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Warbreaker Annotations ()
#7851 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Anyway, that's a tangent. Meeting with these men was a mistake, something that Vivenna realizes partway through the meeting. There is little she can gain from them—and that which she could gain she's not prepared to ask for. She should have come with more of a plan. Instead, she did what she's done for most of the book—that is, pretend that she is in charge and in control, while in fact she's just floating along with whatever comes at her.

I think this is the big thing Vivenna has to realize in the book. She has never had a good plan of how to deal with things in T'Telir. Unfortunately, I don't think she can learn until she falls a bit.

Boskone 54 ()
#7852 Copy

Questioner

If you gather the essence of a Shard can you reassemble a [disassembled?] Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

[Jokes and shows him a RAFO? Never answered?]

Footnote: Sounds to me like he had a RAFO card already in the book when Brandon opened it or something like that
#rafo
Warbreaker Annotations ()
#7855 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Priests as Scapegoats

I do think that someone being a different religion from yourself makes them a good scapegoat. We tend to be put off by anyone who is too devout toward religion, even if their passion for it mimics our own passion for something we are dedicated to. It's easy to divide ourselves along religious lines.

Once again, I think I need to mention that I didn't write this comment (or the ones about not judging) into the book as an intentional message. It just seemed appropriate for the characters to say or consider, and I happen to agree with them. What I think is important influences the book. How can it help but do otherwise?

Bonn Signing ()
#7856 Copy

Questioner

Did you do the annotation process while you were writing? Or do you do it after?

Brandon Sanderson

When I did the annotations and things. That was back when I had to do my own copyedits. Copyedits are so boring. You've read the book six times at that point. You give it to a copyeditor. They give it back to you, and you're, like, making notes, telling them, "No, I did want this comma here." It's all of that stuff. Now, my assistant Peter handles that. And I was so bored during those, I needed a break to stop and write something, and I did the annotations. That's where those came from. That's why you don't see as much of them anymore, now that I have Peter to do the really boring stuff. And he loves it. He loves it! It's what he lives for. He's an editor, they're weird.

The Well of Ascension Annotations ()
#7857 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Smaller notes

Two other small notes. First off, I drew the reactions of the skaa–wanting to go back to having a tyrant in charge–from some essays I'd read about the fall of the Soviet Union and some other modern countries which had received freedom, then wished for the days when things were easier. I think it's a sentiment that makes sense, even if it frightens me a little bit.

Also, only Vin would assume that someone HAS to be Mistborn, just because they happen to be crippled.

General Reddit 2016 ()
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[Fancast of Mistborn Era 1]

Brandon Sanderson

For what it's worth, I love seeing things like this, but as I don't "cast" most characters with actors in my head, it's not like I can step in and say "let it be so." I do like the idea of playing with a black Ham, though personally, the big change I'd make to canon for a film would be to genderswap a character or two to get more women in the crew.

Doniac

Did the lord rulers armies have female soldiers? Wondering since Ham hung out with them quite a bit and sparred, speaking of genderbending characters.

I think the easiest character to genderbend would be Clubs. And more outside the main cast, people in the Skaa rebellion.

Brandon Sanderson

I would imagine that the LR's armies would take Allomancers of either gender quickly and happily.

Kraków signing ()
#7862 Copy

Questioner

I wanted to ask, is the Shardbearer [Vessel] of Odium a human?

Brandon Sanderson

Not any longer.

Questioner

Ok, that's... I didn't expect that one.

Brandon Sanderson

 But what the answer to your question you really want to know is, was he originally human?

Questioner

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That's a good question! But I don't think he counts anymore.

Footnote: Rayse is the Vessel of Odium
Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#7863 Copy

Steeldancer

When can we expect to see anything new cosmere-wise?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll start working on Stormlight 4 in January, and hopefully can get a novella (a la Edgedancer) written during the process, so you don't have to wait all the way to 2020 for more Cosmere.

Seifersythe

So Stormlight 4 will come before Mistborn 2-4?

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially--it depends. A Stormlight book takes a LONG time to write, and often I sneak other books in the middle, because I need a break.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing ()
#7865 Copy

Questioner

Do you have any advice for a married couple who both hope to be professional novelists?

Brandon Sanderson

If you hope to be professional wri-- novelists and married couple, you're very lucky because you'll be able to understand each other. You are also "you poor souls" because you're going to ignore each other a lot. *laughter* I would say, the number one piece of advice I give to writers is this: Treat becoming a writer, doing your writing, like someone would treat being a pianist. Meaning your job is not to write a great book, your job is to train yourself to be a person who can write great books. And that is a very big distinction. You don't find pianists who only play one song. Maybe you do, they're at parties and they're trying to pick up girls. But otherwise a pianist is someone who enjoys the process of playing these different songs and learning this music. Same with writing. The job is you are the end result, not the book. A person who can write great books. And you do that by practicing a lot. At your own scale, whatever you can manage, but you do it by practicing. And you do it by thinking in your head "This is all practice" even the books that might get published is practice. It's about the process of creating something.

Otherwise I would say listen to my podcast Writing Excuses we started a brand new thing on Writing Excuses, if you've never listened before, this year we're doing a master's class, is how we call it, where every month we are going to drill down into a topic and guide you through writing a story. Pre-writing the first month, and then plotting the second month and things like this. So writingexcuses.com. The other resource I have is my class. Now I teach that in Provo so you probably can't get to it, but I do post the lectures online and the ones from last year just went up. So if you want those I have little cards that show you the url, they're just free. My writing lectures, okay? But as a couple, set goals with each other, this is your big advantage. And, you know, don't set goals of "I wrote more than you" set goals of, like "this is what I want to accomplish. This is my writing time. This is your writing time" and help each other out. Plus you've got a great start to a writing group.

Shadows of Self Edinburgh UK signing ()
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Questioner

In the first three Mistborn books, and Elantris and Warbreaker, you focus a lot on sort of gods and religion, is there a particular reason for that?

Brandon Sanderson

Why do I focus on gods and religion in my books. Well there's a couple of reasons. The main one is the kind of overarching story of the cosmere, which all my books are connected, there is some divine force named Adonalsium that was broken apart long ago and the scions of that-- people who have that power are showing up and causing problems and things on planets. So that's kind of the hidden epic behind the scenes, and so because of that religion is a very big part of what happens there.

I'm also a religious person. For those who don't know, I'm Mormon, I'm LDS. And so religion is important to me and whatever I'm fascinated by works it's way into my books. Now I'm generally the type of writer who doesn't feel like I should go into a book with a theme, I should explore what the characters are passionate and let the theme manifest naturally. And so I do that a lot, I don't go in saying "Oh I'm going to teach people this" I say "Who is this character, what are they passionate about" But the things I'm interested in you see. That's why you end up with stories about a god who doesn't believe in his own religion, from Warbreaker. Or you end up with these different things, with Kelsier founding a religion to use it, or having people with different types of faith. And I really think that part of the point of fiction is to, for me, to explore different ideas from different angles and try to just tackle them. And so you'll see me coming back to some of the same concepts again and again, because I want to try them from a new angle, see how this person thinks, see how this character deals with it. Because that's just really interesting to me.

ICon 2019 ()
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yahel26 (paraphrased)

Since the gemstones on Shardblades seems to be infused with Stormlight, could a Surgebinder draw that Stormlight and use it?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No he couldn't. You see, that Stormlight is the Shardbearer's life energy, you wouldn't be able to draw it just like I can't draw your life energy from you. If you were to extract that gemstone from the Shardblade it is possible.

yahel26 (paraphrased)

But then the gemstone would go dark.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Exactly.

Words of Radiance Portland signing ()
#7868 Copy

Kogiopsis

What would Zane have been like without Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Zane without Ruin would have been-- It's so hard to say, is it Zane without Ruin but still having the terrible family life that he has?

Swamp-Spirit

Probably yeah.

Kogiopsis

Still has Straff.

Brandon Sanderson

Then still have Straff but he would probably be more of a Straff heir type thing. Like he would be less crazy, maybe more ruthless and... I mean he would still be his father's son.

Ben McSweeney AMA ()
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NoNoNota1

Since you do this as a career, do you still draw and illustrate for fun as a hobby, or does it begin to just feel like working overtime, no matter how much you love it?

Ben McSweeney

I do, but not nearly as much as I would if I wasn't doing it all day, every day. I'm not sure what my hobby is, these days... reading, I suppose? Games sometimes. Redditing too often. :)

MisCon 2018 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

I'm Brandon Sanderson, I write epic fantasy and young adult books of various stripes. Justin told me to tell you why I go to cons. My story goes back to actually I was in high school. I was in my English class, my high school English course, and the teacher walked by and put a flyer on my desk, and he said, "I think this is for you." It had just come through his things, it was "Local Science Fiction Convention, with a student writing competition." And I had never shared my writing with anyone at that point. Never shown it to anyone. In fact, I would type stories and hide them behind the painting in my room so my mom wouldn't find them. Other high school boys are hiding other things, and I'm hiding my writing. Because I'm too embarrassed that my mom would find it.

But my teacher's like, "You should try this." "This is for you," is exactly what he said. So I submitted, and I went to my first science fiction convention. Downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. And I entered their writing convention, which I won, the student writing competition. Even though I stapled my story backward when I handed it in. Yeah, they said, "First, we thought you were trying to do some sort of avant-garde literary thing, then we realized you just stapled it backwards." Because it came out of the printer that way. But I won the student competition.

And beyond that, there-- I'd always been a nerdy kid, kind of felt alone. And I went to the con, and I found a whole bunch of my people. I came home to that con. And I've been going to cons ever since. And I think they're an important part of the science fiction community. I like how much we participate in these. My editor said, "Now that you're a big author, don't get a big head. You need to go to these things, because we can't let the comic cons be the only cons. Comic cons are fine, but at comic cons you're an observer, and at a sci-fi con you're a participant." And that is what it's about, it's about building a community. So I am here because I believe that cons build a very important community, not just for young writers, but for young nerds everywhere.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Was there a character where you just had a really hard time doing a bad thing to?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that doesn't really happen to me. I've got it all planned out ahead of time, so I'm well prepared for it.

Shadows of Self London UK signing ()
#7873 Copy

Cemci

Have we-- I think you mentioned in a previous signing that we'd already met one member of every Order of the Knights Radiant.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I think you have.

Cemci

My question is, have we met two Edgedancers? And is one of the Dustbringers a viewpoint character?

Brandon Sanderson

One of the Dustbringers is eventually a point-of-view character.

Cemci

Haven't been yet?

Brandon Sanderson

No, not yet, I don't think. But it depends if you count the Heralds as members of their order.

Cemci

I don't.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, see I would, because they're kind of heads of their Order. If you don't count them you have not met some from every Order.

Cemci

Have we met someone from the Dustbringers?

Brandon Sanderson

Well-- Dustbringers are really complicated. Really complicated. So that's the weird one. Okay? So let's shelve that one. You'll see why it's really weird later on.

General Reddit 2015 ()
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ThePsion5

I always wondered what would happen if someone burning atium fought a ta'veren like Matrim Cauthon. Would it look like he was burning atium as well? Would his atium shadow be concealed by a haze of probability?

Brandon Sanderson

I'd say that Mat's aura would interfere with atium, but you could easily rule the other way--you could say atium works something like Min's visions of the future, letting one "read the Pattern" so to speak. And Min's visions do work on ta'veren.

General Twitter 2018 ()
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Wubdor

Can't wait to get my hands on that new Roshar map! Any chance there's going to be more, not yet released world maps? (i.e. Elendel, Threnody, Nalthis, First of the Sun) I wanna frame them all! Also, having Cognitive Realm versions of them would be sick!

Isaac Stewart

Glad you like the maps! We've talked about creating a poster of Elendel, so I suspect you'll see that at some point. As for the others, we'll continue to map them as Brandon explores them, so I think there's a good chance of eventually seeing a lot of the places you mentioned.

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 ()
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Questioner

On Roshar, the Alethi, their hair breeds... I was wondering, what happens if, say, Adolin and Shalan have a child. Does that child have red and black and golden hair? Does this mean that at some point in the future you could have a rainbow haired child?

Brandon Sanderson

You can have a rainbow haired child on Roshar. Do know that the hair breeds true. It's easy for it to be bred out.

Warbreaker Annotations ()
#7878 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Vasher Is Tortured More

It's very important to note that Vasher is hiding and saving his strength here. Writing his scenes here was tricky, since I knew that he would need to be able to pull off some feats of strength later in the book. I figured that one night of torture wouldn't do very much to him, though I also didn't want to spoil the tension by drawing too much attention to that fact.

Denth is frustrated, here, that he's not enjoying the process of torturing his old friend—much as he's frustrated with his life as it exists presently. He wants so badly to just be the carefree, work-for-whoever-pays thug. But he can't. He can't be like Tonk Fah, and it frustrates him. Hurting Vasher hurts Denth too, as it reminds him of so many things that have been lost.

The Well of Ascension Annotations ()
#7880 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Elend Thinks about Losing his Kingship on his Balcony.

I love this Elend scene, with him up on the balcony, thinking. It is poetic in the way that I like to be poetic–a person, alone with their thoughts, wrestling with their own ideas and motivations. I think there's some very beautiful language here, but not in a traditional poetry sense. In the way that it accents Elend's character.

He does, however, completely misunderstand Vin. I know it's a bit of an overused plot device–the man misunderstanding the woman, and the woman in turn misunderstanding the man. But the truth is, we write about it so much because it's so true. When my wife and I were dating, we each had the toughest time deciding if the other was interested. We were both terrible at interpreting each other, even though we both wanted the same thing.

We managed to get through it and get married.

FanX 2018 ()
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Questioner

Who has been your favorite character to write so far?

Brandon Sanderson

It's hard to say, they're all like my children. I often default to Wayne, because he's a blast.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

I'm curious, how much interaction do you get with the people who narrate the books out loud?

Brandon Sanderson

So usually I record pronunciation guides and send them to them on a tape recorder. And usually I pick them beforehand. My tape recording doesn't always get there in time. So if their pronunciation's wrong, it's usually my fault, and not theirs. Because it just means that we haven't gotten that recording done by the time they need it to record. But I like to pick my own audiobook narrators. And when I can, I like to meet them.

Questioner

So if you were ever to make one of these into a film, would you ever meet the people who would actually be in the film?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but I would not be in charge of the film. I have clauses that require them to let me come to the set and meet people and be involved that way, but I don't have final say.

Questioner

So you don't have in a say in who's cast?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't. I can always offer my opinion, and hopefully they would listen to it. But usually, as a writer, you just don't get say in that. When someone's spending $200 million making your book into a movie, they're writing the check, so they get the final say.

General Reddit 2020 ()
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ArgentSun

I am curious about your process of writing the Ars Arcanum (Ars Arcana? Ars Arcana.) for each book, Stormlight ones in particular; I don't think I've seen you talk about that. Obviously you use them to explain or recap some of the things going on in the book, but there's also potential teases for the future, and there's some worldbuilding. So, I wonder, how do you go about it?

Brandon Sanderson

In the past, they were more a glossary--but that turned out be kind of a hold over from my days reading pre-internet, where we needed large glossaries in some books to keep everything straight. Now, one can just look up a website with all that information.

So these days, I look at them as scholarly essays in-world to help with immersion, and to expand understanding of the magic systems, digging in a little deeper for the cosmerenauts who want specific mechanics to think about.

TriggerWarning1337

I appreciate all of your ars arcanum. I know you can find it on the internet, but it’s way too easy to accidentally spoil stuff doing so. Like someone can look up “what’s a windrunner” and accidentally find Kaladins entire background

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I keep thinking we should do some kind of official app that has you put in your current place in the books, then creates a glossary for you that lists only what has happened to people up to that point.

SF Book Review interview ()
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Ant

The use of spren are a brilliant idea, what was the inspiration for these creatures?

Brandon Sanderson

In part, they stem from the underlying cosmology and overarching rules, the dictates of the magic systems of my shared universe. I was looking for a manifestation of that in Roshar. I also was searching for something that would give Roshar a different feel from things that I'd done before. I wanted this book and this series – and everything about it – to feel different from fantasy worlds in the past. I wanted it to be fantastical, but I wanted it to be unique. I wanted something that could consistently remind the reader, "Oh, I'm in a different place. Wow. Their emotions manifest visibly when they feel them strongly. This place is bizarre." That was one of the main inspirations. Looking in our world, one inspiration is certainly the Eastern concept in Shinto mythology of everything having a soul, every rock and river and tree having something living inside of it that is a manifestation of it. Since I was working with the idea of Platonic realms and the like, I spun that off into the spren.

Oathbringer Houston signing ()
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Questioner

What was-- There was something going on in the shadows. 'Cause the King mentioned seeing shadows out of the corner of his eye when Kaladin wasn't around.

Brandon Sanderson

That should be answered in Oathbringer. If it's not, ask me next time and I'll explain, but it is in there.

Stormlight Three Update #3 ()
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OffhandOnion

Mr Sanderson, I think it speaks volumes for your character and dedication to the final product that you began this update with "I'm back for another update on how your book is going."

GunnerMcGrath

Funny, my response to that was "Brandon Sanderson is not my bitch." I'm glad he knows how invested we are in his novels but I've seen too many entitled idiots (most often Martin and Rothfuss fans) who really think the authors owe them something, and get irate if they don't get what they want in a timely manner.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't agree with your downvotes, Gunner. This is a legitimate position to take. (And for those not aware, that is a quote from Gaiman.) And I don't agree with the harassment some authors get. Everyone has different writing methods and speeds. And despite being known as "quick," I haven't been much better than Rothfuss at getting to book three of my big series.

That said, I do believe that a series is an implicit contract with the reader. When I put "book one" on a cover, particularly as prominently as with the Way of Kings, I do feel it is a promise. That's different from something like Warbreaker, where I say I'm planning a sequel, but didn't publicize the book as a series.

I use "your" in this context because I believe that storytelling is a participatory art--that it doesn't live without an audience to imagine it. Beyond that, I believe in the patronage theory of art. I am able to do what I do, as an artist, because of the support of the greater community.

That said, I am sympathetic to the Gaiman approach you quote, and think it would be good for fans to read that essay and consider it.

GunnerMcGrath

Thanks Brandon. I fully agree with and appreciate the feeling of duty to the audience when you say that this is book one. But you don't promise how long it will take to get to book two, and you don't take surveys from readers to find out what should happen. In my mind, it's not our book, it's yours, and we are here ready to enjoy it when it's finished.

Maybe my perspective is different because I'm a writer (of songs, not books) and it has taken me years of far less success than yours to come to terms with the fact that my art is mine to make or not make as I see fit. It's great to have fans who are so deeply invested in what we do but they are not the ones who have to do the creating and be satisfied with the results (which includes not only the work but also that permanent change in one's life and career after each new release).

I follow your career very closely, and I know quite a bit about your history and how you got here. These are very much your stories. You create them because they are part of you and to not create them would not do justice to who you are. You would write them if nobody read them, which is more than I can say for my own writing. So as much as I appreciate the connection you cultivate with your readers when you call them our books, I personally just don't see it that way.

Fortunately you are the most prolific author of our generation so we never really have to wait long, and yes, you are much better than Rothfuss when it comes to book three. But he's not my bitch either. So anyway, thanks for defending me a bit, I don't care about the down votes but I didn't mean to say anything too controversial to begin with!

Hope i can finally take you out for pizza next time you're in Chicago. Had a chance to do it for Michael J. Sullivan so he can tell you whether I'm mental or not. :)

Brandon Sanderson

I'll take you up on that pizza. I see you enough on-line that I'm pretty sure you're not mental. (No more so than the rest of us.)

I get what you're saying, and I agree with it. No, I'm not going to take polls on what to do with the books--this was actually a real danger when working on the Wheel of Time books. As I came out of fandom, I found it a real temptation (that I had to squish quickly) to put in tons of in-jokes and references.

There was a time, before I published, where I tried to write more of what I thought the market wanted, instead of what I felt I really wanted to write. It was a disaster, and the Stormlight Archive was my method of escaping that--my reaction to it, by writing only for me, in the way I most wanted to write.

So yes, you are correct. At the same time, I do consider the fandom at large my "boss" so to speak. The contract we have is that I will create art for them--not that I will let them control it, but that I WILL write it. I also have the philosophical belief that when a piece of art is released into the wild, so to speak, the author has to relinquish some ownership of it, for its own good. (And for the good of the community.)

Legion Release Party ()
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Questioner

Disregarding personal preferences, what Order of the Knights Radiant do you think you would best fit as?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, man. I've been asked this one, and it's really hard. What order of Knight Radiant would I best fit as. It's difficult, right? Because, number one, there are a lot of orders, and you can kind of see yourself going in different ways. And number two, there's kind of like the, what is it realistically?

Like, when I sort myself into a Harry Potter house (which is much easier, cause there's not as many), I always have to kind of grudgingly put myself in Slytherin. Because, though a lot of my fellow writers are Ravenclaws, I'm not about the study; I'm about the accomplishment, right? Like, I write books in part because I'm like, "I want to accomplish this thing," and it's ambition, but it's also just "I want to do this thing." So for that reason I don't know that I can put myself in any kind of the scholarly focused order of the Knight Radiant, realistically, because I don't think that I would really actually fit there, even though that would be the natural place to start putting writers.

I often wonder, maybe Lightweaver, but the problem is I don't lie to myself, I don't think, right? But I am really good at fooling myself when I want to. Like, when I don't want to deal with something, I'm very good at, like, "I'm putting this on the shelf and I'll deal with it later," which is a very Lightweaver thing. Maybe Lightweaver, but... So, we'll go with that one today, but I think I've answered that question four different ways.

Idaho Falls signing ()
#7898 Copy

coltonx9

*Written down* Cracks in the Spiritweb can be filled with investiture, granting powers. Are the Drab on Nalthis considered damaged enough for this process?

Brandon Sanderson

They are something else entirely. So that, in world, they would say no, something else has happened.