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Q&A Traits of Bad Writers - Analysing Popular Authors

My complaint about Paolini was that he took a reasonably generic plot idea and... wrote it generically. His worldbuilding wasn't original, in any capacity. His characters were boring. His elves wer...

posted 6y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:46Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32867
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:47:35Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32867
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T07:47:35Z (over 4 years ago)
My complaint about Paolini was that he took a reasonably generic plot idea and... wrote it generically. His worldbuilding wasn't original, in any capacity. His characters were boring. His elves were cookie-cutter, if you'll pardon the phrase.

It particularly ticked me off because he was writing about "boy finds dragon egg, hatches dragon, raises baby dragon" and it was just. so. generic. I threw the dang thing across the room. The book I had finished prior to _Eragon_ was the gorgeous [_Joust_](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0756401534) by Mercedes Lackey, which is _also_ about "boy finds dragon egg, hatches dragon, raises baby dragon," but with thoughtful worldbuilding and distinct characters and beautiful descriptions and a real sense of time passing and an actual plot and real stakes.

There's the old saw that there are only like forty plots in all human literature, and what makes any particular telling good is whether it is original and relatable. Paolini's sin was that his version was neither.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-01-29T22:12:25Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 8