Could the WOT series be quicker

[pike]

Does any one else find this annoying, that Jordan describes the clothes every one is wearing in such detail, I find if you skip every other word in a dress detail description the book reads much faster

[Green]

Yeah, he could be more concise... but I'd never skip words/pages/chapters. What's the point of reading a book if you don't want/like to actually read it? Maybe you could read a synopsis of it instead

[Brys]

Yes - WoT could have been completed in 5 books without difficulty by a more competent writer. I usually enjoy description in novels - but Jordan is just so terrible at it, not to mention its complete irrelevance, that it makes from some truly painful reading in some of the later books (particularly Crossroads of Twilight). If it was important to the atmosphere, then fine - but I haven't read one descriptive passage in WoT which was very well written and added much to the atmosphere. I don't skip words - I judge authors by what they write, not by how I read. Reading a synopsis is a good idea for book 10 though - in fact, on the book-a-minute site, it's almost as informative as the book.

[the_faery_queen]

personally i think half the plot was unneccessary so that could be lost without any real problem to make the series shorter. i also ski[ descrption. i don't really want to read pargraphs of what someone was wearing or how the countryside looked.

[Frozeninja]

I think most people would agree that Jordan does go a bit over the top in his character descriptions, I'm sure I remember having Elayne in 3 different dresses (all fully described) within the same chapter once, it just seems to be his writing style to make sure every last detail is accounted for, which just plain irks a lot of people (myself included). I was more impressed with the latest book though, which tends to be more based around the story than peoples clothes (...at some parts anyway).

[ScottSF]

I don't find it Annoying. I enjoy all the care he takes in creating his world and I enjoy big story arcs.

[Shoegaze99]

Originally Posted by pike

Does any one else find this annoying, that Jordan describes the clothes every one is wearing in such detail, I find if you skip every other word in a dress detail description the book reads much faster

I think it's fair to say that for some readers, Robert Jordan's obsession with focusing on the small in lieu of writing about the big has been one of the contributing factors to their growing dismay with the series.

I get the feeling that when his early books were praised for their wealth of detail, he decided more = better and kicked it into overdrive.

Which, of course, had him straying from the real draw: The story, characters and illusion of a richly detailed world. Because that's the key. Not actually detailing every square mile and shred of garment in your world, but making us think that's what you've done.