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When Adolin snapped, I noticed your wording. Those... The term snapping...
No. Good question. He did not gain Allomantic abilities.
Well - Spren bonding abilities...?
Well no. That was not used magically.
Have you been approached by anybody about making a movie?
Okay, "making a movie," okay, okay. *sighs* *crowd laughs* So, Holywood. Holywood! Holywood is this-- they do this thing where they option books, right? And this-- most of the deals you see, they get signed, are what we call an option. They come in, they say, "We think we might be able to get a movie made, but we don't know for sure. So we're going to rent the rights from you." Against-- Like leasing. Renting to own. Where we pay you a certain amount every year that's against a big payout, and if we ever decide to make a big payout we buy the rights outright. But until then we can rent them for like five years and pay you every year or eighteen months. These are very common in Holywood. They happen a lot. And it's-- now that I've become involved in this it's kind of interesting to me that, like, when something gets optioned it's like, "Huge news! Oh, it's gonna get made!" But one in thirty of these get made <by general>. And most of the deals you're hearing about are those. As well you'll probably hear about this deal, you'll be like, "Oh, somebody's going to make this film." And then five years later you're like, "Whatever happened to that?" Well, it was just an option deal. And I've had like ten things get optioned. Like I've sold things over and over again and stuff like that. And so yes, people have my works optioned. Nothing I've done has ever gone past screenplay except for Alcatraz, at DreamWorks Animation which went to storyboard before then they decided to kill it. So, yeah obviously you didn't get that movie. That was years ago. They made the Croods instead. *crowd laughs* No, really, I-- those were the two competing projects. So I got-- So nothing has gone past screenplay-- I have gotten a screenplay a couple times before, but the step after that is like to get a director attached, and then like, you know, then get a greenlight, or get actors attached. The greenlight is the hard thing. The only thing I know of that got greenlit recently is The Sword of Shannara, which is coming out in January I think. Everything else I know is just an option. And so, yeah. But Steelheart's at Shawn Levy's company, who did the Night at the Museum films. Emperor's Soul is at DMG who were producers on two of the Iron Man films. The rest of the Cosmere is optioned by somebody else, but they haven't announced it yet, so I can't talk about it. They're very specific about stuff like that. Legion's been optioned twice, and both people have not been able to get that made as a television show. I mean, everything's been optioned.
As the two Realms, the Cognitive and the Spiritual, are, well, fictional... Are they all comprised of Investiture, completely?
Yes. No, completely? Well, here's the thing. Investiture, matter, and energy are all the same thing in the cosmere. So, just like energy and matter are the same thing here. So, yes, everything's made of Investiture, in the same way that everything's made of energy in our world. Does that make sense?
So, what about what spren are made of in the Cognitive Realm? Is that just Investiture?
So, yeah, I'll dig more into that. I'm gonna go with Investiture for now, but I could change that as I move along. What I'm kind of debating is, is there a separate Cognitive state, and I don't think so. So I'm gonna go with Investiture for now.
How about Connection?
Connection is, like, the equivalent of a quantum connection in our world, so it's more like a force than something comprised of something. The question is like, "What is gravity comprised of?" And then you start asking weird questions.
I had a teacher, when I was in 8th grade--this is true, her name was Ms. Reeder *laughter* yes, she's now a professor in California-- and I was what we call in the industry a reluctant reader, that is a fancy term for "me no like-y books" and she couldn't get me to read. I was one of these boys-- it happens to a lot, more boys than girls, but it happens to a lot of kids between about 5th and 7th grade, they fall out of reading. And for me I suddenly found books boring during that era. I joke about it in one of my books actually, these books with the awards on the cover with the boy who has a pet dog and then the dog dies and that's your story. And I thought these were boring. I did try Tolkien, but if you're not a good reader trying The Lord of the Rings, I bounced off that so hard, had no idea what's going on. I got to like the barrow-wights scene, like "Euhhh what's going on? This is boring..."
That was a few years before my 8th grade year where my teacher, she realized I was struggling. And she realized that I was faking my way through book reports. And so she called me up after class and she said "The next book report is going to be a book that I have read and then you are going to read and we are going to talk about it." So she took me to the back of the room and teachers have these racks of ratty paperbacks… it's like a hundred kids have read these books, they're stained with school lunch spaghetti sauce and things like that. But these were some of her favorite books that she loaned out to students, and I browsed through those and I found a book called Dragonsbane, Barbara Hambly. Nowadays kind of a lesser known classic of the genre, it's fantastic, I love it. It has this gorgeous Michael Whelan cover on it. And it was longer than books I had tried before but it also looked more interesting. So I dove into that book, and you know the weird thing about this book is that it should not have worked, right? If you've read Dragonsbane it's about a middle-aged woman who has been told that if she would just dedicate herself to her magic-craft she could be one of the greatest practitioners ever. Her teacher keeps saying to her "Look you just need to dedicate yourself more". And at the same time she has a family, several children and a husband who in the book is called to go and slay a dragon. He's like in his fifties now, he killed one once when he was twenty, he's the only living dragonslayer and the story is sort of about him going "Oh I've got to go and kill this dragon" and her saying "Uh… You're in your fifties, you're going to get killed." It's a really interesting story, told through this woman's eyes and it's basically a middle-aged woman having a mid-life crisis, having to choose between her career and her family. Not normally what you would give to a 14-year-old boy and expect him to absolutely love it. But this is the power of fantasy, it's why I love the genre, it's why I came to love it.
It's the answer to your question, because I feel that in fantasy and science fiction we can blend the sense of the fantastic with the sense of the familiar and we can learn about people around us while having an awesome story at the same time. I remember a few years ago there were books that would come out, it was for parents to fool their kids into eating vegetables, they would say "You can mix this vegetable with this food and they won't taste it". I kind of view fantasy a little like that. You can have this awesome adventure that's really fun and exciting and at the same time you can deal with lots of interesting real-world issues but not be pretentious. You know there are a lot of great books in a lot of genres, but I'll read some that are "realistic" fiction and they just hit you with this moral so much that you are sick of it after the third chapter. Whatever the reason-- I know what the reason is that this book connected with me. My mother graduated first of her class in accounting in a year where she was the only woman in the accounting department. After doing that she had received a scholarship to go get a CPA and she had made the decision that "You know what I'm pregnant, I'm going to stay home with my son while he's a little kid until he goes back to school and then I'll go back to a job." And as a kid, you know, when I heard this story as a teenager I was "Well of course she did, it's me". Right? When you're a teen everything is about you, "Well obviously that's the right decision". In reading this book and seeing where it wasn't accounting it was magic I was like "Woooh that's how my mom feels about accounting and she gave that up, it's not an easy decision, it's not the obvious decision. Both decisions are right, she just picked one of the two and she did it for me". And so I get out of this book, this goofy fantasy novel about killing a dragon, and I understand my mother better. And that blew my mind as a kid. I ran back to my teacher, "there have to be more books like this" and so she took me to the library, which I had not spent much time in, and I just went to the card catalogue… the cards in a line, you read them by title and the next book in line was Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn so I got into those books, and then the next book after that in line was Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey. That was my introduction to fantasy. I spent the next months reading every Anne McCaffrey, Barbara Hambly, and Melanie Rawn book I could get my hands on, to the point that when someone handed me David Eddings that summer I said "I don't think guys can write this genre." *laughter* I was really skeptical. That was my mentorship, those three ladies.
Why did you gloss over *audio obscured* for Jasnah?
Again you'll want to read on, but Jasnah-- that was not going to happen in this book. In the initial plot it didn't happen, and Shallan was unable to, in the initial scenes I wrote, be able come into her own and so I had to make major revisions to the plot for this outline, the biggest thing I did was that. And once I did that the story started working.
Why was Dalinar able to feel the Thrill during his visions from the Stormfather?
Why was Dalinar able to feel the Thrill during his visions from the Stormfather. Well that would indicate that the same reason he feels the Thrill now still was in existence. Well not-- I mean was still affecting him. Does that make sense? He was in the real world, his body was in the real world. Whatever makes him feel the Thrill was still affecting him. Does that make any sense?
What would Rock's favorite vegetable be in a soup? Like the Earth equivalents?
Ooh! Well, see, Rock is gonna base it based on the soup, because he's a chef. But if it's his perfect favorite, he's gonna want something crunchy, so he's gonna want like—
Well, I know he'll want the, the essentially the equivalent of crawdads.
She's trying to write a cosmere food article...
Yeah, yeah. But there are-- like, if you can get like a... radish, that's going to crunch, he's probably going to look for that in a soup, because that's going to be closer to what he likes. Something that's got some variance in the texture.
So far in the Cosmere we have seen different kinds of stories that fit a wide variety of genres across many different worlds. Was the Cosmere intentionally built specifically to be this open-ended sandbox that you can play in? Or is that something that happened more over time as you came up with more and more stories that you might be able to tell in there?
It's a little of both. You have to go back to the fact that, before I published, I write these thirteen novels and got very experienced at the idea of telling new worlds and new stories, and that's part of what excites me. And I built the Cosmere specifically to be able to tell different kinds of stories. Now, as I've matured as an author, there are stories that have occurred to me to tell that may not have occurred to me when I was younger, and I wouldn't have realized that I would want the space to tell. But I always was aware that this is something that I like to do and that the structure that I built should allow me that flexibility and freedom.
And I also am very aware, and have been from the beginning, that I didn't want to tell the same story over and over. In fact, once I wrote Dragonsteel (which, we'll release Dragonsteel Prime for the Words of Radiance Kickstarter; you guys'll be able to read it), it has more of a classic fantasy farmboy goes on an adventure story than I've generally done in my other books. And I wrote that, and the cosmerenauts or the lore keepers or the Arcanists who watch the things I've said know that the only book I abandoned out of those thirteen was book number nine, which was the book I started right after I wrote Dragonsteel. And I found myself writing kind of the same story again, another similar feel, similar vibe, of this kind of more classic fantasy tropes. And I actually abandoned it, and the main reason I did is I was like "I've done this story. I'm not going to do this story again. I don't want to be telling the same archetype over and over again." I do like taking a stab at an archetype, a lot of times, even if it's a well-worn one; I think that that's fun. But I don't want to be doing it over and over. I want to do it once really well and then move on. So that is why I think I could have even said early on that I would have known that sub-genre hopping was a thing taht I was going to be doing a lot of.
What happens when you Lash water, or a body of water?
Excellent question, it’s going to have some hard time gripping on--
Would it have a gravity well going on?
Yeah it would have a gravity well, it think-- yeah. You are the first person to ask about that, I don’t think even my assistant has asked about that. So that’s your tentative answer until I think about it some more, but I think it would.
Book Wrap-up
Well, there you have it, the complete annotations for The Final Empire, Book One of Mistborn. The paperback of this comes out in just about three weeks, so my goal of getting all the Annotations posted before the paperback release has been achieved.
This was a very fun book to write. In a couple of months, Book Two will come out—which was, in turn, the most challenging book I think I've ever written. (But we'll talk about that during the annotations.)
Every book has things that turn out just like you imagined, things that surprise you, and things that never quite work out. In this book, the "heist" feel for the book is the one that never quite worked out. I sit and look back through the pages, and can still imagine the book as it was in my head before I wrote it. It's kind of an odd feeling to then have this book, which shares some attributes with the imagined novel, yet deviates in some important ways.
The power of the characters was what worked well—the thing that I wanted to have happen, then was pleased when it finally worked out. Kelsier's surprise at the end was a similarly nice payoff, as was the way that Allomancy worked out. Elend was a surprise, as was the amount of time I ended up spending in the ball scenes.
All in all, I'm very pleased with this book—I think it's better than Elantris, if not as "meaningful", and achieves just what I wanted. A second book to show off what I can really do.
I hope you enjoyed reading it.
The Final Empire Project: November 2001-July 2007
Brandon Sanderson
Updates on Secondary Projects
The Rithmatist
This continues to be the single most-requested sequel among people who email me or contact me on social media. It is something I want to do, and still intend to, but it has a couple of weird aspects to it—completely unrelated to its popularity—that continue to work as roadblocks.
The first problem is that it's an odd relic in my writing career. I wrote it as a diversion from a book that wasn't working (Liar of Partinel, my second attempt at doing a novel on Yolen, after the unpublished novel Dragonsteel). It went really well—but it also was something I had to set aside when the Wheel of Time came along.
I eventually published it years later, but my life and my writing has moved in a very different direction from the point when I wrote this. These days, I try very hard to make stories like this work as novellas or standalone stories, rather than promising sequels. I feel I did promise a sequel for this one, and I have grand plans for it, but the time just never seems to be right.
The other issue is that writing about that era in America—even in an alternate universe—involves touching on some very sensitive topics. Ones that, despite my best efforts, I feel that I didn't handle as sensitively as I could have. I do want to come back to the world and do a good job of it, but doing an Aztec viewpoint character—as I'd like to do as one of the viewpoints in book two—in an alternate Earth…well, it's a challenge that takes a lot of investment in research time.
And for one reason or another, I keep ending up in crisis mode—first with Stormlight 3 taking longer than I wanted, and now with The Apocalypse Guard not turning out like I wanted. So someday I will get to this, but it's going to require some alignment of several factors.
Status: Not yet. We'll see.
Does Silverlight have a permanent Perpendicularity on it?
Silverlight has weird. So I'm gonna give a RAFO to that.
It's got a physical constellation map. So they've gotta go to the Physical somehow right?
No, no, no. That can be in the Cognitive Realm.
The constellation map can be a picture from the Cognitive?
Well, yeah, I mean, it can be a picture in the Cognitive. That is a picture that exists in Silverlight.
Right, sure, but they need to be somewhere to view those things.
Right, I didn't say that that’s from the perspective Silverlight, but what we say is the picture is hanging there.
So that was a mis-interpretation on our part.
Yeah, the picture is hanging there in Silverlight. Okay?
Is there actually anything on the Physical end of Silverlight?
That is-- That's the RAFO part... That's what I'm not answering. If there's anything Physical. There can't be a Perpen--well, there could be a Perpendicularity, but then you'd have to go someplace in the Physical, and it gets all-- Silverlight is really weird.
A note for those who read Ookla's post above, and might be curious. The characters of Vivenna and Siri are ones that have been bouncing around in my head for quite a while. I made one attempt at a book using them, back about five years ago or so.
Unfortunately for the two of them, the rest of the elements of that book (particularly the person I chose as a hero, the magic system, and...well, a lot of things) just kind of fell apart. It's my only true failure of a book, made more tragic by the fact that Siri's story was working so well.
So, I decided that I'd give it another shot, reworking the two characters into a plot where they could be more of the focus, and where the setting and story were better thought out. (I've learned a few things in the intervening years.)
I never did finish the original book, which was titled MYTHWALKER. So, the people who knew me at the time were left hanging as to what happened to the characters.
I intend to finish it this time! Ookla, you've got the right of it still. Susebron will be virtually the same character I imagined in MYTHWALKER> I don't want to give spoilers to the others, but if you watch closely, you'll see how I'm going to work things out.
How about something related to Emperor's Soul?
I had a really good idea for a sequel earlier this year, but I don't know if I'll ever do it. I don't want to Lucas it. I don't want to take something that works so well on its own, and then make something that makes it not work as well on its own. I might do it, I might not.
Hello, all! After far too long, and with many apologies, I'm finally at work on your book. The Lost Metal (this will be the final title; I have more say over my titles with Tor than I do with Random House) is in progress. So far, I have around 10k words, and I'm anticipating a book somewhere in the 120k-150k range. (The progress bar on my website is set for 150k, where it was set at 100k for previous W&W books.)
A mini reminder for those who are wondering, "Why four books?" I wrote the first book as an experiment during the Wheel of Time days, when I worried about the cosmere (and Mistborn in particular) languishing while I saw to the needs of Randland.
The book turned out well--and I liked the characters so much that I outlined a trilogy to follow up Alloy of Law. Hence the four books--and this WILL be the final one.
My current plan is to try to finish this one by August 1st, with a Christmas 2022 publication date. (Skyward 3 being this year, and Skyward 4 being somewhere early 2023.) It will be followed by the fifth Stormlight book in Christmas 2023. After that, the good news is that I plan to write Era Three (three books long, 200-250k each like the original trilogy) all in a row. I'll need a few years on that project, so goal is tentatively to see those start being published in 2025 or so--with one a year for three years after that, followed by Stormlight 6 in 2028.
That's an ambitious schedule, so we'll see. Fortunately, the schedule for W&W four is not ambitious. If I finish by August, we'll be ahead for like the first time in ten years, giving my team a solid 14 months for editing and the like. (Which will make everyone very happy.)
Right now, everything is looking great for the book. Writing Group started on the prologue last week, and will be reading the first few chapters this week. Outline was well received by my team, and it feels really great to be writing Wax, Steris, Marasi, and Wayne again.
I will try to remember to give you an update here in a couple of months somewhere around the 50% mark to let you know how it's developing. (Though note, I've started doing short, weekly updates on YouTube so you can follow along there if the progress bar isn't enough.) Book will have a slightly more complex narrative than previous W&W books, but my goal is still for it to be fast paced and snappy.
As always, I'll be turning OFF replies to inbox for this thread--so my apologies if your reply or question doesn't get seen. And, as always, thank you for humoring my style of jumping between books and series.
Skyward Three Update Two
Hello! Brandon here again with another update on the third Skyward book, tentatively titled NOWHERE. This update might have slight spoilers for the first two books in the series. Find the previous update here.
I've been working away on this book, slowly but surely, with progress every week. As I said in the first update, my outline for this book was quite solid, which let me jump right into the story with very little lost time. Which is good, as Dawnshard took a little more time from me than I'd wanted, so timing is a little tight on Nowhere.
The good news is that the publisher (Delacorte, a Random House imprint) has agreed to publish the book Christmas 2021. This took some work on our part, and me agreeing to some pretty tight deadlines, as covid has caused delays all through the industry and the publisher wasn't excited by the prospect of me forcing a relatively early publication date. (Publishers would generally like an 12-18 moth lead time after book turn in to publication, and this one will have around ten months or so.)
However, I think it's best to push a little to get the book done in time for next year--as Skyward fans have been required to wait while I did a Stormlight book in between. However, I've acknowledged to the publisher that if the book needs more than normal revisions (IE, something pops up in alpha/beta that takes work to fix) and I miss any deadlines, I'll agree to a spring 2022 release instead.
So, how's that looking? Well, book is on target writing-wise. I'm at around 62k words as of last night, with a goal of having 90-100k done by January First. That should finish up the novel, save for the interludes, which I'm planning to do a little later. (For spoiler-ish reasons, I can't say why.)
This series has a bit of a strange organization. I'd originally planned a trilogy, but as I worked on the outline for the second and third books, I felt that three books would be rushing things. I wanted to take this third book as a kind of focused character book, looking at Spensa in a rather new environment.
Slight Spoilers: The reasons for this are twofold. First off, I really thought that by the end of Starsight she would need some time to work on a few things relating to her arc. Second off, I knew that coming off of a Stormlight book, I might need a book that was more of an isolated fun adventure--something very different from Stormlight, to help me have variety in my writing. It's working very well, though my big worry is that people will feel this book isn't as connected to the rest of the series (or the stakes aren't as high) because of it. I am doing what I can to mitigate this, as it really is the story I want to tell right now. Hopefully, you'll all agree that the little diversion in book three was worth the journey. Time will tell.
Regardless, thank you for your patience, Skyward fans. The book IS coming. I hate taking a year off of the series like I did, but I don't think you'll have to suffer another of those. I anticipate the final book coming out Spring/summer 2022. (Theoretically, I'll be writing it second half of next year.)
As always, I'll be turning replies to inbox off for this thread, in order to keep the inbox a little more organized. So I apologize in advance if I don't see to your comment/question!
Happy Holidays. Next update should come in the early part of next year, as I am working on revisions. I'll let you know how it goes for hitting those deadlines! (Also, watch for the State of the Sanderson in little over a week to talk more about the projects I'm working on.)
Brandon
INTRODUCTION
Well, this has certainly been quite the year, hasn’t it? Dan Carlin on his podcast likes to quote the old (supposedly) Chinese saying that goes: “May you live in interesting times.” I think I better understand why that phrase is usually used as a curse, not a blessing.
I like it when things are different; it is good for my writing brain to live in a different way. However, I’d prefer this experience not come at the terrible expense many people have paid this year because of COVID. I hope the vaccines are widely available soon.
For now, if you can appreciate one silver lining to the pandemic, it’s this: A year of staying home and not touring has led me to be rather productive. I’ve been able to work on a lot of behind-the-scenes projects that will eventually come to light—as well as meeting all of my deadlines for things I wanted to accomplish this year. So hopefully, my stories provide you with a little relief from these “interesting” times.
If you missed it earlier this year, we released a book I call The Way of Kings Prime. This is the (very, very different) version of the book I wrote in 2002 that I decided not to publish. I started again from scratch in 2009–2010 to create the book actually published as The Way of Kings. If you’re done with Rhythm of War and want some more (non-canon) Cosmere, feel free to give this older one a read. It’s very different.
Now that maybe we are going to have the [first half] from the Stormlight Archive, maybe will you have an art book for the cosmere or the Stormlight Archive, or maybe a companion? I think Rhythm of War was amazing. It has such detail and everything that happens, and all the science behind it, that it makes it feel super real. And we were thinking will we ever get as well--like you know for Discworld that you have The Science of Discworld books, maybe we'll need that in the end for the cosmere as well.
It's a good suggestion, that's a very good suggestion. I'm a little gun-shy, I realize, on this because Wheel of Time did the White Book. And I know that there were those--let's just say those in the community and those among who created it, that were disappointed with it, which is part of why Harriet spent so much time working on the encyclopedia. I think that made me more timid than I need to be, because the various ones for George Martin's series have been very good, and the ones for Discworld have just been fantastic.
And so you're right, it's probably something we should start putting together. Some sort of, you know here is the "first era" of the cosmere and here is your companion piece for reading it, here is a glossary of all the characters. If there's some way I could make those spoiler-free, that you could look up an entry and only you know--I wonder if it could come with those glasses that are red and and blue and so you can only read the normal entry unless you've read a certain book and then it tells you the other parts and things like that. Would that be too much of a gimmick? I'm kind of in love with that idea, so that you could read about people without being spoiled.
In the first book the group is focused on getting control of the palace and is not worried about the return of the army because they think that if they get the palace they'll have the atium and, thus, the ability to pay for the loyalty of the army, since they're mercenaries. Well they didn't find the atium, right? So no ability to pay the old army for their loyalty. I'm just saying that it seems to me that the absence of the Lord Ruler's army supporting the city should be a huge indication to all the other warlords that the atium isn't in Elend's possession.
People have been saying that he wouldn't have anyone to trade with so the atium would be worthless but he would have had a year to work out trade with someone if he wanted to monetize it (with as valuable as atium is made out to be in the first book he would have found someone wanting to buy some even if he couldn't get the price the Lord Ruler charged for it).
Ah! Well, that makes sense. I certainly think some people in world might have come to this conclusion. But they'd still think the atium must be somewhere in the city, even if Elend doesn't have/isn't spending it.
However, I think the issue is a little less cut and dry. For one thing, Elend DOES have the loyalty of much of the local army--the garrison serves him now, which would be an indication that he has access to some of the Lord Ruler's resources. I don't think the lack of a larger army would be an indication he doesn't have the atium, however.
Let's say you were a small band, and were able to seize and control Ft Knox, and get the guards stationed there to serve you. The president is dead, and the country is fragmenting into city-states.
A senator from a nearby state might easily round up the military in his area, promise them that he's the new civil authority--then push them to go seize the gold. When they arrived, they wouldn't think, "Why is their force so small? They must not actually have the gold." They'd think, "They're ripe for the picking. We got here first."
That's basically what is happening. The "Lord Ruler's Army" doesn't exist any more--it's fragmented, taken over by various groups who ruled their own local regions. And the bulk of the most frightening part, the koloss, are their own uncertain band.
In Lost Metal, you had Marasi ultimately reject Kelsier’s offer of joining the Ghostbloods, and I think that's a decision we've seen some division on with the fans. So I'm curious, what’s your analysis and thoughts on that? Because it was an interesting and fun character choice.
Yeah, I'm not surprised there's some division of fans; there was division among the beta readers on this. And there is even—like, I, as I was writing the book, left myself the option to have her join if I wanted her to. I didn't lock myself in in that part of the outline.
My instinct was this isn't a good place for her. And so why…? And then when I got to the end am like, no, this isn't a good place for her. So, you know, Marasi’s journey through the books has been, "how do I change the world?", "how much am I interested in changing the world?", and "how much do I change the world?". Kind of in conversation with the dreams that she had as a younger person and the reality that she's now living?
And one of the things I wanted to deal with in this book was this idea that she is kind of worried that she's just— she's becoming a cop, with all that that entails, right? That there's a culture to that and whatnot. And should she be doing more? And all of that. And so that did lead a lot toward the whole Ghostbloods thing, right? And I expected a lot of people to be like, "Oh, yeah, well, here's the easy answer."
The problem is Kelsier is just such a terrible match to Marasi, right? Like personality-wise, you know, Kelsier is about the shadows. He honestly believes that if all the information were known that it would be worse for the world. He can share it in a small group. And he's got this sort of "I need to take care of people and I need to do it my way" sort of philosophy, which is really antithetical to somebody like Marasi, who, you know, her whole thing is "we need to be better as a society, not as individuals, and we need to be—". And so I at the end decided this is just a really bad place for her, right?
But she needed a place. Actually, the first draft of the book, I didn't have her make the decision to go into politics. She had rejected politics in the first book, right? She’s like, "I'm not going that way, that’s not that's not for me." And I went double back on that. I'm like, no, this is probably the right route for her, which is nice because like, it it kind of snapped together for me at that point when I did the revision to be like, no, she does need something. If she's going to turn down Kelsier, she needs something.
You know, you will have some fun in Era 3. Era 3, I don't know…? I warned you I might spoil unwritten books… Have I said this? I might have said this—you guys will know—Era 3’s working title for the series is Ghostbloods, right? And so like you know Mistborn: Ghostbloods is what Era 3 is going to be called, most likely. So if you were sad, well, just remember if Marasi joined the Ghostbloods we're still skipping decades. You would not have been able to see her as a member of the Ghostbloods. But that's what the name of the next series is going to be.
What is the most Invested item so far revealed?
What counts as an item?
Inanimate object. Sentient swords, stuff like that.
Okay, inanimate objects, would be Nightblood. Well-- is he inanimate?
Well, he's a sentient sword, but he's an inanimate object.
So, yeah, he would count.
OreSeur's Origins as a Character
Vin and OreSeur are quite well-established by this point. Actually, OreSeur and his character–the OreSeur we deal with in this book, with the conflicts and personality he uses–are one of the items I brought over from Mistborn Prime. (If you'll remember, that's the first stab I made at writing a Mistborn book years back. It was unpublished.) The kandra sidekick was one of the very few things that actually worked in that book. (Too well, actually. People liked him much more than they liked the actual hero of the story, who wasn't a character that appears in any of the current Mistborn novels.) If you ever want to read Mistborn Prime, email me and ask. I'll send you an electronic copy.
(I've talked about that book in previous annotations. While the book débuted an early version of Allomancy and a couple of world elements–such as the mists coming at night–very little of the book made the jump to the new, professional version of Mistborn. I pretty much just stole the concept for the magic and a few select world items and used them as a starting point for this series. In that way, this trilogy is a kind of sequel to the other Mistborn book, though the plots, world, and characters are very different.)
Vin has a nickname, in a way. Valette. Part of my vision for this series was to get across the 'heist' feel to the book by giving everyone in the crew or related to the crew two names--their real name and their nickname.
Kelsier: Kel
Dockson: Dox
Sazed: Saze (I say his name SAY-zed, by the way. A lot of people say SAH-zed, which is just fine--only the nickname doesn't work as well.)
Elend: El (I say EHL-end, not EEL-end. So, his nickname is pronounced simply like the letter L.)
Ladrian: Breeze
Hammond: Ham
Cladent: Clubs
Lestibournes: Spook
Marsh: Ironeyes
Vin: Valette (Doesn't work as well, I know, but I liked her having another name to keep on theme.)
OreSeur: Lord Renoux
Given that Shards, and perhaps, Ascended beings, have intents similar to their names...
More that they have names similar to their intents.
So, would Unity be a natural enemy of Autonomy?
Um... Possibly. You say "natural," and so I--
Well, would one eliminate the other one? But more towards Autonomy trying to break up--
To break up Unity. It's so hard to say, because Autonomy is a bit of a strange duck. Like, what counts as being Autonomous? Is absorbing everything and becoming one again Autonomous or not? That's kind of your question that you get into. And the way Autonomy looks at it right now, is no. Autonomy wants to remain Autonomy. Autonomy does not want to be corrupted by anything else. And Autonomy would think the Shards are better on their own. But is this a natural effect, or part of the-- Does that make sense?
Well, but it's also along the lines of, Odium wants to break up the other ones, so they don't--
Odium just wants to be top dog. And your two ways to be top dog are to climb higher, or to lower everyone else. And he's like, we're gonna lower everyone else. Because I know, if I combine, it stops being me, is what his opinion is. I would no longer be the person I am. I would change into someone else. And then that person gets to rule, and I don't want that person to rule. I want to.
Vin Meets the Skaa in the Hovel, then does her Horseshoe trick
This scene was very important to the series as a whole. the people in the skaa hovel are just what Vin needed to see. We didn't get to experience a lot of it, but the run for Vin was very draining. It isn't easy to pewter drag. It wears you out, body and mind.
The skaa people laughing, however, recharges her. She gets what she needs to keep going, if in an unconventional way. And this gives her, and us, validation for all the work that Elend has been doing. It's working. For these people, at least, the struggle is worth fighting.
The series works best, I think, when read together as one long novel. I wrote them to feel separate enough that people wouldn't feel cheated when they read only one. However, so much of this story is meant to intertwine. For instance, this Vin scene will be made more powerful if you've 1) Seen how the skaa lived in their hovels back when Kelsier visited them in book one. 2) Remember what a pewter drag did to Vin in the last book. 3) Remember Vin using the spikeway from book one.
I would have liked to have shown another spikeway in this book, but again, there was no room. Still, readers have really liked her horseshoe trick. I would point out, however, that not just anyone–not even any Mistborn–could figure this out as quickly and as well as Vin. Kelsier trained her well in the Pushing and Pulling of metals. That was his specialty.
What was the first magic system that blew you away as a reader?
As a reader, the first magic system that blew me away would be Melanie Rawn's Sunrunner magic system, which I-- still to this day is one of my favorites. I think the pieces of it came together very well, and it has metaphors for art, and it was well worked in society. Anyway, it was really cool.
Chapter Fifteen
The actions of this wildman here seem strangely logical to me for some reason. Everything he did simply felt right. Sometimes–well, most of the time–character work that way for me. It makes me worry, actually, that sometimes the characters are too clichéd. After all, if their actions and mannerisms come that easily to me, then maybe I'm not stretching enough.On the other hand, I feel that the characters act naturally because I understand them. If I really understand a character, then won't everything the do feel right because. . .well, that's just what they would do.
We've seen some hints of the over-arching cosmere story arc, what was the inspiration behind that story originally?
I had an idea for a book when I was fifteen and just getting into fantasy novels—just getting into meaning, reading everything I could get my hands on and diving in face first—and I developed that idea over the next few years. I started writing and realized I was just no good as a writer yet. Which was okay, it wasn't a big deal to me. I realized this story was beyond my ability to approach, it was a vast, enormous story. And so, years later when I was writing Elantris I thought "Well let's just pretend I wrote that book and it was awesome and it's the prelude to what's going on here." That expanded into something much larger and much greater.
I've mentioned before, part of my inspiration for this was the fact that one of my favorite writers, Asimov, later decided to connect two of his main story universes, the Robot books and the Foundation books. It was really cool when he did it and I felt what would happen if I started doing something like this from the get go. I've known several authors who do it at the end of their careers—well I guess Stephen King's not even at the end of his career, in the middle of his career—saying let me tie a bunch of these things together. What if I seeded all of this from the get go and use this story, this awesome story, that I wasn't able to write when I was younger as a foundation for it.
Wellen
Wellen/Wells is a cameo on two levels. First off, you may remember him from book two as a random viewpoint we got during Vin and Zane's assault on Cett when he was staying in Keep Hasting. Wellen was the guy on the wall who distrusted the mists—and was the only survivor of his squad after Vin and Zane blasted through them to attack the keep itself.
Well, Cett's army—and therefore Wellen—joined with Elend's army. He ended up remaining in Luthadel as part of Penrod's force. He also happens to be based on my pal and fellow writer Dan Wells, whose first novel I Am Not a Serial Killer comes out from Tor in March 2010.
When are you going to write the other Warbreaker book? Last time I came to hear you talk, you said you were going to, and now you have 3000 other projects!
I know, and the Warbreaker fans really get on my case about that. Well, I wrote Words of Radiance, and I got Vasher into it, so that would kindle interest, and make sure that you at least got to see your characters again.
But did you hear the story about that? So, I wrote The Way of Kings in 2002, the first version, and in that version Kaladin trained with a swordmaster, and that swordmaster, a guy named Vasher, had a mysterious past. After I finished that book, later on I wrote Warbreaker as a prequel to Way of Kings, to show Vasher's backstory. But then Warbreaker came out before Way of Kings, which was a really kind of interesting thing. So in my head, Warbreaker is the prequel, but to everyone else... Yes, it is a totally different world, different planets, people get around...
So how much of Vasher's backstory do we actually have?
Well, a huge chunk of it…! If you were reading Way of Kings, you would know nothing, and then you’d read Warbreaker and you’d be like, “Oh, here’s a whole past that he had!” That doesn’t mean it’s all of his past.
(He’s not giving any hints as to whether Vasher had any connection with Roshar prior to Warbreaker – or at least not without someone asking a much more direct question.)
Then I asked him about Jasnah in Shadesmar.
He said that he still is not sure whether to include it in the book or not, but he most likely won't. The reason is that he fears it will lessen the impact of something that will need to happen later in the book. so, it implies some characters will visit Shadesmar and have some important adventures there, which Jasnah's story may spoil. he is looking forward to showing Shadesmar on Roshar; we saw it on Scadrial, but on Scadrial it is mostly uninhabited, while in Roshar there are all the Spren.
Well Mr. Sanderson, I finally finished Words of Radiance as well. I thank you for answering previous questions of mine on this thread.
I didn't read Warbreaker but I intend to. That said, if I don't get to it (college is quickly approaching now), will it be a setback? I know that Szeth's sword is now a character from Warbreaker, but I don't want to be at a disadvantage if I can't get to it.
If you don't read Warbreaker, I doubt you'll be confused. I wrote Warbreaker as a prequel novel (after writing the original draft of The Way of Kings) to give some backstory to side characters I knew where cosmere-aware, but the story should work just fine without having read it.
This is a slightly old comment, but is the Marvel Cinematic Universe similar to what you envision happening with the cosmere movies? The moment that was announced the first thing I thought of was how great it would be if it followed the MCU formula.
Well, and its popularity is part of why I think the film companies were suddenly interested in things like the cosmere. I'd like to think I presaged the MCU with what I was doing--but the truth is that Marvel and DC had been doing crossovers before I was born, so...
Anyway, I've been trying to warn readers because many are starting to wonder things like you are. Is this like the MCU? Well, it is, and it isn't. The goal of the cosmere is to take individual fantasy worlds, then--over generations--tell an expansive story about their interactions one with another.
I'm not pointing toward an Avengers style, "Your favorite characters all team up" story. The magics will interact, as will the worlds, and even some of the characters--but the story is not about a super-team.
Time for another update on your book, everyone! If you missed the previous update, it can be found right here. This update will get into some nitty-gritty outlining and wordcount details, which some of you might find boring. (Just a fair warning.)
Since the second update, I've indeed started into the book full-time. However, you might have noticed a little delay in the progress bar ticking up. This is because at the end of February (just before going to Hawaii) I decided that Starsight (Skyward Two) needed some more work.
I requested that the publisher push that book back a couple of months (it's now scheduled for first week in December) as I did a medium-sized overhaul based on some decisions I'd made after reading the beta reader comments. I'm pleased to say that revision went really well, and Starsight is in excellent shape. It did put me a little behind on Stormlight Four, I'm afraid. Looking at my tracking spreadsheet (which I used to gauge how I'm moving along) when I started into Stormlight four first part of April, I was about 45k words behind. I'm moving at a good speed, and am about 42k words behind now, with about 15k words finished.
This is merely a way of marking guideposts; I don't intend rush the story in order to meet arbitrary deadlines. This is partially me just trying to give you, and my publishers, an idea of when to expect the book. If I finish it by January 1st, the book can come out Christmas 2020. If I don't, we will probably have to nudge it back.
For reference, one percent on my progress bar is 4k words, and I anticipate the final book being 400k words long. A lot could happen during the next year of writing--the book could go super long, like happened with Oathbringer. Or I could run into some serious plot problems, which require time to work out. (For example, I've already thrown away chapter one after doing a short reading of it at an earlier convention--trying again with a slightly different tone.)
That said, I really like the new first chapter, and am now well into the fourth chapter. I promised you an update on the outline this time, and I'm looking at this book in a different way from the last two. As you may remember, I tend to plot each Stormlight book as if it were three volumes, combined together. (Along with a short story collection in the form of the interludes.)
With books two and three, the outline divided the novels into "books" by section. Part one of Oathbringer, for example, was "book one" of my three-part outline. Rhythm of War, however, is plotted more like The Way of Kings--meaning the separate books in it are divided by viewpoints.
In TwoK, Kaladin's complete arc was "book one" of my outline. Dalinar's was "book two" and Shallan's was "book three" with all of them being interwoven into the final product, and with Part Five being a capstone epilogue to them all. This novel is similar, though with more viewpoints.
We have what I'm calling the Primary Arc, which focuses on four characters who are all together in one place, their plots interweaving. The Secondary Arc is three different characters, their arcs interweaving, but in a separate location from the primary arc. The Tertiary arc is the last two characters, in a third location.
There will be ties between the three arcs, but the book will read a little more like TWoK than Oathbringer--with several separate stories that imply interesting things for one another, but which generally focus on their own goals. Book Five should, then, be an interweaving like Book Two or Book Three.
That's the plan, anyway! I'm not 100% done with the outline yet, as I want to explore some viewpoints first to make sure everything is lining up the way I want.
The next update probably won't be until mid summer, as I want to take a nice chunk of writing time to determine how things are progressing before I come back to talk here.
Until then, please enjoy listening to the community playlist of favorite epic tracks that remind them of Stormlight. This is what came of the previous thread, where I asked for suggested music to listen to while I work on Book Four. I've been doing so, and am slowly cultivating a shorter list of my favorite tracks that I'll release at a later date. Thanks to /u/DevilsAndDust- and my assistant Adam for putting this together.
*inaudible*
You know, I read comic books, but I never really considered writing them. I don't feel I know that format well. I've done a couple graphic novels, but those I always give to a script writer for comic books who's practiced it, let them do it. I haven't really considered ever since I broke-in, because I'd feel like the basketball player playing baseball, you know. You might be okay at it, but might as well let the people who are really good at it, since they're really good at doing it.
Chapter Fifteen - Part One
Siri Sees the God King
I think this is my favorite plotline of the book. The Siri/God King one, I mean. It's hard to choose, but this is the one that I felt most interested in. (Though Lightsong's ending chapters are powerful too.)
I wanted the God King to be an enigma, much like Vasher is, at the beginning of the book. Well . . . that's not quite true. Right at the beginning, I wanted him to be scary and dangerous. I wanted the reader to perceive him as Siri did.
By now, however, you should be wondering more. Who is he? What are his motives? Is he angry with her or not?
The driving force behind this, actually, is the Lord Ruler. In Mistborn, a part of me always felt that he was just a little too stereotypical an evil emperor. True, I worked hard to round him out, particularly through the later books. But writing him made me want to take an evil emperor archetype in a very different direction.
I've spoken on the reversals in this book. Well, one thing I realized after the fact is that the novel is—in a lot of ways—about reversals of my own writing. Things I've done before, but taken the opposite direction. Almost like I need to react against myself and explore things in new ways, particularly in cases where (like the Lord Ruler) I did things that were more conventional to the genre.
I think that's why this book has so much resonance with my previous books. Or maybe it doesn't really, and I'm just seeing something that doesn't exist. A lot of my ideas in writing, however, come from seeing something done in a movie or a book (or even in one of my own books) and wondering if I could take it a new and different direction. I hope that doesn't make me feel like I'm repeating myself.
Introduction
Hello, all! I recently turned in Shadows of Self, the new Wax and Wayne Mistborn novel. (And, well, something else too. More on that below.) In addition, tomorrow is December 19th—known with fondness as "Koloss Head-Munching Day." Also my birthday. (I'll be 39.)
This seemed like a good chance to take a step back and give you all a long-form update on what I've been doing lately, and where I am looking for the future. I like to be accountable to you, my readers, for what I'm doing. You are the ones supporting me in this, my lifelong dream of being a professional writer.
2014 was an excellent year for me. Words of Radiance has been very well received, and enthusiasm for the Stormlight books is very high. As this series is my baby, it feels awesome to see people getting to know characters like Dalinar and Kaladin, whom I've known for decades. At the same time, I've been jumping back into teen books again after the Alcatraz books. (Which kind of fizzled back in 2010 or so, though we're planning a relaunch.)
Having two publishers made for a very challenging tour schedule. I've been away from home far more than I want to be, mostly because of the need to add more touring (along with things like school visits and appearances at teacher/librarian conferences) for Steelheart and The Rithmatist.
I'm still struggling to find a balance I like. On one hand, I enjoy visiting you all and going cool places. On the other hand, my real love is writing the books—and I don't want to get so busy that the stories fall by the wayside. Anyway, the following is an account of my 2014 writing experience for those who are curious.
Can Hemalurgy be used to steal other...like, the Stormlight...
It could. It's very complicated, particularly with surgebinding, because the bond with the spren is a voluntary thing. So, you could steal the power, but you would also be stealing the sprenbond which the spren then has autonomy over. So, it might not turn out really well for you. It might not turn out well for anyone involved. Much easier to steal things where there isn't an autonomous being involved in your gaining of the magical powers.
You have ten books for the Stormlight Archive. Was that a limit you put on yourself because you knew it could go to twenty? Or it just happened, after you structured out the story, ten was what fit.
Ten was the number. Various worlds in the cosmere have this little number motif going on with them. And I was building ten in as a number motif, as well as nine. Nine and ten and the contrast between these two very similar but very, very different numbers.
And in the original outline, numerology was a much bigger deal, actually, in Stormlight. I was working a lot on the idea that I was using a language (Hebrew is a good example) where every word can also be a number, so you can have all sorts of funky numerology things. It comes up now and then in the published books, with… Various sketchy individuals will be into numerology.
But I knew I wanted a big series. And I knew I had ten characters. And I thought ten books, ten Orders of Knights Radiant, ten characters, it just fit really well. Ten felt like the right number after I did my real outline for it, back in 2009. I felt like I had the material for that, and it was too poetically appropriate for the series to not do it as ten.
How is a new Feruchemist made?
What do you mean?
Well you can make a new Mistborn by lerasium--
Oh, okay. Other than through birth? That’s a RAFO, good question though. Right now, as far as anyone knows, it’s by birth only. But-- Well we’ll leave it there. You know that the extra Preservation instead of Ruin had some effects on people on Scadrial.
Who would you think would make a better Amyrlin, Jasnah or Navani?
Navani. It depends on the era though. Near the end, probably Jasnah.
Well, on Friday Brandon was explaining what's in book 4 and 5, and after he got well into it I said, "So we're in book 5 now, right?" and he said, "No..."
Since each book is getting longer than the others and having heard what he wants in book 4, do you think he will have to split book 4? I don't want to look past the mark, but it seems like he's on track to have to publish Stones Unhallowed parts 1 and 2.
In this case, he could probably move some plot elements from book 4 to book 5. The issues that make Oathbringer unsplittable probably won't apply then.
Rights to the Reckoners books do not include the entire multiverse. (Which I have argued could also be construed to include the Alcatraz books and The Rithmatist!)
I'd be curious to hear your argument for that. Is it just that a true quantum multiverse would contain all possible iterations (even weird and wacky ones like Alcatraz and Rithmatist) or is there some underlying mechanical commonality we don't necessarily know about?
It's only because the plans for this as-yet-unnamed multiverse all involve different versions of Earth in some type of crisis. And that description fits both The Rithmatist and the Alcatraz books.
Brandon does plan some of these Earths to be pretty wacky.
Since you mention its namelessness, will it actually get a name at some point?
It would surprise me if it didn't get a name eventually.
Had never heard about this, but this fits so well! Is this the first time you're confirming it? Or is there WoB on this as well?
What I said above was that I have argued for this to be the case. It doesn't mean that Brandon agrees.
So you've said that healing is like the Spiritual wants to heal and then it filters through the Cognitive, but how's that work with healing wounds to the soul like Hemalurgy or Shardblades? What do you refer to to heal the soul at that point?
You need to make a patch on the soul with Investiture.
So how's the Investiture know where to go, what to look like?
Well your soul is an ideal. So if you can get it up there, there are ways to do-- to recreate that with um... See I'm getting into stuff for later books.
No, that's okay.
So when Hemalurgy rips something off the soul, is that the ideal soul or some sub-soul?
That is off of your soul, and it can be healed; but what it's going to be doing is creating a patch of new soul. So it will not be your original soul. Does that make sense?
Okay, that- well, not completely, but I think that's your intention.
Yes.
If you do that, is that like Frankenstein's monster, or is it like a graft that's absorb--
Less horrifying- Less horrifying than Frankenstein's monster, but it is a graft that is like-- It is not your original soul.
Yeah, but in modern medicine stuff like that is absorbed-
Yeah, in this you will always have a scar on your soul that something else has patched over.
So Kaladin shouldn't just keep getting his arm chopped?
*ignoring/not-hearing Kurkistan just now* But that is what happens with most forms of Investiture in the first place.
And, as for the seon explanation here. . .well, I'm afraid that's all you get for this book. I think this is the last (or, rather, only) discussion the characters have about the origins of the seons. It's not much, but that is intentional. When I wrote Elantris six years ago, I wasn't sure if I'd ever even sell the book. Therefore, I didn't want to invest too much thought into a sequel right then. I wanted the book to stand alone, yet I wanted to give myself plenty of room to do interesting things in a series, if it ever came to that. Therefore, I intentionally left a few open spaces in the worldbuilding–things the characters didn't even know.
One of these holes is the origin, and even workings, of the seons. I have some ideas, of course, but you'll have to wait for another book before they get explained. (You can thank Moshe for what you got in this chapter–he was very curious about seons, and he wanted a little bit more. That's why we had the discussion of Passing, as well as the explanation that you don't have to be noble to have a seon.)
Did Rashek use the Well or a bead of lerasium to become a Mistborn?
He didn't know at first, I told him there were interviews with him saying both, and he eventually answered with "I'm canonizing it as he used the Well".
Your sidekick characters (Nightblood, TenSoon in WoA and Syl) are always interesting, sometimes more so than side characters. Is this planned out or does it just happen? Do you control their lines more than other characters? (I really liked Syl's personality if that wasn't clear.)
Thank you. That is partially intentional. One of the aspects of writing characters like them is that if we're not going to get viewpoints from them, their personality has to be strong enough to manifest externally. Which tends to have an effect, if it's not done well--or sometimes even if it is done well--of making them feel one-sided. In some ways I play this up; for instance Nightblood really is one-sided because of the way his personality works, the way he was crafted. He's a construct, and he has a main focus.So with someone like Syl, I really wanted to bring out a lot of personality in her dialogue so that we could characterize her without having any of the internal thoughts and monologue and emotions that I sometimes instill in other characters. But Syl also was meant to be a vibrant splash of color in Kaladin's sometimes dreary viewpoints. Because of that, I really needed her to just pop off the page. So it was done intentionally.
Man what are they even gonna do with all this money [from the Secret Project Kickstarter]
Don't get me wrong, this is a huge amount of money--and I'm blown away by all of this. But at LEAST half of that will be dedicated to printing and creating the various books and cool items we'll be shipping out. It might be more, depending on how shipping is accounted in that Kickstarter number. We don't charge any service charge for shipping, so all of that money passes straight through from you to paying to get the books/swag to you. I can't remember 100% how Kickstarter counts this in that final number, but I BELIEVE it's in that total. If so, all that money (which is a good percent of each purchase) passes straight through to the shipping people.
(A note to international people. I really do hear you about the outrageous shipping. We've actually been talking to other people who have successfully gotten things printed and shipped inside Europe, and we're going to figure this out. I can't promise it for this kickstarter, but we WILL get this right eventually for at least Europe--and try very hard for Canada and Australia as well.)
Anyway, from what's left, I'll pay my team--and then give them a healthy bonus, because without them, the kickstarter portion just can't happen. I'm not going to doing the art myself, nor am I going to be in a warehouse shipping all of this out. I want them to be enthusiastic when kickstarters happen, not dreading them. So we'll make sure they're taken care of and happy.
40% of what is left after THAT will be saved for taxes and other unforeseen potential problems.
I'll still be left with a nice chunk, don't get me wrong, and much of that will probably go toward building the community bookstore that me and my team have been wanting to do for years.
I will almost certainly buy myself a nice magic card or two as well. A few of my Alpha/Beta duals are still white bordered... :)
Introduction
Wow. What a year. I can remember writing this essay last year, and being all giddy about the fact that I was hiding four secret novels from you all. I said, “Maybe next year, I’ll be able to explain to you all why my year was so strange.” One big part of it was those novels. The other part is…well, something I can’t quite talk about even still. That said, last year, I’d just started planning the Kickstarter campaign—and I was extremely curious how the reveal would go.
It went well.
I did not expect to come back to you this year having run the most successful Kickstarter campaign of all time. That’s for sure. It was, obviously, the highlight of my year—though I suspect next year’s highlight will be finally getting to see what you all think of the books.
The other big mark this year (other than the aforementioned “I can’t talk about this yet” things that are still happening in Hollywood) for me was finishing various series. I worked on the ending of the Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series and the ending of Era Two of Mistborn (which both came out this year), and the ending of Skyward (which is scheduled for next fall), and I began the ending of the first arc of Stormlight (scheduled for the following fall).
It’s been an era of transitions for me. All of them good, all of them fulfilling, and several of them very big. My company grew sizably to match the demands I’m putting on them—most specifically editing, art directing, publicizing, and shipping 600,000 secret novels.
The daunting part is, I think this probably isn’t the biggest year we’ll have. So…stick around.
And as always, thank you.
Why do you teach and not just write full-time?
What a good question. So I only teach one class now. I used to teach full-time before the writing took off. There is a class called "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy," and I just can't let go. What we did is we moved it to one night a week for three hours instead of one hour three days a week and we moved it to a night class. So it's Thursday nights and it's only one semester; we cancelled all the other things of it. But I can't let go. There's enough of me that is a professor that I need to get out of the house and do something. I can't just sit in my room all the time.
Beyond that, I took this class in 2000, so 16 years ago. I took it from David Farland, who has come and signed here at UBooks before. It was so important to me as a writer because my other professors were good writers and they could talk about writing but they had never made a living as a writer. There's only so much, if you want to be a professional, you can learn from people who aren't themselves professionals. They know a lot about being a professor and they know a lot about writing good writing. They don't know about how to take that good writing and make a career out of it. When I took the class from Dave, when he said practical things like, "Here are tools you can use try and get past writer's block." I'd never heard that before. In my other writing classes it was things like, "If you have writer's block, seek your muse. Go sit outside and stare at the clouds." Things like this that you get from an art degree. And Dave's like, "Yeah, if you have writer's block, try writing longhand, that works for me. Take a notebook and write in it. Try writing a first-person viewpoint monologue from one of the characters talking about their frustrations right now in life." And it works really well. If you've got writer's block you're like, "Oh, let's talk through why the character's frustrated, have them talk to me." Or you've got writer's block, he'll say, "You know what? Try just throwing something against the wall. Try having ninjas attack." Stuff like this that you're not going to put in the book, but it's just to get you thinking and writing. Practical advice like that. He's like, "If you want to publish in science fiction and fantasy you might want to go to World Fantasy Convention and meet some of the professional writers there and get their advice." I'd never heard anything like that.
I feel it's important for me to continue this class. Dave moved off to try to make movies and they were going to cancel it because they just didn't have a writer to teach it. So I said, "Yeah, I'll teach that class". This was back when I had sold a book and they didn't know what to do with me. Here I'm teaching freshman composition, I'm getting my master's degree in creative writing and we're all dancing through flowers and talking about our feelings as you do in art degrees. Then I walked in one day and said, "Hey, I got a book deal." And it terrified all my professors they had no idea what to do with that. They said, "Well, that's probably gonna to be your master's thesis then, Sanderson." It was Elantris as my master's thesis. So having somebody there who writers can go and say, "How do I sell a book? What does an agent do? How do I make a character sympathetic?" People don't talk about those sorts of things. They talk about the prose, but they don't talk about those things. That's why I still do it.
