I actually had to read it 3 times to even get your point. The "he said" or "she mentioned" portion of dialogue normally doesn't even register with me. I am too focused on the conversation itself to care much (that is what is critical to the story, not the dialogue "format"
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I didn't much further in Mistborn, and it gave me a really bad feeling about the forthcoming WoT finale trilogy. The irony is that I am only able to articulate the specifics of Sanderson's flaws because I hated his treatment of WoT. I didn't really know what he was doing wrong, but I knew WoT like the back of my hand and what Sanderson wrote was not what I was used to reading. Discussions with the more enlightened readers on this site, particularly DomA (most of the other "book snobs" having matured far beyond having anything constructive or useful to say about Sanderson's attempt)helped me catch this kind of thing. It has also helped me put my finger on things I dislike about Game of Thrones, in comparison to A Song of Ice & Fire.
I still can't really tell good writing from bad, but thanks in large part to Jordan setting me up to plow through three long books written by Brandon Sanderson, I am better able to pick out differences in style, and spot bad things.
For the record, I certainly wouldn't characterize myself as a good arbiter of good vs. bad prose either. I find the gap somehow more obvious in my native French between popular writers and great writers. In English I already find it much more difficult, though I can still spot the basic writing mistakes, which remains the same regardless of language. But I've never been the type who could discuss at any great length the stylistic differences between Émile Zola and George Sand. I go much more by instinct than formal knowledge of literary criticism.
That said, when a writer has a character smell flavors, I can tell his mastery of English is not as good as he ought to be. 
refers to the TV series, ASoIaF to the books *NM*
- 29/05/2014 09:38:28 PM
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