What Makes Prose GOOD? Tolkien, Sanderson, Jemisin, Rothfuss, Erikson | Professor Craig Explains
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- Опубліковано 20 чер 2021
- Is Rothfuss the best writer in fantasy? Is Sanderson a terrible stylist? Is Erikson too thick to enjoy? In today's video, Craig dives into a a few aspects of prose style that may explain why people enjoy one author's prose style over another's.
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Probably worth mentioning that Tolkien was an Oxford Professor of Anglo-Saxon and before that had worked on dictionary etymology concerning English words of Germanic origin.
I'm glad. I feel like when speaking English, I'm code switching with either French or Latin.
Funny that English became a global tongue but is inherently hybrid.
Maybe for this is the indicate for the "tongue of the west" a mix up of latin an germanic , the greatest family of languange in the west. The spanish has more native language but is more dificult because arabic and native american languages influnces.
And he did not enjoy the latin influences on the English language at all.
@@arolemaprarath6615 The inherently hybrid is exactly the one who can move from group to group--offers more potential "handles" for someone else to grasp. I grew up in an area where Spanish already influence by Nahuatl interacted with English already influenced by many other languages and their intermediates (Yiddish, Czech, German, Russian, Polish) and in a time when the fusion of Mexican and German/Czech music was producing conjunto and morphing beyond that to lots more out of the ranches and small towns, the guitars and accordions. English was already hybridizing, possibly even before the Romans got to Britain, and certainly with every subsequent invasion. I'm a fan of the OED and the etymology in there, available for any writer to play with.
Tolkien's universe is just a ripoff of the bible. If he had spent as much time developing an original story, as he did playing with languages, maybe his stories would have made more sense. And he wouldn't have had to retcon things like the eagles.
Tolkien and Erikson are my favorites, so I guess I like long sentences and don’t much care about Germanic vs. Latinate words. Erikson’s writing is more modern than Tolkien’s, but I don’t mind.
The key to long sentences is parallel structure. Here’s a prose quote from Erikson:
“He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony. Imagine a world without such souls. Yes, it should have been harder to do.”
That’s a monster sentence in the middle, but it reads like a poem:
Such people appear in the world,
every world,
now and then,
like a single refrain of some blessed song,
a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony.
Tolkien and Erikson both liked to write poetry and incorporated it in their fiction, but often their prose reads like poetry as well. And I like that.
Brilliant comment, I think you've nailed why Erikson's long sentences don't feel difficult to wade through, but instead I often take a step back to reread and admire the "view" so to speak.
Personally speaking, while I respect the craft so far as being considered good at it is a skill, that type is not appealing to me at all.
To me the beauty of the word is the idea and how over time in a story we can start to have idea connect, contort, synthesize and evolve in the telling.
There’s someone ik who’s a big fan of Tolkien and that style and as he’s a story teller at heart he very much tries to emulate Tolkien and I gotta say the story he tells are better when he’s not doing that.
@@brianlowe904 Here’s a bit of prose from Tolkien broken down like poetry:
Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away.
Behind him his banner blew in the wind,
white horse upon a field of green,
but he outpaced it.
After him thundered the knights of his house,
but he was ever before them.
Éomer rode there,
the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed,
and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore,
but Théoden could not be overtaken.
Fey he seemed,
or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins,
and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old,
even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young.
His golden shield was uncovered,
and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun,
and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed.
For morning came,
morning and a wind from the sea;
and the darkness was removed,
and the hosts of Mordor wailed,
and terror took them,
and they fled,
and died,
and the hoofs of wrath rode over them.
And then all the host of Rohan burst into song,
and they sang as they slew,
for the joy of battle was on them,
and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.
Without the inclusion of poetry in these drawn out descriptions, I feel I would quickly lose interest. Like a monotonous recollection of a boring day as opposed to a carefully crafted, picturesque, painting you can continue to look at without a boorish thought.
@@timswabb 2 things:
1. I prefer it formatted as poetry instead of the traditional paragraph format
2. Man I really need to re read the trilogy, it’s been too long
Brandon Sanderson had a great quote from a podcast I remember listening to where he described prose like glass on a window. Very rich and beautiful prose is like a stained glass window that is beautiful to look at (and read) but can obscure what is beyond the window a bit (the story/plot). And minimalist prose is like a clear window that's not noticable at all but also doesn't have it's own extra beauty. And he said it's up to each writer to choose what type of window they want to look theough.
He also said that he was the kind of writer who looks through a clear window haha
that's fair. to me, i want to marvel at the art of stained glass, because the story is contained within the window. I am not looking outside. I am looking at the art.
@@ohifonlyx33 Guess that comes down to if you appreciate the writing or just the story behind it. And for a person that skipped every song-break in Tolkien's books, Sanderson is just my kinda writer.
That's a good metaphor. The best prose I've ever read was by Marcel Proust. It was absolutely stunning, but by God was it infuriating to discern what the hell he wanted to say.
@@SupremeDP I mean a stain glass window doesn't show you what is outside, but it tells a story of its own... the light filters through and illuminates the pictures. The artists job is to make something so vivid that it speaks to the observer... Its a work of art. The window is not particularly fancy. It's much simpler, but it lets you see the natural beauty and light in a plain way. It's job is to get out of the way and lets you see whatever is already outside. If the view is pretty enough and the window is panoramic, then that works quite well... although you may rather wish to simply step outside...
@@ohifonlyx33 man ended it with a "touch grass"
I appreciate why audiences, who enjoy modern literature with increased pacing, dislike Tolkien. But I also adore him. Where modern works are masterfully paced like a gourmet meal, Tolkien takes his time, presenting a home cooked meal by a comfortable fire.
As a true Hobbit would.
Yeah that was always my biggest problem. I forgot where I heard this but while many writers create their story like an iceberg with only the small but important information of the world sticking out of the water and in the story, Tolkien write a mountain where everything is put in but most of it is not important to the story. I can definitely appreciate the world Tolkien created but the way he wrote it took away too much pacing of the story for me to really enjoy reading it.
I would say modern works are more like fast food where as classic works like more likea fine dinning four course meal.
@@shauncarver9016 I would disagree strongly with this idea. I think both are great in their own rights. To make one seem lesser by comparing it to fast food seems way too harsh. Both take a very skilled hand to do.
P.S. while I may seem super annoyed I really am not and everyone is entitled to their own opinions of course.
@@masonguthrie1257 I agree that both work hard. The comparison was more about the way they are presented. Most modren fiction is fast paced bouncing from event to evet, each part enjoyable and together makeing a meal. Where as classic tends to progress more deliberately with every part being more deliberately constructed to work together to create a more satisfying whole, though some of those parts can seem pointless or mundane.
I gained an insane amount of respect for Rothfuss when I realized everything Felurian says in Wise Man's Fear is written in iambic pentameter. Some conversations with Denna as well.
As a non-native speaker i can say that Brandon's prose are way more comfortable to read and fully grasp the meaning of each sentence. And much better to translate too.
Considering how repetitive it is yes I guess it makes the job easier
Indeed. His style is so accessible, that I'm reading at a much higher pace than any book I've ever read (other than non-fiction, which is usually also fairly simple). Even though the prose is less colorful, I'm experiencing the story more at higher speed because I feel like I'm in the story, rather than being the spectator.
@@Duckfest It is quite the depressing thought. I'm currently revising my entire production because it would seem that it's useless to strive to achieve technique. Accessibility > elegance.
@@maximedurante7574 [accessibility > contrivance] Ultimately it depends on the intention of your writing.
No, elegance requires a certain degree of vocabulary (precision) and ease for sentences to flow. It is the opposite of contrivance but it's more demanding on a reading skill level. In French, for instance, you can swap verbs around to avoid repetitions; you can also delete certain superfluous words (mainly articles). It makes sentences more nimble and concise, but readers are more likely to be stumped when they expect a word that isn't there.
I personally love CS Lewis’ style, it flows beautifully but he also incorporates plenty of more romantic sounding words and descriptions that honestly make the otherwise captivating story feel magical.
What's cool about his writing is how much of his own character he inserts into it. For most writers that might be a bad thing, but CS Lewis pulls it off wonderfully
The chapter where K’vothe got his pipes had some of the best prose I’ve ever read. The chapter was like a beautiful song holding you at attention in a state of tension as it slowly brought you to tears and the scene was essentially the same. It blew my mind. Ive read a lot of books, but never have I read a chapter quite like it. It’s by far the most beautiful chapter ever written, in my opinion.
@@seanmurphy7011 how's the view from that horse?
Sean Murphy, what makes you think I haven’t? I’ve read a ton of classics. Writing has evolved. The classics are masterpieces, but so what? I guess I’ll come to you in the future and make sure my subjective reaction to a book meets your standards. Since you are clearly cultured and that matters for some reason. I mean, I read fantasy mostly because I enjoy fantasy the most, but sure, let me read the classics instead and force myself to care. 🤷♂️. The classics are good, they aren’t for me though. I prefer fantasy and you’re an elitist.
It was really lovely.
You're not wrong, his writting is really good. The scene where he's walking with the girl, beautiful. His pacing is strange to me but his style makes up for it for sure.
Also ignore the hater, "what I like is right and if you like something else you're wrong." Sounds like a pompous douchebag.
@@seanmurphy7011 you’re such a sad person….
Tolkien was a linguist who deeply understood etymology. He used Germanic versus Latinate versus Finnish, of all things, to ground his various peoples in distinct vocabulary, and his descriptive paragraphs and other aspects of his own voice reverted to his own mix, which was certainly affected by his deep knowledge and awareness of language. He was up to more than merely communicating story to reader. / Please, by all means, do more of this sort of analysis, it's fascinating. Bravo, sir.
I find Sanderson's prose to be very cinematic, more concerned with the scene than with the words describing it. My favourite prose I've read are Robin Hobb's and Joe Abercrombie's.
Robin Hobb is amazing
I agree. A man’s got to be realistic about these things.
Cinematic is a good word for it. I don’t really pay attention to how he writes-nothing reads poorly, but I don’t notice anything particularly fancy either, it just gets the job done in a way that transports the story from the pages into my mind. His focus is clearly on simply conveying his stories, and his writing is more of a vessel for it (maybe, I haven’t exactly spent a ton of time thinking about this). His writing, for me, never distracts from what’s going on in the story, positively or negatively. I love stories and I love fancy writing, but I think I’d much rather read a book whose strength and focus is on the former rather than the latter (although I’m not saying either is better, and I haven’t even read these other author’s works so I don’t know for sure). Sanderson offers stories, and he delivers. If I want fancy writing, I’ll go look for fancy writing, instead of expecting it from someone who doesn’t focus on it.
@@Professor_Brie this is an excellent take!!! his books are really fast-paced too in a lot of ways, and I think more drawn-out prose is better suited to slower novels
Robin Hobb is great, and Abercrombie really enjoyable too.
I love Patrick Rothfuss
I would be interested in a larger comparison of Sanderson's chapters against each other. Most of his novels that I've read switch character perspectives at chapter breaks, telling the story from their own perspective. I get the feeling that the prose is heavily influenced by the character's voice, characters who are each telling a story their way. It would be interesting to see if a statistical analysis reveals any significant variations across character voices or not.
Very true. His solider characters are a filtered prose.
Meanwhile, sometimes his more noble characters have a bit of a poetic structure. Sometimes.
Usually it's just an easy prose with Sanderson
So refreshing to find a channel that actually talks about the text rather than the story being told. The way a book is written and how competently it is written is far more important (to me) than any ideas or plot points it presents. I think it was Jim Butcher that said "A good author can take a bad idea and make a good book, whilst a bad author can take a good idea and make a bad book" i think sanderson was quoting him in one of his free youtube lectures.
That's about plotting not prose.
I think it's about both. Good prose and good plotting can make almost any idea wonderful. With just good plotting, that's more of a struggle.
This was completely fascinating. Yes, please do more stuff like it.
I think I tend to lean towards preferring slightly more plain and utilitarian prose. I like Tolkien, but his prose is so formal sounding it's hard for me to truly love it, even though the story and characters are very good. Rothfuss I like, but I'd say his prose doesn't get so flowery as to be distracting. There are other problems with Kingkiller besides the prose.
Jemison was a little hard for me to get through. The woman is clearly incredibly talented, but I found it hard to like The Broken Earth. And Sanderson's prose might be a little too utilitarian, although it doesn't really bother me.
Ultimately, if you give me good characters I can forgive a lot of weaknesses in prose. I love authors like Drew Hayes and Michael J. Sullivan. They excel at character work, even if their prose isn't top notch.
I agree with the good characters part but if the level of tolerance depletes before you get to seeing how good the characters are, then it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t get myself to read much of Lies of Locke Lamora even tho it was heavily recommended to me.
I very much agree. The characters are the lifeblood of most stories and as long they’re strong they can carry most weaker aspects of a book
I like Brandon's simpler, minimalist prose. I'm the kind of person that appreciates a good story and enjoyable characters, and that is what Brandon really delivers on.
I am an Indian here. Of the books listed I have read 2 of them. Sanderson and Rothfuss. While Sanderson's prose isn't as poetic as Rothfuss, there isn't anything wrong or alarming with his writing. Both give me almost the same impression. And also Sanderson tends to have more active scenes then Rothfuss so there's that to consider as well.
Robert Jordan's prose in the Wheel of Time is pretty top notch, although he tended to get a bit too heavy and longwinded in the whole describing things aspect, especially in his later books.
"His eyes on the reflection, he was surprised when Red suddenly stopped. On the point of urging the bay on, he realized that they stood on the edge of a clay precipice, above a huge excavation. Most of the hill had been dug away to a depth of easily a hundred paces. Certainly more than one hill had vanished, and maybe some farmers’ fields, for the hole was at least ten times as wide as it was deep. The far side appeared to have been packed hard to a ramp. There were men on the bottom, a dozen of them, getting a fire started; down there, night was already descending. Here and there among them armor turned the light, and swords swung at their sides. He hardly glanced at them.
Out of the clay at the bottom of the pit slanted a gigantic stone hand holding a crystal sphere, and it was this that shone with the last sunlight. Rand gaped at the size of it, a smooth ball-he was sure not so much as a scratch marred its surface-at least twenty paces through.
Some distance away from the hand, a stone face in proportion had been uncovered. A bearded man’s face, it thrust out of the soil with the dignity of vast years; the broad features seemed to hold wisdom and knowledge."
- From Chapter 20 of The Great Hunt
Coming off of Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson and starting Steven Erikson’s Malazan: Book Of The Fallen series has been a task and also awesome. I notice myself reading slower but it’s different in a way that I think I needed. Loving it.
Erikson's prose is beautiful, period. If you pay close attention to the content of each sentence, it will blow your mind.
Sanderson may be accessible but he has the tendency to be annoyingly repetitive. You can skim through the entire page and still get the gist of what's happening.
Author you didn't cover that would probably help to look at as well: Robin Hobb.
Aside from that, I don't know how I feel about some small bits of it being tied to prefering word choice origins as a particular influence. Maybe more related to what is commonly used in your area geographically or the type of required reading you were exposed to in English classes.
I think for me, it comes down to how much is and isn't said in as few words. Tolkien feels very wordy, but very basic as well. A lot of words for very basic actions descriptions to build up the idea that the path they took was very narry and impossible to turn around and go back. However it does fill in more detail to directly immerse you in the terrain- soft and boggy ground, springs, banks, brooks, weedy bed, etc. Brandon's describes the terrain in a broad way which your imagination can fill in however you like- things like plateaus, highstorms, poor cover. Tolkien's description meanders the whole scene, while brandon's is more focused on details that concerns the characters and the plot more. Basics of what it looks like and how it relates more directly to what the character is doing and what they want to do.
To be honest, as a former literature student, I would put more emphasis on quality than quantity when analysing prose styles.
Does the author show mastery over tropes and figures? Are their metaphors fresh or overused? Is their paragraph structure comprehensive? Are they proficient in optimal usage of meaningful details in the right order?
Statistics are fun, but I don't think that they give us the full picture.
Right, and on top of that to what extent and how successfully do they balance the semantic aspects of writing with the poetic aspects? Do they have a good command of rhythm, prosody, musicality, using unexpected turns of phrase without being unclear or ridiculous? Does "purple" or complex prose come across as pretentious and masturbatory, or does it come across as lyrically beautiful and surprising? Does less complex prose come across as low effort, un-varied, and flavorless, or does it come across as elegantly and deliberately crafted? There are great prose stylists and terrible prose stylists at all combinations of sentence length, word origin, etc.
@@thescribe3184 out of the authors in this video I personally fall into Tolkien and Rothfuss camp.
But it's hard for me to recommend literature based on prose, as I usually read in my native language. And style is what affected the most by translation.
But in the last couple of years I would say that Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and C.S. Levis I liked the most.
@@thescribe3184 as far as I understand, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky have pretty good translations. But they are pretty culturally loaded. To fully understand them, you might want to familiarise yourself with 19th century Russian history and political climate, traditions and history of Russian monarchy and Orthodoxy. It's hard to understand Dostoevsky, if you don't know that he was sentenced for his political activism, later heavily influenced by Russian Orthodox tradition and actively debating with political thinkers of his time.
If you want to know more great Russian stylists, I would suggest perhaps trying Turgenev, Chekhov, Bulgakov and Nabokov.
This was the discussion I thought I was going to get from this video.
I thought he was actually going to shine a little ray of truth on what might make prose good. Why would I think that? What a chump!
@@RidleyJonesFrom my blunt perspective, Tolkien is deeply in the masturbatory camp, so often contriving his prose to force the use of poetic devices in ways that interfere with clarity and often lead to redundancies. Example:
>> [...] neither quill nor feather did it bear [...]
That's obviously bassackwards to force the assonance of "feather" and "bear". It's like saying, "He neither had legs nor feet to retreat." I pick on this example but there are countless, and Tolkien's prose strongly suggests to me a poet more concerned with how they sound than what they're actually saying. It sounds very pretty but what it's saying is actually extremely dumb and ill-conceived and very stupid (I hope you got what I did there).
This is super interesting. As a reader of Sanderson, and someone who just started reading more, I can say that for some reason, his books just flow like water. I don’t catch myself having to reread something, or ask myself “wtf did that just say?!”
But I also really enjoyed ur Tolkien reading so I’m wondering where I stand!
Really insightful teachings. Thank you. You had me craving for the writing samples of the other authors you analyzed. I'd watch that extended video from you!
Tolkien's prose flirts with meter at times without breaking into outright poetry (see the opening of the Battle of the Pellenor Fields), and he also throws in conventions of Germanic poetry. Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli meeting Eomer follows the "Who are you stranger?" -> "I'm , and this is why I'm a badass" convention that you see in Germanic poetry when a foreigner runs across a local patrol, including the whole "stranger should identify himself first" bit of manners. It also begins with a line of straight-up Germanic alliterative verse: "What néws from the nórth, / ríders of Róhan?"
The Germanic/Latinate hypothesis is intriguing. Would be curious to see a more detailed NLP analysis of these texts and compare them to semantic judgments NL and L2 English speakers of similar Germanic & Latinate sentences
Fascinating video! The comparisons were interesting. I’d love to see more in depth analysis with some other authors added in. Great work, as always!
I really enjoyed this content. My first time landing on the channel, but I look forward to checking out your previous offerings.
As someone who covers prose a lot in his reviews, I thought his was a great video. Would love to see more.
Tad Williams memory Sorrow and Thorn series as well as shadow March is my favorite style of prose. It's poetic and beautiful but also accessible and easy to understand.
PEASE MAKE MORE OF THESE KINDS OF VIDEOS!! This was incredibly informative and helpful for me as a fiction writer. It helps to analyze the science fiction/fantasy books I read for fun. That way, I'm soaking more of them into my writing toolbox.
Just started watching your channel, and I gotta say, your library is one of the most amazing collections I’ve ever seen. I can only hope to achieve half of that
Wonderful video overview. Very concise and helpful.
This type of video is exactly what I've been looking for! Are there any similar resources on the topic of prose style/analysis?
Dope video man, love this kind of content!
I just found your channel and subscribe in the first minute of the video. This is definitely interesting, and I love how you did not insert your own opinions into it. You simply give the audience the information they needed to understand their own opinions on these authors. Pretty cool!
Great video, both in production and content.
Loved this, please do more videos like this and don’t be afraid to do deeper dives.
Thanks! Not afraid of the depth. Just the time. 😂 🕜🕣🕥🕓 ua-cam.com/video/3YTBVvfgjEE/v-deo.html
This was such a creative and informative video! Hope you do more of this
More to come, for sure. I've got a loose plan for a small series on prose coming up.
Loved the breakdown, learned a lot. And you earned my subscription just with this one video.
Great video!! I really loved it! I am Spanish but I have read Rothfuss' books in English because I am a huge fan of his prose
That was a fascinating video, thank you so much!
I've been trying to grasp what a prose meant for some months now, and i feel that you gave me a big piece. Thank you dude.
I really appreciate this video! I’m a writer/author but have only published non-fiction works to date. I’m currently working on a fantasy trilogy and find Sanderson’s works extremely fluid and inspirational. I tried the audio book for The Name of the Wind and thought it was horrible, but that could have been because of the narrator. I plan to read the print version to give it another chance. Anyway… I’ve been struggling over writing in my own natural writing voice or trying to be more stylistically similar to be of these authors. Your video helps me see that my own “voice” isn’t quite as important as my story because different people will love different things no matter which way I go. Thanks again!
This was very insightful. Great video
Good job man. This was very enlightening.
I did my Bachelors in English Linguistics and some postgrad study in Old English, so this was a really enjoyable watch for me. I'm by no means an expert so I don't have any edgy internet genius comments to throw in. I do have some thoughts to throw in, but not the edgy ego kind. One factor I think is important to bring up is the author's awareness of the criteria in the video, namely the origin of words. If the author isn't consciously aware of the origin of the words they're using, I think that's relevant. The broader angle you took, conversational vs poetic, is a good way to frame it because they are most likely not thinking toooooo deeply about the origin of each word. So either awareness of word origin or awareness of writing style is a good factor to consider in a follow up video. What are their intentions when writing? What does "writing poetic" vs "writing conversational" mean and how different is this meaning between Tolkein's time and ours?
Also, Tolkein is actually kind of hard to compare with modern authors IMHO. Tolkein vs his contemporaries might give some insights. But English has changed a lot since his day, every year we move farther from the mid-20th century, and every year that language becomes more dated, falling out of use. I don't think using his writing was unfair though.
Overall, cool video idea, lots to think about! I'd definitely watch more.
Very helpful and enjoyable. Thank you!
Nice case study. Help for me. Thank you.
Loved this video. It dissected the writing in an interesting quantifiable way, and so much writing advice is more qualitative than not.
Yours is such a great and necessary commentary. It was funny to see your comment on the first paragraph being the one an author would focus so much. This happened to me. I was so impressed and loved so much and read and read both in English and in Spanish the first chapter and the THREE SILENCES in The Name of the Wind. This had so much imagination specially thinking that this is silence !!! And Patrick Rotfuss just imagined so much and wrote it so beautifully. By the way, and this is just personal, I really enjoyed it so much in Spanish, my mother tongue, and the only reason I searched for it in the two languages was because i loved this intro so much. Please keep making these videos, so original. Helloes from Mexico City.
I'm not an avid reader, but I find the process of writing interesting. You explained this really well and engaged me! Thanks
Glad you enjoyed it!
There are few fantasy writers who really have what I consider a strong grasp of prose. Gene Wolfe gets there. When I think of good prose, I think of Wilkie Collins, Nabokov, Proust, Borges. Fantasy writers can often have very good prose, but I find that it's hard for them to reach really high up in terms of their style, I think because they're more in love with adventure and the world that they're building than they are captivated by a love for language itself. You read the Narnia chronicles, and the prose is extremely simple, as it is for children, however for simple prose I find it to be stunningly effective.
I think that was the point of Narnia, as far as I know IT WAS made for children
Wolfe was indeed incredible. If you want to check out some more SFF with excellent prose, look into Kai Ashante Wilson, Arkady Martine, Alix Harrow, and Matthew Stover. All excellent, all with very different styles.
Gene Wolfe is so good
Currently falling deeply in love with Jeff VanderMeer's prose in the Ambergris series. I am constantly delighted by his turns of phrase, his gorgeous word choices. ❤
In the context of the recent Wired article on Sanderson, this video is quite relevant. Thanks for the interesting, if brief, foray into an analysis of prose
just stumbled onto your channel... great video! subscribed. :)
Wow. Incredible analysis. Thank you.
this video was so interesting and helpful thank you
Solid content on a topic other authortubers seem to ignore. Props to you sir.
This was such an interesting video!! Really interesting to see what probably is something I draw to and something I move away from
This was so awesome! Thanks!
This was very informative. Thanks!
The fact that you nailed Erickson’s style purely by these metrics, never having read the books, lends a huge credit to the validity of these criteria as a measuring tool. The Malazan books are notorious for their density and eloquence, which makes them a joy and a challenge. I enjoy Sanderson, Rothfuss, and Tolkien as well, and the information here will add a lot of insight into why I feel the way I do about each of them.
Thank you for sharing!
I really enjoy Erikson’s writing, and it makes my kinda sad how much shit I typically see it get, but I think a lot of people have an aversion to the combination of dense writing AND dense world building at the same time, which is a reasonable opinion
I think you're more or less right about the combination of dense writing and worldbuilding. One of the first things that comes to my mind is the number of names, which I find difficult to keep track of. He also doesn't just paint the world for you--he gives it to you as puzzle pieces you have to assemble yourself. With regard to writing, the biggest challenge to me is the amount of subtext he includes. You have to read between the lines a LOT. All of this put together just means the reader has to do a lot of lifting that most authors don't require.
I don't love it myself. Some might argue that harder work means greater rewards... Depends what you're after I guess. I certainly prefer driving to the gym to get my workout over hiking there. XD
But I respect it and I can see what some people love about it.
I ended up reading the whole Malazan series but it took a lot to get into it. Gardens of The Moon was rough and I was absolutely lost pretty quickly.
Then I sort of picked up Bonediggers at the library because I was broke and needed some chonky but light reading and he really learns how to do his thing and present all the information he wants while getting much better at giving context clues and types by everything together. I love how it all comes together even if I chuckle at how silly the power-scaling gets.
Not every character has to be a nigh-immortal tragic hero and also a dragon.
But I had a lot of fun and Memories of Ice stands as my favorite fantasy novel.
@@brushwagg7735I think that has more to do with the fact that immortality itself is pretty tragic because the amount of immortals in malazan I would say is maybe 5% of the characters give or take 2%
@@danielgwynne7266 it’s not like the mortals have it any easier, though. But all those dang caveman zombies bum me out
Amazingly, it all seems to make sense in a weird, hard-to-explain kind of way. I've read four of these authors and am several chapters into my first ever Jemisin book, and when that final table came up, it all just seems so... right! Yes, please do more of these videos, Prof!
Thank you, this was very informative!
Structurally, it was interesting to see that Tolkien has a lot of "this and that" constructions, which makes his sentences longer, but not so much more complex. Jemisin seems to be the most deliberately sparse writer, she gets to the point first and adds flavour later. Erikson packs a lot into each sentence, he likes adding new details, as opposed to describing the same thing with more words.
Great video!
I've got to say I was intially unconvinced that Germanic words vs Latin was a big factor but you've won me round a little. For me I feel like I know if a book is well written if there is a high percentage of prose in comparison to dialogue, for example the worst examples of YA novels tend to have pages and pages of dialogue with a little description either side of conversations. I don't know if theres a point when too much prose hurts my enjoyment, there probably is though.
The other two aspects you mentioned are definatley sentence structure and punctuation. Also, I know loads of people who hate the more adjective riddled styles like a HP Lovecraft and find it a bit annoying and forced.
The dialogue to description is an awful way to measure prose quality. Take, for example, William Gaddis, who writes so much dialogue in his novels to the point where there’s more of it than descriptions. But he’s considered one of the greatest modern prose writers, and uses dialogue to its fullest extent. Although I would agree that, if an author literally cannot describe for shit, then they are a bad prose writer and I could definitely see someone trying to cover this up with dialogue.
This video was absurdly helpful!
Very interesting video, and thoroughly helped me pinpoint why I have such a hard time with Tolkien's flowery, long descriptions and love something like Robert E Howard's fast-paced, visceral style instead.
Really enjoyed that analysis. From my experience with all of those books mentioned aside from "The Fifth Season", a lot of my prose preference has to do with pace. I found Tolkein just REALLY "slow" like it takes 1 whole paragraph to say: "The hobbits descended a hill with a small river alongside them". Which just annoys me to no end.
Don't get me wrong, I like vivid description but it has to be concise and well considered. Sanderson is exceedingly approachable along with Rothfuss. Whereas Erikson just has DENSE prose with a lot of subtext at times that can make it difficult to read.
The pacing should be mixed, depending on the plot. He is not writing a thriller. One paragraph to describe one action in some pages and one paragraph to describe 20 actions in other pages to keep the reader interested. But on average, it should be 5-10.
Super interesting video. I've never thought about the spread of Germanic / Latinate word use before but now you've pointed it out it's making a whole lot of sense.
Thought I'd mention there are some othere ways to examine prose objectively such as redundancy/brevity, specificity, rhythm, grammar etc. Though if you went into everything the video would be hours long so understand why you narrowed your focus!
This was very interesting. This is possibly why I can’t read Tolkien for hours on end (too many adjectives and adverbs). The Germanic to Latinate comparaison was also very interesting. I am a native French speaker so I wonder what kind of comparaison could be used for French novels… Possibly the same, actually, but with a different conclusion. Also, the quality of your lighting on this video is impressive. I just subscribed to your channel. I’m curious to see if you always have such good lighting (and subject matters, of course 😊)!
Interesting video! While I have an intuitive sense of what prose I enjoy, my subconscious mind might be measuring several factors such as what you described in this video. I wish you had shown the Rothfuss and Erikson passages you selected. I’m currently reading Malazan Book of the Fallen and love Erikson’s writing style!
You know, I thought briefly about adding a sort of appendix to the video, after the patron credits, where I just read all 10 passages and show their stats. But it was already well over 10 minutes and probably would have hit 20 at that point. I just didn't have the time. But you can see which ones they are and look them up!
@@TheLegendarium I can completely understand that and really appreciate the work you did on this video! I just subscribed and am excited to watch your future content.
Thank you for the video. I wonder whether you could give a list of scholarly works that discuss criteria of comparison when it comes to style. You have looked at several markers in this video, and I'd love to find out whether there are other markers and, which is even more interesting, why they are thought to be significant.
I'd never thought to try and quantify prose quality. Seems a daunting task and I think you did an admirable job. I think what makes prose truly stand out to me is how well it evokes the feeling of the situation being portrayed, which is impossible to quantify 😆 It just becomes "I know it when I see it" which helps no one. So, yeah, I'd love to see more discussions about prose. I'd recommend looking at some passages from R. Scott Bakker because his is the best fantasy prose I've readin recent memory.
Good job!😀
This is really fascinating. As you acknowledge, this is a pretty narrow way to analyze in terms of "what makes good prose," but it does create a really interesting comparison.
My one complaint would be that you say you chose descriptive paragraphs to get the author's voice, not the character's. I think this discounts that many authors alter their prose for characters. Rothfuss writes differently in "Slow Regard" than he does in his other books because the perspective is different, for example. To find a more "average" idea of the voice of an author, you'd have to find samples from different characters.
This is really cool though, and I look forward to more analysis like this!
I'd love to see you delve deeper with this. Surprised you didn't use Game of Thrones, and compare it to some young adult fantasy like Maze Runner or something. A full chart breakdown of lots of books would be great to see, and might be a very good way for people to find more writing they enjoy.
excellent lesson in literature , i had never heard of the word Prose, thank you
This is very interesting. I love Brandon Sandersons style of writing. I honestly don't like flowery writing. I read books for the plot and I feel like "beautiful" writing distracts me from what's happening. I don't read books to be wowed by the language. I also have a short attention span so I want the author to get straight to the point in order to hold my attention. Ive tried both a Rothfuss book and an Erickson book and I couldn't make it past the first few chapters. Judging from this graph I should probably try a Jemisin book.
Also, yes I'd love to see more videos like this.
I feel as though Brandon Sanderson prose doesn't get to the point. He says in a paragraph what cleverer prose would convey in a sentence. I find him very difficult to read. Especially his esrlier works. I barely got through Mistborn, it was so bogged down and boring. I want to read Stormlight Archive but hit a slump.at book 2. Good story but bad writing. I think it needs mqjor editing down
@@fantasyfan8788 It's interesting to think about how one might feel that way.
As far as I've read him, he's an incredibly efficient writer, and I feel like even though his books are really long, it's because a ton of stuff happens in them. There's barely any "fat" to his writing at all. I don't see what could you edit out in terms of just prose, without altering the narrative.
You're better off not reading Rothfuss anyway. There's no story; just a lot of pointless meandering while the protag talks about how awesome he is at everything
Very interesting. I never thought about etymology as a factor in prose perception
wow I really enjoyed this, super interesting stuff
When I saw the title "What makes prose GOOD?" Every single idea I had for what that meant was different than what happened in the video! Like Legendarium/Professor Craig says, it's subjective. I'm not saying he's wrong, but here's what my instincts tell me make prose good:
>Varied sentence length (throughout a paragraph) >innovative use of vocabulary (like nominalization, verbalization, or unexpected yet fitting adjectives), >poetic devices (alliteration, assonance, stressed/unstressed syllable patterns) >vowel sound patterns >concrete imagery and >soft vs. hard consonant sounds.
I hadn't even considered germanic vs latinate root, adverb vs adjective counts, or average sentence length. I always thought and occasionally was taught to vary sentence length on purpose, so I hadn't considered the value of studying average sentence length. PROFESSOR, if you do make another video like this, can you please consider studying some of the points I listed above? I think it would be a fascinating study, even if it borders on the whole "Master's Thesis" level of complexity.
Great vid! It explains my favorite style very well (Tolkien).
Can you look at Abercrombie? I always felt he doesn’t get enough acknowledgment for his style. I guess: high percentage of German words, more modifiers than most modern writers, average sentences length.
Could you please also post the analyzed paragraphs for Jemisin, Rothfuss and Erikson as well? It would be nice to have a comparison. Or perhaps all five, for that matter. It might be easier to compare them when we see them written versus hearing only two of them.
Yes, I was hoping for this too. I read the first book Erickson wrote and didn't care for it. Read _The Name of the Wind_ and loved it. Have Jemisin's first book, and only read the first few pages. I liked them, but it's buried deep on my queue.
@@jasonuerkvitz3756 I must say I am quite the fan of Erikson. But, like he says, his style of writing is that of short stories, which means that there is a low of information packed in subtext and small details. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, reading with that sort of level of attention to detail. Reading the first book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen is like reading the first chapter of any other book. It doesn't tell you much. For me, it has been the most amazing literary journey of my life, and I am pretty sure that nothing will ever come close to it ever again. But since the punch line is not delivered until the last book, it's hard to evaluate until you read the complete series.
He wrote the first book almost ten years before the rest of the series, and some people say it is his least good book. Or at least that his skill as an author has matured significantly until he continued writing. Maybe you could give it another try someday and see how it goes. Perhaps the first three books, so you can have a clearer image of what is going on. You might discover a jewel.
@@claudiaiovanovici7569 It was mainly that I had zero connection with any of the characters. I think there was something in the choice of his language in certain passages as well and the work felt as if it was written by two separate people. Perhaps it was written at two vastly different times, which is also possible.
I thought that the passages about the character chained to the great wagon in his version of Hell or Purgatory was intriguing and I liked that he wanted to actually put the pantheon of gods directly in the story influencing the characters. It was certainly different than the ambiguity of gods in Martin's work. I also liked the mysterious vampire/elf/whatever the heck guy that lived in the floating castle.
I mean the title was superb, _Gardens of the Moon_.
There was a strange ending with what read to me a recap of a D&D adventure he had played with some friends. There was a riveting chase sequence over rooftops and then some terrible threat of old gas lines beneath the city.
But did I care? Nope. I had zero connection to anyone. I didn't care if they won or lost because I really didn't know what it was they were fighting. It's as if I was reading young Erickson spliced with older Erickson.
It sort of reminded me of movies by Quentin Tarantino. Think Inglorious Basterds. That movie had the most bizarre split personality. Incredibly fascinating story about a Nazi manhunter and a young Jewish girl hiding from him at a Cinema she runs, and then splatterpunk. Weirdest self-sabotage imaginable.
I have Erickson's next book in the series, and since the Gene Wolfe _Soldier of Mist_ is missing the mark, maybe I will consider reading the Erickson book. And there's 8 more, right? Ugh.
If it doesn't get better fast, it won't make sense reading any further when there are so many other books old and new available for reading. Plus, there's always re-reading Cormac McCarthy's glorious works.
Thanks for the reply.
@@jasonuerkvitz3756 Just a piece of advice, if you read the first book a long time ago, maybe a re-read would help. The world he writes in is huge and the second book takes you to a different continent and a different set of characters. All in all, there will be four sets of characters and only after the fifth book the stories begin to merge, so it requires some patience.
And you were right about the D&D feel. He has been playing with Ian Cameron Esslemont, his co-author in the Malazan universe, for at least 20 years before he wrote the books. And he releases the information needed to understand what's what gradually. That's one of the things people fault him for since they want to understand everything from the get go. He himself said that one of the things he regrets about the first book is that he was a little too cagy with the information.
The second book, Deadhouse Gates, is one of my favorites. But it's also very heavy, full of sorrow and pain and the ugliness of human condition. A book about heroism and hardship and loyalty, the bitchiness of politics and the burdens of command. The kind of book that got me crying more than once. It was inspired in part by a real historical event, a march of a large number of refugees through enemy territory on a very long distance, defended by a small group of soldiers. I think it happened in Pakistan during the first or second world war, but I honest to god can't remember the details of this other than it's inspired from a real event. I really hope you give it a try and that this time it hooks you. Thank you for engaging in conversation :)
@@jasonuerkvitz3756 I apologize if I seem insistent, i don't mean to do that. But as luck would have it, I just ran into this video today. It talks about what kind of series this is, what are the common misconceptions about it and what to expect when reading it. And it explains in short all these things way better than I ever could.
ua-cam.com/video/3_fr8yMpTvE/v-deo.html
This reminds me of an exercise we did in 8th grade where we took a page or paragraph from the book we were reading, counted the words and the syllables and did some math and came up with the grade level of the book based on that calculation. I was reading a Wheel of Time book back then and recall that it was calculated out to be 16th grade level, but I don't remember which book it was. It's also likely that I did it wrong, haha.
I've watched a lot of videos on how to improve prose, and most of them commend shorter sentences, and finding the right nouns and verbs to minimize the number of adverbs and adjectives (which, when used too much, really clog a sentence and make it difficult to read). But I'd never considered the Germanic vs Latinate factor. I found that insightful, and interesting, thanks!
Did you create or use an analysis tool to evaluate each excerpt and give results on words per sentence, Germanic vs Latinate, and adverbs/adjectives? If so could you provide a link to it somewhere? I think this would be a very helpful tool for aspiring authors who would like to do these types of comparisons to improve and analyze their own writing. Thanks for the great video!
I kept hearing other people talk about prose and if I'm being honest, I had no idea what they were talking about. Thank you for breaking this down in a way that is easy to grasp. Out of the examples you gave, I think I lean towards Sanderson's style. Only one of these I have read has been Tolkien, but I have been debating Sanderson or Erikson. You may have tipped the scale for me, for now anyways. I'll probably get around to both in time, and possibly even Rothfuss...
It's funny, I never realized that Sanderson uses so many contractions outside of dialogue, but that's probably because I only listen to his books rather than reading them off the page. I intend to read the leather-bound copy of The Way of Kings whenever I get it though, so maybe I'll have a different opinion of his writing after I read it on the page.
I had no idea about Germanic and Latinate words, so this was fascinating! Thank you 😊
Loved this take on prose. I am new to the channel, is there something similar like this with A song of ice and fire included / GRRMartin included?
Patrick Rothfuss reacted to your reddit post and thats how i found this video
Thank you for a Great video. I found it really cool how you have examined these authors. I'm not an English major, but on your list of common Germanic words, I'm confused. I took four years of Latin and I'm pretty certain that words like 'into' are from Latin. Also, though English borrows more from German, it was the language of tradesmen (translate: Not Nobility). It was a true hybrid of all of the languages of the Northen European trading routes. This includes German, French/Spanish/Portu/Italian (aka Latin), Scandanavian, Greek, and Gaelic. Tolkien, in particular, borrowed tons from Gaelic and Scandanvia in his prose. I think that too makes his writing more colorful. Thank you for an eye-opening comparison. I am looking forward to watching the next one.
Great vid dude you made as many statistics as there should be and plainly argued each versions behalf.
Glad you liked it!
This is a fascinating linguistic analysis of fantasy prose.
Well, I just discovered that I actually find linguistics interesting. Thanks for that.
That said, I’m glad you described Sanderson’s writing as “conversational” because I think that’s what I like about it. I like hearing archaic language in movie/shows/video games, but I suspect reading it would be much different.
More modern speech, even in a fantasy world, must suit me just fine considering I’m finishing The Way of Kings faster than I did the entire first era of Mistborn lol
Absolutely fascinating video. Glad your follow up went into the poetry (or potential thereof) in prose and how that can change how we perceive the writing overall. A missed point is the varying structure of sentences though and how the language usage works within sentences rather than just in aggregation. Gary Provost's take on varying sentence length is specifically what I'm thinking of for the former. For the latter I think of Joyce and how, for example, the closing paragraphs of The Dead read like musical poetry while still being grounded in the world of prose because the word choice brings out a musicality within each individual sentence.
“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals-sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
― Gary Provost
Well done sir. Please more of this, you have yourself a new fan in me. However, I must insist as a "fantasy fan" it is your duty to read some Erikson.
I did. Boring as hell.
Super interesting!
Erikson: This is probably some thick writing to wade through. Pretty spot on.
I'm glad you mentioned prose being subjective. The endless internet arguments on one should do this on their prose or else they suck has been getting out of hand. Some people like poetic adverbs and lush sentences. Others like simple and straightforward. Writers have different styles. It doesn't mean they're bad.
I love this. Could you please do something like this for Sci-Fi? Like Herbert, Gibson, P.K, Dick, Simmons, etc.
Hell yeah this was great!