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Marc Aplin

Okay, so Way of Kings...the people who don't know the background, I'll just give you a little bit. The book was written actually before pretty much anything else of Brandon's was published. I think it was 2002, 2003 he finished it. Obviously he went on to publish Elantris, Warbreaker...Mistborn as well, of course. And the Wheel of Time books. Has his experiences with these other books changed the way that he sees the Stormlight series continuing from this point?

Brandon Sanderson

When I finished Way of Kings the first time in 2002, it wasn't ready yet. And I knew...when I finished it, I knew something was wrong. My skill wasn't up to writing a book of this length yet. I was very proud of it, but proud in the way that, you know, someone who finished their first marathon but with a horrible time would be proud of having run that marathon; and I knew I needed to get better as a writer before I could actually do it justice. And so, yes, it's evolved. There were flaws in the original book. The character of Kaladin was just boring, in the first write of it. Dalinar stayed about the same. Dalinar's plot changed the least, and who he was changed the least. But both Shallan and Kaladin had deep flaws in how I had written them, and I just wasn't...I wasn't creating characters deep enough yet. And so I set it aside, partially because I knew I needed to get better as writer. When I wrote it again in 2008—actually it was 2009, I think—I started over from scratch. I threw away everything and did it again. And my skill had increased by that point to the point that I could do it justice, I think.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

For the first 5 SA books he's heavily outlined them. For the last 5 SA books he has outlines for the main climax scenes. For the flashback characters for the last 5 books he's not settled on which ones or order but current plan is for Taln, Ash (aka Shalash), Lift, Jasnah and Renarin.

He also specifically stated that for one of the flashback characters that they would be already dead (sounded like definitely dead not maybe dead).

Questioner

Do you have any book recommendations that are about the same level of "prudishness" as your own? For reference, Dresden and Lightbringer were a bit too much... You and McClellan are perfect.

Brandon Sanderson

Prudishness like me. Robin Hobb tends to be right in that same realm. I haven't read all of Robin's work, but everything of I've read fits within that level of prudishness. Have you tried Robin?

...You probably want more epic fantasy or sci-fi. *thinks* Not Guy [Gavriel Kay], and not Nora [Jemisin]. I really like Jane Yolen's short story collection from last year. Well, it didn't cross any lines for me but it might for you. It's possible. I would put it further than I go. Hmmm. Peter Orullian... I'll be honest with you, the first book was weak, I thought the second book was good. I thought his short fiction was really strong...

I mean there's a ton in YA, like Charlie Holmberg but that's very different (she's one of my students, she's very good). I should come up with a list. I mean, Terry Brooks is always safe, but everyone knows Terry. Have you read Pratchett?

Questioner

I read the Color of Magic.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, Color of Magic is terrible... Go read The Truth. It's not terrible, but Color of Magic is his weakest book by far. The Truth is great, Going Postal is great, those are my two favorites. If you don't like either of those then Pratchett is not for you. And they're both standalones.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Three

Shallan

I chose to use Shallan as my other main character in Part One, rather than Dalinar, because I felt her sequence better offset Kaladin's. He was going to some very dark places, and her sequence is a little lighter.

She is the only "new" main character in this book. Kaladin (under a different name) was in Way of Kings Prime, and Dalinar was there virtually unchanged from how he is now. The character in Shallan's place, however, never panned out. That left me with work to do in order to replace Jasnah's ward.

Shallan grew out of my desire to have an artist character to do the sketches in the book. Those were things I'd wanted to do forever, but hadn't had the means to accomplish when writing the first version of the book. I now had the contacts and resources to do these drawings, like from the sketchbook of a natural historian such as Darwin.

One of the things that interests me about scientists in earlier eras is how broad their knowledge base was. You really could just be a "scientist" and that would mean that you had studied everything. Now, we need to specialize more, and our foundations seem to be less and less generalized. A physicist may not pay attention to sociology at all.

Classical scholars were different. You were expected to know languages, natural science, physical science, and theology all as if they were really one study. Shallan is my stab at writing someone like this.

Questioner (paraphrased)

*inaudible question*

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

So Roshar's also high-oxygen, which does some weird things. That's how we justify the crustaceans. Which does weird things to people as well, so.

Elise

I really loved the character Lightsong, he was my favorite and probably one of the most interesting characters I've ever read about. Did you have anyone in particular in mind when you came up with him? How did go about developing him as a character?

Brandon Sanderson

Rupert Everett was sitting in the back of my mind.

Actually, in order to develop Lightsong's character well, I didn't want to imitate any one voice. That's something we always stay away from. But I had been wanting to work on writing humor in a different way from what I'd previously used. I spent a lot of time watching and analyzing the movie THE THIN MAN, the old comedy/mystery/crime film with an emphasis on very witty characters making wisecracks as they investigate a murder. If you haven't seen it, it's delightful. Along with AN IDEAL HUSBAND and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, those were my three sources of inspiration. I was trying for a blend of those two styles—and then of course added my own sense of humor.

Revengeadaseth

Hoid refers to himself as a “renowned interdimensional storyteller”. Does this word “interdimensional” refer to traveling between the Physical and Cognitive Realms, or does it mean something more?

Brandon Sanderson

Nope, that's what it means. Well, and Spiritual on occasions. He is not referencing moving through time, and there is no multiverse in the Cosmere. Good to ask that so I can reinforce it. No time travel to the past. No multiverse. These are two of my big nonos in the Cosmere

Curt Hoyt

Specifically, which mistakes you made as a beginning novelist that stand out the most as ones you've corrected as you've learned the craft better.

Brandon Sanderson

That's an excellent question, I would say that my biggest mistake as a new writer was not being willing to revise. I'm a classic, what we call a one-drafter this is a type of author who likes to just imagine it, get it ready, plan a lot and then get in on the page and be done with it and that was a mistake, I've become a big believer in learning to take a book that's a good book and make it an excellent book and doing a lot of strong revisions and early on I wasn't willing to do that and I think it held me back quite a bit.

Curt Hoyt

Do you think that maybe not having a writing group to back you up contributed to your lack of revisions?

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe... I actually did have a writing group, and what I would do is I would get the feedback from my writing group and my opinion was, "Oh, I did all these mistakes. I made all these mistakes." Instead of fixing them, early on I would say, "Well, I won't make those mistakes again for my next book," cause I was always so excited an eager to write the next book and I didn't slow down enough and really focus in on making books great.

And that was a mistake that was very particular to me, I don't think... as a writer there are so many different ways to do this and so many different types of writers. Part of learning to be a writer is about learning what things hold you back and what mistakes you make and they can be very different. Depending on who you are and what type of problem you have.

Daily Dragon

Shallan's sketches in The Way of Kings are terrific additions that enhance the epic feel of the novel. What inspired you to push for these illustrations?

Brandon Sanderson

I wanted to use the form of this novel to try and enhance what epic fantasy can do, and downplay the things that are tough about it. One of the tough things about epic fantasy is the learning curve—how much you have to learn and pay attention to, how many things there are to just know. I felt that occasional illustrations could really help with that. For instance, how Shallan's sketchbook, or uses of multiple maps, could give us a visual component to the book. Pictures really are worth a thousand words. You can have on that page something that shows a creature much better than I can describe it. And so I felt that that would help deemphasize the problem of the learning curve, while at the same time helping to make this world real. Epic fantasy is about immersion, and I wanted to make this world real since that's one of the great things we can do with epic fantasy. We've got the space and the room to just build a completely real world, and I felt that the art would allow me to do that, which is why I decided to do "in world" art.

I didn't want to take this toward a graphic novel. I like graphic novels, but it wasn't appropriate here to do illustrations of the scenes and characters from the books because I don't want to tell you what they look like. I want that to be up to your own imagination. And so we wanted that in-world ephemera feel to it, as though it were some piece of art that you found in the world and included.

I think it goes back to Tolkien. There's a map in The Hobbit, and that map isn't just a random map, which has become almost a cliché of fantasy books and of epic fantasy. "Oh, of course there's a random map in the front!" Well, Tolkien wanted you to think this map was the actual map the characters carried around, and that's why he included it. He wrote his books as if he were the archivist putting them together and translating them and bringing them to you, this wonderful story from another world, and he included the map because the map was there with the notes. That's what I wanted the feel for this ephemera to be. As though whoever has put this book together—done the translation and included pieces of art and maps and things that they found in the world that had been collected during these events—that's what you're getting.

Ziiaaaac

If [Mistborn: Birthright] doesn't come out, would we see a book based around the story that was written for the game?

Brandon Sanderson

It's possible. I did send in an outline for the story of it. I could use that for a story, though I've got a full plate right now.

WeiryWriter

Would you consider doing it as a graphic novel (if the White Sand graphic novels do well of course, though I really don't have any doubts about that)?

Brandon Sanderson

You know, that's actually a really good idea.

This could be a very elegant solution. I'll think about it.

Brandon Sanderson

With Lift part of the inspiration was-- Boy, what was the inspiration for Lift? When I was building The Stormlight Archive I said, "I want the Knights Radiant to run the gamut of different character styles, ages, and types of story." And when you say "knight"--when I say knight you imagine one thing. What you don't imagine is a thirteen-year-old Hispanic girl, right? And I said "I want to have the people that are in the Knights Radiant to not be the standard what you think of." They are the entire world's cultures having different people. And so I said "Well, what is somebody who does not fit that mold?" That you would say is not a knight. Lift was partially developed out of me wanting to build a character who was awesome but was so different from what everyone would think of. 'Cause you say knight and they think of white dude in armor, and I wanted something very different from that. And that's where she came from. It also came partially from my wife reading a lot of fantasy and complaining that she's like, "you know the Asians show up in fantasy a lot, Asian culture inspires a lot. European culture of course does. You see a lot of these things but where are the Hispanics?"

*audience laughs*

...Yeah there's one. So she challenged me to put a Hispanic culture in my books because I had never done it before, and so Lift is an outgrowth of that, so are the Herdazians. They are meant to be sort of in the same way that the Alethi are inspired by Korean culture, mashed up with this sort of concept of medieval knights. The same way Shallan is based a little off of Western American/Europe culture. The Herdazians are launching off some of the original Hispanic concepts. So the thing is, you want every culture to be new and original but you are working from somewhere. And the problem is we all work from the same stories for so long that is part of the reason why fantasy is starting to feel so stale.

Cheyenne Sedai

All three secret projects we've seen so far have been different in terms of voice than your usual books. For Brandon; how did this change in voice change your stories and the world you depict in these secret projects? Is there anything you implemented that you would like to bring into other books you write?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's an excellent question. That's part why I do voice like this. To experiment with different things. Project 2, Frugal Wizard, has a kind of funny ephemera book like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I like playing with ephemera, which is a fancy word for in world books and such that's included as part of the book, and I think that my experiments with ephemera are useful there. My experiments there with that one, playing with historical settings, is also very useful for me.

On the other two it is figuring out Hoid's voice. That is the thing that will probably be most useful in the future as I work out how I want him to tell Dragonsteel, which is his backstory. Neither of these is the right voice. Yumi is closer but at the same time I wanted to have something like this. I always wanted to write something with this fairy tale feel to it, and fairy tale is the wrong term. It's like modern fairy tale, like the Princess Bride is the er-example of this but even Harry Potter one. These sort of quips in narrative that give it a feel of a narrator telling you a story, the Hobbit has this as well. I liked that. I liked the feel of that. It's a sort of different kind of story telling, it has a sort of classic feel to it and I liked doing that.

Emily Sanderson

And with both of these I feel like there were times where you were like 'Is this too much Hoid? Too little Hoid? Does this work?' And I could really tell why you were doing it and if it was too distracting to the story or not.

Brandon Sanderson

Now here is the really interesting thing. The beta readers can not agree on this. There is no consensus on if their is too much Hoid or not enough, if it is distracting or the best thing about the book. Some of you I will warn will find the voice too distracting. I'm doing what I can, particularly in Yumi where I am pulling back a little bit where I'm putting Hoid interjections in parentheses and stuff like that. It doesn't work in Tress. Tress is so much in his voice, that whenever I add parentheses it's like; 'Why did I parenthesize this one when everything is so strongly in his voice?'

Emily Sanderson

It was interesting reading them because you didn't tell me that was what was going on. I had to figure it out. It was interesting to see when I figured it out; 'Wait a second this is in the Cosmere, wait a minute Hoid is telling this story' was kinda fun. It's been interesting to see people's reaction to that.

Brandon Sanderson

The readers reading the early chapters and be like 'Hey wait a minute!' That is a lot of fun. Very satisfying to me. That they can pick out Hoid's voice that easily. Means I'm doing my job right.

Questioner

If Patrick Rothfuss dropped dead tomorrow, would you finish the Kingkiller Chronicles?

Brandon Sanderson

So... if there were no other options. The thing is, I'm not sure how good a match I would be for Kingkiller. I might be able to do it. Thing is, Pat and I have... some similarities; our use of magic is very similar, and our use of viewpoint. We're very similar in those two things. Pat is very different from me in narrative structure. And more importantly (because I could do his narrative structure), he is a prose stylist, that has a lyricism to his writing that is very different from what I try to do. I have spent my life practicing something that in the industry we call Orwellian prose, which is... George Orwell would talk about how he wanted his prose to be a window pane. That through which you saw the story, but didn't distract you in any way. And I try to move my writing, most of the time, away from anything that draws attention to itself. Except for the occasional flourish at, like, the beginning of the chapter, or something like that.

Pat, every one of his lines is gorgeous. It's part of what makes the Kingkiller work so well. And that is not a skill I have practiced. I would think that somebody like Guy Gavriel Kay, or Nora Jemisin, who are fantastic prose stylists, might be a better match, because that's something you can't just fake. You can maybe work with a bad plot, but voice, it's so different.

I was a very similar voice to Robert Jordan. I had studied his things. While he's more flowery than I am, I knew his style enough that it was a good match. So, someone like Brent Weeks, who writes like me, then that's something that I could do. But someone like Pat... Pat would be a really tough one for me to pull off.

One of the weird things is, people joke about me taking over George Martin. Which you shouldn't joke about, we totally want George to make it through... My prose is much closer to George Martin's, but my thematic content is way different. People talk about this like, "Let's just give it to Sanderson." I'm like, "Really? Do you want all these Game of Thrones people to stop swearing and get married, because that's what I..." *inaudible* You don't want me taking over George. You'd rather me taking over Pat.

Shadowglass0

We've seen the drawing of a gigantic greatshell towering over a city in Way of Kings. Jasnah's book called it a voidbringer. How big was that compared to the Reshi islands greatshells? Do they look similar (proportions, etc.)? Are the Reshi islands greatshells really-really old? So old that someone pretentious enough to speak in all-caps could call them 'ancient ones'?

Brandon Sanderson

That picture is very, very inaccurate--by design. However, the Reshi Island greatshells were one of the models this illustrator in world used to create his fanciful drawing. They are, indeed, very long lived.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifty-Three - Part Two

Yes, Ahan is a traitor. When building this book, I knew that I wanted one of the characters to betray the rest. I also knew that I didn't want it to be the most obvious one in the group. This left me with a problem. I had to provide a character whom nobody would suspect as a traitor, yet at the same time make it believable that he would turn traitor.

The first thing I did was throw in Edan as a diversion. He worked perfectly–virtually all of my alpha readers mentioned that they thought for certain that he would turn traitor. I had Edan run off early because I wanted to lull the readers into a sense of security, thinking that their "traitor" character had disappeared already. I also didn't want to throw Ahan's betrayal in with Edan still there–I think that would have made Edan's purpose too obvious to those who could see the two contrasted that way.

The next thing I did was begin foreshadowing that Ahan acts, and speaks, without thinking through his actions. I mention this a couple of places, including at the eclipse party. I made his character a bit indifferent, a lot blustery, and tried to indicate that he didn't quite see the treason he was engaging in as being as dangerous as it really was.

Finally, I began having him act suspicious. You can go look through the spoiler annotations if you want notes of where I had him doing things like this. Essentially, he acted odd when Telrii was mentioned, and he was the one who went to visit Telrii when the group wanted one of their party to get in good with the enemy.

These are small things, I realize. However, I think they work well enough. I wanted to get across a sense of shock and surprise at the betrayal. I always hate it when traitors are obviously oily men with shifty eyes. I don’t think people trust that kind of man.

Anyway, I think the other thing that lets me get away with Ahan's betrayal is that he doesn't completely change characters with the treason. He isn't a different person–he doesn't suddenly become a "bad guy," like happened in some stories. (Ahem. The TV show 24, first season.) Ahan just didn't think hard enough about what he was doing–he took his actions too lightly.

Darkness (paraphrased)

Is there any Spiritual or Cognitive effect on the subject of Shallan's memory collecting?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well… …

Darkness (paraphrased)

Simply from taking the memory, not from the consequences of seeing the pictures or anything.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Right… no, I would say no, but there is a sliiiiight Spiritual Connection happening. So, so… but it doesn't really have an effect on the person.  I mean, you could say, you could make the argument that any slight Connection like that does have one. But I don't want you to read that much into it. So the answer is yes, with an asterisk of no.

Questioner

The Letters in Stormlight Archive. Wit and Sazed; are those the two people that are talking to each other?

Brandon Sanderson

Wit and Sazed are both involved in the Letters. Sazed is in there, and there are others, as well.

Questioner

Most of your magic systems seem superhero-ish to begin with, people have an ability or two that they can do. With the exception of Elantris. Do you intend to return to that one, or do another system that's similar to that?

Brandon Sanderson

I will. I like to do all kinds of different things. The thing about it is that I like having discrete powers that I can really explore. I find that a lot of magic system that have just so many things you can do — it's not necessarily that it's a bad magic system, I just find that I like to take one thing and dig into it deeply. Like, I love reading the Wheel of Time, that had a very expansive magic system. But when you see my books come along, you see the characters focusing on a few weaves and using them really well. That's just kind of more of a me thing.

Kara Stewart

The year 2022 catapulted our Merchandise and Events department to incredible levels of excitement, growth, improvement, and fun!

Our first big project was the “Surprise! Four Secret Novels by Brandon Sanderson” Kickstarter campaign held in March. The fandom came together and absolutely shattered records, ending with our campaign at double the next most funded project ever launched on Kickstarter.

We also attended FanX Salt Lake in September, New York Comic Con in October, and our own Dragonsteel convention in November—we loved seeing and interacting with everyone! Held this year in conjunction with the release of The Lost Metal, we tripled our attendance for Dragonsteel 2022, nearly doubled our exhibitor hall vendors, and had one fantastic time!

Between our Kickstarter campaign, our three book bundles (Skyward Flight: The Collection, Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, and The Lost Metal), and our convention, our merchandise team has worked on more than 70 new products this year! Many of these have already been released or will be coming in 2023. We are excited to be expanding our product offerings and can’t wait to see everyone’s reactions to the awesome products we have for next year.

Preparation for 2023 is well underway! First, we have tripled our employee headcount and are ramping up packaging rewards and prepping for fulfillment of our Secret Novels campaign. Second, our events team has already begun planning Dragonsteel 2023, so watch for announcements on hotel discounts and open registration. We are determined to make every year even more awesome for our fans, and we hope you’ll join us on November 20-21, 2023. Third, our merchandise team will be working on the Defiant book bundle, new releases for the store (including opening preorders for those who missed the Kickstarter), merch for Dragonsteel 2023, and the upcoming Words of Radiance campaign. Keep an eye on our social media (Instagram | Facebook) for updates on all these projects!

And finally, with hundreds of pallets of products and shipping materials received already, and hundreds more to come, we have spent much of the past year looking for a larger warehouse space. We are happy to say we found a warehouse that is 10 times the size of our current one, and we can’t wait to move in next year after the improvements are finished.

The enthusiasm for next year is abundant here at our warehouse, and we can’t wait for you to see the results of all our hard work.

Brandon Sanderson

Tertiary Projects

Untitled Threnody Story

There's a novel in the Threnody system I've been planning for many, many years. Might as well move it onto this list. I'd originally planned it as the arrival of people in hell after fleeing the Evil that destroyed their homeland across the sea, but I'm toying with flipping this around, sending an expedition back to the destroyed continent.

Either way, a Threnody novel has been part of the cosmere since before I got published, so I'm confident we'll see more from it eventually. If you're confused by all this, might I mention again the value in grabbing a copy of Arcanum Unbounded?

Status: Very early planning stages.

_0_-o--__-0O_--oO0__

You’ve been known to say that the fantasy genre is the best genre because you can do anything another genre can do and you can have dragons. And yet, we haven’t had a dragon from you yet. Well we see a Sanderson Dragon anytime before Dragonsteel? I’m assuming Dragonsteel has dragons?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I smile inwardly as I say that, because I know that--indeed--I don't use a lot of dragons. I do like reading about them, but I haven't found myself eager to put them into my works. I think it's because I've read so many excellent dragon books, I figure, that area of fantasy is being covered by others--and I should try different things.

That said, Dragonsteel has dragons, and so you will eventually see them there. I don't know that I'll do them before.

Brandon Sanderson

Author's Foreword

This is probably a good place to talk about the shift from third person into first person.

The book was originally written in the third person. There was a narrator telling us this story–someone listed as “Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third” on the title page. (Cecil, by the way, was invented by my friend Dan Wells as a humorous alter ego. I borrowed him for this as an inside joke, but eventually cut him–then put him back in as Alcatraz’s Free Kingdoms editor.)

There was a joke inherent in the narrator guise for this book. As the novel progressed, you realized that the author of the book was indeed Alcatraz, who was writing it and talking about himself in the third person. This let me have all kinds of jokes where the narrator would exaggeratedly describe Alcatraz as being smart, witty, or handsome. It also let me get away with some very clever word plays.

The problem is, it was too clever. Meaning that it was something I found funny, but that undermined the book. Since it was so convoluted and strange, it distracted from the story and the characters. It also felt a little bit too much like the Lemony Snicket narrator used in the A Series of Unfortunate Events books.

Credit for getting me to change the book from third person to first person goes to my agent Joshua and his assistant Steve. Joshua was very firm on the need to swap out the third person narrator for a first person that would bring us closer to the character of Alcatraz, while at the same time give a more solid narrative reason for all of the diversions and asides in the book.

Once I came around to this suggestion–which didn’t take much–I realized that I’d need a foreword to explain why Alcatraz was writing this book. Now that the ‘third person who is the first person’ mechanic was gone, I could create and use a backstory for why Alcatraz is writing his memoirs, which I ended up really liking (far more than what I lost) for what it let me do.

This introduction not only lets me acclimatize readers to the difference between Librarian lands and the Free Kingdoms, but also lets me begin to establish the character of Alcatraz the failure–the person our hero will become. That gives some tension to the narrative, I think, as the reader wonders how Alcatraz ended up like that. This introduction gives a framework to the fictional publication to the book, giving us a story we can all–as readers–be part of: the resistance against the Librarians.

Assistant Peter’s note: I’ve put up the original third person versions of the first two chapters. You may enjoy comparing them to the final versions.

Brandon Sanderson

I mention the Outer Cities here with the beggars. Actually, the main reason I put them in was to give myself another excuse to mention the Outer Cities. Throughout the books progress, I've been worried that people wouldn't understand the ending climax. In order to get what is going on with Aon Rao, they need to understand the geography of the cities around Elantris. Hopefully, I describe it well enough that it comes off.

Questioner

My one question is how do you make it so writing isn't work, because if I'm writing for work I don't write as well. How do you get in the mind set?

Brandon Sanderson

You know for me, taking a walk before hand, listening to some awesome music, and just imagining why this scene is going to be awesome and the emotional impact of it really helps. But at the same time writing is always going to be a little bit work and there is no getting around that. I mean, it's hard sometimes and so-- I don't know. For me I've enjoyed it more as it has become work and I can devote more time to it and things like that. But... Try that.

Questioner

Just get in the mood...

Brandon Sanderson

Listen to music and put myself in that scene, what it feels like, what it sounds like, smells like. Just put myself here and think about what is going to make it incredible and I'll get really excited about writing it. Excitement translates I think at least for me onto the page.

zuriel45

Jasnah, as I've said, grows more important in the back five.

I'd say spoilers, but I doubt you'd kill her off..

Pitchwife

This is entirely from memory so please forgive me if I get this wrong, but I believe [Brandon] has hedged on this topic in the past, e.g. who says she has to be alive (in the usual sense) to be a POV character?

Brandon Sanderson

I've said that flashback characters (which are the ones I've announced as having "books" dedicated to them) can die before their book arrives.

Brandon Sanderson

The Elusive Allomancer

It didn't occur to me until doing this annotation that Vin's ability to pierce copperclouds has been a kind of minitheme for all three books. She discovered the power early in book one, and by using it was able to save Elend's from getting killed by Shan and her assassins. In book two, it let Vin try to track down the spy, while also letting her hear the pulsings of the Well of Ascension before they were powerful enough for other Allomancers to recognize.

Now, in book three, it lets her discover this hidden Allomancer and begin chasing him down. Where she got her ability to pierce the copperclouds is a major factor in what is happening in this novel and how the plot will play out in the end.

If you're wondering, then yes—this is Ruin appearing to Vin and acting as a Mistborn to distract her. Right here, he's worried about the siege. He wants Vin and Elend to just attack the city and move on with it. He's frustrated that his pawns aren't doing what he intended them to do—at least not as quickly as he wanted. So he helps Yomen here by distracting Vin, hoping that by having them get attacked and losing some of their koloss they'll get angry at Yomen and strike back in retribution.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Two

Siri Lies in Bed and Decides to Take Charge

Reading through this scene again, I feel like it needs a bit of a trim. Ah well. There are always going to be sections like that that make it through.

I felt that there needed to be a scene where Siri finally stopped looking toward the past and berating herself for not being more like Vivenna. For her to step forward and become the woman she must be, she needed to do it of her own choice, with her own motivations. She needed this chance.

Sometimes in writing classes or in books on telling stories, they'll mention a moment somewhere in act two where the character decides to take charge. I always dislike explanations like that, since I think it's too easy for newer writers to look at such explanations as an item on a checklist that you have to do. I never use things like that. I don't think, "This is act two, so the characters need to do X." The tendency to follow a formula like that is part of what bothers me about the screenwriting profession. It seems like if you always follow the rules, there's never any spontaneity in a book.

Still, those guidelines and suggestions are used by a lot of people who tell good stories, so I guess you use what works for you.

Jennifer Lerud

What do you think of the New Adult category?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm reserving judgement. If the readership likes it, then it will take off. If not, oh well.

Jennifer Lerud

Darn! I was hoping you'd say you loved it. Everything I write (almost) is NA. :)

Brandon Sanderson

I think it's a cool category; I'm just not convinced that the public is embracing it.

i_do_stuff

And since I love him, I have to sneak an Axies the Collector question in - what kindled his interest in spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Axies belongs to a race who, being extremely long lived, tend to dedicate themselves to some kind of task to keep themselves from going strange. (Well, more strange.) Spren tickled his fancy.

Questioner

Any teases on upcoming LGBT characters?

Brandon Sanderson

I put some hints in Rhythm of War. I should be making those canon by Book Five for you. But it wasn't quite time. I actually tried writing them harder into Rhythm of War, and they felt like it stood out too much; it was unnatural. So go ahead and begin your theorizing. It's not gonna be a big surprise; I think that people will figure it out pretty easily. But I'm not intending it to be a big surprise; I'm just trying to let things like what happened with Jasnah in this book come out naturally as they fit the characters.

No big surprises, but for those who would rather read about it in the book when it happens, then I will leave it to Book Five.

Questioner

An Elantrian, can they use an unkeyed nicrosilmind to-- as a substitute for the Dor?

Brandon Sanderson

...This is theoretically possible. Again, the Selish magic systems do not play well with the other magics, but that is theoretically possible to make happen.

Questioner

Would it be safe to assume that Kaladin is also carrying the Honorblade? Because that makes the most sense to me.

Brandon Sanderson

Which Honorblade?

Questioner

The one from Szeth.

Brandon Sanderson

That is... He's not.

Questioner

That surprises me, because to me that would be the best-- That would make the most sense.

Brandon Sanderson

That would be sneaky of me. But that's not the case.

Questioner

So he actually has an Honorblade, since you asked which one.

Brandon Sanderson

He took Szeth's. So he has that one. Oh! I thought you meant Taln's, I thought. He does not have Taln's. He has Szeth's.. Yes he has that.

Questioner

I'm assuming he found that one, because that made the most sense to keep it safe

Brandon Sanderson

He’s got Szeth’s, that is true. ... Sorry, I assumed you meant Taln's. Taln's is gone.

Questioner

Yeah. Taln's vanished off the face of the planet! I'm assuming Hoid grabbed that one, actually.

Brandon Sanderson

That is one of the prevailing theories and not one that is unreasonable.

Questioner

Well, considering. That was the one, because you had mentioned last time you were here that you could have both, and I was like, "okay, so that means he’s got Szeth's sword."

Questioner

You recently said that dragons in the cosmere can take the form of humans.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

A kandra from Mistborn can do something very similar. Is there a meaningful connection between what the dragons and kandra can do?

Brandon Sanderson

Noooo, except for on fundamental cosmere rules stuff, but that's-- I would say no, in the same way that if you're like, "Is there any similarity between the way that bats fly and birds fly?" Well, there is some similarity 'cause-- But there is [convergent] evolution and stuff like that.

mooglefrooglian

Shallan explains the theory that all spren can be divided into two categories (emotions and forces). Jasnah then links these to Cultivation and Honor, and also notes that voidspren are of Odium.

Is this theory maybe a little incomplete? Is there a third category of spren for "sensationspren" like painspren (which don't seem to involve emotions or forces)?

Brandon Sanderson

In Vorin thought, those would be emotions, but that doesn't mean that the scholars who think about these things are right.

Questioner

You were in Toronto, and you read something you'd written on a plane about a really young girl, and a coffee machine...

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, young girl with a coffee machine, yes, that was the Apocalypse Guard. The opening of it turned out really well, then I lost control of it, spiraled out of control. I haven't figured out how to fix it yet, but I actually pulled it from the publisher. And I will eventually release it, but I gotta fix it first. It was mostly worldbuilding issues. It just didn't come together at the end; too implausible, too many things to keep track of, too many infodumps.

Adrienne

In Well of Ascension, it mentions that the language of Terris had a gender neutral pronoun. If you actually constructed the language, what was that pronoun? Or did you just leave it as its English translation of "it"?

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't spend a long time on the languages in Scadrial, since most people were speaking the same tongue. I just used "it" in my own writings. Roshar has a lot more detail on the languages, because culture-clash is a bigger part of the theme of the series.

Sophia

Are you going to be doing another spoilery livestream?

Brandon Sanderson

I think that we will be doing another spoilery livestream. When do you want to do another spoilery livestream? We could do one next month, or we could do one the month after. We could say they're an every-six-months thing. So the next one in July. June or July.

Let's start with that. We're gonna do spoilerific livestreams every six months. They are much harder on me, because I have to pay much better attention to what I'm saying. But they are a lot of fun. I could imagine a world where we get to them three times a year, or something like that, but let's just start with that.

Adam Horne

The spoiler stream was December 17th. So, June.

Brandon Sanderson

June. So it is. That actually works well, because the spoiler streams can be near my birthday every year. Koloss Head Munching Day. Maybe we don't do it on the first Thursday, and we move it back.

Let's just do full spoilers. What do people want? Do you want full Cosmere spoiler, but no spoilers for non-Cosmere? At some point we should do a Cytoverse (as the fans call it), the Skyward spoiler stream. But only after Book Four is out would that make a ton of sense. Maybe we'll just do full Cosmere. Because the only non-Cosmere stuff people would care about spoilers are probably Skyward and Reckoners. Let's do, like, a Skyward and Reckoners one later. Because we do have some things in the Reckoners world coming our way, the novellas that Steven Bohls is writing. And then we have the Skyward stuff. We will do, maybe, a Mistborn exclusive one after Wax and Wayne Four, with only Mistborn.

Brandon Sanderson

What to Do with the Mistfallen

Everything I've read indicates that people during times like these—and soldiers in particular—were a fairly superstitious lot. I think it makes sense. If your job is to fight, and you face death regularly, then you might be very careful not to do anything that might upset your luck. Particularly if you live in an era without a ton of scientific light and reasoning.

Hating the mistfallen makes a lot of sense by their rationale, and—if I were in the army—I might very well agree with this sentiment. Elend and Ham should have worked harder to smooth things over, but with tensions as high as they are, it's not an ideal situation. Remember, these are guys who have only been running an army for a few years. Everything they've learned, they've had to learn the hard way.

Sending Demoux and the others away was the right decision at this point.

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna Suits Up and Leaves

Vivenna is in a similar position to Siri here in these last chapters. Things are getting so dangerous that both women (well, and Lightsong too) are rather out of their elements. However, I knew that I had to have them both involved. It would be incredibly frustrating to read an entire book focused on two characters, then have them get pushed around for the entire climax.

So during my outlining, I made certain to build the story in such a way that they could be useful, even if they're very much out of their elements. I feel this makes the story more tense in a lot of ways, since they're forced to deal with things for which they're completely unprepared.

Here, we have Vivenna sorting through her own emotions and finding enough determination left to go out and do something. This is an important moment for her, even though she doesn't realize it. This is the moment where she takes her first real step toward becoming her new self.

Questioner

So, in Oathbringer, when Dalinar goes to the Nightwatcher, we see Cultivation intervene directly. How closely does she supervise other Nightwatcher visits? ...Could the Nightwatcher give a boon that Cultivation wouldn't want her to?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, yes. "Wouldn't want her to" is a strong phrase. Like, Cultivation is always aware of what's going on. Cultivation rarely intervenes, even if she thinks it would be a bad boon, because she wants the Nightwatcher to learn. And she also is very interested in seeing what happens. So, rarely intervenes, but is aware.

Questioner

Would she intervene if she thought the boon would help Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Not necessarily.

Questioner

Hemalurgy is mentioned as something that has "broad implications." But that's of Ruin, right? (Or now it is of Harmony.)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but don't take the "of Ruin" and "of Preservation" too strongly, but yes.

Questioner

But, I mean, somebody couldn't just walk along with a metal spike on, say, Nalthis, and stab 'em and now they have the power, could they?

Brandon Sanderson

If they knew where to stab them, yes, they could.

Questioner

Anywhere in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

You can stab someone and get their power?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy has been built in such a way that it rips off pieces of the soul. If you can rip off the right piece of the soul and attach it to somebody else, it will change your Identity, and it can rewrite anything that's attached to your soul. Identity, Connection, it can rewrite Investiture, all of this stuff it could potentially do.

Questioner

And do the things you stab people with—are they always metal or does that depend on the planet?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's metal, that's—

Questioner

*inaudble*

Brandon Sanderson

Well yes, you could make it do something like that. That is totally possible. But the metal— Yeah. Anyway.

Questioner

With the other Shards you kind of have to be near that Shard to get that—there's no Allomancy.

Brandon Sanderson

To get it, yes. To have that part of your soul. But, for instance, Allomancy would work on other planets. The only one that's going to have trouble working on other planets, right now, are the ones on Sel because of the way that the magics are built.

Medium_Steak_6883

So, initially spren had imitated the heralds which then brought about the Knight Radiants and granted them similar powers. Can a spren, upon seeing worldhoppers like Vasher using biochromatic breaths, learn to imitate those as well over time? For Vasher can gain access to stormlight, so I'm wondering if spren can somehow also be able to access different investiture.

Brandon Sanderson

There is something to this theory, but I need to RAFO details.

Leinton

Who shaves Marsh's head? Is he able to see his hair well enough to do so? Does he have a barber?

JazzyKandra

Is it a matter of Spiritual Identity? Marsh sees himself as Ironeyes, like Kaladin sees himself as branded. Seems like similar things.

Peter Ahlstrom

I do not think it's like that for Marsh in this case, for various reasons.

Questioner

This became a question, I thought this had been answered, but kandra can't produce kandra children.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, yes they can. You get them some spikes.

Questioner

Can the kandra produce human children with consumed parts?

Brandon Sanderson

You know, I saw a big thread about this on Reddit and chose not to participate, despite being asked to.

Questioner

I thought she said that you did, so…

Brandon Sanderson

I gave vague and unuseful answers, and so I'm going to give the same to you. RAFO.

Windrunner Savant (paraphrased)

So in Shadows of Self, when TenSoon and Wax are fighting the spiked creature things, TenSoon mention that he was Harmony's "Preservation."

*Brandon seemed a bit apprehensive about that statement*

And he said that Wax was Harmony's "Ruin."

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

*still apprehensive* Yes...

Windrunner Savant (paraphrased)

Well since Harmony has been around for about 300 years someone else would have had to fill that role, right?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Probably...

Windrunner Savant (paraphrased)

And could that person possibly have been Paalm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Maybe.

Brandon Sanderson

Straff Plot Climax with the Poison

And, finally, we get back to Straff. His cycle is filled with quite a few short little scenes, and I suspect that many readers won't pay attention to them. Still, if I'm going to give someone a viewpoint, I like to give them conflicts and problems unrelated to the other characters. It makes the characters and their lives more real. In this case, Straff's problems with a former mistress surface in a revenge ploy.

As I said, it's a small thing, rather unrelated to the overall plot of the novel. When Tor was pushing for me to cut the book (which I didn't end up doing) I left these scenes because I felt that they 1) Worked quite well and 2) I think they gave a little more depth to the story, showing that characters have lives other than the main plot.

The mistress lies here, by the way. Going cold turkey on that drug probably wouldn't have killed Straff. It might have, but probably not. Still, being under her power probably wouldn't have been very fun for him. He didn't kill her intentionally–he really was just losing control of his anger under the influence of panic and poison. This is one of those little twists that I hope feels very realistic under the circumstances, but is also unexpected.

Avery Hinks

Is there a canonical reason why Vasher and Vivenna changed their names to Zahel and Azure on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it kind of comes into the fact that Vasher has gone through a bunch of name changes and there are a couple of answers to this. One is, in the Cosmere, like in a lot of like fantasy worlds, names and identity are just a pretty big deal, part of how the magic works is how you view yourself, and I like, in that instance, indicating that time has passed and the character has adopted a new name and things like this, it's just that's a thing.

You've also probably noticed that behind the scenes in the Cosmere there are lots of different groups vying for control and power and things like this, and so going under a pseudonym's actually a pretty good idea. I guess an alias, they're not writing books, it's not pseudonyms, you know what I mean, going under an alias's generally a pretty good idea for just if you don't want attention from the wrong people.

That said, I do have to balance this because, for instance, in Azure's case, you know, I picked something that Vivenna had, you know, blue had been associated with her in the previous book, so it's not a completely, that's partially for the reader's benefit, so it's easier for you to track who is who, just a little bit, and just a little bit easier to figure out who is who.

But if run into someone like Felt, right? Felt doesn't care. He's not hiding from anybody. Felt is, you know, he's more like "I moved from Nebraska to Texas," right? "And now I'm living in Texas." That's more how he views it a little bit. He's not a secret agent (ooh, big spoilers). Felt just, you know, he moved, so he goes by the same name. And that's, you'll see some of that as well. If someone's going by an alias, I'm doing it to indicate one of those two things, usually.

MRC Halifax

To what extent has the economy of the world been planned out? Obviously, there's a refreshingly fair amount of economic activity happening in the novels, often times helping to move along the story. But to what extent do you have it planned out already vs. "I'll come up with it when I need it."

That is to say do you know that place A sells to place B, but place B has nothing to sell to place A and so sells to place C, which sells to place A, influencing the trade patterns of ships. And what the price of a horse is in A vs. B vs. C., or the price of an inn for the night, or the price of a pair of well made boots. Have you worked out how people are taxed and tithed, how the trade routes flow, how comparatively wealthy people are around the world, etc?

Brandon Sanderson

For a lot of these things I've done some of it, and for others I decide what to do when I need it. One trick in worldbuilding is to focus your attention on the things that are going to be a source of conflict or passion to the characters. It would be very easy to spend twenty years worldbuilding and never writing. So there is a fair bit of both, but most of what I focus my attention on is where is the conflict. Trade deals are a source of conflict, and so where it's a source of conflict to the cultures I have spent more time dealing with it.

Questioner

Can you tell me anything about the Elsecallers we don't know yet?

Brandon Sanderson

They should be able to get back out of Shadesmar without having to find a perpendicularity, but Jasnah doesn't know how to do it yet. She should be able to do that, she just hasn't figured it out.

Liago

How do you come up with and create the maps for your novels? Is it a process of thought while creating the story itself or does it come later once you've written the story as a means to depict the places you've written about? Also do you scetch [sic] them yourself before having them drawn or is the process usually entirely done by a separate artist?

Brandon Sanderson

I usually sketch myself out something vague to use as reference, then make it more and more detailed as I work through the book. At that point, I approach and artist and have them help me come up with a good visual style for the book and the map. If it's an artist I know well, I can sometimes let them do more of the work—the Mistborn maps, for instance, were developed by Isaac with very little input from me beyond the text and some basic instructions.