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Daniel Greene

If you could write a script for any superhero, who would you like to control a story for? 

Brandon Sanderson

Oh what a great question. I did actually see a comment on YouTube, by the way, Daniel, where apparently in one of your videos, you're like, "Brandon made a really shrewd marketing move by putting Kelsier in Fortnite," and then I released my thing where I'm like: "Yeah, Donald [Epic Games Worldwide Creative Director] and I were hanging out, being like, hey, why don't we put Kelsier in Fortnite, we like, yeah, it'd be fun!"

It was a super shrewd marketing move on my part to go to dinner with my friend. 

It can be both. Yeah, we were actually chatting about my son wanting to put something in Fortnite, but can't decide. And you know we ended up with Kelsier instead. Dalin can still do something if he wants, but getting him pinned down on what he wants to do...

So what superhero would I want to write for? I would most likely pick Superman because I feel like he is the most challenging to write for and make work, and I feel like my talents would match that pretty well, but it would probably be like a weird colored kryptonite story - like a red kryptonite thing where it's like "Superman's powers have been changed in a funky and interesting way," and also let's deal with why Superman stories can be so difficult; and write that.

Obviously that would be a bad like film sort of thing, but it would work well in a running comic where it's one installment because it's so different from the norm. 

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Vin Reminisces about Her Early Days with the Crew

There's a lot to talk about here. First off, this is one of several nostalgia chapters I threw into this book. When I worked on the second book, I missed getting to write about some of the themes from the first book. Gone were the balls and a lot of the banter, and Kelsier's death removed one of the series' most dynamic characters.

When I got to this book, I wanted to see if I could blend what worked well in the first book with what worked well in the second book—and then, of course, add some things unique to this book. Among the most charming parts of the first book were the balls and the noble society.

So here we get to have Vin contemplate those days as a slight foreshadowing to gear us up for a few scenes that hark back to those days. As this is the final volume of the trilogy, I think it's very appropriate to recapture some of the tendrils from the first book and weave them in.

Questioner

I was curious what the-- or if you had an inspiration for the scene with Vin and Elend going to his father's camp and the talk about acceptance?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah a lot of these con-- these stories-- If you didn't hear it, there's a scene where Vin and Elend in Words of Radiance go to visit-- *crowd murmurs* not Words of Radiance *laughter* Well of Ascension! They both start with a "W" I'm running out of letters to start books with. Yeah it's a good problem. So they go to talk to Straff and there's a lot of discussion about acceptance and just kind of things I was thinking about at the time and think about a lot. One of the things is "I hope people enjoy this, if not you're just going to have to deal with it." I work out what I'm thinking about life through the voices of my characters. And it's something I really look for in books as well, I do want a little philosophy with my fantasy. And, y'know, it's not that I'm trying to answer those questions, but I'm working on them. And the characters, because they have a different perspective from myself--because the characters don't voice what I think, they voice what they think about something I'm thinking about--and that really kind of helps me think about it and talk through it. And it's one of the reasons I write books, besides doing awesome stuff.

Questioner

So, kind of a support question... The nature of Investiture and metals, is it just solid Investiture that's metal or is all Investiture some kind of state of metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So this gets back into your idea of metal. Do they all represent metal? Well, I'm fascinated by states of matter, if you can't tell, and I'm fascinated by groupings on the periodic table in our world. I am fascinated by how certain things share... properties with one another but not other properties. When I was building the cosmere, I loved this idea of this pure Investiture, this solid state Investiture which looks like metal, but its not a metal that would be on our periodic table, and none of them are, but they share some properties with metals. You look at it and you're like "That's a metal!" But is it? Well it wouldn't go on the periodic table in our world. It's its own thing. 

So yes and no. 

Billy Todd

Is that similar to the way that a Rosharan calls all birds "Chickens"?

Brandon Sanderson

No, the way that Rosharans call all birds "chickens" or all alcohols "wines" is actually me maybe feeling more clever than I am, putting in seeds from book one that-- This just happens in linguistics, where certain words sometimes narrow in definitions, other times they broaden in definition. Just how we call Googling something, searching for it. There are people who are joking that movies are just going to be called Disneys in the future. I love the linguistics of this, and I wanted to indicate that the word for "bird" just spread through Roshar as "chicken" because those were the birds that they knew about. And wine was a pretty good one. There aren't grapes on Roshar, right. They call them "wine"; none of it's wine. You wouldn't call any of it wine. Because they don't have grapes. But this is a word from a planet from when they used to have grapes, that they used for this thing, that eventually replaced the word and became the generic. You see it more often in our languages the other way, Peter can talk more about this. Words will become more and more narrow over time.

Windrunner Savant

Could you write in there what Hoid would think of Khriss.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, Hoid knows Khriss, so.

Brandon Sanderson

*written in book* Hoid thinks well of Khriss.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, and by the way. People often ask me how far ahead I plan my novels. Well, I've noted already in this annotation that some things–such as the Kelsier-Marsh-Mare relationship–come to me as I write. They appear when I need something to fill a particular hole in the story. Other things, however, are quite well planned. Want an example?

Kelsier's warning about not flaring metals too much is a foreshadowing for book three of the trilogy. You'll see what I mean in a couple of years. Also, there's something very important about Vin's brother that will be hard to pick out, but has been foreshadowed since the first book. . . .

Mason Wheeler

I always sort of got the impression that there were maybe... *waves hand* a dozen or so worldhoppers around *inaudible*. Now this [Arcanum Unbounded] completely blows that idea away.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Mason Wheeler

Approximately how many worldhoppers are there in the Silverlight community when Khriss is writing these essays?

Brandon Sanderson

The Silverlight community is a full-fledged city.

Mason Wheeler

Alright... Well, that could be anything.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, it's not a village; it's a city. I'm gonna let you have a RAFO on the rest until I write the story set there. Let's say we're talking about much larger than people might have originally assumed. But not everyone in Silverlight is a worldhopper. You've got people who are-- that have been born there, and raised their whole lives there, and died there.

Questioner

I know Peter has talked about it on-- he hinted something on one of your posts on Reddit. I obviously can't say anything, but-- Stormlight Archive tabletop RPG?

Brandon Sanderson

I can't-- we are working on that. Yeah, there is one in the works. We aren't gonna do a lot of talk about it until we make sure that it's prototyped, that it's going well, that the deals are all in business... But it is in the works. We had a really good experience releasing a board game for Mistborn, and this is someone else, but since it worked out so well doing it once, it's a realm we're willing to continue playing in.

Cheyenne Sedai

What research about the aethers is Xisis hoarding?

Brandon Sanderson

His biggest interest is how aethers break down, and he's really researching the water cycle, and trying to figure out how the seethe happens, because he's very interested in the decomposition of aethers, which is what's causing the seethe. That's what he is hoarding there. He's got quite the establishment in Silverlight as well. Silverlight was once upon a time a bunch of dragon palaces, they all still have their skyscrapers there, basically. He's taking a little detour for some decades on Lumar, but his home base would be in Silverlight.

Cheyenne Sedai

That kind of answers my follow up question, that was, is his scholarly seclusion typical of dragons, or just something unique to him?

Brandon Sanderson

He's taken a bit of seclusion, but I wouldn't say... There's a whole bunch of different things about dragons. If you've got a Tamu Kek, you can contact them, you can pray to them, and they can actually influence your emotions. They're all kind of like little mini gods. They're not immortal immortal, but they're pretty long lived and functionally immortal. They've been around for a while doing all kinds of stuff, so there's all kinds of things going on with them. Some of them will be secluded. Some of them take their duties very seriously, like Frost takes his duties very very very seriously. Other ones just don't care. You will get some themes with dragons, they do like bargains, they do tend to have their interests, they do tend to collect people and have either followers or corporations or things like that--I don't want to go too cyberpunk on us, but yeah. You'll notice some themes the more you get to know them.

I will warn you, in the cosmere, there are more Anne McCaffrey style dragons, lesser dragons if you want, that do not have a human form. The greater dragons, as well call them, they're basically like amphibians, they have to spend a part of their life cycle in a humanoid form. They give birth in humanoid form, then have a transformation in puberty to dragon form, and then can go back and forth after that. But we've got some Anne McCaffrey style dragons, we've even got some little drakelings on one planet that are not six limbed and stuff like that. We'll eventually have some more dragons, but when I was writing the early books in the cosmere, we were a little dragon flooded with Eragon and How to Train Your Dragon, so I didn't write the dragon stories. But maybe some day.

Cheyenne Sedai

That's fascinating. And also, that means we got our Tamu Kek, which seems to be a theme with these because we always have a Tamu Kek somewhere.

Brandon Sanderson

One of the few ways to have an ansible in the cosmere in the early days, pre technology, if you wanted to communicate between planets, this is one of the only ways. Really handy to get a hold of one of those, or to get some seons. Before we get technological solutions, those were your two main ways to communicate across planets.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifty-One

Vasher Considers Killing Lightsong

I remember reading a book a few years back where the heroes are separated from one another. One group of them is doing something clandestine, while another group is traveling in the area posing as ordinary peasants. Neither knows what the other is up to.

Well, some soldiers capture the ones posing as peasants, then go and talk to the main group of heroes. The main group says, "Well, I guess we'll have to kill those poor peasants who inadvertently passed by and discovered we have an army here." It's supposed to be dramatic irony, I believe. The protagonists nearly end up killing one another through a cruel twist of fate. (The group posing as peasants avoid death, however, for reasons I can't quite remember.)

Anyway, I put the book down shortly after. I didn't remember the scene I'd read until writing this particular one. Why wouldn't Vasher just kill Lightsong, thereby ending the war?

Because that's not a good solution. It's a shortsighted one. If you do terrible things in the name of trying to do what is right, I think you'll just end up creating bigger problems. Vasher couldn't have killed Lightsong, not and remain the man he wants to be. He knows this, I think. Even a man with the reputation of Lightsong is not someone you can kill just because he's inconvenient to you. Not if you want your conscience to go untarnished.

And if innocent peasants happen to spy your good-guy army, there are much better actions to take than deciding to execute them in the name of the greater good. You do that, and you stop being heroes. (That's not necessarily a book killer. It's only one if you expect me to keep on reading and still consider your characters heroic.)

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Sixty-Four

"You did well, Spook."

Yes, that's Kelsier's voice at the beginning. As I said in a previous annotation, he can't help but meddle.

There is an afterlife in this cosmology I've built, and Kelsier's in it. He never has been able to leave well enough alone. He saw, here, that a piece of the puzzle needed to be put together, so he stepped in and tried to get through to Spook about it.

Spook was the only one in the crew he could speak to. That's because Spook truly has faith in Kelsier as a deity—which, for these few weeks between Preservation's death and the coming of the Hero of Ages, Kelsier is.

Windrunner

Threnody and Scadrial are both noted as having unusally bright patches of stars in their skies. Are these two planets near to one another?

Brandon Sanderson

They are both seeing the same thing, yes.

Windrunner

Does this mean that Threnody and Scadrial are part of the same system, or are these bright patches visible from other worlds as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Visible from other worlds as well. The cosmere is a relatively small place (on a galactic scale, that is.) We'll publish the star map when that becomes relevant in a decade or so.

Questioner

Do you find it hard working with multiple publishers and multiple houses?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I find it hard working with multiple publishers… and multiple houses as a writer? Uh, yes there are some hard parts to it. I do two tours a year instead of one, because I have two publishers now-- And that's rough. Every time one publisher asks for something the other one is like "Well we want that to" so I'm going to BEA, that's the Book Expo, and the other is like "Well you have to come to this thing for us". So it fills my time a lot more, which is hard. But at the same time it is also very nice because it gives me a little more credibility with both. That they both know that they kind of have to make me happy. That is pretty nice. And there is also the peace of mind that if for some reason one of things I was doing tanked I've always got another one. That was much more important to me early in my career, when I was doing the Alcatraz books with Scholastic and the epic fantasies with Tor.

Gordon Kelsch

Can Dalinar permanently bring someone back from the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

No. In fact, whether or not the voices he is hearing are legitimately voices from Beyond the Spiritual Realm, or if they're a manifestation much like the visions that the Stormfather creates, where Dalinar's desire for certain things is basically creating... So when Dalinar goes into the visions, what's going on there is: these are not people with autonomy that he is interacting with. These are Investiture manifesting a basic AI that is able to adapt, cause Investiture kind of can do this.

Dalinar would argue, "Yes, that's the case except for when I actually met Nohadon. That character felt different, that felt like the real Nohadon stretching through the Spiritual Realm and actually interacting." Jasnah would say, "No, that's because, Dalinar, you have such, in your mind, a hope and desire to see Nohadon, he's this mythological figure in your head, that basically the Stormfather's knowledge of who he actually was was creating this much more animated puppet that was more like actually how Nohadon was, but was based on knowledge of the spren and the Investiture that you're interacting with." And Dalinar would say, "I heard Evi's voice." Jasnah would say, "You heard the Investiture coming to life and speaking with her voice the things you needed to hear. And it wasn't that the Stormfather was like, 'He needs to hear this, I'm going to create this fake.' But it's instead your relationship with this magical force that does take on life of its own, manifesting this thing." Which one it is, I do not answer. Both are, I consider, equally valid interpretations of the text, and equally valid interpretations of the magic system.

Once someone is passed into the Beyond, there is no force that can bring them back, according to people's understanding of the magic system. There is even the argument that Cognitive Shadows are not the person. That the Cognitive Shadow is indeed a spren with the memories and an imprint of the person's personality that becomes self aware and continued on living that person. It's kind of the same question that arises in Star Trek. When you are ripped apart and rebuilt piece by piece with the transporter, some people in Star Trek do not believe you are becoming the same person again. You are then a different individual who has been cloned from the person and had the memories attached. Functionally, in the narrative, for the reader, it's the same. Is it the same soul or not? That question is answered differently by different people in the Cosmere. There are equally valid interpretations from the reader. You get to decide, basically. You get to decide, just like if there's a story where a person's brain is uploaded to a computer, you get to decide: is that the same person? Because we can't do that, we don't know. Is that the exact same individual, or is that a computer simulation of that person, where the person has died? That's what a Cognitive Shadow essentially is, but using Cosmere physics instead of theoretical science fiction physics.

Brandon Sanderson

Spook's Message

Here is the connection between the groups, and the reason I wrote the Spook sections.

Well, that's not completely true. I wrote the Spook sections because I found him a compelling character, with a new way to use the magic and an interesting story to tell. I liked how his story played against Sazed's conflicts, and what the work in Urteau said about the overall message of the book.

However, the piece that connects the storylines and brings them together is very important too. Spook knows about things that Vin does not, and so we begin to thread these different viewpoints together. We've already had Marsh and Vin's scenes ram together, as well as Sazed's and TenSoon's. Now we'll weave Spook in too.

Questioner

Are you planning on doing more graphic novels, outside of the White Sand series?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, there's a couple of things here. Like, we don't want to do another one 'til White Sand is done. They come to us and said, "We wanna do more!" because White Sand sold so well. We're like "No, you finish what you have, then we'll look at doing it." So, we're exploring other options, but we won't start any until what we've started is finished. I really wanna do the story I had for Mistborn, the video game, as a graphic novel with Ben McSweeney.

Himenss

Do you choose cover arts for your books yourself or you give your artist to choose. As for Oathbringer, why that particular moment with Jasnah was chosen? I like the cover, but I guess I wanted the see Dalinar , who would be more appropriate for this book.

Brandon Sanderson

With most books these days, I suggest scenes and take a more hands-on approach. Michael Whelan, however, is one of those that I generally step back from and let him do his thing and try not to meddle too much. I DID note to him, though, that we've so far not matched the book to the character. (Kaladin's book got Dalinar and Eshonai on the cover, while Shallan's book got Kaladin.) So it made sense, actually, to have Jasnah here.

yulerule

If Marasi and Wayne are standing near each other, and made a speed bubble….

Brandon Sanderson

They’d cancel each other out.

yulerule

Totally cancel each other out?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, if they make it the same size. If not, they will make like a Venn diagram thing.

yulerule

If they overlap completely, the circle overlaps each other completely, it'd cancel each other out? I mean, they could walk forward freely?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they could probably.

yulerule

Because they are still burning the metals, so is there something still going on?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is still something going on, but it is negating one another. But no, she’s got a point because you could drop one, well, I suppose you could just put one up. If there were a reason that were important, then yes, you could do that.

yulerule

But otherwise nothing’s happening.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you’re not passing the barrier, and having the jolt of power.

yulerule

So something could really cross the barrier? Because it is there but not there.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, but if you are completely negating and running at the same power then yes.

Brandon Sanderson

Butler's betrayal

Yes, the butler is a traitor. It's a cliche, but it fit the narrative very well, so I went ahead and used it. I don't think a lot of people will see it coming, though there are several clues. One of them is the fact that he makes only one cup of tea here and brings it for Wax; Tillaume is not accustomed to killing people, and he's extremely nervous in this scene. That's why he made the mistake of not making three cups and bringing them all over. (My writing group caught this, which amused me. They thought it was a mistake in the writing, though.)

One of the things that made me want to write this story, and keep going on it after I'd started, was the chance for good banter between Wax and Wayne. They play off one another well, and I haven't had a chance to do a book in a while (ever since the first Mistborn book, really) that had a good, long-established relationship between main characters who I could play off each other in this way. There is something deeply satisfying for me about this kind of writing, even though it's really just silly banter. I feel as proud of moments like Wayne toppling over because of the tea, then the conversation in the speed bubble, as I do of a deep character complexly coming to a character climax at the height of a story. That's because, at least as I see it, this is as technically difficult to pull off—the right feel of two characters with a very long relationship, talking in a way that conveys their years of experience with one another. And, at the same time, hopefully being amusing and interesting.

It's very dense writing, for all the fact that it doesn't read that way. (Unlike, for example, a really good section of dense description, laden with meaning.) Part of the reason it works is because it feels so easy to the reader.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fourteen

Yes, it was probably stupid of the crew to leave Elend alone with Tindwyl. I pushed this situation a little bit farther than, perhaps, is plausible. However, you have to remember how the Terris people are regarded by those in Luthadel. Terrismen are, in general, such kind and loyal servants that it’s hard for Elend and the others to feel distrust for one.I was very pleased with this scene when I wrote it. I'd known from the beginning that I wanted to bring another strong female character into this book, as well as give Elend a mentor for kingship. Tindwyl fills both of those roles remarkably well. She also gives us another look at Terris culture–it's always difficult in a book like this to distinguish the cultures from the people. If you have only one Terrisman in a book, then he doesn't just represent himself–he represents all of his people. And so, unless you show another side of that culture, the person and where they come from become the same thing.

JWMeep

A question about Goradel. His end was very tragic, and was one of the things that had me in tears. The thing that really twisted the knife into me, is that he died that horrible death thinking that he had failed. When everything he tried to survive failed, his final act was to try to prevent the message into falling into Ruin's hands, but even that was futile. With those who seem to be active in the great beyond, did Goradel ever find out about what his actions helped to bring about? Was he ever thanked for his actions?

Brandon Sanderson

Well... I don't want to speak too much about the great beyond in the books, as in my opinion that level of cosmology is influenced by your own beliefs in the hereafter and in deity. Beyond that, I would rather not speak of what happens to the souls beyond the three Realms, as even Sazed doesn't know that.

Perhaps this will help, however. Like most of the leaders of soldiers in this series (Demoux, Wells, and Conrad included,) Goradel is based on and looks like one of my friends. In this case, it's Richard Gordon. He's read the book and cheered for his namesake's sacrifice and eventual victory. So the REAL Goradel knows. ;)

MoriWillow

Hello, I hope this message finds you well. I was wondering if you might be able to answer a question. Was going back through the Stormlight books in prep for Rhythm of War, and I realized I didn't actually understand what was happening with the Stormlight when someone used a Basic Lashing. What actually happens to the Stormlight in the creation and maintenance of a Basic Lashing? (Especially when someone is Lashing themselves?)

Brandon Sanderson

Whew. It's complicated. Basically, the magic is persuading the Lashed object that it is not actually bound to the gravity of the planet--but to the gravity of a supermassive object in the direction indicated. (But which doesn't actually exist.) Imagine it as a Lightweaving that creates an illusion, but the illusion is of something massive that only is seen by the Spiritual aspect of the Lashed object/individual.

It works pretty well inside of the cosmere's magical framework, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you approach it from the physics of our realm.

Brandon Sanderson

Interrogation And Torture

“Foolish, foolish Alcatraz” is a nod to Jeff Smith’s Bone. Give it a read, if you haven’t.

Also of note is Sing’s comment when Alcatraz is talking to Ms. Fletcher. Sing notes that Alcatraz is a little bit snide. That quip, for some reason, has been a favorite of readers ever since the first draft. I’m not completely sure why. Yes, it’s fun, but it seems to have gotten undue attention as a laugher. Sometimes you just can’t judge what will work for people and what won’t–or what will work really, really well.

And since I’m talking about little things here, let me mention Grandpa Smedry. Of course he shows up late, after Alcatraz gets tortured.

I worried that having the main character get tortured like this might be too graphic for a children’s book–but then I remembered some of the things I’ve read in children’s books lately. It seems to me that you shouldn’t pull punches because of the audience. There are words I change to make the vocabulary work for the age group, and some types of humor don’t work as well, but I don’t like talking down to anyone, even babies who can’t speak yet. Successful novels are ones that treat their readers with respect, regardless of age.

Alcatraz needed to go through this (and I know, it’s not really that graphic). It’s what the story needed. Heroes do get themselves into trouble. If standing up for people were easy, what would be the point of bravery?

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna Escapes

One of my big worries about the Vivenna sections is that she'll come off as too weak as a character. That's a particular danger once we reach these late middle sections, where it's revealed how much she's been manipulated. Remember that when you're reading the Vivenna sections, if she comes off weak compared to Siri, consider their relative circumstances.

Vivenna is put through a lot more in this book than Siri is. Why? Well, I felt that as a character, she had a lot more room to grow. In order to do that, however, she needed to have everything knocked out from underneath her. That happens primarily in this chapter and the next few.

But she is not helpless. Even while she's numbed by the capture and betrayals, she manages to effect not one, but two escapes. She handles herself very well, finally overcoming her problems with Awakening and managing to get her Breath to work for her. (And remember that the more Breath one has, the easier it is to learn to get Commands to work right. That will be important later in the book. . . .)

Rebecca Lovatt

Switching topics, your battle scenes are completely epic. Do you have to do a lot of research learning different battle stances and techniques?

Brandon Sanderson

I've done a lot of that in my life up to this point, so I draw on that. I write the scene and then I go to the experts. I read through sources and try to look for where I've done it wrong. I can usually do it right enough on the first write because of my experience, so that the first write is not fundamentally flawed, it's only flawed in little places.

I do a lot of reading of tactics and things like The Art of War, which was a very big help. A great place to get this type of thing is from good historical novels, but there are some good pop culture books as well. There's one I'm going to look up and email you about because I always forget the author, that you can read to give you an idea how different cultures have approached war.

It's sitting on my shelf--I can picture the cover, but now the name escapes me. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a famous one that is very good, but there is a better one on the history of warfare. I'll have to send the name of that to you later. [Confirmed later: it is A History of Warfare by John Keegan.]

Anyway, the pop science, pop history books I look at are more accessible than straight history books. They're written to be readable, for a mass audience, and they give me just enough to write the basics, and then I can polish the edges by going to an expert.

Rebecca Lovatt

Not one where you have to read through the dry crusty pages.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, and really what you are looking for is the concepts. How different cultures fund a war, how they treat a war, and then you really only need some basic tactics. What are the different types, why would people use cavalry and what was the importance of cavalry. You get that from reading the history of warfare. I remember when I read how important the stirrup was as an invention, being able to fire bows from horseback, and why that changed warfare.

Suddenly I could construct a battlefield where I could say oh, okay, now that I understand why the stirrup is important, I see why this unit is important, why having a cavalry is important. I can now have them enter my battlefield in a way that undermines what someone else is trying to do, because I know the importance of the stirrup. Learning just a few fundamentals like that is essential. What the difference was between the way the Romans approached war and the way a medieval army approached war, and why the introduction of peasant warriors was so important, and things like that.

Rebecca Lovatt

As well as the importance of stirrups, and how they can support the huge magical armor.

Brandon Sanderson

I still needed magical horses for that armor, but it's nice that I can have magically enhanced armor and make it all work together. The other big thing people have to remember about Roshar is it's point-seven gee, which helps a lot with things like this. 70% Earth gravity.

Rebecca Lovatt

Yeah, I feel like it might be a big more difficult with our gravity.

Brandon Sanderson

It would be definitely more difficult. In fact when they get off the planet it's going to be a different experience for them, going to something like Scadrial where they have Earth gravity.

Rebecca Lovatt

So is that something we are going to be seeing?

Brandon Sanderson

Eventually, but not for a while.

Rebecca Lovatt

Because I was thinking when the Cosmere starts concluding, just multi-Cosmere world battles kind of things...or?

Brandon Sanderson

These are in the works.

Rebecca Lovatt

No worming out information by coming up with theories on the spot?

Brandon Sanderson

You may come up with all the theories you want, but I'm not giving you any information.

Questioner

Can holders of Shards give them up voluntarily? If so, what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a Vessel for a Shard of Adonalsium can give up their power if they wish.

As for what would happen...well, there are some variables in there. Kind of like the variables in what happens to a bucket of water if you dump it out. Depends on where it falls, how strong the wind is, what the air is like.

Power dropped like this, if left alone, could end up Splintering and turning into something like spren/seons. It could become something more like the Stormfather--a large, self-aware entity. It could become something like the Dor or many of the Unmade--something proto-aware, but not truly an individual. There are other possibilities as well, depending on lots of factors. (Are sapient beings involved? what is being done with the power--is it concentrated in the Spiritual Realm as normal, or is it being pushed somewhere else?)

Questioner 1

So, last time you were here, I know that the Mistborn movie had kinda fell through. Any other nibbles, are we gonna see something?

Brandon Sanderson

Any other nibbles? ...So, Mistborn had just fallen through last time. We did resell Mistborn, and I've seen the treatment. So, the steps to getting a film made. Start with them giving me money. *laughter* The important part. Step two is usually a treatment, this is where they take the book and they do, not a full screenplay, but kind of a ten-page summary adaptation of what they're going to cut, what they're going to add, that they will then hand to a screenwriter. Next step would be to give that to the screenwriter that they hire, who they usually have hired, and have them do a screenplay of it. Next step then, generally, is going to people with lots of money and say "Hey, will you fund this?" Conversely, they can go to people who are content-makers, like a director or the talent, so to speak, or a star, and get them attached. So, when one of those happens, it's easier to get the other ones. And then, finally, is a green light. So, you can see, we're right at the beginning again. We had gotten to the screenplay stage last time, but the screenplays were just not that great, and the people who were doing it before were just not very powerful in Hollywood. I love them, they were great guys, but they came to me very early on, and so it was a longshot.

So, the new treatments are very good. I'm hopeful for what's happening there. For other things, we have The Emperor's Soul, in works with DMG. They worked with Marvel on the Iron Man films. They're a part of the funding company for those. We have just sold Steelheart to Fox. Specifically, to the producer and director of Real Steel (which is a great film, if you haven't seen it) and the Night at the Museum movies. And then, we have one more in the works... Legion. We have a Legion television show in the works.

So, as far as I know, the Wheel of Time rights have lapsed, and there's a discussion of what to do with those now. Because the people trying to make a film of those were not able to get a film made. They should have been doing a television show all along, I know, but-- Anyway. So there we are, that's how it stands, and the video game is still kinda spinning its heels as well.

Questioner 1

So, have they optioned the first trilogy, or just the first book? How does that work?

Brandon Sanderson

With Mistborn, they have optioned the entire thing. They basically optioned the whole world. Though, the people who have The Emperor's Soul, it's very fun, because they started to go down the cosmere rabbit hole. Yes, for those who don't know, my epic fantasy books are all connected, and they're all in the same universe. And so, their guy they assigned to it, the studio exec, read the book, and he's like, "Ah, there's some references to other things." And he went and read those, and he went and read those, and now he's read everything. He called me, and he's like, "Uhhhhh...." He's flown out twice to try to get a handle on the whole cosmere thing, what they can put in, what they can't put in. They wanna have a Hoid cameo at the very least, and stuff like that. So that's been very, very fun.

Questioner 2

Will you be able to advise on these movies? Do you have any creative control at all?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I have creative control, or can I advise? Well, in several of the contracts, mostly the Mistborn and the Emperor's Soul one, I have executive producer roles. In Hollywood, executive producer is the throwaway credit, though. That's one that they pat you on the head, bring out out, let you watch, and then they give you, like, a chair with your name on it you can take home or something, I don't know. They've been very easy to work with so far, so I have confidence that they would allow me, and in both contracts we got the requirement that I can come on-set anytime I want to, not just the one time, which is good. And they've taken my advice on the treatments. I am not powerful enough to get anything more than that. You have to be, like, two levels above me before you can really get any influence in Hollywood. Even, like, Tom Clancy, when he was starting, couldn't. JK Rowling could. And people like that. So, if I can get a good film made, and it takes off, I think all future contracts I'll have more influence, but right now I'm just kind of up to what they will let me.

Questioner

I'm actually a big YA reader, and I became a fan of yours through your YA books; I read The Reckoners first. And I actually found-- to put it in a nice way, some resistance from some of your fans because I like your YA stuff better. But I guess my question would be, what would you say to your readers that are really stuck on Stormlight or your older books that are reluctant to read either yours or other teen books?

Brandon Sanderson

It's really weird to say "adult fantasy" in this context. I once had a panel where they introduced me as the "adult fantasy guy," and I'm like, "Well, yes?"

...I would say, number one kind of most important thing in this is, "Don't feel bad for liking something and not liking something else." This is a big thing to me. It is okay that I hate fish sticks, and some people in this room love fish sticks. And if we acknowledge that writing is an art, and stories are an art, then I think we have to acknowledge that like or dislike of them must kind of have an inherent subjectiveness to it. Because if we all liked the same sort of art, that would not really be a world I want to live in. So it is okay to try things out and say, "This isn't for me." Whether it's written by me or anyone else, that is perfectly all right.

Though I would also say, if you haven't given a try to a genre just because of-- there's a lot of snobbishness to art, at the same time. Like, I was reading an essay recently about how fiction has existed in this state of feeling snubbed by nonfiction, which was the "true" writing, ever since the novel was invented. But of course, once the novel was invented, we started subsetting into different genres where you could be snobbish against other people in that. And then in the subgenres, you're like, "Science fiction is better than furry fanfic," or whatever. So suddenly, all we do is, we spend time being snobbish about somebody else's art that they love. And you see this a lot in science fiction with-- Someone enters reading Eragon, and they love Eragon, and they go somewhere and say, "Eragon's my favorite book ever." And they're like, "Oh, that's just a bad ripoff of Star Wars and Anne McCaffrey." Instead of being like, "Wow, I'm glad you loved something. Welcome to our community." They're like, "Oh, you don't like the right thing." So, if you kind of let this get to you, and you haven't tried any genre, whether it be one of the YA, or a lot of people in Sci Fi/Fantasy (I won't state the specific genres) like to point and say, "Well, at least we're not as tropey as them." I think you will find, in a lot of variety of places, things that you love and you can learn from. And YA in particular, particularly when I was trying to break in, YA had started doing all the really exciting things in Sci Fi/Fantasy. So if you haven't read some Garth Nix from that era, or if you haven't been reading some of the really cool YA. (I just read the Star Touched Queen, which is amazing.) If you haven't been reading some of this stuff, YA has been doing a lot of really cool explorations of setting and genre and stuff like that, then you are doing yourself a disservice not trying it out. You don't have to like it, but I would suggest that you try it out. So that's what I would say.

Timothy Ketting

If Adolin originally didn't have a significant role, was there another character that you planned to have a larger role, but changed your mind?

Brandon Sanderson

No. There's nobody whose role has been diminished. I mean, part of the reason the books are longer than I thought they would be is… Everyone likes to throw ( justifiably so) the quote of me where I'm l like “I think book one is going to be the longest,” right? I'm like “I don't think the others are going to be this long.” Well, turns out that adding another main character is one of the things that makes books go longer. When I'm like, “well I need to give a nice arc to Adolin in every book now,” and suddenly giving a nice arc to Adolin in every book means that we got tens of thousands of more words that we gotta write in every book. That's not the only reason, but that is one of the reasons why the entire series is longer, is because I did that.

Nobody's been diminished. I've only found room to expand, which I knew would happen. That's why I built the interludes the way I did, and why I moved things like Horneater to novellas—I do not want the side stories to overcome the main story. It's part of the reason we've got two bricks of five books, rather than one ten book arc—I worried that at that length, it would involve spinning of heels, rather than coming to actual conclusions and climaxes.

BlackYeti

The other thing is about the atmospheric composition, since-- Well on Earth we've got plants which supplies us with oxygen, which can't really exist on a planet like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. They can-- The plants on the other side grow really well, they're just adapted to UV. And they grow with the UV. And so a lot of the oxygen is happening there, and, of course, in the oceans.

BlackYeti

*audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, a lot of algae from the oceans, which is helping out. Oxygen content is pretty solid there. I mean, it's not Roshar which is high-oxygen.

Isaac Stewart

So the last thing we're going to be revealing is the artist for Secret Project 4. The artist is Ernanda Souza, she is from Brazil. The way that I met her is through Dan dos Santos' SmartClass that he does. An artist class, and this is made up of students and working professionals who go to people like Dan; there are other artists who run these sorts of things too through SmartSchool to get better and improve their craft. And they often have a visiting art director who gives them an assignment and then comes in and checks in on the artist. We kinda run it like you would an assignment in the real world.

Anyway, we were doing Skyward pieces and I noticed that Ernanda's Skyward piece was really well done; so well done we actually bought it from her. And then later on I was looking for an artist for Secret Project Number 4, and started seeing Ernanda's art around. At first I didn't make the connection. I showed Brandon some of the art and then I'm like, "wait a second! I already know this artist." That was a nice reveal. So, I contacted her, and she's excited about it.

I asked her to send me a few things about herself, and she says she has worked for Hit Point Press, Paizo, Upper Deck; she's illustrated for Magic the Gathering, has done cover art for Marvel Comics. You can see her breadth of style, that she can go very realistic like a Magic card, and then go over and do very comic, bright style, so she's very versatile. She also works as a concept artist and fantasy artist for video games and other projects that she can't announce. She did graphic design at a Brazillian university, but there she met other people doing digital art and that kinda set her off to going into the videogame market to work for indie RPG companies. She says: "I love to do art, I love the amount of possibilities to create something that sometimes can't be described through words, how drawing and painting can easily describe what words can't. Art and design are the first thing to call eyes' attention. Funny, since the world is driven more and more by technology and fast-paced rhythm, our inner selves still know how to appreciate color, harmony and draftsmanship."

So, very excited to be working with Ernanda on Secret Project Number 4.

Questioner

Will Kaladin and Kelsier ever meet? Will they get along if they did meet? Even if they don't meet, I am fascinated by the possibilities a Mistborn and a Windrunner could create by working together.

Brandon Sanderson

Whether they'll actually meet or not is a RAFO. I do not think they would get along very well. It takes a very special kind of person to get along well with Kelsier. Though you will, I promise, see Windrunners and Allomancers interact. (Technically, you already have, because Hoid is an Allomancer, but that's not what you're asking about.) You will see large clashes between various different magic systems in the future of the cosmere.

Jesse

I love stories in any medium, and I would love to tell one myself. But, I don't think I have anything in particular to say that hasn't been done a thousand times before. I invariably come across some story that already parallels my ideas. What makes a story worth telling even when its like has been done before?

Brandon Sanderson

The answer is simple: YOU are what makes your story worth telling. Harry Potter wasn't an original story, and yet told very well, it became an excellent series.

My suggestion to you is to ask what unique passions or life experiences you have that aren't found in the average fantasy book. This genre still has a lot of room to grow. A person passionate about sports could write a very different fantasy novel from one passionate about lawn care—assuming they take what they know and love and make us, as readers, come to know and love it as well.

Good luck!

Questioner

Peter actually said on the 17th Shard that we should ask you about this, we'll see if I get RAFO'd or not.

Would you share with me how Vasher lost his sword to Nale?

Brandon Sanderson

How Vasher...?

Questioner

Well uh "Zahel".

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, oh. *having far too much fun with this*

So how Zahel lost his "sword"...

Questioner

We're talking about the same thing here. So Nightblood. How did that get in-- how did that transfer over?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure why Peter's telling you to ask that, because--

Questioner

Well he said something about that maybe you could share a little bit about, I don't know...

Brandon Sanderson

There will be a lot of information in the book Nightblood about how some of these things came to transpire.

Brandon Sanderson

Back in update #3, I promised to check back with you mid summer. I'm here a little early, as this felt like a good point to let you know how your book is going. Yesterday, I finished Part One of the novel, which (at 111k words) puts us at just under the 28% mark, assuming the book is 400k words total. (The first book was around that; the next two were longer, so fair warning, the % may not be entirely accurate.)

The short, TLDR version, is this: Part One is done, the book is looking good, and I'm modestly confident in a 2020 release.

Read below for a more fiddly, numbers oriented analysis of how things are going.

I gave myself 10 months to do the rough draft as a hypothetical deadline. That is a little on the quick side, but doable. That translates to about 1300 words a day, if I were writing seven days a week. (Which I don't do--I usually manage to write new fiction four days a week, with one day dedicated to email, meetings, newsletters, grading student finals, that sort of thing.) Once in a while, I sneak in a little work on Saturday, but I don't count on it.

What this really means is during those four days writing time, I need to do about 9k total words to keep pace. This wordcount number, I should warn you, is more a way for me to judge my progress rather than it is an absolute requirement. The writing process needs to remain flexible, even for someone who likes a strong outline like myself, and while guidelines for wordcounts are helpful, I'm careful not to treat them like a factory quota, to be achieved regardless of quality.

They are helpful for pace, though. In an average week, I commonly do between 8k and 15k of writing, so this is a manageable goal. With that in mind, how is it going?

Well, as talked about in the last post, I started Stormlight about a month late because of some work I decided needed to be done on Starsight. That meant I started the book at about 44k words behind in April. Steady writing through April up until May saw me making up ground. When I flew to Germany for the tour there, I was 31k behind instead, and was feeling good about the progress.

Germany was, of course, a disaster for new writing. (Tours almost always are.) I got some work done on a sequel novella to Sixth of the Dusk, but no Stormlight writing. (Really complex narrative is difficult for me to do when traveling a lot, as it requires more focus than I can often give.)

When I got back, I had slipped to 52k words behind. I dove back in, and restored the writing grove for Roshar, and have made back most of that time. As of yesterday, I'm 33k words behind, assuming I want to have the rough draft done by January 1st. (Which is pretty much a must if I want to release the book in 2020.)

As before, I do need to give the warning that if the book needs more time, I WILL take it. I recognize that is what most of you would like anyway, so we'll see what happens. Part One, however, turned out very close to my plan--and I'm pleased with it. As I said, this book follows more of a Book One style plot than a Book Two or Three style plot. The characters will be mostly isolated doing their own thing in three separate plot lines, interwoven in the narrative, but with little interaction between them. In fact, the three different arcs should (if I work it out right) hit their climaxes at three different points, giving a more sequential hit of more intimate plot moments rather than one big enormous finale, like happened in Books Two/Three. (Not that there's anything wrong with that; I just prefer some variety. Book Five, as you should be able to guess, will be more like Books Two/Three than Books One/Four.)

So my next step is to dive into a revision of Part One. This will put us a little more behind, as it will take about a week--but it will let me get the first chunk (which is book length on its own) to Moshe for editing over the next few months. That way, we can use his time in parallel to mine, as well as let Karen do continuity edits and Peter (eventually) do an editorial pass.

If that works as it should, and if I do this with each part as I finish them, I'll have 3/4 of the book waiting with editorial work done on it come January 1st. That will let me dive into a third draft immediately.

My goal after the revision of Part One is to pick one of the character clusters mentioned in the previous updates, and work on it straight through to the end. (I'll probably pick the second arc, which should be around 80k words long and follow three viewpoint characters in their distinct plot sequence.)

As always, thanks for reading and for putting up with my eccentricities as a writer. As a note, like in the other posts, I will not be sending replies to my inbox--so apologies if I miss something you say in this thread.

Questioner

Where did you get your inspiration for having kind of a kind of consistent universe; it's kind of similar to Stephen King and things like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, where did I get the inspiration for that? There's a couple of places, and I don't want to go off on this too long, if you go look on the Q&A database that these guys have on the 17th Shard you can find more.

But there were really two things that made me do it. First off is reading how Asimov did it and really being impressed with what he did and also noticing that he had to like do some patches in order to make everything work. Asimov connected his Robot series and his Foundations series after the fact many years later. It turned out really well; the two series, as it turns out, blend together in a really cool way but it felt to me it felt after the fact . And I wanted to do something from the get-go and say, "Well, if I've got something like this as a model." Stephen King did it also, but he did it after the fact. But I've got writers like this as a model to show how cool this can be, so my question to myself is, "How much cooler can it be if I do it from book one?" And you know, it's the sort of advantages you get as a writer by standing on the shoulders of authors like that, who have done these awesome things in the past. It allows us to kind of see what they did and say, "Okay, how can I expand on this? How can I do something new, rather than just doing what Asimov did?" And one of the approaches was to try it from book one.

And the other reasoning was that I like big epics but I also want to be writing a lot of stand-alones. And early in my career in particular, it was important for me to be writing stand-alones. And so the hidden epic behind the scenes allowed me to embed some of this depth of foreshadowing and connection in a way that would not be intimidating to readers because they could just read the story and enjoy the stand-alone. And then if it's something- if they're the type that really gets into this and really wants to dig deep, they can find the other level and be like, "Wow, there's an epic on here and Mistborn is a sequel to Elantris. I didn't know that," and things like that. Or they can be read completely independently and you never have to worry about that. So I like that versatility.

I will eventually write some stories connecting all of these things in a more obvious way, but I don't want it to come to the forefront of any series that that's not already the focus. For instance, I don't want Way of Kings to be about that, because I've already promised you what Way of Kings is about. And I don't want then to trick you into, "Oh, now it's this other thing." I have books planned that will be that, but they're a little ways off.

Brandon Sanderson

I'll be reading to you from one of the interludes, which are interesting things to write.

So if you haven't read Stormlight-- Epic fantasy has this sort of problem, right? I love epic fantasy. I grew up reading epic fantasy. It's my first love of genres. And I have an advantage over some of the people writing epic fantasy in that, like you know, [George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordan], in that I've read [George Martin and Robert Jordan], and they don't have that advantage... Robert Jordan couldn't read Robert Jordan and necessarily had to write the stories, and I feel like at-- when I sat down to approach Stormlight Archive, which I kind of want to be my big epic, right? Hopefully I don't do anything bigger than this... *laughter* 520,000 words long. The writers in the crowd-- Yeah, 520 is pretty long. It's a quarter longer than Words of Radiance was. I am trimming it in my fifth revision. That's where I normally trim. So maybe we'll get it down to like 470 or 450 or something. But at 540... *inaudible* wants to go up. So I looked at these epic fantasy books that had come out before it-- series-- and I said, "What can I learn from them? How can I prevent myself from following in some of the same problems?" And I noticed that a lot of these big epic fantasies have this issue, kind of mid-series, where the side characters kind of take over the story, and the story deviates from its focus on to a side character focus for a while. It seems to happen very commonly. And as a writer my instincts said what's happening is the writer is wanting to show the expansiveness of the world, which is one of the big things we try to do in epic fantasy, right? They're trying to show the breadth of it, and they do this by adding characters from lots of different walks of life and different parts of the world. Which is a good instinct, right? It's gonna give you that sense of size and scale to the epic fantasy. But what happens is you kind of promise them these side stories will have their resolutions, and as you're pushing kind of towards the ending of your series you realize, "I need to tie in all these side characters." And so you end up with these books that are really focused on side characters, wrapping up their stories, and it feels like it creates a speed bump in the series. And so I said, "Well what can I do with like the format of my books that will mitigate this? Is there something I can do?" So I was kind of-- I'm a big fan of...

My thought was, I would write the books and I would find natural breakpoints inside of each book where it wouldn't feel like as much of a speed bump to kind of go off to somewhere else. Like, one of the problems with like some of these side stories would be like you're really into one of the main characters' stories and then it's like, "And then here's viewpoint from random person that you don't care about," right? Which you do care about! Some of the side characters in Wheel of Time were some of my favorite. But it's just that momentum you've got on the main characters, and then it feels like it's a break, we don't see them forever. So I try to find natural break points, that I would then insert completely random things from around the world, but I would only give myself, like, two of those per break and then I have to be done. And you know-- this forcing myself in this format with the interludes I felt like allowed-- would allow the reader to be able to know what's coming, so that, you know, if you can anticipate-- if you're like, "Alright, we have our break now. We can go to the side characters. Really enjoy them. Get to see the breadth of the world," And then we can come back to the main story and know that it's coming back very quickly. And also know that these side characters aren't going to take over the story. That there's only going to be this space for them. And you also kind of know-- for those -- I do know some people who read an entire Stormlight Archive book and then go back and read the interludes, as if they-- They're basically a short story collection in the world of Roshar. Now, skipping them is dangerous because I usually use the interludes for one important character. And each interlude has one really relevant character for each book. So in the first one, Szeth has interludes, right? And he's a very relevant character. And in this one-- well you'll see who it is in this one.

But I also like doing readings from the interludes because reading the interludes don't spoil the book nearly as much for those who haven't read the first ones, or things like that.

Bruno Santos

Of all your books, which cover is your favorite?

Brandon Sanderson

The cover of the original Way of Kings. Because of the meaning Michael Whelan's pictures and paintings have in my life. The fact that I got a Whelan cover, it so iconic for me and for Way of Kings.

We are doing a repackage of the Mistborn books, it's going to be hard to ever do that with Stormlight just because that first cover is so iconic and such a favorite of mine. It is interesting that both Elantris and Warbreaker's covers have become iconic as well in that there has never been conversation about changing those. But for whatever reason Mistborn, we change all the time. I doubt this is last the repackage we'll do; every few years we get new covers for Mistborn. Something about Mistborn lends itself well to us doing that. Maybe it's because we did once already by moving from hardcover to paperback, we changed the art style between the those two, maybe we are just used to it.

Brandon Sanderson

This is for both those of you who've read MISTBORN and those who haven't.

In the first book, you'll notice that I named two of the three magic systems present in the world. The primary name, which I'm quite satisfied with, is Allomancy.

Sazed's power is the one I'm considering changing. It is called Hemalurgy. Now, I like the way this sounds. However, it doesn't quite fit in meaning with Sazed's powers. (The Hema, which should evoke thoughts of 'blood' has rightly drawn complaints from readers.)

However, Hemalurgy DOES fit quite well with the third (mostly unmentioned magic system) used by the Steel Inquisitors.

So, I'd like to rename Sazed's magic system. Here are my thoughts.

Ferrachemy. I like the sound and construction of this one--it fits with the other two, and seems to relate well to Sazed's powers. The only problem is that I think it's too easy to read as "Ferr-Alchemy," which just doesn't feel right to me.

Ferruchemy. The word I'm drawing the 'Ferr' from anyway is Latin for iron, which is Ferrum. So, this is truer to my source, but it just doesn't sound as good to me.

Ferrichemy. I'm not sure if I like the way this one looks or not.

Ferrochemy. Perhaps where I'm leaning right now.

Anyone else have any suggestions? I like the traditional-science feel endings of things like 'mancy, 'lurgy, 'chemy. I also like beginnings that relate somehow to metals, as those are used so prevalently in the magic.

Brandon Sanderson

I just want to say thanks to everyone who has helped me with this one.

Ones I particularly liked:

Auronomy was VERY cool sounding. However, I'm worried about having two 'A' words for the magic. (Still debating this one.)

Ferramy also had me for a time. The only problem is that I really want something that has the same 'feel' as the other two magic systems.  This doesn't quite resonate right.

Sangrimancy is also very cool sounding.  The only problem is that I don't really need another 'blood' related magic system. Skar--I stored this one away for potential use in another world. 

However, I think Jade has really had the best suggestion on the thread. Dropping the second 'R' from the Ferr prefix makes it work a lot better with things. And, to avoid the 'feral' reference Stacer noticed, I think using the original Latin 'u' with the 'Fer' gets us a better word.

So, the current winner:

Feruchemy. It isn't actually the coolest sounding word on the thread--I think that's a tie between Auronomy and Sangrimancy. However, Feruchemy 'Fits' better with Allomancy and Hemalurgy. The three have a kind of internal resonance, and give the right feel.

Thanks all!

Now, another task. These three are all active arts--something done, rather than simply a study. I'd like, however, a good name for the blanket term for the study of all three magic systems. A name for the system of the world, rather than the specific magical applications of this system.

All three systems use metal in different ways, and all three draw power for the user from different places. Any clever ideas? (Initial thoughts for me include using 'ology.' However, I'm not opposed to something longer, like I used in DRAGONSTEEL. (Realmatic Theory, for those of you who haven't read it.))

17th Shard

The Way of Kings has a very interesting format. Why did you decide to go with that format and what prompted you to include the interludes?

Brandon Sanderson

That's another excellent question. You guys are really on the ball. Uh…so, what went through my head is one worry that we have in epic fantasy. The longer the series goes, and the more characters you add, the less time you can spend with each character. This gets really frustrating. You either have the George R. R. Martin problem where he writes a book and doesn't include half of them, or you get the middle Wheel of Time problem where he will jump to each character for a brief short time and no one's plot seems to get advanced.

If you look back at Elantris, I did a lot of interesting things with form in that novel, and I wanted to try something interesting with form for this series that would in some way enhance what epic fantasy does well and de-emphasize the problems. And I thought that I could do some new things with the form of the novel that would allow me to approach that, and so I started to view the book as one main character's novel and then short novellas from other characters' viewpoints. Then I started adding these interludes because I really like when, for instance, George Martin or Tad Williams or some other authors do this. You'd jump some place and see a little character for a brief time in a cool little location, but the thing is, when most epic fantasy writers do that, that character becomes a main character and you're just adding to your list. I wanted to actually do something where I indicated to the reader that most of these are not main characters. We're showing the scope of the world without being forced to add a new plot line. And I did that is because I wanted to keep the focus on the main characters and yet I also wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted to show off the interesting aspects of the world.

When you read Way of Kings Prime someday you'll see that there are six major viewpoint characters, all in different places, with all different plots, because I wanted to show off what was happening in different parts of the world. That spiraled out of control even in that one book. Keeping track of who they were because there were such large gaps between their plot lines was really problematic. Instead I condensed and made, for instance, Kaladin's and Dalinar's plots take place in the same area as Adolin's. And so, even though you have three viewpoints there the plot lines are very similar. Or, at least they're interacting with one another.

And so the interludes were a means to jump around the world. They're essentially short stories set in the world, during the book, so when you get this book, maybe you can think of it this way: Kaladin's novel with Shallan and Dalinar each having shorter novels or novelettes or novellas, with occasional, periodic jumps to short stories around the world. And then of course Kaladin's flashbacks. As we've mentioned, every book will have flashbacks from its main character to enhance the main plotline.

I'm hoping that form will do a couple things. It'll show the scope of the world without us getting too overwhelmed by characters we have to keep track of. You know when you hit interludes that you aren't going to have to pay attention to most of them. You can read and enjoy them, but you aren't going to have to remember them. How about that? You can want to pay attention but you don't have to remember them. By the end of the book, the main characters' arcs and flashbacks should have been resolved and you should have a feel of a completer story from that main character. And then we have other characters that are doing things that are essentially just starting plotlines.

In the next book, you'll get another character with a big arc and flashbacks. The major characters from previous books will still have parts and viewpoints; Kaladin will still be important in the next book but it won't be "his book". He'll get a novella-length part instead.

17th Shard

Will the next Stormlight Archive books have interludes as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, all of them will have interludes. And you will, very occasionally, revisit people in the interludes. I'll let myself have one interlude that's same between each part like we did with Szeth in this book.

Ah…Szeth's a little bit more of a main, major character, so you'll get, like, one four-parter and then you'll get what, eight just random [characters/viewpoints] around the world. And you may occasionally see those characters again, but you don't have to remember them; they're not integral to understanding the plot. They should add depth and they should be showing you some interesting things that are happening in the world while we're focused [on a few important plot lines]. I don't to travelogs in my books; my characters are not going to be sweeping across the countryside and showing you all the interesting parts of the world. I tend to set my books in a certain place and if we travel someplace, we skip the travel.

But that means the chances of us ever visiting Gavland, um…or Bavland I think I ended up naming it…

17th Shard

Was that the place with the grass?

Brandon Sanderson

Shinovar is where Szeth's from. Bavland is where Szeth is owned by the miner and things like that. I can't remember what I renamed that. Originally I called it Gavland, and then we had a Gavilar and so my editor insisted that it be changed. I think it's Bavland now.

And so the chances of us ever visiting there with a major character and a long plot are very low. But, you know, being able to show just a glimpse of Szeth there allows me to give some scope and feel to the world.

Brandon Sanderson

Skyward Three Update Three

Hey, all! I'm here to bring you some good news. I managed to hit my deadlines for the first and second drafts of Skyward Three (tentatively titled NOWHERE) and submitted the book last week to my publisher. This is the third in a sequence of progress reports on the novel, the second of which can be found here.

Now that the 2.0 draft is done, I'm waiting on the editor to look through the novel and tell me what she thinks. The tight deadlines on this one are because of paper shortages and printing delays in the industry. (Many of my books are on backorder right now in hardcover, for example. We can't even get them.) I had to promise to get this book in under a pretty rigid set of deadlines to guarantee a November/December release.

I'm pleased with the revisions I did to make the 2.0 document, and once you've read the book, remember to ask me about them--I made some choices that I think will be interesting to writers who like watching how different authors do revisions. I am very pleased with the book, but I'm always pleased at the 2.0 stage. (If I'm not, I don't send the book in.)

I'm eager to see if the publisher is equally pleased, and then see if beta readers bring up any major issues I didn't notice. That will all happen over the next few months. If everything goes well, I should be giving you a final update for the book sometime late March, early April.

(At that point I'll do the hand-off to Peter, who will handle the copy editing and proofreading. I'll move on to the final Wax and Wayne book, which I know a lot of you have been waiting for.)

Thanks, as always, for your patience in putting up with me jumping projects as often as I do. I hope you're having a happy New Year! (Also, note, that I will not be having replies to this go to my inbox, so apologies in advance if I don't see your comment or question.)

EDIT: I forgot to mention the novellas. (The three tie-in novellas we're releasing to show what the rest of Skyward flight is up to during the events of Book Three.) The timing of these is going to depend on when Janci and I finish them, and I don't know when that will be yet, as they don't have to follow a traditional publishing schedule. (If there are print editions, they'll come along in a future year--this year we'll only be focusing on ebook and audio, which should be simultaneous.)

In a perfect world, I think I'd release these in the months leading up to Skyward Three--but they could be read after as well, so we'll see how the writing of them goes. I will have more for you by the final update post in March/April. For now, just know to expect them sometime around the book release.

Brandon

Brandon Sanderson

First, in relation to Elantris, May is the 10th anniversary of its release, my first published book! In celebration, we've been putting together a 10th Anniversary Edition, which is coming out later this year. It will be in trade paperback form (the paperback format which is more the size of a hardcover), and I'm hoping I can get Tor to print at least a few hardcovers for those who want to get them.

We've packed this edition with some cool extras. It includes a new foreword by Dan Wells, a retrospective by myself, an Ars Arcanum appendix (as this was the only one of my Cosmere books not to have one), brand-new redone maps by Isaac Stewart, and a very short extra scene. In addition, as I mentioned, we've changed a few things.

Now, this is the dangerous thing I talked about above. We've seen in certain high-profile films that changes done by the creator many years later are controversial. It's a slippery path. Part of creating a work of art is learning when to let it alone—most writers I know could just keep tweaking something forever. The quote (often attributed to da Vinci) that says “Art is never finished, just abandoned” is quite a true statement.

However, Elantris needed some attention. When I wrote it, I didn't have access to a good cartographer who could make the continuity of my crazy map-based ideas for the story work out. I did my best, but it never quite clicked. The maps didn't match the story, and the conceptualization of the ending was always kind of vague because of this disconnect.

Well, I have Isaac now, along with Peter who is really, really good with the minutiae of this sort of plotting. We've made two kinds of sweeping changes, then, to the text:

Map Continuity: We've had to shift the locations of some buildings and events as we've figured out a scale for the maps and for the city. We've tweaked the ending; the events are the same, but where certain things happen has been changed to fit. (Over the years, many of you have asked me about this, and I've had to admit that we just got it wrong.) This shouldn't change the story in any significant way except that now it actually makes sense, but I thought you should know.

Language Changes: Peter has done a very, very thorough copyedit, and has made some stylistic changes to remove some of the quirks of my earlier prose. (Extraneous commas, for example.) Again, this shouldn't change the story in any significant way except to make it more readable.

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.

Phillip Carroll

Waxillium? Why Waxillium?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, that's a great question. The thing about Waxillium's name is, a lot of people don't like it. I actually love it, but that happens a lot in my books; I'll do something I love that I kind of know other people are going to be annoyed by. The Wax books came, actually....as I was designing the books, I was figuring the characters, and the pun Wax and Wayne struck me, and I thought, "I can't do that; that's too lame a pun." But the characters adopted those name before I could even do anything about it, and I actually tried changing the names, and it didn't work. You know how sometimes, organically, it just happens, and you're like, "I gotta go with this." And so I didn't want to actually just named them Wax and Wayne; I wanted Wax to be short for something, and it fits very well into the Mistborn universe, because all the characters tend to have nicknames that—you know, there was Clubs and Ham and Breeze in the last series—and I wanted a name that fit with that, and so Wax worked really well, but I wanted it to be short for something, and so I started looking at period names, things like William that worked and I actually ended up picking Waxillium because it also has a metallurgic sound and I figured names in this culture in the Mistborn world where metals are so important to the magic, you might have people named after metals; you might have names that sound like metals intentionally because of that resonance. At the end of the day I just really ended up liking it. It is a bizarre name.

Questioner

In the prologue in The Alloy of Law, it talks about how the guy actually spikes people to the wall. Is there going to be Hemalurgy involved?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO. Hey, RAFOs! I will say, in Alloy of Law time, Hemalurgy is not well-known and that's not been spread around, and Feruchemy as an art moved like Allomancy did in that you can have just one of the powers. And we decided... Chemings? What did we decide, Peter? Oh, Ferrings. We decided Ferirngs. We couldn't decide between the two of those. It's in the book somewhere.  But anyway, you can have one Allomantic and one Feruchemical. But not a lot of Mistborn and not a lot of full Feruchemists anymore.

Questioner

Do you explain how the Feruchemists came back, because at the end there were a lot of eunuchs and...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, well, that's one of the reasons why Feruchemy has been split because it's very diluted now. The Terris people did survive because they made it. And so, the genetic code is there.

Questioner

And so, every once in a while, hereditarily, the gene will come up.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. But that's why there aren't very many full-blooded Feruchemists anymore. A thousand years of the Lord Ruler trying to breed it out of the population followed by a cataclysm that destroyed most of the population of the world did them in, yeah.

Esc777

From what I understand, Sanderson (a long-time MtG fan) wrote the novel entirely of his own volition, using only the pieces of MtG lore he deemed necessary, with entirely new characters he created, and then approached WotC and said "Hey, I wrote this, do you want to publish it?"

That sounds unbelievable. Very few people just do work like that for free. I think something about that story is exaggerated.

Brandon Sanderson

It...well, it actually did happen. Kind of like /u/StrictlyFilthyCasual said (though not quite) and it is a kind of weird thing that I did that was terrible in a business sense. I wanted to do it anyway.

Basically, for years I've thought, "If I were going to write a MTG story, what would it be?" The answer was what became Children of the Nameless. I basically had it, and the characters, plotted in my head. When Wizards came to me, they wanted to hire me to write one of their stories.

I knew, right out, they wouldn't be able to afford what it would actually cost me to write a story for them. In fact, I suspected it would be orders of magnitude different. So, I counter offered and said, "Look, I have this cool story I want to write. It's in one of your worlds. I'll do it for free, as a gift to MTG and the community, but you have to let me do my own thing."

They were on board. I realize, doing something for free for a huge corporation is...well, kind of dumb. But I didn't decide to become a writer because I have good business sense... I just wanted to do my thing, and have it be a real part of MTG lore and get to have a card designed based on my character.

Leman12345

I knew, right out, they wouldn't be able to afford what it would actually cost me to write a story for them. In fact, I suspected it would be orders of magnitude different.

Does this mean its unlikely we'll see you write full length magic novels? :( Children was so good.

Brandon Sanderson

It's unlikely, I'm afraid. There's a chance I'll do another story about Dav, but it wouldn't be longer than what I've done already--and it wouldn't be anytime soon. One difficult reality is that I have promised a lot of things to those following my cosmere novels, and anything I write that isn't on one of those projects needs to be looked at skeptically on my part, if only for the purpose of keeping my promises. So it's less a matter of money, and more a matter of time.

Questioner

If you could tell yourself 10 years ago any one thing, what would it be?

Brandon Sanderson

Ten years ago? Ten years ago, I’d say “Re-read the Wheel of Time. Start early”. I got the call in 2007, September, and this would 2007 in February, and I’d have six months in my re-read going. It took me about a year to re-read the whole series and take notes on it. That would’ve been six months faster, and everyone would’ve gotten… also the book I was working on is one I never published, so I could’ve just dropped that book.

Questioner

So is it kind of surreal to you now, then, to be sort of like a [...] in the fantasy genre?

Brandon Sanderson

In the fantasy genre? Yes, I’ve kind of started to get over that. The real surreal stuff happened at the beginning, when I’m like, “I don’t deserve to be on a shelf with my favorite authors. I’m just this guy”. And then I kind of got used to that, and the rest has been easier than that initial “Why am I on the shelf with these folks?”. But you hit certain milestones where you’re like, book 3 of the Wheel of Time is when it really took off. None of you were back there then, you guys are all younger than me, but when we were reading them back then, books one and two were known fantasy quantities but not the dominant, and book three was where it was like, this is the dominant fantasy series. And I’m now releasing book three of my fantasy series. I have George Martin wayyyyyyy out beyond, I’m not going to take out that, but it is surreal to have my third book come out and to be selling so well and remembering, this is where Robert Jordan was at this point.

Questioner

You’re making your own path, different than Robert Jordan though.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I always say that I’m very famous with a very small group of people. Until you have a film or a television show, you will never become a real household name, and that’s fine. Even if you do, George is not so famous, he’s the most famous fantasy writer, right, unless you count Jo Rowling. George is not so famous that he can’t walk down the street. No author gets so famous, I’ve been hanging out with George and we’re walking down the street and somebody says “Hi George” and he gets an autograph. But he can sit and have dinner and people don’t bug him, there’s not paparazzi at the windows. Even the top epic fantasy writer doesn’t have to worry about that. It’s actually the best type of fame to have. You can go to a convention like this and meet with a lot of people who’s work you’ve inspired and things like that, and it’s perfect, and then you go have a normal life. [...] you be a normal person, and it’s just the right amount. [...] our faces aren’t known, and that is what is so nice about this. If you were to take my salary, I get paid very well even compared to a football star, a music star, or an actor, but nobody knows my face. And it’s mostly because a dedicated group is hardcore [...] to my stuff. That is, thank you guys. You’ve made me the best kind of famous, stealth famous. It’s pretty awesome.

Phantine

Did you pre-write the Kelsier stuff for Secret History, or did you just outline the events ahead of time?

Brandon Sanderson

Kelsier was notes, though detailed ones. They might mostly worked out. I believe there was one "thought" a character has in HERO that I had written to be influenced by Kelsier, but turned out to be logistically impossible. I worked on Secret History itself on and off for years before finishing it last fall.

Phantine

Was that thought the one Sazed has in his fight with Marsh?

Those weren't coins, a voice seemed to whisper.

The bag Marsh shot at you. Those weren't coins.

Brandon Sanderson

Yup, that's it.

Moving the well, playing with where Kelsier was, and the physics of moving through perpendicularities between Realms all kind of combined to make what I had planned originally there not work. I tried fudging things so Kelsier could be there, and felt it was dishonest to the rules. So I didn't let him stray far enough from the Well to talk to Sazed there. Peter had thought for years that was Kelsier, I recall, and was sad we couldn't connect them.

Herowannabe

I don't suppose you'd be willing to share with us who the new, canonical voice in Sazed's head is?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm afraid I probably won't ever go into this. At some point, you risk twisting and turning too much. I have a canon answer in my head, but for readers, it will probably need to remain ambiguous--with "it was simply him coming up with it on his own" being a valid option.

Questioner

As you were constructing the Allomantic powers revealed in the Wax and Wayne books, I was just curious why you chose cadmium and chromium to be metals.

Brandon Sanderson

Well I picked them way back when I first designed the magic system, and I wanted metals that were easily recognizable but which wouldn't be commonly available in a medieval society, so that as society progressed it would make sense that they would have access to these new metals, if that makes sense. Aluminum was a little in that as well, but I like aluminum because they had it anciently, but very rarely. So it could be a more mythical metal.