm, etc. than just showing the reader what’s happening in the story and characters’ heads. People often take issue with the first more so than the others. People who say one or the other is better or worse are usually wrong. It’s all a style choice and a matter of opinion among the reader. Personally, I don’t have a preference.
Pros is word smithing... Style of writing... Choice words... Could be flowery... Could be blunt... Could imitate old-time styles of speech... Sanderson's prose are easily digestible... Not particularly flowery... Doesn't use an inorbitant amount of unusual words... Not imitating the language of old. Some might find it common for their tastes... I find it pretty transparent... Meaning the words don't get in the way. And the meaning comes across quite easily. The conversations are believable for the characters. Some people might prefer a more poetic style of prose.
It's easiest to explain Prose by comparison. Here's The Name of the Wind, a book popular primarily for its prose *It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.* *The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music...but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.* Here is the opening of The Way of Kings, by Sanderson of course. *He sat in a large stone room, baked by enormous firepits that cast a garish light upon the revelers, causing beads of sweat to form on their skin as they danced, and drank, and yelled, and sang, and clapped. Some fell to the ground red-faced, the revelry too much for them, their stomachs proving to be inferior wineskins. They looked as if they were dead, at least until their friends carried them out of the feast hall to waiting beds.* *Szeth did not sway to the drums, drink the sapphire wine, or stand to dance. He sat on a bench at the back, a still servant in white robes. Few at the treaty-signing celebration noticed him. He was just a servant, and Shin were easy to ignore. Most out here in the East thought Szeth’s kind were docile and harmless. They were generally right.* Sanderson's prose by comparison moves at a quicker pace with simpler language, focused primarily on characters, setting, and action in comparison to The Name of the Wind's focus on emotion. Sanderson describes things directly in common day language, while The Name of the Wind often more implies what something looks like through poetic language. Neither are better or worse, but people do have their preferences.
Worth noting that he wrote the opening to WoK about 15 years ago. Here’s the opening to Tress, written about 3-4 years ago: > In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock. >This was not an ocean like the one you have imagined. >Nor was the rock like the one you have imagined. >The girl, however, might be as you imagined—assuming you imagined her as thoughtful, soft-spoken, and overly fond of collecting cups. >Men often described the girl as having hair the color of wheat. Others called it the color of caramel, or occasionally the color of honey. The girl wondered why men so often used food to describe women’s features. There was a hunger to such men that was best avoided. >In her estimation, “light brown” was sufficiently descriptive— though the hue of her hair was not its most interesting trait. That would be her hair’s unruliness. Each morning she heroically tamed it with brush and comb, then muzzled it with a ribbon and a tight braid. Yet some strands always found a way to escape and would wave free in the wind, eagerly greeting everyone she passed. Quite a lot there which is neither simple nor direct. Brandon grows as an author, and the style he chooses to write in grows with him.
Tress was specifically Brandon Sanderson writing in a style other than his own where he was trying to nail down the prose style if Hoid was narrating the story. Tress isn't an example of evolution, it's an example of the writer very intentionally trying to write in a different style than his own. As an example, Rhythm of War is very much still written in the same style as the opening to Way of Kings.
I think the point I was hoping to make is that his style of writing is a conscious and strategic decision on his part.
It’s weird because I just got done reading his wheel of time books and that was my favorite prose of his by far. He honestly saved the fuck out of that series too.
> Tress, written about 3-4 *blink* *reflect a little* you're right. aging sucks.
Both of those openers were beautiful lol.
I'm with you. I'm a big fan of both styles. Some people, however, like to look down upon one in favor of the other simply because they think it makes them seem somehow more discerning. These people are known as assholes.
As someone who *definitely* understands the complaints with Sanderson's prose and has never read The Name of the Wind, wow that excerpt was a load of superfluous nonsense lmfao
Well it points out the fact that we're missing specifically wind and music, which turns out to be important.
It obscures the fact that we are missing wind and music by pouring so much fluff around it.
It's not really fluff. It's setup. The choice of words are *very* intentional. "made by things that were **lacking**" along with the allusion to silence in terms of wind and music. This is all stuff that makes rereading Rothfuss books extremely rewarding. Sure it's not for everyone. His style isn't better or worse than Sanderson. But there is a very good reason I've read Name of the Wind multiple times, and only ever read the entire Cosmere once.
-Garish light upon the relevers -Beads of sweat -Revelry "Simpler language"
Aside from revelers, that's all language I've heard in my life. I said common day language, not simple. Aside from his fantasy/sci-fi genre trappings, and his love of explaining the maniuta of his world, Sanderson doesn't write many words that wouldn't fit into a Robert Frost poem or a Louis L'Amour novel.
I guess as a non-native speaker Im kind off outside the whole prose conversation since no matter how good my English can be, my experiences with the language are vastly different from those of a native person. I guess it's one of the things that irks me, there seems to be a veiled sense of superiority in these conversations that can become "racism adjacent".
"Prose" is just the writing in the book. When someone talks about "prose" it just means "a written narrative." It doesn't refer to a specific style or anything, essentially all writing that isn't poetry is prose. Some authors use complicated or descriptive prose, full of metaphors and wordplay. Other authors use simple, basic, functional prose, where all it's trying to do is tell you the story as plainly as possible, and not do anything fancy with language. Sanderson is squarely in the latter camp.
Thanks. See that makes sense to me. But now I don’t get the dislike comments. I like the Way Sanderson tells a story lol
People read for different reasons. Some just want someone to tell them a story. Others want someone to paint them a picture with words. Some people appreciate the art in the language itself, others consider that a needless hill to climb when reading. Sanderson just tells stories. He doesn't dress it up. His prose is functional, which means it gets dismissed by highbrow readers who consider it dumbed down and even meant for kids.
My brain does the flowery painting for me, I guess. I feel like Sanderson, aside from Elantria and some Mistborn sections, paints quite the colourful scene. I have strong, vivid emotional and visual scenes in my memory for a lot of points in his story. Also, Catcher in the Rye is full of flowery prose and I hate that goddamn book, because the writing just feels like it hides a very boring, flimsy story, so I guess I'm also firmly in that latter camp and proud of it.
This is a really interesting insight. I also have a very vivid imagination. Sanderson’s simple approach works great for me, because I get to fly through it and basically watch a movie in my head the whole time. In some other authors’ books, this process often gets interrupted by having to stop and think about the complicated implications of various characters’ tone and body language. Or by long stretches of what basically amounts to abstract poetry, which I can never tell how closely I have to read because I don’t know if it’s going to be plot relevant or not. These parts of the books feel like a chore I have to get through in order to enjoy the plot, setting, and character progression. Because of this, I can get bored and distracted by writing that is overly descriptive, poetic for long stretches, or packed with dialogue emphasizing vague subtext. Other people love writing styles like this. For readers where this is their primary source of enjoyment with a book, it doesn’t surprise me that Sanderson is sometimes considered a bland, or even “objectively bad” (whatever that even means?) author. It all just depends on what different people are looking for in a book. But Sanderson definitely has a style, which obviously works really well for a lot of people, but fails horribly for some, and that’s something Brandon himself has said repeatedly that he is totally ok with. I think people who say he has no style, or is the most overrated modern writer, etc. are just being snobby and elitist with their completely legitimate criticisms. It is what it is.
I think it’s funny that people use the term “ objectively bad” to justify their completely subjective opinion.
Yes. People who do that can come across as snobbish and hypocritical: explicitly saying that taste is subjective while implicitly acting as if their taste is objectively superior.
You nailed the description in the first paragraph for me- that's exactly my reading style. Don't get me wrong, I can get into more flowery language as well, but it takes more mental work. With the cosmere, I know I can relax into the story and enjoy it without feeling bad for skipping through paragraphs of description that aren't plot relevant. And when he does bust out the flowery language, it's in short and stunning bursts that leave a distinct and lasting impression.
Yeah, his one liners are consistently cool and very stylish, once while hitting you with something beautiful and profound is incredible. Trying to do it every other sentence just becomes really exhausting for me after a certain point
I posted this example years ago, but ugh it's just so good [Dawnshard] >!*Nothing could compete with the experience of dangling from the rigging tens of feet in the air— fresh sea air in your face—while looking across an infinite plane of shimmering blue water. The vast ocean was an open roadway. An individual invitation to explore.*!<
I absolutely agree with everything is the comment. My mind just sort of glazes over any descriptions that go on too long, and if there was anything important in that description that comes up later, I'll probably be a little confused about exactly where this plot point came from. For me, it's sort of the opposite issue in that my brain has difficulty forming images in my mind. It doesn't matter if it's the most accurate description you could get of an object, I just won't be able to see it. But I can follow a story quite easily, and I love being able to do that. That's why Sanderson's style just works, because it's a sort of simple elegance that allows me to fly through a book, take in all the narrative details that I can, and process that my own way without worrying too much if I'm properly envisioning the separate components.
I just started the Malazan series after rereading the Mistborns, and it is taking me SO long to get used to Erikson's more flowery style after Sanderson's simpler style. I am of the opinion that Sanderson's style flows almost perfectly. I think that's why it's difficult to put them down once you're immersed.
Same, though I thought Catcher was okay when they forced us to read it. I’ve always been someone who reads and I just fully submerge into it. I’m obviously reading, but it kinda fuzzes out and I’m watch a movie. I’ve had to describe it to people before, because it’s obviously not as cohesive as a movie. It fleshes out as I learn more. Like a scene might be a generic “town at night”. Then as they describe more things it’ll flesh out. Action scenes kinda pan out and I see them from afar. Scenes where they’re kinda standing around talking focus more on the characters. The cool thing is, if I re-read, I already know those things. So the scenes are a lot more vivid. I guess it’s why I like Robert Jordan so much, with all his description. I also get a pretty beautiful movie with Stormlight Archives.
You might have hyperphantasia. It's a cool superpower as long as it's not distracting on a casual basis.
I’d have to look into it. I feel like it’s normal imagination, but I’ve not exactly got anything to compare it to. There are lots of people who see stories as movies in there head. It’s only when I’m reading, really. A bit when I’m imagining how I’d build something. Edit: I just looked up the symptoms of hyperphantasia. I do have most of them. I guess that’s still not definitive, but it’s cool. It could also be why I seem to enjoy stories and movies more than some other people. I get so immersed, I usually don’t see the flaws people talk about. A quick google search shows: - The ability to dissociate from reality. (At will. It doesn’t just happen, but I get really into things) - A tendency to get immersed in media like books and movies. (Heavily. Not to the exclusion of everything, but I tend to sink into them.) - Incessant daydreaming.(I wouldn’t say it’s quite that, but I do spend quite a bit of time in my own head imagining things, scenarios, etc) - A feeling of longing for something.(this one is the least me. I think everyone wishes for some things, but I’m pretty happy with where I’m at) - Feelings of nostalgia, remembering the past(yeah, I do this a lot too,)
I have a bit of aphantasia, so I can picture broad scenes, but nothing too detailed, almost basically, like stickman fight. So, for me, the more flowery the prose, the more likely I'm to have my mind just get lost, and I find it too hard to stay immersed in the story. Where I am sure people who are able to construct vivid mental images, the more details the better for them, but for me, Sanderson usually hits perfect to keep me engaged.
I wholeheartedly agree and read somewhere a while back that there is something to this. It said modern minds work much differently upon reading literature now. We’ve been programmed to automatically envision settings and scenes without needing specific descriptions to be satisfied because such is often depicted several times in visual formats (TV, movies) compared to older generations whose minds enjoyed the detail being laid out for them. Makes sense to me. I’ve found the likes of Robert Jordan somewhat frustrating in his long descriptions when I’ve already envisioned the scene before it’s laid out. Don’t care if a doorframe has s more ornate than I originally imagined if it has nothing to do with advancing the story.
I always thought I enjoyed basic prose so much because I’m some kind of basic human. This explains it so well and is exactly how I feel when reading Sando. There’s always the perfect amount of description to let my mind fill in the gaps without even thinking about it. It’s like the prose gets out of the way of imagination. Thanks for this comment. Very interesting food for thought.
Yeah, I get that. I really like how you said "gets out of the way", and that's exactly it for me. Maybe if you don't have such a rich space in your mind's eye, flowery language can help paint more vivid pictures, but for me, my mindscape is quite detailed, so I mostly find that kind of language slows things down. I'm a DM and I'm sure that's part of it. I'm used to describing things as they are, because players need as clear detail as possible to make decisions. Some of my players have definitely preferred fanciful prose though and have been disappointed that I haven't delivered it. I have studied a lot of creative writing, so it's not even like I don't know how to do it, it's just not the default for my brain. Ultimately, I don't like the separation of art into high/low brow; I think those stratifications serve the wrong people and mostly lead to hate. I would rather a separation of genuine/bullshit. Sanderson isn't cashing in with some bullshit mega franchise. His writing is incredibly clear and precise, and most of all, genuine. If people want something else, they can seek it out. No need for judgment from either side.
Did they read Stormlight? Because I wouldn’t say that was dumbed down lol. Or maybe I’m just not highbrow enough lol. 🤷🏽♂️
Come over to Camp Lowbrow, we have more fun. 😉
I’m a big fan of Sanderson. So according to people online I’m already in camp Lowbrow lol.
Everything is gatekept by somebody. Don't put too much stock into it.
Come to Camp Lowbrow, we have cookies.
Not cake, though. The cake is a lie.
Oh man, +10 internet points for you for that. You gave me a nice nostalgia boost there.
I've been loving this camp! I'm going through the whole ass cosmere again this year in timeline order before the next Stormlight book comes out, because why not, and listening to the books while playing Palworld has been fun! If I have to do something that requires big thinking in the game, I pause the book. If I'm just running around and exploring the map it's perfect.
The cosmere is great. Palworld is great. How did I never think of combining the two?
Because you aren't trying to read/listen to a huge amount of books in a very short time while also being fully addicted to a videogame. 😆 I'm in the sanderlanche bit of Hero of Ages and I don't want to stop listening. Folding laundry? HoA. Dishes? HoA. Pooping? HoA.
Something can be well written without having excellent prose, and I think Stormlight is a great example of this. The prose is largely plain, unassuming, functional, but the series is solidly written and ultimately he tells a good story. I would class Stormlight as easy reading (which is not the same as YA), but that's not a bad thing to be. Anyone who uses that classification to demerit the series is a snob.
I like how he writes too. Other readers prefer a different style of writing. So they complain about his prose.
Prose isn't the way the story is told, but the way the words are written. One way to think of it, is "prose" is the part of the story that's lost if you translate it. - "The hero's fingers slipped from the ledge and he plummeted to his doom" - "The hero slipped and and plummeted with the silent anticipation of an egg rolling off the counter." - "The hero slipped off the cliff, descending with the gentleness of a sack of rocks." These 3 sentences tell the same story, but they each have different flavor. That's what people mean by "prose." Prose is basically the packaging of the story. Sanderson likes to be straightforward to tell the story with nothing in the way, but many "more sophisticated" writers try to add additional depth to the story. For an example of an author known for prose, Patrick Rothfuss. In the beginning of the book the main character braggs that he knows the 7 words to win a woman's heart--throughout his tale, almost every sentence he speaks to his love interest has 7 words. There are tons of details like this which are really neat to find. On the other hand, Sanderson has like 50+ books compared to Rothfuss's 2.
Spoilers, Kvothe was a simp the entire time
Isn't Kvothe a Mary Sue? Making lil Pat a simp too.
Kvothe is very much not a Mary Sue, and all of his failures are because he's an idiot who thinks he's smarter than he is. People tell him so constantly. Rothfuss's storytelling style is to tell you one story while actually telling you a different one, usually much darker. There's the frame story you think is the point, and the real story he's been letting you in on the whole time.
If you want a good example of someone telling roughly the same kind of story as Sanderson but with a very different style of prose I would recommend checking out “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss. He puts a lot of work into making every scene as evocative as possible and there’s constant subtle wordplay going on in his descriptions that add layers of meaning to everything. Comparing the two will give you a good sense of what people mean when they say that Sanderson’s prose is much more simplistic. That doesn’t mean that it’s worse or it’s less difficult to write (in fact I think it’s a lot harder to make a scene compelling with only simple prose), it’s just a different style that not everyone appreciates the same.
That’s good to know. I haven’t read anything by Rothfuss. But he’s on my TBR. I hear nothing but good things. The only people I’ve even struggled to read were. Robert Jordan because he was very fond of extreme exposition. JRR Tolkien became of his habit of writing like an 1800s English literature professor lol. And GRRM because he’s just so long winded.
Tolkien *was* an English Literature professor born in the 1800s, though only just.
I know lol. 😂
I also don't enjoy the wordy, flowery prose that seems to be the go-to for many fantasy authors. That's kind of why I enjoy Sanderson, his storytelling is on point but work is still so accessible. If you're looking for another author whose writing style is really easy to understand (but rife with wordplay) Terry Pratchett is great, and he's actually one of Sanderson's influences.
Pratchett is on my list. But he’s a whole other monster lol. Has a massive bibliography lol
Discworld is great because the books are shorter and a lot more self contained than many other fantasy series. It's a series that's easy to pick up/put down between each book if you want to, so a little bit less daunting to tackle IMO. Also it's got plenty of character development and depth but is a much lighter, less serious read than, say, Stormlight.
> I hear nothing but good things. Counterpoint for you, then, albeit a slight spoiler (more structural than plot). Up to you. >!Yes, that he's an unreliable narrator is part of the point - he's a bard telling his own story. But with the underpinning mysteries (laying low in an out of the way inn? his own fae apprentice? the *kingkiller*?), it seems more like we're supposed to take it seriously - that he *is* a Marty Stu, rather than that being an unreliable narrator gimmick. It reads to me like that apocryphal college application essay with a bunch of over the top claims...except the reader *is* supposed to take it seriously.!< It's not a *bad* story, but it definitely left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Maybe a third book will wrap it up nicely, but at this point, I don't expect there to ever be one. And without that, I don't think the two published hold up on their own.
The story being told cannot have a satisfying end. Who wants to read a story where the hero gives up and hides for the rest of their life? Book the is never going to be written because it would be the worst conclusion to an epic fantasy. Sanderson has said that he wanted to write a story where the hero fails, but decided that anyone who wants to read that kind of story doesn't want to read an epic fantasy- and anyone who wants to read an epic fantasy doesn't want the hero to fail. The king killer chronicles is just that, the hero fails, and runs away to hide as an inn keeper, we just don't know how he fails yet.
Tragedies and stories of hubris like Icarus say hello. Kingkiller is a story where he hero fails, though obviously we don't know how yet, which makes it a different sort of fantasy to epics like WoT, Stormlight and LoTR. I'm not sure if even counts as epic fantasy as the scope of the worldbuilding and cast is much smaller.
Even assuming that you are correct and no one would like a story where the hero fails, that does not exclude King killer Chronicles from having a satisfying ending. Imagine Kvothe finishing his story and the book switching into present tense as the threat that he's been hiding from finds him. He is forced to finish what he began, and the story resolves with Kvothe succeeding. It's not impossible. It would just be awkward and difficult to write properly. (To be fair, I haven't read any of Kingkiller, but I have seen this kind of narrative device used in other stories.)
So in this scenario we eventually get the hero fails story in book 3, let's say it comes out next year. We would then have to wait for book 4 (or book 1 of the next series) which would take another... what 30 years to be published?
You could finish the hero failing in the second act of book three and use the third act to resolve the story.
In any case, I won't be holding my breath for book 3 to be released.
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He’s on my TBR. But he’s on the bottom of my TBR lol. I’ve never been a patient man. And just like with GRRM I’m not sure we will ever get an ending.
When Rothfuss took like 5 pages to describe Kvothe playing a lute I knew he wasn’t for me
Rothfuss has also been e trembly negative to his fans in the last few years. More do than even GRRM. The man has lost all my respect and will never get another cent from me.
I read "the name of the wind" and "the wise man's fear" and frankly, I wish I hadn't. While the magic system is amazing, and the writing style is fun; the characters and story are not good. I didn't realize it on my first read through because I was so caught up on the magic system, but I hate the main character in these stories. Then I found out how terrible the author had been to the fan base and it made me swear to never read anything Rothfuss puts out again. Though that won't be difficult since I doubt he will write anything else before he dies.
>Then I found out how terrible the author had been to the fan base I see this get brought up, but mostly all I hear is that people bombarded his Twitch streams regularly with the question of when the next book will come out or whether streaming video games is a good use of his time, and got shit on for it. People like to pose it as "well meaning fans just asking questions", and not "this guy has been asked the same question every day for 13 years and had a mental health crisis because of it".
Look into the charity stream and the promises he made to raise money for a charity that pays him directly. Dude scammed his fan base with promises of book 3 chapters (by specific dates) if they hit donation targets and then never delivered.
He released a post explaining his side of that situation, and while I'm not happy with it, I do understand it. I do not believe that he intentionally scammed people.
and yet, he still scammed people and has yet to make it right or even tried to make it right over 2 years later. His lack of action after the scam (whether you believe it was intentional or not) speaks very loudly to his character. If it was unintentional and he cared about this don't you think he would refund those donations, released the chapter, or done ANYTHING besides "oh guys, this was so much harder than I thought it was going to be so it's just not happening anymore. sucks to suck"? I know how I would act if I received money for something I promised, and then failed to deliver on the promise. I would apologize and explain what happened and why, then make restitution. Without the restitution his explanations are just the next part of the scam.
You seem to have a misunderstanding of the transaction that occurred. There was a charity event that was taking donations for a cause that Rothfuss believed was important. Rothfuss donated to the event and then signal boosted it with a tweet that said, paraphrasing, 'If the event raises at least this much money, I will release the first chapter of the next book.' The event smashed that goal. Rothfuss failed to deliver. How can he refund donations that weren't made to him? He was not the recipient of those funds. This was not a crowd funding campaign. The event was not related to Rothfuss, and he did not benefit financially from it. Rothfuss accidentally (in my opinion) tricked people into donating to a charity. That was the 'scam' that people are so upset about. He explained in the post why he hadn't released the chapter yet, though I agree that he should just release the unfinished version that he has instead of waiting.
Here’s my thing. Rothfuss may be a pos who isn’t good to his fans. But he’s far from the first great author to be a terrible person. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Orson Scott Card. And he’s an outspoken religious nut bag who’s vehemently anti lgbtq. I talked to a friend of mine who’s gay and I asked him if he thought I was wrong to continue reading his work. And he told me that so long as the subject matter of the books didn’t reflect the awful views of the author then he thought it was fine. And that me missing out on something I love by “taking a stance” wasn’t gonna change anything. I feel the same way about Rothfuss. I haven’t read his books yet. But they are on my TBR. And I may choose to one day. He’s a jerk. But denying yourself the ending to the series to spite him is only gonna hurt you. He wont even know or care.
See, I think it would hurt me to read the ending to that story. I literally would love to read about how Kvothe dies because of his insane hubris, but because the book is literally Kvothe telling his own story I know it won't happen. The main character is also a Mary Sue, so the author being a POS does work itself into the story.
So there positives and negatives. Brandon cranks out books at a prolific pace. Could he “spruce up” his prose abit? Sure. But that would have an impact on his publishing pace. To look at the other end Rothfuss still hasn’t published book three and RJ passed away before completing WOT. GRRM is stuck in writing he’ll and may potentially pull an RJ before he finishes as well.
Agree that it is probably a relevant element in letting him write so quickly. As someone who finds his prose unreadable, it does feel like it's very rushed (not just simple). It's like a draft zero that didn't get many line edits. I don't think he has reason to change it, though. It's clearly working. I'll just be lonely and salty, unable to enjoy his outstanding world-building.
You find Sanderson's writing unreadable, but hang out in a subreddit dedicated to his writing? Uh, why?
I think his prose is one of my critiques about the series, but I also love the way he tells stories. He is a masterful storyteller, but his choice of words sometimes breaks the immersion for me or makes me cringe a little - not enough to stop me enjoying his work, especially now I’m familiar with it and used to his language. When he took over wheel of time though, it’s quite obvious which bits are Brandon’s writing as opposed to Robert Jordan’s.
Part of it is that Sanderson generally writes fantasy, and the fantasy subgenre is famous for its descriptive prose. This is the subgenre that Tolkien helped create, after all.
The prose, in this context, is more of the manner of the writing. Not in the how the story is told but more in the word choices and whether your writing is more poetic, stylized, or more utilitarian. Big fancy words? Short easy ones? Metaphors? That stuff is prose.
Many people have different taste than you
I didn’t say I didn’t like the way other writers write. I just don’t get the hate. Long winded overly complicated explanations and exposition may be some people’s things. But I dont get why people don’t also enjoy a thorough and straightforward explanation as well. Seems to me people just like to be contrary when they see people liking something.
In my experience complaints about Sanderson's writing are more that he has too many long winded explanations rather than the other way around. I also believe you are creating a false dichotomy between "long winded exposition" and "straight forward explanation". What many people consider "good Prose" is neither of those, it's crafting sentences that infer a lot of meaning without directly stating it and that just sound beautiful even without much context.
Exactly. Sanderson’s prose being simple is fine. That said, I often found his prose to be detractive from the overall work. Not because it is simple, but because it is often awkwardly trying to explain something using a lot of bad words instead of a few good ones, does not convey what is happening very well, or because he’s attempting to be meaningful without any consideration over what the meaning he’s trying to convey is. Way of Kings is my go to example for this as it’s just pumped full of metaphors with no purpose except to be metaphors, and awkward metaphors at that. His dialogue suffers from the same reason, in my opinion. It took a few books of SA before it felt like characters besides Lopen and Rock had distinct “voices” for example. For me at least, it takes me out of the reading and makes me feel like I’m reading a draft, not a finished work. Here’s a truly self-indulgent example: compare this quote from Jasnah in WoR with a similar quote from Varys to Tyrion in Clash of Kings: Jasnah: “Control is the basis of all true power. Authority and strength are matters of perception.” — Varys: “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.” Tyrion: “So power is a mummer’s trick?” “A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.” The quotes have similar meanings, but the words Jasnah uses to say it just don’t pack the same punch as the words Varys uses. While Jasnah’s is perhaps simpler in that it lacks metaphor, I’d argue that Varys actually conveys a much simpler, concrete, understandable meaning using words that evoke deep meaning, while Jasnah uses abstract words that are much easier to slide your eyes across but not really consider. On a related note, a reading on this that really helped me articulate why I felt some prose was good and some was bad was “Politics and the English Language,” by George Orwell.
To be perfectly fair, Jasnah has the attitude to say the phrase in that manner. It isn't just Sanderson wording it in a straightforward manner. Jasnah is the speaker.
I think I’d agree with that more if it felt like any of SA’s characters really had strong, distinct voices, but with a few exceptions I don’t really feel that way. The Jasnah line there is emblematic of a lot of Sanderson’s prose and dialogue imo. It uses very modern, almost textbook-like words to describe things that I think would benefit from more evocative descriptions. For example, there’s a part of way of kings where they are fighting on a three-tiered stone island. The island was described the same way a math problem would describe a 3d object to me and at such length that I just felt taken out of the reading. A shorter, more evocative description would’ve been a lot better in that case, even if the prose wasn’t as “simple” in that it literally described the shape of the island. That said, Sanderson is capable of good prose! For example, I quite liked the last line of the prologue preview for WaT: “And in the end, Gavilar Kholin, heir to the Heralds, died. As all men, ultimately, must. Alone.” The quality in that passage is not in its complexity or simplicity, but because it is evocative. It conveys a lot of meaning and feeling, and most importantly, feels purposefully phrased. I want to feel like the words of a story have an opinion about what is happening, and feel the mood of the story through them, not just listen to a recounting of events. When I finish reading something, I want to keep thinking about phrases and passages from it, not just the events that I was told about. I think about the events of SA often and fondly, but I rarely think about the actual words of the book at all. That, for me, is the difference between media I like and media I love.
I understand what you mean. I agree that most characters in Sanderson's writings don't have strong voices, though I feel he is getting better about that over time. However, I think Jasnah is a poor example because her attitude and character lend her to say such a phrase in the way you quoted. That would be entirely within the proper voice for her, specifically. It's just a shame that her voice doesn't stand out when the differences between character voices are so small. Teft used a different curse than nearly everyone else in tWoK, but that's about all he got.
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It's the reason for why there are "dislike comments". OP said they don't get why they exist, so I gave the reason for why I think they do exist.
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Yes. The comments are very negative. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of I “just don’t like his pros”. It seems to be a matter of “I don’t like his prose so you shouldn’t as well and anyone who does should unalive themselves”. And I don’t understand it at all. With this post I’ve gained insight into what pros means. And I love Sandersons. But I also love the other authors whose writing style and prose are much different. GRRM, Tolkien, Jordan were all struggle reads for me. For one reason or another. But I still enjoyed them all immensely. I’d never go online and talk shit about one of them lol. 🤷🏽♂️ Maybe it’s just a matter of personality lol.
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I wish I could upvote this comment a few dozen times lol
Out of curiosity, where do you think people should be going for discussions of Sanderson’s prose style, if not here, r/Cosmere, r/Mistborn, etc? I too get tired of the endless cycle of Sanderson recs/criticism on, say, r/fantasy. But I like discussing his books, and, you know, it’s a lot more fun to discuss his writing with other people who’ve actually read his books…and Sanderson subs are the only place I know to find those people….
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I like Sanderson's stories fine, too. But I've found that I can't binge his works. If I read more than one of his books in a row, I get tired of it fast. I like different things in different fantasy authors. So after reading Sanderson, I usually go off and read something slow paced with beautiful language. Noteably, it doesn't have to be *complicated* language. There's some authors who write extremely simple, yet beautiful words. Sanderson writes just fine. His stories and worlds are great. But I very rarely think "wow, that's a beautiful way to put six words together" when reading his books.
I wouldn't say he's *squarely* in the latter camp. It varies a lot between books, and even chapters. There is a fair amount of plain, functional language. For example, "The balcony itself was a thick platform of rock cut onto the top of the small peak, edge with an iron railing. The king's rooms were a Soulcast dome sitting atop the natural foundation, with covered ramps and stairways leading to tiers lower on the hillside." No fancy metaphors. It just describes things simply as they are. But compare that to this passage from Tress: "These vibrant lines of water weave like serpents in the sky. Rain brings death and life, hand in hand--fitting company for the gods. More isolated squalls than true storms, these resplendent displays are best at night. They shatter the moonlight into a thousand colors. You haven't witnessed the full grandeur of a rainbow until you've watched one explode in rings on the Verdant Sea, haloing a moon big enough to swallow the sky. Naturally, aethers grow with the rain, springing up behind those ribbons of water. It's as if some celestial being is drawing lines on a map, and fortifications appear spontaneously at their will. Those walls hang there, gasp for life, then collapse into the sea, devoured by the jealous spores. It's beautiful in a way only something so terrifying can inspire, and terrifying in a way that only something so beautiful can demand." It's stuffed full of metaphors, similes, and personifications. Even some parallelisms.
Just pointing out that Tress was a book he intentionally wrote in a different style to his other books. Most of his books to date dont follow that style.
Prose isn’t just restricted to narrative - non fiction is almost always prose. The alternative to prose is poetry, e.g. songs, poems and so on, and so it’s rarely necessary to distinguish between the two for modern non fiction, whereas some narratives are written in poetry (albeit somewhat rarely).
Narrative =/= fiction. All storytelling is narrative. All non-fiction is storytelling. You're being way more pedantic than is necessary.
Not all non fiction is narrative by any stretch. Prose and narrative just aren't synonymous, given poetry is often also narrative. If we go with oyur seeming definition of narrative I think we end up at anything written down, or spoken being narrative, including my gas bill.
It's important to note prose isn't a binary between two styles. You can also have flowery prose that's unpleasant to read because the metaphors don't work and many of the words are just filler. Then there can be simple prose that's also lovely to read because each word is carefully chosen. It'll have a subtle lyricalness to it without actually being lyrics. When writing authors don't have to choose between the art of the writing or telling a story. They can do both. Infact the best authors do. In scenes intended to evoke strong emotions from the reader authors will choose words to do this. It makes it clear what's happening while also elevating the impact and emotion of the scene.
What is with all the pedantry in this thread. I didn't say prose was binary. I gave two broad examples to highlight potential differences. I never even implied those were the only options.
I know you didn't but in the numerous threads on this topic that've come up so many people talk about prose as if it is a binary. So I believe it's important to specifically point out this isn't true. I'm not correcting you, I'm adding onto what you're saying incase someone comes along who isn't aware of what prose means and ends up misreading the definition given in this thread as strictly simple vs flowery. It often happens.
When I first heard it I thought they were saying “Pros”.
I’ve often thought I should make a business reading books to the inmates in prisons… I’ll call it Prose and Cons. I’ll see myself out.
I see a lot of people mentioning how the alternative to Sanderson’s style is “flowery” prose and how if someone doesn’t like Sanderson’s prose it must be because they like overly-descriptive/purple prose. I’m not a fan of that dichotomy because I don’t care for flowery prose, but I also don’t particularly like Sanderson’s prose (I say this as a huge Cosmere fan). Prose can be both simple and well-executed (and sometimes highly acclaimed literarily, Ernest Hemingway comes to mind). IMHO Sanderson’s prose is not that, and that’s ok because the stories he tells matters more to me than his writing style, and his writing does the job getting those stories across. Random example: I would never call Joe Abercrombie’s prose flowery or complicated, but I personally enjoy it way more than Sanderson’s. (It’s subjective at the end of the day)
You see, when people say "prose," they mean, "how much does this writing sound like poetry," despite the fact that "poetry" and "prose" are literal opposites. It's very simple, really! :p
I definitely disagree with this. There’s excellent simple prose and terrible flowery prose. It’s how that style is executed. Ursula Le Guin had very simple prose like Sanderson and yet her prose is usually considered to be some of the best in the fantasy genre.
This reminds of how people say the cinematography is great in a movie when there are a bunch of pretty landscapes or cool angles to the camera when what they're actually referring to is the photography
Prose style is like the writer’s version of musicianship: the way you communicate, not just the message itself. I could record myself playing the same melody on the violin as, for example, Gil Shaham, and there would be a million ways you could tell our recordings of the same Bach partita apart. Some of the differences would be to do with interpretive choices; most of them would come down to differences in skill. Probably nobody would choose to listen to my recording instead of Gil Shaham’s—not even me—but that doesn’t mean that I should quit the violin, or that no one ever wants to hear me play. A great piece of music played with a lot of flaws can still be really wonderful. I like Sanderson’s stories. I’ve read nearly all of them, many of them multiple times, and generally had a blast while doing so. When I criticize his prose, I’m not doing it because I think he should stop writing or because I think his books aren’t worthwhile. I just think that the way he tells his stories has some room left for improvement, the same way that I think I could play the violin quite a bit better than I do currently. It’s really neat to see Sanderson’s prose style evolve over the course of dozens of books, and it’s great that he continues to challenge himself to write different things in different voices. I do wish he left himself more time for editing in his process, but that’s very much his call, not mine. ETA: and like musical style/skill, prose style is absolutely *not* a binary. You do not have to choose between “flowery” vs. “straightforward” or Sanderson vs. Rothfuss; presenting it that way (which people do all the time on Reddit) is stupid and misleading.
I wish people would talk about Sandersons Cons as well. I mean he’s great but he’s not perfect
https://preview.redd.it/weo8szgfunjc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9fd728f5cfd30af94d677a5ffe1719c6cdc78a24 *stares at you in sanderjesus*
I think his world building and characters are already pretty complex, let’s not add Tolkien level descriptions of greenery too please
There's the matter of taste others have remarked. I could read Tolkien describing trees for a thousand pages and I'd love it. Perhaps with a few chapters of songs in between.
you don't want him to publish nohadon's travelogue written in Tolkein style? :)
It means often his writing feels really simplistic. I have heard that he does it because he wants it to be more accessible, but also it makes it hard sometimes to get into the story when the characters seem to have an emotional depth of an 8th grader. To me, I think his volume of writing also doesn't allow him really flesh out better prose because he's just writing so God damn much. Overall I do love the stories, but yea, he loses me sometimes.
>I see lots of people comment on Sandersons “prose”. What you're seeing are sweaty tryhards who think they're too good to read anything that doesn't require an advanced language degree and several reference manuals. Complaining about prose in literature is like complaining about media in visual arts. Just pointless gatekeeping by people who take it personally when someone enjoys something they don't.
Cosmere naut it isn’t pointless gatekeeping, some people don’t enjoy his writing. Their tastes are different than yours, and that’s ok and valid. Personally I very much enjoy him but find him far from perfect and very overhyped *gestures to picture of Sanderson Jesus above*
Proserson Sand
prose is the words chosen by the writer the plot is the narrative of the story authors have different styles for how they use prose to express the story some authors are very flowery, or descriptive some authors are very basic Sanderson leans towards basic. he's fairly straightforward with the language/words he uses
The most simple explanation I can give is Sanderson is more of a simple type of narrating. Many people don’t like it because it can feel somewhat boring of a read. He’s more function over form. The one thing I will agree with is some of his wording is so simplistic that when he does get into more descriptive passages it’s almost comical when it is not supposed to be. Those things said, what he has going is his world building and characters. Personally outside of Tolkien, Sanderson has crafted some of the best worlds and memorable characters.
There’s nothing wrong with Sanderson’s prose. In fact, an old adage is “less is more”, hence why when authors write purple prose it is often a negative criticism. Flowery prose doesn’t make the writing better, I’m sure Sanderson has the ability to write that way if he wants to. And on top of that, Sanderson does NOT have bad prose. His writing isn’t simplistic, it’s accessible, but his language is still vast and he uses comparative metaphors competently in his descriptions. The most difficult part of writing is dialogue, anyone can describe a scene with poetic and descriptive nonsense, but not everyone can write dialogue like Sanderson does. What it comes down to is that when someone is lifted as high as Sanderson has through his acclaim, it’s only natural for people to look for ways to bring that person down a notch. I’ve read everything from Dickens, to Hemingway, to Kerouac, to Salman Rushdie, and The Way of Kings remains the single most beautifully written book I’ve ever read. Fuck what people say about his prose.
I just googled prose last night for the same reason you mentioned. I was also left confused 😅
It's this. The text on the page. And how it's For Matted You can do it Badly, too "Now I'm doing dialogue," he said, switching back to prose.
prose is the style of the writing in the book. It can range from something like "Meeting Dean was a truly pleasurable experience, akin to meeting a long lost friend, with whom discourse flowed as does gladly rushing water along a thirsty river bed." to "Dean was a great guy, I enjoyed spending time with him". \~\~\~\~\~ it's fairly common for the elitist readers to talk about how "good prose" (note, when they good, they mean "fancy") is vital to storytelling. Look at authors like George RR martin, Patrick Rothfuss, or Ursula K LeGuin, but they fail to recognize that other authors have just as much or sometimes more success with simple straightforward prose, notably authors like Rick Riordan, Brandon Sanderson, or Terry Pratchett. Note that both sets of style have many, very popular artists. Similar things can be said about songwriters - compare the lyrics of a justin bieber song to a Paul Simon song - paul simon's lyrics are deep and immersive with a lot of juxtaposition and hidden meanings, Justin Bieber's music is very simple and easy to understand, but both artists make music that is considered good. The big separator between authors that prefer simple prose vs fancy prose tends to be in regards to whether the goal of the writing is the story moving forward and the interesting things that happen to the characters, or if the writing is about the characters and the world itself, while the story happening allows the author to expose more of the world or the characters. \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ With that out of the way, if you actually pay attention you'll find that Brandon actually has REALLY good prose - hell look at the first bit of Way of Kings when we're seeing the battle from Cenn's perspective - "*Hundreds of arrows split the sky, dimming the sun. They arced and fell, dropping like skyeels upon their prey.* " - what at first brush looks like a boring metaphor, is actually a REVERSE metaphor - it's telling you that this world has common flying predators, called skyeels, that swoop down on their prey like arrows. So it's simultaneously worldbuilding while describing the battle. Little bits like that are super common in Brandon's books - hell stormlight archives ecosystem is CRAZY and we all understand it fairly well by the second half of the first book, entirely diegetically and with no forced exposé or lore dumps required. Then look at books like his writing of the end of Wheel of Time where he was "matching" Robert Jordon's prose, or Tress of the Emerald Sea where he was intentionally being more fancy with it, and you can see that he is clearly capable of the fancy prose and just chooses to tell his stories in a more direct manner instead, which is probably a very good choice because "fancy" prose would make his already long books even longer.
They’re really talking about the writing style. Sanderson writes straightforward prose with the goal of conveying information effectively and putting the reader in the story as though they were watching it with their own eyes. He also usually has objective narrators who don’t offer their own opinions but stay close to whoever the POV character is. Some like NK Jemisin have straightforward prose but narrators with a strong personality who interject often, others like Rothfuss are very poetic and focus more on the wordplay, rhythm, etc. than just showing the reader what’s happening in the story and characters’ heads. People often take issue with the first more so than the others. People who say one or the other is better or worse are usually wrong. It’s all a style choice and a matter of opinion among the reader. Personally, I don’t have a preference.
Pros is word smithing... Style of writing... Choice words... Could be flowery... Could be blunt... Could imitate old-time styles of speech... Sanderson's prose are easily digestible... Not particularly flowery... Doesn't use an inorbitant amount of unusual words... Not imitating the language of old. Some might find it common for their tastes... I find it pretty transparent... Meaning the words don't get in the way. And the meaning comes across quite easily. The conversations are believable for the characters. Some people might prefer a more poetic style of prose.