Instead of picking my nose
I figured I’d pick on Terry Goodkind for awhile since I’m currently punishing
myself by reading yet another one of his frustrating novels. Terry Goodkind is
the author of the Sword of Truth fantasy series and if you’ve read some of my
past blogs then you’re already familiar with my and Terry’s love/hate
relationship. I don’t know the man personally, I’m just an annoyed reader, but
I’ve had several bones to pick with Terry’s writing over the years and I’m
going to pick at yet another one now for the sake of a blog post so let’s put
on our snarky mean hats and get to work.
I
read Terry’s Sword of Truth fantasy novels until I swore them off after reading
book 13, Confessor, because I just couldn’t stand the lengthy repeat of
political speeches and the profusion of Ayn Rand philosophy injected into my
fantasy detachment from reality anymore. Some few years passed and I wanted
some books from Amazon so I threw in two more novels by Terry with the others I
bought, The Omen Machine and The First Confessor. The Omen Machine was bland
but readable yet reminded me why I quit reading Goodkind in the first place, but
The First Confessor . . . ugh! I barely made it through that dumpsterfire
because I wanted to tear it to shreds. The boring characters drone on and on
and repeat every conversation a million times (Terry is known for believing
repeating the same information ad nauseam is acceptable so long as it’s worded
slightly differently or if it’s another character repeating the same
long-winded speech because he thinks readers are stupid hamsters and needs be
told something important to the story one-hundred times over lest they forget
it), let alone the complete lack of almost any action. The entire novel is
basically four long conversations broken by poorly written action that goes
almost nowhere fast. But I digress while I adjust my snarky mean hat
accordingly . . .
A
few more years later and the glutton for punishment that I am, I again picked
two more novels penned by Mr. Yeard while I sought more books from Amazon (when
not perusing my local used book store I usually turn to Amazon and buy two or
three books I know I want then I throw in a few random books for good measure
to get that tasty $25+ for free shipping because I’m a cheap bastard). I
decided to go with Death’s Mistress and its sequel the Shroud of Eternity
because of the controversy over one of the covers as well as I’d hoped Terry’s
writing had improved with age.
Boy
was I wrong.
Death’s
Mistress . . . whew, where to even begin. The ending is predictable yet amazingly totally
out of character (though if you’re familiar with Terry’s novels then you’re
also familiar with his horrible inability to deliver satisfying endings), and
coincidences rule every single event throughout the story. Someone needs a
special something to diffuse a dire situation? Well lookie here, it just so
happens that rare item is only a stone’s throw away despite how rare it is
because PLOT! And here I’ll go into spoiler territory of Death
Nicci,
an evil sorceress turned good and also known as Death’s Mistress because she’s
ruthlessly murdered countless thousands of innocent people in her dark past
before devoting herself to the second coming of Jesus Christ Marty Stu Richard
Rahl, must kill another sorceress called Life’s Mistress because thinking of
better names than a third-grader would come up with is beyond Terry’s 5 second
attention span and Google doesn’t exist. To do so Nicci must shoot Life’s
Mistress with an arrow dipped in the heart’s blood (yes, heart’s blood, because
Terry was absent during biology class and believes the human heart has
different blood than the rest of the human circulatory system) of someone Nicci
loves, the only problem being every 3 paragraphs of the entire novel Terry
reminds us that Nicci loves no one but Richard Rahl who is many far miles away.
Oh, and Nicci needs to shoot the arrow with a bow made from rare dragon’s
bone--but lookie here! There just so happens to be the only place in all the
whole wide world where all dragons come to die a few days’ walk away, now isn’t
that conveeeeeeeenient .
Well,
Terry has a solution for the heart’s blood conundrum because characters doing
things completely out of character for the sake of forcing plot is never an
issue for Mr. Yeard (after all, he’s the writer who fathomed such gems as
having characters strip naked in the dead of winter, painting themselves white
then riding into an enemy’s encampment who outnumber them a thousand to one to
scare the enemy as pretend ghosts--and it works! And let’s not forget Terry’s
evil incarnate “chicken that was not a chicken” or that Marty Stu Richard Rahl
once carved a statue without any practice so inspiring that to gaze upon it
defeats communism).
Along
her journey, Nicci meets a spunky little orphan girl named Thistle who tags
along. Nicci has known Thistle for about a week or so by this point and Terry
has Nicci use Thistle’s heart’s blood because Death’s Mistress, the woman with
a shriveled black heart who loves no one but Richard Rahl and has murdered
thousands of innocent people without batting an eye, for some reason loves
Thistle whom she’s known for about two weeks because Terry is still under the
assumption that hack writing doesn’t include the fantasy trope that all little
girls must be pure good or pure evil with no between so everyone either loves
them or hates them and that’s that. But this is not surprising since Terry also
still believes nobody’s ever heard of tropes and the best way to show men as
evil is to have them raping or trying to rape a woman--which he proves by including
rape in every one of his Sword of Truth novels, many of them multiple times.
And yes, in Death’s Mistress and Shroud of Eternity Terry reminds us countless
times how Nicci was raped so many times she can’t even put a number to it. It’s
actually become a running joke how much Terry loves writing about rape. Go
ahead, give it a quick Google.
But
the nonsense doesn’t stop there. For some reason Terry has become obsessed with
similes. Every few sentences in both novels everyone and everything is “like”
something. Here’s just a few quick examples.
Shroud
of Eternity page 409: “A rain of sharp metal quarrels peppered the rampaging
bull, leaving it looking LIKE the pincushion of a greedy seamstress.”
Page
433: “Daylight spilled through cracks in the walls, and dust motes swirled in
the air LIKE gold dust in a stream.”
Page
437: “Dorbo removed his whip and cracked it through the air LIKE serpentine
lightning strikes.”
Page
442: “Nicci’s anger built LIKE a distant, ominous storm.”
Page
445: “Seeing Nicci, he turned to face her, a grin lighting up his face LIKE a
sunrise.”
Page
459: “Nicci could sense the roiling power of the sovrena’s gift building around
her LIKE a cocoon of invisible but deadly magic. Her complex tapestry of woven
braids twitched and writhed LIKE snakes around her head.”
But
Terry is a crafty bastard and sometimes disguises his similes thusly: Page 439:
“The sovrena stared directly back, her sea-green eyes AS cold AS a howling
blizzard.”
You
should try and only use similes in a first draft as placement holders for
better description you’ll return to putting in later but you happen to be on a
hot streak of writing and so don’t want to slow down. Leaving so many in your
finished manuscript (LIKE weeds in a garden, sarcasm intended) is amateurish at
best. But I digress--again--while adjusting my snarky mean hat because this is
not a book review and I’m not Terry’s editor.
The
point of this post is to point out how one learns to better their own writing
by editing the writing of other, more successful writers. Take for example this
random passage from Terry Goodkind’s Shroud of Eternity (chapter 49, page 405):
Nicci hurried forward, summoning her magic, while
Nathan drew his sword and kept pace with her. They heard the shouts of
frightened people in the streets, the growls and roars of rampaging animals.
Arriving on their heels, the wizard Quintin looked only partially dressed, and
Elsa bustled up from a side street, tugging to adjust her purple robe. Damon
was the last to arrive.
Bleh.
Really? The above passage is fine if it’s taken from a first draft, but this is
from a professionally edited and published novel.
Let
me just say that along with Terry’s newfound penchant for similes, Mr. Yeard
has also become obsessed with character filters. That means he describes
environmental sights and sounds by having a character seeing or hearing them
which filters them for you, the reader, because describing them without
character filters is too much like work. Both are bad and lazy writing. So let’s
break down Terry’s passage and how best to edit it, shall we?
Nicci
hurried forward . . .
--Did
we expect her to hurry backwards? Sideways? How else would she hurry but
forward? And hurry? Seriously? There’s a plethora of options for running and
you chose hurry? Thesauruses exist, Terry. Thesauruses exist.
They
heard the shouts of frightened people in the streets, the growls and roars of
rampaging animals.
--“They
heard . . .” Character filter right on cue. Heard, saw, felt; cut these 3
unnecessary character filters from your writing and you’ll be the better for
it.
Arriving
on their heels, the wizard Quintin looked only partially dressed . . .
--Did
he LOOK only partially dressed or was he IN FACT partially dressed? Be
specific. And show, don’t tell.
Damon
was the last to arrive.
--Here
comes the passive train: chugga . . . chugga . . . chugga . . . choo! choo! ‘Was’
is almost always poison to damn near every sentence containing it. I believe
every writer’s writing would improve 10 fold if the only thing they do is
remove ‘was’ from their writing and restructure their sentences.
So
now that we’ve picked at this poor passage, let’s rework it into a superior
scene thusly:
Summoning her magic, Nicci sprinted toward the
frightened shouts of people panicking amid rampaging animals growling and
roaring in the streets. Startled, Nathan drew his sword and kept pace alongside
her. Arriving on their heels, the wizard Quintin tugged at his unbuckled pants
to stay them from falling, right arm flailing to achieve inside his flopping
white sleeve as he fought on his shirt mid run, bare feet slapping the wet
pavestones. Elsa bustled up from a side street, tugging adjustments of her
disheveled purple robe. Damon arrived last.
There.
Much better. Not perfect but much better than before. And it took me all of
about 15 measly seconds to improve it.
Now
go back, read the original passage, then read our new and better passage. I’ll
wait . . . . . . see the difference? Not passive, no character filters, more
descriptive and thus more visual, and though it’s not a slice of fried gold the
second reads much better than the first.
Let
me take off my snarky mean hat now . . . no, wait, apparently I’m unfinished.
I
do apologize to Terry Goodkind for singling him out, by the by. I’m sure he’s a
polite and humble man . . . even though he’s claimed in multiple interviews
that he single-handedly changed the fantasy genre forever when not publicly
shaming talented artists who created him excellent novel covers because Terry
didn’t approve of Nicci having tall heels on her boots and so decided to
embarrass the hard-working artist only doing their job instead of keeping the
matter private, or better yet just shutting the **** up about it because at 69
years old Terry has yet to learn that life is unfair and we don’t always get
what we want. But if you want the deets on that you’ll have to Google it
yourself.
So
what have we learned with all this nitpicking? Stop using character filters
because better description exists, cut ‘was’ out of every sentence it poisons,
never use similes because you’re not in elementary school anymore, and please
oh please don’t have your characters act out of their norm for the sake of
forcing plot because one little slip can ruin an entire novel.
I’ll
end this post with a bit of extra advice, because some people tend to view
things only in black and white. While I’ve advised you to “never” use similes
in your writing, don’t take it as a commandment. I did much the same when I
first began writing, reading the advice of famous authors I adored and thinking
their words were written law that shall not be broken. Heck, I remember one
writer advising that you should never use an exclamation point but for only
once per an entire novel! Of course you can use similes in your writing, just
as you will use ‘was’ because it’s impossible not to. Variety adds spice. The
point of “never” is for you to develop a novice habit so when you do slip any
rules you do so on purpose and not out of pure laziness.
There,
rant ended and snarky mean hat removed.
I’ve
come down pretty hard on Terry Goodkind in this post, but remember that he’s a
seasoned veteran writer with more than 20 novels under his belt, some of them the
literal size of bricks. Terry has made millions of dollars selling millions of
novels and I’m just a nobody complaining on the interwebs so what do I know?
Hold
on, lemme fetch my snarky mean hat again . . .
I’ll
leave you with this, another example passage from Terry’s novel Shroud of
Eternity where, yet again, comes his profusion of similes which run rampant
throughout his recent works. Warning, spoilers ahead.
Shroud
of Eternity, chapter 74, pages 604 & 605:
Before
Nathan and Elsa could reach the high foyer at the front of the mansion, the
wall opposite them cracked and shivered. A loud pounding blow crashed LIKE a
battering ram, and the thick walls toppled. A huge figure threw stone blocks
aside LIKE a squirrel scattering leaves in autumn. Nathan’s mouth dropped open
in disbelief.
The
mammoth warrior was LIKE an insane juggernaut smashing through the support
walls.
“Dear
spirits, he awakened one of the Ixax warriors!” Elsa cried. Nathan reached out
an arm and swept Elsa behind him. The gigantic soldier turned the iron shell of
its cauldron-sized helmet toward the sound of Nathan’s voice. Its yellow eyes
blazed through the slit.
“Those
things were never meant to be activated,” Elsa said. “I didn’t even know they
were still alive.”
“Alive
and angry it seems.” Nathan raised his hands in a placating gesture, speaking
directly to the titan. “But I’m not the one who tormented you. We aren’t your
enemies.”
Fifteen
feet tall, the Ixax crashed through the broken stone and lumbered into the
great foyer. Nathan and Elsa backed toward the vine-covered front entrance. The
warrior swung its boulder-size fists, crushing one of the stone blocks into
powder.
“I
don’t suppose you’d listen to reason?” Nathan pleaded.
The
Ixax warrior charged LIKE an angry bull the size of a mountain.
They
scrambled through the spacious foyer, but Nathan knew the Ixax could easily run
them down. The enormous armored warrior might merely crush them, or perhaps,
LIKE a child tormenting an insect, pull them apart limb by limb.
The
titan confronted one of the marble support columns that rose to the arched
ceiling. It wrapped its armored arms around the column and strained, cracking
the stone, uprooting the pillar LIKE an angry bear tearing up a tree.
I
could go on but I’m not about to dictate the whole chapter--and yes, the entire
novel reads exactly the same, rampant similes and all. Nor will I edit it
because I’ve little patience for doing so and Terry doesn’t pay my bills. I
will, however, point out some glaring flaws. 24 sentences containing 6 Like
similes. Ugh. And believe you me there’s an abundance of more Likes if I felt
like typing the entire chapter. Also, Terry already told us the Ixax stands
fifteen feet tall, yet farther on he then likens it to an angry bull the size
of a mountain. I don’t know about you but mountains are not a mere fifteen feet
tall. Poor choice of metaphor.
Anywho.
Point being even successful writers who’ve made millions of dollars selling
millions of novels make glaring amateur mistakes. And some, as with Terry
Goodkind, grow lazy after enjoying many successful years and so let slip an
abundance of similes and other such no-no’s into their writing because, maybe,
they just don’t care anymore. Crap sells--obviously--but do try and learn from
their mistakes if you can help it.
Happy Writing!