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Brandon's Blog 2007 ()
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Questioner

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

Brandon Sanderson

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

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

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

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

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

Words of Radiance Portland signing ()
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Airred

You said that you liked video games. What would you say is one of your favorites?

Brandon Sanderson

One of my favorites, I like the Dark Souls games quite a bit. And I've been playing those since they were called King's Field, it's the same company. So I've played all of them since way back when. And I really like the Infamous games, and I really like Civilization, all of those, I've played every single one of those.

Airred

You said you played Infamous, have you played Prototype?

Brandon Sanderson

Y'know I've been tempted a lot, but what I've read from Prototype is that-- Like I played Infamous because I knew you had the choice to not be the bad guy, and I've heard that Prototype you basically don't really have that choice.

Airred

Yeah...

Swamp-Spirit

Dishonored gives that choice *talking over each other*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, my brother's been suggesting Dishonored, but I'm not-- When I play video games I like to play people that I would admire, you know what I mean? Like I am-- If I have a moral choice system my character is a boy scout. I don't...

Komekoro

Paragon to the max.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, those little walking pixels, I'm not going to, y'know I'm going to mourn if I accidentally run over one of them.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 ()
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Brightlord Maelstrom

Forged items. If it's one of those where it's permanent or it's not going to die after a couple of hours, can you move it off-world or would it transform once you moved it too far from its location?

Brandon Sanderson

Forgery requires a constant little stream of power to keep it going so yeah if you moved it off-world the Forgery's going to collapse.

FanX 2018 ()
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Questioner

If you got an actual Feruchemist who was as battle-minded as the Mistborn were in their heyday, and they met a Mistborn, which one would have the advantage in battle?

Brandon Sanderson

In a short battle, a Feruchemist. In a long battle, a Mistborn. That'd be my guess.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

What's the book that you've enjoyed writing the most?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably Bands of Mourning. I basically, for Bands of Mourning, just kind of took the "I am just gonna have fun with this" route, and it turns out it worked really well for those characters.

Stormlight Three Update #2 ()
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Xyrd

Can I ask what defines a "trilogy's worth of arcs"? I always thought that roughly corresponded to wordcount, but your wordcount-per-trilogy has halved from ~650k (Elantris, Mistborn 1, Warbreaker) to ~325k (Mistborn 1.5, Stormlight-without-interludes, Reckoners) so I must have that wrong... but I'm not sure why that's wrong.

Brandon Sanderson

I plot these like a trilogy each. The entire [Reckoners] trilogy, for example, is shorter than the way of kings. I plot a book of Stormlight using similar (though not exactly the same) methods as I use in building a series of other books.

Xyrd

What does "like a trilogy" mean? Or is there somewhere you'd recommend I go to learn more? From my uneducated perspective, "like a trilogy" means "long, lots of stuff happens, three books".

Brandon Sanderson

Well, what makes a book for me is usually an arc for a character mixed with a plot arc. Often multiple plot arcs and character arcs. It is less "stuff happens" and more "stuff happens for a reason, building to pivotal moments or discoveries." My YouTube writing lectures might help explain better. Look for the ones on plotting.

Xyrd

I think I understand...maybe...

  • "Arc" is point-to-point, be it for a character or a plot. Length-in-wordcount isn't relevant, difference between points is.
  • The difference in wordcount isn't a matter of "arcs" being shorter, it's a matter of there being fewer not-tightly-arc-related words, similar to how stand-up comics tighten up routines.

Do I have that right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup. You've got it. Though often, the difference in a longer book is the number of arcs. For example, in Mistborn, Vin has multiple arcs. (Learning to be part of a crew, training to use the magic, practicing to join high society, falling in love, and learning to trust again.) Those are mixed with a large number of plot arcs. A shorter book might have a character with a more straightforward, single or double arc.

fangorn

My first encounter with the term "story arc" was from J Michael Straczynski talking about Babylon 5 in explaining how it was plotted.

The term to me invokes a visual of tracing an arc across the sky from left to right, symbolizing the journey of an overarching plot or narrative to its conclusion.

Brandon was using trilogy with respect to the Mistborn series until Shadows of Self got away from him and became two books bumping the total to four :-).

Brandon Sanderson

That's almost right. I wrote Alloy of Law as a stand alone test of the new era. I liked it, so I plotted a trilogy to go alongside it. I ended up writing Bands of Mourning before Shadows of Self for various reasons, but it isn't that Shadows of Self got turned into two books. Those were always two very different books in the outline.

The point where things expanded was after I tried out Alloy of Law, liked it, and decided to do more books with the characters.

Warsaw signing ()
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Strumienpola (paraphrased)

Can you slatrify sand into other liquids?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

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

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

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

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

Are there any greatshells in Roshar's oceans larger than the ones we've seen?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

So the Reshi Isles--

Brandon Sanderson

The Reshi Isles, that's the biggest, and even with that I'm doing major fudging on the square-cube law. They've just spren-bonded, we'll talk about this. But even with the spren, those are a stretch. That's as big as it gets. They could exist in the oceans because the square-cube law doesn't apply the in same way, with buoyancy and things. But I think we don't need anything larger than islands.

Questioner

No Godzilla?

Brandon Sanderson

They're bigger than some version of Godzilla.

Warbreaker Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Another note here is that Nightblood can sense where Vasher is. This is because Nightblood has ingested and fed off Vasher's Breaths in the past. When he does that, it connects him to someone. It's also, by the way, one of the secrets as to why Vasher doesn't get sick when holding Nightblood, even though he's a good person. It's not simply familiarity (though that is part of it). Nightblood has a built-in test. If he feeds off you and you survive, then you become somewhat immune to his powers.

Boskone 54 ()
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Questioner

In Mistborn, silver doesn’t play a role. But then in Shadows for Silence, silver does play a role...

Brandon Sanderson

It does. I still wanted silver to be part of the Cosmere.

Questioner

But we’ll never see it in Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

It does not, as they understand currently, interact with Allomancy, with the three Metallurgic Arts. Silver does have a Cosmere role.

State of the Sanderson 2013 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

And finally, media properties.

  1. Mistborn: Birthright. (Video Game for consoles and maybe PC, cross platform.) We’re looking at 2015 for this right now. (Sorry.) The new console generation made us push it back. I’m still planning to write it, and development is still moving. It’s far from dead.
  2. Mistborn film. Option runs out in January. I’ve had a very good experience with the producers, but so far, we do not have funding for the film. We’ll have to see where we are in another six months.
  3. Legion television show. Lionsgate still has this under option!
  4. Steelheart Film. I had lunch with the producer at Comic-Con. It’s still early in the process, but they’re very engaged and very excited.
The Well of Ascension Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-Four

Breeze and Clubs watch the Army go

This is supposed to feel like everything is falling apart. I like that Elend doesn't see how much danger he's in now that one of the armies is retreating–as clever as Elend is, Clubs is the expert on warfare. Elend is an optimist; he finds it hard to look at the bad side of things. To him, an army leaving is good.

Still, even he knows that they're losing control. A battle is coming, and where it does, Luthadel–and those within it–will be in serious trouble.

Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing ()
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Questioner

Is Khriss a reliable narrator?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Khriss is reliable. She doesn't know everything, so there are some things that she doesn't quite get right. But she usually will acknowledge, "I'm not sure about this." Okay?

Questioner

Okay, cool.

Brandon Sanderson

You can trust Khriss as much as you can trust most experts in their field.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Pagerunner

Do you have a working title for Stormlight Four? Have you chosen the interlude character yet?

Brandon Sanderson

Interlude character is Eshonai. I've had several working titles over the years, but one that stuck around a while was The Song of Changes. I'm unlikely to keep this, as it was never meant to be a final title.

Pagerunner

Interludes are Eshonai again? Like in WoR?

Brandon Sanderson

Sorry, I was getting my lines crossed. Flashbacks are Eshonai--the interludes are not something I've announced right now.

Manchester signing ()
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Questioner

My question was about your writing process... When you are writing do you become emotionally attached to the characters you are writing about? Does it become hard to distinguish between what you think the characters should be doing and what you actually have planned out for them? And how did that affect your Wheel of Time writing? You didn’t create them, but you took over their story arcs and did you become attached to any of those?

Brandon Sanderson

What an excellent question. I do grow attached to all of my characters, however character is the weird one for me. Character is very hard for me to define how I do it. With my plot I can talk about outlining the plot and these sorts of things. And my worldbuilding, I've written lots of essays about worldbuilding, and building magic systems and things like this. But with character I really sit down with this plot, this world, together and I start writing somebody in a role and I write a chapter and I see how they feel. It's almost like casting someone in the role. If that doesn't work, then I get rid of them, I get rid of that and I write a new chapter using a different character's personality but who feels very much the same in some ways. For instance, Mistborn,  I did this quite famously, Vin started with a guy, I tried Vin as a guy and then I tried Vin as a woman, but a different, a very different person from what you read, who was very confident and more Artful Dodger type person, and then I tried the Vin that ended up in the book. I can't really explain to you why I knew those first two were wrong, they just were. So I ditched them and tried again. I do that until I've hit the right character and then I let them start growing and developing as I write the book and if the person they turn into is not the person who would do the sort of things that are in my outline I either have to change my outline, which I will sit down and do, or I'll say "this character is awesome but they don't belong in this role. I will write a book around them later, and find a place for them." And that's-- Usually I just re-write the outline, once in a while I pull out the character and put someone else in that place. If a book is going wrong for me, it almost always because of one of the characters, something is wrong with them, and I wish that I could explain it better. It's actually really thrilling for me, when a character is alive and working well enough that I know they wouldn't do what is in the outline. That's not a sad moment that's a "Aha! I've got something good here. This character is working, they are strong enough on the page that they can balk these constraints that were placed upon them." Because an outline, while it is a great tool, the danger is that the outline constricts your story and it doesn't allow it to actually feel alive. This is when you get these wooden characters that just kind of cardboard cut-out through a book. That's when often the outline just takes too much-- takes over too much of the characters. So it's exciting, but it can be very frustrating when it's not working.

It did happen with the Wheel of Time but in a different way. The Wheel of Time characters were like my high school friends growing up, these were my buddies. I was a nerdy kid who sat in my bedroom and read books, and these were my friends. So writing them I was really worried that it would be difficult to write them. But it was actually very easy, their voices snapped for me quite quickly, I knew what they would do. So much in fact that Mat was a little off in Gathering Storm, I didn't notice it because I was so used to characters coming very easily to me. And yes I feel very much in love with writing them and these sorts of things because of these sort of things but it was because of my past familiarity with them that allowed me to do that.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Scarbrow

Approximately how many books/series do you have concrete ideas for, aside from the ones you currently have in the pipeline?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, wow. So, go look at the State of the Sanderson 2017 and you'll find a list of the ones I've mentioned. Beyond that, I'd say I have some twenty or thirty that are somewhat fleshed out. More than I can possibly ever hope to write.

FanX 2018 ()
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Questioner

Will Kaladin ever get a lover?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a Read and Find Out. People get those cards from me when I don't want to answer the question, because it'll be a spoiler.

Questioner

I feel bad for him sometimes.

Brandon Sanderson

You know, you're allowed to feel bad for Kaladin.

Questioner

Does he want to find someone to love?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, he does. But, you know. Kaladin is also his own worst enemy sometimes.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing ()
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Questioner

What was your inspiration for coming up with Szeth?

Brandon Sanderson

So... I designed his culture first, one of the odd cases where I was working on the culture, and out of that grew his character, at odds with his culture. So I wanted somebody who was both the paragon of his culture and the person who was at odds with it. That concept just worked for me.

Words of Radiance Houston signing ()
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Questioner (paraphrased)

If a non-Windrunner picked up Jezrien's Honorblade would they gain Windrunner powers as well?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

Questioner (paraphrased)

If a Windrunner picked up that blade, would their abilities be enhanced?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There would be some compounding but strength is not as much an issue with Surgebinding as is the strength of the spren bond and how much Stormlight you are using.

FanX 2018 ()
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Questioner

I'm just curious, there are 16 Allomantic metals, 16 Feruchemical metals, there are 16 Shards of Adonalsium. Are there 16 surges?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

So there's no correlation?

Brandon Sanderson

10 is an important number on Roshar.

The Well of Ascension Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

OreSeur's Origins as a Character

Vin and OreSeur are quite well-established by this point. Actually, OreSeur and his character–the OreSeur we deal with in this book, with the conflicts and personality he uses–are one of the items I brought over from Mistborn Prime. (If you'll remember, that's the first stab I made at writing a Mistborn book years back. It was unpublished.) The kandra sidekick was one of the very few things that actually worked in that book. (Too well, actually. People liked him much more than they liked the actual hero of the story, who wasn't a character that appears in any of the current Mistborn novels.) If you ever want to read Mistborn Prime, email me and ask. I'll send you an electronic copy.

(I've talked about that book in previous annotations. While the book débuted an early version of Allomancy and a couple of world elements–such as the mists coming at night–very little of the book made the jump to the new, professional version of Mistborn. I pretty much just stole the concept for the magic and a few select world items and used them as a starting point for this series. In that way, this trilogy is a kind of sequel to the other Mistborn book, though the plots, world, and characters are very different.)

Legion Release Party ()
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Questioner

Are we just going to see Szeth kill a lot of people in the next book?

Brandon Sanderson

Szeth has some better influences than he's had in a long while. He did have some good influences early on. But it's been a long time since he has had as good influences as he now has. I wouldn't count Nightblood as one of those. But at the same time, he's had worse influences than Nightblood.

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

How old is that picture that's hanging in Silverlight?

Brandon Sanderson

The picture in Silverlight is... Okay, so on cosmere-times it's very recent. But, the cosmere scale is very large. Khriss's essays are older than it, but not by much. She had that-- It is in existence when she wrote the essays, but the essays are much older than Sixth of the Dusk. Okay? Sixth of the Dusk had not happened yet, that story, when she was writing these essays. We're going to need some dating periods, we'll eventually get that.

Calamity Philadelphia signing ()
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VirtuousTraveller

Have any other Shards--if the Shards were split, for some reason, to I guess protect, why is it that some of them clumped together, like Ruin and Preservation, and Honor and Cultivation?

Brandon Sanderson

Some are more naturally like that, but at the same time they also had personalities driving them, and it’s mostly the personalities.

VirtuousTraveller

Friends would have gotten together in the same place kinda sorta?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, or business associates how are “We can do something cool together”. Before Odium just hunted them done and y’know… But the personalities are driving most of that.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A ()
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fullyoperational

Why didn't the Sleepless have a guard watching the Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson

They did--but only a couple of hordelings to give warning. They never thought, in a million years, the intruders would absorb the Dawnshard. It wasn't seen as possible for a variety of reasons that, some day, might be clear.

Up until the moment realizing what had happened, they assumed they were in complete control, as the humans were locked into a place with no other exit and there were swarms blocking the way back out through the water.

The Well of Ascension Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Vin Meets the Skaa in the Hovel, then does her Horseshoe trick

This scene was very important to the series as a whole. the people in the skaa hovel are just what Vin needed to see. We didn't get to experience a lot of it, but the run for Vin was very draining. It isn't easy to pewter drag. It wears you out, body and mind.

The skaa people laughing, however, recharges her. She gets what she needs to keep going, if in an unconventional way. And this gives her, and us, validation for all the work that Elend has been doing. It's working. For these people, at least, the struggle is worth fighting.

The series works best, I think, when read together as one long novel. I wrote them to feel separate enough that people wouldn't feel cheated when they read only one. However, so much of this story is meant to intertwine. For instance, this Vin scene will be made more powerful if you've 1) Seen how the skaa lived in their hovels back when Kelsier visited them in book one. 2) Remember what a pewter drag did to Vin in the last book. 3) Remember Vin using the spikeway from book one.

I would have liked to have shown another spikeway in this book, but again, there was no room. Still, readers have really liked her horseshoe trick. I would point out, however, that not just anyone–not even any Mistborn–could figure this out as quickly and as well as Vin. Kelsier trained her well in the Pushing and Pulling of metals. That was his specialty.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Oversleep

Any grander plans for this setting beside this trilogy of Skyward?

Any plans for that other work the Skyward is connected to?

Is there any connecting stuff we should be on look out for?

Brandon Sanderson

Let me get this trilogy (which will actually probably be four books) done, and then I'll worry about that.

No other plans for the work this is based on right now.

As for connecting stuff, it will become very obvious once I start using some technical terminology. I said elsewhere in the thread that chapter 17 will make it very clear for those watching. Other small connections exist through the series, but more in the second book.

Govir

As a follow-up, will the fourth just be adding onto the end (i.e. it's a quartet), or will it be tangential, similar to Mistborn: Secret History (i.e. a trilogy + another book)?

Brandon Sanderson

It will be a quartet. I did my normal thing, writing the first book as proof of concept to myself, then sitting down and really hammering out the series. When I was done, the story beats worked far better as four books than three, so I will probably write it that way instead.

Calamity Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

When you are burning a Compounded metal are you getting the metal’s effect and the stored power? Can you explain, I’m unclear on the Compounding.

Brandon Sanderson

Compounding is a way to hack the magic system so you can get a Feruchemical attribute out of-- basically powering Feruchemy with Allomancy.  If that makes sense.

Questioner

So you’re not actually burning the metalmind?

Brandon Sanderson

Kind of? There’s a big explanation on Reddit, if you send me an email I can link you to it, that steps you through exactly, easier than explaining it here

MisCon 2018 ()
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Questioner

Do you ever find yourself writing so much of your own work that you actually go back and look and realize you've forgotten pieces?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, I have to reread, particularly in Stormlight. Yeah, absolutely. It's hardest when I get hit with questions like this, there are sometimes I get hit with a question, I'm just like, "What?" I usually just RAFO it. But it is particularly bad-- If you wanna read bad answers by me, go get any of the ones where I first start answering questions in London after an 8-hour time jump. Like, I get off a plane, they set me in front of a crowd, they say "Go." Imagine signing and writing things in books while people ask you questions about complicated fiscal policy. And you have to keep writing and answer them. And those questions just-- Every time I'm in London, I get back and people are like, "You said this!" I'm like, "What?" Any time I'm in Europe. The first signing, particularly, in Europe, you can find delightful questions... It took me a few hours, the last one. I did get, eventually, into the zone, and start answering questions. But that was a miserable signing all around because it was the winter in London, and it was a particularly cold winter, and they decided to put the line outside. And they'd never done this to me before at this bookstore, but the line was so big that they're like, "We're gonna run them around the block." It was a very long line, but I'm sitting here trying to answer these questions, while at the same time I'm worried, I'm like, "These fans are outside in the cold. This is not right!" And so I was stressed and jet-lagged, so some of my questions were just off the walls.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Where did you get your ideas for most of these books from? What inspired you?

Brandon Sanderson

You know, it's different for every book. Could you pick maybe one of them, and I can tell you where that one came from?

Questioner

Let's go Way of Kings.

Brandon Sanderson

Way of Kings, the original concept, the very first, was probably Dalinar. Where I wanted to tell a story about someone who was the brother of the king, and the king dies, and the son takes over, and the son's a bad king. And what do you do if you're put in that position? The conflict of duty to versus your family versus duty to the kingdom. That was probably my very first idea for Stormlight. From there, the storms were another big early idea. A world wracked by these storms, how would it develop?

General Reddit 2015 ()
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ketsugi

I'm not terribly fond of puns in fantasy unless the author expects us to believe that the characters are either speaking English or that the language that they are speaking has exactly the same puns.

Brandon Sanderson

It's neither one. Generally, the authors you're reading are pretending their books are in translation--and are generally providing an appropriate English pun to convey the tone of the scene. It happens in the real world, too. My books are all in English originally. When my translator for the Taiwanese editions, for example, runs across a pun, she often constructs a pun that works in the context in her language. The actual words are different, but the idea of "This character is making a wordplay quip" remains.

ketsugi

Thanks for the reply. One of my favourite things about this subreddit is the interaction with authors.How do you extend this to foreign languages within the world, then? For example, Tolkien's various languages, or the Old Tongue in Wheel of Time. Do we assume that the imaginary translator decided not to translate those phrases? If so, why?Made-up example:

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," Tom muttered under his breath.

As, perhaps, opposed to:

"This is a truly stupendous event," Tom muttered under his breath, in Poppinish.

Brandon Sanderson

The idea is that the imaginary translator (who is basically the author) is trying to preserve the proper tone. Any time one of those phrases is written, the author COULD have just written the translated version. Why didn't they? There are a ton of reasons, but the most likely is to preserve the feeling the characters have in interacting with something they don't understand. This extends to which words we choose to translate even from the world. In Stormlight, I use the word 'havah' for a Vorin dress. Yet I call a coat simply a coat. There's a balance between not overloading the reader and providing setting immersion, and also a distinction between an article of clothing that is meaningful culturally and one that is less so. Being able to make these kinds of decisions is like adding a pinch of exotic spice to your broth, making it a unique and savory experience, and is part of what I love about fantasy over other genres.