Words in the mist.

           I'm currently reading a series right now that is driving me crazy. "Mist born" by Brandon Sanderson Is a story about a girl who finds out she has the power of a mist born, who can burn different metals in her belly to give her different powers. She and a band of thieves are working together to save the world from the threat of the immortal Lord Ruler and the evil Darkness. It's a great book and I love the story, and I love how its written, however I'm having trouble with the story telling.

           Story telling is hard to do some times. I'm not talking about 'ploting', Story telling is how the plot unfolds. I feel that even if your story and plots sucked, you could save it in your story telling. The problem I am seeing in Mist born is that it feels really drug out. I don't wont to ruin the series for any one so I wont give any examples from the book, but my wife had a hard time finishing the third and final book. "I'm sick of reading the same thing over and over!" she said.

           This got me thinking? Are publishers asking writers to add more text to expand a series, or is this the writers doing? I for one, am not happy with the development of some of the series I've read, because of these shenanigans. I do, however, understand that if each book was written like a stand alone then a new reader could pick up anywhere and enjoy what he/she is reading. But then I think, If this was my intent then I would plot and adopt a story telling technique for doing just that.

           I like to look to one of my favorite books, The Lord of the Rings, as a case study. It was written as a whole book, then slit apart into three. The narrative doesn't back track. If you pick up the second book first, you will get lost, and Tolkien isn't sorry for it, and he was named the 'Writer of the Century'. I like this because as a series its focus was on the story it was telling. If you pick up a story in the middle, you should be lost, so go back to the beginning. If its a 7 book series, then go to book 1. Writers shouldn't be giving us a monologue over what happened in the last book, because the reader should have read it already!

           I also look to another favorite book, 'Dresden files' by Jim Butcher. Each book was written as a stand alone. You can pick it up any book and enjoy it. Jim Butcher tells the story in such a way that you don't mind that you already know that this or that had happened. He planned the story telling to include it, and it always adds to the story he is currently telling. Other writers do this also, Clive Cussler does this with the Dirk Pitt series, in fact Clive Cussler very rarely back tracks, he introduces the characters in every book as if you never knew him, then moves on to the story.

             My point is that It seems like many of the  new writers are so intent on writing a series, they forget to tell the story, and that's a shame.