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Firefight Chicago signing ()
#8152 Copy

Questioner

At the end of Firefight when it says that if you overcome your fears that the corruption kind of ceases to exist. Does that mean an Epic's weakness is resolved also?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a question for the sequel.

Questioner

So would that imply that maybe David has a power but he doesn't know it because he overcame the water fear?

Brandon Sanderson

That's entirely possible... You're asking good questions.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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Nadine

Melissa, I think we have members from another forum joining us and they have information that we don't have. Maybe even advanced book information, like we know nothing about The Way of Kings and only heard about the book recently and know nothing of its content.

Could some of you newcomers introduce yourselves (maybe on our "Introduce Yourself" thread and not clutter up this one) and tell us where you are from? We love the information you are bringing and introducing on this thread but we are confused.

Brandon Sanderson

I posted on my website that I'd be doing this, and I don't often have time to interact on forums. (They are a delightful way to interact with readers, but have proven a HUGE time-sink for me in the past. As you might have noticed, I tend to write—and respond—in depth when people ask questions of me.) So I only appear on forums occasionally. Hence the involvement of those from my forums looking for some answers to questions.

Some backstory might help you all. I began writing in earnest in 1997. During those years, I shared the books I wrote with a group of friends. This group worked with me on The Leading Edge, a science fiction fanzine/semiprozine at BYU. Eventually, once we graduated, we founded the Timewaster's Guide, partially as a forum where we could hang out. (Tage and Ookla from the TWG forums—aka Ben and Peter—are among them, and are still very good friends of mine. Another easter egg is to watch how Ben Olsen and Peter Ahlstrom are treated in the acknowledgements of many of my books.)

The overarching story and theme of my books, what I wanted to accomplish as a writer, and how I approached the fantasy genre, all took shape during this time. These readers read many of my most important, and influential (on me as a writer) novels while in draft form. The biggest three of these during this era were White Sand, Dragonsteel, and Elantris. (On the tail end, I wrote—but never finished—the foundations of what years later became Warbreaker.)

The next era of my unpublished writing was when I worked on the worlds, stories, and themes that eventually became Mistborn, The Way of Kings, and a book called the Aether of Night. Many of my writing group friends have read these books, including the first draft of Kings (which is very, very different from the current draft.)

Anyway, these unpublished books are NOT canon yet. I don't canonize a novel until I publish it. But some of the hidden themes (including Hoid and Adonalsium) of my books are present in these novels. (Dragonsteel and Aether of Night are particularly connected—though of the unpublished Shardworld books, White Sand is probably the best written.) Again, none of this is canon yet. (For instance, I've taken chunks out of Dragonsteel to use in the revision of The Way of Kings.) However, these old books do contain clues that aren't available to the average reader.

Dragonsteel can be ordered through inter-library loan through the university library system. There are only four or five copies in existence. The BYU library has one (the book was my honor's thesis.) I believe the honors department has one. My thesis chair has one. (And maybe the committee has one, I can't remember.) I've got one in my basement. And I believe Ben's sister may have sneaked a copy out of the trash when I was cleaning out old manuscripts. (That might be White Sand.)

I do have intentions of rewriting these books and publishing them eventually. They each have pieces of the story. (Though I may decide to shift certain themes from one series to another as I eventually write and publish them.) I've been known to email White Sand or Aether of Night to readers who email and ask. (Though it does make me cringe a little to do so. In many of these books, I was experimenting with magic, theme, and narrative style—some experiments were a success, some were failures.)

Dragonsteel is frozen; I don't send it out any longer, as to not spoil the parts of The Way of Kings that I decided fit better in that world. So the only way to get it now is to borrow it from BYU. I've been told that Dragonsteel is the only undergraduate BYU honor's thesis ever to have been be read so often that it needed to be rebound. (A dubious honor, I'm not sure how I feel about so many people reading a book of mine that is that mediocre.)

Elantris Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-Five

I figured the rats metaphor in this chapter was appropriate. It seemed like the kind of connection that Hrathen would make–and it says something about him that he would think this way. He might be a sympathetic villain, and he might have some measure of nobility, but he isn't by any means unprejudiced. He is, in that way, a product of his culture. You can be a good man and still be prejudiced–I know a lot of people, good people, who simply don't seem to have the ability to see beyond their own assumptions.

So, I contrast this bit of prejudice from Hrathen with a sincere measure of humanity on his part. He's worried about Sarene. Not worried simply because of his desire to use her, not even worried simply because of his latent affection for her–though both are motivations for his actions. He's worried because he feels guilty for using her like he is. It's that pesky conscience of his, messing things up again.

And yes, Hrathen does have some feelings for Sarene hiding inside that armored chest of his. I'm always very subtle in the way I have him show them–for instance, his coming up to the wall to try and see if she’s all right.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

"Something in the form of that which we'd seen before."

There's one other cool item to note in this chapter. If you read Ruin's words carefully, he admits that he has indeed seen human life somewhere before. This means that there is life on other planets in this cosmology, and that Ruin and (presumably) Preservation have experience with those other planets.

Another building block for the larger story.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Prologue - Part Two

I intentionally hit the setting very hard in this chapter. People bring a lot of preconceived notions to fantasy, and sometimes it's difficult to shake them free. With this book, I don't want people to assume an immediate time period or culture for this world. In realty, I've stolen from all over the place. My hope is that I'll be able to destroy people's conceptions quickly, then instead build my own world in their mind.

So, here we have a land where the sun is red, ash falls from the sky, mists come upon the land at night, and plants are brown rather than green. In addition, we have a slave population who live like very rural peasants–but, at the same time, Lord Tresting checks his pocket watch in the first scene. Later on, you'll see gothic cathedrals mixing with people in near-modern clothing. It's all just part of the image I'm trying to create–a place that isn't set in any particular time. In fact, it's a little bit frozen in time, as you'll find in later books.

Oathbringer release party ()
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Joyblu

So, I just had a question about the name Hoid. I've gone through all these [Aons], with the "OID," I know he really cares about how it's spelled. Is there anything you can give me the "O" and the "I" and the "D"? The only ones that have the "O" and the "I" are these two right here. Am I onto anything here, or is that just a coincidence?

Brandon Sanderson

No, those are just a coincidence.

JordanCon 2016 ()
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Questioner

What was the reasoning behind there being many, many years between different stories in the different parts the cosmere, like the huge gap between… Warbreaker and Way of Kings. Like why is--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, why are there some huge gaps in the length of the cosmere. There's-- I want the cosmere to be more than just a little blip of time. The concept for the cosmere was never something, to me, like the Avengers for instance. Which a lot of people kind of view it that way, particularly because the Marvel movies have been so big, and that's good. But it's not like all these concurrent stories with the same characters converging. That's not how I have ever planned it. Now there are certain people who are functionally immortal or close to it that will be involved in things across time, but this is-- I'm telling an epic story, right? And I knew we needed thousands of years between some of the events. For instance, Roshar, we start in the Prelude at 4500 years or whatever before the book starts. It's like, if I didn't have some big gaps, then what are all the stories that are happening in between? It feels illogical and false to me to have all the stories happen in a short time period. Now as certain part of the magic allow more communication and connection, then we will have to, by nature, kind of accelerate some of those things. But I feel like if I spent, you know, ten thousand years or whatever, and only had all the stories happen in the last 50, it would feel really weird. So that’s why.

Skyward Denver signing ()
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Alpharho

The metal of Shardblades. Cultivationspren versus honorspren, for example. Are they different metals?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but good question.

Alpharho

Are all orders the same alloy, essentially?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There's a little asterisk on there, but not in the way you're asking... You could call those all the same alloy. Because the mixture to different spren is different, I think that you could argue that each one is its own alloy.

Alpharho

So, different proportions of tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but it doesn't quite work that way with these magics, right? I'm going to say that's up to the individual cosmerologist who is in the world, the arcanist, defining it. You would be able to find enough differences to legitimately call them different alloys if you wanted to.

Alpharho

Would you say different ratios of the same two metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They are not going to have a third one in them, if that's what you're asking. But it doesn't quite work that way. Like, if you were going to take brass, you could measure the exact percentage. In this case, it is a thing; it's not like you could divide it up and split them apart, because they are a thing. And that thing would be called one thing.

Alpharho

But you won't say what that thing is called?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I won't say what that thing is called. But I think you and the 17th Sharders and folks that are dividing them would prefer to call them ten different things, and I think their nomenclature would be relevant.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

Do you have a layout of the cosmere, like everything is happening written down or is it just up here?

Brandon Sanderson

It's written down. Some of it's up in the head, some of it's written down. Most of it is somewhere...

Questioner

Somewhere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah most of it's somewhere.

White Sand vol.1 release party ()
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Questioner

I really like how you have different fingernails. *inaudible* Because I barely noticed, rereading for Stormlight, you've got the He--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Herdazians. 

Questioner

Herdazians.

Brandon Sanderson

That's because Herdazians are-- have Parshendi blood. Parshmen blood. They're one of the halv-- they're one of the mixed breeds. Horneaters *inaudible* too.

Questioner

Horneaters, um.. they're not *inaudible* with Parshendi are they?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they are.

Questioner

That's where they get the red hair then.

Brandon Sanderson

That's where they get the red hair. And they actually can-- they call them Horneaters because they eat shell, and they actually can metabolize it which humans can't. Yeah. They've actually got, actually-- they've actually got different teeth than humans have.

General Reddit 2018 ()
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unchainedt

[The Oathgate map] can't be a very early Rosharan piece, because it lists the Shattered Plains, which weren't shattered when humans came. It also list all the current kingdom names, and the human kingdoms wouldn't have existed anywhere except Shinovar during the early days before humans ventured out elsewhere.

Peter Ahlstrom

Anything on the artwork that uses that font is an annotation by Nazh.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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kakarotoks

How much do you usually work? Do you do about 40 hours/week, and never work on weekends or do you spend most of your time working (work = research, outlining, writing, doing conferences/book tours, etc.. but doesn't include thoughts that pop in your mind at random times during the day/night). Do you consider this as a 'regular job' (one that you are obviously passionate about) and you take the time to have hobbies/family time, and vacations, or is it your passion, your life, and you spend as much time as you can doing it

Brandon Sanderson

It's sometimes hard to measure, because the touring aspect of my job is very different from the day-to-day. And there are years when I spent 1/3 of my time touring. But the day to day is about 40 hours a week right now. It used to be more, but with kids and a family, I've pulled back somewhat to get a better balance, and to make sure I'm reading other people's work so that I keep an eye on what they're doing.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

I almost took out the section where Vin thinks "Oh, that's why Sazed saved me. He has to because he promised Kelsier. That makes sense–after all, why would he want to save me?"

This section fits with the earlier Vin, but I think it's just a bit out of character for her now. She's getting over her feelings of worthlessness and solitude. She knows Sazed well enough now to understand that he WOULD save someone because he's a kind person, not just because he promised that he would.

So, I shortened Vin's thoughts in that section, de-emphasizing them by adding them into another paragraph, rather than giving them their own. I maybe should have cut them, but I wanted to hint that she's not over her hang-ups yet. She still has some of those old feelings. The progress is that she doesn't dwell on them as long.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Epilogue - Part One

This last epigraph is actually out of order. Most of them were chronological as Vin read from the logbook. This one, however, doesn't actually come after the one before it. I just put it here because it felt like it belonged at the end.

I did, actually, write most of these epigraphs (or bumps–or whatever you want to call the things at the beginnings of chapters) in one lump, then cut them apart, as I think I've mentioned. I did the same thing for book two, actually, where there's a different kind of puzzle going on in the narratives.

Calamity Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

So I listen to your podcast, Writing Excuses, and you've been, this year, breaking down stories into different parts. Was Bands of Mourning an attempt, for you, to write a pulp novel?

Brandon Sanderson

The question is on Writing Excuses we've been breaking story down into different parts. Was Bands of Mourning an attempt to write a pulp novel? Actually all of the Wax and Wayne books are a hearkening back to classic serials and pulp novels. So yes, it was me looking at that-- I kind of pitched those books to myself as "Mistborn: the television show. The action serial" if that makes sense. Where the other ones were the Mistborn epic fantasies, these are the action serials. And I did try to kind of vary the genre, the first one is kind of more straight-up detective novel, the second one is psychological thriller, and then the third one is kind of a classic serial adventure story. So yeah, that was very intentional, it's me trying to take different tones and mash them up with different stories and see what comes out.

Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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drostandfound

As far as I know, the Entities are new to the Magic lore. Were they your idea? What was the process like of working with creative to develop a new type of being within a very defined lore?

Brandon Sanderson

These were something I wanted to do and create, and a pitch I brought to the lore team. They were on-board from the beginning, though they did a lot of work to help me bring my idea into line with something that would work with MTG lore.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

How has the fantasy publishing industry changed with the global popularity of things like Game of Thrones?

Brandon Sanderson

It has changed, but really what we're seeing is what happened in the States in the seventies, the States and the UK following Tolkien, is now happening in a lot of countries that it hadn't happened in before. Which is cool. But it's not just Game of Thrones, it's the Lord of the Rings movies, it's Harry Potter. The last ten years are wakening fantasy. See the thing about fantasy is we don't find fantasy doing well in developing countries. It's kind of the thing where if you are going to be reading about knights and wizards, you are not going to be somebody who's struggling for your bread each day. You know what I mean?

Questioner

People in developing countries like more aspirational--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So you see for instance as countries transition out of that you see a lot of fantasy and things. For instance it happened in Japan in the seventies. It happened in the US even earlier. It's happening now in Brazil and Taiwan. Those are two of the places where it is just appearing. India, it's just starting in India. Mainland China hasn't quite caught on yet but there's hints that it is going to happen. But it has been in Europe for quite a while.

Questioner

So do you have translations of your books in Portuguese?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I'm in 26 languages, or something like that. But you can kind of use that as a map for the places that read -- you know. Like the only South American country is Brazil, I don't have any other distribution in South America. Not a single country in Africa, I don't believe, except South Africa, the UK editions. None of those. Japan, China, Korea? Yes. Europe? Almost everybody in Europe.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah the Divine Breath is a gift of Investiture directly to the...basically they are being given a large Splinter of Endowment.

Questioner

But is it the size?

Brandon Sanderson

The size is important, to make that happen, yeah.

Questioner

To make it happen?

Brandon Sanderson

To make it happen, yeah. To make them come back and to do the things but...there is obviously some leakage there when they basically taking a Cognitive Sh...they have to create a Cognitive Shadow of the spirit, right. Which requires some work, and then to push that back into the body and get it to stick requires some work as well. You'll see that with Szeth it isn't sticking very well.

Questioner

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah Szeth is not a Cognitive Shadow, he actually got stuck back in but the soul is not sticking very well to the body

Questioner

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

That's what she's saying.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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Dalenthas

With all the talk about action and reaction and whatnot, will some force form to counter Sazed's new Ruin/Preservation mix? It seems to me like the whole nature of the world can't stand to have one person unopposed.

Brandon Sanderson

Ruin and Preservation were not the only Shards of Adonalsium, though they are the only ones on Scadrial at the moment. Sazed's ability to be both at once is actually something I drew from Eastern mythology, where it is believed that the ability to contain two opposing forces at the same time represents ultimate harmony. The Buddha, for instance, was said to have performed the miracle of producing both fire and ice from his hands at the same time.

Chaos

Is "Scadrial" the proper name to refer to the Mistborn world?

Brandon Sanderson

Scadrial is indeed the name of the planet

Chris King interview ()
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Chris King

We've seen some hints of the over-arching cosmere story arc, what was the inspiration behind that story originally?

Brandon Sanderson

I had an idea for a book when I was fifteen and just getting into fantasy novels—just getting into meaning, reading everything I could get my hands on and diving in face first—and I developed that idea over the next few years. I started writing and realized I was just no good as a writer yet. Which was okay, it wasn't a big deal to me. I realized this story was beyond my ability to approach, it was a vast, enormous story. And so, years later when I was writing Elantris I thought "Well let's just pretend I wrote that book and it was awesome and it's the prelude to what's going on here." That expanded into something much larger and much greater.

I've mentioned before, part of my inspiration for this was the fact that one of my favorite writers, Asimov, later decided to connect two of his main story universes, the Robot books and the Foundation books. It was really cool when he did it and I felt what would happen if I started doing something like this from the get go. I've known several authors who do it at the end of their careers—well I guess Stephen King's not even at the end of his career, in the middle of his career—saying let me tie a bunch of these things together. What if I seeded all of this from the get go and use this story, this awesome story, that I wasn't able to write when I was younger as a foundation for it.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

In Alloy of Law, Marasi goes to see Wax in his house and he was doing experiments, she describes him as being oddly-- looking oddly younger than he had before. Is that relevant or is that just because he’s excited about--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah it's more that, and more she had this picture in her head of him and things like that. There's no actual magical thing going on there. It's an excellent question.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

When it comes to major, pivotal plot twists. Moments where the reader goes "WOAH" or "Oh my god". Are those something you write as starting point or ending point?

Brandon Sanderson

What I do is I plot my outline backward, starting with those scenes. And then I write the book forward to those scenes. The reason I can do it that way is because in the plot I don't need to know the characters' emotional state, I can just come up with "This is going to be a great scene". But I have to have been with the characters through the journey to write their reaction to the scene. So I can't actually write it early.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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Zas678

What is the X in Aon Mea? Is it one of the Shard-pools?

Brandon Sanderson

Afraid not. Aon Mea references the expanded region within which the "Elantris Effect" will create Elantrians. The X is fertile valley with a high density of life, a place with a lot of cognitive activity. (Cognitive as defined by Realmatic Theory includes the 'thoughts' of all things that exist, not just human beings. The more complex the life form, the stronger its presence on the Cognitive Realm.)

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

[Aether of Night] is two halves of good books, kind of shuffled together. Half of this good book and half of this good book shuffled together. The Shakespearean farce, which is fun and, kind of silly, and this guy who's in not in a position to lead... and the deep worldbuilding war novel with the cosmere magic. And it's like, "We're going to shuffle these together and see how it turns out."

Questioner

I loved it. I thought it was good.

Brandon Sanderson

And my brother's cameo is in this book. Darro is named after my brother, Jordo.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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InsaneScotsman

On First of The Sun, does Silverlight have a permanent outpost on the Cognitive side or is it still too dangerous to hang around?

Lastly, any cool tidbits about First of The Sun or its people would be awesome, worldhoppers or the like?

Brandon Sanderson

This is actually a RAFO too--it would be relevant if I write a sequel to Sixth of the Dusk. The opening sequence would involve an expedition into Shadesmar...

Miscellaneous 2014 ()
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AonarFaileas

That's just an issue of phrasing. As Lashings work by creating localized gravitational forces (don't think, it's magic ) it would have created a localized gravitational force of approximately 0.63Gs upwards relative to Szeth's current position on Roshar, which after competition from Roshar's 0.7Gs of gravity, would have left Szeth feeling only 0.07Gs, or, one tenth of the regular gravitational force.  

Peter Ahlstrom

No. Lashing is not a vector addition to the planet's gravity. When you use a Lashing, you dismiss the planet's gravity's influence on you entirely.

AonarFaileas

So it would have been a 9/20ths (45%) Lashing, then?  (0.7-0.7*0.45*2=0.07)

Or do Lashings completely cancel out gravity and then reapply the gravitational force at a different strength?

Peter Ahlstrom

The general rule when you do a Basic Lashing is that it replaces all other Basic Lashings (including the planet's gravity) on you or the object. The default Basic Lashing strength is 1 Roshar gravity.

As you get more practiced you can use partial lashings or multiple Lashings, or (Kaladin does this accidentally one time) NOT dismiss the previous Lashings entirely, so that different Lashings are pulling in different directions. But usually when someone does a Lashing, you should assume that Lashing's effect is the only "gravity" that currently exists for that person or thing.

Skyward release party ()
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Questioner

You used the Julia Set as a basis for the map of Roshar; Is there any meaning beyond it, using the Julia Set? Or is more, "This is striking to me-"

Brandon Sanderson

The meaning is my fascination as a layman with fractals and equations. It is supposed to mean something in world; that Roshar was grown with a mathematical equation.

Questioner

But not specifically that one?

Brandon Sanderson

Not specifically the Julia Set. You can't learn much from the Julia Set.