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Did Nazh retrieve Jasnah's belongings from the bottom of the sea by visiting Shadesmar, finding the correct beads, and moving them to land?
Yes, that would be the easiest way. Nazh spends a fair bit of time in Shadesmar, and that this would be the first thing he would think of when asked to retrieve Jasnah's stuff.
Guess who I am going to be working for? Brandon!
Couple of years ago, he wrote a book called Apocalypse Guard that didn't work. And he brought it to me and said, "Hey, do you want to collaborate on this book, and maybe you can help me fix it?" And so I did another draft, and we looked at it and said, "Yeah, this still doesn't work." But we very much enjoyed the process of writing together.
And so he gave me Dark One. And he said, "Here, this is an outline that I have; do you want to collaborate on another book?" And so I wrote that one. And this one did work. It worked very well. And we both really loved the experience, again, of working together, of cowriting books, doing all this stuff.
Meanwhile, on my side, the whole Brandon Sanderson thing has gotten kind of big. And I was talking to my team, and I'm like, "I need help with the narrative side of this. I need another brain." We're going to do Dark One, but the goal will eventually be to have Dan just kind of help me work on the Cosmere, and things like this. I need another writing brain. And I need somebody who can write stories that I can't, was another thing. I had been thinking for a while; I'm like, "I need another me." I need help to manage the whole thing. Not just the books, but the entire series. And I'm like, "Well, Dan is the best writer I know. Maybe I should ask Dan."
I came to him, I'm like, "Do you wanna come on full-time as the vice president of narrative at my company?" So Dan is coming on on Monday as the vice president of narrative at Dragonsteel.
That is gonna entail writing a bunch of books; there'll be a bunch of cowritten Dan and Brandon Cosmere books. We're gonna start with some non-Cosmere stuff, 'cause we gotta get Dark One.
The book itself, we still are in the process of revising that. But as early as January, the prequel will be available in audio. We wrote a thing called Dark One: Forgotten. Which is audio native, specifically because we wanted to do it in the style of a true crime podcast. Imagine if, halfway through Serial, they discovered that there was a supernatural serial killer murdering people. That's what Dark One: Forgotten is. It's six episodes, hour-long mockumentary podcast thing. It's really cool; I turned in the final revisions this morning.
I will say, to mollify any fears that might be out there, my own career is not disappearing. I am still gonna be writing my own stuff. There's still Dan Wells alone stuff; there's still gonna be Brandon writing his own stuff. But there's gonna be a lot of overlap with the two of us.
I came here to talk about Moonbreaker. I saw the teaser that you did talking about the lore and audio logs, but we didn't really get a whole lot about the lore itself of Moonbreaker. I was curious if there was anything that you could talk about there, and if there's any crossovers or references to the Cosmere itself.
Okay, excellent question. Dan and I are working together on a video game called Moonbreaker, which is a tactical minis painting video game. It's really cool; it's on Steam.
It's from Unknown Worlds, the company that did Subnautica. This is their new thing. It's in early access now. You can get it on Steam. It is incredibly beautiful and cool. It plays really well. The painting is phenomenal. Brandon did all the worldbuilding and I'm writing all the stories.
So the question is, "What can we tell you?" The thing is, they won't let us tell anything about the story or lore until it comes out. Video game and movie companies tend to be super tight-lipped. I am pushing on the movie side to be like, "Just let me say stuff, guys." They're like, "No! You can't say anything! If you say things, then the publicity team won't have a job any more, because it's their job."
The basic premise of it is that there is a star with an atmosphere. So there's hundreds of moons kind of swirling around inside of that. You can fly from one to the other. You know, open air, and different crews of things will fight against each other.
The physics of that kind of works.
Yesh. It's space fantasy, so the physics can take a back seat. <laughs>
What can we say?
What I know I can tell you, at least structurally, is that every four months they're releasing a new season of the game. So there will be new units added to the game and occasionally new maps and things like that. Season 1, which is what's out right now—the launch season, has three captains, which is like your main character. Then every new season will add a new captain. I just yesterday turned in the first episode of season 2. We're going to have three half-hour audio episodes per season, and so we've introduced the fourth captain now internally.
I don't know what else we're allowed to tell you except that the game is super cool.
I can tell you this. I came up with a really large-scale overarching plot for everything, and we are not going to get to that, they decided, until we do the backstories of all the captains, which was a smart move. So once you know who all the captains are, then you will find out what the plot of Moonbreaker is.
What's Dan Writing?
I continue to work on the revision of Dark One. It's going well, but still not at the pace I would like, in part because I am splitting my time with three other major projects: a new Cosmere series and two secret things I can't tell you about.
What's Dan Reading?
Right now I'm reading Dawnshard, which is a small book that fits between Stormlight 4 and Stormlight 5. And that news, by itself, is not super exciting, but I'm reading it for a very specific reason which IS exciting but which I can't tell you :) You'll find out in a year and a half.
Sixth Epoch, Year 31, Palahishan 5.10.2.
Willshapers
When I talked about Lightweavers, I said that they believe in being whoever they want to be. Willshapers believe in giving that freedom to everybody. One Willshaper is likely to be very different from another, because the only thing they necessarily share is the idea everyone should be free to do, say, and be whatever they want to be.
A Skybreaker will stop you from being oppressed, but a Willshaper believes that any laws at all are a form of oppression. An Edgedancer will take care of you, but a Willshaper will show you how to take care of yourself. A Truthwatcher will tell you the secrets of the cosmere, but a Willshaper will focus on the at-home, day-to-day secrets that help you live the life you want to live. Want to paint yourself blue and live in a tree? The Willshapers support you! Want to conform to society and do what you're told? The Willshapers support that too, as long as it's your choice to do it.
Another thing that's common to Willshapers (not requisite, but common) is that they tend to be builders. They don't just talk about freedom, they work for it, and they build systems and structures that enable freedom for everyone. If a road or a bridge would give people more choices about how to spend their lives, the Willshapers will build it. If a dam would help create an irrigation system, thus making food more plentiful, so people can choose their profession instead of being subsistence farmers? The Willshapers will build it. If a king is treating his people cruelly, forcing them to act or live in a certain way... well, sometimes the Willshapers destroy things too.
Hi, everyone! I’m excited to be on the team, and bubbling over with joy at the prospect of writing a bunch of awesome Cosmere stories for you.
The first Wells/Sanderson project, as Brandon mentioned earlier, is Dark One: Forgotten, an audio series that you should be getting very soon. It’s a prequel of sorts to the Dark One novel, and we chose to do it in audio because it’s presented as a faux True Crime podcast: instead of reading about an amateur investigator researching a mysterious disappearance, you get to listen to her record a podcast about her investigation. It’s a lot of fun, and I think you’re going to love it.
I suppose that technically, though, the REAL first Wells/Sanderson stories are the audio dramas for the video game Moonbreaker. This is a slightly different case, because I’m contracting directly with Unknown Worlds rather than working through Dragonsteel, but the end result is the same: Brandon did the worldbuilding, I’m writing the stories, and we’re working together on edits and revisions. The game is in early access and still in flux, but the characters UW has created are incredible, and I am loving the process of bringing them to life. I just turned in episode 5, and I’m starting on 6, and there are many more in the pipeline. Definitely check it out.
There are many other Dragonsteel projects I’m working on, but most of them are still secret. What I can tell you now is that I am deep in the third draft of Dark One, and Brandon and I have been workshopping it heavily. We’re polishing the story and the characters, we’re expanding the scope a little, and I’m hoping to have the book finished early next year. It’ll still be a while before most of you can read it, but trust me: it’ll be worth the wait.
As for my Cosmere novels? We’re already working on the first one, but it’s mostly just brainstorming at this point. We’ve found a corner of the Cosmere—and of the fantasy market in general—that’s just begging for a series, and we’re going to take our time and do it right.
Shadows of Self - What an awesome story, and what a gut-punch of an ending! Was that planned when you wrote Alloy of Law?
Once I finished Alloy, I wrote the scene with Bloody Tan and Wax, intending it for Book 2. That was when I built this plot.
We eventually moved the scene to the start of book one, and I revised with the new perspective on Lessie.
So it was there by the time Alloy came out, but was not part of the first draft. Advice from [Dan Wells] caused it.
You have my sincere apologies
Sixth Epoch, Year 31, Shashaches 6.3.1.
Bondsmiths
Bondsmiths are, well... different. For starters, there are only three of them at a time, because there are only three spren that can grant Bondsmith powers. Seems kind of strange for a Radiant Order whose whole job is to bring people together, right? But, see, that's where the strangeness continues. Every Order takes squires; that's nothing new. But Bondsmiths sometimes have whole groups of servants who swear oaths but gain no powers at all. Can you imagine? I think there's something beautifully pure about that. They might be the only people in any Order who've ever taken the oaths for purely selfless reasons. They can't do any Surgebinding, they don't get spren, they just... take the oaths. Because oaths are important, and the values they swear to uphold are worth upholding.
And those values, I admit, are pretty great. Bondsmiths unite things - mostly people, but also governments and kingdoms and armies and everything else. They negotiate treaties, and resolve disputes, and help people to see each other as people, instead of as rivals or foreigners or enemies. Their main power (if you can call it a power) is to help people find common ground, and get them to agree on things, and to make those agreements matter. No matter which of the three spren they bond with (and those three spren can produce some very different textures in the bond), the thing all Bondsmiths share is that they bring people together. They make people feel included and important. Sometimes, they're in the middle of those groups, corralling the actions and holding the attention. Sometimes, they're out on the edges, watching the group they created have new ideas and activities and adventures of their own. Either way, the Bondsmith is happy.
Sixth Epoch, Year 31, Palahachan 5.3.2.
Dustbringers
I have a soft spot for the Dustbringers. I've never met one, or at least I don't think I ever have. But their core principle is one I feel uncomfortably close to my own heart: that we all bear the capacity for unimaginable damage and destruction, and that the only way to protect those around us is to always maintain a firm, unshakeable control over ourselves. I'm no Dustbringer, but I've caused my fair share of destruction. Mental, emotional, and even physical. It's a hard thing to live with. The Dustbringers dedicate their entire lives to making sure that this kind of thing doesn't happen. That no angry outburst or selfish whim ends up harming the people they love. There's a part of me, I think, that would enjoy being a Dustbringer.
A big part of Dustbringers' incredible self control comes from their quest to understand themselves and the world they live in. How does a given thing work? Why does that river flow in just that way? Why does that rock stay on that ledge? And if it falls, how will it fall? Where will it land? Why does this experience cause this emotion, and why does this word or this attitude cause this particular response? When we understand something, we can control it. We can make that rock fall exactly where we want it, or cause or avoid an emotional response in a person we're taking to. Wouldn't that be wonderful? To know yourself and your family, and the world in general, so well that you can always keep everyone happy?
Or maybe I'm revealing a little bit more about myself than I should be. So back to the fun stuff: physical destruction. Dustbringers are the sappers and siege masters of an army. The ones who could bring down an otherwise impenetrable enemy fortification through the one-two punch of having a lot of power and knowing exactly where to apply it. Want to take down a bridge? Who better than someone who takes bridges apart for fun, just to see how they work? And who better than- okay, now I'm thinking about the potential of targeted emotional destruction, and it's pretty terrifying. So let's end on the control thing instead. Who better to defend your own bridges and forts and hearts than someone who knows exactly how they work and who has the self-awareness and the emotional control to keep them completely safe.
We will find a time to eventually release this book [Apocalypse Guard]. It's interesting; when you add us together, oftentimes things just get weirder. They get better, but they get weirder. You can actually go listen to my version of that chapter read at some point in the past, and you will find it's actually much worse. Adding us together really does enhance. But the problem is: we go off the rails real fast in books, the same way we go off the rails in panels. So now, Dan's pitched it back to me to fix the structure, is what we need. The magic system is part of that, but it's really the structure, because the climax doesn't work anymore. It never worked; it still doesn't work. The character was broken in the original draft, and Dan fixed that. Because character is Dan's thing. Now, I've gotta figure out how to make the structure actually work. Which will be a project of mine coming up eventually.
What I love about it, though (and if you go and find his original thing, then obviously you'll be able to compare and contrast them and do your whole English essay on it), reading that, I can't really tell what is me and what is Brandon, because I think we managed to combine our two styles pretty well.
My voice for this book was already... Emma was a little goofy. And Dan just picked right up on that, and it was instant. The voice was a little off, in the first one. It was trying a little too hard to both be dynamic and funny. And it turns out just nudging it a little more self-effacing funny made the whole thing worked. And the character just snapped together. So the kind of just slightly off sense of the characterization ended up really working. But I had known that the magic was broken when I gave it to Dan, and I'm like, "Will you fix this?" And then Dan came back and said, "This isn't the sort of thing I fix. This is the sort of thing you fix." So we will find a time for that, eventually.
Torena
So. . .in the original draft, Torena is Eventeo's new spy in Arelon. Do you remember the conversation that Sarene and Eventeo had a little ways back? The one where he told her he had a new spy in Arelon, and refused to tell Sarene who it is? Well, yes. Torena.
When I was writing this book, I went a little bit too far with the hidden pasts and amazing discoveries. I had Torena being the one who came to rescue Sarene from the Dakhor. (She arrived in a second carriage, I think.) However, the Dakhor caught up to them again, and suddenly Kiin appeared to save them.
This scene was terrible. It's not that any of the pieces were bad. It's just that it was too repetitive. First you find out Torena has a secret past, and that she's come to rescue Sarene. Then we find out that Kiin has a secret past and he's come to rescue Sarene. It just didn't work–and the Torena surprise, which was only mildly foreshadowed, ruined the much better Kiin surprise.
So, I cut the Torena parts–and I'm very glad that I did. My early alpha readers said that the worst part about the book was how all of the surprises at the end interfered with each other. Looking back, some of the things I did are embarrassing. I was adding surprises just for the sake of surprises. This is always a bad idea–surprises should be integral to plot and character, just like everything else. We want to find out about Kiin because we like him and are interested in him. We don't really care about Torena.
(In my defense, I originally intended Torena to be a female friend for Sarene, kind of a second sidekick. However, there were already too many people hanging out with Sarene, and I just couldn't work Torena in without complicating things even further.)
There are a few items I've read in Stormlight that initially made me uncomfortable, such as the class/eye color dynamic, safe hands/glove, or the Parshman, and their use of song as a tool.
However, I get the sense that you are aware of the implications, which makes me really curious to see how it all unfolds.
I'm quite aware, and it's intentional. However, some of the most controversial (and in some cases straight up racist) pieces of storytelling done in the modern era were done by well-meaning, but at the same time oblivious, white people trying to tackle the topic. (see Save the Pearls or the current kerfuffle about "The Continent.")
So writing a series where racism and class-ism are major themes--and an entire minority population has not only been enslaved, but had their cultures stripped away and their souls partially stunted, preventing them from thinking--is a dangerous thing. It's entire possible that I'll stumble on this, and make a big offensive, embarrassing mess.
So let's just say it's something I'm watching very carefully. The Herdazians, to a lesser extent, are ones that I'm walking a line on. Where do some Hispanic cultural markers--like big families and feeding visitors--stray from being a fun and accurate representation into, instead, being offensive stereotypes? I have to be careful. They're in the books in the first place because I noticed that I couldn't think of many Hispanic-inspired fantasy cultures that weren't Aztec exaggerations. But I wouldn't want to instead turn this into something that is essentially fantasy blackface or characterture.
The limelights were added at Moshe's suggestion. In the original drafts of the book, I had bonfires burning outside. That was problematic, however, since they not only required a lot of fuel, but getting them close enough to the windows to provide enough light meant getting them close enough to be dangerous to the glass because of the heat. In addition, Moshe pointed out that bonfires just wouldn't be intensely focused enough in their brightness to provide the right illumination for the stained glass windows. (And, of course, I HAD to illuminate the windows. Why go to all the trouble of putting the balls in gothic cathedrals if nobody could see the windows?)
So, anyway, Moshe came up with the limelights as a fix. They actually work quite well–they fit the general level of technology I place the Final Empire as having, and the provide focused and intense light. As I understand it, they were the way that stages were illuminated to show the actors during the nineteen hundreds. Hence, being in the limelight as a phrase for someone who is being paid attention to.
The second important part of this chapter, obviously, is the introduction of Kiin's family. Sarene's personality makes her less independent than Raoden or Hrathen. It isn't that she lacks determination, or even stubbornness. However, her plots, plans, and personality all require other people–she needs politics, allies, and enemies. Ashe provides a wonderful way for her to talk through her problems. However, I felt that she needed someone within the court of Arelon with which to work and plan. As the book progresses, you'll notice that Sarene's chapters include far more side characters than Hrathen or Raoden's chapters. In fact, I'll bet she has more than the other two combined. This is just another manifestation of her communal personality–she excels in situations where she can coordinate groups, and she needs a lot of different people to interact with to make her personality really come out.
I have gotten a little grief from readers regarding Kiin's family. Some think that the family as a whole feels too "modern." It is an anachronism that, to an extent, I'll admit. One of the quirks about the fantasy genre is how it generally prefers to deal with ancient governments, technologies, and societies without actually making its characters conform to more ancient personality patterns. In other words, most fantasy main characters are people who, if dusted off a bit and given a short history lesson, could fit-in quite well in the modern world.
I'll be honest. I prefer the genre this way. I don't read fantasy because I want a history lesson, though learning things is always nice. I read for characters–and I want to like the characters I get to know. I like putting characters in situations and exploring how they would deal with extreme circumstances. I just don't think this kind of plotting would be as strong, or as interesting, if the characters weren't innately identifiable to a modern readership.
My in-world explanation for this is simple. Just because our world placed a certain kind of cultural development alongside a certain level of technological development doesn't mean that it always has to be that way. In many of my worlds, culture has out-stripped technology. This does have some rational basis; I write worlds that involve very distinct–and often very prevalent–magic systems. Because of the benefit of these magics, many of my societies haven't been forced to rely as much on technology. There is more leisure time, more time for scholarship, and–as a result–the societies are more developed.
That said, Kiin's family is a bit extreme, even for me. However, the honest truth is that I wrote them the way I like them. They work, for some reason, to me. They stand out just a little bit, but I'd like to think that it's their brilliance and forward-thinking–rather than a mistake in narrative–that makes them seem so much like a modern family.
You write a lot of immortals in your books. How do you think about people living on large time frames like that and how that affects the way they think and act compared to ordinary people? And also, say, 10,000-year-old compared to a 2000-year-old to a 300-year-old?
This is actually something I've dedicated a lot of thought to. I think fantasy and science fiction, one of the things it does well is explore human experiences that aren't possible in contemporary or realistic fiction. And so there are a lot of people out there searching for the key to human immortality. And what would it be like? How would we deal with it? These are questions that are interesting to me, and doing a story on a 10,000-year timescale lets me play around with that. I will say that various people you've met are immortal; some are not. Some, it's more time dilation shenanigans than it is extended lifespan.
But regardless, how do I approach this? By gut and instinct, just trying different things out. No human being's experience is identical to another human being's experience, so I figure no immortal's experience will be identical to other immortals' experiences, and so I can have lots of different responses. I can base it partially on the magic system and how they were made immortal. And then that lets me play with different experiences. Like, the things the Heralds are going through, Hoid hasn't gone through. Some of the sort of degradation of what's happening with their souls is unique... not wholly unique, but individual to the experiences they're having. And I play with those differently than I play with someone who's been elevated to holding near-infinite power in one of the Shards and how their experience goes. And then you've got, just, random people who have run across things that have changed their experiences in different ways, and I will approach them in a different way. And I can't really say how exactly I'm gonna do this with everybody. It's just gonna be different for each character in each situation.
That's a very long non-answer. I've thought about it a lot; I don't have answers yet. You'll see them in the books when I write them.
So what are the chances, once that last Stormlight comes out, that you might open up that worldbuilding wiki up for viewing?
You don't know, I might do that. That's feasible.
It seems like it might be a cool way, other than like waiting another 3–4 years for it to be edited into 2 or 3 atlases or whatever, in this day and age a wiki seems like a good way to do that.
Yeah. The fun thing is, it's now like 15 years old, so it's got all the old stuff from the original write in it as well.
Which would also be kind of cool to see.
Which would be cool to see how I've changed things. There's stuff in there before spren were even part of the world and stuff like that.
<At one point it says> that there were 99 Desolations before the Final Desolation, in the Prelude. Was there actually 99?
Nope, there were not actually 99. That is a mythological relic. Like the 40 days and 40 nights may well be a metaphor for "a lot" ...Good question.
When Dalinar teleports away from Vedenar back to Urithiru, the Thrill immediately comes to him even though he just went a very large distance away. Was this due to Odium talking to him directly at that point, or did Odium move Nergaoul there to maintain the effect of the Thrill, or was Dalinar already Connected to/consumed by Nergaoul and the distance effectively didn't matter because Spiritual Realm Things(tm)?
Dalinar's feelings are not always the Thrill. A part of him legitimately feels these emotions--and there are other things happening as well. (Either way, Odium did not move Negaoul in that scene.)
It's a good call in the abstract but the choice of character to genderswap is not great. Docks, sure, but I'd rather have Ham stay male (and, superficially, stereotypical), and swap any/all of Clubs, Marsh, and Yeden instead.
I understand this complaint, though you might want to look at the post I made just before this one in another thread.
Nothing is set in stone, but we need to imagine the Mistborn film as an alternate version of the cosmere, hopefully as close in heart as the MCU to the comics--but distant in some specific choices. In this case, Ham is working really well changed. Remember, you're only going to have a few comments from him/her in the film. The real place to get to know the character will be in the television show that goes between movies one and three (assuming this plan actually plays out--which it might not.)
If a TV show is successful, then it gets renewed. If Books 1 & 3 are already planned to be movies, what do you do with the TV series when, hopefully the show being a big hit, the network renews it for further seasons? Is there additional plot to be explored between books 2 and 3 somehow? Or did I misunderstand what you were talking about entirely?
So, there is a lot of buzz in Hollywood right now about integrated television and film properties. Further seasons, if this all works, would be Secret History blending into the time between Eras one and Two.
By the way, I'm still fond of the fact that Hrathen is more skilled a warrior than Eondel. Eondel's good, but he's not in the same league as a warrior-priest. Besides, Eondel is a leader, trainer, and general–his skillset is different than Hrathen's. If the two were to spar, Hrathen would win nearly every time.
Interestingly, this is one of the first real action sequences we've gotten in the book. So far, all we've really had are: the fencing match between Sarene and Eondel, the place where Hrathen fights off Shaor's men, and a couple of short battles between Raoden's men and Shaor's wildmen. Really not very much. I'm quite proud, actually, of how well I managed to keep up the tension and pacing in a book without much physical action.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not a sucker for some good action. Go read Mistborn if you want to see what I mean.
In the Well of Ascension, Kwaan says that Ruin changed the words in the Feruchemists' metalminds. Ruin can't *inaudible* metal plates. I was wondering what the difference was?
Because they're in the person's head before they're going in the plates. And he can affect the power as it's transcribed between. Because the power is partially him, the Power of Creation of that world. So there is a bit of him inside of every person, and as the power is going from person into plate... It's kind of like how people can hack your phone through your wifi. Does that make sense? So, that's what's going on there.
Are Intention and Intent the same thing? And how does it work?
I consider them the same thing; those are synonyms in cosmere terms.
I added this aspect to a lot of the cosmere magics relating to Intent. Meaning you have to be wanting to do things to make a lot of the different magics in the cosmere work. Why is this? Well, there are narrative reasons, and there are writerly reasons (for a lot of the things I do).
The narrative reasons are: because I did not want the cosmere magics... it's just safer, it's a lot safer for people. And it allows those who are experts in the magic and who actually work with it to become better. Knowing what you're doing, and knowing and learning; I want there to always be an aspect of learning and practice to a lot of the magic systems.
A more narrative reason (that's kind of a narrative reason) is that there are a lot of things I want to do with the cosmere magic that, when they interact with the physics of the real world, I need some wiggle room. You see this with destructive interference in sounds in Rhythm of War. Where the way that it would work in the cosmere, thinking of something as destructive interference actually creates for it a feeling, an Identity, as destructive interference. Where, in reality, destructive interference, there's nothing inherent to it being destructive interference. It's the same sound, just played in a different way. But in the cosmere, we can add this element of Identity to it, through Intent, that it is specifically made to do something. Which just allows me more gears and levers to play with as a designer of a magic system to make the physics work. And, basically, a lot of these things are... Imagine Intent, narratively, as the converter between real-world physics and cosmere physics, the little adapter that you stick between them. By adding Intent, I have an adapter.
That works really nicely; it's very writerly to try to explain this, but it works really nicely for smoothing the line between real-world physics and cosmere physics in a way that makes it much more fun for me to write, and much more consistent with both things, real physics and made-up physics.
You said that moving people like that [Cognitive Shadows] or spren off-world, from Roshar is difficult.
Yes.
What about physically, say the Ones Above visit them, and they fly away?
So one of the things you'll have to be asking questions and theorizing on is what happens if you try to carry a spren around the planet. What happens to their Cognitive sense, right? So you're on Roshar, right? So on the Physical Realm what would happen-- Because on Shadesmar, you have a flattened version. So there are questions for you to be theorizing implicit in that. And one of them is, what happens, you cross a threshold circling the globe, your spren, what happens to them? Because-- Okay? This relates to the question you’re asking.
Wait wait, you have a three dimensional plane coexisting with a two dimensional plane?
Well, two dimensional is the wrong term, but basically...
Can you specify the mathematically projection used to create this? *laughter*
We'll try to give it to you eventually, but this is the sort of stuff that I do that Peter's like "Oh man..." *laughter* "Alright give me the math Peter." "Ahhh what do you mean? I'm not a mathematician." "Eh, y'know. You're close." It is very convenient to have a physicist and a mathematician in my writing group.
So one of the things people have been asking about a lot the nature of Identity and its uses for accessing other people's metalminds, and things like this right. And I hedged a little bit when somebody asked me... *inaudible*...send people into spirals of confusion, so I'm gonna clarify it for now. So, someone comes in and says, we need a blank metalmind, anybody can use that. I'm like, yes but, the reason that it's a hedge is that you need to actually be a feruchemist to access it, right, you can't just hold the blank metalmind not being a feruchemist, even though it's somebody else's investiture that's been blanked, right. So people keep kind of missing this thing. I'm hedging in the sort of, you don't quite have it, I've kind of dodged it, but I worry that it's just going to be confusing.
So the issue is, you need two things from one of these. You need something that makes you a feruchemist, and then you need a metalmind that somebody else has filled with blank investiture, ok. Now if you can get pure investiture, that can be used by anybody, regardless, ok, you need it in pure form though. But, so there are some other tricks with this as well that don't make it...so anyway, you've got a couple of things that can go on. So you've got a blank metalmind, right, with nothing. You need either investiture, to be able...like you need to be the right type. There are ways to access that if you are completely blank also, if you were a blank slate, but that is still...kind of hard. It's even harder if you are blank, and the metalmind is not blank, but that's not what they're doing in Mistborn right now. You are tapping investiture, gaining the ability of feruchemy and then you are drawing out a blank metalmind, ok. That's the one you need to be...and everything else I'm hedging on intentionally, and I'm worried I hedged in a way that made it sound confusing, ok. So you know now what they're doing. You know that there are other things possible. But I don't want you to think that you have the explanations for how all those things happen, ok.
Chapter Forty
Zane Visits Vin after the Fight in the Assembly
She mistakes Zane for Elend here, which is a nice little subconscious indication of the mental turmoil she's going through. The best part about this conversation is that I think Zane makes a lot of good points. That fight WAS too hard for Vin, and she really is being turned into a tool. I don't think that's as bad a thing as Zane implies, but he's being honest.
I'm not trying to make a statement against assassination. Given these circumstances, I actually think assassinating Straff would be a reasonable choice. However, I don't think it's a good thing for Vin to do here. She's too close to the edge, too confused and too hurt by the killings she's already had to perform. Plus, I do think that waiting is also a good idea–there's still a chance for diplomacy to work, and the armies haven't attacked yet. Killing someone right now could set the whole thing off.
I still worry that the Zane planting an Allomancer amidst Cett's retinue thing was a bit of a stretch plot wise, and I wonder if any readers are going to be able to follow what happened here. I think this is just about the line of what I think an author can get away with and still have things make sense. Zane's plan went off just a little too well, without problems. I think it works since we don't get to see much of the plan and preparations he made, and can therefore suspend disbelief and give him the benefit of the doubt when it came to how much work he put into making this plan work.
Chapter Eighteen - Part One
Yes, Vin wears the red dress. It seemed like the best choice to me. However, several of my female alpha readers seemed to think that she should have worn the black dress. In fact, one said "Well, she'd better get to wear the black one eventually!"
Okay, the next question we have (I think this one you might have answered before) but have we met all the main point-of-view characters yet? Or, if not, what percentage are we talking?
You have met almost all of them. Let me do a count... Let's see. The main characters in the book are (in the series) Kaladin, and Dalinar, Adolin, Jasnah, Shallan, and Navani, whom you all met in this book and most of them had viewpoints. Szeth, Taravangian, and Taln. And one of the other Heralds; I'm not going to tell you who that is. But I think you've met...you have, I'm sure, met that person; I know which scene they're in. And so, I think you've met them all, basically. Taln is the person who shows up in the epilogue.
I'm curious how you were <feeling about whole process of> the graphic novel. <Specifically how you felt about the whole thing translating,> because I have the draft.
Uh-huh.
<You were kind enough to send me that.> You know, you were very descriptive.
<And it didn't translate well?>
Not so much-- although I did see <glimpses of you popping through>.
Yeah, so, I focus on the positives. <But there might be some things I might not agree with.>
I think that's fair. Of course.
And I-- what we came up with was the < a list of a few things>... *inaudible* Like the only one that really bothered <me> was... where is the big battle?
*searches through the graphic novel*
<The big splash page> right there. I'm like... <when did this turn into> white people verse brown people? You've read the book. This isn't about white versus brown. This is, again, how did we end up with white versus brown? Why aren't these people wearing armor? These guys are the ones that are outcasts and these are the high society.
And so when I got this stuff, I was like, "Uhh..." These panels where they'd done earlier where they have the skin tones and the <the clothes for the Darksiders>, I'm like, "Really good!". But then when that one came together I was like, "Oh great, oh great, here we go." And when you put the whole thing together, some things came out really cool. Like I think the Darksiders turned out cool. The Darksiders were awesome. The magic turned out really great. But again, I'm like, "Where's the armor? Where's the cultural markings? Where's that stuff?".
But yeah, yeah. The thing is, the guy who's drawing them is Asian, right? So <he should, you know?>... alright, so that's my thing. But again, you've read the book. Like, where's <that detail?>... But that's-- when you give the story to someone else you have to let them <do what they will>.
If you had a chance to go back for Elantris and the early Mistborn books and stuff like that, would you potentially consider adding more crossover characters, because you did put Hoid in all of those, but would you potentially put other smaller things from other planets, like other worldhoppers, in it?
So, the cheeky answer to this is, I've read The Monkey's Paw, and I've read enough science fiction stories to know that if someone says "Do you want to change this thing about your past?" that you say "No." Because depending on the writer you are either going to end up in a horror story, or you are going to have to learn some lesson about how important you are, or your family is, and then it will all be a dream, so no, I wouldn't.
But really the answer is no, I wouldn't change. I like the fact that the cosmere has a very light touch on those early books. I like it in part because I feel like people who are just getting into my fiction, I don't want them to feel like they have to follow everything to enjoy one book. And yeah, I'm adding little bits more into Stormlight, but that's inevitable because so much will take place in Shadesmar, which by it's nature is far more cosmere-aware, and so we're going to have to do more things the further Stormlight gets and the further Mistborn gets, because it will become inevitable. And that's fine, I'm embracing that. The further we go in the cosmere, the more you're going to have to be on board for the idea of the crossovers working. But I don't want the initial books that you get into to have to be like that. I was very intentional with my light touch on those early cosmere books and I wouldn't go back and add more. Even Way of Kings, right? Has what has Hoid and Felt in it, and that's just about it.
Felt's in Words of Radiance.
Oh, is he in Words of Radiance? He's not even in Way of Kings.
*talking over each other*
Yeah, you saw Galladon, you saw the seventeenth shard. So there's like one scene in the whole book, maybe two, depending, but Hoid isn't even very Hoid-like in that first one. It's the second one where he mentions Adonalsium and stuff—
*correct the previous statement*
Is it the first one? It's the first one. It's that party at the thing with Dalinar. So there's two scenes in Way of Kings, and that's very intentional. By the time we get to the second stage Stormlight books, and the fourth stage Mistborn books, you'll just have to be on-board. But by then you're entrenched. If you're reading Stormlight seven, then the Stormlight series is already longer than everything else, so you might as well just've read everything else.
Ironspine
In the summer of 2010, my wife and I visited New York. My editor, Moshe, is a life-long New Yorker and a repository of details and facts. (I've found this is a common thing in a lot of editors; they tend to be the type to pay attention to details.) The result of this was him towing us all over the city, telling us little tidbits about this building or that one.
Well, one of the stories he told us was about the early days of skyscrapers, and how people would race to build the highest building. He talked about some of the famous rivalries; I think that's the first time I began to envision a cool Allomantic fight taking place in the heights of an unfinished skyscraper. Five months or so later, I wrote this scene.
How does the density of Roshar compare to the density of Earth?
Roshar's density? So, Roshar is less dense than Earth. As well as being a bit smaller. I mean, we're at .7 gravity, so you can run the numbers. I'm sure the people on here *nods at smartphone* will. And they'll figure that out.
When writing, how do you work out space versus time?
Space versus time, what do you mean?
So I guess distance versus time. So like, you have your math and you're writing, is it more just kind of feel how the story goes, or is it "I know this amount of space is going to take the characters four months--"
Oh I see what you're saying. Ok, so how do you work with, when you've got traveling characters, working out how much time things are going to take, traveling and things like this in the book, it actually really depends on the plot archetype of the book. If the book is what we call a travelogue, which is about traveling places, exploring new locations, it's kind of got that adventuresome, exploration feel to it, then the destinations you go to are the main part of the plot. For most of the books I'm writing, I don't do travelogues very often. I've done a few but not very often. So for me, that stuff in the middle is the boring stuff, and I skip it. You'll see in my books, they start in one chapter and they're like "well, we've gotta get here", and the next chapter they're like "wow, that was a ride" and then were there, and that's because the plot archetype I'm working on is usually different than that. So you've gotta kind of understand what you're writing.
One of the big things to figure out about your story, either discovering it as you write or planning it, however you do it, is why are people turning the pages, what are the promises I'm fulfilling, what is the thing that they're going to read that book to get. It can be multiple things, but if that exploration's part of it, they don't want to miss that journey. I remember reading a book once, and this is kind of an example of why this is so important, and I'm not going to name who it is because he's a very good writer. But there's one of his books where he stops, takes a break, comes back to the characters a few years later, like in the middle of the story, and you've missed the main character falling in love and getting married and this stuff. And I was like "No!", because the book is a coming-of-age book, and so the coming-of-age book skipping falling in love really felt like a betrayal of my trust as the reader. There are other books I've read where you can skip that, and it's okay, does that makes sense? Because the book is not about that, it can be about something else. So make sure you're not skipping the stuff that people want to read. Make sure you skip the other stuff though.
I worked for a while on the last line of Part Two. Originally, Hrathen thought to himself "Well, this isn't good." However, Moshe disagreed with that line. First, he thought it was too quippish. He wanted something more serious here. Second, he didn't think that these events were actually bad for Hrathen. Telrii, a man who had been giving Hrathen serious troubles, and Eondel, one of his main enemies, had just killed each other. On top of that, Roial—the main rival for the throne—is dead. All in all, a lot of annoying people are dead.
Moshe had a point, though I did disagree a bit. I think Hrathen would see Telrii's death as a wasted investment. He was still hoping to control the man, and having Telrii on the throne and amiable to Hrathen would have been a much better outcome, since it would leave Hrathen looking less powerless before Wyrn.
However, I went ahead and changed the line. It now reads "So much for avoiding a bloody revolution." It gets across the same ruefulness as before, without being as flippant.
Going back to The Wheel of Time for a second... One of my favorite things about A Memory of Light is you had so much-- I guess free rein with parts of it... Can you give me an example, or a couple of examples, of something that you got [???] I could be totally wrong about this situation but say like, when [???] was first creating a weave to see a whole battlefield. Was that something you did, or was that actually Robert Jordan's.
Excellent question, I'll go through a few of these things for you, that one was me. One of the things that was awesome, but also a little bit difficult is the wrong term-- Anyway, it was awesome to be able to come into The Wheel of Time as a fan, and have read the books for twenty years and be thinking about "Wow, I wish this would happen", and then say "Wow, I'm gonna make that happen" ...But as I was doing it, I was also realizing it was dangerous, because there was a real danger for putting in fanservice type stuff, not in the traditional meaning of fanservice, but like the fanservice of "Narg showed up in the Last Battle again" or things like this. Like little fan jokes. I found that I had a lot of temptation to put those in, and so I had to ride this really careful line where I was saying "What do I as a fan want, to make the book more fulfilling not just as a joke".
One of the things that as a writer I've always wanted to see was gateways used for more than they were used in the books leading up to that point, you know, teleportation, instant travel has a lot of ramifications. One of the things I kind of put on myself was that I didn't want to create a lot of new weaves, because I knew if I did, I'd really risk taking it to far away from Robert Jordan's vision. So I said "Let's stick mostly to the weaves he's used, and see if I can use them in more innovative ways". This whole idea of taking the magic and digging deeper into it rather than going wider with it. And so a lot of the stuff with gateways is me. A lot of--
So for instance, I also went in and said to Harriet coming in, "Every book that Robert Jordan's done, almost all of them, has added a new character who's become a main character who used to be a side character. If we don't do that for these last books it's gonna feel weird to people. So I would like to take one of the Asha'man and bring them to prominence, and make them a viewpoint character and do what Robert Jordan's done" and so that's where Androl came from. And they're like "Well there's nothing in Robert Jordan's notes other than this little bit about his profession, take him and play with him, and do whatever you want." And that was almost a little pressure valve for me, to put the more "Brandon-y" sort of things, goofy magic system stuff with that, and that pressure valve allowed me to not really-- knowing my writing style, I was able to make the rest of it be a little more Robert Jordan-esque, if that makes sense.
You see that pressure valve there, you see it with Perrin in the Wolf Dream, in the world of dreams, because-- I've said before, Robert Jordan didn't leave very much on Perrin. Perrin is a big, empty-- big blank slate for these books. We knew where he ended up at the end and that was it. So Perrin was the other sort of "Do whatever you want, Brandon" sort of thing. He left a lot more on the other characters. So if you're reading a Perrin scene or if you're seeing them play with gateways, you're seeing me kinda let Brandon leak out a bit more. And this was done intentionally, I'd say part was a pressure valve, but also when I was given this, Harriet sat me down and said "You are the author now. I didn't hire a ghostwriter on purpose. I didn't want somebody who was just going to be Robert Jordan, because that would make a bad book", in her opinion. "What Jim-- Robert Jordan can't finish this, so you need to do it and yes, we want to stay true to his vision, but you are the writer now." And she was very clear on that, and I've always remembered that and how much that meant to me, being-- You know, she was the ultimate authority, but I had creative control to do whatever I felt the books needed, and the she-- her job was to rein be back if she though I went too far, and make sure the voice was consistent and things like that. So I got to do a lot with these books that I don't think a ghostwriter would have been able to do.
What is your favorite character archetype or personality type that you haven't used in one of your books?
I haven't done a real cool traditional revenge narrative, in the kind of Count of Monte Cristo way. Basically, this is the mistaken identity story (if you guys have read the Miles Vorkosigan books), except done more intentionally. Like, in the Vorkosigan early books and what not, it's a person who gets in over their head and has to lie about who they are and what their experience is in order to stay ahead of the lies that they've already told, so that people won't discover that they aren't indeed the person that they say. A Bug's Life is a great example of this. And that one is usually played for comedy, though in Vorkosian books, it's not; done very well. There's a different archetype of this, which is kind of the... Knight's Tale is this thing, and so is Count of Monte Cristo, where an intentional deception of those around you in order to achieve a near-impossible goal. I would say that my favorite story of that archetype is Gattaca, which I just love. I think it's a fantastic movie. And I've never done that, that specific style of story. And I fully intend to someday. I mean, Gattaca being one of my favorite movies would be a clue; I tend to take the things that I love. But I haven't found the exact right place for it yet, let's say.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Vasher Finds Vivenna
I'm torn about this ending. It seems like this last chapter is a little anticlimactic, and yet at the same time, there is still the major conflict of the book to resolve.
Or is it the major conflict of the book? Probably not, as I think about it. This book's major conflicts were character conflicts. Yes, we want to save Idris, and it's important—but what happens with the characters has overshadowed that. Perhaps that's why this chapter feels just a bit tacked on. It's not as bad as the Well of Ascension second ending, however, and I think it's nearly the best way to format this story. That doesn't stop it from feeling a little extraneous, though.
Will the Threnody book take place in the Homeland?
The book is tentatively called The Dusk Brigade. A group wants to free the homeland of the Evil. It doesn't go well for them. Opening scene is all ships sinking and people washing up on shore.
What about Aon Rii? Talk about Aon Rii. What are the random dots? Are they valuable metals?
Honestly, I don't remember. [laughter] I'll be straight up honest with you, I designed the Aons—When I designed the Aons, they all had things like that. Like "Oh, that's what this will be," but I was not as good about taking notes of things then. I didn't have the wiki that I now have. I didn't have all of that stuff, so I can say "Yeah, that's going to be valuable metals", and canonize it that way, but I don't remember what I was actually thinking when I designed it. It was my first time doing anything like that, like [?] sort of thing. I hadn't ever done anything like that before, so I was just flying by the seat of my pants.
In fact, there's a fun story about that, a story I don't think I told during the annotations, I might have. Originally, I wrote it, and used all the Aons as like little things about characters' personalities. Like Rao is spirit, and Ene is wit. Well, all the other ones were things like that, to the point that the traitor character, his Aon's the one that meant Betrayal. Like this, all the characters have little things like that. And then my editor saw it and said "Ah. Do you really want to give away everyone's personality? And who's going to name their kid Betrayal? And I was like "That was really stupid Brandon, why did you do that?" But at the time, I didn't know if I was going to have a dictionary in the back or anything, and so I had to go back and rename almost all of them. I left Rao and Ene, but I renamed almost all the—renamed the wrong word. I shifted all the meanings and things like this so that everyone would have a name that would make sense that you would name a person. And none of them meant anything more than what they actually mean.
Riddle me this: Why did the Horneater couple stop after four kids?
*Playing along*
Alright, go for it.
They didn't want to get heir-sick.
*Laughs/groans*
A Rioter, a Soother, and a Coinshot all go to buy a car.
The Soother goes up to the salesman and is like "hey can I buy a car" and the salesman goes "No, every time I sell to you people I always end up wanting to please you too much: I don't want to sell you the car, get out of here."
The Rioter walks up. He's like "hey, can I buy a car?" and the salesman goes "No, every time I try to sell to you folks I always end up wanting to try and *garbled* too much, get out of here."
The Coinshot walks up and the salesman goes "No you gotta *garbled* too, get out here." The Coinshot's like "what!? I can't mess with your emotions." The salesman goes "well yeah, but you guys are way too pushy."
Wow.
The 2024 edition of the reading order of my books.
I generally do not recommend publication order. Why is this? That's because I feel like my first book, Elantris, is actually one of my weaker novels. Still, I hope you will someday read it. I do think it holds up moderately well. But it's not up to the caliber of what I write right now.
I would recommend, if you're just coming into this blind:
I would say read the original Mistborn trilogy, Mistborn One, Two, and Three.
Then, I would jump, and I would read Warbreaker.
Then, I would jump, and I would read another of the standalones, probably Tress of the Emerald Sea.
From there, I would jump, and I would start into the Stormlight Archive. And I don't know if I would read straight through the Stormlight Archive; each of those books are enormous. I might take breaks with the Wax and Wayne series, or the other standalones, such as Elantris or Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and read those.
I do intend for people to read Dawnshard and Edgedancer in the middle of the Stormlight Archive; so Edgedancer, I would read after Book Two; Dawnshard, I would read after Book Three. And The Sunlit Man, I would read after Book Four. That's a standalone novel; it is intended to be read before you read Stormlight Five.
Where would I, then, add the short stories in? The rest, it doesn't matter that much. You can splice in Sixth of the Dusk, Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, basically wherever you feel like they're appropriate and you want something a little shorter. They're collected in the volume Arcanum Unbounded.
What is Brandon going to take his break from this to do?
Fortunately, I have planned it out and what I'm going to do is the Apocalypse Guard. I have to do something new. So I'll probably do Apocalypse Guard and then a sequel to something, either the Rithmatist or to Wax and Wayne will be would I do after. Those are both going to happen pretty soon. Apocalypse Guard is my follow-up to Steelheart, so thank you for the opportunity to pitch this.
So my one sentence pitch on this is, you're having a disaster, you call the justice leage and they're all gone taking care of something more important but you get the intern, who has no powers but she does her best anyway. In the Steelheart universe, people have discovered alternate versions of Earth and what they find is that most of these alternate versions of Earth are undergoing some sort of disaster. Something has happened in the timeline of the multiverse that is causing different varieties of disasters to occur that are planet-ending. So the Apocalypse Guard is formed of a bunch of engineers, scientists, and people with extraordinary powers whose job it is to save the planets. They take like eight months in planning, it's not like they just show up, it's like we put all of our effort into saving planets. Well, a disaster befalls the Apocalypse Guard, something or someone attacks them, and the coffee girl intern gets teleported to one of these worlds they were planning to save with no resources and three weeks until the world is destroyed. And everybody else is too busy dealing with the attack on them. It's her story on a planet that is doomed, trying to figure out either how to get off or maybe how to put the plan into motion that they had come up with. So there you are, coffee girl saves the world.
What else . . . oh, Susebron's taste buds. A couple of people have e-mailed me about this. From my research (which could be wrong), I've come to understand that the old teaching that certain parts of your mouth have taste buds that focus on certain tastes is wrong. The conventional wisdom is that your "sweet" taste buds are on your tongue, and if it is removed, you won't be able to taste sugar. (Which is why people e-mail me.)
That's apparently an urban legend. There are different kinds of taste buds, but each kind appears in clusters alongside the other kinds. And while most of your taste buds are on the tongue, many are on the roof of the mouth too. So Susebron could taste sweets as well as he tastes anything else.
Continuity question:
Just prior to meeting with the Nightwatcher 5.5 years ago, Dalinar wakes up at the end of a highstorm and seems to have experienced a vision from Stormfather. But in The Way of Kings, Dalinar says that the visions only began "a few months ago." He also seems to have specific memory of the "first" even if he can't recall all of the details, and it seems unlikely he would have visions for several years without anyone having noticed.
So, should we assume that (1) this strange "dream" in Oathbringer was not actually a one of Honor's visions? Is that just a weird dream, or perhaps some OTHER vision from Stormfather?
Or, (2) this is one of Honor's visions and any contradictory details from The Way of Kings are superseded by Oathbringer?
Or, (3) this is one of Honor's visions, and Dalinar just doesn't remember his history of the visions very well.
So, I did this quite intentionally, it's not number two. But I expected these questions to be asked, and it's a RAFO, but it's one of these RAFOs where I wrote it very deliberately the way I did on purpose, and I'm going to leave it to your speculation as to what it means.
Zane attacks Vin, then reveals that he's Elend's brother.
The Zane scene represents a major turning point in his character as well. I see it as important how much he reveals to Vin here. He, like her, has trouble trusting–and even though he's manipulating her, even though he's aware of what he's doing, having him tell her these things is a major breakthrough. At least, for Zane. Everything is a little twisted where he is concerned.
Having him fight her with atium was, also, an intentional attempt on my part to remind you how vulnerable she is without the metal. I'm not even sure I can get across how little a chance she had in defeating him.
Here I also mention Snapping here for the first time in this book. It's an important world element that, unfortunately, I think a lot of people tend to forget.
It doesn't really matter until book three, however, so I'm willing to let it slide in this book, giving only occasional reminders.
Tell us a little about The Way of Kings.
The Way of Kings is... it's many things. And I once heard Robert Jordan, someone ask him to describe the Wheel of Time. And he said, "Well, I can't say it in a few sentences. If I could, I would have written the books that length. You'll just have to read them." And part of me wants to say that for this book. I just don't even know how to describe it. I've been working on it for something like fifteen years. It's kind of the project of my heart that I've wanted to do for a long time but I didn't feel I had the momentum to do it until this point in my career.
And it's about many things. On one hand, it's about Knights in magical platemail power armor that punch through walls and jump off buildings. There's that aspect. On the other hand, it's about the age of discovery in a world where magic is real. It's the dawning of an age of technology, but magical technology. It's the beginnings of something like that. So, for Wheel of Time fans, I describe it as the beginning of the Age of Legends. A story about something like that in a world where people are just starting to apply scientific reason to magical experience. And on the other side, it's a very individual story about a young man who gets recruited into, is essentially pressed into a terrible war where he's part of this crew of men who run siege equipment. He doesn't even get to fight, he runs this siege equipment and lives this terrible experience of people dying around him, and learning and growing and surviving in this terrible place.
So it's all of those things. On one side it's the fun action; on the other side, it's me trying to deal with the ideas of magic and science blending. But really, it comes down to a story about character. Who are these people? The young man who's trapped, and the young woman who's essentially Pliny the Elder mixed with a little bit of Darwin. She's a scholar who's just kind at the beginnings of this age of discovery, who's sort of sketching these weird creatures she sees and applying reason to them. So, it's all over the place, but hopefully it coalesces into one awesome story. I hope.
Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?
Excellent question. He did not use the bead. He-- In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads.
Is there conspiracyspren? We have kind of a family joke about that one.
So, conspiracyspren... Let's just say this. I have purposefully not made spren of certain things that I think would undermine the very purpose of the spren. If that makes sense?
My question was going to be: What emotion would you never write a spren for?
Well there are ones that-- I would go with that. Things that undermine the very nature.-- But I wouldn't say never to anything. In the cosmere, particularly on Roshar, if people start to personify something, there's a chance it would become a spren, and that could be anything. The current vogue question to ask me is "will there be memespren..." And my response is always, "If people personify something, then there's a chance that a spren will develop out of it."
Hoid went through Cultivation's Shardpool to get to Roshar as opposed to Honor's. Yet, he notes he never got along well with Cultivation. Why did he choose her Shardpool rather than Honor's?
You're making assumptions!
Is it possible that it is Honor's?
It's possible.
Rock is taller than the other bridgemen. When he gets under the bridge, will that make it more difficult for him? Wouldn't he have more load on his shoulders than the guys next to him?
Um, yes, though you will notice that I equalized for height with the pads on the shoulders. And a bridge that will run-- yeah, they will use pads and things like this. And you can customize your bridge over time. The fact that most bridgemen die before that's necessary... um, yes. But it would mean he would end up having to stoop for part of it unless you wanted to carry a lot more of the weight. Being next to Rock would probably be a fun thing. But then there are the pads, and things like that, so. *brief pause* And once they really got it going, they could re-- they could really customize that bridge. Like, you know, take off pieces underneath and things like that so that it fit everyone really well. But in Sadeas's army you don't really get to that point.
What medium do you usually favor and about what dimensions do you use for a standard book cover piece? Are they the actual book size or scaled down?
Also, do you have any clever signatures or symbols you like to hide in your work that you wouldn't mind sharing?
I work almost exclusively in digital media these days, usually Photoshop or Manga Studio. Before I made the switch, I was primarily a pencil and ink artist. Hence the "Inkthinker" name, which I've been using for... well as long as I can remember being active on the internet. It was my first email!
Interesting you should ask about clever logos, are you already familiar with my other work? I do have a signature symbol, variations of which I will often use in illustrations. It's an icon of a lightbulb over a pen-nib, and you can find it all over my stuff on DeviantArt. Here's a good example of the logo game..
I don't think I've ever used it in Stormlight, because it would seem... inappropriate, I guess? Shallan's pages represent in-world artifacts, the lightbulb-logo meta-game has no place hiding there. I have used it a couple times for Mistborn illustrations in the MAG, and I did sneak it into an ad in the first broadsheet, but only because it seemed thematically appropriate at the time (it was an ad for lightbulbs).
Of course, the problem with a "hide the logo in places" game is that I often forget when and where I've done it at all.
I won't lie, I'm not overly familiar with your work but what I've seen, I'm a fan of for sure.
Do you enjoy the digital medium or do you miss the old days?
I miss the secondary revenue stream that original art represents once your profile reaches a certain state. I still work with physical media from time to time, but I'm completely consumed by the variability of digital drawing. It's given me the freedom to do a lot of things I could never do before, but that option for secondary sales is greatly reduced.
If you like playing hunt-the-logo, I recommend my older work from 2007-2012, especially the game stuff. I was playing it all through my work with Fantasy Craft. Those guys give me lots of freedom to play around, and the meta-game seemed most suited to a game book. :)
