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Questioner

You mentioned that you thought Rithmatist was gonna in the Cosmere. Did you have a Shard in mind?

Brandon Sanderson

Very early on, I did. But I won't tell you who it was. It it not a Shard we've seen. If I ever do write Rithmatist 2, you might be able to piece it together. Though I'm, in revisions of the outline, really trying to push it away from where it was originally, so it will have a distinctive feel of its own. So I'm trying to write out some of the cosmere elements. But this is one of those things that, if I write it out too much, it just won't match with the first book. So I have to be okay with some of the sort of cosmere relationships.

CatGrylls

Have you written/will you write something equivalent to the Silmarillion for the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not impossible, but I'm not planning on it currently. There WILL be a prequel series, dealing with the events leading to the shattering of Adonalsium, but will focus mostly on Hoid and not really be equivalent.

baytepp92

Is that planned to be completed/released after the main overall Cosmere story is completed? Or will it lead up to the finale of the main Cosmere stories?

Peter Ahlstrom

It will lead up to the finale.

Alex

Taln’s Scar.  Was it present throughout the entire timeline and just not mentioned in books, say Elantris? Or did it appear at a certain point in time?

Brandon Sanderson

It did not appear at a certain point.  And it is not equally visible through the Cosmere, simply because of where it is in the sky and where they are in relation to it and things like that.

Alex

And how much ash in the sky.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes…  Peter knows exactly where it is.

Alex

I am hoping that the map in the anthology...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it should.

Tiffany

We are really excited about the map. Also the writing, but really about the map.

Brandon Sanderson

I’ve seen the little star charts that Isaac’s done for each of the worlds, and they are awesome.  Because they’re going to be--  This is more, like it’s the Cosmere Collection, we haven’t hit scientific revolution in most of the worlds yet, so it’s going to be more like if da Vinci had drawn them or something.  So don’t expect--

Brandon Sanderson

So don’t expect it to be like science fiction star charts yet, but they will be very helpful in these sorts of things.

Argent

Could you nudge Isaac to release a wallpaper version or a poster or a printable of any of those?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay yeah, I can totally make him do that.  Like if the full Cosmere one turns out well I’m sure he’ll want to do something like that.

Readyfix7381

Would you ever consider using the medium of film or TV to tell a Cosmere story that's not based on a book already published, but you write the screenplay for instead?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I would consider that. As a fan of cinema and of the modern era of television (which is just very long movies, which I just love how that's become the thing that people do now), then I can absolutely see myself doing this. I want to get more experience with it before I would try that, but the original pitch for Dark One (that is a graphic novel, and which we are now writing as a novel) was written as... not scripts, but an outline for a television series. That's how I originally, just... I was starting to work on it, I'm like, "This works so much better this way, this way, this way." So I outlined it that way. So I've kind of done it before. It wasn't Cosmere, and it didn't ever get made, and it wasn't a script, but it was a step that direction. So, absolutely can see that.

And, you know, there's other things. For instance, I would like to make an Emperor's Soul movie, if the Cosmere ever takes off to the point that people are wanting something other than Mistborn and Stormlight. (Which, I totally understand why people want Mistborn and Stormlight first.) When they have done that and are like, "All right; what else do we have here?" I would like to do an Emperor's Soul. But I'm probably not gonna do Emperor's Soul as the same piece (and I've told people this before) where it is one person in a room the entire time. I would turn it into something that preserves the spirit of that, but is in a lot of different sets, a lot of different locations, with a larger cast, and turn it into something that feels cinemated. That's the one that I would adapt the heaviest, if I were doing that. There's thing like that that I would also like to do that are based on something, but basically I'd say, "What did I love about the piece I wrote? How can I make this for a new medium?" And I would start over with a new script.

Questioner

Are you ever gonna make a book that's based on Earth, but in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

No. The Rithmatist started that way, and I pulled it out of the cosmere, because I didn't want Earth in the cosmere. So, that happening tells me pretty surely I'll never do it.

Questioner

Out of curiosity, what Shard would have been on Rithmatist?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that for now, because it didn't get far enough that I had even really settled. Like, it was when I was designing magic, and doing the worldbuilding. When I started asking questions like this is when I kicked it out. I didn't even write any chapters of it before I kicked it out.

Brandon Sanderson

I have been lying to you. And it is time for me to admit the truth.

I know that what I'm about to say will disappoint some of you. Others will undoubtedly take joy in my forced admission here. But either way, I can no longer live with this secret.

The last few years have been hard for many of us. These are strange times. In particular, these last years have increased pressure on me in difficult ways, emotionally and mentally, to the point that I could no longer continue working on my series of books as I always had before. As this pressure mounted, something had to give. I thought I could handle it like I always had before, but that proved optimistic. And so, the time has come for me to admit the truth.

I've been lying to you. Over the last two years, I've acted with extreme irresponsibility.

Because I accidentally wrote an extra novel in secret!

I apologize. I couldn't help myself. We all respond to pressure in different ways; I, it might be said, responded characteristically. So how did this irresponsible event occur? Well, to explain that, I'm going to need to go into professor mode.

You see, 2019 was one of those years where I overscheduled myself. What I told you earlier was true; over these last years, 2019 in particular, I really was beginning to feel overwhelmed by everything I had to do. However, it wasn't the stories doing this. It was all the non-writing work, particular the traveling. That is what is truly exhausting. You see, I keep notes on what I do day-by-day, and I've outlined for you my 2019. This largest block is writing time; and I also do make sure to keep a good, healthy amount of work/life balance and time for my family. These other non-writing days are essential, as they are the days I do interviews, I write introductions, and answer work emails. This section in red: that's the one that's really glaring. I was on the road a third of my year. Four months, spent traveling, mostly going to conventions.

Now, I love seeing the world; which is why it's so difficult to say no when people ask if I want to visit. When you look at it this way, with a third of my time spent on the road, you can see maybe why I felt so overwhelmed. I had dreams, plans, ideas; but I couldn't write them because I was touring so much.

This was too much. I knew it was too much. But I was trapped in this cycle where I'd say no to traveling, then read the requests from fans and feel guilty that I wasn't going to see them. And I really do enjoy seeing the world. At least I did, before I started to get overwhelmed.

Eventually, it started to feel like a chore. Then 2020 hit, and the whole world changed. Suddenly, I couldn't travel, not even a little. I'd been planning to scale back, but scaling back in this context meant traveling eighty or ninety days, instead of over a hundred. Fewer days, yes, but not by a significant margin. Except, with the pandemic, that need to travel, indeed the option to travel, went away. Suddenly, I had time again.

This [novel] is the result. I start writing it as a gift for my wife, telling only her, letting her read the pages as I wrote them. The experience of writing a book in secret reminded me of the early days of my career, before I published, when I could write whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. The process rejuvenated me, which is important, because, like a lot of you, I was feeling stressed in 2020. When I finished this, I presented it to my wife as a gift: her own secret book. She read it and told me, "You need to share this." So after two years of keeping it just to her and me, I'm telling you. That's my big secret.

Well. Maybe not the entire secret.

You see, the pandemic wasn't over, and writing that secret novel had been a ton of fun. So let's just say that one thing led to another, and a second secret novel materialized in early 2021. Longtime followers of this channel might remember me talking about one regret I've begun to have as I grow older. When I was younger, any new, fresh idea that came to me could end up becoming a novel. But the more I write, the more I lock myeslf into series. Which is great; I love my big series. I'm working on Stormlight now, which is as exciting as ever. I want my legacy to be the massive, interconnected universe that is the Cosmere. At the same time, I always saw myself doing standalone novels now and then, exploring the reaches of the Cosmere or other strange worlds. For a while, I managed to do this with novellas. But in recent years, with travel demands, I hadn't even been able to do those. I can sometimes write when traveling, but the more that I do, the more exhausted I get, which makes it tougher and tougher to be productive.

If you compare this [pie chart] average of the last two years to 2019, you can see a lot has changed. I did still travel, and I've also had more non-writing work days, on average. This is mostly the time I've invested into YouTube and into our Dragonsteel convention, things my team and I see as replacements for me visiting you all in person. Even with this, the significant drop in travel time has added to both my writing time and my family time.

If you leave me alone too long, I will start telling stories. It's a mathematical constant, as irrevocable as pi. And... what would you expect to happen? The best part was, nobody expected me to do anything with this time. No editors were scheduling books because of it. No fans were wondering what I was doing with it. Because for most of my professional career, I'd been traveling eighty to ninety, and sometimes a hundred and twenty days a year. Suddenly, I had time for all those other ideas. The ones that weren't planned as big, core series. The ones that I always wanted to be the spice of my career. I've always loved the idea of surprising you all now and then with some random Brandon Sanderson novel. I wanted my fans to consistently have the opportunity to get lost in something completely new, something surprising, different from what you'd seen from me before. This is the mindset that created The Emperor's Soul and Warbreaker.

This extra writing time has become very precious to me. Before 2020, I'd begun to let all these ideas just wither away, as there wasn't time for them. I'd begun to think that, as much as I loved the big series, they would consume the rest of my life. So, call this the silver lining of 2020. Life has been tough lately, but it has also restored to me something very precious.

And I might have gone a little overboard, because I've written five extra novels in the last two years.

Look, I know. Don't roll your eyes at me. You deal with isolation and quarantine in your way; I'll deal with it in mine. We all handle stress differently, okay?

Four of these are full-length novels of adult-oriented science fiction or fantasy. One is a middle grade story, written as a gift to my children, which I'll probably make as a graphic novel. We'll put that one aside for now, as I don't yet know how I'm going to present it to you. But that leaves us with four full-length novels. I wrote three of these as gifts for Emily, and one purely for myself. Three are in the Cosmere; one is something completely different.

I kept all five of these secret from my team until late last year. Then, I just left them on a table at our offices with the words "Top Secret" on the top of each one. The team had no idea. I'm a bit of a showman, if you can't tell, and this experience was a blast. I wanted to replicate that feeling for you in this video, which is why you might have to excuse my somewhat dramatic opening. I do apologize for that, but it's technically all true. I have been keeping a secret, and I think it will make some of you very happy, while others are just likely rolling their eyes at me.

Claincy

I've been thinking for a while about the presentation of disability and chronic pain in Brandon's books and I reread a bunch of them recently and ended up with a lot of thoughts. I wrote a letter/email to Brandon trying to provide a little insight and I think it might be worth sharing here as well.

Brandon Sanderson

This is exactly the kind of feedback that is useful for writers to hear. I try to do the best I can, but I can always do better. I particularly like how you outlined some of the traps/tropes authors fall into, because those are exactly the things that are super helpful for me to read. (And similar lists have helped me a lot with my writing in other areas.)

I don't want to say much more than that, because I don't want to imply your perspective is invalid. (It most certainly is.) But I do want to mention that I pay a lot of attention this kind of issue, and there is a fine line to walk. Many things having to do with disability have a bit controversy surrounding them similar to the cochlear implant one--where the community itself can be very divided at what they want to happen, and what they want to see happen in fiction.

I consider it my job to listen, particularly to well-reasoned and passionate arguments like yours. But I do need to note that there are arguments on the other side that I do also listen to. And I personally--from all the many things I've read and the time I've spent pondering it--do not currently consider curing of physical aliments with magic to be inherently problematic. I DO consider it to be a difficult issue, and recognize your feelings, which are completely valid. If healing people of disability in the real world is difficult and full of touchy subjects, with a variety of opinions, then it certainly is valid to consider it so in fantasy!

My goal is always to try to depict the varieties of different human experience and opinions. And, indeed, one of my goals with Rysn is to specifically have a character to contrast someone like Lopen--who falls (as you have noted) on a different side of the argument.

But, to be honest, I don't even consider the healing of mental disabilities with magic to be inherently problematic. (Speed of Dark, an excellent science fiction novel, is about a cure for autism--and is done brilliantly.) I do run into a lot of people who really like that I don't let Stormlight heal most mental illness--but I'd say I've run into an equal number of people with depression who wish that I would let it do so, and have told me they'd take a cure for depression without hesitation if one gets invented. (Indeed, there are many who do a great deal to medically to try just this.)

What I would say is that I need to be careful not to present one idea as the only valid response to these sorts of things. You're absolutely right that there is a perspective I need to be careful not to invalidate, and tropes I can be harmful in perpetuating if I don't watch myself. (My sister in law has chronic fatigue, and yeah--the number of people who told her if she was just stronger-willed, she'd get past it, is huge.)

I will be very careful with the Rysn novella. (And we do these days try very hard to have specific readers who have disabilities like the ones I depict. It is my plan to do this here.) And I'll keep your post handy as I revise, as I think it will be helpful.

[deleted]

I would strongly urge you with Renarin in particular to not do some sort of "cure" storyline and to leave him as autistic. I feel that the story would be better off with that and would most probably do more good that way.

Brandon Sanderson

I have no intention of "curing" Renarin, as I agree with your points here--but I really appreciate you mentioning them. We are aligned on this idea. I used Speed of Dark as an example of how a theoretical cure could be used in a story in a non-problematic way. (In that story, a cure is invented, and the story is entirely about the ramifications of it--and the dangers. It is a highlight of why I think Science Fiction is important. Asking the question, "What if?" before something happens in real life gives us a lot of questions, ideas, and concerns to work on as a society in preparation for such events.)

That said, that is a book that specifically deals with this idea. My intention for the Stormlight Archive, and Renarin specifically, is to explore him as a character. Not to change him into someone else.

Claincy

I was wondering if we'd see assistive devices using fabrials in future stormlight books? I think there might be a lot of in-world potential with fabrials in wheelchairs, prosthetics and other assistive devices as that technology progresses.

Brandon Sanderson

Dawnshard actually has Rysn looking at fabrials and wondering if those could be of use in the way you're indicating here. I think you'll be pleased with the result.

NeoBahamutX

Not sure how many people would buy it but it would be amazing if he created an Ars Arcanum Compilation book and released it as a stand alone Hardcover reference style book.

Could be broken down per cosmere system (sort of like Arcanum Unbounded) and go into more details of the various magic systems, charts and the like. Sort of like the Hemalurgy Chart in the Hero of Ages leatherbound.

Thoughts?

Edit just realised the perfect cover could have possibly already been designed - see the book on the cover of Arcanum Unbounded - that white cover with the gold Cosmere symbol is awesome

Brandon Sanderson

I've really considered doing this, particularly since there are a lot of worlds in the cosmere I don't know if I'll ever be able to do books for. So we will see, /u/NeoBahamutX. It would have to be something I do primarily for the hardcore fans, which would limit the publisher's interest--but I'm at the point where I can get them to do projects like that to keep me happy.

FireArcadia

You once told me that Roshar is the name of the planet from the cosmere-literate point of view. Were the dawnsingers cosmere-literate?

Brandon Sanderson

There are various levels of cosmere awareness.

Wyndlerunner

You've mentioned in the past aluminum savants being able to somewhat heal their spiritweb, healing them of the cracks, sort of healing them of Allomancy. Could a chromium savant do this to other people, kind of like in the Avatar [The Last Airbender] finale where he seals bending?

Brandon Sanderson

I will say RAFO, but I will say you're theorizing along correct directions.

Questioner

How has Isaac’s writing been coming along?

Isaac Stewart

I have been doing worldbuilding for Darkside.

Brandon Sanderson

We’re thinking, Isaac has been very interested in doing some cosmere stories. So we are going to, at some point, have Isaac write in the cosmere. We’ve talked about Mistborn stuff, we’ve talked about Threnody stuff, we’ve talked about Taldain stuff. Something along those lines, Isaac’s gonna do that.

Isaac Stewart

The first thing you’ll get from me, aside from the Nicki Savage story and the Allomancer Jak that you’ve already gotten, is this new prologue to White Sand. There’s some scenes in there that don’t show up in the original manuscript that were put in there for reasons, just to help the book come together as a whole, that I hope people will like. So you’ll kinda get to see what my take is on cosmere-type things on that.

But that’s where I’m at right now. I’m really enjoying fleshing out the Darkside stuff. We’re thinking about calling it The Arcanist, relating to Khriss. This is her story. And that also gives us leeway to continue her stories under that title, The Arcanist.

asmodeus

You've said before that a lot of the magics we see across the cosmere come from an interaction of Shards and their Investiture with the planets they Invest in. What does this mean practically? If Scadrial explodes tomorrow, will Hemalurgy stop working across the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, most likely, but it could. There are ways that you could make it stop working. I kind of mean that the Shards are an innate part of physics in the cosmere, and the magics that arise are an innate part of physics because of that. Like atium seeped out into the Pits of Hathsin, in the same way, these magics are just gonna leak out, and different places are going to affect them. You'll see Lightweaving happening in different places, and the way the Shard is interacting with the local... The way the Shard is is going to affect how Lightweaving is administrated in the various magics, but it's still gonna be there. Hemalurgy is kind of a similar thing to that. You will see Midnight Essence, you will see some of these recurring ideas popping up, and these are like natural parts of the physics, but they're influenced by the Shards on the local planets.

I don't know if that answer, that's gonna be a really fun one for them to transcribe into the Q&A thing, because I go around in circles on that question a ton. Put this part in when you do it.

Brandon Sanderson

I've had to hide this news for a long time. It was almost one year ago that the Dark One outline finally snapped together for me at long last. We had interest almost immediately from Fremantle, and I've done multiple flights to LA to chat with them about it. I think this one might finally be the real deal when it comes to a Sanderson adaptation--which is amusing, considering we don't have any books for Dark One yet. But if this goes forward, I'll be sure to write some.

Aurimus_

I'm a big fan of this multimedia approach, but I'm wondering what inspired it. Was it your idea or Fremantle's? Is this an experiment for other properties in the future at all? A lot of us on the 17th Shard discord have discussed the sheer size of Stormlight, for example, and worry about DMG either going the Hobbit route (hours upon hours of content for a single book, which'll really rack up even by the time we reach OB), or missing out on a ton of content. If Dark One pans out well, would you use this multimedia approach for Stormlight? (I'm a big fan of the idea of a Black Mirror style show for the interludes, but straight up separating them from the rest of the books would take a lot away, especially with characters such as Szeth and Venli)

Brandon Sanderson

With Dark One, I've pounded myself against the idea for years. Finally, I sat down with it and said, "What if I were going to design this for a television show or graphic novel first?" Using Stranger Things and the recent Westworld reboot as guides, I dug into a parallel narrative--half in our world, half in another world. A kind of dark "portal fantasy" story.

It came out as an eight episode outline that I really liked, with a solid outline for two prequel novels about the previous generation. (Characters still important in the episode outline.) With this in hand, I took it to Hollywood and said, "If you guys are interested in doing the episodes, I'm interested in writing these books--and we can intertwine them in a (hopefully) very cool way."

Fremantle was on board immediately. (They'd been intrigued by Dark One from a one-page outline they'd seen, back before I did this new treatment.)

Warning: I can't say how much of my original outline will end up in the show; I've never written for a television show before, and the showrunner will know better than I will what will or won't work. But (theoretically) the graphic novels will follow the outline pretty closely.

If this works, will I apply it to the Cosmere? That's the goal. I do like the idea of getting some experience with TV/Film through non-cosmere projects, particularly as we see how things shake out these next few years in regards to TV/film distribution.

cusoman

Brandon, I'm curious how you see the same scenario playing out with Cosmere material considering the material already exists and the opportunity for the same intertwining wouldn't be quite the same. Unless of course you go back and interweave new stories with the already completed books?

Very excited to see what comes of this venture! I've loved the concept from the moment you first mentioned it and I can't think of a better way to see it come alive than how you're doing it here.

Brandon Sanderson

I can't really say at this point. There are just too many variables. There are a lot of ways these things could be approached, however.

Brandon Sanderson

My goal with the Secret Projects was to be like: this is a self-contained thing. I've gotten myself into trouble in the past by writing a book like Warbreaker and then promising a sequel. And so my goal with these was to write them each so they didn't demand sequels. I had various levels of success, I'll say, on that with them. While you'll probably catch references to this [Tress], I have no plans to do a sequel. I like this one self-contained as it is. And the same for Secret Project Three.

[Secret Project] Two is not Cosmere, but Dan and I have already brainstormed sequels; I don't know that we'll ever do them. It grew out of the podcast a little bit, that book did, and the whole setting.

And then Secret Project Four is more deeply tied into the Cosmere in very specific ways. It's most likely... whether there'll be a sequel or not is a question, but the characters involved are deeply involved in the rest of the Cosmere, so you will absolutely see them again.

Brandon Sanderson

What is this book [Isles of the Emberdark]? Well, you might be able to find the word "emberdark" used somewhere in the previous books. It's been around for a little while. I've been imagining this place between populated parts of Shadesmar as a very interesting darkness to explore. And we are going to have a book that maybe looks at that a little bit.

It is a novelization of Sixth of the Dusk, but it includes that story as a flashback sequence. It takes place in the future era, space age of the cosmere. And it has a dual narrative between Starling and Dusk himself. So I hope that you guys will enjoy reading this.

That is what the book is. It's a lot of fun. My beta readers have really enjoyed it; I think you will, too. That said, you either need to be okay with some of this being a little unfamiliar. Or, I'd recommend a little bit of reading in the Cosmere, just to kind of familiarize yourself with how the cosmere works and how some of the magics work. You won't need to know too much. This can stand on its own. It will explain everything that you need, and everything else is easter eggs. But those easter eggs are becoming more and more prevalent, and a little more obvious than they used to be, shall we say.

Dan Wells

Hi, everyone! I’m excited to be on the team, and bubbling over with joy at the prospect of writing a bunch of awesome Cosmere stories for you.

The first Wells/Sanderson project, as Brandon mentioned earlier, is Dark One: Forgotten, an audio series that you should be getting very soon. It’s a prequel of sorts to the Dark One novel, and we chose to do it in audio because it’s presented as a faux True Crime podcast: instead of reading about an amateur investigator researching a mysterious disappearance, you get to listen to her record a podcast about her investigation. It’s a lot of fun, and I think you’re going to love it.

I suppose that technically, though, the REAL first Wells/Sanderson stories are the audio dramas for the video game Moonbreaker. This is a slightly different case, because I’m contracting directly with Unknown Worlds rather than working through Dragonsteel, but the end result is the same: Brandon did the worldbuilding, I’m writing the stories, and we’re working together on edits and revisions. The game is in early access and still in flux, but the characters UW has created are incredible, and I am loving the process of bringing them to life. I just turned in episode 5, and I’m starting on 6, and there are many more in the pipeline. Definitely check it out.

There are many other Dragonsteel projects I’m working on, but most of them are still secret. What I can tell you now is that I am deep in the third draft of Dark One, and Brandon and I have been workshopping it heavily. We’re polishing the story and the characters, we’re expanding the scope a little, and I’m hoping to have the book finished early next year. It’ll still be a while before most of you can read it, but trust me: it’ll be worth the wait.

As for my Cosmere novels? We’re already working on the first one, but it’s mostly just brainstorming at this point. We’ve found a corner of the Cosmere—and of the fantasy market in general—that’s just begging for a series, and we’re going to take our time and do it right.

Wish Brown

How often do you wish you could go back and change something in one of your published works? Even something as small as a piece of dialogue or the name of a character or place?

Brandon Sanderson

I go back and forth on this. At the end of the day, I've kind of settled on "I'm fine not changing things." We do change things; every time we do an update for, like, a leatherbound or something, there are little continuity things we are going to tweak here and there, and I've talked about them kind of at length on stream. Way of Kings, we cut out a few of the references where I had made metaphors to things that characters in-world just wouldn't make metaphors to, because I had not written in Roshar long enough to really settle into how to use the language right for them. So that sort of stuff.

Large-scale changes, though, I've kind of decided that the books have to remain a snapshot of who I was when I wrote them and not become a continual work in progress, constantly having fundamental style and narrative changes. The artist in me wants to. Totally wants to. Wishes that that were normal for books. But the fans need to be able to rely on... if they've got a first edition copy of Way of Kings, that things are not going to fundamentally change between editions. A line here or there might get tweaked to work better or to fix continuity errors, but it's still gonna be the same book. And I kind of just have to accept that as an artist. Creating this large-scale thing that is the Cosmere, there's gotta be both give and take here. The give from me is: acknowledging some of the earlier books will end up being the weakest as I get better as a writer and as I understand what to do with the Cosmere. But the take is that I can kind of continue to give context to those earlier books by developing the rest of the Cosmere in interesting ways.

Questioner

Lines of Protection. Is the field generated once the line is completed? Or is it a progressive thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Almost everything that's going with this takes effect as the person's thinking of it taking effect. There is a mental connection. So, as you are drawing, until you are finished, there is nothing there;  unless, sometimes, you want it to be. There is a direct link. The Rithmatist does have a magic that is consistent with cosmere rules. I decided not to set it in the cosmere primarily because I did not want Earth to be in the cosmere.

Questioner

So how strongly consistent is it with <realmatic theory>?

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't keep myself completely to the rules. It could fit, but... don't take anything The Rithmatist does and apply it to the other books.

The Dusty Wheel

If the Eye of the World were in the cosmere, which Shard's perpendicularity would it be?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, that's a cool question. I wonder if that, in the back of my head, is where I even got Shardpools? I never thought about that before. It's totally possible, right? I read the book enough times.

Who would it be? I can see it being a Shard that doesn't exist, a Shard of kind of Prophecy, sort of thing. Like, Fortune, or something like that. Which, in the cosmere, there's not a Shard called Fortune; Fortune is kind of a property. But I could totally see that being the case. This idea of this representing Rand's destiny, and the coming destiny and being bound to the Wheel. Those are such themes in The Wheel of Time and in some of the other '80s fantasy that I read that I kind of intentionally pulled away from that in the cosmere in dealing with destiny and prophecy, except to subvert them in various cases. But, yeah, I can see it being something like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, it's finally out! Yes, we're doing Kelsier in Fortnite.

So what's going on behind the scenes? Well, Donald Mustard (director of Fortnite) is a friend of mine. We worked on Infinity Blade together back in the day. So, he asked if I was interested in sticking Kelsier into the game--and I thought it was cool. So we've been working on that for a few months.

Like I said (and several of you confirmed in this thread) it's not something I expect my general fanbase to go crazy over--but it's nifty, and I hope it will be fun for those of you who enjoy both properties. It's also been a blast to work with the Fortnite team.

They'll release more, but don't expect a huge crossover event. It's just a little fun thing that I'm doing with my friend, who happens to have accidentally made one of the most popular games of all time.

lazymomo5

Are there going to be any Mistborn specific mechanics in the game? Like steelpushing or pewter vials to grant regeneration or something like that. I don't expect it to happen but it would be cool and also a new kind of thing for those who don't know about Scadrial Magic.

Brandon Sanderson ·

No Mistborn-specific powers right now. (I hope to be able to work more with Epic on something like that in the future, though.)

puhtahtoe

Will anything about this be considered Cosmere Canon?

Brandon Sanderson

Nope canon here. Fortnite is all about crossovers these days, and is explicitly non-canon for all of them. It has its own canon, granted, about grabbing things from other universes--so in Fortnite this can be canon. But in our canon, the cosmere is a closed system, with no links to other universes.

zvons

More as in more about the kelsier skin or more like other cosmere content?

Brandon Sanderson

Sorry. I meant "More about this specific appearance of Kelsier in Fortnite." Don't expect other characters or things for now.

thystephen01

Please tell me he has allomancy? I’d love to see the knights radiants in any open world game with their powers.

Brandon Sanderson

For now, this is just using Fortnite mechanics. I do have aspirations for more--and think it's not impossible that Epic and I will do something more like that in the future. But don't expect allomancy in Fortnite anytime soon.

Many People

Wondering if we're ever gonna see a Cosmere coloring book?

Isaac Stewart

We've talked about this. I think that it's within the realm of possibility, but I don't want to promise anything at this. Because, again, it comes down to this whole opportunity cost thing, where do we want to spend our time. But I can see it happening. I just don't know.

Brandon Sanderson

We want to eventually do some worldbooks for some of the series, like a nice world guide for Roshar. But those take a lot of effort, and we have seen some of those turn out very poorly for other worlds and book series, so we're not sure when and if we will do that.

Isaac Stewart

We've learned, especially on Cosmere things, that we need to be heavily involved on those sorts of things, or things can move away from where we want it. So we would have to be involved with this, so it would need to be during a time when we're not preparing for, like, a Stormlight book. Because that's highest priority.

Brandon Sanderson

I would imagine, that if we release a Cosmere art book, that it will be after Book 5.

Questioner

I have one about Hoid. I want to know, in Mistborn, in Arcanum Unbounded, we find out some really important things about him. But we find out, Hoid is an incredibly powerful person.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Like, probably one of the most powerful people in the Cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

He once was, and no longer is. So, I can't talk a lot about Hoid, but I'll give you a little bit of where he came from. Where he came from in my brain.

For those who don't know, there's a character who shows up in all my epic fantasy books, named Hoid. Or at least that's the alias he's been using lately. Where did this come from? Well, he came from me reading books when I was a teenager. I can specifically remember doing it with the Anne McCaffrey books, that I mentioned earlier. I was reading those, and I would insert my own characters. I still do this in movies, and books that I read. I add to the story. And oftentimes, when people, bit parts people, would walk onscreen in those books, or in the chapters, I'd be like, "Oooh, this is the secret character," right? And then I would have them go to the other books, and I'd imagine this kind of behind-the-scenes thing where these characters were going from different worlds of different people's books, so I'd read Anne McCaffrey, and they'd show up in David Eddings, and they'd show up in Tad Williams' books, and they'd show up in Melanie Rawn books, and I was imagining this whole story behind the story that I was creating. This was where the beginnings of me being a writer came from, was doing that. It's my own kind of fan fiction, but it's my own kind of fan fiction in my head where I was saying, "Even the characters in these books don't know the real story."

And when it came time to start writing my own, I was really in love with this idea. I can trace the idea of connecting worlds probably back to when I read the Foundation book that connected the Robots books and Foundation books, if you've ever read those by Asimov. That book kind of blew my mind, that those two series I'd been reading could be connected. And it was really, really fascinating to me. And so that's where the Cosmere came from.

And so Hoid has his origins. He existed behind the scenes of the Cosmere books. You don't have to know who he is to read them. You can just read them, don't worry about it. But behind the scenes, there is a story behind the story, and he was there for those events that happened that created... basically ended up with the various deities on the various planets. Where their origins were, he was there. But he wasn't one of them.

Questioner

What would you recommend people read before they read this book?

Brandon Sanderson

This depends. There are some minor Cosmere individuals and connections. Obviously, there's some references to Hoid; there's references to Frost (who's been referenced before). But this doesn't require anything, other than the fact that it is space age. So you are gonna see some cultures from Roshar--not Roshar (you do see one from Roshar), but you see some more from Scadrial in the space age. A little like in The Sunlit Man; it's about that level. More the idea is that you have to be okay with the idea that you're jumping forward in the Cosmere and reading some stuff. I work hard not to do any major spoilers for other series, and there's nothing that this is building upon directly. It's just that I wanted people to be aware. This may not be your best first Cosmere book, but some people could. There's no true required reading. It's like a lot of the other things, just there's more of them. More little cameos, more little notes, things like that.

Isaac Stewart

I should also mention that one other step in between there [Isaac's Mistborn stories] was working on the White Sand omnibus, which was a huge undertaking. I went back and I read all of Brandon's earlier works set on White Sand. His first novel was White Sand; we call that one White Sand Prime. His third novel was a continuation of that called Lord Mastrell. And then his seventh or eighth novel was also White Sand (which is out in the world as an unedited manuscript), which is what the graphic novel's based on. So I went back to all three of those, reread them, created a giant database of names, what happened, what the differences are, things like that. And then I reread the graphic novel with all of this information at my side, and then decided, "Okay, what do we need to do with the Cosmere graphic novel to really update it and bring it really cohesively into the Cosmere?"

At that point, that's when I wrote about thirty-eight new pages of material. Some of that's based on what was in the manuscript. And some of that are new scenes that I added because I felt like we needed a friendlier introduction to certain characters. Like Kenton, I wanted him to be really sympathetic from the get-go, which is something Brandon would have done (as I talked with him) if he were to revise that manuscript. So I developed a scene that I added at the beginning to try to develop him a little bit more. Adapting another scene with Khriss and Baon to develop her as a character a little bit more, and then be able to carry these scenes in the prologue through to the ending.

So, in addition, we have fourteen new Ars Arcanum pages from Khriss that I wrote and ran through beta groups, ran through the company. So I'm working on writing in the Cosmere already.

Nicole Joy White

Will you ever revisit the Emperor's Soul world?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I've got another story about Shai I want to write, actually. Whether I'll get to it or not...

I had inspiration strike for a story I think will be really cool if I can find the time to write it. (That's always the thing, right?) But because I am moving more and more to coauthoring things that are not Cosmere, goal is that hopefully that'll leave me a little more time for Cosmere stuff, moving forward. So, we will see.

I wouldn't be surprised, for instance, if Skyward is the last non-Cosmere series I do that is not coauthored. So that I can divide some of my time off with another author. The experience of working with Mary Robinette on The Original has been so good. And the experience... even though he didn't fix it, Dan's improvements to Apocalypse Guard are so incredible, I'm actually gonna try and fix that this summer. I think we might do more of that. It's gonna depend on what people think of The Original, and theoretically the Apocalypse Guard when we release it.

Cosmere.es

We remember that you wanted to write a sci-fi story and send it to several magazines to see what happened with that. Well, we were wondering if in the end did you manage to sell it?

Brandon Sanderson

I did not manage to sell it. Now, I'll put it in the non-cosmere collection when we put it together. It was flash fiction; it was only 500 words long. So it's very not like my normal style. I'm not apparently good enough at flash fiction to sell without my name attached, but I haven't given up hope. I still want to write some more stories under this author's name--the pseudonym-- and see if I can get them published. I don't know if you heard, last night I talked about it on the stream, one of the things we'll be doing while I'm working on Era 3 of Mistborn in a couple years here is we'll likely be releasing the non-cosmere collection. All of my basically science-fiction/horror or whatever, the stories that are not in the cosmere that also aren't Legion, the Stephen Leeds stories which were bound in their own collection. And I want to have a few new things for that, so it's not just stories that have been published before. So these are the stories that I'm like, I'm going to send this off and see if it sells, and things like that. You'll be able to see.

My flash fiction piece is super goofy, so it's not that surprising that it didn't sell, but I'm still very proud of it. Mostly I got confusion in my rejections, they're like, "We didn't get it, it didn't make sense to us." So we'll have to see if it makes sense to all you guys. 500 words is not very much to do a story based around, so we'll see. I wrote another short story to send out. Unfortunately, it's kind of mediocre; it's only kind of okay. Again, science-fiction has one cool concept executed mediocrely, so I don't think that one's going to sell. I have to write a real banger, I have to write something really great and then secretly get it published. But when I'm going to do that is the big question. I have no idea where I'm going to slip in time to write mini-stories that aren't supposed to be by me. This is partially just to get experience so I can tell my students, "Hey, it still works," or "It still is hard." And lo and behold it was still hard, it took like eight months to get through all of the markets and get replies to them and stuff, just for that little flash fiction piece.

Chlis

Is this book part of the Cosmere? Since it's based in Chicago I'm wondering if that maybe isn't the case?

Brandon Sanderson

No, most of my "breather novels" are not Cosmere. The Cosmere requires meticulous planning and continuity. That's not usually good for what I'm looking to do when I take a break from a big project for a small one, though occasionally I can fit in a novella or such.

Questioner

How would Adolin fare against the greats like Lan, Rand, Galad, and how would Kaladin and his spear fare against Mat?

Brandon Sanderson

It’s really hard to say this, because what are different characters’ skill levels and things? For instance, I generally count Lan as the strongest and the best. My [Wheel of Time] books that I wrote show that. I think Lan would beat Adolin. You just can’t replace the twenty years of intense practice that Lan has, and the wisdom, no matter how talented of a rookie you are -- even though Adolin is not a rookie. I think Lan could go toe-to-toe with anyone non-immortal in the cosmere, because a lot of the cosmere people have an advantage, right? Taln has spent 4,000 years practicing with weapons. Granted, he spent a bunch of that time being tortured as well, but you know. He has many lifetimes behind him, and has been able to be killed making mistakes and never make those mistakes again. That is a leg up on someone like Lan or like Adolin that is just of a supernatural level. And so, while I think Lan would beat any swordsman in a fair fight from the Cosmere, I would count anyone who has a greatly expanded lifespan as an unfair fight. Like, I don’t think Lan would be able to stand against the better duelists among the Heralds or even against Vasher. Vasher’s got multiple lifetimes of practicing with the sword.

How would Kaladin do against Mat? It depends, Mat’s luck is a very big wildcard, and how is the luck on Mat’s side and how is karma working in Mat’s favor or against him in that given moment? That’s part of what makes Mat fun. So Kaladin is a soldier, again, not a duelist. Kaladin is really good with a spear, but his training is in war, his training is to be a battlefield captain. What even is Mat? Mat has been trained by fate itself with weapons, which is just really hard to play. Let’s call that a tie, edge probably to Kaladin.

Lan beats Adolin or basically any duelist but you put him up against the Heralds and he has a much harder time.

Questioner

You have this technical approach to Allomantic powers. But Feruchemy seems to me very different. So it's not very logical that you can store up health. What is health?

Brandon Sanderson

Well. I feel that it is. But it has its own definitions. In the Cosmere perception - I don't know if you know...

Questioner

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

... it really affects... It's kind of more like a concept of heallth. The idea of your body's ability to recuperate quickly. The magic system translates to your body's ability to match your spiritual self. When that is depleted, your body in the Cosmere starts to stray (? a bit indistinctive in the recording). Foreign things can get into it, diseases get into you, and your spirit can get a little more corrupted. Your body getting corrupted, your spirit's not getting corrupted. You get it, and it makes you extra connected to your spiritual sense. Your body moves to match it closely and better.

Questioner

So the same about speed and ...

Brandon Sanderson

Those are a little different. But each has their little behind the scenes explanation for myself. The problem is... The physics of it is very Cosmere-physics for Feruchemy, whereas for Allomancy it's a lot more out world physics with a different power source. We're changing that. But the physics do work for me. But obviously it's magic, so I'm breaking them anyway.

DataLoreHD

When can we expect all your non-Cosmere novellas be collected into one anthology book?

Brandon Sanderson

We are quietly getting everything ready for the non-cosmere collection, just in case. The thing that would make us pull the trigger early would be if Snapshot actually gets greenlit for a film at MGM--though I don't know how close we are to that. We want want to be ready just in case.

I feel like it needs one more story or two before publishing it otherwise, though, so I'd expect a little wait.

Glamdring804

I remember hearing a while ago that there was a non-Cosmere collection in the works. I too would like to know if this is still a thing, before I go and buy each novella or short story individually.

Brandon Sanderson

It WILL happen, so you might want to wait--but the release of the movie (if it happens) for Snapshot will influence timing. I wouldn't expect it in 2019, if it does happen. 2020 would be much more likely.

ROSHtafARian

There's been enough speculation that an Elantrian world hopper appears in Way of Kings and that an Elantrian world hopper wrote the Ars Arcanum in Alloy of Law to make it likely that by the time of both books, at least some Elantrians can world hop. So my question is, at the time of Way of Kings, does Sel have the most cosmere-awareness out of any of your Shardworlds (including ones we have not seen yet), or is there another Shardworld that's more aware of the greater cosmere at this time?

Brandon Sanderson

Sel is very cosmere aware at this point, but getting to and through Shadesmar (that's not the local term, by the way) is very difficult on Sel. That stunted them for a long while. They're still fairly far ahead.

Questioner

Are you planning on writing more broadsheet stories for The Lost Metal?

Isaac Stewart

I'm assuming at this point that I'll do what I've done in the last two. I didn't do much on the Alloy ones, at all. That you, Peter, and...

Brandon Sanderson

On the first one, I wrote Allomancer Jak. You wrote the next two.

One of our goals is eventually to have Isaac writing some Mistborn books or graphic novels, because he's the only person who knows it as well as I do and who could do it justice. People want more Cosmere, so the goal is eventually to do that. But he has his hands full with White Sand stuff right now.

Isaac Stewart

Which is preparatory for...

Outlining a couple of Cosmere stories right now.

Brandon Sanderson

But right now, you're the only one who's written canon Cosmere fiction other than me, because the Nicki Savage story is in-world fiction, but it's, you know.

Isaac Stewart

And the other Allomancer Jak story. I can't remember exactly what it was; the Lord Ruler's cufflinks?

Foxblade

What are your current thoughts on Silence Divine? The setting and magic are some of my favorite to visualize so I'm always crossing my fingers you'll want to do something with it. It just hits all the right checkboxes for "cool" and with Dawnshard's release, well I was hoping it might be on the radar...

Brandon Sanderson

It's on my radar, yes, as are the two other Cosmere novellas I want to write. (A sequel to Emperor's Soul and one to Sixth of the Dusk that I've actually started.)

Problem is, it's hard to find slots for these things. We'll see. Not forgotten, certainly.

Foxblade

I don't know why, (an old WOB?) but I thought we would only be dealing with Sixth in the background from now on, so a sequel is awesome to hear.

Brandon Sanderson

The Sixth sequel is him exploring Shadesmar. I have a scene done, but it involves some pretty big spoilers for space age cosmere, as within a few years of the story that happened, there is a lot more going on in relation to other worlds. So I'm not sure if it's wise to continue it at this point.

n122333

I know I'm a minority in this, but I love normal humans in a magic world. While Sixth has no investiture, the world is still fantastic and has the air of mystery.

Will we see other cosmere settings where the people don't have magic, but the world does, like in Sixth, and shadows?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you will see more like this. (Many of the settings that involve Aethers can be like this, for example.)

Dan Wells

Guess who I am going to be working for? Brandon!

Couple of years ago, he wrote a book called Apocalypse Guard that didn't work. And he brought it to me and said, "Hey, do you want to collaborate on this book, and maybe you can help me fix it?" And so I did another draft, and we looked at it and said, "Yeah, this still doesn't work." But we very much enjoyed the process of writing together.

And so he gave me Dark One. And he said, "Here, this is an outline that I have; do you want to collaborate on another book?" And so I wrote that one. And this one did work. It worked very well. And we both really loved the experience, again, of working together, of cowriting books, doing all this stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Meanwhile, on my side, the whole Brandon Sanderson thing has gotten kind of big. And I was talking to my team, and I'm like, "I need help with the narrative side of this. I need another brain." We're going to do Dark One, but the goal will eventually be to have Dan just kind of help me work on the Cosmere, and things like this. I need another writing brain. And I need somebody who can write stories that I can't, was another thing. I had been thinking for a while; I'm like, "I need another me." I need help to manage the whole thing. Not just the books, but the entire series. And I'm like, "Well, Dan is the best writer I know. Maybe I should ask Dan."

I came to him, I'm like, "Do you wanna come on full-time as the vice president of narrative at my company?" So Dan is coming on on Monday as the vice president of narrative at Dragonsteel.

Dan Wells

That is gonna entail writing a bunch of books; there'll be a bunch of cowritten Dan and Brandon Cosmere books. We're gonna start with some non-Cosmere stuff, 'cause we gotta get Dark One.

The book itself, we still are in the process of revising that. But as early as January, the prequel will be available in audio. We wrote a thing called Dark One: Forgotten. Which is audio native, specifically because we wanted to do it in the style of a true crime podcast. Imagine if, halfway through Serial, they discovered that there was a supernatural serial killer murdering people. That's what Dark One: Forgotten is. It's six episodes, hour-long mockumentary podcast thing. It's really cool; I turned in the final revisions this morning.

I will say, to mollify any fears that might be out there, my own career is not disappearing. I am still gonna be writing my own stuff. There's still Dan Wells alone stuff; there's still gonna be Brandon writing his own stuff. But there's gonna be a lot of overlap with the two of us.

Questioner

Does the dead body of a Shard pull at time and space, thus causing time to pass slower in that place of the cosmere, almost like a black hole?

Brandon Sanderson

It could go either way in the Cosmere, depending. But the answer is yes. A large amount, like a deific amount of Investiture will... any amount of Investiture will cause a bit of time dilation, but the amount you're getting from even a Shardpool is not enough to be noticeable. I mean, it is, you can notice it even on our planet if you take a jet that goes fast enough, so it is noticeable but not relevantly noticeable. We're talking about a slippage of a day or so in a year even off of a Shardpool (don't canonize me on that one, I don't have the actual numbers). But that's what we're talking about. There are are chunks of Investiture of deific nature that can cause amounts of time dilation that would be virtually impossible in our universe, without you becoming one with a black hole. There's a story I want to tell, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to telling it, about an entire society that rises and falls in several seconds of time dilation to everyone else. I want to be able to tell stories like that, and you couldn't do that in our universe, but that's part of the reason we have the Cosmere!

Brandon Sanderson

Introduction

We are approaching Koloss Head-Munching Day—the day of the year that happens, by utter coincidence, to coincide with my birthday. (December 19th.) I'm turning forty this year, which isn't as dramatic for me as it might be for some others. From the way I act, people have been joking for the last twenty years that I was "born forty." I guess I'm finally just catching up.

It's been almost twenty years since I finished my first book. I can remember joking with my friends in college (whom you might know as Lieutenant Conrad from Mistborn and Drehy from Bridge Four) that by forty, we were all going to be rich and famous.

The thing is, I always intended to make that dream happen. Not necessarily for the "rich" part or the "famous" part, neither of which interested me a great deal. I just knew that without a solid, stable writing career, I'd never be able to make the Cosmere happen.

Perhaps that's where this whole "born forty" thing came from in the first place. I basically spent my twenties writing, slavishly trying to figure out how to craft stories. Friends would tell me to relax, but I couldn't, not when these dreams of mine were so big. It should be mentioned that despite what our society would like to believe, hard work doesn't always equate with success. For me, luck played a huge part in my being able to sit here and type this out for you.

Still, here I am, and I honestly can't imagine things having gone better. People often seem bemused by my productivity; when I get together with fellow authors, they sometimes jokingly refer to me as "the adult" in our group. I get this—for a lot of them, writing is more of an instinctual process. Sitting and talking about the business side of things, or their goals for writing, flies in the face of the almost accidental way they've approached their careers. And it works for them; they create great books I'm always excited to read.

However, sometimes there's also this sense—from fans, from the community, from us authors in general—that whispers that being productive isn't a good thing. It's like society feels artists should naturally try to hide from deadlines, structure, or being aware of what we do and why we do it. As if, because art is supposed to be painful, we shouldn't enjoy doing our work—and should need to be forced into it.

If there's one thing that has surprised me over the last ten years, it's this strangeness that surrounds my enjoyment of my job, and the way my own psychology interfaces with storytelling. People thank me for being productive, when I don't consider myself particularly fast as a writer—I'm just consistent. Fans worry that I will burn out, or that secretly I'm some kind of cabal of writers working together. I enjoy the jokes, but there's really no secret. I just get excited by all of this. I have a chance to create something incredible, something that will touch people's lives. In some cases, that touch is light—I just give a person a few moments to relax amid the tempest of life. In other cases, stories touch people on a deep and meaningful level. I'll happily take either scenario.

Almost thirty years ago now, I encountered something remarkable in the books I read. Something meaningful that I couldn't describe, a new perspective, new emotions. I knew then that I had to learn to do what those writers were doing. Now that I have the chance to reach people the same way, I'm not going to squander it.

I guess this is all a prelude to a warning. I'm working on a lot of projects. Many of these tie together in this epic master plan of mine, the thirty-six-(or more)-book cycle that will be the Cosmere. Even those books that aren't part of the Cosmere are here to challenge me in some way, to push me and my stories, to explore concepts that have fascinated me for years.

These last ten years have been incredible. I thank you, and I thank God, for this crazy opportunity I've been given. I don't intend to slow down.

I'm not embarrassed to be "the adult." Even if I've only just hit the right age for it officially.

Arcatezog

How often do you go by your various subreddits?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on what I'm doing in the day, and things like that. I have not been by lately, so I have not responded to a lot of Reddit comments lately. I apologize for that. I try to, at least, glance at the front page and see what things are big. I would like this to be a daily thing, and sometimes it is, but it's not always. Again, it depends on what stuff I'm doing.

It is still the best way to get a response from me, but my answer rate is probably under a third these days, I would say. Plus, there are some people who ask a lot of questions on Reddit, and it makes me less want to do it, I'll be honest, when I see the same person has asked a question every day for a month, because I don't feel that's a good use of my time. I think a good use of my time is to give everybody a little bit where I can, and a bad use of my time is to engage deeply. Just because I don't have a lot of time; not that I dislike any of you guys. And some of you ask really good questions, and I find myself answering anyways, because hey, this is a smart question that this person asked.

I don't want my Reddit thing to be eighty questions from hardcore cosmere theorists who have been asking two a day for a month, and then five questions from a person who legitimately wants to reach out and have a brief but meaningful interaction with me. I much prefer the second, just for time reasons, even though I know the deep cosmere guys, like, you guys are part of why I'm successful. You guys talking about it, you guys caring about the fact that I was connecting the cosmere, I don't want to disparage that at all or make you feel bad for asking questions. Because I love that, I love that you are so into it, I love taking the time when I can to answer questions. I just have a whole lot of things to balance, and it gets rough sometimes.

Robert

In your last Reddit update, you gave a good rundown of your future projects until Stormlight Five. Time permitting, could you talk about other side projects, like the non-Cosmere short works collection, Apocalypse Guard, Alcatraz, and The Rithmatist?

Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz Six is done, being illustrated as we speak. We have the deal in hand from Tor to publish it. Alcatraz Six is a go. Should happen next year, I would suspect. And that is the actual ending to the Alcatraz series. Co-authored with Janci, who is amazing.

Apocalypse Guard has been kicked back to me from Dan, I think I mentioned before. I need to do a draft on it. Dan improved it wonderfully, but what he didn't fix is the ending, which is still broken, because endings aren't Dan's thing in the first place, they're kind of my thing. Which is part of why I pulled the book, is that the ending was not working. So, I need to fix the ending. Fortunately, I came up with a pretty good plan for doing it. So it's going to go on my list sometime during these next couple years, when I need a break between things I will do an Apocalypse Guard revision. It will probably only take me, I would guess, two to three weeks of work to fix it. So that's a strong plausibility that I will be fixing that book in the coming months.

Non-Cosmere collection. I have lots of stories for it; we actually commissioned all the art for it, but that's when we thought that Snapshot was going to get greenlit. It got really close to being greenlit as a movie, but then the option on that lapsed, as they didn't end up doing the greenlight last year. So now, we don't have a movie tie-in to push us to do that, which we still probably should do at some point, is get that collection out. With the couple of short stories I've written that would go in there that we're not gonna necessarily publish somewhere else. Though I did tell you guys, I am sending them out under a false name to see if I can get any magazines to pick them up. It's going to happen eventually; I don't know when. There's some new, cool talks that are happening around Snapshot, which is the most movie-friendly of the things for the non-Cosmere collection. We will see.

I know, for instance, in Spain, they want to take Defending Elysium, which is tied to the Skyward books, and do a Spanish translation of that, in conjunction with a Skyward book, so that might be happening. But I'm not sure how that's going to end up working.

This schedule for me does not include any little side novellas that I decide to write, or side short stories. It leaves some wiggle room, but not a lot, for me to do something like that. So we'll have to see. If some Secret Project pops up on the progress bars, you will know that I have felt too constrained by the schedule I have set for myself and have started writing something else. That hasn't happened in a little while, but it totally could happen. I think the last one of those was the Wizards of the Coast story, where I just had to write that.

Brandon Sanderson

I just outlined a non-genetic magic system that I think is kind of interesting. I don't know if I'll ever get to write this book; I outline a lot of books that I don't get to write. But it was a really interesting idea for a magic system where a child was chosen by society when they were a newborn to gain the powers. You know, kind of for the good of society. And being one of these people, instead, I thought... Like I said, the implications are really interesting for that narrative story, is that you're forced, even from childhood you were chosen by everybody. You weren't born to it; but how do you choose a newborn? They just chose one, and now you've gotta live the rest of your life (Hope you picked a good one!) dealing with these implications. That's been very interesting to outline and think about, the effects on the character.

Questioner

Is that Cosmere or non-Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

That one is Cosmere.

Chaos

Has people knowing more about the Cosmere changed how you've written the books? Have you put in more connections or less than you planned?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I've put in more. I always wanted there to be more but my instincts said don't do it. Because people were pretty anti-continuity for a long time. They wanted continuity in a series, but this sort of stuff... it's a hobby horse of mine - a pet theory, that I think people becoming familiar with the internet, and becoming comfortable with fan wikis is what made the MCU possible, and is what made the Cosmere work. 

WandaVision - which I've just watched the first two episodes of - doesn't feel like that could exist in a previous incarnation without the internet for people to look up, 'Who are these people? What's going on here? Who are these cameos?' It's just too weird to exist in a pre-internet era, my gut says. 

My publisher was saying 'Don't do this, you don't want people to feel like they're diving into something too deep that will scare them away.' So I was really cagey with it at first as you can tell from the books. And it turns out we're in a different era. We're in an era where this sort of thing is not so threatening. Also my popularity has influenced that as well. The fact that the books sell really well, means that there are good fan wikis, which also means that there are people talking about the stuff behind the scenes in the books. It means I can be a little bit more free with that. 

I still want each series to have its own identity. When I do crossover things, I want them to use the crossover each in their own way. So it doesn't become a big hodgepodge of ideas. The further I've gone the more comfortable I've been making these crossovers happen, and I've been able to experiment and see which ones work best, and what people like. I've also come to better understand it's okay for their to be a chapter where Vasher explains deep cosmere magics. As long as that's not the core of the book people can read that, and people will be like 'he knows lots of weird stuff, oh well', and to them it reads like Star Trek technobabble. But to those who follow these things it will give some structure, and delve a little bit further into how some of this works. 

Zin the Poet

Will we ever see Sixth as a main character again?

Brandon Sanderson

I have written the opening to a sequel to Sixth of the Dusk (which I will not call Seventh of the Dusk, though people like to joke about that). The problem is, Sixth of the Dusk takes place far enough forward in the future of the cosmere that writing stories about him is really tough without giving major spoilers to other cosmere series. In fact, I wrote this opening, and it has huge spoilers for other cosmere series. And so the question for myself is: do I try to write around the spoilers? Or do I release it with the spoilers? Or do I just wait until it's no longer spoilers to release it? I really like the story, the outline for it is sharp. I know where Sixth fits into all of this, even though he was a discovery-written character.

So yes, most likely you will, but I can't say when exactly.

Brandon Sanderson

Potential Cosmere Stories List

Here are things that at one point I've had in the works, and probably someday plan to do, in the cosmere:

• Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel. (Hoid's origin story, to be written sometime after Stormlight is done.)
• Sixth of the Dusk sequel. (I had a pretty cool idea for this last year. Nothing more than that.)
• Untitled Silverlight novella. (What it says on the tin.)
• Threnody novel. (An expedition back to confront the Evil that destroyed the old world.)
• Aether of Night. (Still in the cosmere, and you can see the odd remnant of an Aether popping up here and there. Bound to be drastically different from the unpublished novel, which I allow the 17th Shard to give out to people who request it on their forums. Basically, the only thing from it that is canon is the magic system.)
• Silence Divine. (Disease magic novella set on Ashyn.)

WeiryWriter

At one point in time you were planning for Skyward to be in the cosmere, which is no longer the case. If you were to pick a Shard, or Shards, that would fit Skyward what would they be? (Not necessarily the Shard that would have been featured in-cosmere, but a hypothetical Shard that fits the book/world in its current state.)

Brandon Sanderson

Skyward was more "The travels of Spensa, space pilot" than a true story back when it was in the cosmere. But as the story is right now, I'd say Autonomy would find it very interesting.

Questioner

I'm trying to understand the relationship between Hemalurgy and the Shard Ruin. Most of the Invested Arts involve inputs of energy of the Shardic Investiture that corresponds to it. That doesn't seem to be the case for Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. So I'm wondering what the relationship is between the corresponding Shards and those two Metallic Arts.

Brandon Sanderson

There's a whole lot going on here, and I'm not sure how much I can get into right here. But one of the basic concepts I built for the cosmere, way back when, was that a lot of the different magics would be showing up in different systems. And there are certain underpinning fundamental rules. And this is why you'll see Lightweaving working the same way across three different magic systems; I think you've seen it in three different ones so far. Elsecalling's gonna work the same way. Hemalurgy is a thing that is, like, part of the nature of the cosmere, that the Shard simply knew and was able to tell people how to do

So is it of that Shard? Well, yes, because you would have to be following that Shard's Intent in order to use it. But it could be discovered on other planets, as well.

Questioner

And independent of Ruin's presence, really, except for as Ruin affects the cosmere as a whole?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Exactly. You are correct.

Brandon Sanderson

Tertiary Book Projects

Cosmere Short Fiction Collection

For a while I've been thinking that I need to collect all the various pieces of Cosmere short fiction and put them into a single collection, for those who don't like hunting around for them.

This might be the year to do that. If Stormlight doesn't make it into 2016, we might be able to get a collection (with a Stormlight novella) out by the end of the year instead. Something to tide you over, at least, until book three comes out.

If we do this, my goal will be to have it include every piece of short fiction from every source up until now and bind it together in a handsome hardcover that will look nice on the shelf next to your other books.

This will give you multiple options for the short fiction, if you want to collect it. We will continue to do our little two-novella collections (like the Perfect State and Shadows for Silence double that we just released.) So if you'd prefer to collect those in the smaller size, I anticipate everything eventually being released in that format too. However, if you'd like one thick tome, every ten years or so you should see a bigger collection.

More on this as it develops. Right now I'm toying with the title Arcanum Unbound, and would love to include a star chart of all the cosmere worlds in it.

sebarial

Would a Feruchemist actively storing Identity be more susceptible to Forgery? Would more outlandish changes be able to take effect? Thanks for your time, and have a wonderful day.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, if you store Identity, it makes you susceptible to ALL KINDS of things in the Cosmere. Forgery would be on the short list.

bubblebooy

Does the difficulty of affecting metals in a body with Allomancy have to do with Identity?

Brandon Sanderson

No, more to do with the fact that most people are innately Invested in the Cosmere--and certain planets have extra Investiture. Something Invested is more difficult to transform/move/etc with another form of Investiture.

bubblebooy

That is what I had originally thought before you capitalized "ALL KINDS." Is Soulcasting people like Jasnah Kholin did doubly hard since people a have a strong sense of Identity and have innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

We're getting a bit far on this course, so it's time to pull out the RAFOs. I don't want to overplay my hand and leave the books without anything to talk about. :)

Phantine

Does that 'inside a body' thing work on most magics?

For instance, if Han stuck Luke into a Mistborn Tauntaun (a distant and unlucky relative of the mistborn llama), would Luke be protected from both the cold and emotional allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

He'd have to get him inside a living one.

It does work on most magics, though the interactions can be odd unless you know a lot about the workings. Emotional Allomancy, for example, works by lapping against the outsides of someone's cognitive self, influencing you the way music might stir your soul. So being inside a living body wouldn't necessarily stop it--you'd just have more interference. Kind of like how you can still hear music outside if it's loud enough.

Actual mind control in the cosmere requires you to get INSIDE the soul, which you've seen happen frequently enough. There has to be a gap or an opening.

Or, conversely, you just have to be so powerful that you can push through the interference.

Adam Horne

What are you anticipating the length of the books for [Mistborn] Era Three and Era Four?

Brandon Sanderson

Era Three will go back to Era One lengths. The goal is, once I finish Stormlight Five, to write all three books in Era Three together, like I did for Era One. And this means that the releases in between might be kind of other sorts of things. Basically, I'm gonna have to take three years and write those books before we release any of them. And that'll be great for continuity, and for a lot of cool reasons, but it means that... 2023 is hopefully Stormlight Five. (I say "hopefully" because, again, Stormlight Five is the end of a series, so it is possible of all of them that one takes longer. We'll see.) And then, after Stormlight Five, then the releases will probably be some things for a couple of years until I get Mistborn ready.

One of these things is likely to be a non-Cosmere collection; a collection of all my short fiction that is not Cosmere and not Legion. So all of your Defending Elysiums and things like that, collected in one collection, like we did with Arcanum Unbounded. There is a decent chance that I will be getting The Apocalypse Guard into shape, at long last, and releasing that with Dan Wells working with me on those. There is a decent chance that we'll have a prose version of Dark One, because Dan and I are working on that, but we'll see. Who knows. And then there's the perpetual project that I've really started to think that is probably going to happen, where White Sand of all my unpublished novels is the strongest, and I think that if I put it through my current revision process, I'd get a really strong revision, send it to beta readers, and put it through another really strong revision, it would be of publishable quality. I would generally update it to match the events of the graphic novels, and then we would release a prose version, probably, that is the same as the graphic novels. But we'll see. We'll see if that actually happens. For now, we do have the collection of the three graphic novels coming out soon-ish, I hope. And it's looking really nice; Isaac's been putting a ton of work into that.

So, those are all things that you could see in the interim, between. What you're not gonna get is a Mistborn novel or a Stormlight novel for a number of years, as I work on the Mistborn books. In a perfect world, I'm writing Elantris Two and Three then, as well. So I get done with those five books, each of which I plan at 200,000 words (which is the length of Elantris and the original Mistborn trilogy). Which, when I work on a Stormlight book, I do 400,000 to 500,000 words in eighteen months. And so, we would see how these other ones would turn out. One a year, plus change, basically. And then I would jump to Stormlight six.

So, that's a long-term plan. I still have to finish Wax and Wayne Four, and Stormlight Five, and Skyward Four. Which, I am finishing three series in a row. The one I am most worried about, obviously, is Stormlight. I don't know if that'd be obvious, but that's the highest stakes. And beyond that, it's the one that has some of the biggest implications for the cosmere at large, and things like that. Like, I am not terribly worried about Wax and Wayne Four, partially because I outlined the three that came after Alloy of Law really solidly, and the outline stuff I've been sending out for this last one, everyone is liking in the company, and it seems like it's a very... Like, the original trilogy idea I had for those three seems to be working. And Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning both worked really well, and this one is in that same vein, kind of bringing things together. And so, I'm not really worried about it. I think it's gonna be really strong, and people are really gonna like it. Skyward Four, again, the stakes are just lower. Skyward Three was a tough revision; there was a lot of work to do on that one. But, if I do write Skyward Four this year, then I have plenty of time to work on Skyward Four's revision, because it's probably not scheduled until, like, spring of 2023. Spring or summer, even, summer 2023, before Stormlight Five. And so basically, the revision time on both Wax and Wayne and that are gonna be much bigger than my revision time on Skyward Three.

The time crunch is over for a little bit. It's just: can I squeeze these in before the looming battleship that is Stormlight Five comes sailing into port, and it's all hands on deck.

celestialwolf157

By the way, Kaladin's comment on Taln and Shalash's mental health makes me wonder: Are the Ten Fools based on the Heralds after they broke the Oathpact? Having 9 immortal, mentally ill people on Roshar for millenia seems like it'd have spawned some stories that could have eventually become stories of the Ten Fools. Taln wouldn't be included in this, but with Vorinism and the number 10, I imagine they'd have created something to oppose his virtues.

Also, I can't remember if this is confirmed or not, but on the topic of the Heralds' mental health, is it at all supernatural? Taln seemed to recover somewhat when Dalinar summoned the perpendicularity at the end of Oathbringer. So, is it just severe PTSD, or something supernatural is involved?

Brandon Sanderson

I've tried to make it clear in talking about the books that I separate what has happened to the Heralds and normal mental health. What they're suffering from is in large part supernatural--and has to do with the way souls (or Cognitive Shadows) work in the cosmere. So you are correct. This doesn't mean that some normal treatments wouldn't help them, but their core problem has a huge supernatural component.

And yes, there IS a relationship between the ten fools and the Heralds, though people on Roshar wouldn't be able to point it out.

mastapsi

Is the Heralds' madness related to and/or the same thing as the Fused's madness? The Stormfather mentions that each time one of the Fused is reborn, their mind is further damaged. Is it the same with the Herald? To many rebirths, possibly compounded by the fact that they not only often died each Desolation, but were tortured until the next one?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, these two things are related. (There are some hints in Rhythm of War at how Hoid has avoided a similar fate.)

Note that the torture--and the many rebirths--are a big part of this. But their age is also a factor.

3DLightweaver

Does this mean that a certain Cognitive Shadow from the Mistborn series is fated to go insane?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on a lot of factors. But the longer a Cognitive Shadow exists, the more likely these problems are.

dce42

Would this affect the Returned as well? What about those with a lot (like 8,000) breaths since they are not cognitive shadows.

Brandon Sanderson

Returned are Cognitive Shadows. In the Cosmere, there is no way to bring someone back to life, other than normal medical resuscitation, without using a Cognitive Shadow.

Stromeng

What about Dalinar? I thought he has had textbook PTSD, but the screams he continued to hear turned out to be magic.

Brandon Sanderson

Dalinar has a whole host of issues, not easily defined by a single definition. Assume, though, that his mental state is a normal response to, in part, supernatural occurrences.

The different for the Heralds is that they have conditions which could only truly exist in the cosmere, even if some of the manifestations and symptoms are similar to what could happen on Earth.

Stonewalker16

So is that implying that Hoid is a Cognitive Shadow, or is that just an effect of being really really old? Also does Vasher know about/how to avoid these effects? Probably an RAFO, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Come back to that question in about a month or so.

Asmodeus9

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?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Kurkistan

So, could you give us some examples of how the ideals that spren represent work in other magic systems, like we have Forging where you get plausibility, or Returned how they're beautiful or any other systems?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, one more time on that.

Kurkistan

Okay, so you know the ideals the spren are manifestations--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Kurkistan

How-- Do those have impacts on other magic systems?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes, in the same way the Returned- that's the exact same system at work there.

Kurkistan

Is it the same reason why the Lord Ruler has to die of old age, and why you can't heal yourself into being an octopus or something?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... Yes, that is all connected in the exact same way.

Kurkistan

Okay, so it's all like these highfalutin Spiritual ideals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Kurkistan

And are there like, median Cognitive ideals that gradually kind of influence these, or--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they transcend between the three. I mean the original concept for the Three Realms is Platonic philosophy.

Kurkistan

So it goes up *makes absurd reverse-waterfall hand gesture*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it goes up and it comes back down. A lot of the Cognitive is-- So like, the Cognitive has a bigger effect on how you can heal and things like that. Does that make sense?

Kurkistan

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

But the power to heal is a actually a Spiritual thing.

Kurkistan

So it's like the Spiritual says "I want to be like this" and the Cognitive is like "Okay I'll try really hard to be like that, but I have a limit."

Brandon Sanderson

Right. Right. Filtered through how you see yourself, yeah.