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Negative-Net-9455 t1_j6h906l wrote

It was, yeah.

It's a valid take on a lot of his middle-career work. It, Tommyknockers, Dark Half, Needful Things, the Dark Tower series etc. He got so big that I think editors got scared to actually tell him to reign it in a bit.

Thankfully, as he's got older, he's either got much better at self-editing or some editor somewhere has had the balls to tell him straight up that he's waffling and he's by and large returned to the more streamlined, better and more effective writing of his youth. Apart from the recent, dreadful Fairy Tale of course.

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7ootles t1_j6hb9jv wrote

>Apart from the recent, dreadful Fairy Tale of course.

I wouldn't say it's my favourite book, but it's certainly far from dreadful. What's wrong with it?

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unclefipps t1_j6hgt66 wrote

The first 1/3rd of the book could be condensed down to a couple paragraphs and it wouldn't effect the story in any way, except to make it better. It's meandering and full of useless fluff and the language is over-the-top. It takes the more interesting parts of the story that occur later on and covers them in poo so they don't shine as well.

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7ootles t1_j6hh32d wrote

Why don't you do the edit and I'll tell you if it's any better? I'll wait.

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FullyStacked92 t1_j6iegri wrote

Lol, you ask him his opinion and then come back with a childish response?

I can tell you if a meal tastes bad without being able to cook it and the same goes for a book. Don't ask people for their opinion if you're going to get butthurt over it.

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Negative-Net-9455 t1_j6jz0gq wrote

I'll happily do that. My rate is $300ph, in advance.

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7ootles t1_j6k5r6f wrote

You're not the person I commissioned.

Also, editors don't charge per hour. They usually charge per thousand words or per page.

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Negative-Net-9455 t1_j6jys71 wrote

Overlong, particularly the opening act. Lazy stock King characters - The Grumpy Old Man, The Good Boy etc etc - truly awful prose on occasion. I mentioned this in a previous post on this book but when you commit a sentence like 'they darkened the darkening sky' to paper and think its good, you're in trouble.

He's showing his age too. Nothing wrong with that, he's older now, but why try and write a teenage character when you clearly can't write a teenager? It had 'how do you do fellow kids' energy running all through it.

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7ootles t1_j6k5ysk wrote

I will say I had to roll my eyes a little at how much of a Mary Sue Charlie was. Like I said, it's not my favourite book - but I enjoyed it as just another story.

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[deleted] t1_j6he2s7 wrote

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7ootles t1_j6hecl5 wrote

I tend to read past that stuff. Some teenagers act and speak differently to "average" teenagers. And some people really love dogs. We see on r/nextfuckinglevel and r/humansbeingbros and elsewhere that some people will risk themselves to save a dog or a cat or some other animal they only just met.

Thing to remember about stories is that, if the main characters were normal people, there would be no story.

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[deleted] t1_j6hfrqg wrote

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7ootles t1_j6hgiet wrote

>Every one of his pop culture references is an old movie he saw on ‘TCM’ or ‘his dad’s favorite’ whatever.

OK? I mean I'm in my early/mid-thirties and almost all of my pop culture references are from old films and music I've watched/listened to with my parents. I'd get a 1960s reference more readily than a 2000s one.

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Tanagrabelle t1_j6hmhrs wrote

See, the boy loving the dog is actually one of the most realistic parts to me. I have cats, though. Additional point, in the story he's that young man, and he, in the way that the young often are, doesn't really believe he's in danger until he really is.

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Anon-fickleflake t1_j6hae3n wrote

The cocaine in the middle years may have had something to do with it lol

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kaysn t1_j6hs3vs wrote

>Fairy Tale

That book needed a lot of pruning.

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