There is something about the way Brandon Sanderson writes that leads you from page to page, not wanting to put the book down until you find out what happens next. But at the end of each chapter, you are faced with that same question, and the question repeats itself over and over until you've hit the last page. In a way, books involving a point of view story with multiple characters, good or evil, are perfect examples of driving you to finish the story. Each chapter is several hours out of the character's day. By the end, there's an event that causes you to desire greatly to read what comes of the event. But you don't get to, because the next chapter is about another character. And yet, you don't skip that chapter, because that chapter focuses on a character that experienced a cliffhanger event as well. Sanderson's skill is apparent in that he can write suspense into his chapters. The suspense builds slowly in the beginning, but increases in a rapid crescendo as everything comes together. Then in the last two hundred pages or so, the climax is an awe-inspiring event, only possible through years of revision and planning.
This is not to say I am anywhere near finished with The Way of Kings. I am just trying to explain (possibly to myself, so that I may be able to better understand it) how an author can move a reader through a story with conviction on the part of the reader.
In other news, a big storm hit the northeast today, and I woke up this morning to a peaceful, snow-covered landscape. My brother and sister still hadn't gotten on the bus to go to school, was school canceled? Then I remembered that it's Saturday. Silly me.
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