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What new statement can you give us about the cosmere that would give us a bunch to speculate on?
I'm not sure if there's something new I can say. Um, I think rampant speculation about the Threnody novel would be cool. So, you have seen a hint in the books about the Threnody novel that no one has asked me if this is the thing.
We've seen that Metalborn siblings can end up with different powers. What about Metalborn twins?
Can happen. Most likely, they will have the same power.
Did Navani swear more than one oath in the climax of RoW? Her words to the Sibling seem to follow the pattern of Dalinar's oaths very closely, and the Sibling implied they wouldn't bond someone who wasn't ready for at least the second.
Is this the fastest ever three-oath speedrun?
RAFO for now.
I'm pretty sure it's a case of me just forgetting that I read such a part, but where in the book does Shallan find out about Kaladin's abilities? I know once Adolin confronts Shallan for the first time about her powers, he then asks if she can fly like 'him (Kaladin)', and she just goes yeah, as if she knew for some time now about Kaladin's abilities.
It's such a small thing but it's been grinding away at me. I know Shallan revealed to Kaladin by summoning her Shardblade over his shoulder in the chasm, but how did Kaladin reveal himself to Shallan?
If you re-read that scene, I believe she's confused by the question about her being able to fly, as so far as she knows, Radiants don't fly. (She only knows about herself and Jasnah.) She finds out about Kaladin sometime around when most everyone else finds out about him, I believe. I'd have to look back specifically to see if I noted it, but by the end of that battle, everyone will be talking about it and so she will know.
I'm trying to figure out the chronology of the cosmere. The first thing that happened is with Elantris?
So far they are chronological order except for White Sand. And then the Alloy books are getting out of chronological order, we're jumping back and forth. But the first introduction of each book is chronological order, with the exception of flashbacks and things like that. But the actual main line of each book, chronological except for White Sand and the Alloy books.
Dilafs wife, did the Elantrian who "healed" her know what Dilaf was?
Rafo.
You've previously mentioned that someone bonded to a Seon would get some benefits if they went to Roshar , basically that it would be treated sort of like a Nahel bond. This implies to me that something about Roshar likes to give powers from bonds. (Hi there, Honor...)
Should this be taken to mean that spren-bond based Surgebinding won't work off-world, as it's a benefit Roshar gives from having a bond? Or would it be more specific, and mean that some of the passive benefits Radiants get (visions, Windrunner squire strengths) would be lost, but Surgebinding retained?
Mainly I'm interested in whether or not we can reach maximum Jasnah levels and have the possibility of her appearing in non-SA books. I don't think she'd be much into worldhopping if she couldn't get back with the Travel Surge...
Surgebinding will work off-world.
With all the focus on social media these days, what impact do you think fans might have on story development in the future?
Boy, I think that they will have some impact. What, I'm not sure. With Warbreaker I was able to read perspectives on the book online as I was working on it, and that certainly did inform how I did my revisions. Maybe you'll see more crowdsourcing on editing and that sort of thing. I do think that the ability to directly connect with fans helps me understand the way a reader's mind works. Usually that doesn't translate one-to-one to changes in a novel, because there are a few steps in between in deciding what the reader really actually wants and what they say they want—working on The Wheel of Time as both a fan and a writer has helped me figure that out, because there are things that as a fan I would have said I wanted, but looking at it as a writer I can say, "Oh, if I gave that to the fans, it would actually in the long run make the story less satisfying." So there is some work to be done there, but I think social media is a great resource.
Are you doing a Warbreaker sequel?
Yes. But I've determined that I can't do it until I at least have the Wax and Wayne sequence done. So it will probably not happen till after Stormlight 5. So you got a little wait on that. Because I'm going to do Wax and Wayne and then the next Stormlight. There's a chance I'll do it in between 4 and 5 but we'll see once we get there.
So Wax and Wayne aren't finished?
One more book, Wax and Wayne.
I thought they were just going to be a trilogy.
I wrote the first book as exploration. So I view the books two through four as a trilogy, with the first book kind of being like, "Do I want to do something more with this?" So there will be four.
And I want to know if Kell has worked with Khriss since he met her.
Worked together...
To study something.
Yes.
So like, they've been research partners on a paper.
They have worked together.
So we know that Shardblades can't cut through other Shardblades because they are Invested objects, right?
That is definitely-- Yes, that's part of it.
So could a Shardblade cut through other kinds of Invested objects like--
Depends on how Invested it is.
--like a Hemalurgic spike?
A Hemalurgic spike would resist being cut.
I'm not planning a 'regular' novel edition of White Sand, though I do still send the old (unedited and not-quite-canon-version) to people who write through my website form and ask for it.
I fully intend to do some stories set in this world, in prose form, eventually. However, I won't retell the story of the graphic novel. I'll make them their own thing. However, there's so much on my plate that I can't promise when (or even if) I will actually do that.
This [Kaladin chapter icon] looks a lot like the Allomantic metal symbols? Is that completely coincidence?
That's coincidence. There is something weird about that picture, but it's not that.
What made you decide to canonize not one, not two, but FOUR new Shards? A whole quarter of Adonalsium in this book?
It had been long enough. I had been coy with them long enough. I had worked out enough of the outlines moving forward that I knew what Shards I needed and things like that, and they had gotten locked in enough that I could just do it. And they would mention it. We're getting to the point where if I didn't start mentioning them I'd have to do verbal gymnastics in the stories to not.
When Harmony is trying actively to figure out what happened, and who they all are, and where they all are. It was time for me to go ahead and stop dribbling that. The reason I was dribbling is there were still a few I was still deciding upon. And now that they're all locked in. There's no reason to hold it back.
I don't hold things back from you guys out of glee. I hold things back because narrative drama, and because things are not locked in yet.
So there's still two [Shards] we don't know. Do you have those locked down or are those still...?
Those are a little more vague, like I haven't picked the words for them. I look for the right word, and sometimes I have the word that's the wrong synonym. Odium in this case would be Hatred. Calling the villain Hatred doesn't work in the same way that calling the villain Odium works. I'm looking for those right words.
In one of the death sentence things it says something like three of sixteen ruled, but now the broken one reigns. Is this referring to the Shards on Roshar and if so, is the broken one Odium?
RAFO.
As the continent was specifically grown by Adonalsium
WHAT????!!!
Roshar predates the Shattering. I've spoken of this before, haven't I?
Maybe somewhere before, and obviously most planets existed before the shattering (Planets are pretty old) but I don't think you've ever mentioned Roshar (the continent) being specifically grown by Adonalsium.
Is this a normal thing that Adonalsium did or was Roshar special to him in some way?
A quick search reveals that you have mentioned that Roshar was named Roshar before the Shattering but nothing mentioned about it being grown by Adonalsium. It makes sense though, that shape is obviously not natural.
There are many things that are unique about Roshar, but it wasn't the only world created in this way.
Secrets
Obviously, there are a lot of things embedded in this scene for later books. I've noted frequently that with Mistborn, I got the luxury of writing the whole series before releasing it. I don't have that chance with Stormlight. I had to make sure all of my foreshadowing was placed and ready for later use.
I worry that so much of it is obvious, yet also confusingly so. The sphere that Gavilar give Szeth is barely mentioned in the book, for example.
No, I'm not going to tell you what it is.
Can you confirm whether Navani will be the prologue viewpoint? Or you want to keep that quiet/ haven't decided yet?
Yes, she is the prologue viewpoint.
Wouldn't it be dope to have the book 5 viewpoint from Gavilar himself, and it finally revealing what exactly he was up to.. :)
That is what I have planned.
I came across something about your planned "Dark One" series, and was wondering if you could tell us anything about the planned world or magic system for that book? Me and my friends are electric/electronic engineers, and we've wasted far too much time debating how people could theoretically channel electricity from a planet (I've even dragged some professors into the discussion), so I'm very interested to see what you've came up with!
The honest truth is that I haven't gotten past the, "Okay, here's the concept" stage. For Roshar, that was the storm--and then it took research and work (which I haven't done yet) to get the science to work. I haven't had the time to do that for Dark One yet.
I'd love to hear what you have to say on the topic, maybe use you and your friends as consultants. I'd say DM me, but that will get lost in the replies to this thread. So maybe DM me in a month? Or, better yet, drop me an email through my website with your suggestions?
Two questions about the mechanics--well, actually, a bunch of questions--would a Shard's magic change if they moved to a different world?
That's a RAFO.
Can Feruchemical tin store Allomantically granted senses like bronze sense?
Possible.
Is Hoid gonna get his own book?
So, here's the grand Cosmere timeline as I have it right now... I'm going to write Wax & Wayne 4 this fall. This will be the end of the Wax & Wayne sequence. They have been really fun to write, those books. And I've got some really good Wayne stuff in this one, so be excited. So, I'll finish that, and that is the next Cosmere book I will do. January 1st, my requirement is I-- What I'm trying to do now, is I'm trying to do half my time Stormlight, half my time other stuff. That's the kind of balance I'm looking to do for my sanity. So, January 1st is when it's been 18 months since I turned in Oathbringer, and at that point, I have 18 months to get Book 4 done. So, I will start January 1st writing Stormlight 4, rain or shine. Everything else kinda has to be put aside. And then, we'll go until that book is done.
After Stormlight 4; at this point, the Wax & Wayne books are done, so we finally have opened up room to do either an Elantris sequel or a Warbreaker sequel. I'll do one of the two of those in between. And then we will do Stormlight 5. And then, we have the first sequence of Stormlight books finished. And at that point, my goal is to do Mistborn Era 3. Three of those. 1980s level, spy thriller-ish Mistborn stuff. And then we will come back and start on Stormlight 6. 6-10, different cycle. This is how I make sure this all kind of fits together. So, we will do that.
And at that point, we will do-- plan is, right now, the Dragonsteel sequence. Which is however many books I decide to do about Hoid's backstory. He has shifted to be the main viewpoint character of those. He was a side viewpoint character when I originally wrote them, but now I've kinda stolen all the pieces of that story that were not about him and put them in other books. So what remains is his backstory. I plan those to be first-person stories that he's telling, if I can get them to work.
So, then, we wrap out the Cosmere with the Mistborn science fiction series, the kind of Dune-esque far-future science fiction Cosmere thing. That is my grand timeline. Somewhere in there, I want to get one sequel to Warbreaker, two sequels to Elantris, and one Threnody novel. So, that's my goal. And that, I think, is doable before I die. We're just gonna keep that as our goal moving forward, and try not to add too much more to it, though there will be novellas and things like that as they pop up.
Shai mocks the Rose Empire's belief that a new sun rises every day for a set number of days. Is the reason Sel is difficult to travel to related to the religious notion that Sel has many MANY suns in their Shadesmaar equivalent?
Good guess! But no. (Sorry.)
How is it that Nightblood, who is merely a near-sentient awakened object, was able to read minds, something a Shard like Ruin was unable to do?
It requires bonding (with the person whose mind is to be read) to read minds.
Has Hoid tried to get to First of the Sun?
Hoid has tried before.
You know the artwork... the arches with the faces? What are those?
Those are each of the Heralds. And those archways, Isaac picks based on what he thinks the themes of the chapter are. I don't pick which faces go on there. He reads the chapter... he tries to align what's happening with the emotions represented by the various characters.
And the thing underneath it is?
Generally the symbol of the viewpoint character. But those shift. Like for instance we sometimes start with a general one, and as the characters get more individual we add ones specifically for them. Usually you'll have one that's the viewpoint character, and then like for instance the ones for Jasnah and Shallan split apart when originally they just had one, and stuff like that.
For the next [Mistborn] trilogy, will you do a 1.0 draft for the whole trilogy straight away, or will you do something more like:
Book 1 1.0
Book 1 2.0
Book 2 1.0
Book 1 3.0
Book 2 2.0
Book 3 1.0
Book 3 2.0
Book 1 4.0
Book 1 5.0
Book 1 release
What you wrote above is very close to what I'm likely to do--though I might not do the 3.0 of book one until the 2.0 of book two is done.
We know that Hoid has a bead of Lerasium, that he obtained during the events of The Well of Ascension. As of the most recent Cosmere book chronologically, (The Alloy of Law, I believe,) has it been used?
Well, umm... probably not exactly in the way you're thinking...
OK, specifically, has it been used either by Hoid burning it or by him giving it to someone else to burn?
Well, Hoid's a very resourceful person, and he finds uses for most of the things he gets ahold of, though they're not always the expected uses. So yeah, he's found something to do with it, but I'll have to RAFO that one, because it's going to come up in later books and I don't want to spoil things.
Is the time between Desolations regular?
No.
In the original draft, I wasn't sure what kind of person I was going to make Allmother. I hadn't planned for her and Lightsong to have any kind of history together; these are just connections I worked into it as I wrote. (Along with his relationship with Calmseer.) He needed something to intertwine him better with the court, and so as I was drafting, these things kind of just fit together. Sometimes readers ask me what I plan and what I don't. Well, the honest truth is that it's hard to look at a book and give clear guidelines on what was planned and what was developed during the process of writing. In this case, Allmother as a character was done completely on the fly.
Of course, once she was developed, I went back in the next draft and built in some references to her in the Lightsong sections so that I could hint at previous interaction.
In one of your Alcatraz books, what exactly is the meaning of fourteenth, upside-down übercousins?
*laughing* Ah, this is one of the weird sorting systems that is used by the Librarians and it's a weird word. What does it mean? I have no idea, I just made it up. Sorry! No no, that's not the real answer. The right answer is Alcatraz wrote those books and I've never been to the Free Kingdoms or met the real Librarians, so I have no idea what he's talking about. I'm just the name they put on the cover so the Librarians don't find him.
Do you anticipate ever coming back to White Sand?
Yes, I do anticipate it, but no promises. If I do come back to it, it will not be the novel White Sand, it would be a sequel to the graphic novels.
Will there be a Rithmatist sequel?
There will eventually. I was working on that when I was offered finishing The Wheel Of Time and just couldn't get back into it yet.
We've seen people Ascend. If it were in the position to do so, could Nightblood take up a Shard?
This is a RAFO, as I'm not specifically willing to comment on whether or not power that has become self-aware (Seons, Nightblood, Spren) can Ascend or not.
The Fused that wield, like--their Lashings can be a lot faster than Kaladin's are. Is it because it's based on a different planet than the Radiants?
Kaladin can go faster, but they are more-- they are faster over a large span. What's going on with the Fused is they have-- The way their Investiture works, it doesn't leak and they are able to use it for much longer periods of time. But they don't have access to the number of times that Kaladin can Lash himself directions and things like this, and the speed with which he can pick up speed. So in the short Kaladin is favored, in the long they're favored.
Any plans you can share for the future of the Mistborn series?
I do want to get to the modern day trilogy eventually, but more and more, I've been itching to do a few southern continent books. They have a cool way of interacting with the magic.
Would Mraize have recognized mugshots of the "thugs" who accosted Jasnah and Shallan in WoK?
RAFO
How close is Elithan to Adonalsium's actually name? Does Adonalsium have a proper name? It seems more like a title…
Um… Yeeah… RAFO.
Big List of Things I'm Working On
Now, let's get to it. Each year around this time, I take stock of my many projects. You can read last year's post here, to compare and see how things have been progressing. (And to see how well I did in my plans for 2015.)
Thank you in advance for continuing to give me the freedom I feel I need to jump between different worlds. While I know it's frustrating sometimes that I'm not working on your world, the greater plans I have for all this require me to approach things in a certain way. Both for my health as a writer, and to bring about some large-scale awesomeness.
I'm going to go down the list of projects I'm working on, starting with what I consider my "main" projects. These are getting the focus of my time right now. From there, I'll move on to things that I'm still toying with doing sometime soon.
Then it gets a little more speculative.
Enjoy!
u/mistborn I know you were writing the sequel to [Sixth of the Dusk]. Any progress on Threnody's novel?
Just some vague ideas here and there. Nothing too specific. Silver chain in Oathbringer is from Threnody, though. (They use them in Silverlight too.) I'll get a chance to explain what they are eventually. (I hope.)
In the Syl interlude in Rhythm of War, she is speaking with Dalinar about his powers and the things those powers have done in the past. And what she says is "a Bondsmith bound other Surges". First of all, what other Surges?
One potential interpretation for you on this, remember they use Surge and spren sometimes interchangeably in-world. Just making you aware of that.
Yeah I'm aware of that. Bound other Surges....
That might be what she's talking about. I'm not guaranteeing it.
Then the term Bondsmith. To me it seems like she's talking about Ishar and the Ashyn stuff. So would they use Bondsmith to describe him in that place?
So one other thing to keep aware of in the cosmere - for instance they call "Lightweaving" any illusion-based magic working on the same fundamentals. And so you could argue - and people will use it that way in-world - that Bondsmithing is both an order [of Knights Radiant] and a power that exists outside the order.
And that would be maybe the power of Connection, the way Lightweaving is the power of illusion?
Yes. And for instance, there were not Elsecallers to get people between Ashyn and Roshar, but on Roshar they would explain what happened there as Elsecalling. Does that make sense?
I mean, as much as these things make sense, yes.
Can Kaladin wear Shardplate at the end of Words of Radiance?
it would affect him like it affects Szeth, so not a good idea.
Thank you so much with all the work you guys have done with Writing Excuses. I’m just starting to get into your fiction, I haven’t read much yet, but Writing Excuses I’ve been listening to for a few years and it’s helped me a lot.
You can blame it on Katherine Kurtz, the fantasy/science fiction writer. I met her at a con when I was 18 and she sat down and chatted with me for like half an hour one-on-one about how to be a writer. And I’m like “Oh, that told me so much!”. I’d never gotten that sort of thing before, and it made me realize, becoming a writer is one of these weird things where you can’t learn it except from other writers. You can teach yourself to write, but actually getting published and how to approach problems when you run into them. So many people writer’s block, I feel, because they hit something, they don’t have personal experience dealing with it. Working through that on your own is just really hard, but if you can hear other author’s perspective, you can try those tools and find something that works for you.
1) What benefit does Compounding copper get? Exceptionally clear and detailed memories? Memories that can be split into a new coppermind while still remaining in the Feruchemist's mind? Something else?
2) How does Feruchemical luck work? If a chromium Compounder tried his hand at day trading on the stock market, what would happen? Would it make him choose stocks that were coincidentally going to go up anyway? Would it change stock prices by altering the world around him? Would it fail because the required scale of action is too large? Something else?
So, I've said before that I want to hold off on talking about different forms of compounding and types of twinborn until I can address them in the series. So I'll have to RAFO the first two.
Why doesn't the Stormlight heal Kaladin's slave brands?
Because, in the cosmere, most healing works by how you perceive yourself.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Fadrex
Fadrex was originally named Fadex. However, nobody—not my editor, my agent, or my writing group—liked that name. I added one letter, and suddenly it was okay. Go figure.
This city, as I mentioned earlier, was very tough for me to figure out how to describe. I can picture it quite distinctly in my head. Of course, I've spent a lot of time in southern Utah, where rock formations like this are plentiful. If you Google "Cathedral Valley" you can get an idea of what this area might look like—except that the formations in Cathedral Valley are a little bit higher and more spread out than what I imagine for Fadrex.
Sometimes I wish I could crawl inside the heads of my readers while they experience these stories and see what they imagine the places to look like. I've said before that I like how fiction is participatory—that each person who reads my books imagines slightly different things; each person gets different images for places and characters. I'd like to know what they see, just for curiosity's sake. There's no wrong way to imagine these people, just like there isn't a right or a wrong way to pronounce the names. It's all up to you.
Do larkins have a regular digestive system?
I'll RAFO that.
There is certain type of chicken that makes two appearances in Words of Radiance, is that chicken an Aviar?
No, but good question.
Will Thinker+Grump appear again? Or is this a RAFO?
They will appear in the cosmere some day again.
So, there's a line in Elantris that has always fascinated me. Raoden is reading really old books, and he says that some of these books mention words such as "frequency" and "pulse length." I'm a physics major, this reminds me a lot of quantum physics.
Yes, it does!
So, my question is, how much is quantum physics a part of the magic in the cosmere?
Here's the thing. I don't know quantum physics well enough. That's a rabbit hole; I am an armchair scientist, I do not have a degree in physics. And so, while I really like it, I build it in... When I'm doing this, what I usually do is I build in cosmere versions, so I can't be held accountable to getting some little thing wrong. So, yes, quantum physics is important. But, in some ways, some of the things in the cosmere are more like the pop science version of quantum physics, what everyone thinks quantum physics is but really isn't, are actually some of the things in the cosmere. The fun, awesome version of quantum physics. I try to make some of it as accurate as I can, not having a physics degree. But I have to be aware that... I am not writing science fiction, I'm writing fantasy, so there will be things that you're like, "That's not quite right," but it works in the cosmere.
Anywhere I should keep my eye out for more stuff like that.
In Words of Radiance... when was the interlude, is it in the first book? The spren, they took their measurements. That's part of it. We're gonna have, just, little things like that around that are relevant, but I'm not gonna dig into it deeply until [Mistborn] Era 4, probably.
