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Questioner

How long did the writing process take for Elantris?

Brandon Sanderson

Elantris was about an eight-month write. And then after I sold it, I needed to do maybe another four months of revisions. So maybe about a total of twelve months.

somewheretomorrow

I was wondering why the male peak spren is built with a lot of muscles but the female isn't? Is there a specific reason for it?

Ben McSweeney

The appearnce of Highspren is as varied as the humans that imagine them. There can be skinny peakspren and fat peakspren as well, I think... these two are just some examples that Shallan has seen in her travels. 

Daily Dragon

How did you find the time and energy to work on The Way of Kings while you were immersed in Jordan’s Wheel of Time? Are you a hidden Allomancer, a slider like Wayne in The Alloy of Law, with the ability to set up a mind-boggling speed bubble?

Brandon Sanderson

I wish I could magically create bubbles of time to give myself more space to do these things. After working on The Gathering Storm, I felt more and more that I needed to do The Way of Kings—I had done it and failed once, and I began to see all of the places where it went wrong and how I could fix it. When you get excited about a book that way, you kind of have to write it—strike while the iron is hot. It's something I never want to do again—working on that and Towers of Midnight at the same time just about killed my entire family. The hours were very long, and I'm still kind of recovering from that. How did I find the time? I didn't do much else during that year when I was getting those both ready. I think it was really good for me to do, and I don't think I'll ever do something like that again.

LongclawDescended

If Gavilar was still alive, would he most likely have aligned himself to or taken actions most similar to Dalinar, Amaram or Taravangian? In other words, which of the three is best acting out his will?

Brandon Sanderson

I can say he would align with one of them most certainly, but I want to RAFO this for now. (Though I might have made it clear elsewhere and not be remembering.)

zas678

When Kaladin is Invested Stormlight specifically rises from his skin. When he is Lashed to a wall, what direction does it travel? Up to him, or to the world?

Brandon Sanderson

When he is Lashed to a wall where does the Stormlight go. So when it's puffing off him, and he's Lashed to a wall it will asc-- I think it will puff-- It will escape and go up.

zas678

Typical up.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, typical up.

piporpaw

[The sunrise metaphor] is one of my favorite quotes. Did you spend much time rewriting it?

Brandon Sanderson

This one took a fair bit of time to craft.

Going into Calamity, one of the things I knew I wanted to show was that David could--on occasion--really NAIL a metaphor. That he wasn't completely hopeless; he just often spoke without thinking or finding the right setting.

Here, I needed the metaphor to be more than just silly--or even more than just "This is really sweet, once he explains it." It needed to work in a way one hadn't before. So I spent a great deal of time pivoting on this scene in my head, trying to determine the way to go.

Questioner

Did Hoid think of the Shattering as necessary?

Brandon Sanderson

*pause* Kind of.

Paleo

The placement of Taldain, the solar system, was it done by someone?

Brandon Sanderson

So...Taldain, yes.

Paleo

Has it to do with the travel in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Not 100%. That's a side effect

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirteen - Part Two

This Elend scene here is almost a direct parallel of the scene in book one where Kelsier first introduces the plan to his people. Elend has a much harder time of it. In fact, this scene–in conjunction with the scene with the Assembly–is supposed to establish Elend as what he is: a man with great ideas, but poor leadership techniques. He's brilliant and scholarly, but he doesn't know how to get people to do what he wants.

This is reflected in his speech patterns, and has been since book one. He likes to use the phrase "Now, see," followed by an observation. He doesn't command, and when he argues, he uses very passive sentences. All of this is–hopefully–makes your subconscious see him in a certain way.

The only reason he convinces the crew to go along with them is 1) he's right, they like to gamble, and this is the type of plan they like and 2) they already know him, and his ideas have earned a measure of trust from them.

When necessary, Elend CAN give a brilliant speech. He can make people dream and hope. He just isn't good at arguing, and is rather poor at being a dictator.

This scene, by the way, is another substantially rewritten one. I focused a lot more on the idea that the crew was going to have to deal with a long siege in the rewrites.

Argent

One thing I can't figure out - Newcago's name is obviously a short of New Chicago. So is there anything Babilar stands for? The "Babyl-" part is obviously from Babylon, but I can't think of anything for "-ar"... Babylon Restored > Babylo-R > Babylor > Babylar kind of makes sense, but it doesn't make me happy.

Peter Ahlstrom

Babyl-R (say the letter name).

Chaos

How much do you plan in the cosmere? There were a few things in Rhythm of War [that went in] a different direction, like anti-Investiture, that black sphere Gavilar had in the prologue being anti-Investiture, and Testament and Shallan, were those always part of the plan or options?

Brandon Sanderson

Those were always options. Anti-Investiture has been pretty core for a long time, there are a couple reasons for this. Number one I need to get certain resources into the cosmere for use in the future, and anti-Investiture is one of those. Another reason is I want to push Stormlight Archive more towards magic-tech, because I'm pushing Mistborn more towards Earth analog with Earth technology and then some cool fantastical things thrown in, but when you're using the technology. When you're using a radio on Scadrial, it's a radio. You know what a radio is. It works based on radio principles, and maybe you can do some wacky things with weight, but an airship is kind of an airship to them where as I want Roshar which is on the opposite end of that spectrum. Where an airship on Roshar is not an airship like you would imagine. Its not being propelled in normal ways it's working off all these weird magical things. And anti-Investiture was an important thing to get into the series for the future for that reason.

From book one I knew I needed magical healing for Roshar, [for] the stories I wanted to tell to work. And I needed some really powerful magical healing. Particularly for the Knights Radiant, because of the stories I wanted to tell, this meant I was going to be very much under cutting the danger of physical violence in The Stormlight Archive as we move forward as the characters became Radiants. It is really hard to kill a Radiant in combat and there need to be foils to that. 

Beyond that from the first chapter of the first cosmere novel Elantris, death has not been the end. [hosts laugh] We start the first book with someone being resurrected. That's one of the main themes of the cosmere is a second chance at life. This is Raoden's story, this is Lightsong's story, this is Kelsier's story, this is a major theme of the cosmere, and I needed to be introducing into the cosmere a "dead is dead" mechanic. And I considered Shardblades for that for a while, before I even released Stormlight. No, it can't be Shardblades, because I can't have every battle - once lots of people have Shardblades then there's no purpose to the magical healing. So I needed another tool for the late part of the cosmere, when people have figured out Cognitive Shadows; How do you destroy a Cognitive Shadow? Well there are ways, but throw some anti-Investiture at them and that's guaranteed, you are gonna kill that Shadow, and I'd been pushing towards where to get this in, and this book felt like the right place. It was either this book or book five, and where it settled into this book is where I finally made the decision that I was gonna let Navani be a main character, which she had been pushing to be for a while, and I'd been pushing back. No, I deserve to have a scientist, an actual straight up scientist main character in The Stormlight who can dig into some of this stuff. I can self-indulge by doing that, as long as I balance it with Kaladin behind enemy lines fight sequences and things, for a more traditional structure. Because Navani's scenes do not have a traditional structure. They're like "we're going to do science now! But we're making up the science also?!"

solascara

I'm particularly loving Cord and hope we see more of her in the future.

Brandon Sanderson

You will, but I warn you, her appearances in RoW are brief because I hadn't finished Dawnshard yet, and wanted the room to grow her as it felt natural in the novella, so I barely have her appear in the novel.

Brandon Sanderson

God Says Farewell to Zane

I wanted to jump into Zane's viewpoint so that we could see the voice depart from its usual way of speaking. Just a little hint for later in the series. Yes, there is a LOT more going on here than it seems at first glance.

m4ge

If a Splintered Shard is somehow reformed, is it possible to change the word that expresses its Intent?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but that's a very implausible thing depending on how... so, you're getting into some weird Cosmere stuff here. Most of the ways that these different Shards could manifest could be described differently. Odium is trying very hard to describe his Shard as something different, and there's an argument there. But it depends on if you're like actually changing it or if you just want to call it something different. You could just call Odium Hatred and it's not going to change anything, but if you wanted to change Odium to mean Passion like Odium thinks that it means, then that's more difficult.

Questioner

Is it cold enough on Roshar for snow?

Brandon Sanderson

Only in the mountains.

Questioner

Do you get a highsnowstorm?

Brandon Sanderson

In the mountains, yes, it's very weird. And it's only in the tops of the mountains. There is. But you will see this when and if we visit the Horneater Peaks, which are covered in snow, except for the hot springs.

Questioner

Are there snowspren?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

vorpal_username

In mistborn you can't access someone else's feruchemical stores. However, what if feruchemist A stores something, and then hemalurgy is used to take A's ability and put into person B. Can person B use A's stores?

Also, what happens when someone burns metal with a hemalurgic charge? Or stores/retrieves something in a spike using feruchemy?

Brandon Sanderson

All RAFOs here, I'm afraid.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Before his departure in [The Way of Kings] and his return in a future book, does he stay on Roshar only?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Good question. RAFO.

Overlord Jebus

During part 4 of Oathbringer when they are in Shadesmar. At no point did you depict an Everstorm whilst they are in there, and they were in there several weeks. Is there a specific reason you didn't depict that, or does it just not have a presence in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

There is a specific reason I didn't depict that. It will be involved in a later book, and I was dodging it for "I'm not sure how I'm going to canonize this yet." 

Questioner: (paraphrased)

When it is said that Honor started to go crazy towards the end of the Knights Radiant, were those Knights seeing Honor as he was slowly dying, or were they interacting with a Cognitive Shadow of Honor, like how Preservation left Fuzz behind?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO

ccstat

In Mistborn, Vin had a set of sapphire jewelry. If Demoux had brought those to Roshar, would they be infused by a highstorm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Thadamin

How many Cutting edges does Nightblood have? I'm just trying to find out what Nightblood looks like exactly, Warbreaker is a little sparse on an exact description.

Brandon Sanderson

Nightblood is a long, straight sword, edged on both sides.

morsk

If Nightblood was a Dark Souls weapon, which class would it be? Straight Sword, Greatsword, Ultra Greatsword? I think of it like the Claymore.

Brandon Sanderson

Claymore might be close. Though the dark souls ones might be a tad bigger than he is.

Gavin-son-son-Odegard

How does Cultivation figure in this conflict between Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

So, what people assume is that Cultivation is hiding. I would disagree with that. People in-world would assume that.

Haverworthy

If Elend had been carrying a polestone with him when he had his duralumin enhanced atium vision that transferred him to the SR, would it have become invested similarly to if it had been exposed to a perpendicularity?

Brandon Sanderson

Hm. That's a good question. I think it wouldn't have--though white sand would have been charged.

erik02847

I don’t know if this has been discussed any wear before, but I can’t get this idea out of my mind that a massive influx of stormlight due to the rediscovering of shadesmar by the common person through the oath gates will cause inflation to skyrocket in shadesmar cities. This does not even account for the war that is also likely to absorb a lot of resources in the cognitive realm, further increasing the scarcity of certain materials, which would only drive prices higher due to the low of supply and demand. I’m just curious if this would even happen based off of the unique qualities of trade in shadesmar (items can just disappear, and money can too if it’s not in the right gem), but it would seem that it would based off of my current understanding of economic theory.

Is this something you are able to talk about?

Brandon Sanderson

Not yet, as it's something I don't want to dig in to too much yet. Consider it a RAFO for now.

Brandon Sanderson

PART EIGHT: OTHER COOL PROJECTS

Picture Books

One of the things I talked about last year was doing a picture book based on “The Girl who Looked Up” from Oathbringer.

We eventually decided to fold this deal and walk away. The publisher was pleasant, but it became clear we both had different visions of the project, and I wasn’t sure how much control I was going to have over the text and the artwork—something very important to me, especially when it comes to my Cosmere-related works.

Ideally, I’d still like to do a series of picture books using “The Girl who Looked Up,” “The Dog and the Dragon,” and maybe a few of the other stories-within-a-story that show up in the Cosmere novels. To this end, I actually wrote a different picture book, unrelated to the Cosmere, and am currently shopping it.

My philosophy again is that I’d like to know more about the market (like with the first tie-in Mainframe stories) before I commit to something involving Cosmere continuity, even in a tangential way. Hopefully I’ll be able to sell this other picture book and get some experience in the market, and then have a better idea of how/when to approach doing the Cosmere Storybook ones. (Where I’d probably want to start with “The Dog and the Dragon.”)

Board Games and Crafty Updates

This year saw the release of the Stormlight-themed Call to Adventure board game by Brotherwise Games, who have just been fantastic partners in this area. The board game is fun and has great art. Brotherwise are big fans of the series, and their knowledge of the property shows. More information on their website.

Additionally, Nauvoo Games ran a Kickstarter for the Steelslayer expansion to their Reckoners board game. We’ve found that Nauvoo creates quality products, and we appreciate their attention to detail on this one.

Crafty Games also has an expansion coming for their Mistborn: House War board game. This one’s titled Mistborn: The Siege of Luthadel and is currently available for pre-order. Crafty also released some new sets of Mistborn dice this year that are particularly cool, especially the metal ones.

We also partnered with the folks at Forged Foam, who created these amazing shardblade designs! They are currently out of stock but we’re hoping they’ll be available again soon.

If you are getting the Orders of the Knights Radiant and Wit coins from our Way of Kings Kickstarter, perhaps you need a beautiful handcrafted wooden coin display to go with it? Dragon Wood Shop is taking preorders now.

We have a Mistborn card deck in progress with the guys at Kings Wild Project and it is turning out so nicely. We can’t wait for the final product to be out in the world!

The Kaladin art book is moving and shaking with Petar Panev taking on the art direction.

And, as usual, our other vendors continue to offer high-quality Cosmere merchandise! Shire Post Mint produces Mistborn coins from two distinct eras in the series. Badali Jewelry features jewelry and accessories inspired by Mistborn, Stormlight Archive, and Elantris. Worldbuilders Market offers a huge variety of products including posters, phone cases, and more.

Questioner

How can everyone tap nicrosil without being a nicrosil Ferring? Is that a Read And Find Out?

Brandon Sanderson

That's kind of a Read And Find Out.

Questioner

I assume the next book, probably?

Brandon Sanderson

We'll dig into that.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Warbreaker had just come out, and I was talking about how you used more comedy in the book, and I was asking about it and everything else, and I was so pleased that you've done such a wonderful job with it, I enjoyed the humor aspects, besides it just sets everything up perfectly.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I feel that a great book is going to have a wide range of emotions, so I try to stick various different ones in.

Questioner

Are you going to make another Warbreaker book?

Brandon Sanderson

Someday I will. It probably won't happen until after Stormlight 5 is out, because I want to keep those Stormlight books moving along.  But once Stormlight 5 is out, Ill take a little breather from Stormlight before doing number six to do some things. Maybe like this.

ParadoxicalWims

Was Elantris (the book) the first time Hoid has even been to Sel. If not, how deep is his connection with the Enefel(s)? ;) and was Hoid on good terms with Aona and Skai before their deaths?

Is Cultivation 'broken' in some way?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFOs all around.

Brandon Sanderson

Tertiary Projects

The Reckoners

DONE!

There's a chance of a standalone Mizzy book sometime in the future, which is why I put it here and don't just leave it off entirely. But even if I do that, it won't be for a while.

Status: On hiatus.

pat_skelly

What are your thoughts on Kramer's depiction of a Herdazian accent? Is it what you were trying to go for or no? When I read WoK I thought they had more of a Mexican accent but Kramer has brought me over to his, what I believe is, Australian accent.

Brandon Sanderson

It makes me laugh, and I like that there are other interpretations out there--since it's a fantasy world, and their accent doesn't have a 1-to-1 correlation with our world. That said, the were originally Hispanic inspired, so you were on the right track.

Brandon Sanderson

This fight is for the Allomancy junkies. I don't think there's another one quite as technical as it is in the entire rest of the series.

I try to give variety to how my fight scenes are handled. The spar between Ham and Vin was quick and visual. This fight is all about pushes, pulls, and weight. I fear that it's pretty hard to imagine, and unless you're really into Allomancy, I suspect that many of you skimmed most of it.

Yet, writing a book is about putting in lots of things for lots of different people, I think. Allomancy is fun because of its versatility–I can to all kinds of things with it. This was just one of them.

So, if you really like how Allomancy works–with the pushes and pulls, the vectors, mass, acceleration, and all that, this is a present for you. A chapter really showing off what two Mistborn can do when expertly manipulating their powers.

Brandon Sanderson

I've been working on notes for sports involving the Metallic Arts, actually. (I'll need them for Era 3.)

Kurkistan

Was aluminum weird before the metallic arts were created?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Deseret News

What can you tell us about the new Stormlight Archive novella you have outlined?

Brandon Sanderson

I can't tell you a lot about it, but I'm planning on calling it Wandersail.

Jeremy (paraphrased)

Syl gives Kaladin the choice to have any number of weapons or a shield. Pattern can be equally a sword or a small knife. Are spren limited to being items of war or could they be put to other uses? Could the surge binders less geared toward battle use their spren to make ladders, rope, etc?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, this is not restricted to articles of war.

Questioner

What's going on with White Sand? The sequel?

Brandon Sanderson

...Sequel looks really good. It fixed a few problems I had with the first one, and improves upon it, and it's good. I think they're looking at February. The date that was online earlier was just somebody guessing, and it kinda got perpetuated and Amazon picked it up. But there was no official date. And February is what we're looking at. The art's all done, and it's looking really good. So, February.

Benji

Are the three realms of Realmatic Theory are based or inspired by Viktor Frankl's dimensional ontology?

Brandon Sanderson

No. I was reaching more toward Platonic theory when I came up with those, and the idea of a place where everything exists in a perfect version of itself, and that was where my mind was going when I was developing this.

Evan Modder

Do you have a favourite type of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Favourite type? They are all like my children. So... I don't know. That one's a RAFO, but a “I'm never going to answer it”, so just “Read and Don't Find Out”?

Kirsty Cabot

Were there any characters you found difficult to connect with when writing the remaining books of The Wheel of Time series?

Brandon Sanderson

I've never really been able to get into Cadsuane as a character, and so she was the most difficult for me to do. I love Aviendha and Tuon, but both of them think so differently from the rest of the characters that they gave me a challenge.

Questioner

Why do they ride horses, and not like fast insects of some sort?

Brandon Sanderson

That is an excellent question. That I'm not going to answer.

[deleted]

What is the ratio of Skaa to Nobles in the Final Empire?

Brandon Sanderson

Skaa to nobles is roughly ten or more to one, I believe. It's been a long time since I worked on the demographics, but it becomes far more imbalanced the further out from Luthadel you go.

[deleted]

How "far more imbalanced" is it between the Inner and Outer Dominances? What are the differences in demographics between, say, Luthadel, Fellise, Urteau, and Tathingdwen?

(Just between Skaa, Nobles, and maybe Terrismen. I don't need demographics of Allomancers or Koloss or anything like that, I don't want to take up too much time.)

Brandon Sanderson

The further you get out, the more unbalanced it is. In the center heart of the empire, a there are a lot more nobles. More like a 3-1 on the side of skaa. Far out, there are places with only a small number of nobles, more like 10-to-one or more. I don't have the exact demographics on hand--it would take longer than I want to take to dig them out. But maybe that gives you an idea.

Generally, cities are going to have a higher density of nobles.

Arcanist

Is Szeth bounded to the Oathstone (master) with magic/force or just with his honour? As I can remember, in the end of [The Way of Kings] he nearly killed Taravangian.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. :)

ladyknightradiant

Have we seen all four of the genders for the Parshendi?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. 

ladyknightradiant

So it's more than just malen and femalen?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, male and female. So, basically, in my original notes I was trying to decide if I should call them [something else?] but they-- eventually we ended up-- It's basically, they have a male neuter and female neuter, and then a male and a female. So yes, there are four genders. [...] And, if you can't tell, the malen and femalen are both asexual, completely.

Brandon Sanderson

I appreciate the comment on Steris. I kind of feel that when I did Elantris, I was really interested in this, and I maybe didn't-- I kind of approached things in, like, a pop culture sort of way without really understanding it. And then I came to know some people with autism, and I'm like, "I need to do this better. I need to do this realistically and kind of help with the presentation rather than contributing to one narrow definition that is the pop culture definition." So I'm glad that that has worked for you.

Questioner

Is there anywhere on Scadrial that has a a region that they pronounce it "Kelsier" (ˈkɛlsiəɹ)?

Brandon Sanderson

That they would say "Kelsier?" Sure, I bet there are some that would say "Kelsier."

chasmfriend's friend

How about, how many worlds has Vasher visited?

Brandon Sanderson

How many worlds has Vasher visited? He has visited fewer than half-a-dozen, so fewer than six.

PallonianFire (paraphrased)

Does Khriss have a way of changing her appearance?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

kari-no-sugata

Shallan... in Oathbringer... she meets Adolin, and he's staring into her eyes. And she thinks that he can see that when she's Shallan again. So, my question is, is she correct? And if so, how did Adolin see that?

Brandon Sanderson

So, it's not a magical thing. She shifts even when she's kind of being herself-- When she becomes different people, even if she's not completely Lightweaving herself, she shifts.

kari-no-sugata

Is it visible?

Brandon Sanderson

It is visible.

kari-no-sugata

So he's looking very closely.

Brandon Sanderson

And he wouldn't be able to point out that he had seen that. But it's intuitive, and he's learned to recognize that.

kari-no-sugata

...In her final scene, she seems like she kind of summons her personas-- as if she's fully in control, and they're not coming by themselves anymore, is that correct?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

kari-no-sugata

So, they still come and go as they want?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, she's much more in control, but still has a way to go.

kari-no-sugata

Would Wit basically approve of what she's done?

Brandon Sanderson

He would give her a "that's a step forward, but you're not there yet."

Questioner (paraphrased)

About the character he enjoys writing the most

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Probably Wayne