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Is there a formula on Nalthis for Breath consumption per Awakening? For example, how many Breaths does it take Vivienna to Awaken a scarf?
Yeah, I have that in my notes, it’s been a long time since I’ve written on that book, yes, there was a formula for me and I will use it when I write the sequel.
Did Kelsier, after holding preservation and Sazed becoming Harmony, ever find out if Mare really betrayed him or not?
RAFO, I'm afraid. There is more coming on this topic in the future.
Is there any chance White Sand the novel ever gets revised and published? I'm not sure if there is a place for both the novel and graphic novel, but I really enjoyed the read.
Well, Brandon said it's not outside the realm of possibility, but I hope he doesn't. The first draft of White Sand is already nearly 20 years old at this point. Nowadays, Brandon has better ideas. He has plenty of things to write that he's excited about. He has already written White Sand twice, and I think it would be hard for him to get excited about it, and his excitement translates into a good book.
Assuming the three volumes sell well enough to warrant continuing the story, then Brandon could get excited about outlining the sequel to get adapted into more volumes.
And, since it's the Cosmere, you can be assured that sand masters will show up when all the planets start interacting with each other.
Which of your villains are you most and least happy with?
Least, I'll probably cheat and use Padan Fain. As I said before, after the fact, looking back at the Wheel of Time ending, Padan Fain is the one that I feel I dropped the ball a little bit on.
Most proud of is a spoiler. The character that you find out is a villain only at the end of The Way of Kings is the villain I am most proud of now. For a while, it was Hrathen. But the amount of depth I've been able to do and work I've been able to do on this character, and the twists and turns that this character has been able to take, I am very proud of, all the different incarnations of how this character worked. He is now the villain I am most proud of.
Where did you get the idea for your Adonalsium mythos? Did it develop in your head for a while, or did you have a sudden flash of inspiration.
Over time, particularly when building Dragonsteel as a novel. I was planning it as I wrote Elantris. Hoid has been around forever, long before Adonalsium became the central plot of his story. I have an old short story from the early, early, early days where he's on a planet trying to figure out how the local magic system works.
<At one point it says> that there were 99 Desolations before the Final Desolation, in the Prelude. Was there actually 99?
Nope, there were not actually 99. That is a mythological relic. Like the 40 days and 40 nights may well be a metaphor for "a lot" ...Good question.
Other Notes
Yes, there are Returned in Idris. There are Returned everywhere in this world that there are people. (The name of this world is Nalthis, by the way. Mistborn takes place on a world called Scadrial, and Elantris on a world known as Sel. See the fun things you learn by reading annotations?)
I'd like someday to do a sequel to Warbreaker, in part because I want to show off all of the different ways people in Nalthis deal with the Returned. They're treated in very strange ways some places. For instance, just across the mountains there's a kingdom where when someone dies in a way that might be heroic, the corpse is immediately purchased by a nobleman hoping to hit the jackpot and get a Returned. You see, since Returned can heal people, keeping one around to act as an emergency insurance plan to restore your health is a great idea.
How do you keep it all organized when you're doing so much at once?
A wiki. An internal wiki is where I keep all the cosmere and all the notes on that. The other things, I don't have to worry about as much. For instance, Reckoners, I've got one viewpoint character and one major plot; that I can keep in my head. I've got note files and things like that, but the Cosmere? Big old wiki full of stuff.
The fantasy universe is very fond of antiheroes lately, so I was surprised when I read your books with charismatic and inspiring lead characters, who, almost single-handedly, give faith to people and make them claim back their dignity. What is so compelling about creating characters such as Kaladin or Kelsier?
I find that the antihero angle is very well covered by other authors. I am fascinated by people who are trying to do what is right because most everyone I know is actually a good person--and a good person needing being forced to make unpleasant decisions is more interesting to me. The great books I read as a youth inspired me; I'd rather dwell on that kind of story than the opposite. (That said, it's great that the genre is big enough for both types of stories.)
It IS interesting to me that over the last twenty years, what I do has become the distinctive one.
Syl seems to switch forms a lot more than any of the other bonded spren. Is her default human, like the little human woman?
Is Syl's default the little human woman or does she not really have one? You will find out more about that eventually.
Are there kandra hiding in any of your books, besides the Mistborn ones?
Yes there are! Yes there are.
Are the Reshi Islands animals or spren?
The greatshells are animals. The actual Islands are islands.
Unless I have overlooked something, I have noticed that lifespren tend to show up only due to plant, or perhaps non-animal life. Is this a simple mislabeling by Roshar's inhabitants (vegetationspren?), or is there something significant to this discrepancy - and if so, is there any comment you can make on the subject?
Technically, you'd be right. Lifespren, as they are called, are more "things are growing here" spren. I mean, if you think about it, most emotion spren are "life spren" in that they're only around when sapient beings are drawing them.
How do you spell "Lyss" the woman Jasnah meets with in the WoR prologue?
Not sure, but I think it's Lyss.
Is Wayne sick?
Is Wayne sick? In what way?
Like, terminally ill kind of thing?
No. Good question.
Is Rock lying about his birth order?
No, he is not. There was a change due to deaths in the family, but he did not lie.
There's a huge movement in the genre, almost away from heroic, truly good figures and it seems to me like a lot of your books are kind of, there is some darkness in them but you are holding really tight to the light… What do you think about the idea of the true heroic character and where they're going?
I think that people can be truly heroic and I'm happy that the genre has lots of room for different types of storytelling, but the books I'm most interested in are the ones that are people still trying to do what is right, and so that's what I want to write about.
When you write the Warbreaker sequel, will it be more focused on Vivenna, Vasher, and Nightblood, and will we learn why they got separated and how Nale found Nightblood?
That's the plan. It will definitely be Vivenna and Vasher. There will probably be mentions of Siri and Susebron but brief. They won't have--most likely--viewpoints. If they do it'll be like one little something, but I don't even plan that. And then yes, it will at least leave the implication of why what happened happened, if that makes sense. I may not get to the actual events but you will see, you know yeah.
So for big, big books like Stormlight, what is the ratio of time spent on the first draft versus on revisions, and has that changed over the course of your career?
Oh wow. They take more time in revision. They take more time at every step of the way than the shorter books. So a book like Calamity I can write pretty solidly, I can write 2 to 3 thousand words a day on that rough draft, and I spend two weeks on an outline and whatever that turns into it's only a couple months of writing. A Stormlight book, the plotting is so intricate it often takes me a year before I'm comfortable with the outline I'm working on-- so I will writing other stuff while working on this outline-- 'till I catch what the soul of that book is going to be, but then all of the interludes, and all of the things, and boy, every book we've had big portions we need to knock out and re-write. It just takes a long time. I would say 50% of the time I spend on-- You take the time I spend writing the first draft, cut it in half and that is the time I spend revising on your average book. But it really depends. Like Stormlight I started the outline last year, or a year ago in June, and started my first exploratory scenes--I posted a few of those online--then went back to the outline, and outlined for a year and then I felt good writing it. So I started that in June. I will write this all the way until March and then we will probably be revising it until six weeks before the book comes out, because that is the absolute deadline that Tor needs before they can print and distribute it *camera pans to Peter making a wryly amused expression* So that's about how long it will take to do this book. It's a lot of work. You know I like doing this because I like having multiple things going, right? Like I don't think I can write a Stormlight book every year, in fact I couldn't, that process I just outlined is a two and a half year process. So, it's just not something I could do. But during that two and a half years I can do some shorter books, some novellas, and just experimenting with different types of writing.
Who is Wit?
He is a character who has been in all of the books so far and is somehow getting between all of the different planets these are taking place on and is somehow surviving the fact that these books are hundreds of years apart.
I have a good idea that he's a Mistborn.
Well he did steal a bead of lerasium.
And he has extra Breath because he said it was easier with perfect pitch.
He did indeed say that didn't he... I will eventually write a book series that is about him, but it is a ways off.
What is a Mistcloak made of in real life? Like what is the closest material you’ve seen one be made of? Because I’m having the hardest time figuring out what material to use.
The Mistcloak is mainly made of cool stuff in my head that moves in ways that’s very hard to make. *laughter* But I would say the key component to the mistcloak is how it falls. And a lot of people have tried to use the stuff that has the wires at the sides of it, and I don’t actually think that works right. I would say that the key to the Mistcloak is getting it to fall kind of straight , but the tassles not being too stiff. So I would look for a medium weight material. So, I don’t even know what, but felt isn’t right. I’ve seen some people do felt, and it doesn’t look right. Felt’s too heavy.
I’ve seen good Mistcloaks, but I don’t know fabrics enough to say for sure. I’d have to have it before me and say “Yes” to this, or “No” to this.
Are the Dawnsingers an order of Knights Radiant?
No, they are not.
Is it at all possible for Kelsier to be reincarnated/posess someone/show up as a ghost/whatever and become a character in a future Mistborn book?
He's shown up before, so I'd say that's a pretty good indication for the future.
How much of the big cosmere stuff will be in Stormlight 3-5?
Not much. Just hints. The big cosmere stuff will come in Mistborn Era 3 and things more like Mistborn: Secret History for a long while. Some people just don't care about it.
The Nahel bond, what determines whether you get a Cryptic or an honorspren?
The spren themselves.
So it doesn't have to do with the Orders of the Knights Radiant?
If you match, you have to attract the spren, the same way you attract emotionspren, you have to attract the right spren for the Order.
Origin of Shardplate third book? Possibly? RAFO?
No, not quite. But hints?
Someone asked how much Sazed "cheated" when it came to the Metalborn distribution.
That was met by more mysterious smiles and even a bit of chuckling.
It is mentioned that the Entity is the compressed power of a destroyed plane. How does this happen? Why is it sentient? Why is one in a puddle on Innistrad? Are they related to the planar souls from M15?
Most of this will have to be revealed at a later date, but what I can say is that yes, M15 was the inspiration--and the creation of these entities happened through some very special circumstances.
With Stormlight, the better the gem is cut, the less Stormlight it leaks, and the longer it holds its charge. If a gem was perfectly cut, on a molecular scale, would it leak Stormlight at all?
In a theoretical flawless gem, then no it would not.
Would it actually give off light?
[...] Theoretically no it would not, but it's not what you're thinking...
No no no, that’s not what I’m thinking, I figured that’s something totally different.
Well, actually, it probably would still give off light, because it's drawing out of the Spiritual Realm. So I’d say it still lights, but it doesn't leak. The leaking is not where the illumination is coming from. The illumination is coming from a direct... It's basically a light bulb screwed into the Spiritual Realm.
Any sweet secrets you can share about Stormlight 3?? :)
Nope. I like my job, and I wanna keep it. :)
I only know a few secrets about Stormlight anyway, and I have no idea when or if Brandon will ever reveal 'em. I don't pry too deeply, because I enjoy reading the novels as much as anyone and I don't want too many spoilers (unless they're related to Shallan subjects).
You've said previously that the molecular structure of metals serve to act sort of like the Aons in AonDor. Why, then, can mists power Allomancy? Shouldn't the metals themselves be the things causing the powers? And if metals don't cause the effect, how can a non-Feruchemist burn a metalmind that has been 'unlocked' through identity tricks and get a boost of an attribute without Feruchemist sDNA?
I was trying to figure out how to answer this, and then I realized while driving to get a hair cut that you were regarding this wrong in a fundamental way. Remember, the source of power for Allomancy is EXTERNAL while the source for Feruchemy is INTERNAL. This is a fundamental difference discussed in the series.
When you burn metals, you're drawing power from another place. When you tap a metalmind, you are drawing power that the person has created--a battery developed by themselves, so to speak.
So I think that's going to answer the source of your confusion.
Did you struggle with the limits of the Magic world and magic system since you're so used to creating your own?
I worried about this a lot when going into the Wheel of Time--but I found that I really like taking an established magic system and pushing it this direction or that direction. It's a lot of fun to me to dig into how something works, and see if I can "break" it in interesting ways.
I suspected I'd have a similar experience with MTG, and I did--though I did need something I could play with to be unique. I settled on the kind of "Gonti/Nightveil Specter" ability to steal spells from someone else, then use them yourself. This was a really fun space for me to play with, and I found it thoroughly engaging.
Is there any requirement for how [a Bloodseal] is made, like location, like where the seal comes from?
Yes, there is some tradition tied to it, and that tradition is steeped in fact, but not all the traditions are necessary, if that makes sense. So they have more baggage to it than it actually needs, but some of the baggage has... Like the type of bone you're using, where you get the bone, and the location, and stuff is relevant, but some of the other things they put on it are not and also, it's not one hundred percent necessary.
So they think it might be necessary, but it's actually not?
Yes, yes.
When is the next book coming out?
The Rithmatist is the number one most requested sequel I get. This is probably because people know that I’m working on Stormlight, otherwise that would be the number one most requested. To understand, I have to tell you a story about where The Rithmatist came from. So after I finished Warbreaker, I very deliberately said, I want to write something else in the Cosmere, and maybe this is the time to write the backstory of a character named Hoid. So I sat down and tried to [...] write this book, which I called The Liar of Partinel. The book was a disaster. Sometimes even as a pro, books just don’t go well. I had a contract for it and everything. I was supposed to be writing this book, and then its sequel, and... big disaster. I finished the first book, I forced myself to finish it, but I had no desire to revise. It was just not what it needed to be. When I eventually write that story, people are going to be expecting a lot from it and it can’t be a half-hearted book, and it felt half-hearted.
So instead of [...] I told my editor, “oh yeah, I’ll be getting to that” and I wrote a [...] book, which was called Scribbler back then. Originally named Scribbler, and the origins for it were, the magic system is the start of this one, as you might be able to guess. I started doing these little drawings, which Ben McSweeney eventually re-drew to be a little bit better, but they started as my own drawing that we put between the chapters. But we started with those because I wanted to do something new with magic that I hadn’t done before. What I realized is that I never made a book where the magic was used to play games. We as human beings, we play games with everything. We turn anything into a game. This is a hallmark of humankind, we play with stuff. When we’re no longer killing each other, we come up with jousting, so we can make that a game. The idea of basically playing magical Starcraft on the ground around you was really interesting to me.
So I started doing all these drawings and writing this book without telling my editor or anybody I was writing this book. Wonderful experience. The book came out very very well, it just came together. It’s one of those books, you don’t expect it, I didn’t have long term plans, I hadn’t worked on an outline for years and years, I discovery wrote most of the book. About the time I had to go to my editor and tell him, “I’ve written a book on accident”, I think I sent you The Rithmatist, right Joshua?
I said I wrote this book on accident, right around that time, I got a phone call from Harriet McDougal, who’s Robert Jordan’s widow. She said, it’s a long story but it ended with me on the phone with her, because she’d left me a voicemail and I’d missed it, but I eventually got a hold of her, and she said, “Well I was just wondering if you would be willing to finish my husband’s series, the Wheel of Time”. To which I responded, “dakjs;dlfj;alkna;sdf” [verbal keyboard smash basically]. I really did. I wrote her an email the next saying, “Dear Harriet, I promise I’m not an idiot.” But the book that got left hanging was The Rithmatist. Liar of Partinel I was happy to shelve and do nothing with. It wasn’t a good book. Rithmatist was. But I knew that if I were stopping to do the Wheel of Time that I would not have the time to do a Rithmatist sequel for a while. Because my career so far had gone standalone, series, standalone, and then I was looking to do another series, which is why I tried Liar of Partinel.
Once I did Wheel of Time, I said now is the time to do Way of Kings, which I had been putting off for a while cause my skills weren’t capable. I tried it and it hadn’t worked and I was like, I need to get better as a writer. But I was pretty sure I could do it, so I sandwiched Way of Kings in between two Wheel of Time books. But then I had The Way of Kings going and people expecting those, which is a good thing I got started on it because it’s a long series. If I were still putting it off, we might have troubles when it actually came out. So eventually, Rithmatist, I need to release this book, it’s really good, people are going to like this. So I gave it to Tor and had them release it. But the problem is, when am I going to do a sequel? It had been a little side project in the first place that I’d done instead of writing something else.
I found time about 3 years ago. I took out my outline. My process often is, I will write a first book, then I will outline a series for it, then I will revise the first book to match the outline. I did this with Mistborn, I did it with the Reckoners, and I had gotten as far as outlining for the second book of The Rithmatist. I sat down to write it and I didn’t like the outline anymore. There were some things wrong with it. One, I had grown a lot as a writer. One, I don’t know if you guys discussed this, but the Rithmatist as a whole, it’s a great book but there’s a big danger zone in it. And that is, how do you treat indigenous people during the area of colonialism? There’s a big big minefield there, and the second book’s goal was to start dealing with that minefield, and I felt my outline for the second book did not do that respectfully. As I had grown as a writer, when I looked at the outline, and I was like, I cannot write this book because I’m not treating the original inhabitants of America’s cultures well enough. So I stopped and I read three books on Aztec culture. The second book is called The Aztlanian. Aztlan is the mythical origin of the Aztecs, it’s where their legends say they came from. If I’m dealing with real world mythology, that minefield grows so much bigger. You gotta do it right. This is something I wanted to do right. So I read a bunch of books. I rebuilt my outline, I felt really good about it, but there was no more time to write. I had a month or two left, so I wrote the fifth Alcatraz book instead. I can do those in a month or so, but this I knew was going to take three to four months, so I put it off again.
I’m still looking for a hole in my schedule. The new outline for The Aztlanian is very good, it’s solid, I feel like I’ve got a handle on how to write it in a sensitive way, because we don’t want to avoid difficult topics in science fiction and fantasy. If we do that, it’s just the same as it’s always been. But if you are going to touch on sensitive topics, you need to do it really well. I really like where it is now, but when am I going to write The Aztlanian? I don’t know yet. The answer to you is, when am I going to do this? I have to find a time between my mainline projects, which right now are Stormlight Archive for Tor, alternating with Mistborn novels, and for Random house it’s the Reckoners books and that sequence. In between one of those times, I will find some time to The Aztlanian, and I will do it, and I hope it will be awesome, but I don’t know when that is.
This is the book I’ve left hanging the most. Most everything else is a side project or it’s the Alcatraz books, which I’m making fun of people by taking a long long time, it’s intentional. If you haven’t read those books, they’re very different from everything else that I’ve done. The whole point is to make fun of the reader while the reader reads them. Every book plays some sort of dirty trick on the reader. The fifth book ends on a huge huge huge down note with the author, who’s Alcatraz, of the book saying “I’m not going to write any more, sorry guys”. But then there’s a little footnote at the end, one of the other characters like, “I’ll write the story so you get an actual ending.” Jokes like that on the reader, and the fact that it’s taking forever is part of the joke. Rithmatist is the one I actually feel bad about.
AETHER was the best of the patch of three you read. During that period, I was trying to force myself to write shorter books (ala 500 pages) because I thought the beastly lengths of some of my novels (DRAGONSTEEEL 1100, ELANTRIS 1200, WHITE SAND 1000) was keeping me from getting published.
What I learned was I just wasn't good at the shorter format. What happened was that instead of just writing a shorter book, I ended up short-changing something vital (Characters for MISTBORN, world elements and plotting for FINAL EMPIRE) in my attempt to slim-down. AETHER came in the middle of the patch there, and it actually turned out longer than the other two, and worked all right. (The female character was weak, ending needs a lot of work, but it's not a lost cause like the other two.)
New writers be aware (my agent tried to warn me of this): don't try and write in a way that you're just not good at. You can try to adapt to the market a bit, choosing one idea instead of another because you know the first is more marketable. However, if you force your writing too much, it will suffer.
What made you decide to split Stormlight into two arcs?
A bunch of things. I'd say the primary one is that when I tried to write the Way of Kings in 2002, the first version of it, the book failed. I finished the whole book, but it failed and the primary reason for that was because I had too many viewpoints doing too man things in too many places and the reader wasn't able to follow it and it didn't give a satisfying arc to anybody because there was like a little piece of a story instead of a complete story, so I spent many years trying to figure out why it wasn't working and one of the things i came up with that i should take some of the characters and tell their stories and then take some of the others and tell their stories later.
That natural division became very obvious to me when I was re-outlining the series using this idea. That I could do a Dalinar, Kaladin, Shallan type thing and then save the Herald's viewpoints for the second half, does that makes sense. So that will... it should feel very natural. It should be some changes that indicate separate series but same... anyways, I'm please with how the outline looks.
This chapter in particular was a challenge to write. My experience with Sazed in The Hero of Ages warned me that a character deep in depression can be a difficult and dangerous thing to write. Depression is a serious challenge for real people—and therefore also for characters. Additionally, it pushes a character not to act.
Inactive characters are boring, and though I wanted to start Kaladin in a difficult place, I didn't want him to be inactive. So how did I go about making scenes of a depressed fallen hero locked in a cage interesting and active? The final result might not seem like much in the scope of the entire novel, but these chapters are some of the ones I'm the most proud of. I feel I get Kaladin and his character across solidly while having him actually do things—try to save the other slave, rip up the map, etc.
Syl, obviously, is a big part of why these scenes work. She is so different from the rest of what's happening, and she has such stark progress as a character, that I think she "saves" these chapters.
You might be interested to know, then, that she was actually developed for a completely different book in the cosmere. I often speak about how books come together when different ideas work better together than they ever did separate. Kaladin and Syl are an excellent example of this. He didn't work in The Way of Kings Prime, and her book just wasn't going anywhere. Put them together, and magic happened. (Literally and figuratively.)
Can you tell me how long it was from the Shattering of Adonalsium to the prelude of The Way of Kings when the Heralds abandoned the Oathpact?
Current timeline, which I have NOT canonized, is around 6,000 years... I have not finished with my outline document yet.
'Cause I've looked at the current chronology and it's very, very spotty...
Yes it is... the real trick is... making sure that I fit in, for instance, White Sand and things with the proper amount... because I haven't released that book series yet, I have to make sure while we're doing the graphic novel, that it fits the chronology, which is why I can't quite canonize things yet.
That one takes place before Way of Kings doesn't it?
Yes
'Cause I know one of the worldhoppers from there shows up in Way of Kings...
Yeah, White Sand is one of the very earliest.
Were the aliens in Sixth of the Dusk from [Scadrial]?
RAFO. :)
All I've said is that they're from a planet you've seen/heard of before.
Given the Sibling, and the Death Rattle about how "Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns", was there a third Shard on Roshar with Honor and Cultivation prior to Odium's arrival?
RAFO.
Good question.
Oh! Did Ati- We see Elend and Vin in that kind of holding pattern with Sazed at the end, did Ati perish? Or did he also stay in the holding pattern?
Ati perished. He is gone.
Just wondering, are you ever going to go back and write about The Further Adventures of Lestibournes? I think his character is pivotal to the Mistborn trilogy and felt cheated that the trilogy mostly focused on Vin, Kel, Sazed, and Elend. I would like to know more of his backstory and how he became the stud that he is.
He became quite the 'stud' in the years following the first trilogy. I might be persuaded to show some of this at some point. He also knew many things he really should not have.
Chapter Ten
The Carriage Ride to the Forge
Note that Wayne sleeping here is a side effect of him getting really sickly for a short time, trying to recover a bit of healing power. Marasi thinks he's just relaxed, which . . . well, he kind of is, but he wouldn't be sleeping right now save for the effects of his Feruchemy.
As another side note, the city really is as miraculous as Marasi thinks to herself. Sazed created an Eden-esque little section of land here, a place of extreme bounty and fertility, in order to cradle the regrowth of mankind. The actual science (such that it is) of it has to do with the mists bringing fresh water and hugging the ground extra strongly here, as well as some molds that refertilize the ground.
Marewill flowers are named after Kelsier's wife. (Spook, the Lord Mistborn, came up with the name—as well as naming a lot of the things that held out until this time, such as the months of the year.) The other little worldbuilding item of note here is the idea of what Wayne calls the "God Beyond," which is an idea that has begun to creep into society, the idea that there is a greater God of the universe beyond people like Harmony or Kelsier. It's somewhat analogous to some of the Gnostic beliefs in early Christianity.
How do you hint at something, like you hinted at some characters in Shadows of Self without making it feel forced?
This is all the sort of thing that you judge using early readers. You put in what you feel is right, you have them read it and give you responses to it, and then you back off if they're feeling like it's too heavy handed, and you add more if they're not noticing at all. And that is the best way to learn this, just by getting test readers. Because your own instincts are kind of hard to trust on things like foreshadowing and things like this. So yeah, just get some good early readers and see what they do.
When writing, do you ever encounter a problem where you're building a world or writing a book is very similar to other things going on in popular culture, something like that? How do you build your world to be different from those, so it doesn't feel similar?
Artists and writers are more afraid, in my experience, of being thought derivative than they generally should be. A lot of times what you'll see is, people who have a similar sort of background and are reading the same sort of things will start to create things that are similar. There's a reason Brent Weeks and I both released color-based magic system books within a year of each other. And it's not because we were talking; we didn't even know each other then. But we both grew up reading the same sort of things and were exploring magic in the same ways.
I don't think you need to stress this nearly as much as you do. At least as much as you probably do. My experience has been that the only thing that's really gonna be original about your story is you. And you are going to add things to this story. Look at the number of people who have told Beauty and the Beast in different ways. Or Cinderella. We had a Cinderella book become one of the biggest books of the year just a few years back, in Cinder. You are going to be able to add things. If you have early readers say, "This feels derivative." You can always change that, or you can always write something else. Don't stress it. Write the book you want to write, and train yourself to be a writer, and it really isn't gonna be as big a problem as you might think it is. It wouldn't matter, for instance, if you released a book the same year as Mistborn that had a metal-based magic system. Like, X-Men has a character with a metal-based magic, and it was the biggest movie of the year a couple a years before Mistborn came out, and people don't read Mistborn and be like, "Wow, that's just Magneto, only lamer." *laughter* Thankfully, they don't say that. So, don't worry about this as much as you might.
What's your Smedry talent?
...I usually say "being long-winded." But the truth is, when I wrote the books, I kind of did all the stuff that I do as the first powers. So I'm habitually late, bad at dancing, good at breaking things... But if you actually go "What's the core one," probably being long-winded. I can say things that could be said in one word, in seventeen instead.
Excited about a Sixth of the Dusk sequel someday!
Really hope I can find time for it. He goes to explore Shadesmar...
In Mistborn Era 2 Marsh has a pouch with some atium leftovers. If he burns a bead occasionally (and hereby burns a part of Ruin's body) does this weaken the Ruin part of Harmony/Sazed somehow?
Technically yes, but it's too little atium to make any difference.
I first asked about Lines of Forbiddance and the timing of the generation of the field particularly in reference to things like a Marks Cross or just general crossing Lines of Forbiddance.
Rithmatics was originally designed as a cosmere magic system and is very cognitively (not the terminology he used, but the essence is the same) based. The line (speaking of all Rithmatic lines) takes effect when the Rithmatist thinks it should. A line could begin to take effect before the drawing of the line is completed.
Any chance of any new Wheel of Time materials?
Not likely... not definitive, it's up to Harriet. I'm worried that he wouldn't want us to do anymore.
<Yeah, that's the thing>
And so, I have told her that I don't think I would want to do anymore, but if Harriet came out and said "I really feel we should do the prequels", then they could happen, I think it's very unlikely, but...
The prequels were <written> by Jordan?
Yes, he did, he has a little bit about them, not very much but a little bit. He did want them to come out sometime, so it’s possible.
