It’s All Just A Case of History Repeating

We are nearly at the end of Chris’s teaching article, and she’s evaluating the “opening overall,” as well as providing a lead in for Chapter One. I’ve numbered again, instead of bulleting.

CW: “Clearly, this prologue has many issues.

1. Erikson’s information management is abysmal. He overwhelms readers with unnecessary details and bores them with dry exposition while simultaneously denying them the information they need to know

2. The characters are all flat clichés, from the naive boy who wants to be a hero, to the seasoned soldier, to the cold, imperious villain. I’m not saying you shouldn’t depict a naive child or seasoned soldier, but please do something to make them a little more interesting.

3.Most of all, Erikson’s scene design needs serious work. A series should not open with characters standing around talking about events happening somewhere else. Scenes should feature the story’s most important events. Put an important character where they need to be for that to happen.

My best guess is that despite the length of the series, it’s still overburdened with more information that it can handle. Simply telling readers about the death of Dassem, the burning Mouse Quarter, and Laseen’s plans allows Erikson to stuff in more world events than he could cover if he featured an exciting scene with Dassem’s death by angry god, Ganoes getting trapped in the Mouse Quarter during a riot, or Laseen assassinating the emperor. The only cost is everything that could have been good about this scene.“

I’m not going to refer you back to everything I’ve said, but I believe my previous responses answered these issues. To be perfectly honest, I am posting this only so that anyone reading gets a complete picture of the article and how it was presented.

Chris then goes on to give the readers an opening for Chapter One, which is actually a “snippet” prior to the chapter. Given that the snippets for the prologue were considered insignificant “additions,” it’s surprising that Chris quoted this as an opening teaser. As per her previous examples, the snippet is taken out of context, and also misrepresented. So where are the lessons for budding writers? What part of this article is teaching?

Maybe, Ms. Winkle will let me know.

My final thoughts are here.

Edited to add: I posted the link to my blog response as a comment on the original article at the same time as I posted to both a reddit community and a discord community (6th August.) Comments on the post have to be approved. Mine, which explained that due to length I had provided a link, has not been approved and I have had no response from Chris thus far. Not that I expect nor need or require one. I just thought it was quite interesting.