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Questioner

Have you ever thought of stepping out of fantasy, and doing a different kind of drama, like "Let me do a romantic comedy and see how that goes"?

Brandon Sanderson

Umm yeah. I mean Legion is a detective story, which is one of my departures, and I do some science fiction. I've never really been interested in doing something that didn't have a sci-fi/fantasy element, 'cause it's part of what fascinates me, but i would be most likely if I were to step out of that, to do something...probably a straight up mystery, would be where I would go. You might also be able to see me writing a historical novel.

Questioner

Like if you tried to do a romantic comedy...but somehow it got some sci-fi--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, every time I try to do something like that, some sort of fantasy element pops into it somehow.

Chaos

I really want to know what the last two metals are. I always thought the bead Elend ate was one of them, but perhaps they are just things of Preservation, not meant to be understood

Brandon Sanderson

The metal chunk that Elend ate is intended to be something of a mystery. Much like atium, actually. Suffice it to say that atium isn't, and never was, what people thought it was.

I intended Allomancy to be much like a real science. People investigate and put things into boxes, trying to describe and understand the world around them. That doesn't mean they always get things right, however.

Let me say this, as I don't want to spoil too much. If that metal Elend ate were fused into specific alloys with certain metals, it could have instead created Mistings of each of the different Allomantic powers. Atium's abilities are not entirely explored yet either.

Questioner

I'm really confused about how you, as a male with three sons, how you create <believable?> female characters.

Brandon Sanderson

Practice. Number one, practice. Number two, talk to women. So, write... you're a teenager, it can be hard, but write a scene, give it to women, say "What am I doing wrong?" And then see, it's even better, back up a little bit, start thinking of characters as their passions, and their life experience, not just by their role in the story. That's a big a problem that a lot of people run into, it's that they go "oh, this is the romantic interest", and so you make them the romantic interests, and so you don't give them a full spectrum of emotions and characterization like you do to the protagonist. And so, try those things. Have you listened to my podcast?

Questioner

No.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay. Podcast. Start in January '15, but also look for podcast about "Writing the other", we have people come on and talk about this sort of thing. Alright? You can just push Play on a browser, you don't have to do a podcast thingy.

Questioner

How do you keep everybody straight? Do you use a program like Scrivener?

Brandon Sanderson

I use something called Wikidpad, a personal wiki. Just like Wikipedia, but only on my computer. And then I have a continuity editor, and her job is to go, after I've written a book, and put everything from the new book into it, into the wiki. And then to also warn me of continuity errors that I've made.

I wish I could say I did it all perfectly, but I don't. I still make a ton of mistakes. We catch most of them. But you can see, like, the Mistborn books have way more continuity errors than Stormlight, because I didn't have her back then. And so, we're doing the leatherbounds, they have to come to me and say, "Uhhh... this person walks, like, five times as far as a human being can travel in this amount of time. Maybe we need to move this building across the city," and stuff like that.

gingermancer

How are the main characters like with regards to homosexuality? I imagine the likes of Sazed wouldn't care, but it'd be interesting to see how much of a deviant the characters we've come to know are, when compared to their world's societies.

Brandon Sanderson

Again, you're going to see a wide variety of attitudes and impressions here. Some are very deviant from society, while others are good expressions of it.

One thing I do downplay in the books is how often characters are terribly biased. Basically all the protagonists in the Stormlight books are, for example, HORRIBLE racists. I bring it up now and then to make sure the text, at least, knows this fact--but it's also something that, if I did with a dose more realism, would be very offputting. So I try to walk a line where it's an ugly thing that rears its head now and then, but it is still possible to like the characters, acknowledging they are products of a very different society from our own.

Views on homosexuality are the same. You'll see, for instance, that Sigzil has a problem with Drehy in Bridge Four. Similarly, some characters have more progressive views than their society, as I think would be realistic for the types of people they are. So you don't see as much from the text as there might otherwise be. Ranette's relationship is not quite as accepted in Scadrian society as Wax and Marasi's viewpoints would lead you to believe, for example.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-Six

Vivenna Sits Alone and Thinks about Her Place in the World Now

Vivenna needed a "Who am I?" moment. I struggled with this chapter because I worried it was simply about a character who sits around and thinks. I tend to put a lot of those into my books, and I don't want to overdo it. I realize that many readers don't enjoy those kinds of scenes as much as I do.

The thing is, Vivenna has had so much pulled out from underneath her, she needs time to establish for herself—and for the reader—who she really is. What about her has made the transition? Now we're getting the real and pure Vivenna, the true woman that she is inside. That determination and, more importantly, that desire to be skilled and competent form the core of her identity.

Now that she's cast off the trappings, the things she was pretending to be and the excuses she was making, she can take these elements of herself and do something with them.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Twenty-Six

Lightsong Gets Up Early, Excited

Let this be a lesson to aspiring writers. People's reactions to these Lightsong sections—where he goes to investigate the murder—are proof of a long-standing rule of writing. Characters who do things are more interesting than those who don't.

Now, this may seem obvious to you. But let me assure you, when you start to write, you will often be tempted to include viewpoint characters with internal conflicts. Many times, poorly written, these conflicts result in the character being inactive. They can't decide about things, or they're a coward, or they're depressed or indifferent. All of these things are flaws the characters are going to grow out of during the story, and you're very tempted to build them into the character as a way of giving the character more growth and things to overcome.

That's not a bad instinct, but it's much more difficult to pull off than you think. The problem is that a lot of characters like that don't really do anything for the first part of the story. They're reactive, and they don't care about the plot, which makes the reader not care about the plot.

Until you've practiced a while, might I suggest that you stick with characters who are passionate about what they're doing and who try consistently to achieve their goals? Give them different internal conflicts, things that don't keep them from acting. Learning to write a good book is tough enough without tackling an inactive character in your first few stories.

Questioner

What was your favorite idea for a story that you realized you'd never be able to write? (say, due to not enough time, not a larger enough market, too difficult, etc)

Brandon Sanderson

The story that keeps eluding me is the one I've often referred to as "the Silence Divine." It's a story about a world where bacteria and viruses have a symbiosis with the magic, and grant powers to people who catch associated diseases. For example, if you get the common cold, you might be able to fly - but only for the period of time when you're sick.

I think the magic system is cool, and I have a great idea for a plot. (Weaponized antibiotics as a method of bringing down society's ruling class, who are people who have a persistent disease that gives them powers.) But I haven't been able to make it work - part is the knowledge that I need to know more about immunology, and theories of diseases spreading, before I can really do this story justice. (For example, figuring out the balance between the ruling class's disease, their powers, and making it something that could be cured through use of antibiotics administered like a poison.)

The other issue has been time. Stories like the Stormlight Archive dominate a lot of my time, making smaller-scale novellas (like this one would likely be) difficult to squeeze in. I only have so much time for them, after all.

mycoltbug

Are there any ramifications beyond leaving one's world behind when they worldhop to other worlds? IE physical ailment, aging, time travel lag X1000

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So when it comes to the superhero genre and female characters, I feel you have the two types. You have the damsel or the super sexualized black widow that is awesome. How has that been a worry for you?

Brandon Sanderson

So she's talking about the-- In superheroes you usually have the damsel, so you have the Mary Jane that needs to be rescued, or you have the black widow, hypersexualized thing like this, and the question is has that been a worry for me. It is something that is in the back of my brain, it's not  just a problem in superhero fiction, it's one of the ones that it is most manifest in. You will find the problem in most genres of speculative fiction, especially action genres. There's also what they call the-- There's the archetype of the Mother and the Crone. Those are your archetypes that women get to play. And it's been in the forefront of my brain a lot, in my writing, because I think as a writer the further you go as a writer the more you need to be aware of when you are falling into a cliche and when you're not. So yes it is something I've thought about quite a bit, particularly when I was writing Firefight "How am I going to deal with Megan as a character? And how am I going to deal with Mizzy as a character? And how they differ." So it was something I was thinking about very consciously as I working about on these books.

I think one regret I have a little bit is that I feel Mistborn I did a great job with Vin, but there's not very much of a female supporting cast in those books. It's kind of the archetype  that there's one girl in the whole city and then everyone else. And you kind of run into this and things like that and I was a little less conscious as a writer in those days. But it is something that I think all writers need to be aware of. The thing is that we talk a lot about feminist theory because it tends to be most manifest when men are writing, but when women write there is also one that they do that is they tend to make the guy like this perfect guy and what happens is the guy has no personality he's just perfection and the girl is either a klutz or a doofus or she can't do anything right and the guys are all these perfect ideals. And that's when women write, when men write it's like the girl exists to be saved or to be lusted after. You just have to be aware as a writer these are going to be very natural to you because of our society or whatever we've seen a lot in storytelling, and you just have to become aware of them. And as soon as you become aware of them you can start working on them.

The easiest way of getting away from doing this is to avoid tokenism, meaning if you are going to put someone in who is a certain ethnicity or is different from yourself or one thing like that, if you force yourself to put two in you then suddenly can't make them the stereotype because otherwise they are the same character and that forces you to really think about that and is one very easy way. I can go on for hours about that so take my class and ask me and we can talk about it.

Questioner

I wondered if an Inquisitor had children, if they would inherit stronger Inquisitor abilities, or if they would just inherit the lesser lines from being a Seeker, for example?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. I don't think I've ever been asked this before... The way Hemalurgy works, if you're not aware, you are taking someone else's soul, and you are basically nailing it to your soul... That won't affect the children. So you will have the weaker lines.

They have tried that. Unfortunately.

Windrunner Savant (paraphrased)

So in Shadows of Self, when TenSoon and Wax are fighting the spiked creature things, TenSoon mention that he was Harmony's "Preservation."

*Brandon seemed a bit apprehensive about that statement*

And he said that Wax was Harmony's "Ruin."

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

*still apprehensive* Yes...

Windrunner Savant (paraphrased)

Well since Harmony has been around for about 300 years someone else would have had to fill that role, right?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Probably...

Windrunner Savant (paraphrased)

And could that person possibly have been Paalm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Maybe.

Questioner

You know how Wax has control of his Steelpushes? Well, if someone has an Ironpull ability, can get practiced enough to, in the Wax & Wayne era, swing through downtown Elendel Spiderman-like with controlled Ironpulls?

Brandon Sanderson

I've actually thought about that, and I went away from it, just because of Spiderman. I have to be really careful that I just don't go Spiderman-y. But I would say it's an in-world possibility that someone could do that, and it wouldn't be that hard if you've got the buildings. The trick is, most downtowns are not tall enough, and I would say in Elendel even now, there aren't enough skyscrapers that you could really go full-on Spiderman. But if you could, if you were, like, downtown Manhattan, you could do it.

Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

You've said that Splintering a Shard is essentially the same thing as the Shattering of Adonalsium, repeated on a smaller scale.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yeah.

Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

And a while ago, someone asked you if Splintering was permanent or reversible, and you said that it can be reversed.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yeah.

Mason Wheeler (paraphrased)

And Shardholders [Vessels] tend to take the name of the Shard they hold. So you've got Sazed, who goes by "Harmony" now, after taking up Ruin and Preservation. That makes me wonder, does he hold two Shards... or one?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You could really answer that either way. The distinction is a really subjective one, and you could say that he's holding both Shards, or that he holds one single Harmony.

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things I relied on my surgeons for when I was working was, they would periodically say, "Cauterize this one, not this one." I'm not sure I ever really figured out why, but I just did what they said. But I think that could be really handy for the audience. Any suggestions?

Panelist 1

Yeah, I had that on my list. So, cautery has been around for a very long time, and properly applied it can both stop bleeding, what we mostly use it for now, and limit infection by sealing the skin. So that's a perfectly valid therapy from way way back. 

Panelist 2

From a surgeons perspective cautery is a primary tool that I use in the operating room all the time. Mainly on small vessels. In the same, when you're doing abdominal surgery is that charcoal doesn't bleed, today. The problem with cauterizing a very large vessel is that it will stop the bleeding, and then the eschar, the charred part falls off and it starts bleeding again. So cauterizing your entire arm to stop bleeding is not as effective as cauterizing, say, an open bleeding wound that doesn't involve a major blood vessel.

Questioner

How does liquid metal interact with allomancy? (e.g. mercury)

Brandon Sanderson

Right, right. I’ve always imagined it working like a ferrofluid in a magnetic field. You can pull and push on it, but it’s going to be weird and goopy. I haven’t had reason to push and pull on mercury yet, or any of the other liquid metals.

Stormstoyou

So, Skyward is gonna be a trilogy. Each book will contain it's own stand alone story or it's a one big story splitted into three books?

Brandon Sanderson

Each of the books stand pretty well on their own, though the final one (this will probably be four books, not three) is a lot more reliant on the previous ones.

carmen22

And last but definitely not least, you seem to have left the New World of Mistborn open for a book maybe featuring Spook in the future, any thoughts?

Brandon Sanderson

I did leave it open. But that's partially because I feel that part of any good book is the indication that the characters continue to live, the world continues to turn. I want readers to be free to imagine futures for the characters and more stories in the world.

For Mistborn, I'm not planning—right now—to do any Spook books. I do have plans to do another trilogy set in the world, though it would take place hundreds of years later, once technology has caught up to what it should be. Essentially, think guns, cars, skyscrapers—and Allomancers.

Questioner

If a Thaylen and Alethi had a child, how would their eyebrows look?

Brandon Sanderson

Their eyebrows would probably have streaks of white. You would just see the kind of hybridization how bushy and long their eyebrows got. The color would breed kind of half-way true.

Questioner (Paraphrased)

Do you ever plan on writing a sequel to The Emperor's Soul?

Brandon Sanderson

The first one turned out so well, and it's one of those things that you kind of-- Like I didn't expect-- Like sometimes you're amazed at how well something turns out. I wrote that mostly on the flight home from Taiwan. It wasn't anything I was planning to write. I was inspired by my trip to Taiwan. I sat down, and I lived in Korea for two years, so I was kind of familiar with some of the culture, tojang, the stamps, and things like that, and so I ended up writing a story. It turned out so well, that it feels like it's one of those things that may not need a sequel. Does that make sense?

There's some things that are just better by themselves. *laughter* So we'll see. If the right inspiration strikes. I'm not planning one right now, though, for those of you that have read it, there is-- we have sold a movie option on it.  

*applause*

So a movie option on Emperor's Soul, how would you do that? The producers are working very closely with me, and I'm working on the treatment , and I'm very excited. In fact, [Matt Hughes?], are you in here somewhere? The producer of it flew up from Hollywood, because he wanted to see WorldCon. So he's skulking around WorldCon for the first time. But yeah, so you might see a film.

Questioner

The Emperor's Soul was intentionally on Sel or was it just picked up as...

Brandon Sanderson

No, it was intentional, because the magic system... the way I build the magic systems in the Cosmere is very deliberate and certain planets have certain themes for their magic. And Sel's magic systems are all basically computer programming languages and when I was designing that magic system, it had to be on Sel, it couldn't work on any of the other planets for various reason.

Questioner

And another question, is the Shaod random or is there a purpose beyond it?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not completely random. *laughter from audience*

Questioner

So, when you were plotting out Mistborn, did you do the whole trilogy, kind of thing?

Brandon Sanderson

I did nine books when I did the plot for Mistborn. Normally how I approach plotting is: first book, I do with minimal outlining for the rest of the series. So there's-- I'll do a pretty good outline for the first book. And then I will write that first book (and of course everything changes from the outline as you're writing it) and then I sit down and I outline the series, whatever the series is going to be, with about a page on each book. And then when it's time to write that one, I sit down and I kind of attack that outline. Usually, I'm looking for about-- roughly, outline is 10,000 words for every 100,000 words of book. So, a lot of my YA outlines are 10,000 to 20,000. 15,000 words, something like that. For something big like Stormlight, we're looking at a lot more.

With Mistborn, I finished the first book, and I went to my outline and I created the spine of the three eras. (Which became four! Because I'm an epic fantasy writer.) And then I called my editor, I'm like, "Hey, this is what I want to do." And he's like, "Wow, you're ambitious."

Questioner

Are you going to complete 'em eventually?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I will. We're getting really close to doing the next era. So, Mistborn, if you haven't read them, there's an era of epic fantasy, there's an era of urban fantasy. (It's more like steampunk, there's a steampunk era). Then we're gonna go to a true urban fantasy, kind of 1980s level of technology. Which is gonna be really fun.

The fun thing (have I told people this before)? In the second era books, we did these newspapers, these broadsheets that we put in as art. And I always like to have some art in my books. It's gotten more and more over the years, as I've had the resources to do more and more. What I want to do for Era 3, as our art things, are comics of Wax and Wayne from the-- *crowd laughs* Like, they've become characters-- So, you might wanna do a Golden Age (you comic book fans will love this), a Silver Age, and then a new dark gritty reboot. You'll have, like, a Golden Age classic-Superman sort of thing. And you'll have Silver Age, where it's just bizarre. The giant monkeys attack the city. Silver Age comics, they liked monkeys for some reason, they always put them on the covers. Then we'll do this, like, Frank Miller sort of, "Here's the reboot of the Wax and Wayne comics that happened." It's gonna be a blast, 'cause it'll be three books.

Questioner

Sure it won't be four books?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know...

ParadoxicalZen

The Second Letter, Frost mentions a gemstone, is that in the Moon Scepter?

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question. That is a topaz, which was associated with him for a long time and had some mystical properties.

Justin_9e

What was one of the first novels you read as a child?

Brandon Sanderson

First real fantasy novel was Dragonsbane. As a young child, I really liked the 3 Investigators books.

Questioner

Is there an origin to how you designed [the Mistcloak]?

Brandon Sanderson

Yea, there is an origin to the Mistcloak. It was actually gonna be in the video game that didn't ever get made.

*crown groans* I know, I know. But I will eventually use that some day. There's been talk of just doing a graphic novel of this character that I had written a story for. I wrote something like 20,000 words of story for the video game that didn't end up getting used ,so we might turn that into a graphic novel or we might make a video game out of it or something. But that was the origin.

Chris King

Is Shalash the daughter of Jezrien?

Brandon Sanderson

Umm... Oh, yes, she is indeed his daughter.

Brandon Sanderson

Honorblades work in Oathgates. (It's one of the things they'll try in the third book).

Questioner

What was your favorite book you wrote?

Brandon Sanderson

...That I've made? Um, it's hard for me to pick my favorite book or my favorite character from my books, because it's kind of like trying to pick my favorite child. And I can't do that. I like them all as I'm working on them.

Questioner

The change in how the magic (on Scadrial) interact with each other, was that done by Sazed?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it was. You will find a theme. The snapping in Mistborn is actually a repeated theme through a lot of the different magics. Um, but what I felt at the end of the day Sazed would do something about it. So, even though that is part of the magic system, he changed that. The change to Feruchemy is more a matter of other factors such as the large amount of interbreeding that happened following...and things like that. And so a lot of people with Feruchemy sDNA mixing with people with people with Allomantic sDNA has affected the way the magics blend, so to speak. That's not done by Sazed. That's just kind of an effect.

Shawn Speakerman

You brought up the magic system [of Way of Kings], and it's fairly unique. It's hard to wrap your head around it at first, but once you get into the story it actually makes a lot of sense. So, how long did it take you to develop that actual aspect of the novel?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the book. For this one, it's been going for a long time. This is one of the magic systems I've just been playing with forever, the idea...

Now, I describe the basics of the magic systems, and I'm worried that that will scare people off, because you don't need to know any of this stuff. The magic is fun, it should be just part of the story. But if you really wanna dig deeply, this one is based off the idea of fundamental forces. The [four] fundamental forces. Gravitation and electromagnetics and strong and weak nuclear forces. Those are the concepts that built this magic system, where I built an idea of a world with essentially ten fundamental forces, and built ten orders of Knights, each who learn to manipulate a type of these forces. So that is a growth over about ten years of work, to build this magic system with these ideas of "How can I make these fundamental forces manipulate them, what can it do? How can I make surface tension into a magic system? Or how can I make pressure into a magic system? Or gravitation that works in a magic system?"

But in other ones, it's just a quirky idea that occurs to me. Warbreaker, I spent only about four months building the magic system for that; an idea, you know, sympathetic magic of bringing things to life and using Breath as a metaphor for someone's life just kind of fell into place and worked together, and I did it. It depends on the book.

Khyrindor (paraphrased)

Theoretically, could the Surges of Gravitation and Transportation be combined to gain time travelling powers?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO

Questioner

How long after Warbreaker do these events take place?

Brandon Sanderson

We have numbers in the wiki. We haven't canonized a lot of them in the books yet. Because my original plan for the cosmere involved more space between the series than I'm probably going to eventually do. What I've said is, that basically the books that have been released have all been chronological except for White Sand, which takes place before the other books chronologically. Wax and Wayne takes place after Stormlight Five, but before Stormlight Six. And that's all I'm saying about how far apart things are right now.

One thing you have to remember is, also, time dilation is a thing in the cosmere that comes up a lot more often than it does in our world, for various reasons, because of the way I am treating Investiture. So treat that how you will.

Questioner

When Caligo did the thing he did in the end, was what happened with Paul an intended or unintended consequence of that?

Brandon Sanderson

You should assume that most things that happen involving Caligo were things that Caligo wanted to happen.

Questioner

What's your favorite Magic color deck? Favorite combination?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm playing blue!

Questioner/Translator

How do you like Poland, especially Kraków?

Brandon Sanderson

I love Poland, especially Krakow. The food has been delicious so far. I haven't actually seen much of Krakow yet but I'm going out doing tourist things tomorrow.

Questioner

I read on your FAQ that your in-world language was going to play a bigger part in some of the later books. Is that still something you're planning on?

Brandon Sanderson

Still something I'm planning, but we will see. The numerology aspect of The Stormlight Archive is a bigger part of the world than I usually emphasize, because if you emphasize stuff like that people will assume it is actually magical.  They are a bit more superstitious with their numerology than I sometimes imply—

Questioner

Is that why there's lots of things in tens? 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, well even more than that, it's based on the whole idea that in the Hebrew, a number and a letter are the same thing, so people would translate words to numbers and numbers to words. They do a LOT of that. 

Brandon Sanderson

Just finished and turned in the sequel to Skyward, so huzzah! Next on my list is to get some revisions done on a few smaller projects. In January, it will be time for Stormlight 4. (I do promise to find time for the last Wax and Wayne book somewhere too.)

Questioner

If Vasher is on Roshar where the hell is Vivenna?

Brandon Sanderson

OOOOOH that’s a RAFO!

Dustin

Does the scene where Shallan is counting heartbeats mean what I think it means? It just kind of strange to imagine her carrying around of of those but then again she does like secrets.

Brandon Sanderson

It means what you think it means

Benjamin Akpojaro

PLEASE tell me you're already in talks to turn The Stormlight Archive into a big screen fantasy extravaganza??!!

Brandon Sanderson

These days, I'm pretty sure small screen is more likely, considering the size of the books. But we're trying.

Haylo_Alex

You've said before that Soulcasting can't create atium or lerasium which makes sense since they're made of Investiture from other Shards. But could a Soulcaster, perhaps in the proximity of Dalinar's perpendicularity, provide enough Stormlight to Soulcast something into Honor's Godmetal (tanavastium)? What about Cultivation's metal, or an alloy of both, like Shardblade metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So, creating a God Metal is not something that's done easily in the Cosmere. HOWEVER, it is possible. You'd need a ton of Investiture, and being near Dalinar's perpendicularity is unlikely to be enough. I'd say Soulcasting, or something akin to it, has the means to do this if it could obtain the proper power charge.

Joe ST

Is Urithiru a spaceship?

Brandon Sanderson

 It is not, no, good question. I've never been asked that before. It's very Sim City, though.

Joe ST

It's a new theory, they're thinking, is it one of the floating cities from--

Brandon Sanderson

From Ashyn, yeah. Boy, that would be hard, it is so big. But, I suppose, magic, you know. But no, it is not...

Questioner

I was wondering, how many pieces of different Shards does Hoid have to collect before he is considered Ascended?

Brandon Sanderson

You know that's even a little bit false, uh-- not begging the question. Whichever logic fallacy is assuming that he could. Or, you are assuming that he could. Who knows if it's even possible, or anything like that.

Questioner

Is there going to be a physical release planned for The Original at some point in the future? Or is it going to be audio-only?

Brandon Sanderson

I would anticipate that we would, eventually, do this. It was written for audio. I know we've just kind of briefly said "yeah, probably." But it's not like we've made any plans. It's not like we have a release in mind.

Mary Robinette Kowal

The conversations that we've had are basically, like, "Yeah, that would be awesome if someone wanted it." And also, I'm like, "And there needs to be some rewriting." There are scenes where we're relying on the narrator, and it won't play on the page.

Brandon Sanderson

So the answer is "Yes, probably." But we can't say when. And we have no specific plans yet.

Questioner

[Mraize's] cosmere treasure room had a white tree branch-like thing, is that the bones from Sel?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not from Sel, it's from Yolen.

The_Honor_Spren

Would you be able tell us a little more about what Pattern looks like as a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll try to get a drawing into the next book. I've realized that we really should have one.

Questioner

Where did the idea for Girl Who Stood Up come from?

Brandon Sanderson

Girl Who Looked Up grew out of my love of folklore and fairytale. And the various incarnations of Pandora myths all around the world, in different societies, presented differently, would be my guess at the inspiration there.

Questioner

Epilogue of Stormlight Five still be written in Wit's viewpoint?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to RAFO you on that one. You'll have to wait and see. I will be writing it very soon.

Questioner

When are we gonna get more books in Wax & Wayne?

Brandon Sanderson

There will be one more, and it will be my next book I'm writing next year. Once I finish Apocalypse Guard, I'll write it next year. So just watch a percentage bar on my website, it will tell you when it's gonna come out.

Questioner

I am hugely arachnophobia and I was wondering if you have any phobias or really big fears that might get in the way of writings sometimes.

Brandon Sanderson

Do I have any phobias that get in the way of my writing? I don't really have any of that strength. I do think spiders are creepy. They are more creepy in a 'find something and smash them' sort of way. I think the only time I've felt a deep, phobic fear is the first time I went snorkeling and was going along and everything was great, then I turned and looked to where the shelf ended, and I got close to them and I looked down and out into the nothing and there was that moment of just "that thing is so much vaster and bigger than me." that I think I felt that same "I am going nowhere near that, I am coming back", right? It creeped me out for the rest of that snorkeling trip.