Undeserved hype

Nothing annoys me more than when low quality attracts high praise; it pollutes the essence of true quality everywhere.

I'm an unpublished writer. I recently finished writing a 120,000 word piece of science fiction/fantasy appropriate for the adolescent-teen audience +. As market research, I read "Eragon," by Christopher Paolini. This book has been on the NYT best seller list and is hugely popular, for some reason. I shall go no further without saying this book is, for lack of a more erudite way of expressing it, a piece of crap.

So why is it getting so much praise?

As I understand it, Paolini's parents first published his book through their own publishing company, then thrust him on a major marketing campaign. Children liked it, Knopf saw dollar signs and took over the publishing. The book must have skipped straight past the editor. What parent doesn't think their child's work is precious? Should every child's amateur work of fiction be published? Heck no, not without a lot of practice (years), a lot of editing, and a good deal more sense. Paolini, apparently, saw none of this. He ejected a rough draft and it went straight to press.

Is its success due to the fact he wrote the book when he was only 15? Well, I wrote a book (500,000 words) when I was fifteen (if I may gloat, that's at least twice as long as "Eragon"). I went back and breezed through it the other day, and while it commits many of the editing sins seen in "Eragon" (I shall extrapolate), I think it's still far more interesting, intricate, and better written. You'll have to take my word for it, of course. But my book is irrelevant; the point is the fact that Paolini wrote the thing when he was 15 is not particularly impressive to me. If it had been a heck of a lot better, I might be impressed.

Most authors probably do start writing young in one form or another. Afterall, it does take years of practice and learning to turn out something truly professional. However, those first novels never get published, and the authors and their careers are so very grateful for that fact. Those first attemps expose how amateur they once were. Treasured nostalgically perhaps, but none the less an embarrassment when compared to their professional, published works.

Why is "Eragon" so bad?

For one, nothing in it is an original idea. Everything, and I mean everything, is stolen directly from, or a pale imitation of other legendary fantasy series. The connection between the dragons and dragonriders, for example, is straight out of Dragonriders, by Anne McCaffrey. Paolini isn't new for ripping off Tolkien, but he sure does that too in great heaps, down to the word "smote".

Others have noted, and now I can see, that the plot very closely resembles that of Star Wars. Eragon is bestowed with an item from the outside world, evidence of some large-scale struggle (R2-D2/the egg). He finds an elder mentor that was once a part of that struggle and knows a ton about it, but has retired to, uhm, "look after" the young hero (Obe-Wan/Bram). The Empire/Dark Riders/Ergals come looking for that item (the droid/the ring/the egg), and kill Eragon's family (Luke's aunt&uncle). Eragon is therefore forced to venture out with the mentor with the item to stop the evil empire, with said evil empire on his heels. Gets stuck a few times, meets the rebel-without-a-cause (Han/Murtagh)... and so on and so on.

The plot is plodding. There's not a whole lot that goes on, and Eragon conveniently gets out of every problem without much fuss. The book leads up to a big underground battle between dwarves and urgals (they describe this group of urgals as a bigger, tougher breed meant for war--Uruk-Hai anyone?). And then it just ends. Eragon vanquishes a wraith described to look like Ronald McDonald (white face, red hair, can't think of a poorer choice for an evil character), and the book is summed up in a disappointing one line. No denoument. It's as if Paolini got bored with writing or, as I think is more likely, just isn't a good enough writer to find a creative and constructive way of ending a book. "Ok, done," I can see him thinking, giving not a thought to editing.

Then there's the characters. They're flat, cliched, undeveloped, and neurotic. But I think the neurotic part is due more to the fact that Paolini has rather poor insight into psychology, and characters' reactions seem to come out of nowhere. They get angry for stupid reasons, and their anger comes off looking like a 2-year-old's.

A lot of that is due to the diologue, which is probably even worse than the character development. It's dumb, and he uses a lot of cool-sounding words he read in Tolkien and other series, but doesn't use well himself.

The mechanics of his dialogue in particular drove me mad. "I'm talking about things like attributions," he said. Paolini is more likely to write, "Yeah, his attributions made no sense," he contributed informatively. Now, this is only an example, but there are plenty just as bad (if this isn't one he actually used). Is "contributing" a manner of speaking? No. I do not contribute things to you, unless I'm giving money or something. I say things to you--that means I am speaking words to you. Now, you can whisper, or shout, or murmer, but most of these just detract from what is actually being said. And adverbs at the end, like the "informatively" example: If you're a good writer, you don't need to 1. explain the tone, emotion, or purpose of a line of dialogue, or 2. summarize the nature of what's already been said. The dialogue itself should say all of that, and if it doesn't, it means the author doesn't know how to write good dialogue, or isn't confident that their dialogue is strong enough to stand on its own. Case in point.

The sad thing is that Paolini obviously tried to come up with as many alternate ways of saying "said," and as many adverbs to describe his dialogue as possible. Purposefully striving to do the one thing that is most frowned upon by many professionals. Striving, in an attempt at art, at the one greatest way of diluting the dialogue, draining it of art, and giving it the true mark of an amateur.

The greatest danger to Paolini out of all this (since he's obviously making a bit of money off this rough draft) is that he'll be convinced this means he's a great writer and never bother to improve his writing. "Well, if I'm this popular, I obviously have the ability to turn out a masterpiece in the first draft. I must be one of those rare writing geniuses." Afraid not.

The fad will pass as more and more critics realize his writing is extremely poor. He's locked into the Eragon series, with the adolescent crowd that can easily overlook these sins. Shame on Knopf for not submitting the manuscript to a thorough editing before publishing, possibly saving Paolini's long-term career in the process. Shame on them for caring for dollar signs alone. I will not be submitting my manuscript to them, because they demonstrate with their willingness to publish "Eragon" that quality is not much of a concern to them.

I cannot malign Paolini, only his work. As for Paolini, he is simply a naive, unoriginal, unexperienced writer who might have potential if he came up with his own ideas and learned how to write a book. Paolini might have been better if his first rough draft hadn't been published, giving him time to practice and refine his craft. Or if it had been rejected by an editor who told him it was a nice first try, but he has much to learn about professional writing. That would be best. An author needs a challenge; a drive powered by fire.

Does he care? He's obviously making a lot of money off this book. And maybe you don't care: "It must be good if it's so popular, you're just one out of a million who for some reason doesn't like it." Well, I know I'm not alone. Quality will out in the end.

My original question will go unanswered. WHY is it so popular? I cannot comprehend this. I guess the marketing was just that good, and he got enough kids to sing his praise (though I rather think they've been exploited in that regard--they're too young to tell good writing from bad). In any event, it is completely undeserving of praise and makes a mockery of the writing out there that is truly praise worthy.