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Questioner 1

What do you think will come in the future? Like what is-- *interrupted*

Brandon Sanderson

"What do I think will come in the future?" I have a bunch of ideas, and I actually said-- I wrote out three one-page synopses of what I wanted to do as a follow up sort of teen series, like the Reckoners, and I sent it to my publisher, and I let them pick which of the three they wanted. And I'm not gonna tell you what that is for a little while, because they're all like freaking out about how to announce it, and things like that. Because they're all like, "Oh we have to get Entertainment Weekly to announce it, or something." *crowd laughs* Okay, whatever. So we'll see.

Questioner 2

So will you tell us the two that they didn't pick?

Brandon Sanderson

When it comes out I'll tell you the two that they didn't pick, also.

Questioner

If a kandra where to get the bones of a Dakhor monk, would they get the Dakhor monk's abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

If a kandra got a hold of the bones of a Dahkor monk, yeah, would they get the abilities… It would take more than just the bones, but that would be a big part of it.

vanahian

We know that Bavadin has several 'avatars' allocated at some Shardworlds, major and minor, over the cosmere...is Austre from Nalthis one of them? Is the Wyrn of the Fjordell Empire or Jaddeth one of them?

Or if we recall what the followers of Shu Dereth believes that 'Jaddeth rewards devotion in his followers, as well as ambition' + something you said some time ago about the ramifications of Ambition demise... Is the Wyrn or Jaddeth Himself connected with Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson

You can expect things on Sel to be either Dominion or Devotion. People can be ambitious--even Shards--and reward ambition even if they're not specifically tied to the Shard of Ambition.

Khalku

How do you decide where/what to cut in a project of this size? When you say it reads better, are you constantly reading the whole thing and re-reading?

Brandon Sanderson

That's exactly how I revise--I re-read the book, making notes about what is working and what isn't, then plan strategies for fixing it. I incorporate beta reader feedback into this. When a section I felt was explosive and interesting gets "meh" responses from the majority of readers, I have to ask myself why, look at the sections again and decide--is this the sort of section I leave as is or change? In some cases, you leave it, as while it might be only okay to some readers, it includes scenes that some others will absolutely love. In other cases, I've miss-evaluated somehow, and need to attack it again.

This is all done as I re-read the book again, using my notes as a guide on what to fix.

Kirrin

Also, you should tell us what the last two metals are.

Brandon Sanderson

The last two metals are chromium and nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

Happy Man

If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.

The simplest idea is that they do to another person what aluminum and duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them. If this is true, then chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash. This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.

Peter Ahlstrom

The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.

Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name).

Brandon Sanderson

Nicely done.

Ookla is right, the others don't have 1/1 correlations. But I liked this concept far too much not to use it.

In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings—however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Mistings.

Douglas

I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?

Brandon Sanderson

Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.

Chaos

Very interesting about the nicrosil.

So, if there is no more atium, then that would mean in any future trilogy, there would only be 14 metals, right? Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but maybe that is because it irks me that one quartet to be left incomplete with the absence of atium.

Would it be possible for Sazed to create a replacement metal, by chance, or will the temporal quartet remain inherently empty? It doesn't seem like it's too far of a stretch for Sazed to make more metals: after all, the metal Elend ate was a fragment of Preservation, and now Sazed holds Preservation.

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

Peter Ahlstrom

Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like malatium and electrum works like atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Brandon Sanderson

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

Joe ST

is Idashwy really [pronounced] 'I dash wee!"?

Peter Ahlstrom

yes...

Brandon Sanderson

Elend Organizes Off Duty Troops to Salvage

Hopefully, this sort of thing is what you've been waiting the entire book to see from Elend. He's finally acting like a king; making decisions, being in control, doing something. It comes too late to save his throne, but it will do a world of good for his people.

In this, I think I was successful in the book. Elend didn't win the struggle for the throne. He's not king. However, he won the struggle with himself. There was a cost to his idealism, but he gained much more than he lost.

You might want to note the Goradel cameo here. He's a character I use a lot more in book three, so I wanted him to at least show up in this book.

taveren

If someone goes to every planet and get Invested from every Shard, if he was Invested enough would he become a new Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

That’s an excellent question that I’m not going to answer.

taveren

And I am assuming you will not answer if anyone is trying to do that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yup, I am not going to answer. Sorry. That's too deeply related to things that are happening in the Cosmere and I don’t want to dig into for a little while yet.

Questioner

How is Luck used?

Brandon Sanderson

Luck you mean like, Fortune? That is also a RAFO, because I'm saving it for future books. There are clues in the books.

RenegadeShroom

You said earlier that Parshendi are primarily asexual, does that extend to all Listeners -- parshmen, and those descended from Listeners, like Horneaters and Herdazians -- or is it just the Parshendi?

Brandon Sanderson

Most Listener forms are asexual, but several forms are different, including slaveform. Horneaters and Herdazians are not, as a rule, though there are higher instances of asexuality among them.

uchoo786

I was actually wondering about how Parshmen would reproduce if they are only in slaveform? I thought one had to be in mateform in order to reproduce?

Also, could Horneaters and Herdazians change forms as well?

Brandon Sanderson

For the first, mateform is not the only form capable of producing--any more than warform is the only one capable of swinging a sword. The forms are specializations.

For the second, RAFO.

Gamesound Finn

Do you know that there is a champion in League of Legends that is basically Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

No. I know that there are several League of Legends professional players who have based names off of characters of mine, and stuff. Some have actually contacted me first and said "hey, is it okay if I do this?" Which is really cool.

I do know the League of Legends people are fans. They invited me, one time, to come in and tour, and I was too busy on that specific tour. But I always find homages and things like this in games to be very flattering. Like the fact that you can find Kelsier's bag of coins in World of Warcraft, and various places you can find mistcloaks. I was playing that game Enter the Gungeon, and they have the Windgunner gun you can get, which is actually a sword gun. I like stuff like that. If you ever are a game dev making a game... (This is not permission for you to use my IP in a way that would be anything other than an homage, or things like that; I have to be careful about things like that. Sometimes I say, "Yeah, go for it," and then we find out that there's a trilogy of games based on my books that we didn't know about.) I like homages like that. I find them fun.

Questioner

So Hoid, was he considered a Lightweaver pre-Shattering?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that would be an appropriate term. There are lots of different terms that would also be appropriate.

Questioner

But was it basically the same thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, no Stormlight. No spren. So, not a Knight Radiant. But, similar magic. But you've also seen Elantris magic do this. So there are-- there are certain things that-- I'll just stop there.

Questioner

What's your favorite Wayne one-liner?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably "defecation of character". My favorite Wayne moments are the ones that you could conceivably miss. Like, there's one for the next book where he calls being pressed into the army, "corporal punishment," that I'm just totally over the moon over, that I think people will probably miss, and that's what makes them fun.

Ryan

Do we know why Nightblood didn't take up a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Nightblood didn't take up a Shard, Nightblood was not there... Oh, [they're] probably just asking why Nightblood did not absorb the entire Shard of Odium.

Nightblood cannot hold that much Investiture. At least not at that rate, right? Like, if you drop Nightblood without his sheath... I have to do it this way, because otherwise you drop him on the planet and he would absorb the entire planet, right. This is not a power I want Nightblood to have. I do not want Nightblood... Nightblood is a very dangerous tool without also being the death star.

I did not want... I actually was happy that I had the chance to put that scene in so I kind of put the kabosh on Nightblood being able to absorb the entire Investiture of an entire Shard. Not where I wanted... I didn't want that to be a promise people thought was coming. Now, he can absorb a lot and it's also rate of absorption is a pretty important deal.

...

People are gonna quote me on this in ten years and things like that and say "but, but, but". Just, you know, understand that there are specific ways that I'm trying to phrase some of these things.

AndrewStirlingMacDonald (paraphrased)

Is it possible for a kandra to use Invested material to form a true body?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, that's a possibility.

AndrewStirlingMacDonald (paraphrased)

Could they use Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

They absolutely could.

Questioner

In Mistborn 3, when Ruin is controlling Inquisitors. Before, they said that Inquisitors were bald. When Ruin is controlling them, does he still have them shave and stuff like that?

Brandon Sanderson

They still kind of go through their daily life. It's not like he's-- His control can get stronger, and weaker at times. And so they mostly kind of just do what they would normally be doing, until he moves that one right there at that moment where he seizes them, if that make sense. So yes, but it's less like he's like "I am now going to puppet-control them to go to the bathroom," right? He just lets them do that, and when he needs them he seizes control.

zorro_pickanalytics

Did you know from the start Skyward would be a good fit for an existing world or was it something you realized after starting to develop the story?

Brandon Sanderson

It was once I started developing the story. I often am working on the elements of stories separately before I combine them into one whole--and so it wasn't until I sat down to do the outline, officially taking several pieces of various story ideas and combining them--that I knew for certain that this was a good fit.

Questioner (paraphrased)

If Hoid were to hold an unsheathed Nightblood, would he feel sick?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

*Loud laughing* RAFO.

Questioner

Was that really the end of the Evil Librarians?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Did you see the last page? About Bastille? Yeah. That'll be the actual end. Once I can get a Bastille book written, that'll be all right. And she's going to un-dreary-ify things, because Alcatraz has a skewed perspective of the world.

Questioner

Kaladin is one of my favorite characters, and I noticed he's a really good leader, but he also does have his very hard moments. And I was wondering, what inspired you to make such a strong character that is allowed to cry and be weak?

Brandon Sanderson

That is partially my philosophy on writing coming out. And is partially me noticing some things about characters in books that I felt hadn't been covered very well. Certain styles of characters had not been done as much, and I wanted to explore that direction. I take a lot of inspiration from my wife for Kaladin, actually, who has depression.

Questioner

Is Kaladin's name influenced by Dune?

Brandon Sanderson

I've read Dune many times, so maybe? It's more looking at-- A lot of Dune names are Arabic inspired, and I went to that region for a lot of the names. But I think the word "Paladin" was probably more in the back of my head. I didn't even think of it until I started writing it, and I'm like, "Oh I bet that's where I got it." But it's often kind of based off of like, Khalid, or things like that? Like a lot of the Arabic names go Khalid.

Questioner

I was actually just thinking that the other day how the Knights are a lot like paladins.

Brandon Sanderson

It wasn't like, "I'll come up with the word." But after I started writing I'm like, "Oh I bet that's why the name felt right to me". But you can't separate an author from their influences, and I've read Dune like 5 times.

Oudeis16

Had Gemmel ever met Zane?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

I'm not saying that meeting was particularly relevant.

Questioner

I was noticing that some of the Aons from Elantris, have similar names to the Surges on Roshar. Like there's an Aon for Cohesion, which is a Surge. Does that have anything to do with each other?

Brandon Sanderson

Vaguely, yes.

Questioner

What about the ones with the names of Shards, like Endowment, which is a Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

Questioner

Those are related?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

What do they have to do with each other?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a tangential relationship.

Brandon Sanderson

The number of authors with creative control of films are very small, and sell orders of magnitude more copies than I do. (Sorry ). It is either sell the rights and hope to be involved, or have no film.

Ilwrath

It might sound insensitive but....are you not as big as I thought? You, Butcher and Rothfus (or maybe Martin...special mentions to McClellan and Weeks)....I always imagine you three as the BIG names in the genre of the generation. I guess I have the bias of how much I love your books but it seems to me someone so acclaimed could in the figurative sense "name their price"

Brandon Sanderson

It's not insensitive. I'm pretty happy to be able to be make a living at all, let lone to be as successful as I've been. I'm certainly "big" for fantasy--the issue isn't that, it's that even popular books just don't make a dent in film numbers. It takes so much to finance a film these days, that it's very rare (and requires a huge, huge fanbase) for anyone to risk putting an author in charge. We're not a known element.

For example, Stephenie Meyer (of Twilight fame) wasn't popular enough to get creative control from a major studio, which resulted in her going to a second string studio to get the power she wanted. And she was orders of magnitude more popular than GRRM is now. The only author I know of to manage it for sure is Rowling.

In answer to your question, last I checked (which was around the end of the year last year) Pat, and Jim, and myself were basically even. Pat sold the least of us three that year, but when he has a new book out, he jumps to the highest of us by a significant margin. Over time, we are pretty even in the US. (Though it should be noted Pat does that with far fewer books than the other two of us.)

George was about five times our numbers, and there weren't any fantasy writers in between him and us that I recall. Dashner (author of Maze Runner, and a friend of mine, so I thought to look) was about seven times our numbers. (Even with Grisham.) Hunger Games was about double us. Big romance/thriller writers hovered at around George's level.

Fifty Shades of Grey (the one book alone, not the series) in its first year sold about 10 times what Pat, Jim, and I sell in a year. So while we might be big sellers for our respective genres, we become small fish when we swim out into romance/thriller waters. The only one who can hold his own out there is George, and maybe Niel Gaiman. (I didn't think to glance at his numbers.)

And even they don't sell enough to name their price with a film studio. These are places with the kind of cash flow that they could buy every single copy of every Sanderson, Rothfuss, AND Butcher book ever printed, misplace them on accident, then shrug and write it off.

Questioner

In the last panel we talked a lot about people from different planets using magic systems on other planets, one of the things I've been thinking about, we've been thinking about, talking about Breath, and people being born with Breath, is that something specific to Nalthis or do, technically, other people on other planets have a Breath as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question and that is a Nalthian thing. Now, everyone in the cosmere to an extent has Investiture, the Nalthian Breath is part what everyone has and then a little extra, plus the ability to share it around. So a person who gives up their Breath on Nalthis is actually going below what a normal person has. But a normal person on Nalthis has more than somebody-- So if you were for instance to pick a world like Sixth of the Dusk, where there's not a Shard in residence, and you compared them to a Nalthian, Nalthian has an Investiture advantage over them. When they've given up their Breath, they have an Investiture disadvantage.

Bystander

So we're not Drabs?

Brandon Sanderson

So we're not Drabs. That's exactly it. We're not Drabs.

Joe Collins

What was your inspiration for the Knights Radiant

Brandon Sanderson

I prefer stories about magic awakening and magic being discovered and investigated. So the idea of these Orders of Knights whose powers were lost, and people are now recovering them, was really cool to me. You certainly would have to point at the Jedi as a theme for that. Like, I grew up in the '80s and '90s; there's no way that Star Wars wasn't a huge influence on everything that I did. I wouldn't say that I thought it was the single influence, but you cannot separate someone of my generation, so steeped in pop culture as I was, from Star Wars as a deep cultural influence.

Brent Weeks

So I hear the Stormlight Archive is supposed to be ten books. So does that mean 15 or 20? *audience laughs*

Brandon Sanderson

Stormlight Archive is supposed to be ten books. I'm hoping it will be ten books. It is two sequences of five, so you can ask me after the first five-book sequence where I am in my original outline. It should stay pretty close to that, I hope. I don't know. I used to be able to say everything stayed the same length I wanted it to be, but then my Wheel of Time book got split into three, so I can't say that any more.

Brent Weeks

Two years between books?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, two years between books. They're very thick and involved, and I want to be doing other things as well. I like to jump projects--it's what keeps me fresh. It's what allows me to keep on doing this productively, and if I get stuck in one thing, no matter how much I love it, I find that I get less and less excited about it as time passes. But if I finish one book and skip to something else--like an Alcatraz book--for a little while and then jump back, I find my enthusiasm has come back to the beginning, where it was. And so I do a lot of jumping between projects.

Neuxue

And I have one more question that sort of relates to The Wheel of Time, which I’m reading right now. So Shai in Emperor's Soul has a couple of different personas, right? And some of them have versions of her name. Were she to create a version of herself that is as chaotic and evil as possible, an embodiment of chaos that is capable of reaching throughout the multiverse and--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh Shai'tan! *laughs* I did not think of that, there you go Shai, that's where she came from.  

Neuxue

The most powerful character ever apparently.

Brandon Sanderson

That's right. *laughs* Shai, the Dark One.

Peter Ahlstrom

The original character from Final Empire Prime that the Lord Ruler was based on was a man who was haunted by grief over the suicide of his love a thousand before (or was it just hundreds?). I don't know if Rashek ever had any kind of love life, though.

Brandon Sanderson

They haven't gotten the Truthwatcher oaths yet. They're trying to pull a fast one on me.

Questioner

I just thought if I didn't ask, then the answer's definitely no.

Brandon Sanderson

I mean, "Life before death" is technically a Truthwatcher oath.

Brandon Sanderson

Sazed and Clubs, then Tindwyl in the Keep

Finally we get the Sazed scene. This is my favorite in the chapter, and it's a chapter filled with a lot of scenes I really like. Allrianne may make me chuckle, but Sazed MEANS something. Showing off the cost of Feruchemy like this made for some interesting worldbuilding, and having Sazed interact with Tindwyl and Clubs gave us some character.

Sazed is beginning to feel troubled by what he's done and what is happening around him, but he's not the type to show it yet–even in his thoughts. However, the fact that he preaches a religion to Clubs (the first time he's done that to anyone in a while) shows that he's stretching, trying to figure out who he is and find his place in this mess. He figures that with the fall of Luthadel, he'll probably end up dead–and so he wants to know who he is before that happens.

Which is also why he finally seeks out Tindwyl to confront her. The scene where he brings back his senses while holding her is one of the great moments that you can have as a fantasy novelists that those realistic writers just can't have.

Two little behind the scenes thoughts on this section. First, Clubs mentions that the latest messenger to visit Straff was executed. If you guessed that this was because Straff himself is now awake, you guessed right!

Also, the religion Sazed preaches here is one I decided to spin off into its own book, focusing Warbreaker around it. They aren't the same planet, but I wanted to do more about a religion that worships art, and that was one of the initial motivations for Warbreaker's setting.

WeiryWriter

Hemalurgic spikes lose power unless they are in a person’s body (or immersed in blood), does that body need to be living, or would a corpse suffice? If so, at what point in the decomposition process would the spikes cease to be protected? When they are no longer encased in flesh, before, after?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't put a specific number or date on it, but I'd say as long as the blood itself would be viable if moved to a living body, it will work.

Questioner

So, is she [Rysn] going to get a novella maybe?

Brandon Sanderson

Rysn is probably not going to get a novella but Rysn is a character who's going to have a nice novelette in each story, in the interludes. Maybe not quite to novelette length on each of them but she, in each of the first five books you will get a scene from Rysn.

Questioner

I think she's a very interesting character because in a way she epitomizes what you just said about being exposed to different cultures and--

Brandon Sanderson

Right, that's kind of her thing, is she goes and visits the different cultures of Roshar.

Questioner

And then we get to visit them too. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. She's got a potted plant, she's got some grass actually, there's some grass that doesn't respond to the storm. So she's one of my favorites, I intend her to be in each of the interludes and have her own kind of little story running through the books.

Questioner

So now we know, when you think about--

Brandon Sanderson

Absolutely, there is a Rysn point of view in Oathbringer.

leinton (paraphrased)

Does Wayne have PTSD?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He absolutely does.

Botanica

How does the Moon Scepter actually look like? In what shape is it?

Now we have two understandings of the word "scepter" based on different ways of translation:

1) 杖: It shapes like a common wand/staff/rod/cane/stick, usually seen in Western countries. [Mainland translation]

2) 笏: It's kind of a flat scepter of Chinese origin, shaped like a tablet, usually held before the breast by officials when received in audience by the emperor. (Very rarely, the emperor himself holds it.) The officials can take notes on it. [Taiwan translation (I believe the translator once showed you around the Taipei Palace Museum.)] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaku_(ritual_baton)

Could you tell us which one is closer to the original design? Thanks!

Brandon Sanderson

It's not a Shaku, it's a Ruyi, actually. That's an excellent question, though. It does actually come from my visit to the museam, and while I'm aware of shakus, I hadn't heard them called scepters. But I guess they are!

Either way, I imagined it as the wavy shape of a Ruyi. (如意)

Botanica

Whoa what an amazing answer! Thanks so much for the explanation! I once thought of Ruyi when flipping through some reference materials and now it becomes canon! Hooray! Another question if you don't mind: (Someone just asked this a moment ago.) Why is it called Moon Scepter? Does (perhaps) one side/end of it resemble moon? [Full moon or crescent?] Or is it colored like moon? Or does it contain some moon pattern? (Also a fan art question, sorry ;P)

Brandon Sanderson

It has to do with the differences in religion between Shai's people and the Rose Empire. It is colored like the moon, but there's a little more to it than that.

Botanica

Ah, I see. Thank you! So what color is Selish moon when we look at it? (I suppose there's only one moon?) Didn't find any specific descriptions about its color in books. Can we assume it is similar to our moon?

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't say it was the color of Sel's moon...

Just kidding. It is, and there is only one. It's a pale white blue, a little more blue than ours, but similar.

Kurkistan

If Investiture can neither be created nor destroyed, and Feruchemy is all fueled by the Feruchemist himself, then how do metalminds end up being invested without Feruchemists seeming to suffer any long-term loss of Investiture? If they're not "creating" the energy that's going into the metalminds, then where's it coming from?

Brandon Sanderson

The cosmere takes physics from our universe, and adds additional layers to it. Where we have energy and matter (simplified), the cosmere has additional building blocks that make reality. Investiture is one of these. It IS possible to change matter, to energy, to investiture, and back.

Questioner

Anything about Jasnah.

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah, I would say, is the character who changed the least between the draft I wrote in 2002 and the final version. I always knew who she was and how she was going to turn out, and she stayed really consistent. So I'm really excited, particularly for the back five, which will have more of a focus on her. I've started to tease in some viewpoints, but you'll really get to know her starting in like books six, seven.

AllomancerSam

...When a Shard vessel dies and they've held the Shard for a thousand years, how much do they remember about what they've done?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the shard. Usually, everything or most everything. It is not implausible that there are Shards that don't want to remember certain things. They have a large and vast mental capacity for remembering things.

AllomancerSam

Would Ruin be one that would be more likely to want to forget?

Brandon Sanderson

I think all of them would have things they might want to forget. It depends on whose personality would be more likely to make that actually happen.

Brandon Sanderson

So, for those who don't know, I'm good friends with the director of Fortnite. Before he made this came, he made a smaller game called Infinity Blade--and we collaborated on some story things for that. (Curiously, he and art director Isaac went to school together, which is how I ended up meeting him.)

Fast forward a decade or so, and one day he says to me, "Hey. We should put Kelsier in Fortnite." So here we are.

I realize this probably isn't going to be earth shattering to most of you--I expect the audience who both reads the books and plays Fortnite to be somewhat small--but it was too neat not to pursue.

ImBuGs

Is it really only Kelsier? Or are you hiding anything else? As in, perhaps Vin too? Asking because the skins are usually like $20 and if there are more coming down the pipe i'd rather wait and buy the one from the character I like most (Vin in this case), because, well, I sadly can't afford to buy many of these. I understand if you can't say anything more, but it would be nice if you could confirm its only Kelsier :)

Brandon Sanderson

The deal allows them to make Vin in the future--but I don't know if they're planning to or not. So I'm glad you asked. I wouldn't be surprised to see her in the future--and though there has been not talks of it yet, because it's in the contract, I'd lay decent odds on it happening. (But it would be at least six months away, since it took around five months of working to get Kelsier in.)

Kalinque

Ooh, a Vin skin!

That makes me super curious about the process that went into putting Kelsier in the game. Do you know perhaps if there's any chance we could see the concept art that went into it after the Kelsier skin is out?

Brandon Sanderson

I'd love to do that. I'll see if they'll let me.

ccstat

Does the Everstorm deposit crem? If so, is it the same as highstorm crem?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO!

Slay This Rock (paraphrased)

I asked about whether we have read about the recipient of the letter in his current books.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said that it is in an unpublished book, only a limited number of reader had a chance to read about him... And he said that by this he practically gave out the name.

Questioner

One that's probably for Peter. Shadesmar appears to be flat. And you talk about people walking between worlds. But worlds are spherical. What's up with that?

Brandon Sanderson

This has given him a bit of a headache. It works in my brain, and I'm pretty sure we can make it on the world. Remember, things people think about manifest in Shadesmar, so I've been able to work out a map where places that just aren't inhabited are shrunk in Shadesmar.

Questioner

And they turn into points, so you can just walk off them?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

thegatorgirl00

What made you decide to release chapters in advance for Skyward and Oathbringer? I personally don't like reading books in this format and haven't for either novel since it's harder for me to get sucked into and lose myself in the story when it's split up, so I'm wondering what gave you the idea for it.

Brandon Sanderson

I've always disliked doing summaries of my books--I feel that I'm not nearly as good at it as I am at just writing them. My instinct going back to when I began trying to break in was that if I could skip the summary and just get someone reading the story, it would be more efficient.

The releases done this way are, hopefully, to get people talking about the book. I realize that a lot of readers who like my work are just going to wait and read the book when it comes out, but (particularly with Oathbringer) releasing chapters like this was a good way to get some conversations about it started.

PadraicSeebrr (paraphrased)

Why didn't Dalinar get Surgebinding from bonding Taln's Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You assume Dalinar held Taln's Blade.

enceladus_47

Does Shallan's "I killed my spren" count as a truth?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna leave up to theorizing, figuring out the timeline that's going on with Shallan. What we can say is that Shallan is reconstructing, in many cases, oaths she has said before. And it is working slightly differently than someone who is saying new oaths. And indeed, saying she killed her spren is one of those steps. I'll leave it to you to try and parse through that. It's actually pretty complicated. We have a nice big page explaining all of this stuff internally, to make sure that we're keeping it all straight. Because she has violated oaths and reconstructed them, is basically what's happening. And she is regressing, and she's doing a... 1.1 steps forward, 1 step back, sort of thing, kind of frequently.

Brandon Sanderson

Who here was in the beta for [Oathbringer]? ...They had a lot of affect on part four in particular

Part four, so I had this weird thing... So I had this thing in Oathbringer where the plot archetype was Kaladin feeling like he needed to get to Dalinar, followed by him failing to do so. Which was a really important thing for Kaladin, but the original time where he discovered he needed to get to Dalinar was when he met the Ire and it was in the city--Celebrant. And in the beta that's where it was.

And so what it felt like is, everybody on the ship is like, "Oh we need to get to the perpendicularity in the Horneater Peaks." And then, I just took them down south instead. So I'm like, "Oh I need to get them there." And all the readers were like, "This feels like a digression, it feels boring. Why are we not going-- why are we going the wrong direction?"

It was just one of these promises thing where I had promised--set the expectation. So moving the Ire to the lighthouse meant that Kaladin was a contrast to the other people. And you were like, "Oh yes, Kaladin" When a character in the fantasy novel has a strange vision of the future, that means something! So we will be okay with following Kaladin down south.

ArsenoPyrite

What might happen if you gave a parshman a breath (or breaths?) Would they develop a form for it, or might it generally help them think more clearly?

Brandon Sanderson

You're actually the first to ask this. And yes, it would work.

Darkness (paraphrased)

What’s the story behind Vedeledev's Golden Keys, or are we going to hear it?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Vedeledev's Golden Keys are more of a mythological thing like the sword that forbade people from entering the Garden of Eden, things like this that, they have existed but they're more symbolic… does that make sense?

Brandon Sanderson

Main Book Projects

The Reckoners

The last book of the trilogy is complete, revised, and turned in. It's coming out in February, and is—indeed—the ending.

I have not closed the door on doing more in the world, but it will not be for a while. If I do return, it will be like a Mistborn return, where the focus of the books shifts in some way and I create a new series. I like leaving endings as endings, even if the world and some of the characters do progress.

I'm extremely pleased with the last book. I look forward to having you all read it, and I am grateful to you all for supporting this series. There were voices that told me something outside the Cosmere would never sell as well as something inside—but this series is neck-and-neck in popularity with Stormlight and Mistborn. It's a relief, and very gratifying, to see that people are willing to follow me on different kinds of journeys.

Status: Completed!

Questioner

I was wondering if there is a written Shallan and Adolin wedding scene?

Brandon Sanderson

There is not a written one. Sorry, sorry. If it was written, I would release it for you, but there isn't one. Maybe I'll need to write one. I do get this request decently often. I thought people would be tired of wedding scenes, we already had a wedding scene. I'm like, "Ah, we could skip this one. "

Questioner

That was like different. That was like a "you just need to get married," there wasn't like a love, a whole experience with the scene. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yes. Maybe I need to write that at some point

Kellyn

You can just blame it on me, everybody else does. 

Brandon Sanderson

Why is that?

Kellyn

Because it's the beta readers' fault you didn't write that scene. 

Brandon Sanderson

Is that what they think?

Kellyn

We apparently told you to take it out of the book. 

Brandon Sanderson

Ohhhh, ok. So there's mythology associated with it. Now I can write it and put Kellyn in, and they can be, like, making fun of you, and then they'll think that I cut it because it was unflattering to you