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DrogaKrolow.pl interview ()
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DrogaKrolow

As we know you're a human typewriter. You can release books faster than we can read it.

Brandon Sanderson

Now you say that but I release like a Stormlight book and I start getting fanmail for it the next day. This took me 18 months to write and then you read it in one day so I don't know if I’d agree with that. But go on.

DrogaKrolow

You certainly have some free time for, let's say, reading books. And what books do you like to read? You have some favorite authors? Maybe fantasy genre?

Brandon Sanderson

Terry Pratchett is my favorite writer. But I like to read widely. I like to read a little bit of everything. Usually-- Like people talk about how fast I write; I'm not that fast a writer. I'm just very consistent. I write a little bit every day. And that adds up to a certain amount that I can do every year. But I write for 8 to 10 hours a day and spend four hours or so with my family and then spend two hours goofing off. So, goofing off can include listening to an audiobook while I do other things or reading a book or playing a video game. So I do find time.

Miscellaneous 2020 ()
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Space Age Roshar.jpg

Isaac Stewart

Art director Isaac here with an art reveal today. Recently Brandon, Kara, and Adam have been discussing publicity for Rhythm of War, and one thing that Tor has asked for is a simplified symbol to represent the Stormlight Archive on certain marketing materials.

Now, to be clear, we love the original Stormlight Archive symbol, and we are in no way abandoning or replacing it. Many readers have bought shirts and decals or have even gotten tattoos of it. We are using it in The Way of Kings leatherbound and will continue to use it as a chapter icon in Rhythm of War and future Stormlight books. So rest assured that we are not retiring this tried and true iconic symbol.

However, the symbol is complex, and it doesn’t read well at small sizes, so at Tor’s request, we’ve sought a simplified design. During this search, it occurred to Brandon and me that eventually we’ll need simplified symbols for all of the Cosmere worlds—symbols that will need to be easily recognizable from far distances—basically, space-era versions of our current symbols.

So, after hundreds of drawings and thumbnails, we’re unveiling to you now the space-era symbol for the Stormlight Archive.

We’ve built this on the skeleton of the original symbol, preserving the relationship between the sword, circle, and main focal point. Instead of extra swords, we have rays of light. Instead of the complex double-eye of the Almighty, we’ve chosen the burst of light from the original Cosmere symbol.

Going forward, we will actively use both this symbol and the original in promoting the Stormlight Archive, and eventually you can expect space-age versions of many of the current Cosmere planetary symbols.

LTUE 2020 ()
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Questioner

When you write too much, how do you know what to keep?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the given scene. When I'm trimming down description, I'm using looking for: am I repetitious? Am I breaking the flow? If I'm not being repetitious and breaking the flow, I leave it. If I'm breaking the pacing and the flow of this chapter, or if I'm just saying the same thing too much, that's where I take an axe to it. It's when I'm trying to make it more specific and shorter by condensing it, usually.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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Kurkistan

So, could you give us some examples of how the ideals that spren represent work in other magic systems, like we have Forging where you get plausibility, or Returned how they're beautiful or any other systems?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, one more time on that.

Kurkistan

Okay, so you know the ideals the spren are manifestations--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Kurkistan

How-- Do those have impacts on other magic systems?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes, in the same way the Returned- that's the exact same system at work there.

Kurkistan

Is it the same reason why the Lord Ruler has to die of old age, and why you can't heal yourself into being an octopus or something?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... Yes, that is all connected in the exact same way.

Kurkistan

Okay, so it's all like these highfalutin Spiritual ideals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Kurkistan

And are there like, median Cognitive ideals that gradually kind of influence these, or--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they transcend between the three. I mean the original concept for the Three Realms is Platonic philosophy.

Kurkistan

So it goes up *makes absurd reverse-waterfall hand gesture*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it goes up and it comes back down. A lot of the Cognitive is-- So like, the Cognitive has a bigger effect on how you can heal and things like that. Does that make sense?

Kurkistan

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

But the power to heal is a actually a Spiritual thing.

Kurkistan

So it's like the Spiritual says "I want to be like this" and the Cognitive is like "Okay I'll try really hard to be like that, but I have a limit."

Brandon Sanderson

Right. Right. Filtered through how you see yourself, yeah.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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little_wilson

So, Brandon. Hoid. I remember you saying at the Idaho Falls signing last year that he was in Well of Ascension. We, your dedicated fans who like scouring books searching for obscure characters who have any possibility of being the mysterious Hoid, have yet to find him. Peter sent us on a hunt for him (Hoid, not Peter...) in the deleted scenes, and we found his boot-print.

Now, I think he broke the pottery there too—the one holding the lerasium—and since there's broken pottery in the actual version, I think he may have snuck into the cavern and broken it as well. If so, is this Hoid's part in Well of Ascension? This trace of him? I commend you if it is. It is clever, making us think it was a person, when in fact it's just something he did.

Brandon Sanderson

You are on the right track, but wrong on one point. Hoid does appear in the book.

I had originally toyed with making his touch on the novel more obscure, but decided that I wanted to be consistent with the other novels by actually having him appear. Once I realized I'd probably cut the scene with the footprint, I decided I needed this actual appearance even more badly.

Fortunately, I knew what Hoid had been up to all this time, and had placed him in a position where several characters could run into him. In Well of Ascension, Hoid believed (as Vin did) that the Well was in the North, even though it was not. He spent much of the book pursuing this idea.

Through events, however, he discovered he was wrong. He made the realization after Vin did, but only because of a chance meeting. (This is recorded in the books. Let's just say he was listening in when someone implied that the Well was in Luthadel.)

He hurried to Luthadel, and was in the town, skulking about in the last parts of the novel. He isn't seen here, though he does still infiltrate the Well. (Hoid is quite proficient at manipulating Shadesmar for his own ends.)

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Rgkavodkar

Any chance you would venture into a non-fantasy genre in the future?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there's a chance--but fantasy casts a wide shadow. I had a really interesting idea for a horror story the other week, but it's still a fantasy technically.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Four - Part One

Ah, the introductions. I worry that this scene is a little too long, and perhaps a little too obvious, as we bring in the separate members of the crew. However, it seemed like the best way, and it adheres a little bit to the heist genre framework I'm using.

My favorites of the group are, of course, Ham and Breeze. I knew I wanted to use a smaller crew than you see in some heist stories–I wanted to get to know them better, and deal with them more, than one has opportunity for in a movie like Ocean's Eleven. Ham and Breeze, then, formed the basis for my group. Simply put, they're both guys who are fun to talk to. I can put them in a room with each other, or with Vin, and an interesting conversation will blossom.

I was a little worried about Ham when I first started writing him. The warrior philosopher is, perhaps, a character that you've seen before. In this case, I knew I wanted a character who could be a foil for Breeze. Since Breeze tends to be arrogant, long-winded, and manipulative, I came up with someone humble, long-winded, and kindly. Mix in a desire to understand the world, and a mind that thinks about things a little differently from others, and I had Ham. I think he turned out all right.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential

Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers.

However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

Alcatraz Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

She single-handedly ended the drought in Kalbreeze during the fourth-third century.

By the way, the fourth-third century thing is intentional. They keep track of years a little differently in the Free Kingdoms. There are certain epochs of time. So the first-first century would be kind of like our A.D. 0-100, but the first-third century would be like A.D. 200-300. On the other hand, the second-third century is more like A.D. 1200-1300. (Though the dates are a little off–they’re not analogous. The first-third century is more like 2000 B.C. our time. More in later books.)

EuroCon 2016 ()
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Questioner

Something I really enjoyed, also, about, particularly the Mistborn saga, and I'm--very briefly, because I don't know if this is intentional or not, and that's the question--is that characters tend to talk a lot about events that have happened for the reader, things that the reader already knows, but even so, characters quite widely discuss these events, and this is something that I rarely find in TV and books. It's like most writers just know that "Okay, this is something the reader already knows, we don't have to bring it up," but I feel like it gives a really natural tone and voice to your novels, and I just simply, briefly wanted to know if it's intentional or if it's simply the way you write.

Brandon Sanderson

It's been said that there are very few plots for books, and that most books fit into a set number of plots, though nobody seems to be able to agree on what that number is. That said, a lot of stories' beats or story points follow very similar patterns. This will relate, I promise. What is interesting to us is how the characters we're reading about interact with those events. You could say, on the large scale, many of our lives probably follow the same patterns. Going to school, our first love, probably going to college or trade school, our first time abroad, these sorts of things happen to us in patterns most of the time. And yet, the details are what fascinates us and what makes us individual. So I don't perceive my books being as much about the events as the effect those events have on the people we're reading about. So I try to avoid skipping chances for my characters to offer a different perspective on what they have seen from what another character may think they saw. You have to be careful, because you don't want the book to feel repetitive, and so this is a balancing act that I think I've gotten better at the more that I've written.

YouTube Livestream 9 ()
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Questioner

How is the Mistborn screenplay going? What's it like adapting your own work from over a decade ago?

Brandon Sanderson

I've been running the screenplay through my writing group, and they've got some great feedback. The biggest challenge right now with the screenplay is actually with Vin's character. This is because a lot of what you get to know about Vin in the course of Mistborn is really internally motivated. She's actually pretty quiet, rather shy for someone who does what she does. And keeps a lot of her emotions and thoughts close to her heart. That is hard to show in a screenplay. And really difficult to pull off in an action/adventure screenplay, where you need people to be moving and things like this. And the danger is having Vin come across as just an Artful Dodger. As this confident street thief. Which was the first version of Vin that I wrote, trying to pull of in the books and then failed. This is just one chapter, before I wrote the book. She was kind of your more generic street thief, your Aladdin, your Artful Dodger. And Vin didn't work that way. It, partially, was too generic. Not that those characters are generic; they've just been genericized, they've been done so much. So I tried this other version, this non-self-confident version of Vin that had this really interesting dynamic going on inside of her about wanting to trust, but not being sure if she could. And that really made the book work. Getting that across in the screenplay: super hard. So that's been the challenge.

Fitting it into screenplay format has actually not been hard. I haven't written the screenplay yet; this is all in the treatment stage.

How is it adapting something that I wrote over ten years ago now? It's actually been, in some ways, liberating. Because I have enough distance from it, I can see structurally the things that I can change, I think, easier than if I'd been closer to it. But also a little bit hard, because it is something so long ago, I have to keep going back to the book and reading sections of the book and reminding myself of things that I wrote in the book. Like, the scene where Vin and Elend meet is one of my favorite scenes in the book, but I still had to go back and reread that scene to get it into the treatment, because I had forgotten the actual dialogue cues, and things like that.

So, yeah, it's a challenge, but it's also liberating.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

I'm going through Hero of Ages...again and I noticed...when Vin takes the power of Preservation into herself the descriptions remind me a lot of someone who has been Invested with Stormlight--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

--are those powers very similar--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

--in how they operate?

Brandon Sanderson

Ye-- Definitely some similarities. You will see a lot of mist in Stormlight if you are looking. So yeah.

Questioner

It like puffs out like mist.

Words of Radiance Omaha signing ()
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Questioner

So in the first book, there's a chapter where you have some scientists talking about spren, and they seem to be describing <superposition> and science.  I was wondering, does that actually play into the books?

Brandon Sanderson

It does, but it's just really behind the scenes.  This is just helping you understand the nature of spren and kind of their relationship to sub-atomic particles and quantum theory and things like this.  There are relationships there, but it's even one or two steps further than what you see in actual Quantum Physics, Right?  

Questioner

Will it play in more?

Brandon Sanderson

It will.  In this book, you get even a discussion of the theory on spren that should relate right back to that.

Questioner

Oh good!  I can't wait.

Brandon Sanderson

Watch for stuff that Jasnah says about Spren and things like this.  It does relate.  But this is all kind of world-building stuff.  It's not part of the main story.  It's fun for scientists.  

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

You know how usually you read a good book and it will change your perspective on some aspect of life, do you ever finish writing a book yourself and-- From your own writings do you ever "Ah I've never..."

Brandon Sanderson

It's usually the research I do. Like when I'm like "I need to get in the mindset of this type of person" and I go read about it. I see the world in a different way after I become immersed in that.

Questioner

So what character have you written that was the hardest to imagine or get into?

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah was very hard originally, and that took a lot of research into the mindset of people who think differently from myself. In The Wheel of Time books Aviendha and Tuon are both very different cultures so getting into those.

Questioner

How was it writing Mat? Was it pretty easy or--

Brandon Sanderson

No, Mat blindsided me. Mat I thought would be easy because Perrin and Rand were and I grew up with Mat, Perrin, and Rand, right? But the thing is Mat is a really hard character to write, meaning actual-- you look at him, he says one thing, he does a second thing, but he thinks a third thing. And so there is a lot of contrast to him and I just started writing him naturally and I wasn't getting all of that contrast because I was like "Oh I know who Mat is. Mat's my--" But he was saying the things that he never said, if that makes sense? I got his actions right but I flipped what he said and what he thought. It was actually really hard to get him down.

Questioner

You mean how he would say that he was going to avoid trouble and then run straight into it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it's like "I'm going to avoid trouble", he runs into trouble, and he's thinking all the way about something completely separate, and then something else leaves his mouth.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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Nelsmom

Welcome and it is great to know that you live not too far from me. My question is this. I know that Orson Scott Card taught some Comparative Science Fiction class at BYU. Did you every take it and if so how much influence did it have on your wanting to write? I have enjoyed all of your books and at family gatherings they do get discussed.

Brandon Sanderson

I actually never got to take a class from Mr. Card, though I have enjoyed his books quite a bit. From what I hear, he has excellent advice for writers, but he wasn't teaching any classes at BYU when I was there. I did take a class from David Farland, which was extremely helpful. By then I was already a very dedicated writer (I had just finished Elantris) but didn't know much about the business at all. Mr. Farland's class taught me a lot about the nuts and bolts of getting published, and one could say that I owe my eventual publication—and a lot of my success—to what he taught and how helpful he was in how he taught it. Excellent person and writer.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Sixty-Four

"You did well, Spook."

Yes, that's Kelsier's voice at the beginning. As I said in a previous annotation, he can't help but meddle.

There is an afterlife in this cosmology I've built, and Kelsier's in it. He never has been able to leave well enough alone. He saw, here, that a piece of the puzzle needed to be put together, so he stepped in and tried to get through to Spook about it.

Spook was the only one in the crew he could speak to. That's because Spook truly has faith in Kelsier as a deity—which, for these few weeks between Preservation's death and the coming of the Hero of Ages, Kelsier is.

YouTube Livestream 5 ()
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Stephanie Akroyd

What critical steps would you take to facilitate a believable descent-into-madness type character arc?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how accurate you want to be with your psychology. This is one of those areas that I have made a special area of expertise, where I would say I'm still not an expert, but I'm better than the 10% knowledge I am in a lot of other things. And one of the things about psychology, you even heard me earlier saying Taln was wondering whether he was a crazy man or not: we talk about psychology in ways that can be very harmful or hurtful to people who are dealing with it. And you can just go read about people with Dissociative Identity Disorder and how they feel about how they're represented in media. (I'll give you a hint. It makes them really depressed how some of things things are represented in media.) And those of us who write novels, we are definitely fueling this, right?

And you can see, if you've read the Stormlight Archive, I go both directions. I have what I hope are very accurate and realistic depictions of mental health, and I have the Fused and the Heralds, who are using more a magical sort of pop culture version of: their minds are just degrading. They don't actually have a legitimate psychological psychosis or anything like that.

And you're gonna have to ask yourself: which direction do you want to go? I'm not gonna sit here and sit on a high horse and tell you you're just being harmful if you're just showing a descent into madness, because that can be really fun. The Shining is a great movie. And I don't think The Shining is necessarily harmful; it was done really well. But if you do things poorly, it can be very harmful. So I would say to you, number one, take some concern for that, and kind of ask yourself how you're going to approach that.

Otherwise, one of the things I would keep in mind is that the best books that do this for me are ones where I don't catch on at first, either. And that's part of the fun of this type of story. Whether it be a Lovecraft story, or whether it be The Shining. As you are going through, you are through this character's eyes. You are experiencing the world as they experience. And you are going to believe what's written on the page is true, and that the character is trustworthy, until it becomes evident it isn't. And that moment can be really cool. And keep in mind that that's one of the big reveals that you're gonna have for your story. And try to decide where that breaking point is gonna be. And make sure that that one works. If you can make that one work and then earn it, you're gonna have, I think, a stronger story.

Elantris Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Book Wrap-up

So, that's my book. It may be about seven years old to me now (it was written in '99), but I still retain a great fondness for it. You have no idea how exciting it is to finally see it in print.

Hopefully, you enjoyed these annotations. I want to do them for all of my novels, but we'll see how things go. (Note from future Brandon, who is posting this after he wrote it some months earlier. There WILL be Mistborn Annotations starting July, 2006!)

For now, I've got about 40,000 words here—a good half of a novel for free. Keep coming back to the website for more information, and make certain you check out the other bonus materials. (Deleted scenes will be posted throughout June.)

Oh, and make sure you go by Mistborn when it comes out! If Elantris was this good and I did it seven years ago, think of what kinds of things I'm working on right now!

I did most of these annotations while doing the copy edit of Elantris—which is probably the last good read I'll give the book in the drafting process. Ten drafts. And now I turn away from the book and call it complete.

Thank you so much for reading.

The Elantris project

Begun 9-27-1999 (First Word to Page)

Finished 10-18-2004 (Final Annotation Written)

Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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Korombos

Vorthosy How-does-magic-work Question: In your mind, is Planeswalker magic a different kind of magic than clerics, wizards, druids, and such who are not Planeswalkers, or just different in scale? Does every plane have its own rules for magic (and other existential things) or are they all sharing a common rulebook (if-you-will)? Are there different kinds of planeswalkers, do you think (different sorts of sparks)? Have you ever played Mage: The Ascension?

Brandon Sanderson

This is Brandon canon, not official MTG canon. I've always imagined that growing up with the mana all around them in MTG planes that almost everyone has some kind of little, innate magical gift that you wouldn't really call a spell. More powerful ones manifest in dramatic ways. But you can also learn to do more with study, becoming a wizard or the like. I do imagine that every plane has some slightly different tweaks of physics, and metaphysics.

I think there are probably different kinds of planeswalkers and sparks, but again, this is my instinct--not official canon. Here, I'm just a fan talking about how he sees the game.

I have played Mage, and like most White Wolf games, I found the experience to be very fun--but reading the sourcebooks tends to be even better.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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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.

Footnote: In Calamity it is revealed that Atlanta was renamed "Ildithia".
#calamity book
Warbreaker Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Acknowledgements

A lot of people helped me with this book. As you may or may not realize, I posted drafts of the novel online as I was writing it. It was a rather nerve-racking experience in many ways. My goal was to show the process of writing a novel as it happened. As such, I would finish a chapter, spellcheck it, then post it. (Though sometimes I held it for a while, as I eventually wanted to get to posting one chapter a week, and I'd often write two or three a week.)

Why did I do this? Well, for a number of reasons. First off, I'd never seen anyone do it before. I'd seen serialized novels, of course, and I'd seen people post their complete novels once the book was out in stores. I'd never seen anyone post, chapter by chapter, the rough draft of a book that they already had a contract for. This was less serializing a novel and more showing the process. As I finished a new draft, I would post that so that people could compare and see how I tweaked my manuscripts.

I also wanted a free novel on my website so that people could give my work a chance without having to pay for it. I figured that if they liked it, they'd try out my other books (and probably even buy Warbreaker when it came out). And if they didn't like it, then at least they hadn't spent any money on it.

The third reason I posted it this way was that I wanted to see what kind of community and feedback I could get for a book while it was being posted, then use that kind of like a writing group. Now, I tend to write fairly clean rough drafts. They're far from perfect, but since I like to outline a lot, I generally know where I'm going with a book when I write it. However, a great deal still changes in drafting, and many of the people who posted comments on my blog had an influence on the novel. Not really in changing the plot or the characters—it's more that their questions and concerns would inspire me to explain something better or develop an aspect of the story more.

I tried to get everyone on the list who helped out in a moderate or significant way. However, I'm sure I missed some people. If you're one of those who gave me a lot of comments during the early months when I was posting the rough draft, and I forgot you in the acknowledgments, drop me an e-mail so I can at least get you added to the electronic version.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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Xandeis

What is RAFO? 

Brandon Sanderson

"Read and Find Out." It was one of Robert Jordan's favorite phrases, and I have inherited it. (Symbolically, actually, through his bookmark, which was given to me by his wife. It's a little string one with weights on the end which spell out RAFO.) When I say it, I don't mean it rudely at all—it is intended to mean "I'd rather not say, as this will spoil future books." It doesn't indicate how I'll answer the question, or even if I will answer it. It simply means that if I were to do so now (even to say "I'm not going to include this") I feel it would spoil the enjoyment of future books.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Calderis

I recently got the opportunity to ask you a question about Feruchemical steel and if it was a temporal effect and you told me to define that better. When tapping steel, the mind of the Feruchemist is sped up and physics affects their actions normally. When storing, their mind is not slowed and the effect seems tortuously difficult to amass. Storing generally seems to be the more dangerous/difficult option in Feruchemy, so does [Feruchemical steel] alter a person's personal relationship to the flow of time, with the disconnect between the Physical and Cognitive as a drawback of storing?

Brandon Sanderson

I see what you're asking. The mind-altering effects of [Feruchemical steel] are similar to the slight strength you gain from [Feruchemical iron]--it is your Spiritual nature adapting to the new influx of an attribute that it's not really expecting, and siphoning some of that investiture to make you capable of actually using it. So there is a slight temporal effect here, but nothing as big as I think you're looking for.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Govir

During a reread of The Way of Kings, I noticed Kaladin mentions a light eyes by the name of Katarotam. Will we ever find out more about this light eyes? (For some context, Katarotam is listed along side Roshone and Amaram as a light eyes that Kaladin believes to be corrupt).

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. (This is possible, but not likely, in a Kaladin flashback.)

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

The fight in this chapter is what I consider the first true Allomantic battle of the series. This is what it's supposed to feel like—there's a reason I started with the concept of Vin feeling free. Allomantic battle is graceful, yet sharp. It is leaps through the mist and clever uses of Pushes and Pulls. This is what attracted me most to the magic system—not the logic of metals and the like, though I enjoy that. I loved the idea of mist, plus flying forms in fluttering mistcloaks.

I realize that it's obvious, by the way, that Kelsier is her opponent. I didn't write the chapter calling him "her opponent" to be surprising. I just thought that by de-emphasizing Kelsier, I could better create an illusion of tension. The idea is that Vin herself isn't thinking of him as Kelsier. Just as an opponent.

Oathbringer release party ()
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Questioner

So, if we switch to Scadrial, and I had lined the inside of my hat with aluminum, I'm protecting myself from emotional Allomancy. What if I was able to use emotional Allomancy? Would that block me?

Brandon Sanderson

So, it's going to interfere a little bit. But the issue with that is, a lot of Allomancy is coming from center and going to head. So, you're probably still gonna be okay with the helmet... So, I'm gonna say, you don't want a lot of aluminum around you, but you could probably still make it work.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

My question is about Shai, is she going to meet Hoid in person? Like I read your State of the Sanderson, is it going to be another short story or is it going to be in the Elantris books possibly?

Brandon Sanderson

If I-- When I write future Elantris books you're likely to see her in those.

Questioner

Or before maybe in shorter stuff like this *audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

We'll have to see, like shorter stuff I can never say when the shorter stuff is going to happen because it's where-- I funnel the random inspirations I get now into the shorter stuff. And the big books I have planned, I just don't have room for more big books, so when I get an idea I'm like "We'll do a novella on that instead".

Shadows of Self release party ()
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Questioner

Would Dalinar make it so they couldn't retreat to make it more a challenge or would he just--

Brandon Sanderson

He will follow good tactics when it's time for good tactics. He won't lose a battle because he wants a better challenge. In an individual sense he will seek the best challenge for himself on the battlefield.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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Melhay

Your stories are so in-depth and unique in the magical systems and religions. I was wondering if you have always, even through childhood, been creative with stories? Have some of the ideas in these books been something you created when young and then evolved into a story now? Have you always been interested in writing stories as you grew up? Did you have that notebook in class scribbling full of stories and ideas while sitting in class supposedly taking notes?

Brandon Sanderson

I've spoken before on the fact I didn't discover fantasy, and reading, until I was fourteen. (The book, if I haven't mentioned it on this forum yet, was Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.)

Before then, I was a daydreamer. I was always daydreaming—I was never in the room where I was supposed to be listening or studying. I was off somewhere else. Oddly, though, I didn't make the connection between this and writing until I was given that first fantasy novel.

When I read that book (and moved on to McCaffrey, as it was next in the card catalogue) I discovered something that blew my mind. Here were people who were taking what I did, sitting around and imagining stories, and they were making a living out of it.

I hit the ground running, so to speak. Started my first novel the next fall, began gobbling up fantasy books wherever I could find them, began writing notes and ideas in my notebooks instead of (as you guessed) the notes I was supposed to be taking.

Even after all this, though, I was persuaded that people couldn't make a living as an author. So I went to school my freshman year as a bio-chemist, on track for becoming a doctor. That lasted about one year of frustrating homework and classes spent daydreaming before I made the decision to try becoming a writer.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

So a lot of your books are very cinematic in nature and lend themselves very well to other forms of media and I was wondering if you had to choose what would you do-- video games...

Brandon Sanderson

I would want to do all of those.

Questioner

All of the things?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I would love to do a big cross-media sort of deal. Whatever I can get away with, right? So we're doing a White Sand comic book right now, you probably know about that. White Sand, my unpublished novel, we're doing a graphic novel of that. I'm working hard to get the movies made, I will do anything I can get made. Just because I love storytelling in all its different weird varieties.

Questioner

There's the Mistborn dice game, do you know of anything for The Stormlight Archive? If they're ever going to do something with that?

Brandon Sanderson

I think the thing we are going to do with Stormlight Archive-- We're going to try a chasm assault board game. Where you put together chasms and bridges and things like that. That's what we think would work really well. We have a developer-- well game designer who wants to do one of those so we're going to work with them and try to get it made.

General Reddit 2017 ()
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[Discussion of Nale, and the legality of his actions.]

Brandon Sanderson

He takes whatever steps he can to go through proper channels. He would argue that he's doing what /u/bonly says he is. But remember, he is insane, and his perception of the world is untrustworthy.

He would claim to be, in the context of this discussion, Lawful Neutral.

The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson ()
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Questioner

Did you know from the beginning how you were planning to end [Alcatraz]? Because the whole time, I was going, "He'd better fulfill all of these promises."

Brandon Sanderson

I was. I'll tell you this, when I pitched that to the editor, they did not like it at all. They didn't like the idea of me ending on such a downer note. But I knew that the right way to do it was to have him give up on the series after that dark moment. A lot of the Alcatraz stuff I discovery wrote, but that ending I had from the beginning.

Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing ()
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yulerule

*Written:* Is Iyatil wandering around the cosmere (Roshar) with a heating medallion? She's a Southern Scadrian, so she needs one of those so she won't freeze to death in normal temperatures.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO on that, but it's a question you should be asking. 

*Writes:* RAFO