Joe ST
Quickly, before you holiday..><.. the Aztek Federation is mentioned as a singular nation (c15) but it also says nations (c17)
Peter Ahlstrom
It's a federation
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Quickly, before you holiday..><.. the Aztek Federation is mentioned as a singular nation (c15) but it also says nations (c17)
It's a federation
These pronunciations are pretty hard to say and don't make much sense internally! How do you pronounce "en" at the end of "Raoden" and "is" it the end of Elantris and "Sa-" at the beginning of "Sarene"? Is it Ray-oh-deen and Ee-lain-trice and Say-ray-nay? Or is it "-en" (as in "end" with no "d") and "-triss" (rhymes with "kiss") and "Suh-" (front rhymes with "Samantha")? Or Because if it's "-en" and "-triss" and "Suh-" then these pronunciations are not allowed by your AEIO rules, and if it's "-deen" and "-trice" and "Say-" then your listed pronunciations are not helpful.
Spelling some "a" sound with "e" instead also throws a wrench into the whole thing. Basically, the fact that you felt the need to do that should have been an indication to you that there were issues with the system to start out with, and that regular English speakers and especially Fantasy readers would just not automatically pronounce your names close to the way you meant them to be pronounced.
I will hopefully comment later, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to base a language around the just 4 long vowels A E I O (which are pronounced, phonetically, "ei ii ai ou"). It looks like there are some problems in implementation though.
I thought that only applied to the Aons. The different names and words, ie Raoden, is only part Aon... the other half is like a totally different language. Sort of like a pidgen language combines two different languages into is own sort of language, and can eventually turn into a whole new language (creole). I think that is what happened here....
I would need to reread the article, but I think it also mentioned something about only the first so many vowels being long and the rest normal. That or just the vowels that dealt with the Aon part of the word.
I also think the 'ae' thing is pretty common in fantasy.
Ookla,
You're missing the long/short combination. (EP has it exactly right.)
The Aon has long vowels, the rest of the word has short. Maybe I need to make that more explicit. However, reading it, it makes sense to me.
So, RAY-Oh-den would be pronounced, I think, exactly as I wrote it there. Two long--for the Aon--one short, for the non-Aon.
As for the 'A' exception, it was done out of necessity. You see, the truth is that I was creating a language to accent my novel, not the other way around. So, when it came down to writing a name like 'Sarene,' I just couldn't force myself to write it the way that looked worse, just to make the language feel a little more consistent. (There was no physical way to make the name on the page sound like the one in my head without writing something very silly, like Saraynay or Saraenae.)
I think that people in the world would pronounce her name, therefore, as "Sa-REE-Nee," as I pointed out in the article. However, I'm still going to pronounce it how I want, because I'm an English speaker, not an Aonic speaker. Just like I call Korea 'Korea,' instead of 'Kor-ryo' (or even Hanguk) as would be correct.
This is what I was always meant to be.
I wanted to have a moment in this book where Alcatraz decided, truly, that he wanted to accept all of these strange things that were happening to him. I wanted to give him a moment like I had when I discovered fantasy novels and figured out what I wanted to do with my life.
This scene with him staring at the Lenses is his moment. Not everyone has one–a lot of people just stumble into what they do for their lives, or they do lots of things. However, I feel very thankful that I had such a moment to direct me in life.
Alcatraz has now decided. He’s going to put up with all of this craziness. He’s going to accept it. Others aren’t accountable for him–he’s made the decision, and this isn’t against his will. He’s now a participant in the silliness of these novels by choice.
Is Hoid drawn to novel-worthy plots? Or does he ever just show up in a completely "normal" time/place, with no ramifications on the cosmere, Shards, etc.?
He is drawn to places specifically because of what's happening in those worlds. He is there and he is meddling.
Did you do anything for Way of Kings Prime?
I did not. I don't think I've even read that one. I did read Dragonsteel, but I haven't read Way of Kings Prime.
We had Kristy [Kugler] look over it, who is a freelance editor friend of ours that we have do a lot of work because she's really good. She looked over Way of Kings Prime, but she's the only one, really.
You are getting this pretty raw. This has seen one editor, whose job was just to make changes. We just said, "Change things you think need to be changed to make it more readable." But it's still a draft.
We hear a lot in The Final Empire about various titles and such from the Steel Ministry. Can you give us very little as to their actual structure and what they do...
Yeah I can talk about this.
They only thing you can't is the ranks.
So the Steel Ministry, in the Mistborn books. The interesting thing I considered when I was writing them was "What is the purpose of the priesthood when god is there in the palace and everyone knows it? And if you disobey you just get your head cut off." So what do you do? I made the Steel Ministry more government, like the post office is run by priests. And a lot of what priests do is witness official business, take your money for doing so and give you a stamp that "Yes I witnessed this" and things like this, but they also run all the public works. It's not like they're cleaning the sewers themselves but overseeing the sewers, overseeing engineers, most of the engineers who built the city plans would be obligators.
Which by the way you named didn’t you? There he is, Nate Hatfield was in my writing group for many years. We were driving to writing group once and I wanted a cool word for a priest, because I was just using priests in the original version of Mistborn.  I'm like "I need a great word" and he-- How did you even come up with that word?
You really want to know?
Yeah.
Thesaurus. *laughter*
...There's Nate. You can congratulate Nate on coming up with obligator. And was it you that came up with the Conventicle, or was that Peter? Conventicle was Peter.
Are there birds outside of Shinovar on Roshar?
There are, but very few and they are all in the west. So you're not going to find birds in Alethkar for instance. Unless they're chickens that have been brought, or something like that.
Hoid is not capable of hurting anyone, but in Way of Kings we see him wearing a side-sword, is that simply for show?
That's just for show. He is going to do that again in the next book. It's symbolic.
So there are some forms of Investiture that some people can access regardless: like BioChromatic Breath, but there are some that are not like Allomancy—and there are a few exceptions of course—but are there other ways besides [hemalurgic] spikes that you can access investiture from different worlds?
Like if an Elantrian went to-
If you can blank your Identity and create the right Connection you can have it happen.
If an Elantrian showed up on Roshar, they wouldn't bond with a spren?
They can bond with a spren, the spren is up to the spren's choice. The spren can bond with whoever they choose to bond with.
Chapter Twenty Three
Has it been too long since we've seen Elend? I think so. I wish I could have worked him into the story more earlier, then shown him a little more consistently. I promise that you'll see more of him in the upcoming chapters, however.
He's one of the major characters in not just this book, but the entire series, after all.If you were gonna pick a thing to be, like, an Edgedancer, or a Windrunner, what would you be?
Probably a Bondsmith is what's natural to me. If I could pick any, I'd probably be Windrunner, but I don't think I'd fit Windrunner.
Would Vasher be able to use Stormlight in the same way that he can get Breath?
That would not be immediately easy, but Stormlight could feed Nightblood.
Which is why Szeth can wield Nightblood?
Eh, you'll have to see if but yes. That could theoretically happen. You can use most of the magics on most of the planets to fuel the other magics, if you know how to do it, it is not easy.
OK. Now, the Weeping that happens each year on Roshar. Does that occur each time when the 3 moons are in a particular alignment?
No. It's more related to the planet's orbital position than the moons' position.
Interestingly, I’ve never annotated about Sarene's nickname before. Only her father uses it, and when Moshe read the draft, he had trouble understanding how to get 'Ene from Sarene. That's probably because he, like most people, pronounced her name like the word serene. That's all right–I don't really mind how people pronounce the names in my books. When I read, I see a name, come up with a pronunciation in my head, then go with that from there on. Nothing can convince me that I'm pronouncing it wrong, not even the author him/herself. (Even still, the names of Anne McCaffery's dragons are jumbled, meaningless noises in my mind. That seemed right at the time.)
Anyway, if you're interested, there's a pronunciation guide for Elantris on the site. Sarene's nickname comes from the Aon in her name: Aon Ene. While in our world, we tend to choose nicknames based on the first syllable of a name, nicknames in Arelish come from from the Aon. Since Sarene's Aon comes late in her name, that's where the nickname comes from. "Ene," by the way, is pronounced "Ay-nay."
Vin Versus the Inquisitors
Vin fights the Inquisitors, hoping to put herself in a situation where she can draw upon the mists. It's a reckless plan, but I hope it feels exactly like something Vin would do. She's tired of being manipulated; she knows the end is very near (less than a day away) and knows that she needs to do something. This is all she could come up with, and I think it's a good plan. (At least if you're Vin.) It's a final attempt to save the world or go out in a blaze, fighting down thirteen Inquisitors at once.
This is my favorite fight in the book. The previous ones are all too warlike. I prefer the beauty of a couple of Mistborn fighting in the rain and the mist, as opposed to the characters taking out hundreds of koloss. This fight between Vin and the Inquisitors is the kind of thing I developed Allomancy to do in the first place.
Nale mentions that he's the only Herald that ends up joining his Order of Radiants, eventually. Are there any Radiants that joined other Orders?
No, good question.
I learned today that "Elend" in German means "Misery" - a spurious connection to the books, of course, but interesting!
Coincidence. They actually changed his name to Elant in the German version because of that.
Brandon was trying to make up German-sounding names for Elend and Straff, and they both ended up being actual words.
What has been your favorite trope to subvert?
It's got to be the one that did Mistborn right, the- no, you know what, oh I can't say it.
I like subverting my own tropes the best. Finding something that I've been leaning on and recognizing it for what a good thing [it has been] in my books in the past, understand that readers are going to expect me to do it more, then subverting it is really fun for me. There is a moment like this at the ending of Oathbringer, that I won't mention because it is a spoiler, where something that has happened in the previous two books does not happen in this book. That is intentional, when I was building the outline for the series, I'm like "hey, I'm leaning on this idea a lot." It is a central theme of the [Stormlight Archive], so its okay, but I need to subvert it a couple times, otherwise it will get stale.
But if there is one I can talk about it is subverting the Hero's Journey in ways that are still satisfying. It's easy to subvert a trope and make it unsatisfying; most tropes work because they are satisfying to [an] extent. So the subversion [of the Hero's Journey trope] has to be still satisfying in its own way, and that can get tricky.
Where did the inspiration for the delvers in Starsight come from?
Came from me wanting to do interdimensional eldritch horror, basically. It was a mashup I was looking to do. I'd always like space Cthulhu, space cosmic horror. Cosmic horror is a fun sort of storytelling attribute that I like. And it felt right to have these kind of interdimensional beings. I wanted something that did not see our reality and understand it. And something that was, in many ways, unknowable or couldn't be understood because of that. I wanted a true clash between something alien, and the way that we see the world. Because I knew I was going to have aliens in the books. But the aliens in the books were going to be weird, but relatable. I wanted to try to build something that was much harder to relate to.
So, cosmic horror. Interdimensional cosmic horror.
Can you maybe tell us something about how much of the text in this book is devoted to the happenings of the past year (especially with Dawnshard not being an absolute pre-requisite to understand RoW)? How much can we expect to see of Renarin's journey, because that's an important variable in Odium's plan? I guess with the word/page limit though, it would also make sense to portray the characters just dealing with the aftermath of the events.
From here out, not a TON is devoted to the past year. We get a lot more from Adolin on how he's feeling than from Renarin, but I did find time to slip a little Renarin in later in the book. And what is there does relate to the questions you are asking here.
How do you decide which stories need to be told when as you work your way through the cosmere?
Mostly which stories need to tell when in the cosmere is affected by what I'm most excited to write right now. The cosmere so far has been separated enough that I can look at what I'm really passionate about and write it, and there's been no reason so far to put those very out of order chronologically. The further we go, the more that'll have to be. Like, the Wax and Wayne books happen chronologically after Stormlight 1 through 5. So it's already begun a little bit, but for the most part it was "What am I passionate about writing? What do I feel like is the best book for me to write?" And then I make sure it fits into the chronology rather than otherwise. Again, the further we go, the more these things lock into place. Like White Sand is jumping backward in time, and when I do Dragonsteel, it's going to jump even further, so this will happen more and more as we go, but right now? I write what I'm passionate about.
So you've said that healing is like the Spiritual wants to heal and then it filters through the Cognitive, but how's that work with healing wounds to the soul like Hemalurgy or Shardblades? What do you refer to to heal the soul at that point?
You need to make a patch on the soul with Investiture.
So how's the Investiture know where to go, what to look like?
Well your soul is an ideal. So if you can get it up there, there are ways to do-- to recreate that with um... See I'm getting into stuff for later books.
No, that's okay.
So when Hemalurgy rips something off the soul, is that the ideal soul or some sub-soul?
That is off of your soul, and it can be healed; but what it's going to be doing is creating a patch of new soul. So it will not be your original soul. Does that make sense?
Okay, that- well, not completely, but I think that's your intention.
Yes.
If you do that, is that like Frankenstein's monster, or is it like a graft that's absorb--
Less horrifying- Less horrifying than Frankenstein's monster, but it is a graft that is like-- It is not your original soul.
Yeah, but in modern medicine stuff like that is absorbed-
Yeah, in this you will always have a scar on your soul that something else has patched over.
So Kaladin shouldn't just keep getting his arm chopped?
*ignoring/not-hearing Kurkistan just now* But that is what happens with most forms of Investiture in the first place.
Chapter Two - Part Two
Vivenna and Her Father Chat about Siri
King Dedelin does love Siri. He's a good man, but not quite as great a man as his daughters probably think. He does put Vivenna first. He loves her more. Perhaps because he relates to her; the two of them are very similar in many ways.
The girls' mother passed away over a decade ago, by the way, in a riding accident. Siri doesn't remember it, but Vivenna does, and that is one of the sources of tension between them. Siri's flagrant rides remind both Vivenna and her father of the way the queen died. Memory of their mother is also part of what makes Vivenna more controlled and "perfect." Siri grew up with very little supervision, while Vivenna had much more of it in the person of her mother.
Anyway, Dedelin loves Vivenna more. When he says that he sent Siri, “Not because of personal preference, whatever people say,” he's being truthful as he sees things—but he's deluding himself. He's convinced himself that he did it primarily because Vivenna's leadership is important to Idris and she can't be risked. That is important to him, true, but his love for Vivenna is the primary reason.
Now, he's not callous or hateful of Siri. He loves her. But . . . well, Vivenna reminds him of his wife. I guess you can't blame the guy too much for what he did.
Is it possible to replicate an Edgedancer's frictionless-ness with a fabrial?
This is theoretically possible.
What is the order of the Stormlight books? Like the first one is Kaladin's--
First one's Kaladin's. Second one's Shallan's. Third one is Dalinar's. Fourth one is Eshonai. Fifth one is Szeth. Sixth one is Lift. After that, I'm not sure if it's Taln or Renarin next. Probably Renarin.
You may be interested to know that I planned a prologue for this book, originally, with Sazed seeing the mists during the day. He was going to ride past a valley, see it creeping along inside, then rush down and find it gone by the time he arrived. That's when he was to hear the rumors of people killed by it, then rush off, and eventually get lucky enough to find a person killed just a day before.
I never wrote that prologue. I just didn't feel that I needed it, and didn't want to start with that scene–I wanted something more active, rather than something mysterious, for the opening. As I revised the book and tried to focus the reader more and more on the politics and warfare, rather than the mists (particularly at the beginning) I decided that a prologue that dealt with the mists would be out of place.
I want to know if we're ever gonna get to see Hoid and Jasnah and the journey back at the ends of Words of Radiance, 'cause I was so hyped to read that and then they didn't interact at all.
I will promise you some interaction in book four but I won't promise you a flashback...
Is the flute that Vin saw in the Lord Ruler's secret room in [Well of Ascension] the same flute that Hoid gives to Kaladin in [The Way of Kings]?
RAFO. The origins of that flute will be revealed at some point.
Chapter Fourteen - Part Two
I don't spend an awful lot of time here talking about the back-story with Mare and Kelsier. I'll get to more of it later. However, you know just about all you're going to know about their failed plan. Kelsier thought there was atium in this room. They tried to sneak in. They got caught.
In a way, Kelsier is indeed reliving his last days with Mare by trying to break into the room again. He's a Mistborn now, and he wants to accomplish now what he was defeated in earlier.
This chapter is also another example of the hard edge Kelsier has. He kills his enemies without any pause at all. In my opinion, it was the Pits that did this too him. He's been thought something so horrible that death just isn't as meaningful for him as it once was.
A friend of mine wanted me to ask: Was the cataclysm that rocked Ashyn and forced its inhabitants into the flying cities Investiture-based, and if it was was it Shardic in nature?
The same cataclysm that the-- did you finish [Oathbringer]?
Yes.
The same cataclysm that they were fleeing, that they caused, is the one that forced people into the skies...
Can the Unmade be bonded?
Wow, plausible... Yes, or possible, I should say.
Recently, I have been working on Stormlight, and video game time is much smaller than it was last year, because I just need to be sure that I am getting that book done by July 1st. The fifth draft needs to be done by July 1st. So, pretty tight scheduling, making this happen. Particularly if I want to have time to do the Wandersail novella that I would really like to do and have out before Book Four is, because there are certain things in Book Four that reference stuff in the Wandersail novella that isn't written yet.
And, as for the seon explanation here. . .well, I'm afraid that's all you get for this book. I think this is the last (or, rather, only) discussion the characters have about the origins of the seons. It's not much, but that is intentional. When I wrote Elantris six years ago, I wasn't sure if I'd ever even sell the book. Therefore, I didn't want to invest too much thought into a sequel right then. I wanted the book to stand alone, yet I wanted to give myself plenty of room to do interesting things in a series, if it ever came to that. Therefore, I intentionally left a few open spaces in the worldbuilding–things the characters didn't even know.
One of these holes is the origin, and even workings, of the seons. I have some ideas, of course, but you'll have to wait for another book before they get explained. (You can thank Moshe for what you got in this chapter–he was very curious about seons, and he wanted a little bit more. That's why we had the discussion of Passing, as well as the explanation that you don't have to be noble to have a seon.)
One thing to note now--I wasn't very satisfied with Glimmer's dialect myself, and DavidB's comments tipped me over the edge. I'm now thinking of going with something more like this:
Aether. a voice said in her mind. It was light and airy, like a voice carried on the breeze, and felt lethargic. King.
Yunmi glanced down at the rose-colored crystal embedded into her forearm just above her wrist. King Theus? She thought.
Aether. the voice responded, dull, slow. As always, Glimmer's voice was accompanied by images in her head, filling out the single word. This time, the image was of a dark black crystal set into a man's hand. Theus's hand, which had been covered by a glove when Yunmi had met him.
So Theus does have an Aether, Yunmi thought. Did you speak to it?
Unresponsive, her Aether replied. Old. In her mind, Yunmi saw the Theus's Aether as Glimmer did--as a thing ancient, barely capable of putting out Aetherpulp. A thing tired, yet forced to continue living on, attached to the king's flesh.
Also, I don't like Glimmer's name, so consider that a placeholder right now.
I know people who relate a lot to Shallan's arc due to how similar her personalities are to Dissociative Identity Disorder. Did you intentionally write her to be recognizable DID?
I did, but I shied away from it in the earlier books, because I knew I was going to be doing fantastical things, and I didn't want to be offering too much commentary on DID. That was kind of my worry. With Kaladin, I knew depression well enough from family members and things that I felt like I could be a very strong contributor to the conversation. But, I started with Shallan saying, "I don't know if I'm gonna go this route." But then, the further I went, the more I felt it would be irresponsible to not do this. And so, in the last books, I just bit the bullet, dug really far into the DSM-5 and into reading firsthand, primary accounts from people. We got a very helpful person with DID to be one of our beta readers for this last book. And I just did my best to present it accurately and to present the non-Hollywood version of it. And so, basically, Oathbringer and Rhythm of War lean into it a little more than the first two books do, though that was where I was going. And I do have a working knowledge of Dissociative Identity Disorder, and did even back then. I don't think I did a terrible job, but I think it would have been irresponsible for me to go forward without digging in a little further.
*referring to his personalization request* Just that one. Wayne is a wise man, wrapped up inside of a sad man, wrapped up inside of a silly man.
He likes a hat to be nice and stiff. To mean something. And a fedora is going to be too weak for him. Too... too floppy. It's not a hat you have to commit to, in Wayne's opinion.
Does metal on Scadrial hold Investiture the same way gems do on Roshar?
No.
Has Hoid ever submitted a painting to the Court of Gods?
Hoid has... potentially submitted a painting. *group laughs* That's something he would do. But I have to say that as, "Brandon says that's something he would do. And 'sure.'" But that's not out of the notes or anything.
A lot of authors say that a lot of their writing comes from personal experiences. For Warbreaker, do you have any personal experiences that led to...?
I did write it on my <honeymoon>, so that may play into the whole marriage, all that stuff. I'll go with that one. There's a weird one. As I was working on Mistborn, my editor said, "Wow, Elantris and Mistborn both take place in pretty dark and grimy worlds. Do something more colorful next time." And so I'm like, "All right, I can do colorful."
So is that the same thing with Commands, are there like ideals that are Commands?
This is more of a-- For you to interface with the magic, you need to be able to comprehend it. And so forming a Command-- The same thing happens in Elantris, you know they don't accidentally draw runes, right? The intention is part of interfacing with the magic. So it's like your mind reaching into the Spiritual Realm and you have to like conceive something.
How was the Fjordell Empire not aware of the existence of the Rose Empire during the time of Elantris?
The connection between the two will be explained in future Elantris books, but a quick answer is this:
Fjorden was aware of the Rose Empire, but doesn't consider the location to be holy, so they didn't really care that much about it. There is also no easy natural way to travel between the two. If you remember, Shai did run into the Fjordell ambassador.
Roshar... Is that the whole world, just kinda flattened out? Or is there something on the other side?
There's something on the other side, but mostly just empty ocean.
Mostly just empty ocean? Something else? RAFO?
There's your card!
If you have two written books, Book-A and Book-B, and you are prouder of Book-B, does it feel weird if Book-A is more popular and better received?
I know this does happen to writers, but I've not really experienced it. Generally, if I write something a little more niche, I'm aware ahead of time. (And am doing it on purpose.) I also don't tend to be "more proud" of certain books--I write a wide variety of things because I'm interested in a wide variety of story types.
But I guess I'm also comfortable with the idea that a lot of work does not equal a successful piece. I, of course, would prefer to write things that everyone loves--but I learned early in my unpublished career not to chase the market, and that attitude has served me quite well.
The back five Stormlight Archive books are still planned to be the same five characters, but when he gets to those books he reserves the right to change them.
By the way, there is a little foreshadowing in this chapter. Raoden's ability to draw with a stick or a quill to do his Aons is very important, obviously. Some people still have trouble what is going on at the climax of the book, and so I found constant need to incorporate explanations and hints where I could to foreshadow events.
Human Enters the Tunnels
And here we also get some Human viewpoints. I believe I mentioned that he'd be returning. I didn't manage to do very much with him, but my alpha readers demanded something. (These two short scenes with him, as well as the epigraph saying he'd be back, were added in a later draft.) I figured that he deserved a little more screen time after what he'd done for the team, and I had wanted to show the koloss bursting in on the Trustwarren. This seemed like a perfect answer to both problems.
As I've said, I wished I could work Human in a little bit more. At least this lets us give him a parting goodbye.
So, you've told us that Vasher had knowledge about Shardblades before he created Nightblood...
...Can you tell us if Nightblood was created before the Recreance?
I'd have to go look at the notes... I don't think-- No, he was not. No. Definitely no.
Chapter Four - Part Two
The other big part of this chapter is, of course, the plan. This is where the story has been pushing up to this point. I worry that even still (despite several cuts) this section feels a little too much like an info-dump. I couldn't really get around that, since Kelsier is–essentially–dumping some information on the crew.
This is also where I begin to diverge from the "heist story" framework. I started with that concept to write the book, but as I proceeded with the plotting and the writing of the actual novel, I realized that the heist structure was simply too small to fill the larger concepts for the trilogy I was working on.
So, in rewrites, I came back and reworked this section to take to focus off stealing the Lord Ruler's money. The truth is, Kelsier wants to overthrow the government and get back at the Lord Ruler. The money isn't half as important to him. And, as the story progresses, you'll see that the crew spends most of its time on the army.
How much do you have to show about the past of your characters in a flashback?
There are no rules. There's nothing you have to do. Flashbacks, though, they can be great, they can be a minefield. Let me talk about some of the minefield aspects of a flashback.
First is, you're gonna have to decide how you're gonna do your flashbacks, because there are a lot of different ways. I do my flashbacks in The Stormlight Archive as a separate narrative line and basically we have multiple timelines in the books, where you're getting a character's timeline catching them up to the start of The Way of Kings. This works very well in an epic fantasy because I have lots of space and I can separate these chapters off that are flashback chapters completely on their own and they can be isolated. More common, the type of flashbacks you'll see from a lot of people is the "stop and think about it" flashback, and then cut to a new scene and you are seeing actively what the character's remembering at that time. This is the Lost method, the TV show Lost, a lot of television shows and movies use this, and they actively show the character thinking about it. I rarely do this. Once in a while, in The Stormlight Archive, you'll see a character start to tell a story about their past, and I'll make it a line with the next flashback chapter that you're going to get, but really what's happening is a character's telling another person a really shortened version of events, because when you're getting the flashbacks, it's actually not a flashback, the characters thinking about it, that's a separate timeline.
Another way to do it is the kind of, in the middle of a chapter, you're not doing a scene break, you're just flashing back to what happened, and there it gets tricky with tense. Tense can be really a challenge with this. The "I had done this" or whatnot, or if you're not gonna use the tense, it can get really confusing if you're not gonna do a tense change, you're just gonna put that past tense too, both of which are viable, I've seen them done very well. But those in-scene flashbacks can get really "tell-y" and really hard for readers to track and kind of uninteresting for them to read. The danger with any flashback -- this is the one that has the most trouble -- is that the reader will feel like the story is not progressing and instead they're wasting time doing something else and that they're not interested in attaching to this. And this is a challenge even with The Stormlight Archive ones. There are people who just do not attach to the flashback sequences, because they are, by nature of their story, prequels. And that's a challenge of writing them.
What do you gain? Why would you do this? Well, it's a really cool way to build motivation for your character, depth for your character, and to show a different place and time in your story so that you can show how much has changed. We talk about show versus tell, and you can use a flashback to show a character's changes quite dramatically in this manner. You can also get information to the reader in ways that would've been really "tell-y" otherwise. Sometimes, flashbacks are really "tell-y". And when I say "tell-y", they're boring, because they're infodumps and they're just giving you a whole bunch of information. A lot of times, if you do a flashback right, it feels more active and more interesting way to get the same information across to the reader, rather than having the character sit and explain about their lives to people, you just get to experience and see it. But that's just one tool, right, and like all of them, gauge for your own story if this tool is going to enhance the story you're trying to tell or if it's something that you should save for a different story.
I think this is how Urithiru's walls looks like
Yes, this is correct. I think I might have an image from this exact place in my reference photos for Urithiru.