>You can't be a good fiction writer without being a good storyteller, is what I'm saying.

The whole of modernist literature disagrees with you. And postmodern literature. And the Romantic poets. And all contemporary poetry. I mean what's really the plot of Invisible Cities, or Ulysses or Death in Venice. Your definition is the limited one I'm afraid. A book doesn't need a story or a plot per se.

>Being a good fiction writer has to involve being a good storyteller and being able to plot. If you can't do that, you are not a good writer.

To be a popular novelist sure. But writing page turners doesn't make you a good writer. It makes you a prolific and successful content creator. I mean Dan Brown is hugely successful and still a crap writer. Paolo Coehlo too. Sarah J Maas, Coleen Hoover & Sally Rooney are all successful some critically acclaimed - none good.

• Being a writer is about writing skill. The clue is in the word. It's a craft.
• Being a storyteller is about storytelling skill. It's a related but different craft.
• Being a content creator is about content - creation skill. It's what publishers and the markets wants - more and more and more and more.
• Being a worldbuilder is world building skill. It's a totally different craft especially in SFF. And Sanderson is good at this.

These are different things and they are mutually exclusive. And there's nothing wrong with that. But Brandon Sanderson isn't a good writer. Due to the fact that his writing is poor, bland, hastily written and under developed. And all of that is due to the fact that the guy pumps out 300k+ word books way too quickly. He doesn't refine the writing - he just does more. Sorry but that's content creation.

And writers do need to be content creators. It just shouldn't be all they are.

I'd venture further that his own upbringing as a Mormon was pretty sheltered from really interesting writing (poetry, modernist literature, postmodernist literature). You know all the good stuff that deals with what Eliot and Yeats called Sex and Death. All the books the LDS hates. The "dirty" stuff. All the stuff that informs writers as they learn about that craft and how to create characters. You see this in a number of LDS writers - Meyer, Dan Wells - not 100% certain why but I dated a Mormon and she wasn't allowed to be well read.

Also - yes:

>Many renown artists might not use the tools so technically well, but portray ideas, emotion, and story so much better with a splash of paint.

That's voice/style. That's mastery. That's being good at the craft. Compare Sanderson's ability to construct worlds and magic systems and plots with his ability to use prose. He's got 3 out of 4. That's more than most people. I mean GRRM can write & world build but his content creation skill is functionally zero at this point.

And here's the thing some great writers are really boring. Saying someone is a great writer doesn't mean they write successful or page turning books. It means they're an artist.

Sanderson is not an artist with words but he is a multi millionaire - so fair play to him.

I'm not saying he's a bad novelist btw - just a bad writer.