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Brandon Sanderson

Marsh

One of the things about this novel is that the bookends–the beginning and the end–are very closely tied together, with only small strands weaving through the middle. Here, at the end, we come full circle. We find a body, just like the one that Sazed found in the first chapter where we introduced him. Next, we run into Marsh, who vanished so many months ago.

He's actually been in the city. Some of Demoux's people reported seeing an Inquisitor, if you recall, and Vin found footprints inside of Kredik Shaw. Marsh has been here the whole time, watching and waiting.

Now he has something to do.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that the beginning and the ending are tied so closely together. On one hand, I worry that you've forgotten about Marsh and the killings the mists caused. On the other hand, I like the symmetry in this book. You think you're done with it after the siege of Luthadel.

Then this happens.

Snipexe

Does the size-- Let's say you have a really big Aon, and you had it pretty far away from Elantris, does the size of the Aon allow it to be more powerful?

Brandon Sanderson

To an extent, yes.

coredumperror

Wait, how long are Shardblades supposed to be?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardblades vary in size, most of them being locked in as a result of the Recreance. However, most of our concept art puts them in the 5'-7' range.

A typical knightly arming sword in our world would have been 3' long, which is where I believe the "double the size" comment came from in the books--though I don't immediately remember the context.

raptor102888

Do you have a size in mind for how long Syl would be manifested as a spear? I guess I'd imagine it would vary quite a bit depending on the situation.

Brandon Sanderson

[Ben McSweeney] did some concept art for us that I've used as a rule of thumb--but her size is going to vary a lot more, as you expect. In flight, she'll move to a more pike-like size of 15' or more. On the ground, she's going to be the size of a spear like Kaladin is used to using, so in the 6-7' range.

Ben McSweeney

In flight I imagine she is less a spear, and more a lance.

Questioner

As it happens with any great character I think background is really important, so briefly, because I know you've talked about this a million times, how did you first become interested in fantasy and when did you realized, okay I want to do this for a living?

Brandon Sanderson

So, unlike a lot of writers, I didn't enjoy books when I was young. I had a teacher, eighth grade, her name was Ms. Reader, this is true, and she knew that I was goofing off a little too much in my literature class. So, she took me to the back of her room, where there were a whole bunch of old books, paperbacks, that a hundred students had read, and she said, "You need to read one of these and report back to me, because I know you're not doing your readings for class." So I browsed through these reluctantly, and I eventually settled on one that looked pretty cool. It was Dragonsbane, by Barbara Hambly, with this gorgeous Michael Whelan cover. It had a dragon. It had a cool looking guy. It had a pretty girl; that was more important. I thought I'd give it a try. I was fourteen, so... I loved this book.

This book changed everything. I fell in love with the fantasy genre. From this, I discovered Anne McCaffrey, who was the other fantasy author my school library had, and over that summer after my eighth grade year, I read everything I could get my hands on--Terry Brooks, David Eddings, a lot of Melanie Rawn--and just absolutely fell in love. And these books meant something to me, there was a powerful emotion to them, and I thought, "I have to learn how to do this."

Questioner

And about when you sort of decided you wanted to do this, it was around that age as well?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say it was maybe a year later that I started writing my own book, my first one. It was terribly, absolutely terrible. It was a bad combination of Dragonlance and Tad Williams, but I loved the process of writing it. And I was a teenager, so I didn't know it was bad, I just loved doing it.

I actually went to college my first year as a chemist, which you can see maybe coming out in my books a little bit if you've read some of them and seen the magic, but I did not like the busy work of chemistry, right? While I loved the thoughts and ideas, the actual sitting down and figuring how many atoms are in a table or whatever, I hated, and I always contrasted that with the writing where I loved the busy work. I could sit down and work on a story, and forget that four or five hours had passed. That was a really good sign to me for writing, and a really bad sign for chemistry.

Questioner

Going back to the technology issue, in some of your books, particularly the Mistborn books, you explain why technology hadn’t developed for thousands of years. [...] What’s happened to gunpowder and combustion? Why isn’t that there?

Brandon Sanderson

In Rithmatist the reason why we don’t use gunpowder and combustion is early on, people figured out how to wind springs into the aether, and if you can wind a spring into the aether you can get energy out of it. Basically the way we’ve got it working in the Rithmatist (I would have to dig out the exact notes, so be warned) but the way we have it working right now is if you wind a spring made the right way, you can wind it into the aetherial winds. And you can wind, and then twist it, and when you unwind it catches the aetherial winds and spins with it. So you can actually get more energy out than you put in if you wind it one direction, lock it, and then lock it into the aetherial winds and unwind it. It’s like hydropower, but it is unseen hydropower.

So my explanation is they learned how to do this, and because they had access to this easier source of energy, their experiments with gunpowder and combustion weren’t as…. You could still make gunpowder. You could go build a gun on the Rithmatist world, and it would work just fine. But since they’ve been focusing on this other line of technology and they can access this energy, everything’s gone that direction instead. And I kind of built on the idea of the difference engine and things like this. People were trying to make mechanical versions of computers and whatnot. And if they had found a way to get energy out of it, they might have gone this direction.

That said, I did not put the rigor into the science that I often do in the cosmere books. That comes in the revision stage when I give it to scientists and to my assistant Peter, who look at the actual science and raise some of the issues. So Rithmatist, I didn’t have to worry about that as much. In the cosmere I have to worry about things like redshift and breaking causality, and all of this stuff, and at least have in-world reasons why people don’t get irradiated by light when you speed up time, whereas in the Rithmatist I can say, “It’s a fun alternate history fantasy book. So we’ll just go with that and be internally consistent and not worry about the laws of thermodynamics quite as much.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Nineteen

Spook Sees Kelsier in the Burning Building and Burns Pewter

How, exactly, does one write from the perspective of a deranged, exhausted, dying man in the middle of a burning building? This is my attempt. Reading through it now, I particularly like how the imagery and Spook's disorientation come across. It works as a nice component to the previous Spook chapter.

Yes, Kelsier appears to him. Yes, Spook can burn pewter. One of the reasons I decided to soften Spook's craziness in his first two chapters is that I wanted this chapter to stand out in more stark contrast. A sizable number of my alpha readers, after finishing this chapter and the next one, couldn't decide if Spook was in fact burning pewter, or if he had gone insane.

My hope is that since I made Spook easier to relate to in the first two chapters, he'll be considered more trustworthy by readers. The fact that he can burn pewter is very important to the plot's development from this point on.

My other worry with this chapter is that people will read it and think that I'm pulling a "Swiss Army magic" trick on them—inventing new powers and abilities just to get my characters out of trouble. I can assure you that not only is what's happening to Spook here logical and built into the magic system, but you've seen these things happen before in the series as far back as early portions of book one.

If you want confirmation, realize that Marsh was given new Allomantic powers back in the first book via Hemalurgy, something very similar to what just happened to Spook. Also, very early in the series you got to see Ruin influencing people and speaking to them. Note Vin in book one and Zane in book two.

Brandon Sanderson

If you were wondering, most of the explanations we get in this chapter are true. The reason that Raoden was subject to the Dor attacks was because he spent so much time practicing with the Aons. He began to make a bridge between this world and the Dor, and because of that, he gave the Dor a slight opening into his soul. I imagine that he isn't the first one to suffer something like this during the ten years that Elantris has been fallen. Other Elantrians probably practiced with the Aons, and the Dor eventually destroyed them. When it was done, they simply became Hoed.

By finally using the Dor effectively, Raoden relieved a little bit of the pressure, letting the nearby buildup of the Dor (the one that he himself had created by practicing so much) rip through him and fuel that single Aon.

Originally, I had Raoden's conflict with the Dor continue on after this scene–I had it continue attacking him. In a later draft, however, I realized that I'd made a mistake. Raoden has other things to worry about in the upcoming chapters–he doesn't need the Dor attacks to create conflict and tension. So, after this chapter, the Dor attacks actually became distractions. I also realized that the way I'd set up the magic system, this chapter was probably the place where the Dor should stop attacking, since Raoden had fulfilled what he wanted it to do.

Narkac

Who is the woman on the "Voidbringer Chart"?

Brandon Sanderson

Isaac did the art. It is just a pattern. She's no character in particular.

Questioner

You've mentioned that each of the smaller glyphs on the inside cover of the The Way of Kings represents a type of magic. Can you tell us how many of these types we've seen so far?

Brandon Sanderson

Remember that to get an order of the Knights Radiant you take two of the small glyphs and one of the large glyphs. The large glyph represents a concept or an ideal mixed with an essence, what they call the elements of this world, with two magics attached to it. You have seen the Windrunners, which is the first, top-right glyph, mixed with the two Surges—the forces in this world—attached to it. So you've seen pressure and gravitation as mixed together to form a Windrunner. You have seen one of the other Surges, which is Soulcasting—Transformation—though which other Surges that mixes with to form orders of the Knights Radiant I am not specifically going to say at this time. What else have you seen? Those are the only ones that are overt. But you have seen the effects of others.

Questioner/Translator

<Where do your inspiration comes from?>

Brandon Sanderson

It's very different based on the book. Is there a specific... like, ask me a specific *inaudible*.

Questioner/Translator

Way of Kings.

Brandon Sanderson

First idea was Dalinar which is: brother of king who... the king gets assassinated and the nephew is a bad king and where does that leave you? The second idea was storms shaping the world. Spren were based on Shinto Kami, the Shinto religion. Kaladin was based on the conflict between a surgeon learning *inaudible*. Different ideas for different things.

Nextorl

Well, in Elantris, we saw two people get in the Shardpool, right? We saw Riino, who we later saw in Oathbringer, and we saw Saolin- the warrior. Will we see him again? Like, will we see a cameo?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible that you will, but I will have to RAFO it. You'll have to wait to see.

Aradanftw

Let's say you wanted to be the Mistborn equivalent of a Surgebinder, having all ten Surges, would the best way to do that to bond at least five Honorblades or can you bond more than one spren?

Brandon Sanderson

You could bond five Honorblades. That'd be the easiest way by far. Because convincing multiple spren to bond you is going to be really tough, so by far the easiest way is just to get... you'd actually need all ten Honor... No, you'd need five Honorblades for the five... Yeah.

Aradanftw

You'd have to get the right ones.

Brandon Sanderson

You'd have to get the right ones and then you'd have all ten. 

Aradanftw

And then, there's nothing wrong with bonding five individual Blades? You don't have to have five arms?

Brandon Sanderson

You do not have to have five arms. You could bond five Blades if you wanted to.

Aradanftw

Really cool. Thank you.

Brandon Sanderson

Particularly Honorblades. 

Aradanftw

They're special.

Brandon Sanderson

Mhm.

Chaos (paraphrased)

Can Inquisitors still breed through human reproductive methods?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

LerasiumMistborn

Why is Dalinar so hard on himself? He values his intellectual capacities very low (Well, he constantly thinks he's dumb) and so on. Considering how wise and humane he really is, I'll admit, it's sad that he sees himself in such a negative light.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a tough one to answer. Why are people hard on themselves? It's something a lot of us tend to do, and doesn't correlate with how much we deserve it. That doesn't stop it from happening, though, even when pointed out.

Questioner

Can you tell us why he's called "Death"?

Brandon Sanderson

Because he is seen usually in creepy situations, and looks creepy, and mythology has grown up. Though that one's also a RAFO for the Secret Histories-- that's a real RAFO for the Secret Histories. I might get into that. But you can assume that the allure of... I mean, there's a little more to it. But I mean, let's say you saw him...

Questioner

*laughs* That would be... *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

You'd be like, "Ahhhh!" So... But no, I do intend-- there are little things like that, that if I write Secret History 2 I can get into where some of these legends started. So you'll be able to see some of the starts of those and things like that.

Questioner

How do you become a beta reader?

Brandon Sanderson

People always want to know this! We have beta and gamma readers. Alpha reads are only my agent and my writing group. Beta readers are people from fandom who have proven that they know their stuff and are a part of the community. Peter picks these from people who are on my Facebook, who are interacting with him there, or who are on the 17th Shard. There's no promises you can get in on this. We do change it every book and get some new people, because sometimes we just want people to give fresh eyes on something.

Gamma reads, if you want to read things early, are bug hunters. They can spot a type form a hundred paces. If you are really good at finding typos, you can go to the thread on the 17th Shard, for every book there is a thread, a forum thread that talks about typos. And if you are consistently finding typos no one else has found, chances are good Peter will be like, "Hey, do you want to proofread for us?"

But don't feel like you have to do this because it actually diminishes the book a little bit, even though you get to do something cool, because it's not in its final form yet. I don't like beta reading when I don't have to, I'd prefer reading something with polish.

Brandon Sanderson

During July, I took time off from major projects to have a breather. If you aren’t aware, I prefer to do smaller projects between big epics as a means of helping me stay fresh. This month’s “breather” stories include a novelette (9k words) piece set in the Steelheart world, which should be published as an e-original around Christmastime. I also did some work in the Infinity Blade world. (More on that later. If you aren’t aware, this is a video game that friends of mine make. I’ve enjoyed being involved to practice my video-game writing chops, with an eye toward doing Mistborn video game writing.)

My next major writing project will be the sequel to Steelheart, which is called Firefight. (And if you haven’t seen the trailer, Prologue, or teaser chapters for Steelheart, please go give them a look! We’re hoping for big things from this novel.) As you might be aware, I will often be preparing for/writing one piece while I do revisions on another. I generally can only do new prose on one piece at a time, but I like to be revising and writing on two different things at once. So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be writing Firefight and revising Words of Radiance.

Brandon Sanderson

(Oh, and if you caught the reference to the word "skaze," then good for you. The skaze are a group that will appear in the sequel, when and if I get around to writing it. They're pretty much evil seons.)

Questioner

With the genre becoming more mainstream with stuff like Game of Thrones opening the door, or like American Gods, which of your particular series, including Wheel of Time, would you like to see converted to big or small screen?

Brandon Sanderson

This is good question. A lot of people wonder the answer to this one, so I'm glad you asked it. It'll prevent me from having to answer it seven times or 70 times going through this line. As a basis for the question, we have sold the rights to almost everything. Hollywood is very good at buying properties, and very bad at actually doing anything with them. I sold Mistborn for the first time in like 2006. We're now on our third company who has bought the rights to Mistborn. But if I could pick anything, I would have Stormlight done as a Netflix Original Series. So, if your uncles are the Duffer brothers, have them call me. I should say that Stormlight is currently in development as a feature film. The screenplay has been turned in and it’s huge. So, we'll see if it can be cut down to feature length. If it can't, we will explore television shows, but the people who bought it want to try to make a feature film.

Questioner

How many people that we've met know the story of Dalinar's wife?

Brandon Sanderson

Know which story?

Questioner

The story about the pact, why he doesn't remember anything.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh. Not very many at all know that he doesn't remember. He's had to fake it.

XMikethetrikeX

A question regaurding Feruchemical iron:

So, while Sazed was guarding one of the gates to Luthadel, he tapped weight to compensate, he had to tap pewter as well. Also, when he was climbing a tree, his strength to weght ratio rised, making it easier for him to climb it. Wax doesn't have to do this- when fighting Miles on the train, he's fine without any sort of muscular enhancement, and when he is climbing in the sets base, he notes that he does not make himself lighter because it would simply decrease his weight and strength equally (in contrast to Sazed climbing the tree).

So, is this difference for the same reason people can push/ pull on atium, being the you hadn't fully developed your idea for the cosmere yet? Or is it some other reason?

Brandon Sanderson

Hmm. I think the mistake is more on me writing the Wax scene than in the original. (For him climbing, specifically.) I'll put Peter on this and see if it's a continuity error we want to fix.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Nineteen

Yes, okay. I'll admit it. I started a chapter with a dream sequence. However, if you didn't realize that it was a dream before you got to the end, they you obviously haven't been paying much attention to the rest of the book. It's usually good advice to avoid dream sequences. It's particularly a good idea to avoid flashback dream sequences at the beginning of your novel. I did it anyway. The truth is, I liked what this scene did too much to cut it. My purpose was not to "fake out" or confuse–but simply to show some things that would be otherwise impossible to show in the novel.

I wanted to show AonDor working without Elantris' current limitations. The only way to do this–to really show this, rather than just describe it–was to have a flashback. So, I gave Raoden the dream where he able to remember the days before the fall of Elantris. You'll notice that I refer back to this dream several times through the chapter, using it as an example of several things Raoden considers.

...

There are a lot of other clues sprinkled through these chapters. If you're really clever, you could probably figure out from this chapter what is wrong with AonDor, and from that extrapolate why the Shaod went bad.

Questioner

Szeth, can he or will he use both a spren Shardblade and Nightblood at the same time?

Brandon Sanderson

He will be using Nightblood, the rest is a RAFO

Questioner (paraphrased)

Before the Shattering, was Worldhopping from Yolen possible to other worlds like Roshar, etc.?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I'm gonna say yes, it was possible--but it was a lot more difficult to pull off. Not nearly as frequently as now.

MoriWillow

So I was looking back through the scene where Shallan and gang is hunting the Midnight Essence and they come across that room covered in art, and I noticed something.

Shallan says there are murals that depict 10 kinds of spren and guesses they're for each Order. There's just one small issue. There's 12 Radiant spren. The Bondsmiths have 3 unique spren.

The passage in question with the relevant portion bolded.

Gorgeous, intricate pictures of the Heralds---made of thousands of tiles---adorned the ceiling, each in a circular panel.

The art on the walls was more enigmatic. A solitary figure hovering above the ground before a large blue disc, arms stretched to the side as if to embrace it. Depictions of the Almighty in his traditional form as a cloud bursting with energy and light. A woman in the shape of a tree, hands spreading toward the sky and becoming branches. Who would have thought to find pagan symbols in the home of the Knights Radiant?

Other murals depicted shapes that reminded her of Pattern, windspren...ten kinds of spren. One for each Order?

So what do y'all think? Is there a representation of just one of the Bondsmith spren? Is it an abstract representstion of the idea of a Bondsmith spren? Is this a writing error and there was supposed to be 9, with the glowing cloud, tree woman, and figure in front of a circle intended to be the Bondsmith spren? Perhaps the Bondsmiths were supposed to be unrepresented?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were to see this picture, the painting of the three spren to make Bondsmiths were made to make it visually clear they're the same kind of spren--and they KIND OF are.

The three you note above are not depicting the three spren of the Bondsmiths. One is depicting a perpendicularity, and the other two depicting Honor and Cultivation. These aren't the Bondsmith spren, but distinct and separate pieces of art.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Renarin is not comfortable touching people, but he does touch Adolin. Is he healing him?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Renarin is not healing Adolin "with his powers". He's not really confident in his powers at all. You'll see him develop that way more in book 3.

Questioner

How has your worldbuilding changed over time to date.

Brandon Sanderson

So, it's become a lot more deliberate. And it has become more-- One thing is I've let myself push further. I've found that worldbuilding is one of those areas in storytelling where I can let myself kind of off the chain, off the leash, and go steps further than I thought I could, and it still turns out well. A lot of times if you do that with story, for instance, if you do that with plot, the way to kind of go off the leash and do something unexpected with plot is to do something that's not foreshadowed and is not satisfying, which can make for a really interesting story. Go watch Into The Woods if you want to go see something that-- Yeah, half the audience groaned when I mentioned Into The Woods, for a good reason. That's not a reason to not tell those stories, but experimenting with plot can, in many ways, be something that fails pretty spectacularly. Good to do it, it's good to learn those things, but worldbuilding, I've found, I haven't found that I've gotten ever too far where it's failing because the worldbuilding is too different. I've failed with my worldbuilding because I haven't brought the elements together. In fact, Apocalypse Guard, one of the reasons I pulled it is the worldbuilding was not working. And I can't release a Brandon Sanderson book with bad worldbuilding, right? *crowd laughs* That's like the baseline, "No." It's not the only thing that was broken in it, but it was one of the things that was broken in it. So, more deliberate, allowed myself to stretch further, and I would say I'm always kind of looking for those conflict points, nowadays, in the worldbuilding. The points of conflict are really interesting to me.

ImASpaceLawyer

Can a Parshendi/Singer/nonhuman-humanoid become a Sliver?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

And we changed Hoid's appearance, in the White Sand.

Questioner

I couldn't even find him.

Brandon Sanderson

He's just, as I remember it--it's been a long time--I think he's just one of the cases Ais mentions talking about.

Questioner

Oh yeah, he's in the letter, no that’s someone else.

Brandon Sanderson

No he's just one of the people Ais' been chasing. There's just this one case that is mysterious to him. Like remember a lot of the early Hoid things were really obscure mentions.

TheOneKEA (paraphrased)

I also referenced the recent Q&A and this post, and speculated that the reason why the original poster thought Wax's sister was a duralumin ferring was because of Wax's comment that he did not feel any strong emotions as a result of her death. I told Brandon that the poster must have thought that she was deliberately suppressing her Connection with Wax by using Feruchemy. I said that I didn't need a yes or no answer from him.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He replied that he would neither confirm nor deny my statement and would only agree that it was very interesting.

OrangeJedi

If you had a giant pool of milk or mercury, or some other liquid, on a cosmere planet, how would that manifest in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that. I've actually thought about it. You'll have to see. Those two things are slightly different, the two things you just mentioned.

KillerSlipper

What was your biggest challenge when writing Skyward? And possibly as a follow on - are there any new challenges or surprises that come to you as a writer even after all these years of doing it ?

Brandon Sanderson

The biggest challenge to Skyward was getting the actual fighter-pilot stuff right, followed closely by the fact that I didn't really have a safety net for this book. Having already pulled a book from the publisher, and having a very small time to get this one written, I felt I really needed to nail it on first try--and I did, fortunately.

Questioner

I know that Silence was written as a short story. It was one of my favorite stories. She's amazing. And I love the world. And I know that you told me it was *inaudible*, but...

Brandon Sanderson

There is a book on Threnody scheduled for the cosmere, for me to do. The book, right now as I have it, is a fleet trying to sail back and reclaim the Homeland from the Evil... So, that's the plan right now. We'll see if it changes over time.

Questioner

The Aimians seem disliked throughout the world. Is that based on something that has happened in the past?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, yes, but they're also really creepy.

Questioner

Are they open to manipulation like other sentient non-human humanoids of Roshar? The Parshendi? Or, similar?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, RAFO.

Questioner

In your underground lair, will you have a secret room that has another secret?

Brandon Sanderson

*Laughs* We should. We will have a secret door so we should have a secret door that has a secret in it. Good suggestion. If we do that, then you can say you inspired it.

Questioner

How far back was the <second> Warbreaker book?  Chronologically does it come before or after Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Before.

Questioner

Before.  So in between Warbreaker and The Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.  More close to Warbreaker than to Stormlight.

Questioner

If you had to pick actors to play Kaladin, Lopen, Skar, Dalinar, and Rock, who would you pick?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure if I could pick them all. I really like Dave Bautista for Dalinar, he is somebody that I think would do a really good job. I can give you that one; I'm not sure about the others.

Questioner

The Aons on Sel… they're all based on, I assume the Investiture in Elantris itself, all the sigils are based on the general shape of the landscape around Elantris. Could that magic work in other places based on the geography of the other places with high Investiture, or is that exclusive to Sel?

Brandon Sanderson

That is an aspect of the Selan magic system-- Did I say Selian or Selan? I can't remember which one we settled on, Peter knows…

Crowd

Selish.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, Selish, that's what we settled on, isn't it, yeah, Selish magic system. This is why we have copy editors *laughter* That's a feature of the Selish magic system that, so far as I know, no one has pulled out in any decent reason for. But there's a distinct reason that could be figured out, but it's one of these things that will make sense when I explain it, but I'm not sure if it's quote-unquote "intuitively obvious to the average reader". I don't think that it necessarily is that, but it will make perfect sense once it's explained.

Argent

None of the Alethi names seem to have a "ch" sound in them - except for Chana / Chanarach, the Herald. Do they have a sound and written symbol for it? And if not, would they use a different sound when saying or writing Chana's name ("sh" maybe?)?

Isaac Stewart

I could be wrong, but I think there is a symbol for "ch" in Alethi women's script.

Ted Pick (paraphrased)

When will the Alloy of Law gaming supplemental be released?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The supplemental was originally slotted to be released this spring/summer but Crafty Games is a little behind schedule on it. Just keep your eyes open for more news on the websites!

Questioner

Who would win in a debate between Lightsong and a stick?

Brandon Sanderson

*laughs* Ah the Stick would probably!

Questioner

Is Skyward going to be part of the cosmere at all?

Brandon Sanderson

It is unrelated to the cosmere - since Earth is part of its history, and because certain elements of space travel are done differently.

KING

What would it take for a member of the Seventeenth Shard Shard to convert over to a member of the Ghostbloods? 

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, the Ghostbloods would actively recruit from them. So, I think it would not be terribly difficult. It 's gonna depend on which kind of Seventeenth Sharder. Because there are a lot of non-field-agent Seventeenth Sharders, which would be less interesting. Field agents, they would actively recruit. 

Brandon Sanderson

Elend Discovers that the Koloss have been left to Destroy, then Elend Executes Jastes

And here we have the scene where Elend Kills Jastes. This, more than anything, is a sign to Elend of the way the real world works. This chapter is a sign of innocence lost, and a measure of the price of idealism. Elend will never be the same man after this.

Some of my alpha readers rebelled against this scene, but–unlike the scene where Kelsier used Demoux to kill a man in book one–I decided not to cut it. This event says too much about what has happened to Elend, and it means too much to his character. However, I did arrange things a little differently. In the original draft, Elend struck and killed Jastes, then explained why he did it. In this version, he outlines Jastes' sins first, then takes his head off.

Now, finally, Elend and Vin have discovered Sazed's lies. Did you wonder about him sending the two of them off to climb the mountain in the winter? Spook was around to stop that, in case you were wondering.

And yes, Spook knew. Considering how long it took Vin to get over the fact that OreSeur knew about Kelsier's plan to die, you can imagine that she's not soon going to forgive Spook for this one. In his defense, he was pulled about between some very strong emotions and motivations, not the least of which being his uncle explaining that if he DIDN'T go, nobody would be there to explain the truth to Vin and Elend and keep them from trekking all the way to Terris. Besides, Spook didn't want to die, and this path offered him an escape. Can you blame him?

He'll blame himself. Book Three.

brightladyCasta

I've heard it is possible to be a Radiant of two orders - it would depend on spren and ideals, and may be difficult to handle, but is theoretically possible. How about being a Willshaper and an Edgedancer at the same time? Could that work?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll have to RAFO that, I'm afraid.

Jofwu

Any thoughts on whether Scadrian spaceships might have AI onboard?

Brandon Sanderson

AI in the cosmere will be an important topic I'll address in the future.

Daniel

Did the uses of epigraphs in the Robotech novels influence your own usage of epigraphs?

Brandon Sanderson

I can't say; I wouldn't even have been able to remember that they did have them. I know I liked them. If I were gonna point toward one, I'd point toward Dune. Because, though I read all the Robotech books as a kid and really liked them, Dune I read during a more formative time in my writing, after I decided I wanted to be a writer and was really looking at the structure of stories, and things like that. So that's probably the one I would point to. And the epigraphs in Dune are ephemera, they're very similar. (Though they all tend to be from the same piece, I believe; I think they're all from the journal.) But it could have had an unconscious influence. There are a lot of great books that use epigraphs. But I would not have been able to tell you if they had.

Questioner

[In Forging], if you rewrite the history of an item, and it took effect permanently, would there ever be a potential to have a butterfly effect, out beyond the history of the item, that might directly affect something somewhere else in the world?

Brandon Sanderson

It would be very very hard for that to ever happen, because it's like spliced DNA or something like that. It's not real. It's a forgery. Nothing else considers it, that it did that. The only tricky bit would be if you have children, and you've rewritten yourself in an interesting way that’s actually changed your DNA, that... might have ramifications.

Questioner

Hypothetically speaking, if some of the main Radiants were to die at the end of book 5, go to Braize and then spend the time in between 5 and 6 there, would they age?

Brandon Sanderson

There are lots of problems with that question. If a Radiant dies, they don't go to Braize. A Herald would, but a Herald is a Cognitive Shadow, so there's inherent problems in there. When you're a Cognitive Shadow, aging is different there, because you're basically a ghost. Even if you've been stapled to a body, it happens weirdly. So there's all kinds of flaws in that question.

Herowannabe (paraphrased)

I asked him a question I had been wondering: if there was any connection between The Shattered Plains, the Chasm on Sel, the Pits of Hathsin, and/or the crater valley of the Conventical of Seran.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said yes there was, but didn't elaborate. He let me guess though.

Herowannabe (paraphrased)

 I guessed they were some sort of shard-impact sites.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said that was a good guess but not it - they aren't that directly connected. As best as I can remember he said it has to do with things like the shardpools and how the shards are connected to the land (as is most obvious on Sel).