Found 14291 entries in 0.334 seconds.
If Megan were ugly, would David have cared? Would he have still figured out the problem?
I'm not sure. David's a little shallow at times. That's a question you'd have to ask him. And he might require a little soul searching on his part. David is probably one of the more earnest but more shallow people that I've ever written about. There aren't a lot of us that aren't terribly shallow early in our lives and we kind of learn that lesson as we grow.
So, any questions?
Well, I was kind of wondering, you've got this whole culture of, exactly that: people asking you questions about your stories outside of the stories.
Yeah.
I was wondering, is that something you developed or decided on? Or--
That I inherited from Robert Jordan. It had started happening a little bit, but it was really a thing that Robert Jordan fostered in his fans, that I got very used to doing. And so, I just kept doing it. I do warn my fans: I change my mind. And so, um, the things I say--they call them the Word of Brandon--Word of Brandon is level below what's in the text in hierarchy, because I will change my mind, and I will get things wrong when I don't have my notes and stuff. And so-- But yeah, but you can find collections of things I've said. And most of them are still true. Once in a while I'm writing a book, I'm like, "No, this just doesn't work out." But you know that--that just happens with everything.
Like I'm writing Oathbringer, right? And I've mentioned things in Dalinar's past before that are from my outline of Dalinar's past. I sit down, I write the flashback sequences, I'm like, "Oh no. Continuity error," right? And so we just have to go with fixing it in this book and then say, "First book's got a continuity error, guys." Because once you actually sit down and write out somebody's life across thirty years, you can't get them sometimes into places where you had noted stuff. So, it's--I wish I could be like 100% accurate on all things. It just doesn't work out. Even the books like Mistborn, that I wrote all three in a row, and then we edited them, and then sent them out--still had continuity errors, so. Ehh.
If Roshar's years are 500 days along, and I say someone is twenty years old, how does that equate to Earth time?
It equates to actually about 10% difference. Because while the years are 500 days, the days are shorter, and there are fewer months. It all works out mathematically to about 10%. So if I say someone is twenty in the books, they are twenty-two in Earth years. So kind of keep that in mind.
It's a small enough difference, I feel, that people who don't notice it or know about it won't really be thrown for a loop. But I like to have things like that. And normally in fantasy novels I don't make big differences in things like time, units of measurement. Or other things, like Roshar has a lower gravity than Earth. I don't deal with that in a lot of the fantasy books; I like to have some of it on Roshar, because one of my pitches to myself in making Roshar was to come up with a fantasy book where the worldbuilding was a little more like a science fiction book's worldbuilding.
I am likely done writing Legion novellas. I still hold out hope for a television show; we have the rights to that sold. And there's a decent chance we'll do some audio originals that I'll do with a co-author on those. So if you really like Steven Leeds, I've always imagined Legion as a television show pitch. That is from the very first novella, I am writing in-depth episodes (kind of like the Sherlock episodes of the BBC Sherlock), standalone episodes that build on each other was my pitch to myself.
Chapter Three
Well, there you go. That chapter (with a big chunk of two) was originally the first chapter of the book. Oddly, moving it back made the book move more quickly, for me at least. It's strange how you can sometimes speed up a novel by ADDING material.
Speed in books, however, has little to do with how long the book actually is, and everything to do with how captivated the reader is.
Can Regrowth do-- accomplish more for healing than Feruchemical gold can?
*Pause* I haven't decided yet.
Are all the constellations symbolic in nature? If so, can you fill in any gaps in my understanding of them (or expand on them, point out cool things I may have missed, etc)? I've got:
All correct so far.
Taldain - a tree? Because of the importance of water on the world?
A one tree. This is a symbolic reference to the Shard that resides on that world. The Coppermind says this: "Khriss writes that Bavadin supports a policy of strict isolationism for Taldain."
First of the Sun - a sailor? Because of how the natives live, traveling between the isles?
A fisherman, actually. He's throwing his net out among the stars.
Sel - the lamp makes a lot more sense now, thanks! I don't think anyone had pointed out that Sel is inside the flame, not the lamp - but the lamp is so much dominant in the image, it was easy to focus on it :)
Just repeating what I mentioned before in case I ever make this into a blog post. Sel's constellation is symbolic (as is the constellation Threnody is found in). As for the lamp, notice that Sel is not exactly part of the lamp. It's part of the flame. How does Aon Dor work? An Elantrian creates an opening for it to pour through and affect the world. Think of the flame as a symbol for the Dor. Does that make sense?
Scadrial - why is it absent? And is it really absent, or there but just not labeled (for whatever reason)?
Scadrial's there. It's just part of the constellation I've been calling the Giver. Some worlds are closer together than others, so there wasn't room to give each world its own constellation.
You say that fantasy can be any genre, with dragons. However, you've never had dragons in your book. Can you see yourself putting some classical fantasy monsters into your fiction?
Yeah. There are dragons in the cosmere. The very second Cosmere book I wrote was called Dragonsteel. Dragons are the one classical fantasy thing that will make an appearance in the cosmere. You haven't seen any dragons that actually look like dragons in any of the books yet. Because dragons in the cosmere are shapeshifters in kind of the classic D&D trope style of thing.
The mists and Allomancy feeling right to Vin have something to do with the ending, where she draws upon the mists for an extra burst of power. I'm afraid I can't say more until we get to future books.
Vin and Zane Watch Outside the Tent
Zane's cutting has an interesting evolution in the story. At first, I added him cutting himself simply because–well–it made a cool scene. Zane, cutting his own arm in front of his father, primarily to make the other man uncomfortable.
However, there's more behind this, and the cutting worked very well into the interaction of the different magic systems in the book. Particularly Hemalurgy. The pain makes the voice in Zane's head weaker. There will be more on this later.
I'll admit that I didn't originally intend to make the Zane-Kelsier connection with those scars on his arms. However, when writing this scene, I couldn't believe I'd missed seeing what a great opportunity I had. Vin already associates Zane with the Survivor; letting her see the scars on his arms gives her another powerful connection, particularly since she misinterprets where they came from.
Also note that while Mare was an Allomancer, she wasn't what one would call a "dangerous" Allomancer. She was a Tineye, which isn't one of the top tier martial powers. She couldn't have used atium, and even if she HAD somehow found [tin], she'd simply have been able to hear and see better. Which would have made her better at finding the atium.
The Allomancers to keep out of the Pits would have been Lurchers or Coinshots (who could have destroyed the crystals), and to a lesser extent Thugs (who could be difficult to control.) Mistborn, of course, needed to be kept far, far away, lest they get their hands on atium.
There's more going on here, of course. If I ever write the Kelsier short story that talks about him discovering the Eleventh Metal, I will get into why the Inquisitors weren't given Mare as they wanted. The Lord Ruler specifically chose to send her to the Pits rather than handing her over to the Inquisitors. (Note: She wouldn't have ended up on a hook. Inquisitors had other...uses for skaa Mistings they captured. See book three.)
What are your favorite series?
For me it's Terry Pratchett. Discworld. I’m a very big fan. But, of course, there is also the Wheel of Time that I had a little... *crowd laughter*
When you started writing, especially Mistborn, did you know you were writing a series, or were you just kinda writing--
Did I know I was writing a series, or was I just kinda writing? I usually know I'm writing a series. I like to outline. The beginning, middle, and end; then what came before, and what came after before I start any project. That is different for some few; for instance, the Alcatraz books were more freeform. I didn't know how long they were going to be until I wrote the first one, but almost everything else I know the length of what I'm shooting for. It's just kind of a quirk in the way that I write.
Is there anything about Eshonai *inaudible*?
So Eshonai is one of these people who's *inaudible*. She's *inaudible*, right? It's that question of what is that-- the driving force in her life. *inaudible* ..."trying to take care of my people." *inaudible* for Eshonai, but yeah. There's something in her, and that is also part of what's drawing a certain spren, as you'll see, in the books.
What kind of spren is Oathbringer, the Shardblade?
Oathbringer is not technically a spren. Why I call these things the Honorblades, kind of where the whole Shardblade concept fits in, is that these are literally pieces of Honor's soul that he Splintered off and formed weapons out of for the Heralds. These didn't actually have sentience, in the same way that the spren forming most of the Shardblades are. They're literally a piece of the god who ruled this world turned into weapons. And the spren, who are also pieces of the same divinity, saw what was happening, and this kind of became a model by which Shardblades came about.
So Oathbringer doesn't have a spren. If you wanted to call it something, call it a sliver of Honor that has been manifested in physical form. That does mean the blade would actually be made of Tanavast's god metal, so tanavastium, if you want to call it that.
Yeah, that's just me hearing what I wanted to hear, not what was actually asked. It happens more often than I'd like; I get into this groove of answering questions, and start answering what I'm thinking about rather than what actually gets asked. A lot of times, I'm expecting a question (often because it's one that gets asked a lot, like what are Shardblades made out of) and my brain defaults to the answer I've prepared. I think it might be because I've trained myself to answer questions while doing other things.
Oathbringer's not an Honorblade. It was a Stoneward's blade a long time ago, with the corresponding spren.
Regarding Elantris, I read a while back that you had no intentions of writing any sequels, but then you had a change of heart. I know that you've been busy with a lot of other projects, but has there been any progress at all on a possible follow-up, or maybe ideas you could share on an Elantris sequel that have been bouncing around in your head?
I doubt I will do a sequel that begins just after Elantris ends, at least not with the same characters and in the same place. There are lots of ideas I want to explore in the world of Elantris, though. I might do something about the Seons, or focus on a different culture, or write about something that happens many years after the story of Elantris.
So we know that spren come about through interactions? Could there be other things that situation could create?
Yes.
'Cause a read about the *inaudible*
Um, same thing, yes.
I was wondering if *inaudible* spren were created by *inaudible*?
This is possible.
Are Intention and Intent the same thing? And how does it work?
I consider them the same thing; those are synonyms in cosmere terms.
I added this aspect to a lot of the cosmere magics relating to Intent. Meaning you have to be wanting to do things to make a lot of the different magics in the cosmere work. Why is this? Well, there are narrative reasons, and there are writerly reasons (for a lot of the things I do).
The narrative reasons are: because I did not want the cosmere magics... it's just safer, it's a lot safer for people. And it allows those who are experts in the magic and who actually work with it to become better. Knowing what you're doing, and knowing and learning; I want there to always be an aspect of learning and practice to a lot of the magic systems.
A more narrative reason (that's kind of a narrative reason) is that there are a lot of things I want to do with the cosmere magic that, when they interact with the physics of the real world, I need some wiggle room. You see this with destructive interference in sounds in Rhythm of War. Where the way that it would work in the cosmere, thinking of something as destructive interference actually creates for it a feeling, an Identity, as destructive interference. Where, in reality, destructive interference, there's nothing inherent to it being destructive interference. It's the same sound, just played in a different way. But in the cosmere, we can add this element of Identity to it, through Intent, that it is specifically made to do something. Which just allows me more gears and levers to play with as a designer of a magic system to make the physics work. And, basically, a lot of these things are... Imagine Intent, narratively, as the converter between real-world physics and cosmere physics, the little adapter that you stick between them. By adding Intent, I have an adapter.
That works really nicely; it's very writerly to try to explain this, but it works really nicely for smoothing the line between real-world physics and cosmere physics in a way that makes it much more fun for me to write, and much more consistent with both things, real physics and made-up physics.
Have we seen [Khriss] in any of the books out so far? Is Vathi Khriss?
No, someone else. But you'll see Khriss in a soon-to-be-published book.
After that, the scene with Ham and Vin discussing pewter is nice, but not one of my favorite of the Allomantic explanation scenes. The thing is, I had to stretch to find things that Ham could tell Vin about this one. She's really good with the physical metals–she uses them instinctively, and may even understand them better than Ham does.
I do like how Ham comes across in this scene. His personality, as the one who doesn't fake or play games in the crew, makes him really work for me as a character.
Then, of course, everything goes wrong. It always does, doesn't it?
Could you build Aons or something similar to Aons off of the natural landforms on Roshar, like the Dawncities and the other cities that are sort of symmetrical?
The Elantrian magic system, the Selish magic systems, are the ones that don't work very well-- don't interact very well with other worlds... Other ones are a lot more easy to interact between worlds.
I think Kelsier is one of the best-crafted fantasy characters I've seen in the world. He resonates with me on new levels. What exactly were your influences in the character when you were constructing him?
Two big influences for Kelsier. The first is, I wanted to do kind of the classic rogue archetype guy, but someone who had had something so fundamentally life-shaking in his life that he had to look deep within and become somebody else. But it's mixed with the other big inspiration, which is, there's kind of some psychopathic tendencies to him, and he would be a villain in many other books. But in this one, he's what the world needed. And those two combinations created for me a really nice tension inside a character.
One quick one: Stormlight breathing. Do you actually need to physically inhale or can you cognitively inhale? Like I can think about inhaling without actually inhaling?
You—this is possible, and—
Okay, like if you're trapped and you can't breathe, but you can think about breathing.
Yeah, yeah. That would be fine.
I like how Raoden and Sarene's relationship is progressing in these chapters. I realize that it's probably moving just a bit too quickly to be natural, but remember that they don't really have much to do all day besides spend time with each other.
All in all, I like that their relationship has an opportunity to really develop and progress naturally. They don't fall in love because they fight all the time (which seems to be the only reason some fantasy characters hook up) or because they're possessed by hormones. Their personalities really do compliment one another, and they get along. They both like politics and keeping secrets for the game of it, and they are both sincere, intelligent people.
In other words, they don't just hook up because–as my friend Alan likes to say–"One of them is the male lead, and the other's the female lead." I'd like to think that there is more to it than that.
Chapter Seventy-Six
The North Pole
One of my big challenges in the geography of this world was figuring out how we could have a kingdom set at the pole of the world while at the same time maintaining a normal day/night cycle. My original plan was for the Well of Ascension to be located a distance to the north of Luthadel, up at the geographic north pole of the planet. When I was revising the second book, I realized that wouldn't work for various reasons. (More on this on the MISTBORN 2 Alternate Ending deleted scene page.) I changed things so that when the Lord Ruler held the power in the Well, he decoupled the geographic north pole and the magnetic north pole.
In our world, the magnetic north pole is located about eleven degrees of latitude south of the geographic north pole. On Scadrial, the two poles were originally in the same location. When the Lord Ruler moved the planet too close to its sun and realized he didn't have the control to place the planet in the proper orbit, he created the ashmounts to cool the atmosphere. He also wanted to keep access to the Well under his control, so he decided to build his capital city right above it. However, he realized that on a planet with a tilted axis, a city at the north pole would have seasonal daylight variation so extreme that at the height of summer the sun would never set and during the dead of winter the sun would never rise. He could remove the axis's tilt, but that would just make the sun perpetually skirt the horizon all year round.
What Rashek decided to do (and he had to make split-second decisions in the brief time he held the power) was to shift the crust of the whole planet so that the Well was at a latitude that would have more standard seasonal variation, and to re-create the Terris mountains in the new North (to maintain the rumors that the Well was located there). He worried that the new location of Luthadel would be too hot due to the latitude, but it turned out that moving the Well created an unexpected effect. The planet's magnetic pole followed the Well as he relocated it—and the ash from the ashmounts was slightly ferromagnetic. (Ferromagnetic volcanic ash has some precedent in our world.) So the interaction of the ash with the planet's magnetic field's new alignment meant that its protective cloak over the area of the Final Empire caused it to be cooler than the now unprotected geographic north pole.
One side effect of this is that all compasses point toward Luthadel. Since it's been that way for a thousand years, no one finds it odd–in fact, it's used as evidence of the Lord Ruler's divinity. It also makes it mathematically very easy to pinpoint one's exact location in the Final Empire using a combination of the compass reading and noon observations. Not that it's easy to get lost in the Final Empire in the first place—the geographical area of the planet's surface that the Final Empire covers is actually quite small.
Ultimately, when it comes down to sophisticated geography and astrophysics, I'm out of my element. If there are mistakes in my reasoning above, that is why I write fantasy and not hard sf.
And I still haven't said anything about what happened at the south pole.
Without spoilers, what can readers look forward to? [In Rhythm of War]
There is a character moment that was one of the pillars of my outline from the very beginning. This scene that I was working on. There were only two or three scenes that were core pillars. My beta readers feel like it landed. There won’t be a moment like this again until Book 7 or 8.
In a recent WoB, you have stated you considered Adolin to be young, hotheaded, and impulsive. However, the narrative of Oathbringer seems to draw a very different portrayal of Adolin: he comes across as very level-headed. Hence, has Adolin's character changed since the early books? Should readers interpret Adolin as level-headed or impulsive?
It's not really my place to argue questions like this--I need to write the text, and leave it for readers to interpret. However, I see Adolin (though growing and changing) still as being hotheaded. He refuses the throne, he repeatedly takes on foes much bigger and more dangerous than himself, he leads the charge in the assault on the palace, he decides to bring everyone to his tailor without consulting them on the idea.
Adolin is a guy who follows his gut. At the same time, he's a trained duelist--and has been prepared for battlefield command since his childhood. When you're in the middle of a war (or an event like the collapse of Kholinar) you need to be able to take command and make decisions. He'd be a terrible soldier and commander if he couldn't do this.
The fact that, despite his training, he does things like attack Sadeas and try to take on a Thunderclast by himself is the proof of his character.
What's the general time line on Stormlight Archive releases? Do you plan any major gaps in the series, or will books 2-10 likely be your main projects for the next few years?
I wrote a blog post on this back in October.
After I finish A Memory of Light, my major novel publishing schedule will be Stormlight Archive books two years in a row, followed by something else the next year. This pattern should continue until the series is finished. That doesn't count shorter exploratory side projects like Alcatraz or The Rithmatist (formerly called Scribbler), which comes out in 2012. I'll do one or two of those every year when I take a break after finishing a major novel, and not all of them will get polished to publication standards. Those deviations are largely to keep me from burning out.
Does a metal need to be swallowed to be burned? Or can it be injected or snorted?
It could be either of those two things. Yes. Basically, metal into the body in any way is going to work, generally. There's nothing magical about the stomach, even though it works the best when we talk about it. It's just more intermixing the nature of the metal with your soul in the cosmere, your Spiritual entity, is what gives them that ability.
What would it take to drain the highstorm of Investiture? Are there enough gemstones / Radiants on the planet to accomplish this? What would be the consequences if this happened?
That is a RAFO! Nice question, though.
Could a Seeker who was properly trained and experienced detect AonDor or Awakening? Similarly, does a Coppercloud block an Awakener's life sense?
A Seeker could sense somebody else using magic not native Scadrial. RAFO on the Coppercloud blocking similar magic.
If the force opposing Adonalsium is an entity like him/it (?), have we seen any magic that is related to this entity?
No. All the magic you see come from the shards of Adonalsium.
How do you come up with the David analogies and the metaphors?
Oh, man, this is so much harder than you think it is. For those who haven't read them, the main character is really, really bad at similes. And where it came from is, there's actually a contest every year, where people intentionally try to write bad similes, and submit them. And every year it comes out and makes me laugh. Just-- I love it. And I started writing Reckoners, and-- Normally, you read this things as an author, to watch out for things to not accidentally do. If you read the bad metaphors, you can be like, "Oh, this is why you don't want to do this. You don't want people laughing." You get aware of this sort of thing. It's very good for you as a writer to watch. And, lo and behold, I'm writing a book series, and I wrote a metaphor, and I looked at it, and I'm like "That is really bad." And you do this as an author sometimes, and sometimes they slip in the books, you just write it and they're really bad. And I went to delete it and I'm like, "What if I ran with that?" This is because I tend to discovery-write my characters. So, I outline a lot for my settings, and I outline a lot of my plots, and then I go freewrite who these characters are, and then usually I have to do a lot of rebuilding of my plot after I figure out who's who. And in the Reckoners, I just ran with that, I did the whole sequence, I did the whole first chapter like that, and I'm like, "This is really fun." And then I locked myself into it, and it got so hard. Being bad on purpose is, like, ridiculously difficult. But it was also part of the fun. I would save them up, I'd be walking on the street, I'd think of something, and I'd be like "Ooh, how do I make that bad?" And I'd spend the next fifteen to twenty minutes writing a really bad metaphor. And sticking it in my pocket, because they all have to be bad in different ways. If they're all bad in the same way, then that's not any fun, you get used to it. So they all have to be bad in different ways, too. So, yeah, it was harder than I thought, but it was a blast.
So, how much time-- personal reading time to do you spend on different types of things: research versus classic versus other fantasy type--
I would say, boy-- most of my reading is fantasy. My reading for other things is eclectic; it's like, when I find something I'm interested in. I would say, of that, it's like, half just reading whatever I feel like reading and then taking notes, and half reading for research. But, I do a lot of audio books, and I do a lot of podcasts, I can do them while I'm signing books, and things. So, some of my reading recently has been like, Hardcore History, which is a podcast. Stuff like that.
So, how many hours do you actually spend. Obviously, when you write, and you're signing, I understand that.
Always, when I'm signing, I try to listen to, like, a book, or something like that. And then, I try to get in, like, an hour every night. I don't always get it, but that's what I try to do.
Do Ym, Stump belong to Edgedancer? Will we see Stump again in the future?
Ym is not an Edgedancer. You will see Stump in the future novels though you may not see Tashikki much again.
The bit about Mare betraying Kelsier was one of the little tidbits I'd been reserving for quite some time. I hope that some of you managed to guess it. It only makes sense, I think, considering the emotional torment Kelsier has gone through. In order for him to be the man I want him to be, he has to have faced a TRUE betrayal–a hurtful one.
Is the person Kalak speaks to in the prelude of The Way of Kings the real Jezrien?
Yes.
How many books are there going to be and how long is it going to take? I only have so long to wait.
It's two five book series: a five book arc which will come to an end, and then there will be a break, and then another five book arc.
In what time span?
I'm going to try to do them fast. It won't be as long between the first and second. Probably every eighteen months.
Who would win in a fight: Sadeas or Amaram?
I am going to say Sadeas, at his prime. And this is because Sadeas at his prime was more aware of his weaknesses than Amaram was, if that makes sense. And Sadeas was more aware of his strengths and his weaknesses. Where Sadeas runs into problems is: Sadeas did not have the help and the sort of beginnings of cosmere awareness that Amaram had. Amaram had access to way more resources and way more... he was in a better position than Sadeas was because of the allies and friends that he had. Sadeas's vision was too myopic in the series, while Amaram's vision was bigger, but he, himself, did not have quite the capacity.
Does a Shard on Roshar have a bead representing it in Shadesmar?
I don't mean the Vessel (assuming that the Vessel is even considered "separate"). I'm talking about the actual Shard itself.
No, it does not. Good question.
Just had a random idea regarding the Dragonsteel character [with DID], could it be Bavadin? (the avatar forming seems in line with this)
RAFO! :)
I read something that said you wish there'd been more between Mat and Padan Fain, in the end.
I wish I had done more. I feel like that's one of the things that I, a little bit, dropped the ball on. It was a little too brief. That's one of those things that, if I had a little more time and got more reader response in beta reads, I might have picked up on.
I'm a huge fan of the Writing Excuses podcast.
Well thank you.
I always say it's like a master class in genre writing, so I thought you should—for aspiring writers who are in the room—that you should take a few minutes and tell them about the podcast in case they don't know about it.
Okay. So, what happened is, my brother was taking this class in college. My brother's one of these people who take like ten years to get an associate's degree or whatever it is. *laughter* You know, he's got a good job in IT. It's like, he doesn't need the degree, but he feels like he should have one, so he's like taking a class here, and taking a class there. I see people nodding; you either have done this or have loved ones who have done this, but anyway--
Like doing this ourselves--
Yeah, or doing this yourself. *laughter* So, he's taking this podcasting class for whatever reason. He's like, "Hey, you should do one of these, Brandon." "What? I'm not into podcasting; I'm not a radio personality." He's like, "No, no; you should do this." And he had this great idea—we wanted to do like this web serial that's adventures, like an old classic radio drama, and all of this... writing-intensive stuff, which is why he came to me. And I passed on it; I said, "No, I'm not gonna do that; it sounds fun but I just have too many things on my plate; there's no way I can write all of this for you."
But the idea for a podcast stuck in my brain, and I started listening to some podcasts—I really enjoyed a lot of them I listened to, but it seemed like there was this habitual problem in podcasting where it would be, friends sit around a table and chat, and then, you know, you turn on the podcast and it says one hour and thirty minutes, and you're like, "Ninety minutes, guys? Come on! Is there no editing going on? Can't you stick to a point?" Like, a lot of them are like, you know, the three-hour-long podcast where we're going to, I dunno, drive to Texas and talk about it. And they'll have this topic on, it will be like, "We're gonna discuss the new Batman movie," and I'm like, "Oh good, I want to hear what fellow geeks think about it." And then you see that it's a two-hour-long podcast, and you know they're gonna talk about Batman for like fifteen minutes of that, and then the rest is gonna be like what they had for dinner. *laughter* Because you know, you've been to lots of cons; you've been to lots of panels. You know how it goes; we get off topic. And every discussion of Star Trek turns into an argument of who's the best captain or whatever, and it's the same sort of thing over again.
So anyway, I was thinking about this, and thought, I really would like to do a writing advice podcast. So many people email me wanting advice; so many people would like to try to take my class but can't. Often my class has fifteen seats and I have seventy-five people showing up wanting to add, and we pack as many into the room as we can, but I wanted to do something that would let me give some of this writing advice. So I figured I wanted to do a podcast that was short and sweet. I wanted to organize it more like a little news program where you have one moderator throwing questions at people, and making sure that it stayed on topic, and did it in just a short period of time—I thought fifteen minutes was the right amount of time; just a quick, on-topic podcast—but I can get kind of dry. I've got this university background, right? I just kind of blab—you've been watching me; I do this—and so I'm like, it'll be better if I bring on people who are funny so that people can laugh—that are glib and all this other stuff—and so I went and got the two funniest people I know, which are Howard Tayler and Dan Wells—a horror writer and a comic book illustrator and writer—and I figured that would also give some diversity to the podcast.
And so we started doing this podcast, and it really took off—it was very popular—and so we eventually added a fourth member because we realized that we were not as diverse a cast as we could be, considering we were all three white dudes from the same town. *laughter* So, we called up Mary [Robinette Kowal], who has a very different perspective on life than us, and had been the best guest on the podcast that we'd ever had, and we figured at that point, the podcast now had a sponsor—Audible—so we could afford to fly Mary out, because we do it in person. We can't—this whole Skype thing, you just don't have the same chemistry. And so we started flying Mary out, and so for now, two seasons we've been doing with Mary, so it's the four of us doing writing advice, that we just tackle a topic every week and go at it, and we've had a lot of fun with it. We recorded a bunch of episodes before Dan moved to Germany for a little while, and we did cool things like, for instance, we each brainstormed a story—one episode was for each of us—and then we're all writing these stories which we will then post the rough drafts, and then we will workshop them on an episode, and see the evolution of the story, and then we'll do revisions. I actually, when I worked on my story, I grabbed one of the screen capture technologies—what's it called?—Camtasia, and I recorded myself typing the whole thing. It's like, wow, this is me at the computer going for six hours; maybe we can speed it up or something. But I had screen captures of me just typing the whole story, and then I will do screen captures of the revision process, and then post those so that people can watch a story being built, and watch it evolve, and watch all this sort of stuff. So, it's pretty cool, the podcast, so if you're interested in writing and reading, or if you just want to hear us sometimes be funny, feel free to listen; it's Writing Excuses.
Prior to the death of Gavilar, had nine (9) Desolations occurred? If not, can you please share how many have happened?
No... but no.
So, Zahel seems to carry a lot of baggage from his various experiences with war and violence.
Will we get to see what lead to him being this way?
Goal is for you to eventually get these answers. Either in the Warbreaker sequel, or another place that will become evident as the cosmere progresses.
Could only Lift see Szeth's afterimages?
Anyone sufficiently Invested can see them. Connection to the Cognitive Realm helps, too
Chapter Fifty-Three - Part Three
There has been some confusion about Raoden's line "After I left" to Sarene right before they go back into the kitchen. Right here, he's getting ready to tell her that he's really Raoden. He is implying that, after he left Kae (and was thrown into Elantris) he didn't think his group of noblemen would keep meeting. It was supposed to be a subtle hint–Sarene would catch something too obvious, and I didn't want to weaken the drama of Raoden's appearance.
This is a very noble, and a very sorrowful, scene. A lot of emotions fly around in this chapter. Again, if I have done my job and made you sympathetic to the characters and their stories, then these emotions will come off as powerful drama. If I've failed, then all you'll get from this scene is melodrama. I hope it worked for you. I wanted Raoden's final revelation–and return to Kae–to be a dramatic and powerful event.
Originally, this scene happened with the Mad Prince, whom I'd built up as being deathly afraid of spirits and ghosts. When Raoden appears, Eton thought he was a ghost, and ran away. (Ha ha. Another pun off the original title of the book. I felt so clever–then cut it all out.) Anyway, on consideration–and in rewriting these scenes to use Telrii instead–I realized that Telrii's soldiers would never strike down Raoden. His nature as the true king of Arelon would be enough to send them all fleeing in surprise and worry.
So, what we see at the end, with the Unmade, and it seems like Jezrien, getting trapped in gems. Is that basically possible, because, they have been, particularly in the case of the Heralds, infused with so much Investiture that they're basically being trapped in the gems instead of Stormlight?
They're not human anymore, yeah.
I've struggled with mental illness my whole life. Reading about your characters like Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar, that all have some degree of mental illness, start their path to recovery after forming a Nahel bond is very interesting to me. Is it a requirement for a Knight Radiant to be broken in some way prior to the bond? Where did you get this idea? Or was it just how it turned out?
There's a bunch of different answers to this, a variety of directions I can go. Part of it is, this is how it turned out. As I was developing the characters, I knew very early on, after the 2002 version didn't quite work, I knew what I wanted to do with Kaladin. And Shallan's character has always been a central feature of who she was, even before I came up with her modern version of the character. So there was a theme building there on its own. And when I notice a theme, I ask myself, "Is there a reason I'm looking at doing this? Why is it a theme?" And I realized this is something that was very interesting to me. I have several loved ones who have mental health issues that they deal with. It was something I didn't see done a lot in heroic or epic fantasy, and it felt very natural as a place to go. That the Knight Radiant bond is about making this bond with this spren and striving to become a better person.
It is not required in-world. A lot of people, even in-world, think that it is, because it was so common. My kind of external answer to that, even though they don't know this in-world, is that people who have struggled with these kinds of problems are more open to walking the path that one needs to walk to become a Knight Radiant. The two go hand-in-hand, the kind of self-awareness, and the ability to see yourself, to be reflective, just goes hand-in-hand with working on some of these issues. And at the same time, I felt it just worked really well with the themes of the story, the themes that Dalinar has of redemption. And also, I think that the extreme circumstances that a lot of characters put through stories like the ones I write do lead people to have some difficulties, right? Even PTSD, and things like that. There's just a lot that goes hand-in-hand together with this.
So the answer is, yes, it happened to be that way. But once I noticed it happened to be that way, I asked myself, "Is this a theme I'm doing on purpose, even if I haven't noticed it?" And the answer to that was, "Yes, it is."
Chapter Six
This chapter is where, in my opinion, the book starts to get good. These kinds of chapters are part of what I write for–good, solid character interaction with some intellectual problem-solving going on. I really like the way that the crew works through their challenges here. The items presented really do sound quite daunting as they're listed; yet, by the end, I hope that the reader feels as the crew does–that this plan could actually work, if they pull it off right.
I had to rewrite this scene several times, bringing the focus away from simply stealing the atium. By the last draft, I had something I was very pleased with. It outlines things simply enough, yet doesn't make everything sound TOO easy. At least, that is my hope.
