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Calamity Chicago signing ()
#5201 Copy

Questioner

So did you come up with the weakness of the Epics being from fears out of Steelheart book or did you already think of that ahead when you wrote Steelheart?

Brandon Sanderson

I had that.  In fact there’s a deleted scene where I dug into the nightmares in the first book, and it didn’t end up getting into it.  Plus it was a little too--

Questioner

Reveal?

Brandon Sanderson

--foreshadowy, yeah.  But it was from the beginning.  I always kind of thought the fears being your weakness would be a really cool way to approach superheroes.

Shadows of Self release party ()
#5202 Copy

Questioner

Is there anything I should look at as a hint for something we haven’t figured out yet?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, that's a good question too. There are moments through the entire original trilogy that people haven't figured out yet. But they've picked out most of what they are, they just don't know why. Like they know something weird is happening, they don't know-- They haven't guessed why the weirdness is happening. The weirdness is figure-out-able, but it would be hard. But it's not outside of reason for you to figure out why these certain moments-- these moments people have not yet figured out.

Questioner

Because Odium had influence on Scadrial.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Not a ton, but yes.

Questioner

...Kelsier had an irrational hatred for Nobles.

Brandon Sanderson

He did, he did indeed.

Phoenix Comic-Con 2016 ()
#5203 Copy

Badger (paraphrased)

How much say did you have in the narrators for your audiobooks?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He talked about the process behind picking narrators in the sense of he's allowed to request people, but if they can't get them, the publisher will present him with other options he can pick from. Same went for book cover artists (he chose Michael Whelan). He requested Michael Kramer and Kate Reading for his books because he was impressed with how he did the Wheel of Time books. The only one he didn't have say in is the original Warbreaker narrator (surfer dude Lightsong, anyone?).

Calamity Seattle signing ()
#5204 Copy

Questioner

If you starred in a buddy cop movie with Pat Rothfuss, would you be the good cop or the bad cop?

Brandon Sanderson

If I starred in buddy cop movie with Pat Rothfuss-- If you know anything at all about us, I'm the good cop and he's definitely the bad cop. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Definitely. I mean come on. Good question though.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing ()
#5205 Copy

Dan

The 16 Shards, are they finalized?

Brandon Sanderson

I have finalized them with the reservation that I can change them when I do their adaptation if something works better. So while I have them all written out, I don't canonize. So I guess "is it canonized?", the answer is no. But they are written down, and I could tweak them. Once I put them in a book, they're canonized. I like to give myself a little bit of flexibility before I put them in a book.

Words of Radiance Lexington signing ()
#5208 Copy

tganchero (paraphrased)

Did the mistress from the interlude in book 1 destroy the Shalash statue on the night of Gavilar's death?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, and also all the other ones that we've seen, including the one in Shallan's vision in Words of Radiance.

tganchero (paraphrased)

Is the mistress Shalash?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO.

Skyward Chicago signing ()
#5209 Copy

Questioner

The Ghostblood that's from the southern part of Scadrial. Does that mean she can use the [Allomantic] metals?

Brandon Sanderson

She was not born there. Iyatil is from somewhere else... She has a.. Scadrian heritage. Whether she's an Allomancer or not, I will RAFO. It is possible that someone with her lineage could.

Questioner

So she doesn't have to be born on--

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
#5210 Copy

KaladinarLighteyes

Is there a specific plane that [Davriel] is from?

You mentioned in the article on your site that Wizards integrates him into the larger story, does that mean there’s a chance that he will show up again and things that happened here are related into the future Magic story?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, though I've been asked not to confirm this for right now. He is from a known place in the multiverse.

Yes, he should show up again in the future, before I have a chance to write another story. So keep an eye out for him.

Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
#5211 Copy

beingcobra

What has been the hardest book for you to write? And the easiest? Was this particular book difficult to write?

Brandon Sanderson

Hardest was by far A Memory of Light. Easiest was probably Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, which I discovery wrote and did half as a writing exercise to keep me from burning out while working on the Mistborn trilogy.

This one was middle of the road. Most of it was easy, but the ending in the first draft didn't work and required a lot of beating my head against the wall until I was able to get things to click together.

Firefight San Francisco signing ()
#5215 Copy

Questioner

When you do your outline, all the revelations and twists, do you always stick to your outline?

Brandon Sanderson

I do not. Now the difference between me and someone who's more of a discovery writer is I will rebuild my outline when I start going off of it. So what I'll usually do is I'll try-- if I think I'm gonna break the outline, I'll try a chapter that direction, see if I like it. If I do I'll then rebuild the outline and then go forward on it.

Questioner

Do you ever refer back to your previous book?

Brandon Sanderson

Definitely. Usually what I'll do is I make an outline for the first book, I'll write the first book, and then I will outline the series. That's very common for me.

JordanCon 2016 ()
#5217 Copy

Questioner

I believe you've said that you've toyed with the idea of writing books more like Secret History from other characters' viewpoints. Would you consider doing one for Marsh, like, during the events after the Ascension of Harmony to The Alloy of Law?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's a possibility, people have asked me for a Marsh viewpoint before. I would like to do more Marsh. So, we would have to see-- Like, when I do-- if I can find the time for it, Secret History 2-- Mistborn: Secret History 2, that would cover time before the start of Era 2 and it's possible I can slip in some Marsh. I mean, in Secret History we got some Spook, so…

Bands of Mourning release party ()
#5220 Copy

Questioner

So the surprise with Lessie at the end of the last book [Shadows of Self], at what point did you know-- Like did you know that in... writing Alloy of Law?

Brandon Sanderson

I knew that at the end of Alloy of Law. So what I do is I write a book, and then I go and build a series out of it. So I wrote Alloy of Law. I then built a series out of it, then I went and wrote the prologue to Alloy of Law. And then I released Alloy of Law. I did a revision too to make sure it was all in there. And so, actual writing of Alloy of Law? No. By the time I'd done the revisions on Alloy of Law? Yes. And then I built the three book outline that would be the trilogy you are now in the middle of.

And Mistborn had some similiar things where I wrote the first book, then outlined second two, and revised the first one, then wrote the second two. It works really well for me doing that with a trilogy, because you get some spontaneity for the first book, and you know how the characters are and you can build a larger framework for them.

Skyward San Diego signing ()
#5221 Copy

Questioner

You mentioned White Sand Volume 3. Do we have a release date for that?

Brandon Sanderson

We do not have a release date but the script is done. We like the script. We've fixed slatrification, we hope. The ending is much improved over the novel in our humble opinions.

Questioner

You published that as part of Arcanum Unbounded--

Brandon Sanderson

Just a sample. If you want to read the whole prose edition, just sign up for the newsletter. It sends you a link to download it. Or you can just ask from the 17th Shard. I let them distribute that. The ending of that has one really good element and one really bad element, and we took out the bad element and focused on the good element. I think it really kinda came together.

Footnote: Correction: The 17th Shard is not currently allowed to distribute the prose version of White Sand.
#white sand vol 3
Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
#5222 Copy

MarlonRand

Also, how did the experiment with Warbreaker turn out, and are you planning to do this with any other things you write?

Brandon Sanderson

It's so hard to tell, sales-wise, how it helped or hurt. I don't, honestly, think it hurt—and I think it could only have helped, as more and more WoT readers turned their eyes on me and were able to grab a book to read for free. I do plan to do it again in the future, most likely with the Warbreaker sequel.

Skyward Chicago signing ()
#5223 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Where are Brandon Sanderson properties as far as other media are concerned? So let's run down them.

Fox has The Reckoners. I don't know how being bought by Disney affects that at all. But they have been very enthusiastic about The Reckoners for many years, and I hope that they will continue to be.

MGM has Snapshot, which is lesser-known, it's like a cross between The Matrix and Se7en. It's very different for me. They are very far along, they have a really excellent screenplay, and that one, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the first one that gets made. Which would be kind of odd if the first Brandon Sanderson property is a serial killer thriller.

Speaking of thrillers, Legion is owned by a group, they just bought it this summer, and last I heard they were working on showrunners and had somebody interested, so that is in a good place also. We probably have to change the name, now that Marvel has a Legion show.

The Cosmere is owned by DMG Entertainment, whom I love. They have been great to work with. The Cosmere is very difficult to adapt. They have been good partners in trying to find the right way to adapt that. Nothing is off the table. I still think it's most likely that we would see Stormlight as a television show, Mistborn as a movie, but these things are still in the foundational stages, just of getting screenplays that we like and things like that.

I think that is everything right now. I'll do a bigger thing on my blog in December where I catch anyone up.

Any more board games? There was a Stormlight board game, and we have backed off on that because some of the early things we got, we didn't like the direction it was going. We have really liked the two board games that have come out. They have both turned out really well. They have both fulfilled their Kickstarter requirements, which is one of our number one things, we don't want to have that hanging over people. So they've both been really great partners. I still would like to see Stormlight, we were going to do a Shattered Plains style game. We'll see how that goes.

Arched Doorway Interview ()
#5225 Copy

Rebecca Lovatt

And do you have to do a lot of research for the magic systems or is most of it just imagination?

Brandon Sanderson

It really depends on the magic. For instance with some of them I need to work out the physics. For Mistborn, I often have to go my assistant and say, "Peter, go do the math." I used to have to look at the math myself and things like that. Mistborn magic is very science-derived, so looking at the math is essential.

Stormlight Three Update #4 ()
#5226 Copy

Argent

The name Bleeder - does it come from (the incorrect) idea that bleeding a patient can make them feel better? And so Paalm sees herself as the one who needs to bleed Elendel to make it healthy?

Brandon Sanderson

The idea of "bleeding" as we had on earth as a custom of medicine did not exist on scadrial. But the idea in your post isn't too far off.

Oversleep

What do you think about translating 'Bleeder' as 'barber surgeon'? It's the Polish translation (and the term is one-word and sounds really well). I think the translators went with the same train of thought as Argent did and since Bleeder has already described herself as a kind of surgeon - her comments about cleaning the wounds being more painful than the cut itself and so on. Is this a "on spot" translation or is it far off?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's not a bad translation at all. I like it.

Calamity Chicago signing ()
#5227 Copy

Questioner

[...] The [...] written on a Shard, is there a correspondence [correlation] between that and when the Blades, and the armor in Words of Radiance and The Way of Kings [...] on a Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup, yup.  There is a direct correlation there.

Questioner

The Shard...

Brandon Sanderson

I mean the naming convention is the same naming convention.

Questioner

[from…Radiant...]

Brandon Sanderson

I haven’t answered that yet, and I’ll remain close-lipped on it for now.

Questioner

Where did the worldhoppers get their powers, because if all powers come from the Shards, and the Shards came from the breaking of Adonalsium, so how can Hoid have his powers before...

Brandon Sanderson

That is correct.  So before the breaking there was magic in existence.  For instance, the spren on Roshar, some of them predate the breaking-- the Shattering.

Questioner

So, if spren are caused by thoughts, and the Shards caused some of the humans, and humans cause thoughts, then there were people alive before

Brandon Sanderson

Then there were people on Roshar before the breaking of Adonalsium.

Goodreads February 2016 YA Newsletter Interview ()
#5232 Copy

Cade

Brandon, what has been the influence of your LDS religion on your writing? Have aspects of Mormon doctrine been incorporated into your worldbuilding?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm very interested in the concepts of religion and the ideas that surround it, and I often find myself writing books that deal with things I'm interested in myself. I allow the themes of books like these to grow naturally out of the world I've built and out of the stories that I want to tell. Specifically, I kind of let the characters decide what the themes of a book are going to be. I don't go into it saying, "I'm going to write about this," but the worlds that I create betray my own interests very strongly.

What is it about faith and deity? This is something that is unique about us as human beings, something very interesting to me, and it felt like this area was an open space to explore in fantasy in ways that hadn't been done before. I always find myself gravitating toward things that I feel haven't been explored as much as they could have been. That interests me and fascinates me.

JordanCon 2016 ()
#5233 Copy

Questioner

So I noticed in Mistborn Era 1, there-- the head guard of the Venture House was a man named Felt.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Well… yeah.

Questioner

He was in the guards.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

There's also a character in Words of Radiance--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes!

Questioner

--a scout called Felt. Is that the same person?

Brandon Sanderson

It is the same person. *audience murmurs/laughs*

Moderator

You didn't repeat that one.

Brandon Sanderson

Is the Felt from Mistborn the same as the Felt from Stormlight. Yes it is.

That's one of the two things I can remember surprising Peter. Which was, when he's like, "This name is kind of interesting. It's kind of different. You sure you want to use this? Shouldn't he have more of a Vorin name?" I'm like, "Go read back in Mistborn." He's like "OH!" *laughter* I'm always happy when I surprise Peter, because-- The other big one that surprised Peter was when I put Vasher into Stormlight, right? He's like, "Huh... Vasher-- Vasher is in Stormlight?" And I'm like, "Go read Way of Kings Prime." Which he had read, which is the Way of Kings I wrote in 2002, where lo and behold Kaladin's swordmaster is Vasher, named Vasher at that point. He hadn't realized that I had written Warbreaker after as a exploration of this character who'd already been in The Stormlight Archive. Those are the two things I can remember Peter not catching about the cosmere. He gets most everything but those two surprised him.

Skyward Denver signing ()
#5236 Copy

Questioner

The Necromancer's Pizza. How's that going?

Brandon Sanderson

It's going really well. Though the pizza part is getting written out a little bit, because he's turning more into a necromancer heavy metal singer. And the pizza was so much fun, but it's not working as well as I wanted it to, but the book is working really well. So I would expect that one to come out sooner rather than later. It's turned into a really cool thing with a lot of interesting aspects to it.

SpoCon 2013 ()
#5238 Copy

Questioner

How much are you willing to reveal about Hoid and worldhoppers?

Brandon Sanderson

So, for those who aren't aware, there is a... People noticed really early on, it did not take them long, that a character from Elantris actually showed up in Mistborn. And they assumed it was just me reusing the name, until this character kept showing up and kept being involved in things tangentially. If you've read The Way of Kings, it's the King's Wit. It is the guy named Dust, who... did I name him Dust? I just changed his name to Hoid. He's the storyteller in Warbreaker who tells stories with dust. He's the old beggar that has the shadowed that Sarene talks to in Elantris, that she sends in with supplies into the city. So, this same character kept showing up. And then other characters kept showing up. Like Galladon's in The Way of Kings, if you missed that. He's a character from Elantris.

So, the question is, how much am I willing to reveal? What I'm willing to reveal is what goes in the books. People like yourself, and these indivdiuals, have made a profession out of teasing extra hints out of me. Because I write the books too slowly, apparently. How much am I willing to reveal? Well, what I want to reveal, I've put in the books. But I will say other things when people ask questions, and they can tease them out of me.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 ()
#5239 Copy

Satsuoni

You said that every person on Scadrial has a bit of Preservation in them. It is possible, then, to accumulate enough Hemalurgic charge from killing normal people by, say, steel spike (at once, or in order), to make that spike grant Allomancy? Building on this, is it possible for the spike to accumulate charge while being imbedded in acceptor body, by killing people with the protruding end?

Brandon Sanderson

My, you're making the Scadrial magic systems sound a lot like the one from Nalthis.... Hm....

Galley Table Podcast interview ()
#5240 Copy

Phillip Carroll

I think Zach designed Flagship around his beliefs. Our goal is to have stories that are uplifting, that are a positive nature. You know, there's a dark side to everything, but we want it coming out as a positive experience, or outlook on mankind. He mentions that Dave Farland says you need to make moral choices about what you write, and what you advocate in your books. Do you feel like you have that opinion as well? Do you feel like your religion flows over into your writing at all at any point?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. I don't go into books with a message. At the same time, I like to read about heroism, and I like to read about moral choices. I like to read about all spectra of moral choice, honestly. I like to approach an issue and say, you know there's going to be five or six valid points on this same issue, and everyone is going to think that their side is the moral side, and I want, in my books, each one to have a legitimate ground to stand on. I don't want to be picking a side necessarily; I want to be offering the item up for discussion. I think that true morality is making you think and consider your actions as opposed to just doing them, and I think there's a real strong morality to forcing you to see other perspectives and other sides. So I would say that I like my fiction to be moral but from that definition of moral. I don't look at my fiction as necessarily teaching people which way to act, though I do think about it a lot. I think about what my role is as someone who is writing fiction that people are reading and experiencing, and what influence I have over them, and what responsibility that affects upon me. These are all very important things that I think about quite a bit. At the end of the day I want to tell a great story about characters you care about, who sometimes think differently than you do.

JordanCon 2018 ()
#5241 Copy

Argent

Do Feruchemical metalminds experience physical change such as wear and tear, due to just being used as Feruchemical metalminds

Brandon Sanderson

Never thought of it.

Argent

Do you want to make up canon?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure...

Argent

Half-canon?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's say half-canon. Wear and tear being used as metalminds, not counting clasping them on and things like that. Simply tapping or taking out? I would say no, but I would really have to think about that. Are we losing any particles to the transfer, the change? I don't think you are, but I don't know. I'd have to really dig into the physics of that. I had not even considered of that. There are ramifications of things-- So I'm going to say no, half-canon.

Shadows of Self release party ()
#5243 Copy

Questioner

Why have we not seen strong emotions like love or hatespren?

Brandon Sanderson

So. *pause* That's a good question, it actually is something I've considered a lot. Spren, it's hard to explain, but I'm going to try and vocalize it. It's partially that s-- that emotions that are like that are so individual to each person that you can't as easily create an identity for the Rosharans in their collective unconscious, if that makes sense? That they're just so-- and they're so ubiquitous that it didn't end up working the right way. That doesn't mean that they don't exist, but it's just not the same sort of ubiquity of some of the other ones. And I treat spren like races. Of animals. It's like saying "Well why didn't an animal grow that looks like a cat but has floppy ears?" or something like that. Well it just didn't happen, right? The organic nature of it-- There's no reason it couldn't have happened, and maybe you say "That's a fox, Brandon" but there's certain creatures that could have grown in our world that didn't and it's kind of a mixture between those two things. I kind of had to decide I didn't want a spren for everything for those reasons. And I wanted some spren to be really, really rare. And so you might see like a lovespren, but it doesn't pop out for puppy love, does that make sense? Or you might feel it, but there are none of those in the Cognitive Realm nearby, so they just don't show up.

Calamity Houston signing ()
#5244 Copy

Questioner (paraphrased)

I've never actually read any of your books

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That's okay

Questioner (paraphrased)

How would you rate your books versus others?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I don't pump them up too much or you're sure to be disappointed no matter what. I'd say compared to other books, they're a little bit awesome.

Calamity Seattle signing ()
#5245 Copy

Questioner

neuroatypicals

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, my pleasure. She says that she has Asperger's and when she read the book The Bands of Mourning, and the other ones that have Steris in them, she identified a lot with Steris. I appreciate that.

Questioner

Brandon Sanderson

What research did I do, did I talk to autistic people. I have several people in my life who actually have Asperger's specifically, and they were a huge resource, as you might imagine. One of the things that I like to do, kind of a mandate I have in my fiction, is to try to get people who are heroic who have different types of psychology than we usually see in heroes. Because the more I've lived in life, the more I've realized that we all are really distinctive in our own way, and our psychology all works differently. And yet we see a lot of heroes that all kind of have the same brain chemistry, it seems. Which has always felt really weird to me. And so it's kind of one my mandates to do that.

What research did I do? When I was in college, one of my favorite things to do was sneak into classes I wasn't signed up for, and the psychology classes were my favorite. This friend, who coincidentally was the one who wanted to be a chef, actually got a psychology major. His parents were "You should do something useful with your life." and so he got a psychology major, which he ended up going to med school. He didn't become a chef, he went to med school. He likes that too. But I would sneak into his classes and they were so useful as a writer, just listening to the different types, and to start to see personality not as-- We like to look at a lot of things as being normal or abnormal, but that's not the way it is. Everyone's personality is on this interesting spectrum and what is normal and what is abnormal is completely a matter of perspective. Where you stand on this line as opposed to-- It's like trying to make a value judgement that shouldn't really exist. And to come to see these personalities as great swathes of interesting color is what the psychology classes taught me. And so there was that and I did do some specific research for Steris and then I interviewed people as well.

I'm glad that you picked up on it without me ever having to say what she was, and things like that. That's when I really feel like I've nailed something, when you can read something and say "Yeah that's who this person is" instead of someone outside pointing and saying "this is who this person is, who they are"