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I am hesitant to commit completely [to an Alloy of Law sequel], as I don't want too many open series. That said, I did end this one with more of a cliff-hanger than I had intended. Much that is happening here has relevance to the second trilogy. However, I do think I would be leaving Fans in a bad position if I didn't do more with these characters. It is likely, therefore, that there will be another book--though the second Stormlight book has priority.
Is it some inside joke that Ben Olsen didn't want to be bridge 4? I'm very curious what led up to it. If you can share that's be awesome.
Yes. He's a long time member of my writing group, and a good friend. If you watch the stream I did with Dan Wells a few weeks ago, Ben crashes the party and we tell stories about how he insists that none of us put him in our books--something that we kind of follow, and kind of don't.
Is the in-world The Way of Kings meant to be the exact opposite of The Prince by Machiavelli?
No. That is because, if you read The Prince by Machiavelli, it doesn't deserve quite the reputation it has. But it is meant to be an opposite, in many ways, to the "ends justify the means" philosophy that we kind of cliff-notes put upon The Prince. The Prince has got a lot more depth to that discussion that at least I thought before I read The Prince. But it is supposed to be a counterpoint to that idea, the ends justify the means. A counterpoint to that concept is, "What if the means are the point? Then the end will not justify them, because the means are more important in many ways than the point." So it is yes, but it's also no.
Is there a "how the sausage is made" reason why there are 16 Shards, instead of 15 or 17?
Yeah, it splits really nice on a table. When I was developing the Cosmere in general, I was looking for... the division of multiples of 2 is just so much fun for designing things like the Allomantic Table. You can do that with 10, you can do that with 15, yes. I find aesthetically pleasing the way that 16, 8, and groups of 4 work, and that's how I arrived at that number.
I also did have some kind of boundaries on myself. I needed it to be a large enough number that it could cover the full group that I wanted to do in Dragonsteel, but it had to be small enough that people could track them all. 16 is a little on the high end for that, but doable, I believe. Particularly since you really only have to track all 16 when I write the Dragonsteel stories. (You'll really have to track 17 because we have Hoid, who did not take one.) But lately, you have at least one of the Shards being combined, and others of the Shards no longer being relevant to the course of stories, and things like that. So you won't actually, in the future, have to track 1.
But it was a nice number for what I wanted to do; not too big, not too small, and I liked how the divisions broke down. And I knew I was going to do 10 with Roshar by that point. If I was gonna pick 10, I would have to use 10 again in Mistborn, which I could do, but I wanted to have different themes. I wanted their tables and math to look a little different visually on the page, since they were two pillars. So 10 and 16 felt like the two good pillars. The Aether world is a 12 world, so we'll have a 12 also. The Aether world does not play into things nearly as much, but it'll depend on how many books I write using the Aethers in the future.
Vin “sucked in the mists” with a deep breath, also the mist was “leaking” from her arms. Is that similar to Stormlight?
Yes it is. One hundred percent. In fact, you should notice that when Shardblades form they take a certain shape... substance.
Oh jeez, yeah...
Did you never notice that?
No, I did, but you know… you don't think about it.
Before they solidify, yeah.
Where did Wayne come from? ...Who is he modeled after?
He is not modeled after anyone specific. He came from me wanting to write a character who changed his personality based on the hat he wore. Like, literal, a person who wears lots of hats... I started a short story with him as the main character, and I found he needed someone to play off of, and that's where Alloy of Law came from.
In the last part of the book [Words of Radiance], Wit is talking to <the songling>, and says "If you think hard, this sentence is really clever." Are there any implications beyond this, or was that him just talking?
Go compare to another sentence he used earlier in the book. He is making a pun off of the sentence he used before. [...] It's not as clever as he thinks he is, I'll just warn you that.
I think by [the time of Alloy of Law] the probability is so low that [a Mistborn being born] wouldn't happen under normal circumstances.
What happens if there was a Feruchemist who was an Elantrian? Could they store Elantrian abilities into a nicrosil metalmind?
I'm RAFOing most of the stuff, but that one's a RAFO just because I am leaving nicrosil Feruchemy far away until I get there... I'm basically RAFOing everything about Investiture and Connection metalminds and things like that...
Are you going to do another book for Perfect State? ‘Cause that sucked me in.
A lot of people really want more.
It made me so mad. "Stop writing novellas! I need more information on this."
The big secret on that is that Sophie, the one-- is actually his nemesis. So the robot was not actually a robot, it was a VR thing that she was controlling...
So are you going to write another?
I don't know if I will, I don't know if I will. So you didn't actually get to see Melhi, his nemesis getting to play with him in-person and things like that. So there's layers there that are kind of complicated.
Like even with the cosmere novella you released Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, that one I was like "Why are these so short?!" I'm not used to this.
That world is important to the cosmere, so that world-- Silence herself you won't see any much more of, but that world itself is very cosmere relevant.
[question about using Feruchemy in Dungeons and Dragons]
Why Feruchemy "works" in book terms is because it's about intrinsic trade off. We see the character pay something, so we accept when later on, they're able to do something dramatic. Narratively, their boost is "earned" in much the same way that a character "earns" their ending winning a duel by showing us through the story that they've been practicing with the sword.
You need to "earn" your boosts. If I were a GM, I'd suggest that you can store attributes during one day of gameplay, to use it during another day of gameplay. -2STR for one day, +2STR for the next day. I'd say no more than -/+2 at first--with feats or Feruchemist prestige class levels allowing you to do 4 or even 6. Storing senses could be covered with WIS, and health with CON.
Alternately, if you want to get into the specifics, you could try something where when you land a hit, you can use a smaller damage die (a d4 instead of d6) to "store up" strength. Then later, when you need it, you can trade in one of those stored moments (which would be capped with a maximum number that could be stored at once, to be raised by requiring you to find special metals) to raise a damage die during a climactic battle--maybe making your d6 into a d10. You could do the same thing with spot checks (take a penalty for specific rolls to be able to add to the later on.) HP could be done the same way--drop your HP for a battle to "store" then raise them for another battle.
This is more of a tweak to the way the books use the magic, but the idea is to make certain your cost is still a cost. You get ahead by choosing the times to - or +, making it fun--but you are always paying a price.
So the first question I'd ask myself is do I want this to be a time period thing or a specific instances thing--which would be more fun to play? Then ask is this about attributes or specific skills/hit points, etc? Define some rules, define how you get better, and then have fun within the system.
Personally, I'd avoid the will save as a cost to drawing out the attribute or ability. Perhaps make it require concentration checks if you want to make it tougher--but requiring a will save to magically gain strength doesn't feel very "feruchemist" to me and downplays the real fun you could have with the character. Role playing a day spent with very low spot checks, or a terrible constitution, could be really fun.
I'd also figure out if you can do some kind of "super move" with the abilities by storing up a whole lot. (Like ten units, however you decide upon them.)
My take on the attributes: Iron: To be used in a role playing way, making yourself lighter or heavier, with no battle implications. Steel: Increase/decrease movement speed in a fight. OR under the effects of a "slow" spell for a day, vs under the effects of a "haste" spell. Super move: Very limited time stop. Tin: Spot Checks or WIS. Pewter: STR checks, damage die, or +/- damage to each hit. Zinc: Bonus to hit (for thinking through the situation) or bonus to initiative. (With corresponding negatives.) Brass: Specific fortitude checks.Copper: Mostly role playing. Memorize a book, or an entire library, if given time. Blank things from your mind to prevent mind reading. Bronze: Mostly role playing, with (perhaps) being able to "rest" immediately and get back any abilities that come with it. (Haven't played 5e--these were big in 4e, but don't know if they kept them.)
These metals are going to be rare.
Cadmium: Not having to breathe for a time could have all kinds of applications, though I'd love to hear you role play hyperventilating all day for one session. Bendalloy: Not eating and storing calories. Great for role playing.Gold: CON bonus, hit points, or something like that. Sudden healing is great for gaming. Electrum: General bonus to all skills. Chromium: Bonus or minus to any roll.
The rest aren't even understood in-world, so I'd stop there. If you go all in on this, I'd say you need some kind of class built around it--perhaps a rogue or monk base, replacing their bonuses with feruchemical abilities that you gain over time.
Who's your favorite spren in The Stormlight Archive so far?
...Right now it's probably Pattern. But I don't know. I love them all. They are my children.
Could you spike a hordeling?
Yes. Spike means getting something out, spike means get(ting?) something in? I think that both is viable. I think you can, yeah.
If you would spike something in, would the whole Aimian get maybe an Allomantic ability?
Mostly, this would probably change the hordeling. And they may lose contact to it. It could fiddle with the Connection to the point that they can no longer link. That's gonna be my answer right now, that spiking a hordeling would separate it from the group mind.
In transitioning from Merin to Kaladin, was there any plot sacrifices that were particularly difficult for [you]?
No. I had been disappointed enough in the way that Merin turned out in the original draft of The Way of Kings, that transitioning to someone more vibrant and more interesting in Kaladin really didn’t feel like a sacrifice to me.
Which hand is the safe hand?
It is the left hand.
Is Hoid an avatar from Autonomy?
No. Good question. He is independent.
He's human, but he's more than human? He's changed from all the places he's been?
Even before that he's not exactly one hundred percent human anymore. But he's his own agent. He's not an avatar of somebody.
As a Stormlight reader who has only read one Mistborn book (the first) and am only comsere aware through soaking things in from Stormlight. I have to say you walking that tightrope nicely here. It’s intriguing without feeling like I’m out of the loop and it for sure fuels me with interesting things are in the background.
I'm glad that the tightrope is working for you. You picked up on everything you need to know--there are other planets, and being able to provide Stormlight to them (as a cheap, renewable version of magical energy) would be valuable. So the Ghostbloods are interested.
Is there more to Rushu, or is she actually just a Regular Roshar Human?
Rushu is not a secret worldhopper.
Who's having the best New Years party in the cosmere? Not Elend's book-reading kind of party; the Times Square kind of party.
I would say the best parties are probably happening someplace like Silverlight. Just because they have access to so much more potential shenanigans, how about that. Like, if you want alcohol from across the cosmere, that's where you can get it. And if you want access to the most scientifically advanced aspects of the cosmere as they're understood and known at a given time, you probably want to go there.
If Brandon got a Shard, what Shard would it be and what would he do with it?
I don't know, I've been asked something along these lines before. I do fit Autonomy pretty well, but I also feel like I fit Invention pretty well, so probably one of those two. There's definitely some that are not very Brandon. Whimsy: not a very Brandon Shard, let's just point that one out, but I could see myself with bunches of them.
What would I do? Pocket universes and... I guess you can't really create those in the... well you can and in the Spiritual Realm, but... Y'know, building funky planets and weird magic systems, that's what I do anyway. You would probably just float through the cosmere and find just planet after planet of screwball magic systems that people are trying to figure out how to use and being like wow, the person who did this, why did they make us use magic based on bagel flavors, can't we have the one where we just fly?
Chapter Four - Part One
Naming in This Book
The names in this novel, particularly in Hallandren and Idris, follow the concept of repeated consonant sounds.
I wanted to try something a little more distinctive in this book than the names were in Mistborn. In that book, I intentionally backed away from the insane craziness of the names in Elantris. I've written entire essays on how I devised the languages in that book. The names were appropriate for the novel, since the language was so important to the story. However, I know that the number and oddity of many of the names in Elantris was off-putting.
So, instead, in Mistborn I chose names that were much easier to say, and gave everyone a simple nickname. When it came time for Warbreaker, I wanted to try something else, to take a step back toward distinctiveness in the language, but not go as far as I had in Elantris.
I've long toyed with using double consonants as a naming structure. I played with a lot of different ways of writing these. I could either use the letters doubled up, with no break (Ttelir). I could slip a vowel in the middle and hope people pronounced it as a schwa sound (Tetelir). Or I could use the fantasy standard of an apostrophe (T'telir).
In the end, I decided to go with all three. I felt that writing all the names after one of the ways would look repetitive and annoying. By using all three, I could have variety, yet also have a theme. So, you have doubles in names like Llarimar. You have inserted vowels like in Vivenna. And you have apostrophes like in T'Telir.
I think it turned out well. Some members of my writing group complained about fantasy novels and their overuse of apostrophes in names. My answer: Tough. Just because English doesn't like to do it doesn't mean we have to eschew it in other languages. I like the way T'Telir looks with an apostrophe, and the way people will say it. So it stays.
Are there any Knights Radiant who broke their oaths in the Recreance that are still around in present day Stormlight time?
Yes. Oh, that broke their oaths. You anticipated me. RAFO.
But there are still ones around who haven't?
Yes, Nale. That's my loophole there. That's who I was thinking of. But you said that did break their oaths, so you anticipated me on that one.
If you had to pick any one of your characters to be your new best friend (besides your wife) for the rest of your life, who would would it be and what do you imagine would be your weekend "Let's hang out, but I don't want to plan anything, so let's do the 'usual'" ritual?
I think I'd dig hanging out with Sazed. The usual would be, "tell me about a religion you've studied."
If your character Hoid were a Planeswalker what color would he be?
If Hoid was a Planeswalker what color would he be? *laughter/applause* Oh, boy-- what color would he be... You know I might do him like the Reaper King. Like two slash on all five. That's what I would do him as.
Can you tell us about a cultural inspiration you’ve used in a world that we have not seen?
I wrote one that was based off of Mesoamerican- there’s a tribe out of Costa Rica. And I didn’t get the story done, but I used that one… it was really an obscure tribe, which made it really hard to name things and stuff like that. What else have I done that you haven’t seen… <thinking noises> There’s Polynesian stuff you haven’t seen, but you’ve also seen a lot of it [already], so…
When Jasnah takes Shallan on as a ward, she teaches her a strategy for research. Is that strategy you use when you are doing research?
No. It's a strategy like the one they tried to teach me in college, and I was never good at.
So you used it as a-- You used it intentionally because of?
Not that I don't like it. My brain doesn't work the way that note-taking methodology worked. I know it worked for some people, and probably if I had spent more time on it, then I would have. But I work in a different way.
At the end of Words of Radiance, does Nale resurrect Szeth using the stormlight obtained from Lift earlier in the novel or does he have another method?
Nale uses the same power, but has a specific hack that lets him accomplish it, when he otherwise would not be able to.
Time for another update on your book, everyone! If you missed the previous update, it can be found right here. This update will get into some nitty-gritty outlining and wordcount details, which some of you might find boring. (Just a fair warning.)
Since the second update, I've indeed started into the book full-time. However, you might have noticed a little delay in the progress bar ticking up. This is because at the end of February (just before going to Hawaii) I decided that Starsight (Skyward Two) needed some more work.
I requested that the publisher push that book back a couple of months (it's now scheduled for first week in December) as I did a medium-sized overhaul based on some decisions I'd made after reading the beta reader comments. I'm pleased to say that revision went really well, and Starsight is in excellent shape. It did put me a little behind on Stormlight Four, I'm afraid. Looking at my tracking spreadsheet (which I used to gauge how I'm moving along) when I started into Stormlight four first part of April, I was about 45k words behind. I'm moving at a good speed, and am about 42k words behind now, with about 15k words finished.
This is merely a way of marking guideposts; I don't intend rush the story in order to meet arbitrary deadlines. This is partially me just trying to give you, and my publishers, an idea of when to expect the book. If I finish it by January 1st, the book can come out Christmas 2020. If I don't, we will probably have to nudge it back.
For reference, one percent on my progress bar is 4k words, and I anticipate the final book being 400k words long. A lot could happen during the next year of writing--the book could go super long, like happened with Oathbringer. Or I could run into some serious plot problems, which require time to work out. (For example, I've already thrown away chapter one after doing a short reading of it at an earlier convention--trying again with a slightly different tone.)
That said, I really like the new first chapter, and am now well into the fourth chapter. I promised you an update on the outline this time, and I'm looking at this book in a different way from the last two. As you may remember, I tend to plot each Stormlight book as if it were three volumes, combined together. (Along with a short story collection in the form of the interludes.)
With books two and three, the outline divided the novels into "books" by section. Part one of Oathbringer, for example, was "book one" of my three-part outline. Rhythm of War, however, is plotted more like The Way of Kings--meaning the separate books in it are divided by viewpoints.
In TwoK, Kaladin's complete arc was "book one" of my outline. Dalinar's was "book two" and Shallan's was "book three" with all of them being interwoven into the final product, and with Part Five being a capstone epilogue to them all. This novel is similar, though with more viewpoints.
We have what I'm calling the Primary Arc, which focuses on four characters who are all together in one place, their plots interweaving. The Secondary Arc is three different characters, their arcs interweaving, but in a separate location from the primary arc. The Tertiary arc is the last two characters, in a third location.
There will be ties between the three arcs, but the book will read a little more like TWoK than Oathbringer--with several separate stories that imply interesting things for one another, but which generally focus on their own goals. Book Five should, then, be an interweaving like Book Two or Book Three.
That's the plan, anyway! I'm not 100% done with the outline yet, as I want to explore some viewpoints first to make sure everything is lining up the way I want.
The next update probably won't be until mid summer, as I want to take a nice chunk of writing time to determine how things are progressing before I come back to talk here.
Until then, please enjoy listening to the community playlist of favorite epic tracks that remind them of Stormlight. This is what came of the previous thread, where I asked for suggested music to listen to while I work on Book Four. I've been doing so, and am slowly cultivating a shorter list of my favorite tracks that I'll release at a later date. Thanks to /u/DevilsAndDust- and my assistant Adam for putting this together.
You said it's been revealed for Patji's intent. Where has that been revealed?
I've talked about it.
You've talked about it? Okay. So you have to go hunting.
You may have to make a few connections.
In The Stormlight Archive, are there any on-screen appearances of dragons in any form?
RAFO. Sorry.
Dragons can be shapeshifters, correct?
They can, yes.
Do they only have a humanoid form they can appear as, or can they appear as many humans?
Depends.
I was deployed in Afghanistan when I read The Way of Kings. And I was wondering how do you put yourself in the mind of a soldier? Because it was very--
I have a good friend and I asked them when I interviewed them and that was a big help to me.
When they got to the Shattered Plains it felt like I was reading a story about myself--
Oh really?
Reading about how the rank structure, that was really-- It wasn't quite the same but--
I've got a good friend. His name is actually Skar--he's the bridgeman Skar, I put him in the book because he helped me so much--who is in the army. He had lots of advice for me on how to make everything work.
Would emotion spren react in any way if a Rioter or Soother were operating in the area?
Yes, you would be able to see that sort of change if you were paying attention.
My friend has a theory: The Lord Ruler is the one that Shattered the Shattered Plains. Is that a possibility?
I won't discount it out of hand. Mostly just so that he can keep arguing with you guys.
Hail Brandon Sanderson, Master Worldsmith
That's the nature of my question, I'm not quite sure how to make it broad enough, but just how did you birth Roshar? Let alone the entire Cosmere? I find it too easy to view the worlds I've built in my own writing as silly or contrived. Do you see yours in dreams or did you construct yours? Please, I would be personally grateful for the backstory on how these places were forged.
Building these worlds was a long, long process. Most of that process, however, was in building myself--creating a practiced writer who had build enough worlds that he got an instinct for what created good conflicts and settings, and what did not. So the best thing you can do is keep practicing and writing.
In more specifics, Roshar's origin was in studying the great storm of Jupiter. I went with the idea of a constant, traveling storm, then tried to build the ecology off of that idea. From there, I asked myself how this affected sapient beings, and how I could use the storms to shape culture, and how the characters I was planning to use could interact with it.
Most of this comes down to instinct now, though. Keep writing, and don't stress too much about whether you are silly or contrived. We all feel that way at some point. Put characters into the worlds we care about, and let the rest sort itself out.
Is the guy in Lasting Integrity named Sixteen a worldhopper? (The kandra worldhopper, perhaps?)
He is a worldhopper, but I won't reveal anything more than that currently.
Is Hoid the one that comes out of the lake that Rock is talking about? *photo pause* Or you can't tell me?
I am going to give you a RAFO card.
What would happen if Nightblood and a Shardblade hit each other?
RAFO.
Do you have plans to write a longer series?
Yes, The Way of Kings will come out next year.
Can you tell us which Shard is with the new story?
This is a world that does not currently have a Shard.
If it's okay, what colors would Spensa's class be?
Spensa is about as mon-red as a character can get, I think.
I asked Brandon if Sazed will resurrect Kelsier at some point in the future, since Brandon has pointed out that Kelsier's soul has stuck around and is still tied to Scadrial.
His response was "Sazed is not going to resurrect Kelsier. Keep your eyes open." And there was a verbal emphasis on Sazed's name.
Chapter Fifteen - Part One
Siri Sees the God King
I think this is my favorite plotline of the book. The Siri/God King one, I mean. It's hard to choose, but this is the one that I felt most interested in. (Though Lightsong's ending chapters are powerful too.)
I wanted the God King to be an enigma, much like Vasher is, at the beginning of the book. Well . . . that's not quite true. Right at the beginning, I wanted him to be scary and dangerous. I wanted the reader to perceive him as Siri did.
By now, however, you should be wondering more. Who is he? What are his motives? Is he angry with her or not?
The driving force behind this, actually, is the Lord Ruler. In Mistborn, a part of me always felt that he was just a little too stereotypical an evil emperor. True, I worked hard to round him out, particularly through the later books. But writing him made me want to take an evil emperor archetype in a very different direction.
I've spoken on the reversals in this book. Well, one thing I realized after the fact is that the novel is—in a lot of ways—about reversals of my own writing. Things I've done before, but taken the opposite direction. Almost like I need to react against myself and explore things in new ways, particularly in cases where (like the Lord Ruler) I did things that were more conventional to the genre.
I think that's why this book has so much resonance with my previous books. Or maybe it doesn't really, and I'm just seeing something that doesn't exist. A lot of my ideas in writing, however, come from seeing something done in a movie or a book (or even in one of my own books) and wondering if I could take it a new and different direction. I hope that doesn't make me feel like I'm repeating myself.
Were you at the Shadows of Self release last night? And what was the hardest drawing to get right?
I was not, it wasn't in the cards for me to travel this time. Hopefully I'll make it out for Stormlight 3. :)
I wasn't, and it blows 'cause Isaac sent me a very awesome photo of a Cryptic Pattern costume and I wish I could've seen it in person. Plus, I like signing and sketching in books :)
The Axehound was an early challenge to design... it's not easy to make a six-foot dog-lobster look affectionate! The antennae do a lot of the work.
The Whitespine was an interesting case because I took a design all the way to near-completion before I scrapped it entirely and started again to get the one in the book. I think I like the current one, but I know I hated the one I did the first time.
The Pattern costume was pretty sweet. And your illustrations in Stormlight really helped me visualize many of the... Interesting aspects of Roshar. They are amazing.
Thank you! That is, ideally, why we do 'em. :)
Tacenda seemed to Planeswalk at the end. Did she, or did she just "ascend" within Innistrad? Was she an unsparked planeswalker before she accepted the Entity? If she wasn't, did the Entity give her a Spark, similar to how Slobad was grafted one? And if that's not it, the third possibility... is the Entity native to the Blind Eternities, like the Eldrazi?
I will give you both the canon and Brandon head canon.
Canon is: ambiguous on all counts. It's not confirmed that Tacenda planeswalked at the end, or whether she (or Davriel) had sparks of their own--or if their planewalking powers are granted by the Entities. I can say, in canon, that the Entities are not native to the Blind Eternities--they are the souls of ancient, powerful planes that were destroyed, and their power harvested.
The Soul of planes sequence from m15 were their inspiration, though something special happened with these specific planes. I can't confirm or deny how many of them there were, but at least two.
Now, the Brandon Head Canon. (See my post at the top of this thread for an explanation.)
In my discussions with Wizards, they gave me leave to create one planeswalker--but in the course of the story, I decided to have Tacenda spark as well. This wasn't done with canon permission from Wizards, and I promised them that I'd leave it ambiguous in case they didn't want to have to deal with me playing loose and free with creating planeswalkers.
I personally imagine that the entities are providing the sparks for both Davriel and Tacenda. Davriel THINKS it's his own spark, and it ignited when he saw the true nature of the multiverse--and this is, right now, the canon answer. But I personally like the idea that one of the reasons these Entities are important is because they provide planeswalking ability to whoever holds them.
That has too much lore implication for me to canonize, however--and I didn't push Wizards to do so. (I also didn't ask them to make Tacenda a planeswalker; I simply wrote the story, and left them the option of using her in the future.) So take this part all with a grain of salt.
How did you develop M-bot?
M-Bot grew out of many different inspirations. I love quirky and odd robots and so you can go all the way back to some science fiction history and you'll find all my inspiration.
Chapter Sixteen
Vin in her room
This first scene is a classical Brandon scene–a character studying, thinking, and exploring who they are in their own head. Some people find my narrative style–with the thoughts, the conclusions, and the debates in the head–to be a little slow. I can understand that, even if I don't agree.
I like knowing my characters. A chapter like this really works for that, in my opinion. It seems to me that in too many books, you never really know a character's thoughts, feelings, and logic enough to understand why they do what they do. So, I spend time on those things.
This scene is important for the decisions Vin makes about herself. She is not the type of person to second-guess herself. In a way, she shows some of the very things Tindwyl tries to get across to Elend later in the chapter. Vin encounters a problem, mulls over it, then comes to a firm decision to trust herself.
Updates on Main Projects
Skyward
Current main project. Yesterday's blog post talks about it in depth–but so far, so good!
Status: To be written in 2018.
I didn't know the whole cosmere when I wrote Elantris. In fact, a lot of the things I put into Elantris, like the shardpool, I put in feeling like I would connect them later on, but I had no idea how they were going to connect. By Mistborn, I did have all the cosmere. I have an advantage in that, because I took so long to publish, I was able to do a lot of practice books, and it let me really settle in on what I wanted to do, and I was able to build the cosmere... For instance, Dragonsteel (which I wrote after Elantris) is Hoid's backstory and his origin story and things like that. (And also has Bridge Four in it. Back then, they were on a different planet.) I was able to really experiment in Aether of Night with what shardpools meant, and the gods and the Shards of Adonalsium. You can read that one, that one's on the internet just for free. I think the easiest way to do it is to go to my forums and ask them for a copy. I told them they could give it away. It's not very good. It's not terrible, but it does have a lot of shardpool stuff in it, so if you're interested in that.
So by the time I wrote Mistborn, I knew what I was doing with all of this. And I think kind of retrofit to make sure Elantris still fit it all. Hoid still had an appearance, the Shardpools worked the way I wanted to, the magic systems were based off the cosmere magic, the realmatics were all consistent, and things like that.
People ask me a lot, "Where did you get the cosmere?" It was a gradual evolution during the unpublished novels, and then was done by the time I wrote Mistborn.
Why is Breath not consumed in Awakening, unlike most all other uses of Investiture?
Not all Investitures are "used up." Much like energy, it isn't typically created or destroyed, just changes for. With Breath, in what it's used for, it is just more easily and readily recovered than in other forms.
How much do you use science to influence/guide your world building in what most people would identify as a fantasy setting?
I use it quite a bit, but as I'm writing fantasy, I go by the rule "do what is awesome first, then explain it." Meaning, I am looking to tell a certain kind of story, and while science is often a springboard into a magic, I will sometimes chose to do what I think makes the story better as opposed to what is scientifically rational. The way the Metallic Arts work with mass is one example.
