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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Mistborn: Alloy of Law
« on: May 27, 2011, 10:53:25 AM »I don't understand why people keep saying that TWoK is slow to start. I was transfixed from page 1. There were times that I'd have to stop and read the same paragraph four or five times because his prose was so beautiful. I had to stop myself from tearing out the page and framing it.
Oh, I absolutely agree! I loved it, and read it twice. What people mean is that from a story structure, it starts a lot but does not finish much - it is very much a set-up for something to follow. And three plots means of course that each plot feels slower. Compare this to the first WoT novel - immediate action, danger, and a singular (mostly) journey building up to a final goal, which is reached and the "big bad" is defeated. That is more of a self-containing story in itself while the larger plot is prepared in the background. That makes for a faster-paced first novel, but later novels have the problem of less connection with the previous parts, or more and more contrived connections that weren't really planned for. This is what Brandon does a lot - he sets up some things to pick up on later so that in the end, it will feel much more like one organic story spanning 10 books.