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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eighteen - Part Two

Shan was a later addition to the book. In the original draft of the novel, I did mention her in this chapter, but we didn't see her–and Lord Liese didn't mention her. As I wrote the first draft, however, I began to realize that I needed more tension and political wrangling in the Vin ball scenes. So, I expanded Shan and made her a larger character. Then, during the first rewrite, I added her in to this scene, along with some others.

The purpose of Shan, therefore, is to show that some of the nobility ARE the way Kelsier says. The thing is, most of what we get about the nobility come from him, and he has a very skewed perspective. Our only real opportunity to interact with them is at the balls, and so I knew I needed to cram a variety of personalities into this scene, so that people could have a chance to experience the range of the nobility.

Questioner

[What is] the last sentence you wrote that you were proud of?

Brandon Sanderson

I wish I could say, because things go through so many transformations as I'm writing. I would have to have a book open before me, and go look and say, "Wow, which of these sentences is the best?" The honest truth is that I am less of a sentence person than someone like Pat Rothfuss. Rothfuss writes beautiful sentences, and I'm in awe of his sentences. I try for workmanship prose. I try for prose that does not distract from the writing. And often if I write a really beautiful sentence, it stands out like such a sore thumb in my writing that it's better to kind of tone that sentence down. We call it windowpane prose. My goal is to write prose that doesn't ever distract you from the story. And there are certain level of writers that can do beautiful prose and not distract from the story. I have always just tried for . . . if there is a mark on the window, you'll look at that and not the story. This is George Orwell talking about this—I learned it from reading about him. And some writers, like in literary fiction, they will try to write this beautiful stained glass window, and what you see on the other side doesn't really matter. It's the stained glass window that you're paying wonderful attention to. I don't want the window to distract you. And so, I do like to have a clever witty line now and then, but my goal at the end is for you to not notice the writing and only pay attention to characters and story.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Sixteen

Wayne pretends to be an old woman

These Wayne scenes really did turn out well. It was very fun to write him putting on new personalities and mindsets as he put on new hats.

In a lot of ways, this is a much more standard book than I've released before. My biggest worry is that people go into it expecting it to be something other than what it is.

And what is it? A fun adventure story, told as a detective narrative. I've said that I consider this book more pulp than others I've done. What does that mean? Well, I just wanted to write a fun page-turner that is a quick read from start to finish, and is enjoyable along the way. It makes me wonder if people will call this unambitious. Perhaps that's just the nervous side of me, the artist that worries about what people will say about him, no matter what.

Still, I think it's a legitimate complaint—on the surface. I don't expect readers to understand what's going on in the writer's mind. It's not their job. I've delivered one type of writing in the past, so they expect I will continue to do so.

The thing is, there are lots of different forms of storytelling, and I want to learn how to do many of them. A pulp adventure story doesn't seem less ambitious to me than a deep epic like The Way of Kings. It's not about ambition. Yes, The Alloy of Law is far less deep than Kings—but then Alloy is trying to do different things. Sometimes, an artist wants to paint a deep, realistic painting on a canvas. And sometimes he wants to do a political cartoon sketch. They achieve different functions, but they're both forms of art. I want to be able to do both.

In a way, The Alloy of Law is a reaction to what I'd been doing before. I realize not everyone is going to like the more plodding pace of something like Kings, with lots of characters doing lots of different things. I suspect people will complain that working on The Wheel of Time has influenced me. (I don't think that's a bad thing, but some will.)

Certainly I have been influenced. At least in one style of my writing. However, The Alloy of Law is—in part—for those who liked the pacing and action of Mistborn and were less interested in the epic scope.

I simply hope people read the book, accept it for what it is, and enjoy it.

Questioner

So I just finished The Bands of Mourning, which was my favorite out of that series.  Did you know when you were writing Alloy of Law how you were going to link this to the original, with the kandra, the bands of the Lord Ruler...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah the kandra were seeded, MeLaan you can go and look back in the original three.  Like I’m going to use her in the next series, for sure.  Now what I usually do is when I’m starting a series, and I did this for this one, is I will write the first book in the series.  So I did this with Steelheart, I did this with the original Mistborn, I did this with Alloy of Law.  I write the first book, I sit down, and say “Okay, what worked about that, what can I expand upon” and then I outline the series with those characters and then go back and revise the first one to match and then I release the first one.  Does that make sense? So not everything do I know writing the first one but by the time I’m through the revisions I usually do.

Brandon Sanderson

Elend Talks to Telden

I doubt many people remember Telden, but he was a minor character from book one. We saw him in five or six scenes, interacting with Elend. He was the dandy of the group, and together with Elend and Jastes, formed a trio of friends who were in line to rule powerful houses eventually. (Though, Telden was fairly distant in the succession of his house, I believe.)

Anyway, his reappearance here is another hark back to the first book. We'll see a bit more of him, just like we did of Jastes in book two.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eight

Killer Mists

The mists kill now. That was a major plot point from book two, so I hope you haven't forgotten it.

Not only was it necessary for the mythology of the world—as will be explained—it was a necessary shift for Vin's personality. This series is about, as I've stated before, the concepts of trust, betrayal, and faith. The mists are the one thing Vin thought she could trust, but now they have turned against her. How she deals with that is a big part of this book.

If you watch throughout the book, Vin has a stronger reaction against the mists than other characters. True, they're worried about the way it's killing people, but Vin is bitter—almost hateful. This is partially because she feels betrayed, but another factor is the taint of Hemalurgy—and therefore Ruin's touch—in her blood.

Questioner

The Mistborn movie and game: how involved are you in the game, or are you getting to points in each of those that you’ll be able to contribute, or are they just gonna have you take a step back?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question, good question. So far, I have been very involved in both. Now, movies being what movies are, if we sell the movie to a studio, who knows at that point what’ll happen. All bets are off, right. The people I sold it to were big fans—like actually big fans, not the type of big fans in Hollywood that have heard of your name, so they’re a big fan. Like actual, serious legitimate Big Fans. They did six drafts of the screenplay—they were serious about this—and the screenplay is awesome. I have read it, I really like it. It does tweak a few things that make the screenplay really cool: like it focuses more on Vin and Reen, and kind of leads with that relationship a little bit more, stuff like that that works very well cinematically. It’s very faithful to the book and it’s an awesome time.

Who knows what’ll happen: we really want to be able to sell this to a studio. What happened was I sold it to independent producers, and what normally you’re gonna’-- they’re gonna’ have to find funding; that’s what happens with producers unless they’re, you know, George Lucas or something like that. So we’re still shopping it, the screenplay is awesome, so anyone, if you’re uncle is, ya’ know, happens to be Joss Whedon, come talk to me. I’ll find a notebook for you, I promise [reference to Taiwanese Way of Kings notebooks which Brandon brought to Comic-Con].

As for the video game, the video game guys—I’m actually having dinner with them tomorrow night. They’re cool, you know, they’re-- a bunch of guys from Interplay are involved in this, and the games they’ve made so far with their new company are all kind of like, how should we say, “safe money makers,” okay, and the reason they came to me is that they’d built their company, it’s solid, they’ve got the safe money makers—they’re doing like DDR games and things like that—and they said to me “we want to go and make a big-- just cool fantasy story because we’re kind of getting bored of all this stuff”—not that it’s bad, they’re great games, but you know what I mean. And I’m writing the script for it. The dialogue of the game will be mine.

They actually asked what type of game I wanted to make. I told them some games that I thought would work really well, and they have built an engine and everything to do that, and it’s looking really good. For those who are curious, it’s going to be cross-platform, should be fall 2013. It’s going to be an action RPG and kind of—I mean it probably won’t be as open world as this—but Infamous is one of the examples I gave them as something I thought that would really match Mistborn. I don’t think we have the budget to do the just huge open-endedness of something like that, but that’s okay because I can write a really solid story, and it should have gameplay that’s going to be really fun. Demon’s Souls was another one I gave them, kind of on the other side of how a combat system I really like works.

So that’s the story of the game, we’re shooting for RPGish, a little big like Demon’s Souls but more of the kind of freeform gameplay of Infamous.

Questioner

Is the game going to be a standalone and the movie a trilogy?

Brandon Sanderson

The game is going to be a standalone: they’re may be sequels, but right now we’re going to just get one out there, it is set about 250 years after the start of the Final Empire, stars a new character, one who is part of the history of the world, so…

Questioner

Emily, what is your personal favorite of Brandon's books?

Emily Sanderson

That's hard. I kind-of have a special place in my heart for Warbreaker because Brandon started writing that after we meet and was writing it after we meet and he was writing it while we were dating, engaged, and first married-

Brandon Sanderson

And on our honeymoon.

Emily Sanderson

*laughs* Yes. *laughs* I was reading a book while he was writing a book.

Partly too because he was doing the experiment of putting it online as he wrote it, he would send it to me to make sure there weren't any huge, horrible, glaring errors and I would read through it. For the first time I was getting Brandon books right after he had written them, and that was really fascinating. It was really fun to see that this conversation these characters were having was inspired by a conversation that we had last week. Or this is the kind-of thing we've talked about. That was really fun. So [Warbreaker] has a special place in my heart for that reason.

I think honestly that my favorite book is the last one that has come out. I read Way of Kings and was like "This is amazing! How can you possibly do better then this?" and then I read the next one as was like "He did! This is amazing too!" I do really love Stormlight Archive.

Brandon Sanderson

But you have to read them when they are bad, the first time through.

Emily Sanderson

That is true. Maybe that's why I think they are so amazing. I read them when they are bad then I read them again when they are all cleaned up...

Brandon Sanderson

We're in the middle of Stormlight 4 right now, in writing group. It's bad, it's got so many problems. There not huge fundamental problems, but there are big problems.

MagisterSieran

How would you compare writing this novella to the Wheel of Time books you wrote? Both have treasure troves of existing lore and characters and both are fantasy media that you're a fan of.

Brandon Sanderson

It was a similar experience in some ways--I had a lot of creative freedom in both cases, for example, and I had a lot of lore to draw upon.

For the WoT, though, I was very, very steeped in the lore--and made sure I did another deep dive before writing the stories. Here, I have familiarity with a lot of MTG lore, but there's a lot I don't know. I haven't read most of the fiction, particularly the older fiction, for example.

So for WoT I felt confident taking main storylines and resolving them, while for this, I tried to create my own sort of sectioned-off part of the plane to play in. Then I created my own lore for that area that I could control more specifically--traditions and lore that were related to the well-known places on Innistrad, but not exactly the same. That way, I could play with them, and undermine them, and do what I wished with them.

Questioner

In terms of books that you wish you could have written yourself?

Brandon Sanderson

I read a lot of things for pleasure. I think I need to stay up on what everyone else is doing. As a teen, my favorite writers were Anne McCaffrey, Melanie Rawn, Barbara Hambly, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, it would probably be. David Eddings too. I grew out of David Eddings, happens when you get into your twenties, but during my teens he was the bomb. Do kids still say that, the bomb? I'll have to figure out what they're saying now. Nowadays I read Pat Rothfuss, I really like Pat, I really really like Naomi Novik's Uprooted, if you guys didn't read that this summer it's a fantastic novel. I like Brent Weeks' work a lot, Brian McClellan's, Nora Jemisin, you guys read NK Jemisin? She writes very literary fantasy; if you're an English major and you like that kind of stuff, which I do, it's amazing. Her most recent one has a character who writes in the second person, and it works. It's the first time I ever read a book where the second person, which is you do this, you do that, it actually works, it works really well. The second person past tense, so you did this, you did-- it's a person telling themselves a story so it actually, it really works. The Fifth Season. So, yeah, I read a lot of stuff.

mbue

I understand that your novella will stand very well on its own, but I'm sure there will be references to existing lore. Could you point out any existing MtG novels that would particularly increase our understanding and enjoyment of some details in yours?

Brandon Sanderson

Davriel is partially a contrast to Liliana, a main-line character who also has had dealings with demons (but has done it much differently...) and who is a necromancer (exactly of the sort Davriel would hate.) I think reading about her might make for a fun contrast. She's heavily involved in the previous Innistrad story, which you might enjoy if you liked this one. You can find it on Wizards site: https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/shadows-over-innistrad-story

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Three - Part Two

Llarimar

Llarimar is based on a friend of mine, Scott Franson. Back when I was working on Hero of Ages, my local church group had a service auction for the local food bank. The idea was that church members would offer up services—like a car wash, or some baked cookies, or something like that—and then we'd all get together and bid cans of food for them.

Well, I offered up for auction naming rights in one of my books. The idea being that if you won the auction, you'd get a character named after you and based on you. It was a big hit, as you might imagine, and ended up going for several hundred cans of food. The guy who won was Aaron Yeoman. (And you can see him in The Hero of Ages as Lord Yomen.)

Well, the other major bidder on that was Scott. He's a fantasy buff, a big fan of classic works like Tolkien and Donaldson. (Though he reads pretty much everything that gets published.) He really wanted the naming rights, but I think he let Aaron have it, as Aaron was very excited and vocal about wanting to win.

About a year later, I discovered that Scott, being the kind soul he was, paid for Aaron's cans himself and donated them on the younger man's behalf. I was touched by this, so I decided to put Scott into Warbreaker. It happened there was a very good spot for him, as I'd already planned Llarimar to have a very similar personality to Scott.

I decided that Franson wouldn't work for the name. (Though you do see that one pop up in The Hero of Ages as a nod to Scott as well.) Instead, I used Scott's nickname, Scoot. I thought it worked pretty well, as it's only one letter off from his first name, and his brother claims that they always used to call him that.

So, there you are, Scott. Thanks for being awesome.

Questioner

I also had a question about Sazed. When you were writing him as a character. So, I noticed he says "I think" a lot, which is a very Japanese thing to do.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. So, I've used this before; Galladon does it too, "kolo." A lot of Earth languages do it. Japanese is one, Korean does it. And it is one of these things-- we don't do it the same way in English. "You know?" But it is one of those things, and it is a cultural thing from the Terris people, and should be a tick that will help you pick out people who have been socialized like Terris people.

Brian Hermansen

When you write certain characters, do you envision them as anyone in real life? Ie. I see Dalinar as Liam Neeson

Brandon Sanderson

I don't generally envision them as real people. But A Liam Neeson Dalinar brings a smile to my lips.

JoyBlu's Friend

Many of my questions have to do with the Dalinar-Adolin relationship because I love families and I find this particular relationship very strained. I wish to know stuff like what Dalinar really feels for Adolin, as I find he treats him more like a tool than a son. Or whether or not we've seen the end of the Adolin murdered Sadeas narrative arc, as no character really had the time to react to it yet.

Brandon Sanderson

You have not seen the end of that arc. Dalinar loves his son but has trouble treating anyone as anything other than tools.

JoyBlu's Friend

What are Brandon's thoughts on the relationship? I'd also die to hear Brandon speak about what to expect for Adolin within book 4 in terms of length, scope—

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! RAFO!

JoyBlu's Friend

—as I just wished to give Brandon comment on the fact that some readers were disappointed with the outcome of this narrative arc.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, RAFO.

Questioner 1

You know how in, uh... the God King was engaged to Siri?

Brandon Sanderson

Mhm.

Questioner 1

And she went to his room few times?

Brandon Sanderson

Mhm.

Questioner 1

Will there be something like that in the second book? Or will you be avoiding that?

Brandon Sanderson

There will be a romance in the next book between different characters. Slightly different. The outline right now it's-- the romance is a married couple who, for political purposes act like they hate each other.

Questioner 1

Okay.

Questioner 2

*laughs* That's awesome.

Brandon Sanderson

But yes.

Questioner 1

But what I mean is there will be any-- like-- there won't be anything, like, prostrating or whatever...

Brandon Sanderson

Probably not... Um, I mean...

Questioner 1

Because if you avoid it I'll love to read the book. *laughs* I had a hard time recommending Warbreaker to others because of that. I mean, it's not a big criticism or anything, it's just more uncomfortable.

Brandon Sanderson

I understand that completely. It was a book about a wedding night. And I felt there were certain things that were appropriate for that book that may not have been appropriate for others.

Badger (paraphrased)

Can you tell us more about Khriss?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

- She has a cameo in Bands of Mourning

- She's the main character of White Sand, basically said just read White Sand to get more information since it comes out soon.

- Nahz is basically her grumpy secret agent she sends out to go retrieve artifacts for her.

Office_Zombie

Hey guys, how many drafts do you go through before you start showing to other people? What sort of workshopping do your books go through as you work on them? Do you have Alpha and Beta readers etc. or do you keep your groups smaller?

Brandon Sanderson

Drafting process: 1st draft: Rough Draft. (Written straight through, often ignoring big problems or changing characters mid-stride to get them down.)

2nd draft: Fix all the big problems from first draft.

3rd draft: First polish.

--Send book to Writing Group and Alpha Readers, including my Agent/Editor---

4th draft: Major revisions. Editorial comments.

5th draft: Medium revisions. Writing group comments.

--Send Book to Beta Reads.---

6th draft: Last chance at larger revisions.

7th draft: Copyedit (my assistant does this one.)

That's an ideal world. Sometimes it's condensed. Though on the Wheel of Time books, I ended up doing 12 or 13 drafts.

Questioner

You pulled Apocalypse Guard, will it ever come back?

Brandon Sanderson

I sat down with Apocalypse Guard and looked it over and since I couldn't decide what was wrong with it, I actually gave it to Dan Wells, who's a friend of mine, and I said, "Dan, can you figure out what's wrong with this?" We broke in together, we've been in writing groups together for a long time, and he read through it and he's like, "Yeah, I've got some ideas." So I actually, you know, wanted to work with him, so he actually jumped in to try and do a draft of it himself, and he fixed a lot of the problems, but he didn't fix the biggest problem, which is that the worldbuilding doesn't work.

Which is a really weird thing for a Brandon Sanderson book, but it's part of the reason we can't release it. I can't release a book with bad worldbuilding. I just can't. So while he fixed the characters, I still need to fix the worldbuilding. If I can, we will release it. If I can't, I'm sure even if I don't ever release it, I'll find a way to put it on my website or something like that. So you would be able to read it, and if we do release it, I'll make sure to release it in the failed version too for those who are interested so you can compare. So I think it's really illustrative to see how a professional fails.

zak55

Are you planning on any of the Stormlight exclusive characters becoming world-hoppers?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

NOOK

If you had final say on a dream casting for David, who would you choose?

Brandon Sanderson (Part 1/Part 2)

This is a hard one, as I don't generally "cast" my characters with real life actors in my head.

Brandon Sanderson

Say I'm excited about this, but I'm going to stake a claim on the panel's official cabbagehead position. Every time I'm on a panel or doing a podcast it is good to have a cabbagehead. Which is, I'm the writer, right? My job is, I've found, to know enough about these things to be dangerous, so if there are writers out there and you're feeling a little overwhelmed by this, here's how I approach it. I, when I was first writing epic fantasy I found out a few of these things, and I'm like, "Oh no, this kind of destroy the types of stories I want to tell."

But the more I learned the more I realized, no, it can shape the types of stories I want to tell it doesn't have to destroy them at all. What I did was I used this kind of rule, that is it takes actually a fairly brief amount of time to become dangerously knowledgeable in a subject. Like say, if you can get yourself 20 or 30 percent of the way there, you know enough to know what you don't know. My goal is to always get myself there with research, usually on pop-history books or pop-medicine books or things like this. Write my stories, and then to find an expert, which I've used extensively, particularly in the Stormlight books, where one of my characters is a field surgeon, that's his training, and go and say "What am I doing wrong?"

Usually, the response I get from the medical professionals is "Wow, this isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, you're still wrong about a ton of things. But you don't have to rip apart your story, the fundamentals are there, you know that a gut wounds is really dangerous and often takes a long time to kill. You know about these things and you are trying to deal with them and approach them. I can give you some tips to make it more authentic." That balance has just worked wonderfully well for me. 

iamreallytonyspogoni

Are we going to hear anymore about the worldhopping characters? I've been wondering what exactly their motivations are and if they have any connections with each other.

Brandon Sanderson

You'll need to wait a little longer on this. It will start to come out a lot more in Mistborn Era Three and beyond.

Questioner

In Words of Radiance, a character named Iyatil... Is she a member of the race that we see in The Bands of Mourning in the--

Brandon Sanderson

She is related to them in the same way that I am Danish.

Questioner

Okay, so not.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I am, my heritage is Danish.

Questioner

Okay, so a branch of...

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

Brandon Sanderson

Prologue

Book two didn't have a prologue—if you read the annotations, you can find out about the one I was planning to use but then decided to drop for various reasons.

However, I always knew that this one would have a prologue. Why is this a prologue and not chapter one? I'm not sure I can explain it—I just had a sense of what it needed to be.

It's a glimpse rather than a full chapter. It's from a viewpoint that, while important to the book, doesn't carry a lot of weight in page count—we won't see Marsh again for a number of chapters. Plus, it stands out as being the closest thing to an evil character viewpoint in the book. All of these things scream prologue to me, as they give a hint of what is to come, but don't immediately indicate how the story is going to start.

Questioner

Do you have any plans to release Death by Pizza?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I have any plans to release Death by Pizza?  When I was getting ready for what I should do my readings on for this I was like "Oh I could read them Death by Pizza" and I opened it up and read the first chapter again and was like "No I can't read--" *laughter* Someday if I have time to fix it, I will. It was mostly-- A lot of what you see me doing is experimenting in other genres so I can practice that genre and incorporate it into my mainline epic fantasies. I think that great writing, particularly in a big book like those, means that you draw on a lot of different traditions so that the different plot lines and characters feel like different types. So I'm practicing urban fantasy, I'm practicing-- Things like Legion is me practicing a detective novel so I can use that later on. That one just didn't turn out good enough to release. It was good practice for me.

Questioner

The sequel to Elantris. Sometime in 2020?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably not. Probably, right now, I'm planning the Elantris sequels once I finish Stormlight Five. Most likely, 2020 will be Stormlight Four. 2021 will be Wax and Wayne Four. Then we'll look at getting Stormlight Five done. It's in there. I mean... the Elantris sequel isn't even the same characters, so I don't feel as urgent on that. You'll hear about them, but... yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

Secondary Projects

The Rithmatist

A sequel to The Rithmatist is looking likely this year, depending on some factors (such as how long Stormlight revisions take.) This is the single most requested book I hear about, though that's probably because people know that Stormlight is coming along very well already.

Some people do wonder why I'd do like The Apocalypse Guard before The Atzlanian (Rithmatist 2). It comes down to having two publishers. Stormlight, Rithmatist, and Wax and Wayne are all books for Tor. I need to give Delacorte some love too, and they've waited patiently all year for me to finish Stormlight. So they get the next major writing time slot.

I hear you, Rithmatist fans. We'll get something to you before too much longer. My son Joel (who has a character in the book named for him) is getting old enough to read The Rithmatist, and so I intend to read it with him together, and then jump into the second book sometime soon.

Status: Soooooon.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eighteen

This chapter went through some heavy edits. First off, I originally had Hrathen interrogate the Elantrian off-stage. At a suggestion from my editor, I put this in-scene, showing Hrathen talk to the Elantrian. The intention here was to give a little characterization to Hrathen by showing his logical approach to studying and interrogating his prisoner.

The other big change to this chapter came in the middle. As I was working on the later revisions, I realized–at Joshua's suggestion–that I really wanted something here in the early middle of the book that showed Hrathen sparring against Dilaf and winning. In certain sections of the book, Hrathen's character came off too weakly–and this was one of the chapters. Originally, I had Dilaf extinguish the torches of his own accord, then burn the Elantrian later, despite Hrathen's protests.

In the new version, I get to have Hrathen prove his competence by having him wrestle control of the crowd. He is the one who burns the Elantrian, which enhances the scene by letting Hrathen feel guilt for it. He comes off much stronger in this chapter than he did before.

Those of you who have read on realize how important this is to the plot, because from here out, Dilaf starts to get the better of Hrathen. I needed to reinforce Hrathen's strength at the beginning of the story, otherwise I feared that the scenes of Dilaf winning would make Hrathen seem too weak. Hopefully, things now feel like they are balanced–one gaining dominance for a time, then the other wrestling it away, and so on and so forth.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so the question is: How do you draw the line between deciding to be realistic, and to fudge it in the name of drama, essentially. Pointed out, like, at the end someone gets shot in a way that would normally lay them out but you need the story to keep going. You have a number of options here, and sub-genre and tone is going to have a lot to do with it. The fact that Star Wars is not in any way realistic in its physics does not prevent it from being enjoyed by even a lot of us who understand how bad the physics is, right? Because Star Wars does not present itself as a story where they need to get the physics right. Whereas a hard science fiction movie that we're watching then make an enormous error-- I love The Martian, but this is why Andy Weir gets so much flack. It was way better than 99.9 percent of all science fiction stories; he gets one thing wrong and people will notice it because it's a hard science fiction story.

So, you're going to have to decide on the tone of your story, that's a large part of it. And the other thing is, you build up, in some ways, credibility, like I said, often with the small details. And then you use those small details. We often call it the pyramid of abstraction. You lay the foundation with concrete details, building the scene so the reader is on board for what you're doing. And then, when you need to fudge it and strain plausibility, even in a very realistic story, the reader generally gets on board and goes with it, and doesn't let it break immersion for them. In your example, if all the way through this story you had dealt with these things very realistically, at the end you even dealt with it realistically, but had the character kind of overcome it for a little while and push through. I am totally on board to buy that, right? I am there with you. I'm like, "This is the climatic moment. Yeah, he should have dropped, but instead, he manages to stand up and push the fire alarm or something like that." This sort of thing, readers will be on board. You just need to make sure to keep them on board and to sell them on the idea of the tone of your story. 

Panelist

As Sidney and Jen pointed out earlier, the wound that is ultimately fatal, often is not immediately fatal. That's one of the other Hollywood tropes that I sometimes hate is: sometimes he gets shot and immediately falls down. No, doesn't happen. A headshot maybe, but that's about it. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I was interviewing some people for a story I was writing, and I interviewed someone who had been shot. And he said "It felt like someone had tapped me on the back, just like that, and I didn't know I had been shot." The bullet went all the way through him, but he still was up and doing things for another couple of minutes.

Questioner

I would not like to say commonplace, but there are some prejudices of people when they read you, when they read your work, because of the religious elements, right? This can be a challenge, but there are three things that are absolutely important in your work. One is faith, the other one is moral, what you organize around faith, and then you always, always have the critical spirit that really fights against all of this, and that tries to find value. And this is very peculiar, because you were discussing very transcendental, very important things with this touch of spirituality, but there's always reason and a critical spirit underneath. I would like to know whether you could explore this farther?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. It is something I have thought about a lot as well. I am a man of faith. I am religious. I am Latter-day Saint for those who don't know. And I am a man of science. I was a chemistry major originally in college, and I am a very big believer, at the same time, in skepticism and logic, and I have a somewhat more rational approach to my faith than perhaps many others do. But I'm not sure if even that is true, I just think that many people are not as vocal as some of those who are faithful, but determinedly ignorant, also.

I feel that, as a writer, one of my mandates is to express multiple viewpoints on topics, and try to work through them by having rational people, sympathetic people, on multiple sides of an argument. Few things bother me in fiction more than a cast of characters who all agree on some topic, except for one idiot who exists to be proven wrong. I don't think that's who we find truth. I think we find truth through disagreement by people who all have good arguments. When two people who disagree discuss an issue, and both listen to each other, both learn, and their understanding of the world expands. And because of my own inherent biases, by being religious, one of the things I seek very strongly to do is to make sure that the opposing opinion to what I believe is strongly represented by someone making the arguments that that side would make if they were writing the book. A falsehood or a weak belief can survive dumb challenges to it, but truth can survive good arguments against it, is what I believe. So you can see, I'm very fascinated by this topic, and the things that fascinate me come out in my books, but it is very important to me that my stories be about questions and not about answers, because of all of this, that questions lead to truth, and thinking you have answers don't go anywhere.

Blaine Lasarr

How did you decide which human personality aspects to assign to Shards? I feel like there's a real-life story here.

Brandon Sanderson

It's a little less real-life story, and a little more like how I divided up the metals in Mistborn. More along the lines of, "I need each of these emotions or attributes to be distinctive, and I need each of the characters, the Vessels, to be distinctive who hold them." And so, because I am building sixteen of these things, it means that I have to do a lot of work to make them all individual, and things like this. And my worldbuilding in that area was less along the lines of "story I had in my life causing me to do this" and more "man, I have to do sixteen of these, let's try to make them all distinctive. No, those two seem too similar; let's do a different one there." And lots of trial and error along those lines.

macros

Based on what we know currently about ten heartbeats, why does Szeth require ten heartbeats to bring forth his Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Perception is a very important part of how these things all work, and remember the Honorblades work differently from everything else. Everything was based upon them. Why don't you read and find out what's going on there, but remember that the characters's perception is very important.

macros

So then that's why at one point Shallan requires ten heartbeats and now she doesn't?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, it's the exact same reason that Kaladin's forehead wounds don't heal. Because he views himself as having those somewhere deep inside of him and he can't heal until that gets away. And it works for the same reason why in Warbreaker when you bring something to life, your intention rather than really what you say is what matters. It's all about perception.

Argent

Do any of the characters in The Stormlight Archive share a familial relationship that we don't know about? Considering that we know about Jezrien and Ash. Not necessarily Heralds but--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Yes. No more on that.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Four

Smedry Talents

We’re hitting our stride now. I think that this is where the book starts to really reflect what I imagined for it. Here, we’ve got some genuine tension, some worldbuilding, and some utter silliness.

One of the early ideas for this book was a magic system where the characters had powers that sounded like drawbacks, but which could be used in ways that were clever and interesting. Grandpa Smedry shows this off for the first time in this chapter by arriving late for the bullets.

As you might have noticed, it’s a kind of metaphor. I find that often, our drawbacks are advantages in disguise. It all depends on how you look at it. I’m often fond of pointing out that arrogance misused will turn you into an annoying person–but if you channel that same energy into believing in yourself, you can accomplish some fairly amazing things.

It takes a lot of thinking to come up with the right Smedry Talents. They have to be things that you can explain in one sentence, and have to be hindrances that a lot of us feel that we have. However, I also have to be able to twist them around so that they can be used in interesting ways.

Questioner

I do have one question, A Memory of Light couldn't be better, except for the Padan Fain thing.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the Padan Fain thing is that I have a little bit of regret on that one. That's the one thing-- You see he didn't leave anything about Fain at all. Just completely blank. That was worrisome to me. The only thing he said was "Padan Fain cannot be Gollum" actually, he wrote that in the notes. So I was left with trying to figure out what to do and in the end I feel it just ended up feeling tacked on because there were so many other things I was interested in doing and Padan Fain I had never really enjoyed as a character that much. You are seeing my biases come through on that. Looking back at it I'm like "I really should have done something more with him". That's the big one that I feel I would change, if I could change something.

Questioner

'Cause it's kind of a threat that goes away…

Brandon Sanderson

The other one is I would've liked for the viewpoint chapters from Demandred to be in the book instead of separated out and put in that charity anthology [Unfettered], but I didn't have any say in that one.

Brandon Sanderson

One time, at GenCon, they were doing the Mistborn RPG and they had me play. So I <drew up> my character as a very mysterious individual and so... I played as Hoid in the RPG.

The_Immortal_Shogun

Is there some reason why the characters in the cover don't seem to reflect the Hawaiian esque description you seem to have in your head. For Kaladin for example

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Basically, I was too intimidated by being able to work with Michael Whelan to be picky.

It goes a little further than that. The original cover was closer in skin tone and features to what I'd imagined. (Remember, I view the Alethi as kind of Asian Hawaiian hybrids.) However, the pose and overall look of the figure wasn't great.

I chose not to say anything, because I love Mr. Whelan's work, and was simply thrilled to be working with him. Plus, I liked the cover quite a bit, even if something was slightly off with the figure. Well, Mr. Whelan obviously saw what I had, and over the next few months we got a string of revisions from him.

By the time he'd settled on the current one (which was the best of the ones he'd sent) I didn't want to bother him with redesigning Kaladin yet again.

We're still trying to get this right. In working with Dan Dos Santos to do the clothing portraits in the second book, I kept having trouble describing to him what to use. I think he got much closer to the look of the Alethi, but I don't feel we're there yet.

Third cover is shaping up nicely, and we're being careful to nudge Mr. Whelan toward a more Alethi look.

Andrew B

Was the symbol of the Ghostbloods the same symbol that you used to move between different scenes in The Way of Kings' chapters (the three diamonds in a triangle pattern)?

Brandon Sanderson

The Ghostbloods' symbol has interconnected diamonds. I didn't ask Tor for a specific scene break character; that was a design decision on their part.

PadraicSeebrr (paraphrased)

At the very end of A Memory of Light, when a certain character walks off with his pipe, how does he manage to light it?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I don't know as Robert Jordan never told us, but what I think is that it was because he touched the Pattern.

gauzemajig

Do you think you'll ever go outside of the established raunchiness of your books? I don't mean a murder sex party, but you know, straying a bit into the dark and gritty. It's just my opinion but I feel like you play it a little safe. Not necessarily a bad thing though!

Brandon Sanderson

I don't think I've crossed the line where I'm personally comfortable doing, but I think I'm close. Usually, I give a few characters (like Wayne) the ability to go further than others, as an acknowledgement that there are good people out there who don't happen to have my same prudish nature.

I think the thing you'll see that is the closest is when (and if) I write the Threnody novel.

For everything else, you'll have to settle for knowing that one of my quirks as a writer is that I do indeed play it a little safe--and probably will always do so. I'm very aware that my children, nieces, and nephews read my books. Beyond that, I feel that I'm an intentional and specific contrast to other writers in the genre--I consider it my duty to prove that (like many of the classic movies) you can write something that is for adults, and has depth, without delving into grittiness.

This is not a disparagement of people like Joe Abercrombie, who I think is an excellent writer, or others like him--and I'm glad we have them in the field. However, my own path goes a different direction, and I think it's important that I also publish, proving to those who perhaps wish to be more circumspect in these areas that there is a place for them in the genre too.

Xluxaeternax

Does that mean that you recognize that the stories that take place on Threnody, a world of your creation, are stories that you are uncomfortable exploring because they are too harsh or intense? If that's the case I find that absolutely fascinating and very impressive- it's almost as if the cosmere is a real place with real people and you're just communicating their stories to us. I personally would rather you never told those stories instead of forcing them to be something that is untrue to what you created them to be.

Brandon Sanderson

A writer must be willing to do uncomfortable things; I fully believe that. Stories like Snapshot (my most recent novella) have done this before, and if I write the Threnody novel, I intend to do it well. (But also be very clear to audiences that it's darker than other cosmere books.)

It's not about intensity--I feel other books are intense. Or even about violence or darkness. It's about how far the narrative needs to delve into these things, or the relationship of light and hope to the darkness.

Dalinar's backstory in Stormlight is uncomfortably dark, and I won't pull punches from it. But it's balanced by the man he has become. In Threnody, some of the stories don't have that balance.

Questioner

You already said names. Is it "SAYzd" or "SAY-zed"?

Brandon Sanderson

Both are said by various characters in the book. Sazed, he would say it "SAYzd" a little bit more, but Kelsier says "SAY-zed".

tharmsthegreat

You did tell us to keep an eye open for future sets. Well then, in your head, what are the colors of each main character (Tacenda, Highwater, Crunch, Willia)

Brandon Sanderson

Tacenda is GRW. The demons would be mono black, though Miss Highwater has some red and blue to her, while Crunchgnar has some red and green to him. Willia is White Green Black.

yahasgaruna

Is [Tacenda] still GRW at the end of novella, after picking up the entity?

Brandon Sanderson

I imagine that entity actually being green. A darker side of green, but still green. It evoked a feeling of destiny, and of putting it back together (which would be natural) and a kind of survival of the fittest attitude. You didn't get to see much of it, but this is my intention for it.

Think of the Entities as enormous mana reservoirs--the collected mana of a plane--that can be tapped to power spells, but with dangerous results. Davriel's Entity is pure black mana, while the entity of the bog is pure green. (Though in its shattered form, a lot of its instincts were about self-preservation, which comes across black in the story.)

Use_the_Falchion

Which Cosmere character would do the WORST in the Piloting Academy?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid. It's always Hoid.

Havoc (paraphrased)

I know that Perfect State is not part of the Cosmere, but if the Wode were to construct a 'Perfect State' for someone like Hoid, would that look like the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

So a universe with him as the most important character... yes.

Brandon Sanderson

Elend's White Uniform

Another interesting item to note is that Vin mentions how Elend's uniform was as white as they could get it. Some readers ask how it would be possible to keep clothing white in such circumstances.

My answer is much along the lines of what Vin says here. If you, from our world, were to go and look at Elend's uniform, I doubt you'd call it white. Probably a light grey. However, compared to the world around it, it's very white. This is all relative. What the characters see is a brilliant white uniform, even though we would describe it differently.

matgopack

About Skyward - what in the story/setting excites/excited you the most while writing it?

Brandon Sanderson

I'd say it's writing Spensa's character. When I can get a voice, particularly in a first person narrative, that I really enjoy, the book gets very exciting.

Questioner

In Alcatraz series, he talks about a lot of things. Religion, fame, particularly fame, stuff like that. I was wondering if that is his voice entirely, or if it's also partially you?

Brandon Sanderson

There is a lot of me in Alcatraz. My mother says Alcatraz is her favorite character because he sounds the most like me.

Brandon Sanderson

Moshe wanted me to cut this chapter further, but admitted that there wasn't really any way to do it. I hope it's fun to see old characters–such as OreSeur–coming back to us in different forms, having changed a bit during the time between books.

hakumiogin

How did you first make it in the illustration industry? What steps would you recommend to artists looking to start working professionally?

Ben McSweeney

Short version:

I started drawing cheap quarter-pages and character vignettes for RPG companies at bargain-basement prices, and I slowly networked that into better and better jobs through a general policy of "be nice, don't drop the ball". It took a loooong time and a lot of low-rent work.

I hooked up with Brandon in 2008, when I read Mistborn and drew up some fan-art, posted that to his forums at what turned out to be the perfect time (which I had no way of knowing, so that's my lottery ticket story :)

Longer Version for Aspiring Artists who want to hear some Real TalkTM :

I've been "working professionally" (getting paid to draw) a lot longer than I've been "making it" (getting paid enough to live on just by drawing)... and I've done most of it without mentoring, so my traditional learning process has been something along the lines of "get it horribly wrong, and then fix it, rinse-repeat".

All this is to say I may not be a good role model. But I started out pretty low and I'm doing all right today, so maybe I can contribute something useful.

More than anything, I think it's more important to love doing it than to love being it... If I never make it in The Big Time, I still do it. It's the activity itself you're enjoying, not the status or the rewards. When I do succeed, I often find those rewards and the status are nice, but they're fleeting and the only thing that keeps 'em coming is more work.

You do good work, you get more work. It's an never-ending cycle, but that's a fine thing so long as you love working.

I recommend learning the fundamental basics put forth by classical illustrators like Andrew Loomis. Sometimes all that formal stuff feels boring and static and it's hard to relate it to what you really want to do, like you're being stuffed into a conformity box. But believe me, if you can master that stuff and learn to use it, you can do anything in any style you like and it will always look solid. Look around at the best of the best, see the fundamentals in play in their work, recognize that you can take that stodgy mathy rules-laden stuff and make anything with it.

Persevere. I started getting paid to draw when I was 18. I stopped working at "real jobs" when I was 28. I started getting the work I'm most proud of today when I was 32.

That's a long time, I pretty much went through my entire youth without ever knowing if I'd succeed. But I've been drawing all my life, and I really don't know what else I would do. So even if it meant that I worked a 32 week shift at Sunglass Hut while I drew shitty T-shirt designs for anyone who'd pay me $50, I never stopped working or saw myself as anything other than a craftsman.

Lots of people make it happen faster. Even more people never make it happen at all. But you can't lose the game if you keep on playing.