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YouTube Livestream 5 ()
#6501 Copy

David Gelber

Is there any story which you would want to reimagine if you had the time to write it?

Brandon Sanderson

The one I am most likely to want to reimagine is Mistborn, because I am doing the screenplay. As you can see, we now have the progress bar up on that. And it's been very fun to reimagine it, kind of doing some of the things that over the years I'd wished I'd done. No spoilers, but the ending of Mistborn has a bit of a deus ex machina to it, that I would rather find a way to not have happen. I'd like a little of the pacing and plotting to be more elegant. A bunch of stuff with the skaa rebellion and things just never quite came together in the book the way I wanted it to. So that's the one of mine I'm most likely to actually reimagine.

There's a decent chance if I decide to adapt Emperor's Soul to the screen, that I would have to do a reimagining of that, as well, to make it work as a film, rather than happening in one room.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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WeiryWriter

So in a recent conversation I brought up the relationship between the names of Urithiru and Ur (the ancient Mesopotamian city-state), in retrospect I realized that I was treating the similarity of names as a given but I don't think you have ever been asked about it. Was the reference intentional on your part from the outset (i.e. starting with the idea to reference Ur), or did it arise coincidentally as you played with the linguistics of Roshar (i.e. stumbling across the "ur-" syllable and going "I can work with that!")?

Brandon Sanderson

Ur was part of it, certainly. But it was more the second--I was playing with things, and liked the feeling of Ur in part because of the ancient our-world references.

Supanova 2017 - Sydney ()
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Questioner (paraphrased)

What inspired the Epics?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I got cut off in traffic and thought, "you're so lucky I don't have superpowers because I would totally blow up your car!" And then I started to think about how I couldn't be trusted with superpowers and what the world would be like if no one with superpowers could be trusted.

Skyward San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

When you do the big twist at the end of a book, do you always have that twist in your mind when you begin writing the book, or do you do the twist after?

Brandon Sanderson

I generally have it ahead of time. I am an outliner. I like-- Writers tend to fall into two camps with a lot of variety in between--they're not polar opposites--between what we call "gardeners" and what we call "architects." I'm more of an architect. I like to build a structure and then hang my story on it. That said, you need to be flexible and willing to take something better if it comes along. For instance, Secret Project, which I can't tell you anything about, had a different ending than the ending I just put into it, because the ending just didn't land, right? I'm like, "Alright, I need to go back to square one and I need a better twist for this story," and I dug into it and came up with one. That causes a lot more revision to have to be done, but at the end of the day, I think you need to be able to do it. Sometimes when you're writing you just come up with something better, you're like, "I need to try this instead 'cause it's stronger".

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Zireks

Generally when do you think the next time you will write a book set on a new, never gotten a book, Cosmere shardworld?

Brandon Sanderson

Does Threnody count? It got a short story. It's most likely, and could happen in the space between Stormlight 5 and 6 (though that is a busy time period for me--I've put a lot of books in there potentially.

I think the chances of seeing a new world in a novella is much more likely.

Shadows of Self Boston signing ()
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Questioner (paraphrased)

Has anyone figured out what the secret in the map was, in Words of Radiance?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yeah, they have. That it's modeled after the Julia Set. Which is meant to indicate that Roshar was designed specifically.

AndrewStirlingMacDonald (paraphrased)

Did it happen through crem buildup?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No.

Oathbringer release party ()
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Questioner

Signed cover art? Print of the cover art?

Brandon Sanderson

...Yes, we should be doing that. That's more a Michael [Whelan] question, for the cover art, and a question for the various artists. But for, what we really want to do with the endpages is do, like, a calendar, that's like a Rosharan/18-month-Earth/10-month-Rosharan calendar. We're gonna try that. But they have prints and things, and signed prints, and stuff like that.

Elantris Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Anyway. . .I break triad here again. I'd forgotten about this one. Actually, you'll note that the closer I get to an action sequence or a climax, the more quickly I shift viewpoints. I do it half-intentionally, half-unconsciously. (If that's possible.) Logically, I know that quickly-shifting viewpoints give the scenes more tension and a sense of movement. Unconsciously, I just know that it's good storytelling to keep things quick–and it's more dramatic when you can end with a cliff-hanger line, then switch to a new viewpoint.

I'll admit that this scene borders on being too melodramatic. A couple of things justify it in my mind. First, the scene is more about Raoden confronting how he'd made a mistake with Shaor's men than it is about Sarene discovering that she'd been betrayed. Second, Sarene's "betrayal," as explained in the next chapter, is really about her own prejudice. Inside, she was just waiting for something like this to happen. That's why she didn't give Raoden the benefit of the doubt–she never wanted to like him. It was almost like she was eager to be hurt, expecting it, since things obviously couldn't work out for her. (Or so she unconsciously assumed.)

So, in a way, they were both kind of expecting something like this to happen. When it did happen, they allowed it to. In my mind, this takes it from a "silly misunderstanding" and changes it into a "character-driven conflict."

Boskone 54 ()
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Questioner

How much self will do the Shards (the person, not the power associated) have, [is it complicated by having more pieces?]?

Brandon Sanderson

So they do have a lot of personal will power. They can do things. But the longer they hold the power, the more their will starts to align with that of the power. Resisting it can keep it from happening, but it will eventually happen. So yes and no. It depends on the individual, it depends on how long.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

In a similarly amusing cameo (I must have been in a cameo mood) we have Slowswift—who is based on Grandpa Tolkien. (See this picture.) The name itself comes from his love of wordplay and of names that are inherently self-contradictory.

I'm no Tolkien scholar—I don't know the man's personality or how he would have reacted to this situation. I'm just a layman and a fan—who for some reason felt like sticking in a tiny side character in imitation of the master. We authors do strange things like that occasionally.

Starsight Release Party ()
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Questioner

You describe the mistcloak as being a hundred tassels from the shoulder down and yet there are pockets.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.  You could put a pockets right up in there and plus different people have different designs on their mistcloaks. It's not modern era. They're not mass produced. You go and you get yours made how you want it to be. A lot of people put there's down here when they're actually making them and trying them on. They find it works better.

Footnote: Mistcloaks are traditionally dozens of thick ribbons rather than a hundred small ones.
#mistborn
Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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Melhay

Is Adonalsium going to be mentioned by name in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings or is he going to be an underlining "God"(I don't know what to call him yet) idea? I am curious now, so I will have to keep my eyes open for him.

Brandon Sanderson

Adonalsium (Ahy-doe-Nahl-see-um) will be mentioned by name again. Ruin and Preservation were what have been called Shards of Adonalsium. (The Voice from Warbreaker is another Shard.)

Melhay

Is this "character" a common link between your books for religion or magical or maybe even both?

Brandon Sanderson

Adonalsium has to do with the Cosmere, which is the word Realmatic philosophers use to refer to the greater universe of the Shardworlds. It's hard to separate religion, magic, science, and society in most of these worlds. So "both" is a good guess.

Melhay

I was curious because he just seemed to appear and nothing further on him/it. Thank you for mentioning that he is in these two other books, I will have to look for hints of him.

Brandon Sanderson

The word Adonalsium (or, well, the miss-spelling of it) appears in only one of the books. Other clues and links between the books can be found as well. (Some people on my forums have spotted some of them. Others have gone unspotted so far.)

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 ()
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Questioner

So, I heard you talk about cameos, are there any other cameos besides Hoid and Nightblood in the books?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Galladon from Elantris, Baon from White Sand, and Captain Demoux all show up in Way of Kings. They're the Purelake scene. Let's see... the character of Felt is a worldhopper, you see him in a couple of books. Watch out for him. Khriss is in a couple of the books, she's the one who writes the Ars Arcanums. Nazh is in a couple of the books, Khriss's assistant. Vasher is in the book. They're all over the place.

A Memory of Light Portland signing ()
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Questioner

How much of your own books were you consciously looking at books like Jordan and saying, "I like that kind of world," and trying to create that kind of world in your own stuff?

Brandon Sanderson

I spent most of my early career, as I kind of implied earlier, reacting against books that I had really liked. The main purpose for this being that I felt that Robert Jordan and various other authors really covered that type of story and that type of world really well. And so I said, "Well, what other room is there to explore?" And so you see me reacting against.

For instance, Mistborn is a direct reaction to the Wheel of Time. Mistborn began as the question, "What if Rand were to fail?" That's what spun me into creating that entire book series: what if the prophesied hero were not able to accomplish what they were supposed to accomplish? And that became the foundation of that book series. So you can see where I was going and things like that. A lot of times I will read something, and if it's done very well I'll react against it, and if it’s done very poorly then I’ll say, "Oh, I want to try and do this the right way". And both of those are kind of an interesting style of reaction to storytelling. So I would say I was deeply influenced, but it's more in the realm of, "Hey what have they done? What have they covered really well, and where can I go to explore new ground?"

Shadows of Self London UK signing ()
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Neuxue

Does Roshar have a magnetic field?  

Brandon Sanderson

Um, Roshar, magnetic field, yes, it does. Yes. Yeah it does  

Neuxue

You said at one point that it is all one plate--  

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Neuxue

--that there's no tectonic activity. What is the interior of the planet like?  

Brandon Sanderson

That’s a good question... You're not going to get an answer on that one. It's a weird planet, let's just say that. It's a pretty weird planet

Neuxue

Are the diamonds naturally occurring?  

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but most are going to be-- They aren't-- all gemstones are naturally occurring, but most of, many or most of, the gems they are getting they are getting from creatures that grow them, not from the rock. Though there are mines on Roshar, you just have to-- most of them are on the leeward side of mountains, where the crem isn't being deposited.

Neuxue

So, diamond mines are about tectonics--

Brandon Sanderson

It was a created planet, keep that in mind.

TWG Posts ()
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Arabas

The question is about the Lord Ruler's death.  He is basically killed because Vin was able to remove his Feruchemy storage bracelets thus depriving him of his stored youth and strength correct?  Once he didn't have access to these she could simply kill him like a normal man.Now on page 627 about the 3rd paragraph down the Lord Ruler states " I've survived burning and beheadings.  I've been stabbed and sliced, crushed and dismembered." (I also think this is also reference somewhere else in the book that I could not locate)If all it took to drain the Lord Ruler of his power was to remove access to his Feruchemy items wouldn't he have died if he was dismembered?  Remove the storage devices from the trunk of the body and he would die?

Peter Ahlstrom

I asked Brandon about this once, and I'm pretty sure he said the beheading survival part was a lie/exaggeration. I'd have to go back and check my notes.

The Lord Ruler would have reason to want people to believe he had survived beheadings and being burned to ash.

DragonCon 2016 ()
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Jennifer Liang

Alright, so you guys all know who he is but I need to explain why I'm sitting next to him, for the majority of you who have never seen me before. I'm Jennifer Liang, and many years ago I was the Track Director for the Wheel of Time track here [at DragonCon]. *cheers* Awww... I've moved on to other things, I chair my own Wheel of Time convention [JordanCon] now, so if you are interested in that go look that up somewhere. But the reason that Brandon was first at DragonCon, eight years ago, was because I told him to be here.

Brandon Sanderson

I was really scared. *laughter* See I knew Wheel of Time fandom, as a fan, and I knew how crazy they were. And so when, basically, the queen of Wheel of Time fandom wrote to me and said "You're going to come to DragonCon and talk to us." I was super nervous. I still remember it, I was talking to Jenn about it. I walk in and it was a room, pretty big, not as big , but packed with people. And I walked in and I'm like "I've never been in a panel this size before." right? "I'm used to going--" It was only that same year, I think it was, that I went to WorldCon and did a reading and there was only one person at my reading. *laughter* And it was Eric James Stone, my good friend. *laughter* They did schedule it opposite Lois Bujold's main address, which was part of the problem. But still, I went from one person in my reading to walking into a room like this. Full of a whole bunch of people who are like "You're not my real dad." *laughter*

Jennifer Liang

It was very weird hearing somebody who was not Robert Jordan talk about writing The Wheel of Time. Like it was really flipping us out at the time. But he-- you were good.

Brandon Sanderson

You were all very nice. Except for the-- The did this thing called... Darkfriend games, right? Are you a Darkfriend. Which is basically like Assassin, one of those party games where you sit around-- Except it's Wheel of Time themed. And they always murdered me, like first. *laughter* Right? Like that's how I knew there was a little bit of subconcious agression going on. We'd look up and they'd say "Who did the Villagers want to kill? Brandon." Every time. I was never the Darkfriend, but they killed me every time.

Jennifer Liang

It was funny. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

There's a group of three of them in particular, that I remember, who kind of ganged up and got me. So I actually put them in, I think as Dreadlords, in the books and got them murdered. *laughter*

Jennifer Liang

They're extremely proud of themselves.

Brandon Sanderson

They're very proud. They got in and murdered. So if you look for a conspicuous group of Dreadlords that get killed in a very terrible way, that's them.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Reen

I hope I wasn't too obvious with my increased references to Reen in this chapter. A few of my alpha readers noticed it, but I think it's subtle enough that I decided to leave it. Obviously, I was trying to prepare the reader for the appearance of Reen later in the chapter by giving a few reminders of who he was and what he meant to Vin.

Skyward release party ()
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Questioner

Will we ever find out more about Vessel of Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I will eventually write Dragonsteel, which is Hoid's backstory; you will find out about all the various Vessels of the Shards of Adonalsium then. It is a little ways off; I'm going to finish all of Stormlight before I do that. It will be the the next thing after Stormlight 10.

Alcatraz Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

We are civilization's only hope

I do wonder if this conversation with Grandpa Smedry took too long. I might have covered the same information too many times here. Both my agent and my editor, however, kept noting that we need to make certain there’s a feeling of tension here. We need to know why the sands are so dangerous, and we need to know that they have to be recovered immediately, lest the world suffer a dire fate.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

Is there a particular reason behind the spelling, or is it just coincidence that Kelsier and Kaladin are both K-names?

Brandon Sanderson

Just coincidence. Kaladin's original name was Merin, and it was a weak name that didn't work for me, so I changed it. It took me forever to find a good name for him. It comes from "paladin". Not the inworld origin, but that was the word that [inspired it]. [...] It was more that I was searching for sounds, and I realized it sounded a bit like [paladin], but I was okay with that. Just like Elantris sounds a little bit like Atlantis. It's not like I was purposely [choosing it]. I just liked the sound of it.

White Sand vol.1 release party ()
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Questioner

I was just wondering how you come up with the names in your books?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the book.

Questioner

Is it usually like a cultural tie-in kind of thing or...?

Brandon Sanderson

It's one of two things. Either I go for a cultural tie-in, like you say-- that's if I want to do a shorthand. Something just a little bit easier because I'm not building the linguistics out. Like Mistborn is an example of this; I didn't build the linguistics of Mistborn. The linguistics-- I'm just like, "This is a French sounding area, this is uh--" You know, because I spent my worldbuilding time on other things. But in Roshar I spent a lot of time on the linguistics. I don't want the names to just sound like names from our world. Roshar is most different. It's not an Earth analog. And so I built the linguistics. Or I sometimes do kind of a hybrid, where I pick some weird linguistic trait and I build names around it. Like Warbreaker was this. I'm like, "I'm gonna use the repeated consonant sound as a theme, so you always know who's from what culture." And so you end up with Vivenna and T'Tellir and things like this, where it sounds like people are stuttering to those from other cultures.

Skyward release party ()
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Questioner

Would Hoid be able to harm a Herald or a Cognitive Shadow?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, so, he is curious about this too. I don't know if I should canonize this. Let's say: odds are, no. Cosmere scholars would guess no.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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WritesGeekyStuff

How much of Defiant has been colonised by humans? Do the caverns cover the entire world, or are they restricted to only a small area around Alta?

Brandon Sanderson

You're seeing the most populated part of the world. There are some little enclaves all over the planet (which is smaller than earth) but most everything is congregated near where the original fleet landed. (Note that the Defiant was the name of the flagship they crashed on, not the planet's name.)

Salt Lake ComicCon FanX 2016 ()
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Questioner

When I read Alloy of Law, in my head, Wayne was Simon Pegg... Was that intentional?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but when I was working on the newer books, I'm like. "Oh, Simon Pegg would be a great actor for this." The first times I wrote him, I didn't imagine Simon Pegg. But it was an after-the-fact-- kind of like Michael Fassbender [for Kelsier], I'm like, "This is the kind of actor I would like in this role."

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Spook Survives, but Breeze Is in Charge

Also, Spook lives! More on this later, and why I decided to let him survive. As another side note, I'm not sure if Breeze is a good person to put in charge or not. He certainly enjoys the position, and is a natural at ordering people about. However, he may enjoy it a little too much. He's not self-reflective like Elend, nor is he a man of action like Kelsier. He just loves sitting around and being adored while he tells everyone what to do.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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MarlonRand

Just a sudden question that popped into my head: Do you like Joss Whedon's work, specifically Firefly and Dr. Horrible?

Brandon Sanderson

I enjoyed Firefly quite a bit; I was actually among the (apparently small) group of people who watched it during its original broadcast run. I'm impressed with Joss's writing, though I'm not an enormous fan of his on the level of many of my friends.

I missed Dr. Horrible. Been meaning to watch that, actually...

There. Just added it to my Netflix queue.

JordanCon 2016 ()
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Questioner

When will we find out what the Nightwatcher looks like?

Brandon Sanderson

Um… well, Dalinar, in the past, met the Nightwatcher. Dalinar's third book is getting flashback sequences to his past experiences. You can postulate that one of those important past experiences might be a visit to the Nightwatcher.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

Is there one magic system that is, like, the one that would win all the battles?

Brandon Sanderson

So, the thing is, they have their strengths and weaknesses. All of the surgebinders are really hard to kill while they have access to Stormlight and that's a huge advantage. But a mistborn is way more versatile, they have access to more powers, and things like that. So it really depends how much of each do you have, how many times does the mistborn have to kill the Bondsmith; a Bondsmith's not going to do a great job in a fight because...I mean Dalinar would coz he's Dalinar, but the powers do not lend themselves to combat in the same way that windrunning does, and things like that, so...

Shadows of Self London UK signing ()
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Questioner

How did you come up with the idea of windspren?  

Brandon Sanderson

Windspren in specific? I was thinking about the way the wind is often anthropomorphized, right? It's treated as if it's something alive. And that, for years, just stuck in my head. For a while there were only four windspren, one for each of the quadrants: the north spren, the south spren, the east spren, the west spren, or the west wind and things. But eventually I split them into many more, because I was working with the honorspren and things like that.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Blightsong

I've noticed that in the Listener songs there are two different, semi-conflicting stanzas between the song of histories and the song of secrets when it comes to Smokeform. The latter song also seems to be more consistently critical and fearful of Odium and the forms of power. Am I noticing something relevant here, and if so could you elaborate on why?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are noticing something real.

Note that Listener history is...fraught. And while the rhythms are standardized, the words are applied to them have a lot more cultural influence and interpretation.

Skyward San Diego signing ()
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Questioner

What has been the craziest, most off-the-wall, unexpected kind of feedback you've ever gotten--

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh. *crowd laughs*

Questioner

...you know kind of how it sent you in the right direction.

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, craziest off-the-wall feedback I've ever gotten and what direction did it send me. I have so much trouble with these things. Some people ask me the line "what's the weirdest thing a fan has had you write in a book". And I know, if I took the time, I could think of it, but off the top of my head it's kind of hard. I'm not sure what the craziest, most off-the-wall sort of feedback I've gotten. I've given a lot of crazy, off-the-wall feedback. Legion... came about because I was trying to convince my friend Dan Wells to write this book. *crowd laughs* "Oh, you could do this thing, and it could be like schizophrenia but not really, it could be a superpower," and he's like, "Brandon, that's not a Dan Wells book. That is a Sanderson book". And so I ended up writing the book, but that has happened. I've given weird feedback. I'd have to think about that one a little more.

White Sand vol.1 release party ()
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Questioner

What about a Magic-- like, card game? *interrupted*

Brandon Sanderson

A card game? So if the board game does well and people like it the next thing they want to do is a card game. Those I play. So, you know, not just Magic. I've played a lot of different TCGs and things. And so that we can do, and that I will be involved in if they do one. I can directly tell them if it's fun or not.

Footnote: The board game referred to is Mistborn: House War.
#card game