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Luke Beartline

Along the lines of BioChromatic Breath being akin to a person's soul, how would a Shardblade react to someone who does not have any Breath, would it cut them like an inanimate object?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Remember, one of the things with Breath is I consider Breath to be a part of someone's soul, but it is the extra part that the Cosmere has that non-Cosmere doesn't have. I don't know how far I want to lean into this, but there is definitely a part of me that thinks that Drabs, people who have given up their breath on Nalthis, are just like people from our world. That's what they are, that if we went to the Cosmere we would all be Drabs. Even on planets that aren't Nalthis, where you can't take part of that and give it away and things like that, people are invested. They are invested generally more than here.

Why do I do this? There's a couple reasons. One, it's really convenient for some narrative reasons. A lot of books I'm writing are these kind of action-adventure stories, and can human beings actually take the punishment that is delivered, let's say to Adolin in the end of Oathbringer? *noncommital negative sounds* He doesn't come off well from that, but could a human being really take that? I go back and forth. Humans are capable of some pretty incredible feats, particularly with adrenaline driving them, but my kind of blanket answer is everyone in the Cosmere has got a bit more Investiture; everyone's got something like Breath. Nalthians have something kind of extra special because they can use it in different ways, but everybody's got something like that.

It's leading to the fact that for instance, I highlighted this in the books, this part is canon: There are things about Rosharans that make it so that a lot of diseases have trouble getting a foothold. You do not have the bubonic plague on Roshar. You could maybe say this is because they are not living in close enough proximity to mammals for diseases to hop species as happens on our planet, which is a pretty valid point. Things that affect a horse or a cow (a lot of different diseases from cows come to us), things that affect a cow are much more likely to be able to affect a human than something that affects a chull being able to affect a human. Totally valid, but I also think that there is something more going on here.

This allows me to do fantasy stories where... In Warbreaker we don't have to be worrying about the next outbreak of smallpox, which legitimately they probably would have to be worrying about. It means that, while this is kind of a trope that people, trope is the wrong term, but that people in the past did not have as bad as teeth as we assume that we do because they did not eat the levels of sugars and starches that we do. Investiture also in the Cosmere means that you're not going to... Dalinar probably would not have a full set of teeth, even without being punched in the face and stuff, if he were a human from Earth. But on Roshar he's got just a little bit extra vitality, a little bit extra something, just like everyone on the planet, that is making him a little tougher and making him a little more disease resistant and some of these things. It makes the stories more fun for me to tell and also gives us some suspension of disbelief on some of these things. You do not have to worry about smallpox outbreaks on most planets. You do have to worry about catching the curse of the Elantrian disease and being thrown into a prison city, but smallpox, not as big of a deal.

Adam

Yeah, but you don’t have to worry about that too much anymore.

Brandon Sanderson

No, but I'm saying you could have to worry about things like that. Magical diseases, totally on the board, but the big plague they're dealing with in Roshar is the common cold that got brought across by some of the members of Seventeenth Shard, and that's going to die out pretty quickly. They will get over it and their immune system is... The common cold has come over multiple times before for reasons like that, colds just from another planet. Roshar, they've got three Shards. Basically if you want something like this to happen you go to a planet that's not quite as highly Invested where they might have a few more diseases, you pick one up, you bring it, and it spreads a little bit but then it dies off. That sort of thing happens a lot in the Cosmere. You do not have to worry about during the space age that people are going to be bringing lots of diseases across planets.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Twelve - Part One

Why do I have the ball scenes in this book? Isn't this supposed to be an action story? Well, the absolute truth is I like party scenes like these.

It's kind of odd. I don't particularly like parties myself, but in books, they add quite a nice contrast to the dark skulking type of activities Vin has been about so far. It's nice to show the lavish side of life in Luthadel. The ball scenes in Elantris were some of my favorite, since they allowed for some relaxed–if important–verbal sparring and witty commentary. So, when I was planning Mistborn, I knew I had to have some parties at the noble keeps.

So, that meant I had to get Vin to said parties. That meant she had to pretend to be a noblewoman. That's where this whole plot cycle started–with me wanting an excuse to have ball scenes in this book.

Drew McCaffrey

I'm assuming they met in White Sand, if Hoid is who I think he is in that one ;) but more how well does she know his agenda?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure if you're thinking this, but Nazh and Hoid are separate people.

Questioner 1

Shardplate thus far has been powered by Stormlight in the spheres. But after-- now that we've got Radiants, is it powered by themselves?

*adds something about "spren" but is spoken over by Brandon*

Brandon Sanderson

Well so far we have not seen Radiants wearing Shardplate.

Questioner 2

Yeah, I was kind of wondering that myself, 'cause-- 'cause they're not spren, because the spren were the... Shards [Shardblades]. So what <are> they?

Brandon Sanderson

So, that's a big ol' "what really is Shardplate?" *hands RAFO card*

Zeke3dt

What is a piece of art that you've made for the Cosmere that you like, but that was never used and likely never will?

Isaac Stewart

I have tons of little sketches and things of symbols that I would count. And I don't know if I have a favorite in there, but I can tell a story about when we were doing the Cosmere symbol. Because we did a ton of different ideas with that. And for a while there... when we do symbols, I do books full of symbols; I want to find something iconic. I'll immerse myself in symbology for a while. And I was kind of thinking we haven't used something with a hand, so I was coming up with these stylized hands for a while that had different things on them. But the logo, it was just getting too complex, and it wasn't falling all together all that well. But I have these cool drawings of symbolic hands, like the hands idea which is one of the things in our world which is very similar to that. Kind of drawing on that sort of iconography the way that Robert Jordan drew on the wheel and the worm Ouroboros and things like that.

The Forumlurker (paraphrased)

Can a Windrunner use a Basic Lashing on a specific body part?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, but it works the same way a Steelpusher could push on a specific part of metal. Usually, you'd just affect the whole body, because of its Identity and cosmere magic not working as well on parts of something that considers itself a unit. When you're very skilled, you can isolate a hand, like Kelsier could push on specific sections of metal.

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna Admits the Real Reason She Came to Hallandren

I've been pushing toward this for a long time in the narrative. Vivenna didn't come to Hallandren to save her sister—that's a front. That's what she told herself. But the real reasons are more deep, more personal, and less noble. She had to come because of how much of her life had been focused on the city. Beyond that, she came because of her hatred of Hallandren. She wanted to find ways to hurt it for what it had done to her.

It was partially her pride. She was the one who was supposed to deal with Hallandren. Her pride wouldn't let her stay away, wouldn't let Siri do the job that Vivenna was certain she could do better.

She has kept her hatred in check quite well, but it's always been there, driving her. I hope my readers always thought that coming to save Siri was a flimsy reason for Vivenna to come to T'Telir. The term love/hate relationship has become a cliché, but I honestly think there is some real psychology to it, and I feel that I explained one aspect of it here, for Vivenna.

Brandon Sanderson

Updates on Secondary Projects

Dark One

My outline for this drew a lot of buzz around both Hollywood and New York. The story, if you aren't familiar with it, is about a young man in our world who discovers that a fantasy world has declared him to be the Dark One, and starts sending hit squads into our world to assassinate him. Pitched as "Harry Potter from Voldemort's viewpoint," the story follows this young man as he is forced to confront the possibility that he might do what the prophecies say.

We have a graphic novel in the works, and I've been doing pitches in Hollywood for a potential television show. So movement is certainly happening here.

Status: Going well. Might have art to show soon from the graphic novel.

17th Shard

Why did you change the main character's name to "Kaladin" in the final draft?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. I see you're stealing all of my annotation questions that I would ask myself. For those of you who don't know, the character's original name was Merin. The change was a very hard decision because the history of Way of Kings goes back so far. You know, I started writing about and working on Merin as a character in the year 2000, so he'd been around for almost a decade in my head as who he was.

A couple of things sparked the change. Number one, I'd never really been pleased with the name. I had been doggedly attached to it, despite the fact that all of my alpha readers on the original Way of Kings, Way of Kings Prime we'll call it now, said, "This sounds like a girl's name." I'm like, "Well…you know, sometimes in different cultures names sound like girls' names. I've recently discovered that Bilbo and Frodo's actual names are "Bilba" and "Froda". Those are their actual names; that's what they say in-world and in the appendices. Tolkien in one of his appendices said, "I english-ized them to make them sound more more masculine for the 'translation' of the Lord of the Rings books, but they would actually call themselves Bilba and Froda." So, anyway, Merin sounded a little bit feminine, but still I dug in my heels.

One of the concepts for the new Way of Kings is Kaladin's arc as a character. In Way of Kings Prime he makes a decision very early in the book, and in The Way of Kings I wanted to have him make the opposite decision. There's a big decision that comes to him and it's almost like these two books are branching paths from that moment in a lot of ways. And so it's going to be a very interesting process when I eventually let people read Way of Kings Prime, which I won't right now because it has spoilers for the rest of the series, but you can see how all the characters go in different directions from that moment and they also change slightly. It's like an alternate world version of the book you're reading.

So, point number two was that I started to feel he's changed so much as a person I can no longer think of him as the same character. Point number three was that, as I am now working on The Wheel of Time, having a character whose name sounded a lot like Perrin started to be problem to me. Particularly since in Way of Kings Prime Merin was not the main character but in this Way of Kings he is. Way of Kings Prime was much more evenly divided between the characters, but in the published book he gets essentially double the space, and so he becomes the main character. I felt I wanted the main character of this book to have a much stronger, perhaps a little more mythic name. I tried lots and lots of names before I eventually settled on "Kaladin".

17th Shard

Kaladin does sound like a much more powerful a name.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it's a much better name. I'm very happy we did it, but we changed it on like the last draft, so it was very surprising to my editor and to my writing group when all of a sudden he changed to a different name.

Questioner

I notice that Stormlight seems to be a bit volatile in how well it heals or who it heals. Because it seems like Renarin's eyesight would have been a long term problem, kinda like Rysn's legs maybe and Lopen's arm. But Lopen's arm got healed, Rysn's legs didn't and Kaladin's scars didn't. So I didn't know if there was a reason for those things.

Brandon Sanderson

So Stormlight healing, there's a couple things that have to be considered. But in reference to what you're saying, the person's perception of themselves is a huge part of it.  The way healing works in the cosmere is, you've got the three versions of yourself. You've got your Physical version, your Cognitive version, and your Spiritual version, And a lot of Stormlight is taking your Physical version and matching it to the Spiritual version which is your ideal self.  But it has to be filtered through the lens of your mind, and things like this.

I almost always--probably should say always--am using it to reinforce some sort of character attribute. The fact that Lopen never saw himself, even though he only had one arm, as being disabled, as a big influence, versus whether Kaladin feels deserves his brands or not. Does that makes sense?  And those are two very different things that influence how the healing works. And you will see that as a metaphor and theme, if you watch what heals and what doesn't.

Chaos

There has been a question in the fandom ever since [Rhythm of War] Part One, where we learned that the Thrill got tossed in the ocean.

Brandon Sanderson

They, at Jasnah's suggestion (which came through Hoid), locked it in an aluminum box and threw it in the ocean. The argument for this being that anywhere they could hide it, the enemy could get to. And an Unmade would be pretty easy to find in the Cognitive Realm. You can't hide an Unmade very easily. Aluminum's gonna help a ton with doing that. So, what you have to do is try to make it as inaccessible as possible. And the most inaccessible thing they could do is lock it in an aluminum box and throw it in the ocean. If they had kept it anywhere in the city or what-not, then the enemy would have been able to find it very easily, even inside an aluminum box. This method was their best guess at being able to keep it out of the enemy's hands. It is not a great solution, unfortunately. There just isn't one that they could find. As we talk about a certain other Unmade who is somewhere locked in a gemstone that might come up in the next book maybe, we'll talk more about this.

Brandon Sanderson

White Sand

The graphic novel adaptation of this Cosmere book is coming along very well. The first volume's script adaptation is finished, and pencils for the first chapter are done. We should have pages to show you before too long. Expect a lot of talk about this on the blog come 2015.

Hoser

Are you willing to tell me anything about the history of the Vanrial community at this time?

Brandon Sanderson

What specifically did you want to know?

Hoser

Well, is their eye color lighter than the typical Alethi peasant?

Brandon Sanderson

(after a long pause) I think I'll just stay away from this for now.

Questioner

In Secret History, Kelsier goes out onto the ocean and he finds plants in the Cognitive Realm.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, mmhmm.

Questioner

Do they have a Physical aspect, or are they just Cognitive--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they're Cognitive only. They don't follow a standard ecology that we would understand, but-- Well, it'll make sense, hopefully, when eventually the science of that is understood in the cosmere. But there are--and I've said this before--on Roshar Shadesmar there are spren cities, and things like this. And there's a spren ecology, and stuff so…

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter One - Part Two

This second scene with Camon is important for several reasons. The first thing I'll note is that Vin doesn't say anything out-loud in the book until she tells Camon that his servants are too fine. I thought it would be interesting to introduce Vin as a character who doesn't say a whole lot–who thinks her responses. This establishes, I think, that she's something of an introvert, and that she's smarter than she lets people know. When she does speak, she's blunt and straightforward.

The other thing established in this scene is Vin's use of Luck. Hopefully, you connect her abilities with Kelsier's line in the prologue about the Lord Ruler fearing skaa who have "powers they shouldn't even know exist." Vin fits quite well into this category. She can obviously do something extraordinary, yet she doesn't know why–or really even how. It was difficult, narratively, to work out how Vin was able to use Allomancy without knowing it, but it works, and you'll get the explanation later.

Questioner

Where did you get the idea for a chasmfiend?

Brandon Sanderson

This actually a pretty good one. So, what has happening with the Stormlight books is-- Originally, the Shattered Plains were not in Stormlight. If you didn't know about this, Stormlight started without the Shattered Plains. And when I came back to the series to write it after kind of failing at that 2002 version and wanting to try again, I hired a concept artist to do sketches of characters and settings for me. His name was Ben McSweeney... Ben is the person I eventually hired to do a lot of the artwork, because he had done all this great concept art. And one of the things he did is, he drew a giant brain coral, 'cause I said, "Give me corals, things that you would normally find underwater in a coral reef, but above ground, and this is where we're gonna start our big brainstorming," and he did this giant one that people were walking through the cracks, and there was a little crustacean monster in there. And I'm like, "Oh, that looks like the Shattered Plains. Hey, the Shattered Plains! Why didn't I think of that? They work really well!" 'Cause they had originally been in Dragonsteel, they hadn't really worked there. So, I brought the Shattered Plains over, and the original inspiration for a chasmfiend was that little beastie. It looked more like a crayfish, that he had stuck in one of these grooves. That's where chasmfiends came from.

Blightsong

Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?

Questioner

Is a Mistborn Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, while they're burning the metal. They are not specifically Invested when they are not burning. When the Investiture becomes active, then yes. Before, no.

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was Invested, but because he had the potential to use Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will Invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either [he cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought] so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as Invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the Spiritweb. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the Spiritual Realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Questioner

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing Shardplate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yeah. The problem is like, Invested is the wrong term for that, their Spiritweb is connected in different ways.

Questioner 1

That question I asked, I've been wondering about it a lot, how do you do misogyny *inaudible*? I think the message of the book...isn't really right wording.

Brandon Sanderson

No, I know exactly what you mean. How do you write misogynistic characters without writing a misogynistic book? That is tricky. You know, one thing that I didn’t bring up a lot is to have people on a spectrum. If every--‘cause even if you go back to, for instance--if you went back to 600 BC, there would be certain people who think different ways than everyone else. We think that cultures are monolithic, but they're not. And if you go back most of my characters are not acting like they would in the mid-1800’s. If you went back then you would find people who are anti-racist, even back then. So it’s legit that you can have certain...

Yeah. The trick is you can’t make anyone just a super paragon, like Ghandi was racist but he was really powerfully influential in what he did.  Everyone has got their biases and so if you make someone with no biases then they’re a bad character, but if you make people’s biases shine a light on each other you’ll have a stronger story.

Questioner 1

*inaudible about Kaladin* He does have that deep-seated prejudice against the lighteyes, but in every other way as with everyone else its a subtle reminder.

Brandon Sanderson

Except the Parshendi.  He’s been getting better.  But that’s the whole point of relaying this. This person has.

Questioner 2

Like you said, there's the stereotypes about Herdazians.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Herdazians. And most people don't pick it out that there's like this deep racism against the Herdazians.

Questioner 1

Do people ever accuse you of being <misogynistic>?

Brandon Sanderson

Not yet. I know it will happen. It probably has happened and I haven't seen it, but no, I haven't been upfront accused of it. My worse thing is there's some unconscious sexism in Mistborn. Vin works very well but there aren't any other women. I kind of fall into the one woman in the whole world sort of thing. But part of learning about this is we all have these biases, we're all going to these make these mistakes. You have to be okay to fail. Better that than wrong. Why is that wrong? What about is it? In what way?

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Nineteen

Clod Arrives with Jewels

Early on in the development process, I knew that I wanted to have a Lifeless as a side character. They're such an interesting part of the world—in fact, they're a big part of the foundation of the setting, or at least what made me want to write it.

That meant having a Lifeless on Denth's team, and Clod as a character fit into place quite easily. I had worried about how to make Jewels distinctive in the team, after having Denth and Tonk Fah establish themselves for some twenty chapters before Jewels even makes an appearance. Working with that, I realized that by making her the Lifeless handler, I could add something unique to her—and to the team.

Denth knew that Vivenna wouldn't react well to there being a Lifeless on the team. That's part of why he kept Jewels away for so long. (In fact, when Jewels says, "Who's that woman?" in regards to Vivenna, it should have been slightly suspicious to you. She knew they had a new employer, and she should have made the connection. Indeed, she did. Denth had specifically ordered her to stay away until this moment, as he didn't want to scare Vivenna off.)

Lauren Zurchin

You're known as an epic fantasy guy. Why the change-up?

Brandon Sanderson

I like to do different things. It's what keeps me productive—switching projects. And usually after I've finished something big, I want to do something very different. And so I like to try different genres. Granted, the speculative aspect, the science fiction/fantasy aspect of things, is what really interests me. I basically have never written a book without some at least hint of the science fiction or fantasy element because that's what I love, so that'll show up in everything. But I also do like thrillers. And writing this book—it's been called dystopian now—I viewed it as action-adventure. Dystopian in the same way that some of the darker superhero films are dystopian.

Is it my first YA? I have another YA called The Rithmatist. This I wrote as an older middle grade novel, which is a very fine distinction that really only matters to literacy professionals, and to authors, and things like that. Middle grade ended up getting published as a young YA novel instead—the line there blurs very much. So, yes and no. I mean, Mistborn, which I'm best known for, stars a sixteen-year-old girl. That's shelved in 'adult' because there are adult characters as well, but the story's about her. So is it my first YA, is it not? I'm really honestly not sure. That's sort of a distinction I'll let the librarians and the booksellers argue over.

Argent

Since Chicago came up, will Atlanta have a special name as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Atlanta will have a special name, it's now a theme of the books.

Argent

Because Peter said "Hotlanta" and people think he's joking, like he usually does.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not going to ruin one of Peter's jokes if it indeed is a joke. But I haven't written the book yet so he hasn't read-- I mean I've written parts of it but he hasn't read anything of the book.

Questioner

If an Allomancer ate a Forged metal, what happens?

Brandon Sanderson

If an Allomancer eats a Forged metal, there is going to be some Investiture in that Forged metal, but it's not going to be keyed the right way, so it'd be like eating a metalmind... If you're asking if the metal was Forged into a different type of metal, the Forgery will take and it will believe and... that's going to get really weird. I have not considered that. That's a "let me think about it." My instincts say that it's going to work like the metal it's become long enough to burn for a few minutes, and then that's going to break the Forgery, and it's going to snap out of it and become the other [original] metal. That’s my instinct, but I’ll have to think about it further. [...] It's going to be really hard to burn a metal that's Invested like that. The magics don't mix real well.

Kurkistan

Eh, you can burn metalminds.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you can, but it’s from the same "magic set", right? So...

Brandon Sanderson

Vin and OreSeur

Another thing that's going well is the Vin-OreSeur relationship. In fact, because of some of the wedges Zane is driving between Elend and Vin, one of my alpha readers continually joked that he thought Vin and her dog had a better relationship than Vin and her boyfriend.

I don't think that's true–he was reading the book one chapter a week as I workshopped them. I hope, given Vin and Elend's closeness at the beginning of the book, that you can see they still love each other–even if they are under a great deal of stress. That isn't to say that Vin isn't falling for Zane a bit. However, I don't think she's falling out of love with Elend so much as convincing herself that she's no good for him.

Phantine

We know Hoid stopped by the Well of Ascension. Would it have been possible for him to take up the power while he was there? Or is it limited to guys created out of preservation and ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid had no interest in holding that power in the state it was in.

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.

Pat Jacobs

The Herald Nale seems to have direct control of the spren of his order, do the other Heralds as well?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Good question. No.

Glamdring804

Yeah, it’s dangerous to leave him unsupervised for extended periods of time, as a random novella might suddenly appear.

Brandon Sanderson

The latest one is a story I really want to write about one of Hoid's apprentices, set in the future of the cosmere (between era 3 and 4) stranded on a minor shardword and trying to figure out their kite-based magic system...

(No time right now, though. Stay on target...)

yahasgaruna

That sounds very much like the first story you wrote about Hoid, doesn't it? About him landing on a new planet and trying to figure out the local magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it would be the spiritual successor of that story. I don't think it would work any more for him, the way he has developed, but I think it could play out very well with one of his many apprentices across the worlds. (Particularly if he's a little more organized about this in the space-age era.)

Someday, I really need to send my old discs from the early 90s out for data recovery, to see if anything is on them. It would be a hoot to read these old stories and really see how much of the Cosmere existed in embryo back when I was a teenager.

Brandon Sanderson

Today we're officially announcing Mistborn: Birthright, an action-RPG set in the Mistborn world.

To those who have been paying close attention, much of this may not be surprising. The MB:B website went live earlier in the month, and I have tweeted several times about the impending game. In short, we're hoping to do a fun, fast-paced, action game with some RPG elements, cool Allomancy effects, and some (hopefully) killer dialogue. That last part is my job, as I'll be writing the story and most (if not all) of the game's dialogue.

The game will take place hundreds of years before the events of the books, during the early days of the Final Empire. People have often asked me if I will do prequels to Mistborn, and my response has frequently been that I won't likely write them as novels–but I might consider them for other mediums. We're going to try it here, and this will let us do some very cool things to expand the world. And yes, you get to play as a Mistborn.

The game is scheduled for fall of next year, and we're still very much in the preliminary stages of game design. That means that I don't have much to tell you other than what I wrote above. (Though the game's website will be posting screenshots and the like as they become available.)

So, since I can't tell you terribly much about the game quite yet, instead I'll tell you how it came to be. I've been keeping my eyes open for the chance to do a Mistborn game for some time; several chances arose, but they always fell through for one reason or another. I didn't want to give the rights to just anybody. I've been a gamer since my first Atari, and I wanted to do it right.

When Little Orbit first approached me, I was skeptical. I didn't recognize the company, and though they had worked on some professional projects, I didn't see anything in their pedigree that screamed Mistborn at me. However, I like to at least talk to people who are making offers on my work.

And so, I chatted with them. I met with them. And I was impressed. Not only did they have a love for Mistborn, they had more experience at this sort of thing than I'd originally assumed. The company is made up of people who have been in the business for a long time, and they had worked on a variety of games I really love. (They even have guys who were involved in the original Fallout and Baldur's Gate games.)

Their pitch materials were good and very persuasive. But the final thing that convinced me they were right came when we sat down and talked about the type of game we would make. Not only were they eager for me to be involved in the story, our discussions of what would make an awesome Mistborn game were synergistic and exciting. They envisioned the game the same way I always had.

The longer I've worked with them, the more impressed I've been. They keep their promises; they aren't just willing to let me be involved–they seem dedicated to making certain I'm pleased every step of the way. They don't need to go so far–I've said before that I feel an author shouldn't usually have control of game design, but leave that to people who know how to make fun games–but they have gone well beyond what is required of them.

These guys really, really want to make a great Mistborn game. I'm thrilled by what is coming your way when this thing is done.

Questioner

How do you write and not subconsciously incorporate other elements from other authors? Do you have a plan to avoid that?

Brandon Sanderson

That's an excellent question. We did a whole podcast on that in Writing Excuses. And you may want to go listen to that one, because we talk about it in length.

It is something to be aware of. Oftentimes, when I'm working on something, I'll try to read something very different. Like, it's why I love Terry Prachett novels, they are so different from what I do that I can read them and love them and enjoy them, but not worry about unconscious influence. In other cases, I would read something, and be like... I can kind of tell what is influencing me in what way, and I'll try to be aware of it and conscious of it. The trick is, I don't feel like I should stop reading, because that would be like a doctor not keeping up on what the current medical practices are. If you do that, I think you're gonna have a bad time as a doctor. So I feel like as a writer, I need to be aware of what the new writers are doing, what the established writers are doing, where the genre is moving. I can't talk with expertise about a lot of genres. I don't know science fiction; I love reading it, but I don't know it so well that I can do that. Same thing with paranormal. But with fantasy, for epic fantasy, I want to be on top of the game, and know exactly what other authors are doing, so I can be aware of it.

So, I have to just try and manage it. It is a concern, though, a very big concern.

Questioner

I want to know if Nightblood can be killed in the same way as a spren.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, that's a RAFO. Nightblood does not have the same spren bond, and so the renouncing of Oaths is not going to affect him, but there are certain things that could.

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.

Brandon Sanderson

Introduction

I am not a linguist. I have some understanding of morphemes and the history of language, but only enough to avoid looking like a complete idiot. That’s all right. I am not Tolkien; it was never my intention to create viable languages in Elantris. I was busy enough crafting the story without worrying whether or not someone will be able to someday release an Aonic transition of Hamlet.

That isn’t to say that the languages in my books are not important. In fact, they’re vital. A novel, at its basest level, is constructed of words—and words, at their basest level, are constructed of sounds. The sounds of names and phrases give the first subconscious clue to a character’s motivations and origins. Before you know a man’s thoughts in a book—before you see him act—you often know his name. The sound of that name is your first impression.

Like many fantasists, I use linguistic themes to give characterization to the cultures in my books. Even for the best author, containing an entire world in the meager 200,000 allotted words of a novel is a difficult task. We can’t afford to use names and languages lightly—they must give clues to the nature of the cultures involved, otherwise we might as well call the hero ‘Tom’ as opposed to ‘Raoden.’

Sorana (paraphrased)

Is Soulcasting volume- or mass-preserving?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's mass-preserving, but there are some strange things going on and that's why we don't get as much explosions as we should. You can see a bit of what is going on when Jasnah Soulcasts air, there are some little reactions, but not as strong as you ought to get.

Brotherwise games

During our last trip to Dragonsteel HQ, we talked to Isaac and Brandon about adding characters [to the Stormlight Miniatures campaign) that weren't previously planned. Our Nale and Rysn miniatures both came out of that trip. During the same conversation, Brandon said, "let's add Zellion."

"Who?" we asked. We know the Cosmere very well, and Zellion was not a name we'd ever heard. Brandon just smiled and gave Isaac a knowing look. Isaac told us he'd work with Ben to get concept art to us as soon as possible.

Who is Zellion? To quote a great man, "Read and find out."

Ruro272 (paraphrased)

Alright, but would nicrosil be the right metal to make a Hemalurgic spike if you did want to steal powers from another world?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's a good theory, you're theorizing well.

Jofwu

Can you say what "small projects" you're thinking about working on for the rest of the year before picking up Stormlight in January?

Brandon Sanderson

I've just done a quick draft on some chapters on Alcatraz 6, which isn't ready yet, but is coming along. And I'll be looking over Secret Project again, as well as doing a draft of the Wheel of Time deleted scenes for the Unfettered 3 charity anthology.

Christopher Gearheart

I was wondering what your approach was for building magic systems? Do you start with broad strokes and themes and develop powers from there? Or do you start with the powers themselves? Also, how much do you change the system through your revisions process?

Brandon Sanderson

Generally, magic system is one of those things that I lock in pretty solidly and then stick to, except for that one big revision point. (Which, for a series, is generally after the first book.) Why that works so well for me is, a lot of times a magic system, I'm not gonna know how much flexibility it has for storytelling, how visually it works, and all of these sorts of things until I've written with it.

Whether I start with the powers or the themes, it's basically been even, 50/50. Mistborn, I started with the powers, and then built the themes out of it. Basically, I started with some cool visuals on manipulating the metals. I then built the heist story. (Those who know the history of Mistborn know that I wrote an entire book that was not a heist story before I wrote Mistborn that used the magic. We'll release that someday. I call it Mistborn Prime. So I had those powers in hand.) Then I built the rest of them kind of out of what would I want for a thieving crew.

And with Stormlight, I started with themes. The theme being: I want something that evokes the idea of the fundamental forces. (Though, of course, changed to Rosharan.) I kind of built the religion and the world, and then developed powers naturally out of that to see what would work.

So I've gone both directions for the two of my major fantasy series. And I found both very effective.

Questioner

Are we going to see Book 5 of Alcatraz?

Brandon Sanderson

Are you going to see Book 5 of Alcatraz, that counts as awesome. So I have written Book 5 of Alcatraz... I have written it, Tor is re-releasing them, because we bought them back from Scholastic and are then, I bought the rights back, I didn't think they were treating the books very well, and we sold them again to Tor, and Tor just got the cover art for the first four and it looks really cool. It's the best cover art I've had on an Alcatraz book, which is good because Alcatraz, in the books, makes fun of the cover art on the books because it is so bad. I don't think our publisher liked that. *laughter* So I'm going to have to change the line or something. Anyway the plan is to re-release those starting in January next year and release them every one to two months until we get to the fifth book in the summer and release it then. So it's still a little ways off, I've been saying that for a long time but there is at least cover art now and the book is actually written.

VeryNiceName16

With everything else you guys are doing next year, what is the plan for the Stormlight 4.5 novella?

Brandon Sanderson

Still on my list to do when I finish Stormlight 5. I think it needs to be written; I am excited by it. We will see what happens, because Stormlight 5 is almost assuredly 2024 now. And that's partially the Secret Projects, but not as much as you guys probably would assume.

The main reason has been movie and television stuff. As jofwu anticipated in the first question, I still can't say anything. This is the year the Hollywood came calling, and came calling in a very big way, even before the Kickstarter. They saw that, basically - all of Hollywood was watching and seeing that fantasy can work that is not Game of Thrones. The Witcher, and Shadow and Bone, and plenty of other excellent properties. I mean, Arcane is fantastic; another fantastic example. They're like "Oh, people like these and it can be done if it's not George R.R. Martin". And every one of those studio execs has had someone say "Well, get us one of these," or "get us more of these."

And every one of them went to BookScan, which is the ratings for how books sell. And every one of them sorted the BookScan and said, "Alright, what authors are there out there that have not had anything made?" And, far as I can tell, I am definitely the best selling science fiction and fantasy writer who's never had an adaptation. I might be the best selling author in the world who's never had an adaptation. That's hard for me to say, because it's harder to penetrate different subgenres and figure out where their sales factors are. And, you know, it depends what you count as adaptation.

Basically, they all arrived at the same name, and then the Kickstarter happened. They were already calling, and then they started calling more. And so this is the year where I've had to take numerous meetings with all of the streaming services and a large number of the various studios and producers and things. And that takes time. Just takes a lot of time to be on all of those meetings.

We will bear fruit from this eventually. But I'm being very careful. In fact, when I did my call with Netflix, I led off by saying to them, "I am both very fortunate and very unfortunate. Very unfortunate in that I've never actually had anything made. I've sold tons and tons of things, and nobody was able to get one off the ground. That's unfortunate because I'm an unproven quality in Hollywood, and I understand that. I am also very fortunate in that none of those things actually got made. So nothing bad got made." And all the rights have come back to me, basically. And here I'm sitting in a world where everyone wants fantasy and I have my rights and I can say yes or no. That puts me in a very good position also. Which lets... you know, then I don't need the money. Hollywood doesn't know what to do with people that don't need their money. It's very bizarre to them. So we get to be very discerning and picky with what we want to do.

squirenonny

Was there any particular reason that you are looking at doing Mistborn in the 40's?

Brandon Sanderson

Just because I want to see-- It's where I feel excited by a story and if I go all the way to the 80's, which I’m going to do eventually, we lose the Age of Exploration, my last shots at it. I think in the 40's we could still have a shot at Age of Exploration even though it's well past that, you know what I mean? The last remnants of my chance of doing that, I think. The exploration hits late here, but by the 80's they're launching satellites, right? The world is known. So if I want to do one more thing before then I could do-- The thing about the Mistborn world is that it is mostly uninhabited.  It's like an Earth-sized planet where most of the continents have no people. That’s really exciting from a storytelling aspect.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eleven

I certainly didn't want this book to turn into a political statement about female-empowerment. I think that sort of thing has been overdone in fantasy–the woman in an oppressive masculine world seeking to prove that she can be just as cool as they are. However, I did have to deal with some cultural issues in Elantris. There's no getting around the fact that Sarene is a strong female character, and I think it would be unrealistic not to address some of this issues this creates with the men around her.

I actually used several women I know as a model for Sarene. I've often heard women say that they feel like men find an assertive, intelligent woman threatening. I suspect that there some strong foundations for feelings like this, though I would hope the men in question form a small percentage of the population. Still, I do think that it is an issue.

In my own culture, people tend to get married early. This is partially due to the LDS Church's focus on families and marriage, and partially because I've lived mostly in the west and mid-west–where I think that the general attitude is more traditional than it is in big cities. Because of this, I've seen a number of people–many of them women–complain about how they feel excluded from society because they're still single. Sarene's own insecurity is related to the real emotions I've seen in some of my friends.

However, I do have to point out that some of the reactions Sarene gets aren't because she's female–they're just because she's bull-headed. She tends to give too much stock to the fact that she's a woman, assuming that the resistance she receives is simply based on gender. I think a man with her personality, however, would encounter many of the same problems. The way she pushes Roial into a corner in this chapter is a good example. In my mind, she handled things in the kitchen quite well–but not perfectly. She still has some things to learn, some maturing to do.

Brandon Sanderson

This spy conversation is a remnant of things left over from a previous version. I'll talk more about it later. However, if it looked like I was foreshadowing something. . .well, I was. Unfortunately, the thing I was foreshadowing got cut. Again, I'll talk more about it later.

Questioner

Were any aspects of Elantris at all biographical? In my case, at least, my writing is often unintentionally reflective of my own experiences. Is this the case for you as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Every book is a little autobiographical. You can’t separate yourself from your work, though I try not to include intentional messages in my writing. (That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to my books having meaning; it just means that I don’t tend to approach them with the idea “I want to teach something in this book.”)

Each of the characters is a little autobiographical, something that is most noticeable to me in retrospect. Raoden represents my belief in the power of optimism. I’m an optimist. I can’t help it; it’s just the way I am. And so, a hero like Raoden often grows to represent my beliefs. His conflict–that of being cast into the most horrific place in the kingdom–is an outgrowth of me trying to devise the most hopeless situation I could, and then make the conflict for my character the attempt to retain hopeful in the face of that.

Sarene represents an amalgamation of several people I knew in my life, most notably Annie Gorringe, a friend of mine in college. Not that Sarene acts just like her, of course–but that some of the conflicts in Annie’s life, mixed with some of her personality quirks, inspired me to develop a character that ended up in my book.

Hrathen is as much a piece of me as Raoden. I served a mission for the LDS church, and while I did so, I thought often about the ‘right’ way to share one’s beliefs mixed with the ‘wrong’ way. It seemed to me that focusing on the beauty of your message, mixed with the needs of the individuals you met, was the way to go. When you start to preach just to be preaching–or to convert not because of your concern for those around you, but because you want to seem more powerful–you risk beating the life out of your own message. You also get in trouble when you focus on putting other religions down (or challenging others on their beliefs) instead of just talking about what makes you believe like you do.

So, in a way, Hrathen represents my fears of what I could have become–a warning to myself, if you will.

Questioner

I've read the Mistborn. What's the best way to get the full effect? My brother, I'm introduced him to the Cosmere. We both got into it through, when you finished Robert Jordan's series.

Brandon Sanderson

Full effect of the Cosmere. Do you guys have a non-spoilerific, "Things to watch for"?

coltonx9

There probably is.

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe go on the 17thShard, which is the forum, and say, do you guys have a non-spoiler "Things to watch for" to see the Cosmere connections in action.

Watch for Hoid, obviously. Watch for... people use the wrong words. Like if you ever see anyone in a Stormlight book who accidentally uses soil or coin or things that are just not Stormlight stuff. That is usually a translation error because they're using magical means to translate into the language and they are saying a word and the magic is translating it.

Like, if you just learned the language, you wouldn't make that mistake. That's a pretty big hint that the person is non-native. Watch for the myths and legends that people tell about various places and peoples. It's all just behind the scenes stuff right now. There's nothing that you're going to miss, you're going to be like "Oh no, I don't understand!" The things that are overt connections are meant to be woven into the stories well enough that you wouldn't have to have the intros, ahd the ones that are not are just Easter eggs for now.

Except for things like Arcanum Unbounded, which is presuming you are Cosmere aware.

Phantine

Is there more to metallurgy in mistborn than just trying to aim for the 'perfect' ratio for alloys? Like, can you make pewter that gives more strength but less endurance, or brass that soothes anger better, but doesn't work as well for other emotions?

Brandon Sanderson

No, unfortunately that isn't the way Allomancy works.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eighty-One - Part Three

Elend's Death

I rewrote Elend's death scene a number of times. In the first draft, it happened much more quickly. He and Marsh met, Elend's atium ran out, and Marsh cut him down. Elend always got his "we've won" line, but Human wasn't getting viewpoints, so we didn't cut there. Nor did we have Vin fuel Elend's metals or have him burn duralumin and atium at the same time.

I just felt he needed more. Part of this was due to the reactions of alpha readers, and part of it was due to my own desire to make his last scene more dramatic. I wanted there to be a closeness between him and Vin at the end, and I also had too many people asking what would happen if you burned duralumin and atium at the same time to ignore that possibility.

So, I rewrote several times, eventually landing at this version. As for why I killed him . . . well, for the same reason that I kill any character in one of my books. It just felt like the right thing to do. It's hard to explain when we get down to specifics like this. On one hand, the rational side of me can explain that there need to be casualties to make victory worth something, and Vin needed to lose Elend so that she'd be willing to do what she had to in order to kill Ruin. Logic says that this book was about Vin and Elend defeating Ruin no matter what the cost to themselves, and allowing them to give their lives for the victory was noble and completed their character arcs.

Emotion, however, is what drove me—not logic. It just felt like the right thing to do. It was the right ending for the book. Now, I could have chosen a different ending. I know that I could have. It would have felt contrived to me, and would have lacked bite. Yet perhaps readers would have liked it better. I honestly don't know what doing this (killing both of my main characters) will do to my readership and if people will still want to buy my books after this. The founder and president of Tor Books, I know, would have preferred that I didn't kill my two main characters.

But in the end, I went with what I knew was the better ending. By doing this, at the very least I've earned something. From now on, readers will know that nobody is safe in my books—and that will create tension, will make the novels feel more real. (Note that I didn't do this because I wanted to make readers feel that way. It's just a side effect.)

Either way, this is where this book was pushing from the beginning. Vin and Elend followed in Kelsier's footsteps. They were both ready to give their lives, and in doing so, saved those they love. In my opinion, that's not a tragic or sad ending. It's just an honest one.

Hossmobile

If you could have a beer with one of your characters, which would it be?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, since I don't drink, I would have a root beer. I would like to go hang out with Sazed. That would be my choice. I think Sazed is more wise than I was able to write him being and would have lots of good advice for me.

Strumienpola (paraphrased)

Can you slatrify sand into other liquids?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

*thinks a moment* I admit that slatrification is one aspect of Sand Mastery I'm the least fond of, because it doesn't mesh well with the rest of Cosmere magic. The comicbook writers are working with my original script, with very minor changes, but if we ever release White Sand in print - which we might do - I might end up changing it. So - I won't answer that, because I'm not yet sure if slatifying into water is possible. *laughs* You can think of the comic as sort of in-universe story about those characters, then.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

About slatrification, he said that if he ever writes the novel, he'll make slatrification an in-world legend.

Nathan Morris

Your books don't have overtly Mormon characters in them, but they do contain many recognizable Mormon elements—especially in book three of the Mistborn trilogy, The Hero of Ages. How do you feel that your faith has influenced your writing?

Brandon Sanderson

Being an author, the story is what is most important to me. Theme and message are really secondary. I don't go into a book saying, "I'm going to write a book about this." In other words, I don't want to preach with my books. What I want to do is have compelling, realistic characters who care about different things. Some care about religion, others don't. By writing compelling characters who care about issues, I realize that what the characters care about tends to be influenced by what I care about. As for my faith, it is what primarily influences me because it makes me interested in certain topics. For instance, religion does tend to be a theme in my books. Yet if you read Elantris, my first published work, the religious figure was the primary antagonist. People have asked me, "Brandon, you're religious—why are you painting religion so poorly in this book?" And my answer for them is that I'm not painting religion poorly. The misuse of religion is one of the things that scares me the most in life. Someone who is taking faith and twisting it and manipulating it is doing one of the most purely evil things that someone can do, in my opinion.

With the Mistborn books, I wasn't ever trying to be overtly LDS. Yet my values shape who I am and what I determine to be important. I then end up having characters who deal with these same things, and I think there are a lot of LDS things going on. But of course I think there are a lot of Buddhist things going on as well. I served my mission in Korea and have a lot of respect for the Buddhist religion. Because of that, I think some elements of Buddhism show up in my writing. Not because I set out to say, "Okay, I'm going to use Buddhism here," but because it seems to happen when I'm developing a character who cares about something. That's one of the tricks about being a writer.

One of my main goals is that any time I put a character in whose beliefs are different from mine, I want to make sure that I'm making them realistic, that I'm painting their ideas and philosophies as accurately as possible. I think it's important for all authors to make their characters actually feel real and not just portray them as talking heads who are there to learn a lesson. Another author, Robert Jordan, once said that he loved it when his books made people ask questions, but that he didn't want to give them the answers—he believed that they should come up with their own. That's what I try to do, too.

Brandon Sanderson

Updates Conclusion

There we go—everything I've talked about should be on that list. I have a few other little stories bouncing around in my head that I haven't talked about yet. (Well, probably there are hundreds, but only a few that are relatively close to seeing the light of day.) We'll see what happens.