Sanderson vs. GRRM Plots

[Luonas]

I don't know if I should be sad or laughing. I think I found more plot twists in my microwave warranty and return policy agreement than in stuff that Sanderson writes.
His whole "planet" to me seemed maybe the size of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (if that big, yet he still managed to make it empty and dull), the plot was as childish as it gets without being absolutely silly, his characters are generic cardboard cutouts I don't think I could care about if my life depended on it.
Comparing Sanderson to Martin is like comparing those daytime court TV shows to, I don't know, LotR movies. (lol) =p

Well, in that case the same could be said about Martin... Compared to some non-speculative fiction I have read he is as brilliant and deep as a grey rock. With slime on it. Still like Song tho...

With that out of the way, this thread compares drastic changes of the plot, ie twists. To be honest, I am yet to see anything awesome from Martin in form of plot twists, that's not were his brilliance is.

In Mistborn we have tons of very good plottwists. From Alendi to the Kandra.

Which of course have nothing to do with how good a book is.

[Luonas]

So, I may have been a bit misleading on the thread title. I was not trying to compare GRRM and Sanderson as writers. That was not my purpose. My purpose was to compare two types of plot twists, the kill off someone who was supposed to be the main character plot twist (which Sanderson uses as well), and the more foreshadowed misleading you on reality plot twist. So I used the end of the Well of Ascension as an example (the thing with the Well, not the who's the kandra? mystery thing) because it caught me completely by surprise, even though it's foreshadowed quite a bit. Something like the end of the Sixth Sense would also work in this category.

I think it is less difficult to do something like GRRM did with the Red Wedding, even though we give him a ton of credit for it and it is the main reason that many people consider Storm of Swords to be the best book in the series. I think the foreshadowed misleading is more difficult to pull off, because in order for it to work you can't allow the reader to catch on. (I know the thing at the end of WoA didn't shock a lot of people, but it worked for me so I started the thread.)

I agree, even if I were more shocked about the Alendi-aspect in the first book. The end of WoA suprised me more than the Red Wedding but perhaps not as much as it did you. And I agree, Martins suprises are mostly with killing secondary characters (except Ned of course). Harder to do it like Sanderson does.

[Luya Sevrein]

I was about to say that actually, it may be because Martin has so many damn talking scenes that explain every possible plan his characters have thought of that nothing comes as a shock thereafter. I sometimes find he builts up to much that what you are left with is... Oh. Then, I remembered the only piece of Mistborn I've read - first 6 chapters of Final Empire so far - and the only action sequences we are told about (Burning down the Manor, Dealing with the Inquisiter, Heck, even Kelsier arguing with his brother) all had convinient fade to blacks.

[kirk]

Why is everyone so stuck on the Red Wedding as THE TWIST of series? Let's sit down and count the "twists" in ASOIAF and Mistborn and whichever one has more wins!!!

[Luya Sevrein]

Why is everyone so stuck on the Red Wedding as THE TWIST of series? Let's sit down and count the "twists" in ASOIAF and Mistborn and whichever one has more wins!!!

But twists are really subjective.

Like, how many people saw Dany's baby being dead/disformed and how many people thought 'No way!' and how many people thought, 'Whaaaaaaat? I thought it was a dragon!'

Including the people who don't wanna' admit to being fooled sometimes. :P

[kirk]

There may have been some sarcasm in my post. Just saying.

[Zeratul]

Martin is the better writer by some margin, but purely in terms of plot twists, Sanderson is on the same level IMO, maybe even slightly better. This is a vastly overrated part of being a good writer as far as I am concerned anyway. But I am getting somewhat tired of Martin being hailed as some sort of demigod who's the best in all aspects of fantasy writing (except quickness ) on this board.

I never got the hype about the Red Wedding as some kind of a great twist. I saw it a mile away.

[Luya Sevrein]

There may have been some sarcasm in my post. Just saying.

And in mine. xD

[Luonas]

Why is everyone so stuck on the Red Wedding as THE TWIST of series? Let's sit down and count the "twists" in ASOIAF and Mistborn and whichever one has more wins!!!

Well, this is what the thread is about. I agree that it matter's very little if a writer is good or bad but I find it kind nice to point out that Martin isn't best at everything, as Zeratul says.

[Luonas]

I was about to say that actually, it may be because Martin has so many damn talking scenes that explain every possible plan his characters have thought of that nothing comes as a shock thereafter. I sometimes find he builts up to much that what you are left with is... Oh. Then, I remembered the only piece of Mistborn I've read - first 6 chapters of Final Empire so far - and the only action sequences we are told about (Burning down the Manor, Dealing with the Inquisiter, Heck, even Kelsier arguing with his brother) all had convinient fade to blacks.

While it's not what the thread is about, I think it is only in the beginning we have fade to blacks. Most scenes with Kelsier or Vin happens without it. So that's a strange criticism.

[Rilzik]

I think sanderson plans his plot twists and then writes his story to fufilll them whereas Martin just writes and twists as he goes along while having a overall general vision. The result being that Sanderson may have more surprising thought out twists, but there are times in the book where I felt like the characters could have figured out, asked more relevant questions but don't specifically to maintain the surprise/twist. With martin the major twists are clear (the others and winter are coming, and the dragon chick are coming to town, the goals of the characters are clear they want power and it's going to be war.

So basically, Martin writes his twists as his story presents them and Sanderson builds his story around the twists he had planned for ahead of time.

The red wedding wasn't that big of a deal for me. What happens to ned is what really shocked me, but it isn't the shock that I like. It is the weight that it gives to the other characters and how it makes it feel like the history of the 7 kingdoms and not some fantasy story. Martins approach opens up the story, making you wonder who will make it through the pretty plain story. It's generally boggy men to the north invading and a many sided power struggle. Mystery and unknown motivation isn't the goal, he wants you to know everything you can so you get closer to the characters and story. The real mystery is not knowing the fate of the characters which can twist the plot in unknown ways. When someones hand gets cut off I was stunned.

While Sanderson uses mostly ignorance of the characters and reader to unravel a mystery, with the mystery being the fantasy world they live in. I really like mistborn... really liked it, but it is just a fun story where things turned out to be not what you expected. It was cool that a fantasy author wrote such a story and took that risk. In general fiction it isn't unusual for a character to turn out to be the opposite of what you expected, what's cool about Mistborn is that he did it as a fantasy author and not a regular fiction author. He did it really well, but if you drop all the fantasy settings and magic then I wouldn't consider the book or plot twist to be exceptional, but I would consider martin to be. So I don't think it is a fair comparison, martins and Sanderson intentions from what the reader got out of their books are different. To be honest I don't really consider them in the same genre and I don't consider Mistborn to be epic fantasy by my own definition (not a typical definition).