I feel like I have to say something, because several months ago I tried to perform a character analysis on some of the characters from a book I’d recently read: Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. I checked out a couple of Gaiman’s books as highly-recommended by some other authors/book reviewers.
That post has gotten more views than any other post I’ve put up here, thanks to Google search engine inquiries, and I just feel compelled to say…
I don’t really like Neil Gaiman’s writing that much. As a storyteller, he’s good. But as a writer, not so much for me. I think the movie Stardust is one of those examples of a film that actually improves on the source material.
And I don’t say this to be hoity-toity or saying that my writing is any better (because it’s not). I just don’t enjoy his style that much, and how messy the plot is at times. Neil Gaiman is well-known as a discovery writer, and I am also a discovery writer, so we have that in common at least. And he does have some really interesting characters (as well as some rather two-dimensional ones that seem to be there more as plot devices than anything else). A lot of people obviously love his writing, and I think that’s great.
I’ll be donating my copies to the used book store.
S. L. Forrester 