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Do you think it ruins some of the mystique to include Shallan's sketches in the novels since her skill level is not left up to the imagination? It's kind of like the recently announced Kingkiller television show that's being developed. No matter how good of a musician they get to represent Kvothe, they will never match the skill level that I imagine him having from reading the books. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Ben McSweeney

I totally get what you're saying.

The meta-function of Shallan's pages are to help illustrate the more alien aspects of the world around her... we focus largely on the wildlife and fauna of Roshar, with the occasional diversion into something like Shardplate. The idea is to supplement the descriptions, not to supplant them. We try to avoid illustrating characters (even though Shallan often draws portraits) in order to leave them to reader's imagination as much as possible... it's the only perfect tool for interpretation.

Unfortunately, the more popular something becomes, the greater the demand rises for visual interpretations. As such, I think it's much better to have a dedicated team directly working with the author on the subject. Because the alternative is the standard, in which artists will interpret the work at the direction of a third party (usually an Editor or Art Director), without direct, unfiltered authorial input... and possibly without even reading the book itself. I may not match Shallan's skills, but I know that I'm matching what Brandon wants to see, to the best of my ability.

Truthwatcher_17.5

Does the Fourth Ideal of Knights Radiant for Windrunners go something like "I will forgive myself for those I've failed to protect"?

Brandon Sanderson

I will put you on the record for having guessed that, but you won't find the answer until a Windrunner is capable of figuring it out. 

Brandon Sanderson

For those of you who don’t know, when I was writing these thirteen books.  I started working on them and I loved the big epics but when I sat down to write Elantris a lot of the advice I had heard from editors said “Don’t write a big series in the beginning.  You want to write a standalone book with sequel potential. So when you sell that you can then write the sequels to it, but if you don’t sell it you’re not locked into spending all of your time writing these.”  The idea was if you’re going to write five novels, write five first novels as opposed to one book and four more so if you can’t sell the first one the others you can sell somewhere. And that’s decent advice, it’s not the only advice. Naomi Novik who writes the Temeraire books, if you’ve read them they’re quite good, she wrote the whole trilogy right off.  She ignored that advice and when she sold the first one she had the other two ready and they bought those too and they released her books one at a time one month after another. I think the Iron Druid guy did that too. It can allow for a really explosive start where you’ve already got shelf space, you’ve got three books there. Instead of being a nobody with one book, you’re a nobody with three and suddenly you look more important.  

Anyways I heard this, and I really do like jumping to a lot of different projects so this is what I tried but in the back of my mind I did love the idea of the big epic.  It is what got me into this, I love the Wheel of Time and things like this. So I started writing a hidden epic so I embedded into Elantris hints of a character I had been developing for years which was a guy who went from world to world in a fantasy universe investigating the different magic systems.  I started embedding this story behind the story using an outline I had used for my very first book that I had never actually finished as a background for all of this. So I was basically writing a sequel to that book but on a different planet, with different characters. I started writing my next book each had these same hints and allusions hidden behind with different characters crossing between the worlds and sharing.

I eventually published Elantris and decided this is something that I thought was cool and wanted to do and I’ve seen people do it.  Stephen King connected all of his worlds. And other authors, Terry Brooks eventually combined a bunch of his worlds together and I thought that what they did was really interesting and I had never seen anyone do it from the get go though right?  Like when Asimov linked the Robot books and the Foundation books it was something he did later in his life where he’s like “I’m going to blend these two together and make one universe out of them.” I hadn’t seen anyone do it from the start, and again I have an advantage on Isaac Asimov and Terry Brooks and people because I’ve read them.  I’ve been able to see what they did and say “Well I’m going to do this from the get go, to see if I can tell this cool hidden epic behind the stories.” So that’s called-- I called that the cosmere, it was my name for it when I was sixteen. It now seems almost a little silly to me but I’ve kept with it because, you know, it is one of those old remnants that I have from my teenage days.  There are characters-- There is a character that has shown up in all of my epic fantasies, things like the Rithmatist are not part of the cosmere, Earth isn’t so if it references Earth you know it’s not. But they show up, and there’s like an underlying, fundamental laws of magic. And there’s a story that happened long in the past and a lot of these people are reacting to this and things like that.  The thing that I want you to know though is I do it in such a way that you don’t feel like you have to have read my whole body of work to read one. Like you don’t have to have read Elantris to read Mistborn. You don’t have to read Mistborn to read Way of Kings even though there is a character from Mistborn in Way of Kings. You don’t have to do that, it’s all behind the scenes and it will never take over a series.  You will never get to like book 8 of the Stormlight Archive and be like “Wow, now its all about the cosmere, its not about--” It’s not going to happen happen like that. I will write books about the cosmere but I will be upfront from the beginning about this is going to be the cosmere series. If you don’t know the different magic systems you’re going to kind of be confused because they are going to interact with each other and things like that.  Eventually that will happen but for right now, you don’t need to worry about it. They are all easter eggs, you can read them in any order and you can piece them together and stuff like that.

Jerich

Are Skybreakers like the MPs of the Knight's Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, yes you could say that. That's a good way to put them. I will say more about the Skybreakers in the future, but yeah.

Valhalla (paraphrased)

Did Odium Splinter all the Shards for the same reason?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. Some Shards he Splintered because he feared the Shard itself, and some Shards he targeted because he feared the Vessel. He was working his way down his list in order of the Shards and Vessels he felt would be most dangerous to his plans until he got stuck on Roshar.

arichards117

When someone is "killed" by a Shardblade, their soul is understood to be severed. What do Vorin practitioners believe happens to the soul if it is severed? Does this mean that the soul cannot go to the Tranquiline Halls? If this is the case, why are Shardbearers/Blades so revered rather than feared or hated?

Brandon Sanderson

Vorin belief doesn't take being killed by a Shardblade as destroying the soul, likely because of Knight Radiant traditions.

Questioner

On the Roshar system diagram, each planet had the sigil of a certain Radiant. I was wondering why you did that

Brandon Sanderson

We're using Roshar itself as a frame of reference, and that is how people on Roshar have named the planets. And they can't see them all, I don't believe, but the naming convention sticks.

Questioner

And thats why you added the sigils?

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. I don't think they've discovered them all on-planet, but since other people off-planet know about them... and in the old days, they knew about them all.

Questioner

Was there a scene that you had in your head from the beginning?

Brandon Sanderson

There were two. One is where Spensa sees the ship for the first time - you can read that in the excerpt. The other is a spoiler!

Hoser

(Speaking of the division surge) Is that a re-framing of, at one point in time you were talking about weak/strong forces?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, weak/strong forces, yes, that's the one that sent me there partially. Like, I'm not actually... the idea of the fundamental forces is a cool thing to me so it's not like I'm actually trying to use the weak and strong forces, the idea of there being fundamental forces. I wanted to go off on it in a fancy way. Like this one right here I told them was surface tension. But it's not really surface tension. It's more like um, the people with this could take a piece of cloth and snap it out and it would become hard as if the cloth became steel. I'm trying to explain this scientifically, but it doesn't work scientifically. Imagine as if they could restructure the atoms so that they became a latticework like a crystal rather than being soft like...cloth. I'm calling it surface tension, but it's not really surface tension.

Hoser

Tensile strength?

Brandon Sanderson

It's kind of like tensile strength. I have to go through Peter and say "Alright Peter, come up with what we should really call this." He does the hard science a lot better than I do. I do the armchair theories and then he goes, "Ok, now this is the math if someone were to actually fall off of this and 0.7 gravity and the weight of the bridge...". (looking back at the chart) So what can I give you that I didn't give her? Um, one of the orders is called Bondsmiths.

Satsuoni

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Vulcronos

Is Book Four still planned to be Eshonai's viewpoint?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Vulcronos

And, would she have been a Willshaper?

Brandon Sanderson

She would be the same Order as her sister.

Brandon Sanderson

Projects in Development

Aether of Night

Another of the books I wrote around the time of Elantris, and another one that's not half bad—but still in need of a solid revision.

I'll likely do something with it someday. In the meantime, if you want to read it, you can send us an email to ask for a copy. (Consider it a thank you for getting this far in this huge post.) I'd ask that you'd consider signing up for my mailing list when you do email me, as that's how I get the word out on when I'm doing signings and when I have cool new things to release. But that's not required in order to get the book.

Questioner

Can you tell us something about the Order of Willshapers that hasn't been mentioned?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I can't. Because, too many spoilers, in that sort of area. And plus, I don't want to lock down some of the things that... because I'm not sure how I'll represent them yet in books. I know what I'll probably do, but I have... there's certain things about it that, until I write a scene from someone's eyes, using the magic, that then is kind of when it locks down for me. So, we will stay away from that.

Questioner

So, I was curious if the Alethi were always-- like, if there was a time where there wasn't a segregation between lighteyes and darkeyes.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that did exist.

Questioner

...How did the separation occur?

Brandon Sanderson

There are some clues in [Oathbringer] and in the last book. It has to do with Knights Radiant and Surgebinding and things like that. It's a part RAFO. It's pretty guessable. There's nothing--

Overlord Jebus

Has Eshonai left for the Beyond?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I'll canonize this. I'm sorry. 

Overlord Jebus

*sounds of horror and shock* Noooo, nooooo, RAFO it!

Brandon Sanderson

You wanted-- That was a RAFO-bait but, so I never intended that-- If you want to leave this one out there-- But I never intended Timbre to be Eshonai's soul. When people said that in the beta, I'm like, "Oh, I guess you could see that, but I mean that's not how spren work, right?"

Overlord Jebus

I was going to say, so you're saying Timbre is not Eshonai's soul.

Brandon Sanderson

No. I never even thought they would make that connection. Because we saw Timbre in the previous book... I mean, I don't want to kill people's fan theories. But that one kind of blindsided me in the beta. I'm like, "Well I guess we'll go ahead and let people think that but no." No.

You can leave that one off if you want to tease people and things. Some people really want to believe that.

Overlord Jebus

I made a bet that Eshonai was not only still be alive after Words of Radiance, but would also become Radiant. And then the bet was if not I had to eat a shoe.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh no!

Overlord Jebus

So I've been trying to get out of it for like--

Brandon Sanderson

Well you could eat a gummy shoe or something like that...

But no, I didn't intend this. No. There are-- Yeah.

AhoyMatey (paraphrased)

Do all greatshells have spren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

In order to survive with the science that I built, the greatshells almost all require some sort of spren to keep them from collapsing. (I suspect greatshells in the water may not require them.)

NotOJebus

Okay so Brandon, I've gotta ask, Rig's last name is McCaffrey. I thought, oh haha, nice McCaffrey reference.

Then I got thinking.

So Skyward is a story about a girl and her starship (dragon) who join a group to help defend their planet, which is made up of separate caverns (Holds) after humanity crashed (colonized) their world, and who has to defend said peoples from an enemy that periodically comes from the sky called the Krell (Thread).

Let's just assume the world takes place in the DE universe and that Spensa and Co will eventually work out how to psychically teleport and... Brandon... Is Skyward just a sci fi retelling of the Dragonriders of Pern...

Brandon Sanderson

The White Dragon (along with Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen) are direct inspirations for Skyward. And Rodge's last name is a nod to Anne McCaffrey.

I wouldn't say it's only a sci-fi retelling of these stories. But the plot archetype that inspired me is the "boy and his dragon" story. (Including Eragon and How to train your Dragon as well.) I've always wanted to do a story like this, but wanted to find a way to put my own spin (heh heh) on the story.

You'll see how they diverge as the story progresses. But much as Mistborn was inspired by heist stories, this one was inspired by dragon egg stories.

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

Are the Dysian Aimians agents of Cultivation? If not, are they in league with another group (excluding the Knights Radiant) that we have seen?

Brandon Sanderson (written)

Kind of yes to both – kind of

rjl

Is Shallash/Ash going to be a Dustbringer? (So Dalinar's count can be all 10 orders)

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO

Questioner

Are these old Radiants?

Brandon Sanderson

Those are Heralds. That's Ash, who you'll see that the very end of this [Oathbringer]. That's Jezrien who's also near the end. You haven't met her [Vedel] yet. Ishar, you have heard about. And it's identified in this book who he is. But those are artist interpretations of them, in-world. They're like the Sistine Chapel versions of the Heralds. They might not look exactly like that, but that is an in-world interpretation of them by an artist.

namer98

I just finished the audiobook this morning, and in the setting are rules about how to not provoke shades of the dead. The rules are in order of least to most severe:

• Don't run
• Don't kindle a flame
• Don't draw blood

The post script talks about how these rules were based on shabbos as presented in the Torah. It was just interesting to see a non-Jewish author (In this case, Mormon) base something off of Judaism.

Brandon Sanderson

:) Thanks for the thread.

The Double Eye from the Stormlight books (inside front cover illustration of the magic in the hardcover of book one) has some roots in the Tree of Life also, and if you look at Alethi, you'll find some Hebrew poking through now and then.

namer98

I read all of your books as audio books because they are all so well narrated, especially the Wax and Wayne series.

I will have to keep a better ear out for the Alethi.

Brandon Sanderson

It can be easy to miss, as I play with it a little first, fitting it to Alethi. But Moash came from Moshe, for example.

MuslinBagger

Is that a hint of things to come? Is Moash like Moses or something? He is, isn't he?

Brandon Sanderson

Sorry. It doesn't mean anything other than "My editor is named Moshe, and I've always liked how the name sounds."

PM_ME_LEGAL_PAPERS

Speaking of which, there's a Lighteyes named Yonatan (a very Jewish name) that Wit insults in...I think it was Way of Kings. Is that based off of someone you know as well?

Brandon Sanderson

That is indeed. (Look again at what he's wearing.)

That's based off of my editor's nephew, who was included as a wedding gift.

Argent

Most of the Shardblades and Plate abandoned by Radiants during the Recreance are somewhere, missing. Are they mostly, kind of in the same place?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a good question. RAFO.

IHeartMyKitten

Would Szeth still have been chosen to be a skybreaker if Nalan'Elin had known that Szeth was willing to kill Adolin "on his own time" unlawfully without being compelled by his oathstone? Or did Nalan'Elin know about that and still think he'd be a good fit?

Brandon Sanderson

Nobody is perfect, and Nale knows this--but he has worse days than others. It's not so much the law, as willingness to follow a personal code, that Nale is most interested in. He's also more harsh with people once they join the order than before.

So, he wouldn't have loved it, but it wouldn't have stopped him from offering.

Lady Radagu

If Shai were to gain a Shardblade and she gave it up, could she then create an Essence Mark that represented the history where she still had the blade? And then if she applied it could she summon the blade? Or a copy of it?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so doing that sort of thing, like re-writing herself to be an Allomancer or something like this -- This is possible but in order to gain the Investiture she wants to have she will have to input that much in Investiture which her current magic system is not capable of doing. Okay? Alright, so "re-write so that I have a Shardblade" would require some sort of hacking of her magic system, which is currently impossible to her in her current situation.

Lady Radagu

So if she had had a Shardblade and gave it up she could not rewrite herself to have that back without more input --

Brandon Sanderson

She could-- Yes, exactly. Now rewriting-- That would be a lot easier than just rewriting herself so that she had a Shardblade--

Lady Radagu

That's what I was asking--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, but what you're asking about would be much easier and that is probably within her power. But what that would do is-- Yeah that's totally within her power. It would create some weird implications where she's summoning it and someone summons it back from her because the Shardblade thinks it's owned by two people.

Lady Radagu

So it wouldn't be a copy it would be the same Blade?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Zykai (paraphrased)

Squires and people wielding Honorblades use more Stormlight than a regular Radiant. Who uses more?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The further you progress, the more efficient you become at consuming Stormlight. They're never as efficient as the Voidbringers, since humans leak too much.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Sixty - Part Three

Dakhor Magic

I actually didn't plan to use the "teleportation" aspect of the Dakhor magic. However, I wrote myself into this chapter, then suddenly realized that I needed to get the group Teod in a real hurry. I couldn't let days pass while Sarene, Hrathen, and Dilaf sailed to the peninsula as I'd originally intended. (I have no idea what I was thinking.) So, I added in teleportation. It ended up working out very well in the book, as it let me add another dimension to the Dakhor magic–that of having it cost a life to create some of its effects.

This, more than anything, should instill in the reader a sense of disgust regarding the Dakhor. I particularly like Hrathen's story about Dilaf making someone die so he could travel to a place fifteen minutes away. It characterizes Dilaf perfectly while at the same time giving a clue to how strict and obedient his order is. This isn't a group of people you want to mess with. It's the ultimate exaggeration of Derethi beliefs on loyalty and structure.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Sixty-One - Part Three

Raoden's Run

Now, perhaps, you see why I was worried that I had Raoden too far up on the slope. In order for the plot to work, I had to get him down to the city in a hurry so that he could draw the Chasm Line.

If you think about pacing a little bit as you read this chapter, you'll see that a lot more time is passing between sections than I'm implying by the quick cuts. It probably takes Raoden a good twenty minutes of running to get down that mountain. Fortunately, I've established that Elantrians don't get out-of-breath.

He also runs, dragging the stick, longer than I imply. I think the pacing here is important to keep up the tension. However, if you draw the line, you'll see that he had to cross a good distance of land while dragging his stick.

Shagomir

Here's the best I can do at what each of the dahns includes, without spoilers. Stuff in italics is unconfirmed but is reasonable to guess based on the information we have from the books and Brandon.

• 1st Dahn: The King and the King's direct heir.
• 2nd Dahn: Highprinces, their direct heirs, and the King's direct heir*.
• 3rd Dahn: Generals?, Highlords, and the non-inheriting children of 1st and 2nd dahn lighteyes.
• 4th Dahn: Battalionlords, Citylords, Shardbearers, and other mid-ranked nobles.
• 5th Dahn: Companylords?, along with lower-ranked nobles.
• 6th Dahn: Captainlords, along with the lowest-ranked nobles and landholders?
• 7th Dahn: Lower-ranking landless officers, along with higher-ranking (or very wealthy) landless lighteyes?
• 8th Dahn: Soldiers, along with high-ranking (or moderately wealthy) landless lighteyes?
• 9th Dahn: Landless lighteyes with some wealth, like merchants and master craftsmen.
• 10th Dahn: "Tenners", essentially any lighteyes who has to work for a living.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm very impressed by this list. You did a great job. Note that only the king is first Dahn under the Alethi system, however. His heir is second, until crowned. Sixth Dahn, as you've identified, is the "landed" cutoff--if you have land, even a little, you're at least Sixth Dahn.

If you were of a specific dahn (say, seventh) but were elevated by something unusual (say, you got appointed to an appointment that would raise you above this) your children will often be elevated to a rank just beneath you. So, for instance, if a tenner got a shard, he'd immediately be elevated to fourth, and his family would likely be elevated to fifth.

The only thing I'd offer a warning on is that sometimes, people shortcut "Captainlord" to just "Captain" which drives Peter crazy, and so it can be hard to pick out rank from title.

Oudeis16

That's interesting... so, is the dahn system new since Alethkar was unified? Or was it modified once they got a king? Or was it always this way, and there just used to not be someone at the 1st Dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

Kings existed in other places, and had existed in Alethkar before. (Dahn is a Vorin cultural ideal, not just Alethi.) So the system is not new, but for many years, the Alethi refused to accept a king. (Following the division of the kingdom among the Sunmaker's sons.)

Oudeis16

Oooooooh... fascinating. So, this implies that before Gavilar unified Alethkar, King Taravangian and the King of Jah Keved would both have been First Dahn, while the highest-ranked ten people in Alethkar were only Second Dahn. Interesting. In the interests of adding a few more names to the list of "known people of the First Dahn" on the Coppermind, would you be willing to confirm if King Taravangian (let's say at the start of the Way of Kings to avoid spoilers) was First Dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

Traditionally, the monarchs of city-states (like Kharbranth, Bavland, and at some points Silnasen) do not claim the first dahn. There have been leaders of New Natanan who have, same with Herdaz. Depends on how much they want to aggravate the Alethi.

Unification era, there'd be two people of the first dahn: The queen of Thaylenah and the king of Jah Keved. Non-vorin monarchs in the west would be treated like first dahn, sometimes, depending on the situation.

Oudeis16

Did we know that Thaylenah is currently ruled by a Queen, or is this a small tidbit you have just given us?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, honestly. Queen Fen. You'll get to meet her soon. Note that Thaylenah is kind of a plutocracy, with merchant councils holding a lot of power, which changes its dynamic a little when compared to Alethi or Jah Keved.

Shagomir

I see you may have sneakily included an explanation for the 4th/5th dahn thing I noticed in a certain father-daughter duo. I promise not to read too much into it....

Brandon Sanderson

Note that getting a Shardblade isn't the only reason someone could be elevated, and isn't the only reason why children might not be the same dahn as their parent. Most of it has to do with titles, and who inherits, and that sort of thing. The answer is probably more boring than you're hoping.

xland44

Not sure if this is entering RAFO territory, but are highprince candidates (that is, people who can be elevated to highprince status if the post is empty) only people from the 3rd dahn? Or can a 4th dahn also be elevated to highprince, for example?

Brandon Sanderson

Highprince is a tricky one, as the definition of "highprince" is a person who can convince others to call him by the title. I guess that's the same for all of them, but as highprinces tend to be near the top of the pecking order, it's more about military than anything else.

Gavilar was 4th dahn before becoming highprince, for example. His branch of the Kholin family wasn't considered a prime contender for the highprince throne--until he took it for himself.

Enasor

His branch of the Kholin family? Does this imply there are other branches of the Kholin family? Meaning, there are other Kholins elsewhere?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, not as many as there once were...

uchoo786

So if I'm understanding this correctly, before Gavilar's branch of the Kholin family started their conquest of Alethkar they conquered Kholinar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup. (There's some minor mention of this in Book Three, I believe.)

Kythis

Is there a specific number of the ideals that they have to do before they can get the Shardblade?  

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the Order.

Brandon Sanderson

Any of you who haven't read the Evil Librarians series might want to duck out here, because I'm going to talk about the big reveal at the end of the fifth novel. This is a post that's been brewing since 2006, so I'm eager to talk about it—but anyone who has read stories like Secret History will know that I like to brew surprises over the long haul. I'd rather you discover this on your own, by reading the series. I've posted before my pitch on what the books are about, and why you might like them.

For those of you who have read up to the fifth book, it's time to give a behind-the-scenes look at what happened with this series.

If we look back to 2006, we can find the seed of the first [Alcatraz] book in a writing prompt I wrote out for myself: “So there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to be sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil librarians.”

Great first line to a story. I typed it into my phone while at a meeting one day, and quickly became enthralled by it. I'd been reading a lot of middle grade, and wanted to try my hand at something in the genre. I discovery-wrote the story, mostly as a writing exercise—and as a break from the Mistborn series, which I felt needed some breathing room before I could work on the next book.

The story turned out great. Quirky, sarcastic, and fun. So I sent it to my agent, and he liked it too. It took us only a few months to get four offers. Each of the editors we were talking to wanted to know, what was my vision for the series?

And this was tricky because the first book had left me in a bit of a conundrum. You see, a big theme of that first book was a character telling their life's story and warning everyone that he wasn't a hero, that things ended poorly for him. And yet the series was lighthearted and fun, full of humor and wackiness. It didn't have the dark tone of Lemony Snicket, despite the main character's insistence that he was no hero.

I felt I'd promised the audience a fun reversal—that Alcatraz would end up being a hero, even if he didn't think he was one. This was tricky though, because I had the feeling that if I ended it that way, it would be too obvious. Somehow I had to have an ending that justified Alcatraz thinking he was a huge failure in life, but at the same time indicating to the reader that he was actually heroic.

And that's when I hit on a structure that would let me do this. I pitched the following to the various editors interested in the books: I'll write a six-book series that I tell everyone is five books long. The main character will write five, and the fifth will end with the disasters he predicted. This will show exactly why he thinks of himself the way he does.

But then the sixth book will be from the viewpoint of his bodyguard, continuing the story and giving the real ending.

I felt this would work because it played into the themes of Alcatraz being honest about his past, mixed with his feelings of failure. But it would at the same time let us have an ending that wasn't quite so much of a downer. All it required was that we remain quiet for six years or so (it ended up being ten) about the secret sixth book. (In the intervening years, if people asked me if book five was the end, I tried to always answer, "The fifth book is the last one Alcatraz will write.")

Some of the editors loved this idea, and others didn't like it at all. One who loved it was Susan at Tor, who is now publishing the books—so yay!

My initial pitch for the release of book five this year was to have a little envelope inside the back cover that you opened and found a note from Bastille, saying she was going to write the last book. However, that proved to be a problem. First, it's easy to lose a card from an envelope, which meant that library books and secondhand books risked having the true ending get lost. Second, it seemed like it would just be too much for people to resist opening early. We ended up going with a folded-over page at the ending, which at least can't get lost. (And in the ebook, Bastille's note is at the very, very end, past all the footnotes, like a post-credits scene.)

So what does this mean for the future of the series? Well, two years ago I posted a screenshot of my folder showing all of my books in order. It hid a secret project, scribbled out. People assumed this was Secret History, and I didn't disabuse them (as I was working on it at the time). But it's actually Evil Librarians Six, which I've done a bunch of work on. I'm not sure when I'll have it out, but it won't be too long. (I will probably finish it sometime next year.) I'm tentatively calling it Alcatraz Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians: The Worldspire. (Yes, Alcatraz's name will likely be crossed out on the cover, with hers written over it.) Originally I'd named it Alcatraz vs. His Own Dumb Self, but I think that might be going too far.

Thank you to all the fans who have kept with this series over the years. It's because of you that I went through all the trouble of buying the series back from the old publisher, when they decided to end it at four books. And it's because of you that we have the gorgeous new Tor editions, finally with cover art that fits the books. (Not to mention the awesome interior art.)

But book six WILL be the last. You can trust this, because it's me saying it, not Alcatraz. 

Questioner

What idea for a book you loved didn't work?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. It happens all the time, absolutely happens all the time. There's one that I did some readings from, that I got a scene written, where I wanted to do this cool book where I had this setting. The pitch on it was, what if viruses and bacteria evolved to give people magical talents when you caught the disease. This idea that a bacteria doesn't actually want to kill you, or a virus doesn't want to kill you. It wants you to live and spread it. You getting sick is a side effect. What if the side effect is, you got the common cold, all the sniffles and everything, but you could fly as long as you had the common cold? What would that do to society? What happens when someone invents penicillin and can wipe out half of these magical talents? What happens if people start catching a disease that makes everything they touch start on fire. So it was a story about basically fantasy Jack Bauer, who's a member of the fantasy CDC, who tries to stop diseases and things like this. But in order to do his job, he has to keep his immune system terrible, like this weakling who can barely get up the steps, so that he can quickly catch diseases to get the powers he needs to deal with outbreaks of these things. It's just a really cool concept that I've never been able to gel into an actual story. It hasn't worked every time I've tried to write it.

the_archduke (paraphrased)

Could a Knight Radiant pass their Nahel bond the way seons can be passed in Elantris?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Theoretically possible and in fact has happened in previous eras.

EHyde

I was wondering about the in-world text, the Way of Kings. It's older than those 4500 years, right?

Brandon Sanderson

It was written by Nohadon.

EHyde

Especially since Jasnah mentioned how all the texts have been corrupted or changed since then, especially the ones dealing with the Radiants, I was wondering if we will find out how the Way of Kings survived intact for so long, or if it actually did, or if it's...

Brandon Sanderson

They do say that...well let's just say that some books exist in translation over the centuries with the primary text having been lost, or things like this.

EHyde

But you're not going to say if the translation is guaranteed to be accurate.

Brandon Sanderson

I am not going to say that.

Deus Ex Biotica

Does anyone know anything about [A House of Ashes, a set of companion stories for the Mistborn Adventure Game]? Was it vetted by Brandon Sanderson, and thus capable of giving us some new canonical data, or is it going to be pure (albeit probably very well-written and exciting) fanfiction?

Crafty Games

We have indeed been working with Brandon to build the game - as much as his very busy schedule allows, at any rate - and he and his team have read and signed off on all of it, including this novella. That said, it's labeled very clearly as a "Companion to the Mistborn Adventure Game" for a reason. It has the seal of approval, but it's understood that the world and full canon are his and his alone. We hope he incorporates some of this into his work, but at the end of the day it's his choice what is and isn't actually true. 

Kurkistan

I plan to treat it as second-order canon: Can be overruled by direct quote from Peter or Brandon or textual evidence from Brandon's books, but otherwise assumed to be true.

Crafty Games

This is absolutely how you should view it.

Hope that helps!

Questioner

You were talking about change. Do you-- A lot of fantasy has this cyclic nature to it, as to the linear nature that a lot of times we think about. How do you think that plays with the idea of change, if you're just doing the same thing over again?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's a great question... What I love about fantasy is the ability to play with theme. Obviously, with The Wheel of Time, this was one of the themes, that history repeats itself, which is a theme of our world as well, and things like this. I like how they're able to play with that. One of the things we do in fantasy is, we take a few concepts, and we'll often just kind of throw realism out the window, in order to try and do something. And that's the whole point of fantasy, right? Realism's out the window. We'll make you feel like it's plausible, but realism's out the window. We're gonna have a society that doesn't change very much across 2000 years of time, and then we're gonna have them change dramatically in a year and a half. And this concept allows you to exaggerate the things that we've all kind of felt in our life, that change is outpacing our ability to keep track of it, and play with that concept of nostalgia vs keeping up with change, and I think Robert Jordan did a really good job with that. And I wouldn't look at the genre and say "The genre is backward-thinking" because of that-- And some people do. Because I feel that fantasy, like science fiction, is fundamentally about the now, that's what we write about. Science fiction and fantasy approach it differently, but Stormlight Archive is not about what it's like to live a long time ago. I don't know what that's like. I'm not a historian. I'm writing about the now through the lens of everything I'm kind of interested and passionate about... The idea of what I'm interested and passionate about ends up in the books, even if I don't think about putting it in directly. This is how I explore the world.

Questioner

Are there any Knights Radiant who broke their oaths in the Recreance that are still around in present day Stormlight time?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Oh, that broke their oaths. You anticipated me. RAFO.

Questioner

But there are still ones around who haven't?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Nale. That's my loophole there. That's who I was thinking of. But you said that did break their oaths, so you anticipated me on that one.

goody153

Since Order of the Windrunner has many members apart from the knights can the other non-knights member also possibly use gravitation ?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO

Questioner

It seems like we need a ton of Radiants since, like, yesterday. Are these ones gonna get really buff? Or is Lift gonna recruit? Are there lots of shoemakers and Lifts that haven't been found that are gonna come out of the woodwork?

Brandon Sanderson

There are some that haven't been found. That's part of the point of the interludes, is to show "This is happening other places."

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Twenty-Two

Vin spies on Ham in the Mists

This chapter has another poetic introduction–I warned you about those, I believe. I hope it isn't too out of place.

Testing Ham in this way is something Vin really should have done earlier in the book. The problem is, I have a lot of things I need to pack into a relatively short space of time in this book. I did things in order of importance, and–oddly–testing the crewmembers took a lower precedent than getting Allrianne into the city or introducing Elend's plan to deal with the warlords.

But, finally, we get to work a little bit on the imposter plot. There are dozens of ways that Vin could have gotten Ham to burn pewter–but she wanted to do one where he didn't know she was there and he where he would use the metal reflexively. She also wanted to do it when she knew he was alone. That way, she couldn't be fooled by someone burning pewter nearby to make it seem like Ham was burning.

Brandon Sanderson

My Year

2015 was a bit slower than last year was, as I spent a lot of time editing.

January–May: Calamity

The bulk of my writing time this year was spent on Calamity, which I'd been putting off last year in order to write the two new Mistborn novels. Looking back at my records, I finished the last chapters in early May.

This was interrupted, on occasion, for revisions of various books—and for the Firefight tour, along with a trip to Sharjah in the UAE. Busy times. So busy, in fact, that it's taken me all the rest of the year to give full feedback to the writers who took my class. I managed to grade their papers in May, somehow, but promised them each a personalized look at their final story submissions, which I'm only now finishing up.

June–August: Stormlight Three

I did squeeze in some writing time for Stormlight in here, though not a whole ton of it got done. I had to stop for revisions, touring, and travel through most of September and October.

September–October: Revisions and a Secret Project

Traveling so much made it difficult to do Stormlight 3 writing, which requires a lot of time investment. So between revisions, I managed to finish a project I've been working on for about a decade now. (Yes, a decade.) You'll see this soon. It's a novella.

November–December: Stormlight Three Again

I plan to keep on this one until I finish it, as I'll talk about below. However, if you want to read a little about my writing time in November, you can read this other blog post.

Brandon Sanderson

Originally, I started this chapter by going right into the logbook excerpt. Then, I realized that I had logbook excerpts before and after the chapter heading–which made things confusing. So, I added in the quick sentence about what Kelsier was doing.

This is our first chance to see the text of the logbook collected in a longer form. I don't repeat all of the chapter epigraphs in-text–just some of the more essential ones. Partially, this is to make certain everyone who's been skipping the epigraphs has some of that information, and partially it's so that those of you who HAVE been reading the epigraphs can see some greater context for their order and flow.

Questioner

I just had a question about writing, specifically regarding your laws on magic. Your first law states that the ability to solve problems using magic is directly proportional to the reader's knowledge of said magic. My question comes kind of as the opposite. What is your opinion on the ability of the author to create problems using magic? Does the reader need to know a lot about the magic system for you to be able to have the "villain" use it to create problems for the protagonists? Or can you create problems with this magic without the reader knowing a lot about it?

Brandon Sanderson

One thing to remember about my laws is that they're laws I devised for myself--laws I find make my writing stronger. I think they hold very well in general, but there are no "rules" for fiction. There are as many ways to do things as there are people doing them. However, like most things, I DO have an opinion. :)

Magic causing problems in the story is a great thing--as more conflict generally makes for a stronger story. Obviously, this isn't a 100% correlation, but it's a good rule of thumb. Using the magic as a kind of "human vs. nature" style plot is a great idea, and I've used it to great advantage myself. One could say that in Elantris, the magic (which is broken) is a primary antagonist of the story.

There are a few things to be aware of. First, avoid what my friend and colleague Bryce Moore dubbed "Deus Ex Wrench." Yes, that doesn't quite work. But the idea is this: Just like solving problems out of nowhere, with unforeshadowed powers or advantages, can be unsatisfying, sometimes just having problems happen out of nowhere in a story can be unsatisfying.

If a dam breaks, risking flooding the city, it's much stronger if we know the dam is there--if the characters have walked along it, or if something similar happened somewhere else in the story in parallel. Likewise, having the magic create problems unexpectedly, if handled without some measure of foreshadowing, could be unsatisfying. (For example, if the One Ring suddenly started--three quarters of the way through the series--melting your friends if they crossed their eyes.)

Just as I think you can create a great magic system that doesn't have explicit rules, I think you can have the magic be a huge problem in the books if the reader/characters don't understand it. Doing so in this case is probably going to be about making sure that the major conflict is not FIXING the magic, but overcoming it.

For example, if the magic in your world--when used--causes rainfall that floods and kills crops, one story (the explicit rules story) would be about finding out why, and learning to use the magic safely. But another story would be about surviving a terrible flood, and another about hunting down and stopping the people who use the magic. All three can use the magic as a huge conflict, but only one would probably need deep explanation of the magic system in order to have a satisfying resolution.

kastorslump

[An image of all of Brandon's progress bars at 100%] well i guess that's it then, no more books ever

Brandon Sanderson

I've actually been doing a number of small things, as opposed to one big one, like /u/pm_me_your_ide guessed. Basically, I'm trying to clear my desk of small projects in preparation for launching into Stormlight 4 in January.

These little things involved a final draft of Secret Project (which I can't announce yet--but you'll know about it soon.) Working on an audio-original novella I've been writing with a friend. Signing large mountains of books for holiday orders. Tinkering with Apocalypse Guard, which I still hope to release some day. Filling out the Skyward 3 outline. None of these really deserved a progress bar, as none of them took more than a week or so.

I will post details in the State of the Sanderson in three weeks or so.

Brandon Sanderson

How did I come up with the magic system for Emperor's Soul? A couple of things. One was the procedural magics in Elantris based on coding, and things. But also, when I was at the Royal Museum there in Taiwan, one of my guides was showing me this piece of beautiful jade. And it had a stamp in it. You know, the stamps, are you familiar with these? They call them chops, we call them dojangs in Korea, you use them as a stamp for your name. They're round, sometimes they're square. I saw this, I'm like, "Why is there a stamp on this piece of jade artwork? That's been carved and sculpted?" They're like, "Well, there was this emperor, who was hot stuff, and thought he was very important. And so he ordered his stamp carved into the piece of artwork, because he thought it was a good piece of art."

And lo and behold, I go through and I start seeing these. There's this great poem, and it's covered with, like, forty stamps. And I asked, they're like, "These are all the scholars who are like, 'Yeah, I like this.' *stamp*" It's like carving your signature into Michelangelo's David, like the forehead. It's like, "Yeah, I think this is pretty good. 'Brandon approves.'" And that's what these people were all doing. And those stamps, the ubiquity of the stamps... I don't know how I got from that to "rewrite something's history by stamping it." But that was the inception of it.

I have several of these stamps that I brought home with me from Korea. Mine actually says Sainja, which-- "Sa" in Korean is "Sand," and "In" is "Person," and "Ja" is "Son." So, it's the Son of the Sand Person. It's really, it's a pun. They see that, and they're like, "That doesn't make any... Oh. That's really dumb." It's exactly what I was shooting for. Either that or they look at it and "Salinja" with an "l" is "Murderer," and read it and they're like, "Oh, wait."

Anyway, it came from that trip.

yulerule

In the reading you did today, at the very end [Gurv] was saying “I have an order from someone.” Is that someone part of some secret society? Because there’s a bunch of secret societies.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, that is definitely going to be a big RAFO, because I haven’t even released the book yet. Let’s not spoil books that aren’t even out yet from readings I did. But I rarely put in an interlude that doesn’t have some tangential relationship, even if it’s just some stuff like letting you know who the Aimians are or things like that.

Ray745

During the final fight between Szeth and Kaladin, Szeth seems far too surprised when Kaladin follows him out past the stormwall.

Kaladin exploded out of the stormwall, surrounded by windspren that spiraled away in a pattern of light. He shouted, driving his spear toward Szeth, who parried hastily, his eyes wide. "Impossible!"

And before that you make a point of mentioning all the windspren streaming around Kaladin as he's flying. A popular theory about Shardplate is that it's made up out of "cousin" spren. Obviously that is a RAFO question, but I wanted to ask if Szeth was surprised for any reason other than Kaladin just following him out of the storm? My theory is Szeth saw the beginnings of a vague suit of Shardplate forming around Kaladin. I know you won't answer that directly, but I was hoping to see your face when I asked it haha. Do you have any comment on that theory?

Brandon Sanderson

Szeth was surprised for more reasons than just Kaladin following him out. He is realizing that the Radiants are returning, and that his exile was unearned.

Questioner (paraphrased)

A girl asked what was up with Taravangian, since it seemed a rough break between the tottering old man and the scheming mastermind that Szeth meets at the end.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Brandon said that Taravangian used the Old Magic, and that he wakes up each day with a different IQ. Sometimes he's a genius, sometimes he's an idiot. So what he does is he writes up math puzzles for himself in the evening, and if he cannot get a certain score in the morning the guards have orders to just take care of him and keep him away from important decisions for that day. That way he keeps his effect under control.

Alex Zalben

How do you craft protagonists? Do you start with them, or do you start with a plot first and then figure out the characters from there?

Brandon Sanderson

I wear one hat as an academic. I teach at the university, I have a master's degree in English. And then I wear another hat as the writer. And the academic and the writer don't interact as much as you would think they do. Because writing is an art, and part of it is so instinctive, that you have to... it's more like you train yourself with these "muscles" to use. And when you go into it, writing a book is almost like a performance art. In that I go and I perform for several hours. And then I get done, and then I can hand it over to the academic and say, "What do you think of this? What am I doing right, what am I doing wrong?" The academic has a lot more to do with editing. And the academic also observes my process and then learns to talk about it.

And I've learned that, for me, character is one of these things that I can't plan out too much ahead of time. Writers tend to fall into two camps. They tend to be, as George R.R. Martin calls them, architects or gardeners. Gardeners nurture a story. Stephen King is a gardener. Start with just some sort of idea, and see where it goes. And architects build an outline.

And I architect my plots. I build an outline, I build a world. My framework for my worlds, my worldbuilding... in something like Steelheart, I'll spend a lot of time saying, "What's the visual sense of this world? What's the underlying mechanics of what is making people become these Epics? Where does this all come from?" And build this all into a document, what the world feels like, what different cities feel like, and things like this.

But then, the person I place in this world, I found that if I put too much structure for that personality, the entire book feels wooden. It feels like this thing that I have created that the character just has to mechanically move through, and therefore can't be alive. And I found that, in order to add a sense of spontaneity and life to my fiction, I have to let the character develop naturally. I have to say, "All right, here is all of this stuff." And put the character into it. And then see if they follow the plot. And if they don't, I will rebuild my outline to fit what this character is doing.

So, yes and no. I often will have a conflict for a character that I'm putting them in, but I don't know who they are until I write the first scene. And that usually requires me to write three or four different scenes and throw each of them until I capture the right voice, like I'm casting different people in the role.

Alex Zalben

To use a very specific example, there was the annotated version of Steelheart, you talked about the main character, one of the main facets is that he has terrible metaphors. But I believe you didn't even discover that until you made a terrible metaphor in the first chapter.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I don't even think it was the first chapter. Might have been the second, I might have re-added in them earlier on. But I'm writing along, I'm like, "Who is this guy? This feels bland. Who is he? What is he passionate about? What goofy things does he do?" And then I was trying to come up with a metaphor, and I wrote one, and it was bad. Like, it was just terrible. And I'm like, "Oh, I can't use that." And usually, I have to go through, like, six or seven. But I'm like, "This is a majestically bad metaphor." And for the rest of the book, I'm like, "This is him. He wants so hard to do things the right way that he goes too far and tries too hard, and they come out wrong." And I'll tell you guys, writing bad metaphors that are good bad metaphors is really hard. Because to make them work... it was a real challenge. It became the hardest aspect of the book, in some ways, coming up with his metaphors. Which are supposed to be bad.

Badger (paraphrased)

Has Renarin been a Radiant since before we first met him in The Way of Kings?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO, saving it for the Renarin pov parts to explore.

Brandon Sanderson

Breeze's Relationship with Sazed

Breeze reacts strongly upon entering the storage cache because this is the first time he's seen one of them. At the end of book two, if you'll recall, he was left psychologically shaken to the point of being unable to function. I thought about playing with that as a character trait for this book, but decided—as I've mentioned before—that I already had too many viewpoint characters.

So anyway, after book two closed, Sazed too was left dazed and frustrated—by the loss of Tindwyl. In order to keep from getting lost, he dedicated himself to nursing Breeze back to health, alongside writing fact sheets on all of his religions. Breeze and Sazed formed quite a bond of friendship during this period, as both reacted to the trauma of the siege of Luthadel. Allrianne was there, of course, helping with Breeze—but she's not particularly good at the whole "helping someone recover from intense trauma" thing.

Breeze never visited the storage cache in Luthadel. By the time he was feeling well enough to be mobile, that topic was blasé, and Elend needed him to go on ambassadorial trips. Breeze asked to bring Sazed along, which seemed a good fit, and the two of them have been pretty much hanging out together since then.