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Cheyenne Sedai

We only know the people of Komashi as having Investiture from Virtuosity, why does their Investiture seem to be split into the two streams of power known as hion? Is this something unique to Virtuosity as a Shard, or just how it happens to manifest on Komashi?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. This will be a theme you will see wherever Virtuosity is involved. So yeah. hmmmmm interesting. This will be a theme. There is a sub theme to this in the Cosmere. The Push and Pull. The opposites should be echoing through the magic systems. It is more expressed in Virtuosity than the others but do keep in mind that the Yin Yang sort of thing is there in the Cosmere as well in the general magic system, but more pronounced with Virtuosity, shall we say.

zuriel45

What worlds within the cosmere are you excited to write about that you haven't yet touched on (or touched significantly enough on)?

Brandon Sanderson

I do want to do a Threnody novel. The world of Dark One, if I manage to get it into the cosmere, is cool. Silence Divine. There are a lot of them.

Questioner

If you could ditch the entire Cosmere, *laughter* what would you write about?

Brandon Sanderson

Start fresh? 

Questioner

Twilight fanfiction.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, there you go, Twilight fanfic. That's...

Questioner 2

Brandon Fifty Shades of Grey would be much tamer. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

The problem is, I don't think my Fifty Shades of Grey would hit quite the same demographic. 

Questioner 2

You'd have a great magic system, though. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it would. It would just be a magic system based on different colors of grey and what they do. *laughter*

Questioner 2

Sorta like Warbreaker.

Brandon Sanderson

I have no idea what I would do, I'm sure I could find something, but it would probably turn into another cosmere.

Questioner

Did you significantly adjust the number of Cosmere references in Tress of the Emerald Sea once your wife suggested you share this book? Was your first draft of Tress more or less Cosmere aware?

Brandon Sanderson

It was roughly exactly as it is. The later drafts of Tress fixed the ending. All the pieces were there, but it just wasn't quite clicking. So I rebuilt the ending; that's the biggest thing that I did. Tress was a little more discovery-written than a lot of my books, and if you discovery write, a lot of times your endings need some work. So I spent a lot of revision on that.

And then polishing the prose was the other thing. Because it's Hoid, writing form his viewpoint's just a little harder than writing a normal viewpoint, and required some extra work to make sure that the prose felt Hoid-ish without being so in-your-face that it ruined the book for too many people.

Jake 1802

Has writing any of the Secret Projects changed any of the plot points or plans for upcoming Cosmere books?

Brandon Sanderson

Not appreciable, except for: I've been able to expand a few worlds, I've been able to build out some side characters that I'd had in the back of my head. I am sure you will see references to these planets in future books, where you wouldn't have if I hadn't written these, almost assuredly. That's part of it.

And then, Secret Project Four, which you guys don't know much about yet (but you will get to, coming up soon), that does have more Cosmere implications. It's something I've been wanting to do. But once I get a book done, I feel way more confident in... because all the various things that could happen, one of them has solidified into actually happening.

Cheyenne Sedai

I'm really curious about Boatload of Mummies because Brandon did mention on his updates that you'd worked on it for NaNoWriMo for the past couple of years which is really cool. And the title is incredible. I don't know if that's gonna be the final title, but that's what it's always been referred to. How have you been doing with that?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks for asking us. It's a project that I love. So I finished it. Finished a draft in September of last year. It's rough. It's a really rough draft. There's a lot of things that I'm still working through. I'm trying to narrow down the shape of the plot in a way because there's a little bit of--it wasn't inspired necessarily by these things, but it was after the fact that I realized, "Oh, it's part this, part that." It's sort of begins King Kong, if you imagined getting people on a boat. And then it continues as Death on the Nile. Then you get to a portion on an island. And then it ends The Mummy. And throw in a healthy dose of Venom. So it's like, "Okay, am I doing too much here?" And that's kind of where I'm at. You know, is this even a thing? Have I thrown too much in? Is this too much of a storyline? And i don't think it is. It really is in the end kind of a Raiders of the Lost Arc sort of story. You could pull out those some of those same elements and say, "Raiders of the Lost Arc starts out King Kong." But the basic plot line is there. There's going to be scenes in the current draft that are basically finished. I don't think they're going to change too much from the version that it is right now to the end.

Will it be called Boatload of Mummies? Probably not. I can't see that as a title of a Cosmere book, right? But we can affectionately call it Boatload of Mummies as long as we want. The working title is Book of Nails. And whether there's a series title or not, we'll have to figure that out if it's a story that people want to continue learning about.

But let me tell you Nicki Savage is so much fun to write. Don't expect exactly what you get from the broadsheets because she is writing to a particular audience, and has learned some skills from Allomancer Jack--though I do think Allomancer Jack's stories might be closer to the truth than Nicki's are.

You will see parallels between this story and some of the elements that are in the broadsheets. But she's basically: if you can imagine a Mary Poppins. who is incredibly interested in the supernatural, and is not afraid to beat up people. That's basically your character right there. And she's just, she's a load of fun. A boatload of fun.

Cheyenne Sedai

I imagine from what you've said that you still wouldn't be ready to give us what could eventually function as a back of the book blurb?

Isaac Stewart

During the first NaNoWriMo that I worked on it we had to come up with our elevator pitch on that, and I wrote the Readers Digest, TV Guide version of it, and it was "A woman with a strange, magical power journeys to an island to find a mythical book that might raise the dead." Something like that.

This particular book is interesting because... How do I pitch this when it's a spin off of a different series. It's a spin-off from Mistborn, technically. But it's not a Mistborn book. You can't pitch that to somebody who doesn't know Mistborn. And that's been some of the fun in trying to figure this out is "How do I tell a different story here, but then have to reintroduce how Allomancy works? But now in this era, we know about Allomancy, we know about Feruchemy, we know about Hemalurgy. We have crossovers from other worlds. How do you write this book without confusing somebody entirely without... "There's like 50 magic systems in here, and I don't understand." And that then goes into the pitch. How do you pitch this book? People who know the Cosmere, you just say it's set on Scadrial, but it's not really a Misborn book. It's just hard to encapsulate and someday I'll figure it out.

Brandon Sanderson

Part Three: Updates on Primary Projects

Stormlight

Book Five (now called just Wind and Truth) is basically done in rough draft form. I’m writing this update on the 2nd of December, and I assume by the time this goes live on my birthday that I’ll be very, very close—if not done already.

I do want to warn you that Horneater (the novella about Rock) will not be part of the Words of Radiance crowdfunding campaign. Why not? Well, I’ve realized that I would like to be able to write that sometime in the next couple of years when I’m missing Roshar, and want to jump back to tell a story there.

I don’t know when this will be though. It will likely be between one of the upcoming Mistborn Era Three novels. So…we’ll see. But I don’t want to offer it to you in the campaign since I don’t know when I’ll be writing it. (Sorry.)

Once I finish Wind and Truth, the Stormlight Archive novels will go on hiatus as I write the next few projects listed.

Mistborn

Era Two is finished as of last year, and my next mainline Cosmere project after Wind and Truth is Era Three, along with the long-awaited Elantris sequels.

I expect to start Ghostbloods (the name of the Era Three series) on January 1st, 2025. Half of next year will be revisions on Stormlight, and the rest I’ll spend catching up on things (like doing a White Sand prose novel update) that I’ve let languish a little too much lately.

Cytoverse

Skyward is done! Please, if you haven’t picked up a copy of Defiant, consider doing so. This has been my best received, best selling, and best reviewed non-Cosmere work. I’m extremely pleased with how it turned out.

Janci is taking the reins for a sequel series we’re calling Skyward Legacy. And so I’m going to let her put a section in here talking about it!

Janci Patterson

Janci here! By the time you’re reading this, I should have turned in the first draft of the first book in the Skyward Legacy trilogy. I’m working on the end of the climax now, and I’m thrilled with how it’s turning out. I’m very happy with the book, and am looking forward to revising it over the next few months to get it into publishable shape.

The series begins a few months after the ending of Defiant. The working title of book one is Blightfall (this is not the final title, so don’t be surprised if it changes!), and the book follows Skyward Flight, now a special forces unit, from the perspectives of Sadie and Arturo. The humans of Detritus are no longer prisoners or rebels, but full citizens ready to take their place on the galactic stage. Skyward Flight’s first responsibility is to help the DDF Diplomatic Corps make contact with other humans in the old Superiority human preserves—and what they find there may pose a new threat to their alliances, their galactic reputation, and the future of humanity itself.

My intention for this series is for it to be all the things you love about Skyward while continuing the stories of many familiar characters. I hope you’ll give it read when book one comes out!

Brandon Sanderson

The Four Secret Projects

I thought I’d put this here to interrupt any questions. I do intend all four of the Secret Projects to be standalone stories! You might see these characters again, but for now let’s just allow them to be something currently rare in the fantasy/sf world: books meant to be read on their own, and enjoyed without sequels.

Gordon Kelsch

Can Dalinar permanently bring someone back from the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

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

alercah

Do regular people in the cosmere have an innate, subconscious ability to read the Spiritual Realm just a little bit, that might manifest as gut instinct or intuition?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, in the cosmere, there is some validity to "gut" instincts in some people with a closer connection to the Spiritual.

Questioner

Is it true that there's a mural of the cosmere in your basement?

Brandon Sanderson

There is not a mural of the cosmere in my basement. Isaac is painting a mural of the Stormlight Archive Roshar map, but that's not in my basement. There will probably be a mural in my basement as we're finishing the office but it's probably going to be a Van Gogh.

deadmatt666

With the mainstream success of animated series like Arcane, would ever reconsider anyone of your Cosmere IPs to be animated instead of live action?

Brandon Sanderson

I would consider it. The more popular animation becomes for the general public, the more likely I am to consider it. Now, if I am able to get some live-action adaptations, then the chances that I do animated go way up. But it's unfortunate; I wish it weren't the case, but you can go look at the numbers of Into the Spiderverse versus these other Spiderman films and see who went to them. I think Into the Spiderverse is amazing; it's probably my favorite Spiderman film. I think it is incredible. But the unfortunate and annoying truth is that many fewer people will go to it because it's animated.

You might legitimately say, "Well, don't you just want something to be awesome? Let's focus on making something awesome." And that's a pretty good argument. But I feel like I'm not in the realm right now where I want to just have one thing be cool and then leave pop-culture consciousness. If I'm going to get the whole Cosmere made, I need to hit big. Otherwise, we're going to get a couple of seasons and then be done. Because even good things on a lot of the premium cable streaming services right now get a couple of seasons, and then they're done and that is it. If I want to see everything get made, which I would like to see, I'm going to have to hit bigger than leading with animation can get me right now. That could change, that could absolutely change, but that's where my mindset is. 

Khyrindor (paraphrased)

Shards can talk to dead people. Are the Tranquiline Halls where everyone in the cosmere goes when they die? Or does each world have its own heaven.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There is an afterlife that is not heaven that the Shards don't know about, or can't look into. Each world has its own heaven depending on its religions. The real afterlife is different across the cosmere, and the Tranquiline Halls are different.

Questioner

If you were going to make Horneater stew here on Earth, how would you go about it?

Brandon Sanderson

If I were going to make Horneater stew, on Earth, how would I go about it. It's going to be a spicy seafood stew. When I think of Horneater stew I'm actually thinking of Yukgaejang which is a Korean dish. Or Haemultang is what I mean. Haemultang is a spicy-- spicy seafood-- it's basically whatever thing from the ocean-- I don't eat things from the ocean personally-- but everything from the ocean they want to throw in there with some spices. They stir it up and give it to you and if you like fish in there and there are like crab claws and full clams in the shells. You're like "Really guys?" But Rock would just be munching those down and being happy.

Questioner

So is this [interludes] your way of kind of introducing more world details, worldbuilding--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. This is a way of me introducing more worldbuilding. Because-- See, one of the differences between myself and the previous generation of epic fantasy writers is I tend to be very-- I tend to stick with one location, alright? The generation before me-- and I love these books, but the generation before me-- the Tad Williams, the Robert Jordan, and things like this-- tended to be quest epic fantasy. You'd go one place-- It's kind of following the grand Tolkien tradition. "We gotta get over there. We're either chasing somebody or being chased by somebody." Right? And you then travel across a varied landscape, meet lots of interesting people on your way to the place. Well I don't like to do that. I think it's partially because I grew up reading those. I'm like-- Those authors covered that really well. Or maybe it's just my natural inclinations. I write a little more Anne McCaffrey style, right? She would pick a really interesting location and spend a lot of time on it. And that's what I like to do as well. So you don't get to travel as much in my books. A lot of times in my books it's like, "We're traveling!" Chapter 1: "We're going to go on this trip!" Chapter 2: "Hey, we're there!" We cut out the, you know, the boring stuff in the middle, and we go to an interesting location. And I really like to dig into this interesting location. It let's me as an author really explore various parts of the setting. But what that does is it means you don't get as much of the breadth. Like when you have to traipse with Frodo and Sam all the way across Middle-earth, you feel how big Middle-earth is. And you don't get that in Mistborn, where it's like, "We're going to stay in the city!" and things like this. And so, in Roshar, being able to say, "Here's what's happening across the world in a different culture," is really valuable to me in the interludes. But I also know that some people just don't want to read that, and I wanted to give them a clue that this is the scene that you can skip and read later if you just want to get back to the main character.

Questioner 1

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

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

Questioner 1

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Questioner 2

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

Christian

With the worlds expanding so much in book two and then even futher with the novellas you did with Janci Patterson, do you have almost like a cap in your head? Like, we can only go this big? What is the potential for this cytoverse in your head at the mometn?

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things, as I've been writing on the cytoverse, is I've wanted to have a good science fiction space setting to tell stories that don't fit in the Cosmere. So one of the goals of the cytoverse is to give me that receptacle for stories that I want to tell going forward. And so, where is the limit? I'm not sure that I've put a boundary on it. I know what Spensa's story is, if that makes sense. And that's where my eyes are right now. Like all of my settings, even with something like the Cosmere, the goal for that is always to give me the means to tell the stories I want to tell. And where I place a story is really depending on, as it grows and develops, what sorts of themes do I want to deal with, and things like that. If you read through the Skyward series, there are some story hooks for things that I might tell or I might not tell, going forward, if those stories decide that I need to write them.

Questioner

And at the planet they crashed on [Detritus] have Earth gravity?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it is basically Earth gravity. Within reasonable comparisons. Same with air density.

Questioner

What would happen if Hoid held Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, Hoid would not do that. Hoid would stay very far away.

Stormlightning

Not even hold it??

Brandon Sanderson

He would stay really far away. There are very few things in the Cosmere that Hoid is afraid of, and Nightblood is one of them.

Stormlightning

I thought he'd be afraid of the blade end.

Brandon Sanderson

So let's just say if very, very, very few things in the Cosmere had a chance of destroying you, you wouldn't even pick one up. You'd try to be in a different room entirely.

R'Shara and Sunbird and JoyBlu

*Whispering about Nightblood being able to destroy Hoid*

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't say, I said theoretically. I said "had a chance of", I did not confirm. Hoid doesn't know. But there's a chance, and so he is not going to risk that.

Rah179

How significant will the White Sand be to the cosmere? Any hints on the Shard that resides there?

Brandon Sanderson

Moderately. (Its magic has some cool ramifications for off world use, and several characters factor prominently into the Cosmere.)

Phantine

Is there more than one magic system in white sand?

Brandon Sanderson

Only one in the current outline.

WeiryWriter

Does the one magic have more than one variation? Because I got the impression that there was something going on on the Darkside? Though I guess the Sky Colors (I think that's what they're called, I read the draft you send out early 2014 so my recollection is a little fuzzy) don't have to be related to magic. Or you could have written them out if they were...

Brandon Sanderson

In intended the colors on Darkside to be more a matter of the ecology than the magic--though, on that planet, magic and ecology are very closely tied together. (Well, I guess most of the magics are.)

Argent

When you were coming up with names for the Orders of the Knights Radiants, did you have any names that you liked but couldn't include?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the names I liked but discard were tossed because they sound too much like other compound words I've used, or other terminology in the cosmere. Shardbearer is already troublesome enough; I want to avoid others like this. The toughest one to name was Renarin's order, because most of the ideas I came up with over the years ended up being repeats. Others, like Stoneward and Windrunner, were powerful enough in my mind that when I wrote later cosmere books, I intentionally stayed away from terms that would sound too similar.

PatrickDiomedes (paraphrased)

I just remembered that someone asked about the whole movie deal thing, and Brandon gave a more thorough explanation.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

What happened is that DMG, which is a Chinese company, came to him first about The Emperor's Soul, because they wanted to make stuff that has more Asian characters. And they wanted to do it in Hollywood, because Hollywood's seriously lacking in representation of Asians. So he sold that to them first, and then they called him back a couple months later asking about the entire Cosmere. At that time, Mistborn was still optioned by another group, but Brandon sold all the other stuff, and they started on The Way of Kings right away. And then as soon as Mistborn became available they bought that up, so that they had the entire cosmere. And he said that The Way of Kings is ahead right now, but Mistborn will likely be first, because it'll be easier to produce and stuff.

Questioner

Any updates on movies?

Brandon Sanderson

So... Hollywood is Hollywood, right? We've sold Mistborn three times now to three different groups. We've sold Legion twice.

So here's how we stand right now: the Steelheart books are still owned by Fox. Sean Levy's company, he did the Night at the Museum films, but their option lapses in July, on July 1st. They've renewed the option multiple times, to the fact that this is their last option month, and we haven't seen a screenplay. Which is not a good sign. So, I would not hold my breath that, in a month, they're going to greenlight a movie. They had a screenplay, they discarded a screenplay, they have not commissioned another screenplay. They have one month left. They could just come out and be like, "Here's a bunch of money, Brandon!" They're not gonna do that. It'll lapse in a month, most likely.

Legion has been recently purchased a couple of weeks ago. Couple months ago, actually, but by a place called Cineflix, in Canada. Legion was really hot for a while. Then Marvel made a TV show called Legion, and all the interest dried up. And then the Marvel show just kind of went away; I don't think they're doing it any more. And now suddenly everyone wants to buy Legion again... If they make a TV show, they would change the name. The Legion collection is coming out in the fall, and we still have Legion on the title, but it's called The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds as a subtitle.

Snapshot, my novella, came out last year, it's optioned by MGM. They have put a screenwriter on it who is doing a really good job. I'm very impressed with the work the screenwriter's doing. I'm very optimistic about that project. It's looking really good.

The Cosmere is optioned by a group called DMG. They are a primarily Chinese company who-- What they do is, they finance American movies in exchange for getting the Chinese rights. So, they did this on Iron Man 3, and a couple of other films. And they have the rights until next spring. I really like DMG, it's why I sold them the Cosmere. They have been going through some changes lately, the studio exec that was on it has left the company and started a new company. And that's always a little bit of a setback. They have a screenplay for Stormlight. It came out at 250 pages, which is a 3-hour movie. Which they're like "Eh, this is too long." And it still cut out a ton, so they're now looking at television. They wanted to try the thing first, but the fact that everyone's gobbling up the television rights for fantasy properties now makes them say "Ooh, maybe we should actually do a television show on this." So, really, it's gonna depend on, how does the Wheel of Time show go? How does the Witcher show go? How does the new Lord of the Rings show go? And things like that will have a big influence. Amazon's doing a prequel Lord of the Rings series about Aragorn as a ranger. The Witcher is on Netflix. It's been greenlit for about a year, so it's actually moving. And then the Wheel of Time show, just got announced, didn't it? Who has that? I don't know if I can tell you, I don't know if it's been announced. The television show has been announced, I don't know if they've announced who's doing it yet. But somebody is doing a Wheel of Time television show. It's not been greenlit, but it's had a lot of good rumblings. It looks good. I can't say who it is, unless it's been announced, but I've done calls with their showrunner, who I like. They seem to be treating the property with respect. I think there's a decent chance you'll get a good Wheel of Time show now. Decent-- in Hollywood, decent's still a 10% chance, right? But that's higher of a chance than any of my things look like right now, except potentially Snapshot, which I wouldn't give as high percentage, even, because it's not as far along. But I'm very impressed by how it's going.

So, there you go...

focoma

Is there a quantum of Investiture? Just as how the photon (the quantum of light) is the force carrier particle of electromagnetism, is there a force carrier particle for Investiture, and do you have a name for it? (My follow up question would involve string theory, but I'll leave that one for later.)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is a quantum of Investiture, though it acts very oddly in the cosmere.

True Investiture is a purely Spiritual Realm thing. In the cosmere, there are two alternate planes of existence, with their own specific laws. Some of them, as you've undoubtedly notice, behave similar to ideas in String Theory.

Adam Horne

Someone wanted to know if there are dinosaurs in the cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

Are there dinosaurs in the cosmere? There are dinosaur-esque things, so sure.

Pagerunner

Will we be seeing an updated Cosmere star chart or system charts for these new words [from Secret Projects]?

Isaac Stewart

I imagine that we'll eventually have a star chart that has these new worlds on it. I don't know when that will be, but it's something that's been in the back of my head.

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe if we ever get around to Arcanum Unbounded 2, but I need to write more short fiction that could go in that before we could do that. One fun thing is: if you look at the Kickstarter page, there's that nice illustration of Hoid--also done by Howard Lyon--and in the background you will see some stars. Hmm? The new ones aren't in there yet.

Isaac Stewart

At least, not labeled yet. For people who don't know, I have a 3D model that a while back we said "okay, how many stars are in the Cosmere, what kind of a cluster is this?" And we talked to Peter and Brandon and we kind of brainstormed some things. So I built a 3D model that helped me create that first star chart and I have the main worlds like Roshar and Scadrial are named in there, but there are other ones that I just put in there in places to look good and try to figure out how would constellations work and things like that. So, we just have to go in there and name some of these if they're in the right spot. Or add them.

Questioner

White Sand ombinus?

Isaac Stewart

I’m gonna have to be careful with what I say here, because we’re working with Dynamite, and I want to give them an update.

But I will say that that’s kind of the big thing that I’m doing around Rhythm of War artwork and Kickstarter stuff. When I have time, I’ve been making adjustments to White Sand. Continuity adjustments…

There are some things that I can tell you. I can tell you that we are adding 38 new pages of artwork that comes at the very beginning. There may be more. This depends on discussions with Dynamite. But we have a really great artist working on that. He’s almost done with it. I want to announce who it is, but I want to talk to Dynamite first. But I just want to say that he’s doing an amazing job. We’ve got a great colorist, we’ve got a great letterer. In fact, the colorist and letterer did work on some of the stuff that’s in the original White Sand.

It’s coming together really nicely. I think fans are gonna be really happy with the adjustments. And it’s going to place it more firmly in the cosmere than it has with the previous versions. Which were just fine; we loved working with the artist and the writer at Dynamite. I consider Rik a friend. This is just taking something that was already good and making it a little bit better. And a little bit more just continuity-wise fit in with the cosmere. We want to do more things with these characters, and so we wanted to make sure the continuity was working correctly.

Questioner (paraphrased)

How much of the big cosmere stuff will be in Stormlight 3-5?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Not much. Just hints. The big cosmere stuff will come in Mistborn Era 3 and things more like Mistborn: Secret History for a long while. Some people just don't care about it.

Questioner

So Voidbinding is-- one part of Voidbinding is seeing the future. And atium is also seeing the future. And I notice annotations for Elantris, you said something about seeing the future could go weird-- sends assassins. Is that a running--

Brandon Sanderson

It is a running theme in the cosmere. And it's-- Whatever path you take to do it is dangerous in the cosmere. It's kind of a sign of-- You are in dangerous territory, and drawing upon a Shard that is--

Questioner

Potentially...

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially-- Yes. I mean to say-- Dangerous territory.

Questioner

So are Shards the most powerful thing in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on what you believe. The Shards are the most powerful things currently overtly manifest. There are those who would say there are other subtle forces being manifest. Most people in the know would say that Shards are the most powerful thing.

Questioner

Does Hoid believe that Shards are the most powerful thing?

Brandon Sanderson

You'll have to ask him sometime. Or see him get asked something like that sometime. There's argument to be made that right now Harmony is the most powerful thing in the Cosmere.

Very Nice Name 16

Can we expect to know who Hoid is telling the story to, when he's telling it, and roughly when the story is set relative to the rest of the Cosmere by the end of the book?

Brandon Sanderson

You will be able to answer a few of those things. I, right now in my draft, do not have it extraordinarily clear who he's talking to. I intend to make that more clear in revisions, but there is not a frame story device where we pop out and you see him telling the story. I actually sat down and talked with my team and said "do we want to add a frame story just to make this more clear?" And we all felt that the fun of reading it and realizing it was him was better than a frame story would be. And I like the story without the frame story in addition. So, you're not going to get an epilogue where you find out where he's been telling this particular story. You should be able to piece together a rough time period in Cosmere timeline by things that happen in the book.

Questioner

My question is about, especially in the Stormlight series, I noticed that you use a lot of different languages and that when people speak in languages that is not their mother tongue, they use different phrases and they make mistakes that really remind me of the mistakes that we Israeli do when we speak English. Do you speak multiple languages and can you tell us a bit about languages in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

So, yeah. I do speak... poorly... I studied French all through high school and my French is really bad. And I was a missionary in Korea and learned Korean and my Korean is slightly less bad. *speaks Korean* I said, "I don't speak Korean very well, I speak about as much as a rat's tail," which is a phrase in Korean. Learning another language was really helpful for writing fantasy books. Going and living in another culture? Really helpful for writing fantasy books.

Languages in the Cosmere are going to vary based on my needs for a given book. I spend my worldbuilding time on what is relevant to the characters and story. So, for instance, the linguistics in Elantris were really important to the story. The linguistics in Mistborn were not as important to the story and so I spent more time on the languages for Sel than I did for Scadrial. I did spent a decent amount of time on the languages for Roshar because all the different cultures and things like that having conflicts with one another is a big part of the story.

Worldbuild in service of the story, is my suggestion to you guys. Spend your times on things that are going to be relevant to the characters.

Brandon Sanderson

Let me go down all the movie rights stuff.

Reckoners is still owned by Fox. Shaun Levy's company, 21 Laps, producing. He's the guy who made Night at the Museum. He's one of the directors on Stranger Things. Really great guy, I really like Shaun Levy. They called recently and said, even though there was a lot of turmoil at Fox right now, they were still interested and wanted to keep working on the thing. They just had a new script come in. That's where we stand on that. So, they're enthusiastic, they like it. I worried that The Boys coming out, which is a similar idea, would make our chances less. They think it makes our chances more, because The Boys turned out really well and everyone likes it, and we have a more family-friendly version of basically the same premise. So they think that that will still work. So I'm very hopeful on that.

Let's see, what else is in development. I just got an offer on Alcatraz. Can't say a lot about that yet, but it has been offered on. Legion is still under option for a television show by Cineflix up in Canada. The Cosmere rights, I'm still working on DMG on part of those, and I'm working with other people on other parts of those. The Cosmere rights are kind of in flux right now, we're looking at a bunch of different things. Nothing I can announce yet.

Of course, the big one that is not mine, but that I am a producer on, is the Wheel of time. Harriet, I asked her first. I'm like, "Harriet, tell me if you would be uncomfortable with me being a producer." Because this is not mine, I don't want to take it over. And she said, "No, no, I want you on it." So I said yes to being a producer. That basically comes down to, they are showing me the scripts, and I am offering feedback. I have liked what I have read so far. The first script is spectacular, and the second one's pretty good. (They warned me ahead of time, the second one needed a little work, so I didn't ream them too much on it. Actually, there was a lot good to it, but the things they said needed work did need work. But they knew it already.) I was able to offer a few (I think) very helpful pointers. I can't say a ton, because I'm under NDA. But I will be flying out to Prague in October, and I hope to represent all of you Wheel of Time fans and get some photos and things that I can release and what-not. I think the Wheel of Time show is in good hands. Rafe, I really like Rafe. He's the showrunner. Every interaction I've had with Rafe has been extremely positive. He loves the series. He has his own vision for it. So I will warn you that. Any adaptation you get is filtered through the eyes of the showrunner, and this is going to be filtered through Rafe's eyes. And there are certain things he wants to do that are bold, but are good choices. So just keep that in your mind. That's what I would say.

Otherwise, let's see. I think that's about everything on there. I'll keep my fingers crossed on the Fox thing. Like I said, I really like Shawn Levy. His adaptation of Real Steel, the Richard Matheson story. If you guys haven't seen that, it's spectacular. I really like it. It's got Wolverine making robots punch each other. It turned out to be a really touching story, really great adaptation. That was one of the main reasons I said yes when they came knocking.

Questioner

Is reincarnation a thing in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Reincarnation is not a thing in most of the Cosmere.

*Small exchange*

You could call the Returned reincarnations and there are other things along those lines. You could call the Fused are straight up reincarnation. It happens in some places. If you've read Stormlight, there's a group that are reincarnated time and time again. In general, no but there are groups that reincarnate.

Questioner

As an avid chicken watcher in my real life, I really enjoy the inclusion of Aviar in the Cosmere. And I was curious if in upcoming series, will we see the inclusion of more worldhoppers utilizing Aviar for trans-Investiture purposes?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you will. The thing about the Aviar is: the secret of what’s going on there is known by very, very few people, and there is certainly some work going on in that regard. Basically, people offworld trying to figure out what is going on with Aviar and how they work, because they are not what people expect them to be because of the way that the Investiture is being Invested, shall we say. But you should see that being relevant to future era Cosmere.

Koh-the-Face-Stealer

So ever since I read your various tantalizing tit-bits about the Iriali being not native to Roshar, I've been incredibly curious about this especially considering that the other humans of Roshar all originate from a different singular source, Ashyn (unless there were more migrations that I'm forgetting). Are we going to get more info on this in the near future? Is there anything, even a tiny crumb, that you could possibly drop for us now?

Brandon Sanderson

The Iriali story is one you should expect to be continued during the space age of the cosmere, not in current storylines.

Leather_Kiwi

What about characters who are interested with cosmology in current storylines? Like Dalinar who certainly wants to seek answers about the universe. Do you plan to write more of it in future novels of current series or this is a stuff for future series with defferent set of characters?

Brandon Sanderson

The further we move in the Cosmere, the more these stories will become relevant. We're moving from the world of them just being cameos into the world of them being small (but important) sub-plots. They will evolve from there.

The Sixth Scholar

Where does Tress take place in the overall Cosmere timeline? The telling of the story, not the story itself; or both, if you want to answer.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO. My goal right now is to get you a coordinated Cosmere timeline of books by the time I start Stormlight Six. But we will see. I've promised that for years, and I keep pushing it back.

Pagerunner

There's a line in the new Mistborn leatherbound Hero of Ages, there's the stories about "mistwraiths, shades, spren, brollins." Is "brollins" a Cosmere thing that you made up or is that just something...?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, no. So "brollins" is a thing that I wanted when I... often when I make a list like that, I wanna make sure that there is some sort of local flavor. Like, for instance, that, uh... basically that's a myth locally, that's not a deep Cosmere deep cut. And I did this also, y'know, with the lines about nonsense words that Hoid uses. You're not supposed to be like, really dissecting each of those. Does that make sense?

Pagerunner

Yeah. 'Cause you changed all the other stuff and left this one and it's like "what the heck's this one"..

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. But no, this is just...

Pagerunner

We're not gonna get to the end of Stormlight 9 and be like "ohhh the brollins!"

Brandon Sanderson

No, you're not. This is... I mean, it's relevant, 'cause everything in the books is relevant, but you shouldn't be like "ohh I..."

Questioner

I was just wondering what your inspiration was for the setting, for the United Isles.

Brandon Sanderson

The United Isles. We call this historical fantasy, this is where you take a historical period and you fantasize it. I knew I was so divergent from our world that I wanted people immediately to know, complete alternate dimension. I wanted an easy early sign that when you read this, you weren’t going to be asking, “What happened in the War of 1812 in this?” I didn’t want you to be asking that, I wanted you to say, this is so different from our history that I can’t take anything for granted anymore. Which allows me to sweep away expectations and rebuild them in the way I want. You run into this all the time in fantasy, like, you ever want to write a book about vampires, everyone’s immediately going to bring to that world a lot of expectations. It’s much more important early on to sweep away expectations if you’re not going to fulfill them. So with Rithmatist, I was looking for a way to do this, and the idea of America as an [planet?] archipelago was really cool to me, and I also wanted to indicate that things were really bizarre. It’s a much smaller planet version of Earth, so I could put in time distances and say, you can take the train to London and it doesn’t take that long. In their terms it takes forever, for us it’s not that long. Smaller planet, denser core, everything’s islands. This is to say, I’m throwing out everything about our Earth and rebuilding a fantastical version of it.

Questioner

The three travelers in Way of Kings, we know who they are. Did they know about the cosmere in the books that they appeared in?

Brandon Sanderson

Uhhh…

Questioner

Cosmere or Seventeenth Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm just checking each of them. No, no, and no.

Questioner

So something happened in their lives afterward?

Brandon Sanderson

Yep… That's an excellent question.

Laser Wolf 214

When did the idea come for putting this novel in Hoid's voice in order to give it a more Goldman-esque feel? Was it a fairly easy decision? Or was it later on in the process?

Brandon Sanderson

It was an easy decision at the start, though I will say the seed is that I've been looking for ways to expand upon Hoid's voice. When I write Dragonsteel, which will be in his voice, it will not be like this, the tone will be very different. But I've wanted for a while to tell kind of a longer Hoid story. People often ask me, "Hey, can we get a full Wandersail told by Hoid of all of their adventures and what not?" This is a think that I knew people were interested in, and I was really interested in doing it, as well. I wanted to do something different with my prose in this book, in specific. I just felt that there was a place I could do a little leveling up in my prose, and using Hoid's voice as kind of an excuse to do that felt very good.

And The Princess Bride book is just delightful, right? If you haven't read Goldman's book, it's very good. To be honest, another person who has prose like this is J.K Rowling. The early Harry Potter books, in particular, have this same whimsical, fairy tale feel. And then, of course, you all know that my favorite author is Terry Pratchett, and he obviously had... He had a different voice from this, it's less of the fairy tale whimsy. It's just pure Pratchett; it's hard to describe. But I've always wanted to be able to practice something a little more edging toward that. So, watching The Princess Bride again and thinking "No, that's what I want to do; I want to do a voice like that. And I have the perfect person to be giving that voice."

If you go to my reading that I did at the most recent book launch, you'll hear me trying (and failing, in my opinion) to get Hoid's voice right. Kingmaker is an experiment in trying to see what I can do with Hoid's voice and how to do it correctly. And I actually started that after I finished Tress, because I wanted to find a voice for Hoid that I could edge a little away from the fairy tale. I want to use the fairy tale voice. I believe that someday I might write another one from this same voice. But I also wanted to have a voice for Hoid... He can tell different genres, right? He can tell different kinds of stories; they're all not gonna feel the same, and you see this in the books, right? The way he tells Wandersail is different from the way he tells The Dog and the Dragon. Those are two different kinds of stories. So, I tried writing Kingmaker, and I did not like how the voice went in that one. So I backed off on that, and I instead wrote Secret Project Two, which is a non-Cosmere one, just to kind of shake myself out of where I had been and do something very different. (Obviously not told by Hoid; it's not in the Cosmere.) You can see a kind of failed start in there, which is kind of fun. And there are some things I like about that piece that I read from Kingmaker that I like a lot.

Isaac Stewart

That's interesting to me, because of course, when you get to Dragonsteel and he's telling his own story, he's not going to tell it like a fairy tale. It's going to be something entirely different.

Brandon Sanderson

It's going to have a more Kingkiller-esque fell to it. I want to practice a bunch of different ways that Hoid could tell stories.

Rogaen

Any news on an Elantris sequel?

Brandon Sanderson

No news. I want to do this between Mistborn Era 3 books, is do some Elantris. But I'm gonna have to see how things play out in writing those books. It depends on a lot of factors.

I do plan to do them, still, just like I plan to do one Warbreaker sequel. But I have to balance these things, because I also want to do some new stuff in the cosmere, with new planets. Like, we need to do the Aethers. They're relevant to space-age cosmere, so I need to have at least a book or some novellas to get you used to that magic system, as well.

Questioner

So any chance of a horror story?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I actually have written one I consider horror. A short story. It was in a horror anthology. We're going to publish it with *inaudible* [anthology]. You'll be able to read it. But--

Questioner

Non-cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's non-cosmere, yeah. It's [the most horrifying thing I can] *inaudible* It's not going to read like one until you figure out what's going on. It's not like horror... monster movie horror, you know? 

Questioner

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I mean it's still [wacky] magic and things like that, but when you realize what's going on. Yeah.

Kurkistan

If Investiture can neither be created nor destroyed, and Feruchemy is all fueled by the Feruchemist himself, then how do metalminds end up being invested without Feruchemists seeming to suffer any long-term loss of Investiture? If they're not "creating" the energy that's going into the metalminds, then where's it coming from?

Brandon Sanderson

The cosmere takes physics from our universe, and adds additional layers to it. Where we have energy and matter (simplified), the cosmere has additional building blocks that make reality. Investiture is one of these. It IS possible to change matter, to energy, to investiture, and back.

DrogaKrolow

If you were to choose one of your own worlds to live in, which would that be?

Brandon Sanderson

It would definitely be… Does it have to be cosmere?

DrogaKrolow

No.

Brandon Sanderson

Because then I could go with one of the cool science-fiction ones and I could have-- Like, you know-- Live far away from where everyone is having war and live like in a futuristic society. I think that's kind of cheating. If I had to pick one of the cosmere worlds I would probably pick Scadrial because it's the closest to having the Internet and instant noodles.

Questioner

In your magic systems, they all require the character to go over a great stress before they obtain that-- Do you use the concept of the price that comes with magic in a plausible magic system when you came up with that idea, or was it more about the idea of flawed characters are awesome?

Brandon Sanderson

In the cosmere magics, a lot of times in order to get the magic, there needs to be-- the internal logic argument is: Souls, once they have gaps in them, those gaps can be filled with other things, which often give you access to magical powers. Great trauma or stress--this is an age old fantasy idea, goes back many many years in the genre--will let you attain some of these powers, kind of as a balancing thing and mostly this is for narrative reasons.

Flawed characters are just way more interesting to write, and I gravitated to it pretty naturally as I was building the magic of the cosmere. And I would say it was mostly narrative reasons, as opposed to, when I was building the magic, some rule that felt like it needed to be there. But it's also a little of a balancing factor. It's trying to build into--whoever asked the question about the god--having god-like powers, but their flaws making it hard for them to use it.

It's a check on giving the powers to my characters, if I make sure to establish, this character has some holes in their-- some gaps and flaws in who they are, that might make them use their powers wrong once they get them, and that is in some way a narrative check on that, if that makes sense.

Roger

As I understand it, red is a sign of corruption in the cosmere. I just reread The Emperor's Soul, and it mentioned wisps of red smoke when Shai tests the Soulstamps. Does this mean she is corrupting Gaotona's soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is what that means. Corruption doesn't have to have the negative connotation, right? Basically, it means an outside influence is changing the Spiritual nature of the soul. And, yeah, that's exactly what is happening right there. Now, I would call that a pretty good thing, but... like, all of those things, where she is playing with someone's soul, and changing it, and changing their past, and things like this. This is, by cosmere definition, corrupting someone's soul. That's expressly what it is.

Questioner

We know Elantris and all the other worlds have their own calendars. What does Scadrial's calendar look like, especially relative to Earth?

Brandon Sanderson

For those who don't know, the Mistborn world was designed as my earth analogue. Meaning, if you go look at Scadrial and say, "Does this creature exist on Scadrial?" It probably doesn't exist on Roshar, and it's a toss-up if it exists on Sel, the Elantris world. But on Scadrial, if I haven't said otherwise, you can guess that it does exist. And that's why the cultures and the languages and the linguistics, I just built that one to kind of be the familiar place. And that's because... so, you would say, like, seven-day week. Basically seven-day week, like our calendar-ish.

Roshar's, by the way, is pretty bizarre. Roshar is five-day week, set into fifty-day months, which there are ten months in the year, with a double-year cycle of highstorms. So, it's a thousand-day cycle with two years in between those. It's this really bizarre thing we came up with, but Roshar's supposed to have bizarre stuff.

Questioner

The Arcanist?

Isaac Stewart

That's sort of the working title. I'm still kind of in the back of my head thinking if we can find something that's White Sand and still has that same cadence so it feels like it... I mean, calling it The Arcanist is good because it will be Khriss's story. We follow Kenton in this one, I think the back half to this story would need to be Khriss going back to Darkside and figuring out what to do with the Emperor there and saving her town.

The status? I have a lot of notes for that.

Brandon Sanderson

He's writing Boatload of Mummies right now. So the status is: finish Boatload of Mummies, release Boatload of Mummies, decide what he wants to do next in the Cosmere. 'Cause Isaac's got the do-what-he-would-like-in-the-Cosmere ticket.

Isaac Stewart

The one that I'm really excited and might wind up doing after this, and I'm not gonna give too much on it, but I love the title of it. But it would be set on Scadrial and be called Son of Bones. That's the one that I would really like to write after Boatload of Mummies if it turns out okay.

Thought

It seems that certain colors and numbers appear frequently in specific Cosmere books, like the number 5 in Warbreaker or red and blue in Elantris. Do these colors or numbers happen to refer to a specific Shard, and if so, would they be consistent across the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Certain colors and numbers are important in reference to certain Shards.

Brandon Sanderson

Where are Brandon Sanderson properties as far as other media are concerned? So let's run down them.

Fox has The Reckoners. I don't know how being bought by Disney affects that at all. But they have been very enthusiastic about The Reckoners for many years, and I hope that they will continue to be.

MGM has Snapshot, which is lesser-known, it's like a cross between The Matrix and Se7en. It's very different for me. They are very far along, they have a really excellent screenplay, and that one, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the first one that gets made. Which would be kind of odd if the first Brandon Sanderson property is a serial killer thriller.

Speaking of thrillers, Legion is owned by a group, they just bought it this summer, and last I heard they were working on showrunners and had somebody interested, so that is in a good place also. We probably have to change the name, now that Marvel has a Legion show.

The Cosmere is owned by DMG Entertainment, whom I love. They have been great to work with. The Cosmere is very difficult to adapt. They have been good partners in trying to find the right way to adapt that. Nothing is off the table. I still think it's most likely that we would see Stormlight as a television show, Mistborn as a movie, but these things are still in the foundational stages, just of getting screenplays that we like and things like that.

I think that is everything right now. I'll do a bigger thing on my blog in December where I catch anyone up.

Any more board games? There was a Stormlight board game, and we have backed off on that because some of the early things we got, we didn't like the direction it was going. We have really liked the two board games that have come out. They have both turned out really well. They have both fulfilled their Kickstarter requirements, which is one of our number one things, we don't want to have that hanging over people. So they've both been really great partners. I still would like to see Stormlight, we were going to do a Shattered Plains style game. We'll see how that goes.