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The Ten Orders of Knights Radiant ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Windrunner

I will protect

Windrunner oaths are themed toward protection, particularly defending innocents or those who are unable to protect themselves.

The Windrunners tend to attract “big sibling” types, who seek to protect the defenseless, but also enjoy action and fighting for what they believe in. They’re primarily scouts, though they often work as special forces groups, able to deliver teams of Radiants behind enemy lines for secret missions. They tend to be the most like conventional soldiers, believing in structures of command, team dynamics, and the importance of a squad of brothers and sisters. They often have larger numbers of squires than other Orders and focus more than any other Order on mastering their weapons.

YouTube Livestream 5 ()
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Questioner

Characters in your own books that are the hardest to write?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't really even approach that way; it's hard for me to answer. Because characters are not on a difficulty level for me as characters. Some sequences with given characters are difficult to write. Sazed in Book Three of Mistborn is a great example, because what Sazed is going through is a difficult thing to make interesting on the page, and that was a big challenge. Dalinar in Way of Kings was difficult to write, for the same reasons. What he's going through was a tough sort of thing to convey in a way that is engaging for readers. So, some things can have a challenge.

Lately, Shallan tends to be the toughest, just balancing all of her different alters and things like that. It is a challenge.

Skyward release party ()
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Questioner

In Oathbringer, Taravangian tells Dalinar that there is metal falling from the sky, anything more on that?

Brandon Sanderson

The rainfall on Roshar is full of elements; and metal is not maybe not 100% accurate. But crem, that solidifies, comes down with the rain water.

Questioner

He says that's what they were using to make half-shards.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you're talking about that! I'll RAFO that for now.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

The thing that struck me is the concept of Stormlight *audio obscured* stand up *audio obscured* more powerful *audio obscured* stand up to it.

Brandon Sanderson

If you stand up to it?

Questioner

*audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

There is definitely a [view?] with the Parshendi, you need to go in and stand up to get what happens, yes.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing ()
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Brandon Sanderson

For the recording and for the sake of you, Peter and I have a big document that talks about all these mechanics [of blank identity and metalminds]. It's entirely possible that when I'm actually sitting down and building future Mistborn, like 1980s technology, that I'm like "Ahh some of this needs tweaking". So what's not expressly in the books, that I'm telling you guys, has not...I mean it's like 90% canon but it's possible that I'm like "Ahh this is just not going to work" because when we get to the actual plotting of that and future Mistborn, science fiction Mistborn, I'm going to have to look at that and decide, how is the power ratio, right, am I breaking the economy by doing these things. So things that I just have instincts on right now, I haven't worked out the economics of. 

Questioner

So that'll come later.

Brandon Sanderson

That'll come later in the series, so I'm just giving myself some wiggle room on some of these things, but that's how I have it in my head right now.

Skyward Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

In Elantris, there's the three ways that AonDor's manifested. Through the Aons, through the Dakhor, through the ChayShan. With Emperor's Soul, there's two major ones that we see with the Forging and Bloodsealing. And also that parallels with, there's one -- kind of like, in Mistborn where there's one that's positive, one that's neutral, one that's negative. Where does the third one fit in on the Emperor's Soul side?

Brandon Sanderson

Emperor's Soul, there are way more. It's not a split of the three.

JordanCon 2016 ()
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Questioner

Have Hoid and Sazed, since he became Harmony, had a conversation?

Brandon Sanderson

Um… yes, that has happened.

Questioner

Was it meaningful?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, Hoid considers everything meaningful.

Questioner

Of course he does. Would Sazed consider it meaningful?

Brandon Sanderson

Ok, Sazed considers every individual important.

Supanova 2017 - Sydney ()
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Questioner (paraphrased)

I just got a job as an editor. What advice can you give me about my job from the perspective of an author?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The editor's job is to figure out what the author is trying to do, and how to help them make a better book than the author has written. Get them to try out options even when they don't want to listen or change the parts that don't work.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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mikkomikk

SKYWARD QUESTION! I've just read the prologue, did you do anything special to get in to the mind of a 7 yr old girl? Any inspirations for Spensa?

Brandon Sanderson

This one took a few tries--you can probably find earlier readings of it where the age was different, and the speech style was different. As with most things, it's a matter of trying something out, then looking for feedback.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Mistwraiths are a hold-over from Mistborn Prime. They did more in that book than they do in this novel, but I thought they were an interesting world element. In fact, in Mistborn Prime, the hero fights one. It was a kind of fun scene, as the Mistwraith tried to ingest him. However, I couldn't really see the things being dangerous enough to threaten a Mistborn, so I turned them into more scavengers in this novel.

Oathbringer release party ()
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Questioner

Any plans for a Mistborn, or just Cosmere, collectible card game?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, yes. Asterisk. It's a hard thing to get going. It would probably be more like a deck building game than a CCG, just 'cause we would sell a box set of something you could draft or something like that, rather than trying to go the whole CCG route.

TWG Posts ()
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Peter Ahlstrom

Dark One. What is it?

Brandon Sanderson

YA novel I'm working on. I have a few sample chapters, if you want them. I may have to change the title, though, since a very dissimilar book just came out with a close title.

I'd rather not talk about the book too much, since I won't be able to get to it for a while, and I'd like to keep the ideas off the internet for a bit.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, anyone here can have the sample chapters if they want. In fact, anyone can have sample chapters of any of my books. I send those out pretty freely. I'm just not sure I want to go posting the ideas for this one about yet.

Also, if anyone wants any of my old books--anything pre-WAY OF KINGS--you need but ask. Most of them won't ever get published in their current form. So, if you're ever board, you can read an old, unpublished Brandon novel.

The complete Brandon Library is:

1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel)

2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.)

3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime)

4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.)

5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors)

6) Elantris (You have to buy this one!)

7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic fantasy)

8) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt)

9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.)

10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.)

11) Mistborn Prime (Eventually stole this world.)

12) Final Empire Prime (Cannibalized for book 14 as well.)

13) The Way of Kings (Fantasy War epic. Coming in 2008 or 2009)

14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Coming June 2006)

15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Early 2007)

16) Alcatraz Initiated (YA Fantasy. Being shopped to publishers)

17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages (Unfinished. Â Coming late 2007)

18) Dark One (Unfinished. YA fantasy)

19) Untitled Aether Project (Two sample chapters only.)

Oathbringer Portland signing ()
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Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

If Nightblood were in the cognitive realm and was used to stab a bead that was the cognitive representation of a castle, would the castle be destroyed in the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

If you could get Nightblood into the Cognitive Realm, then yes. 

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

What would happen to people who were in the castle at the time? 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

They wouldn't be affected (other than possibly plummeting to their death).

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

How about a carpet that had been in the castle for 50 years? 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, 50 years most likely wouldn't be enough time. 

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine (paraphrased)

Is this like the "Ship of Theseus?" 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes

Alcatraz Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Oculator's Duel

It’s always fun when you can have two wizards battle it out. I was never pleased with the scene of Gandalf and Saruman fighting in the Lord of the Rings movies. It just didn’t feel like a wizard battle to me.

The trick is, I’ve never seen that sort of thing depicted well in a movie. I don’t know why, but the special effects never work. It comes off looking dumb. (The same thing happened in Willow.)

I want it to be tense, to have power flowing–but the real effort has to be internal. Having wizards being pushed against walls and things just seems undignified. I would rather it be a battle of wills than a battle of walls.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

What happens when a... spren picks up a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

What do you mean picks up a Shard? Shardblade or Shard of Adonalsium?

Questioner

Picks up a Shard of Adonalsium.

Brandon Sanderson

A spren is a Shard of Adonalsium so it just--

Questioner

Picks up one of the big ones like could a spren do the same thing that Kelsier's spirit did after he--

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitantly* It's like you're asking if electricity can gain a charge of electricity and get electrified. Does that make sense? I mean-- It's a question that doesn't make a lot of sense.

If a Shard were to somehow-- They would just combine into a bigger Shard and get larger-- if that makes sense?

Questioner

The foundation of that question was I thought that maybe the Stormfather spren was basically doing what Kelsier's spirit did.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, um *sighs* Not really... It's really a not really There's some similarities but it's a not really. It's not quite a RAFO though. more of a--

Questioner

More of a "doesn't quite work that way".

Brandon Sanderson

--doesn't quite work that way but you're thinking along the right lines?

Words of Radiance San Diego signing ()
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Leinton (paraphrased)

Can Breath be used to power Surgebinding?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

They are very similar Investitures, and most of the magics can be powered with the other magics if you are capable of making that happen.

Questioner (paraphrased)

What would happen to the Breath?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Breath would be consumed in the same way that Stormlight is. A renewing resource, much like atium is.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

Can someone be sacrificed for both Hemalurgy and the magics of Dakhor simultaneously?

Brandon Sanderson

So this is going to require the soul being ripped apart, so it depends on what pieces of the soul are left and how easily you can capture them. That's a theoretical possible-- possibility... Know that most of the horrors of Dakhor are twisting a soul not stealing a soul.

Words of Radiance Omaha signing ()
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Questioner

*inaudible* this thing I have fallen in love with *inaudible* when you're the only one that knows that you can only talk about...

Brandon Sanderson

I end up RAFOing a lot. "Read and find out". I do a lot of that.  

Questioner

Will it ever be in print or will it always be a backstory...

Brandon Sanderson

There will be several series about the cosmere, but they're a little ways off.  

Miscellaneous 2016 ()
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Peter Ahlstrom

The [Scadrian] calendars don't appear in Arcanum Unbounded, but they're mentioned on the map as old calendar/new calendar. Since the Lord Ruler actually kept the calendar the same, what this is referring to is only the placement of seasons, since those have to change from year to year because of the orbit.

Elantris Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

It's a tie–best cheesy line from this chapter.

FINALIST NUMBER ONE:

He half-smiled, his eyes unconvinced. Then, however, he regarded her with an unreadable expression. "Well, I suppose the time during your Trial wasn't a complete loss. I gained something very important during those weeks."

"The supplies?" Sarene asked.

"That too."

FINALIST NUMBER TWO:

"When I opened my eyes, I thought that time I had died for certain." (Remember, when this happened, Raoden was laying on his back. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he would have seen was Sarene's face hovering above him.)

What can we learn from this? That people who are falling in love are utter cheese-heads.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy-Two - Part Two

Marsh and the Earring

Also, here we get a Marsh viewpoint. It's almost our last one. (I think there is one more in the next chapter.)

He didn't get much screen time, but I hope that what he did get led you to this climax for him. Spook's letter wasn't in vain, though I take delight in knowing that some of my alpha readers were convinced it had been.

I've been told my endings are a little too neat sometimes. Well, that might be valid criticism. However, I prefer it for this particular book. After three novels of building and foreshadowing, I can finally make good on promises and threads I began way back in book one. There's a reason I included that scene with Marsh and Vin on the balcony of Mansion Renoux. Marsh had to know how she'd gotten her earring.

You can probably see it now. Vin's mother, who was schizophrenic, was corrupted by Ruin, who spoke in her mind. He got her to love her first daughter, but hate her second—to see the second as a repulsive monster. In her insanity, she killed the second daughter by cutting open her chest and ramming a pin through her heart. Then, she stuck that same pin into Vin's ear, turning it into an earring.

Reen, the older brother—not even a teenager at that point—stumbled in upon this scene, and it nearly snapped his mind. That night he took Vin and ran.

Vin's mother was tracked down by the Inquisitors a short time after that. Fortunately for Vin, her father had realized he was in trouble and ordered his own lover executed. His assassins got to her just before the Inquisitors, and all they found was a corpse.

YouTube Livestream 8 ()
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Tony Irene

Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration of Wayne, and if that was perhaps based off someone you know?

Brandon Sanderson

The fun story about Wayne, the beginnings of Alloy of Law were a short story that I wrote where Wayne was the protagonist, and MeLaan was his trusty steed in a horse's body. It was a guy who put on different hats to change personalities, riding into a small town in the Roughs, talking to his horse. Who, then, at the end of the first scene, talked back to him. It was a fun scene. It was way too weird. After I finished that scene, I'm like, "This guy is great. But this guy needs someone else to play off of. And it can't be his talking horse, because this story is just too out there."

Why did I start writing that story? The initial idea is a person who changes personalities based on hats. You put on a hat, and it lets you kind of have a focus for your acting, to get into a role and become someone. That was really fun to me. In fact, in the original story, he was a hatmaker. He was a haberdasher. And he understood people by the headgear that they like.

Which, if gonna be honest and trace it back, probably goes back to Thrawn. I love Thrawn, from the original Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn. And Thrawn was somebody who would look at the art that a culture produces and use that to come to understand them in ways that he could then use to conquer them. Which was just always so cool to me. Like, that's one of the coolest villain concepts, is this art appreciation villain who really gets to know a culture by studying their art, and then crushes them and dominates them. Just wonderful.  I'm always kind of looking for characters who see the world in an interesting way. That's probably it. I don't think I was thinking that when I came up with Wayne.

But then, Wayne needed someone to bounce off against. Wayne needed a straight man, so to speak. And he just wasn't working. So that's when I started plotting Alloy of Law, the actual novel. The short story did not become the novel. The short story taught me that there was enough there that I was interested in that I really wanted to tell a story in this era. And it told me that there's something about this character that's gonna work if I can find the right vehicle to include them in a story.

That's our origins of Wayne. I think I can probably also look at the Sherlock Holmes dynamic, Sherlock and Watson. Any time I'm building a mystery duo or team, there's a bit of Sherlock and Watson going around in the back of my head.

Warbreaker Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna Picks Berries

One aspect of the worldbuilding I barely get to talk about is the Idrian monks. I really liked the concept of a group of monks whose duties weren't very religious. Rather than sitting in a monastery all day, their duties are essentially to act as servants to the kingdom's poor. (Not to say that monks in our world don't do that. However, I liked the concept of it being much more formalized.)

In Idris, if a man breaks his leg and can't work the field, a monk will come and take his place on the job. The wages for that work still go to the family of the man who has been hurt. Sometimes, if a father dies and cannot support his family, a monk is assigned permanently to take his place at work duties and provide for that man's family.

They go wherever they are needed, forbidden to own or possess anything themselves, giving all they have to the people. Now, of course, not everyone who becomes a monk fits the ideal. Without the pressures of needing to feed one's self or acquire goods, some of them can be kind of lazy. But many are very diligent, like Fafen.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

When Galladon appears in Way of Kings why is his skin not silvery?

Brandon Sanderson

When Galladon appears in The Way of Kings why is his skin not silvery. That's a RAFO but there is a good reason for it.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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WritesGeekyStuff

1) What is the name for a Tineye/Archivist Twinborn?

2) How would copper compounding work for a double copper Twinborn? Would you relive the memories stored in the burned copperminds extra vividly?

Brandon Sanderson

1) I'm not ready to open the floodgates for giving names to each twinborn combination yet. So RAFO.

2) Another RAFO here. I'll delve into these ideas when/if I do this combination in a book series.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A ()
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Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

As it turns out, there is an error in the Feruchemical table when Brandon put it in Mistborn 2. If you look closely, Determination (electrum) doesn't belong in its group. The group that it is in is obviously more physical powers. Determination was supposed to be a mental metal, and Warmth was supposed to be in that Physical group. He just made a mistake originally. But it turns out that Feruchemy obeys different rules than Allomancy, so Brandon isn't retconning it, but saying that Feruchemy works differently now. Apparently there was going to be a table of Feruchemy at the end of Alloy of Law, but it wasn't ready because Isaac kept thinking like an Allomancer. Feruchemy has its own rules (for example, Brandon confirmed that pewter does steal Feruchemical health, probably because that second group of physical Feruchemical powers are also "physical", so pewter can steal them.) Hemalurgy also obeys different rules.

General Reddit 2018 ()
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Phantine

Marsh treats seeking and smoking as an either/or

And what would be the greater advantage? Being immune to — but ignorant of — some Soother's attentions? Or instead knowing — from your bronze — exactly which emotions he is trying to suppress?

If you could do both at the same time what he's saying doesn't really make sense.

In addition, Vin switches off her copper before burning bronze and vice versa

TFE:

Curious, Vin extinguished her copper for a moment, burning bronze instead, trying to sense Breeze's use of Allomancy. No pulses came from him. Of course, she thought. I forgot about Clubs's apprentice— he'd keep me from sensing any Allomantic pulses. She turned her copper back on.

and

Let's try something, then, Vin thought, extinguishing her bronze. She lightly began burning copper to mask her Allomancy.

WoA:

The Thugs charged, but Vin retreated, frowning. Why kill the Smoker? He wasn't a threat anymore.

Unless. . .

Vin extinguished her copper, then burned bronze, the metal that let her sense when other Allomancers were using powers nearby. She couldn't feel the Thugs burning pewter. They were still being Smoked, their Allomancy hidden.

Someone else was burning copper.

and

She still wanted to find those Allomancers, and there was only one way to be certain. She turned off her copper, then burned bronze.

It would be extremely odd for Vin to keep doing this if the powers didn't interfere with each other. Maybe /u/peterahlstrom can put the topic to rest?

Peter Ahlstrom

The seeker being at the soothing station is an interesting example. I want to say they might be able to sense from outside the coppercloud, but that contradicts that secondhand WoB. I also don't think the soother and smoker were on the lower floors. It says those are unused.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

Is it possible to Compound your Spiritual Connection to a location on a planet while storing your Spiritual Connection to all other locations on the planet to kind of pull yourself through the Spiritual Realm to that location?

Brandon Sanderson

That's not how that would work. Parts of what you say are possible, but the teleportation aspect wouldn't actually do anything.

Questioner

Was Hoid trying to Compound his Spiritual location in the scene you added in the 10th Anniversary [Elantris]? Was he trying to Compound Connection to that location to try to become Elantrian?  

Brandon Sanderson

...So at that point chronologically he was not an Allomancer.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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VindicationKnight

Do you mind telling us what the average number of Knights for a Knight Radiant Order were (barring Bondmiths) and possibly how close the different orders worked together?

Brandon Sanderson

It varied very widely, and depended on many factors. At their highest, some orders had members in the low thousands.

Words of Radiance Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

Safehands: Where did, that-- like why? Is there like a cultural *inaudible*?

Brandon Sanderson

There is a culture-- Now the actual answer to that is because different cultures have really different mores, and if you go around our world you will find places where, for instance, showing the bottom of your foot-- where the bottom of your foot is offensive, or where showing certain parts of your anatomy is not offensive that it is here. And that is very common, it's part of what it means to be human.

Now if you want to trace back in Rosharan time, there is actually a moment that you can point at and say "this is where it started" and it started right after the Recreance where all these Shardblades and Shardplate were suddenly out there everywhere, and certain people in power wanted to make sure that half the population didn't have access to them, and so they started emphasizing a certain philosophy book that had been written by a woman that said "feminine arts were one-handed, masculine arts were two-handed".

And because of this it became culturally ingrained, which then-- basically it was a misogynistic ploy to keep the women from having the Shardblades, and then in that a certain movement of the women seized writing, and that's when men stopped writing. It's kind of a reciprocation on it. But that's kind of where it went, but it's become much bigger than that, if that makes any sense.

Questioner

What do you do if you safehand is your dominant hand?

Brandon Sanderson

If you are darkeyed it's not a problem, you just wear a glove. If you are lighteyed then you learn to write with your non-dominant hand, which is a problem.

Footnote: The book here is likely Arts and Majesty, referenced in WoR 25
#safehands
Skyward San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

When you're thinking about parallel stories and writing them, how do you keep them disparate so that you don't have characters from one story overlapping with another story...

Brandon Sanderson

This is a balancing act I perform when writing big, long books, because a lot of times for narrative reasons, it is better to write them "this set of characters, then the next set, then this set, then that", and go back and forth, but a lot of times, for continuity of theme and character building, it is better to write them straight through, right, that one character's throughline, so you make sure it has an emotional arc to it. And the longer the book gets, the more delicate that balancing act gets, right?

So on a Stormlight book, I usually split the book in my head into three parts, like I write a trilogy of books, and then bind them together as one, with a short story collection making up the interludes and things. And I usually would go, alright, part one, Kaladin from beginning to end of part one. Part one, Shallan from beginning to end of part one. Now I will weave these chapters together and I will read through for theme and make sure that the pacing is working, because the pacing and tone can really get messed up when you're doing that.

Fun story about that: A Memory of Light, I did this with some of the things, and I was weaving them together for the prologue, and two of the things I was weaving together, was characters getting engaged, it was the ladies making a bridal wreath to give to Rand, and the other was the fall of Caemlyn and the people who were trying to live as things were happening there. Not to go into too many spoilers, but it was a really dynamic action sequence, with a lot of terrible things happening, and when I wove those two together, the tone whiplash was terrible. And it was like, one of the worst parts of the book was "here's a happy thing where we're gonna get engaged, now this person dies, then we go back to this happy thing". *crowd laughs* So I had to yank the engagement sequence from the book, because there was no tonal place in that novel where it could go that it wouldn't do that.

And so you run into that trouble, but I think that with the longer books, what you're noticing, keeping the characters' throughline consistent is the more important factor. It's a lot easier, I think, to fix pacing and tone by where you move the chapters and what you cut out and what you add in in revision.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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MarlonRand

Additionally, how much time would you say that you spend researching on any given work, and what are some of the things that you research?

Brandon Sanderson

That one's really too hard to judge.

Research for me is on-going for any given work, and I don't track how much time I spend on it. Generally, I dig into specific topics when the need arises, then do more 'cast out the net' general reading for ideas the rest of the time. Generally, I'll only dig in deeply if a topic is important to a specific story. (Such as—for Mistborn—researching canals or the effects of being made a eunuch at various ages.)

Ben McSweeney AMA ()
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_0_-o--__-0O_--oO0__

What is the best and worst part about working with Sanderson?

Ben McSweeney

Hmmm... best part is working with someone who genuinely loves what they do, and they're really, really good at it, and even better he's got a plan to keep doing it. It makes him a very inspirational partner.

Worst part... well, with the touring and so forth, sometimes it's really hard to get time where we can actually talk, even by phone. Unlike the rest of the team I don't live in the same city as Brandon, so aside from those few occasions when we're attending a con or his tour comes nearby, almost all our communication is by email. And that's a little frustrating, 'cause I genuinely like the guy on a personal level.

Brandon and I talk pretty steadily during production, but that's business and only takes place for a few months of the year. Most of the time I talk to Isaac, he has the patience of a saint.