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learhpa (paraphrased)

If someone were to try to steal a Nahel bond via a hemalurgic spike, would it kill the spren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO.  It wouldn't end well.

Overlord Jebus

Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. 

Overlord Jebus

Are they aware of that Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things.

Overlord Jebus

So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm.

Questioner

So, when there's wordplay in The Stormlight Archive, we know they aren't speaking English, so are you to assume that that is a translation of the...

Brandon Sanderson

This is what Tolkein said, and I always rely upon this. You're reading the book in translation, and the person translating it is going to try to use the closest in feel, but to also make it translate to English. So even when they use idioms and things like that, sometimes they translate and the translator can drop them in. Sometimes they just don't translate, so the translator comes up with something that works in English... It gets you a lot of loopholes, like if you accidentally call something an ottoman and people are like, "But there's not an Ottoman Empire in this fantasy world!" But you're like, "Yeah, all words work that way." It's in translation. This is why when you read something like Allomancy, and they're like, "Well, it's got Latin roots, right?" Yeah... it's just the roots in their language would be something old Terris, and the easiest way to convey that feeling is to use something that's got-- you know. Stuff like that.

Brandon Sanderson

We're gearing up for some pretty spectacular fight scenes, if I do say so myself. The short one in this chapter is a good one. However, there's much more to come.

I'd been waiting to pit Kelsier against an Inquisitor since the early chapters, where he led that one on a chase. Part of the reason I didn't show that chase is because I wanted the reader to anticipate this moment themselves. I also didn't show Kelsier fighting the Inquisitors in the palace the night that Vin was wounded. In short, I wanted to save the scene of a fight between them until Kelsier could really give it his all, actually fighting.

It took a lot to get him into a direct fight. However, push Kelsier far enough, and he'll snap. When he does. . .well, you'll have to read on.

Brandon Sanderson

As for the first section break, I just really like ending with having Hrathen poison himself. This makes our first section incredibly long—it takes up well over half of the book. I thought that was all right, however, since I figured increasingly short sections would enhance the pacing near the end of the book, speeding things up (hopefully.)

Questioner

How do you decide what concepts become Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

It took a little bit of work. I basically brainstormed a bunch of attributes of deity that most people had in their religions and see which ones will adapt well to being these concepts.

Questioner

The symbols before the chapters [in The Well of Ascension], are those alloys for the god metals?

Brandon Sanderson

No, the symbols before the chapters are the same symbols as in the first book from a different era. Same thing for the third book, they are the exact same symbols from a different era.

Questioner

Aradel doesn’t sound like he is from Scadrial, seems out of place with his dark - well, tanned, - skin.

Brandon Sanderson

Aradel is actually based off Goradel, he is a descendant of his. So he is local. The skin, there are streaks of dark skin in Scadrial, they don’t associate them 100% with ethnicities because of the small [gene] pool they were building from, and they are stronger in the Terris bloodlines. So if they see someone with darker skin they will likely think they are from Terris, but there’s so much intermixing so that you can’t really say. Wax would have a darker complexion, maybe like a tanned caucasian.

Ravi (paraphrased)

How old is Gaz?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Early to mid 30s, so around Jasnah's age.

Questioner

(indistinct, about Hoid and the black seon)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, the Skaze.

Questioner

What's the seon's name?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, it's one of the skaze. And I haven't... So... I have a name in my notes, but I haven't decided if I want to canonize it yet. RAFO. I'd have to even look it up now, but I've got it.

Questioner

I just started Part 3 [of The Final Empire?] and I actually went over to your booth to ask them because I was confused. There are different symbols for the Allomantic metals but I only recognize one of them here. Why are there different symbols you don't know about at the beginning of different parts?

Brandon Sanderson

Part of it is they don't know all the metals yet, in the books, and so that's a hint. Part of it is because that their writing system is more than 16 letters and so there are symbols that do not represent a metal, necessarily, or an Allomantic metal so they can-- They write with them as well. It is both a writing system and each symbol is a metal.

Questioner

What are you reading?

Brandon Sanderson

Right now, I actually just started reading [Under] the Pendulum Sun... I read two chapters of it, it was very good. It's by an author [Jeannette Ng] who is British, who came to one of my signings earlier, so I looked it up... She came in costume, she came as Jasnah, and she's a professional writer herself, so I'm like, "I've got to read her book." ...The first two chapters were delightful. Missionaries going to fairyland, the land of the fae.

Brandon Sanderson

The King and Yarda Discuss Sending Vivenna

I go back and forth on this scene. Sometimes I think it's too long. Other times I worry that it's not long enough.

Through the history of the book, this particular scene inched longer and longer as I tried very hard to explain why a good man like Dedelin would send Siri to die in Hallandren. (And also, I wanted to be sure to explain why he was sure she would die there.) There's a whole lot of setup going on in this sequence between the king and his general.

And I worry that there should be more. While what they do makes intrinsic sense to me, a lot of readers have been confused about the tactics here. Why is the king doing what he's doing? Is it really needed? Isn't there another way? This section is the only answer we get to a lot of those questions, since it's the one and only scene in the book from Dedelin's viewpoint.

That said, I think this scene might also be too long. The more space I dedicate to Dedelin, the more readers are going to think that he might be a main character. Some are surprised to read on and find out that the king doesn't make another appearance in the novel. (Well, okay, he makes one more—but he doesn't have a viewpoint.) I don't want to put too much here or have readers focus too much on the tactics of his decision, since really all that matters is that readers understand that Siri has been sent unexpectedly to marry the God King.

I'm still iffy on the scene. Some test readers wanted to see the scene where Dedelin says farewell to Siri. (We skip it; the next scene begins with Siri riding away.) They feel they missed a chapter. But I eventually decided that I needed to keep this beginning flowing quickly, because the longer we spend in Idris, the longer it will take us to get to the real plots in Hallandren. If it weren't so important to set up Siri and Vivenna ahead of time (so that their reversal has impact), I would have just started the book with Siri arriving in Hallandren.

Questioner

Who's going to make the Mistborn game, and when is it going to come out?

Brandon Sanderson

Who's going to make the Mistborn game and when's it going to come out. So they bought the rights to that like four years ago and then their game studio divided and the people-- the gaming guys were like "Yeah this happens" and they had an architecture but then it fell through and they said "Oh we're going to do it for nextgen" and since they said that we haven't really heard anything. So...

Y'know, this happens in gaming all the time, they're a good studio, they have lofty ideals, but most of the games they make are not on the scale of Mistborn. And so they have until 2017 to make something. I still have not seen any sort of playable architecture or anything like that… So we'll just wait and see... Their name is Little Orbit. They have mostly done movie tie-in games. There's a bunch of people-- It's the gaming industry out in California so three of the people there were from Interplay and three of the people there were from this studio and they've all made big games before but this studio itself, they just aren't being able to get it together to make a big game. So if they do-- I mean I really like them, if they get it going I'll be super excited to see it happen but once 2017 rolls around I probably won't renew their option and say "Well it's time to let this one lapse".

Shovelbum26

You've written about a huge amount of cultures where women are expected to conform to what we think of as "traditional gender roles". In Stormlight, Mistborn, Elantris and Warbreaker all, the strong women are largely defined through how they buck these rigid gender roles. I never got the sense that you think of those as "natural" gender roles for women but more that you were using the Fantasy setting with its stereotypical Elizabethan ideas of gender to critique sexism. That's a great and well established way to address sexism in novels, but the other way is to actively challenge stereotypes in the setting, by showing that our idea of gender roles isn't inevitable (by showing a society with a very different idea of gender roles).

Brandon Sanderson

I'm aware of the things you say regarding sexism, and they are things I think about a lot. On one hand, you want to make stories relateable, which often requires leaning on people who struggle against the boundaries set for them. At the same time, it becomes a cliche if every young woman is forced to become a fighter for gender equality--and it lets her gender define her struggles in a way that is not heaped upon the male characters.

With Stormlight, I'm trying to take a different look at this idea in many ways. Some of which would be spoilers to talk about here.

Pagerunner

If a well-studied singer were to become an aetherbound, how would they (with their innate understanding of tones) evaluate the core aethers' claim to be independent of Adonalsium and the Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

They would not have enough experience with the cosmere in general to be able to say yes or no.

How about this. If they went to all the different tones and compared them, they would find something different happening with the aethers, I think is what the question is getting at. So there is some evidence cosmereologically for the aethers' claims to be independent of Adonalsium. There are also evidences that arcanists could put forward that say otherwise.

luminos

What are the chances that you will eventually write a fifth Alcatraz book?

Does Alcatraz ever actually end up tied to a stack of encyclopedias, about to be sacrificed by evil librarians?

Brandon Sanderson

I bought the rights to the Alcatraz series back from Scholastic earlier this year, and they were given a 'sell-off' period to sell the rest of their stock. I now own the rights again free and clear, and will probably be putting out an omnibus ebook. (Perhaps a print one with Tor as well.)

I can now write the fifth book (which Scholastic did not want.) It was always planned as the book where he ends up on that stack of encyclopedias. I'll do this sometime next year, hopefully.

Questioner

I am very convinced that Adolin, with the events that happen with the last book. You're sending him down a like a dark path. Is he possibly going to be a-- *questioningly* Antagonist? Protagonist?-- A bad, eventually? Or is he--

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to say this, the things that Adolin did do not contradict some of the moralities on Roshar, in fact they follow them directly. Some of the moralities on our planet would say what he did is the right thing to do. I think treating it as a "dark path" is too reductionist to say. There are people who would seriously argue, and they would have a good argument, that what Dalinar was doing by leaving Sadeas around was a good idea. And then there are other people who would say "You know what Sadeas did was a challenge and it was rightly then responded to" and then there are people who would say it was absolutely immoral. So, it depends on your philosophy.

What would Honor say? Well, Honor's dead, so-- *lots of laughter* You know Honor would not have been behind that action, but Honor's dead.

Kurkistan

If you're on Threnody and you get withered by a shade, are you better off burning Allomantic aluminum, or tapping Feruchemical gold?

*laughter*

[clarification on the question]

Brandon Sanderson

They would both work pretty well. I would say if you burned aluminum, that would kind of have the effect that you are wanting it to have, which is the effect-- negating and sucking out, so that's probably safer. But the gold would work, too.

Kurkistan

So would it be fair to describe withering as a kind of cancerous Forging-

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Kurkistan

That just kind of slowly takes over your soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Herowannabe

I recently picked up the Mistborn Adventure game and am loving it. I made a character who is a blind Mistborn because hey, I thought it would make for some interesting possibilities. As I understand Allomancy, he can hear/sense well enough to get around with Tin, plus even though he's blind he can still "see" steel lines (like the inquisitors), and I assume Atium would work the same way- that is, he could still "see" Atium shadows. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Brandon Sanderson

No, you're right. That works. He'd have to burn metals a LOT though. It might warp him a little. :)

Questioner/Translator

How do you create such a complex character as Legion? How, where did you get the aspects from and did you consult any psychiatrists?

Brandon Sanderson

Legion came from a conversation I had with friend of mine named Dan Wells. And he loves to write stories about... horror stories about people who are dealing with mental disability. And I told him what if there was somebody who was schizophrenic and the people they saw helped them out instead of inspiring their paranoia. And he said "that doesn't sound like a horror novel, you should write that, Brandon; it sounds like your style of novel". And it's true: if you haven't read Legion, it's about a guy who sees hallucinations of people who all help him solve crimes. And the inspiration is really all the weird voices that authors have in their heads about all these characters.

Mad Hatter

Weather is a major force in The Way of Kings since that is where they derive their magic powers from. Also, the mythology of the series most people believe they are descended from others who lived in another world similar to heaven, but were thrown out of because of the Voidbringers. Reincarnation seems to be a theme as well. All these ideas follow along with Norse mythology to a degree. Was that intentional or just a byproduct of the evolution to this world?

Brandon Sanderson

Half and half. I am steeped in mythology, and I enjoy reading about it. I’m absolutely in love with the idea of Valhalla and Ragnarok. But this was not me saying I’m going to copy Norse mythology. Whatever I’ve read can pop into my head. You’ll probably see a bunch of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism too if you look for it. But it was me drawing on various sources, and also just trying to make my own thing. Yes, there’s certainly a Norse aspect to a lot of the weather magic and things like that, but it’s more that I wanted to tell a story about a world that got hit by these magical hurricanes every few days. Weather being such a force is going to therefore be an aspect of the religion, the belief systems, and the day-to-day workings of the people who live in that world. So it was partially natural outgrowth and partially my love and fondness for things that I’ve read.

Some Anonymous

Back when Tress was first announced, you said that you were imagining the moons and seas as being arranged like the faces of a d12 die. Did the "scientists" who you asked about this ever figure out a way to make this work? Or are the moons something we just have to accept under the rule of cool?

Brandon Sanderson

The moons on Lumar cannot exist without magical intervention. They simply can't. And I'm okay with that; I'm okay, like I said, with some of these planets... We're gonna do other things in the Cosmere that just cannot exist without magical intervention, because otherwise I'd might as well be writing a straight hard science fiction series. And there are lots of great straight hard science fiction series out there that try to extrapolate what things would actually be like. With me, I am trying to create a really interesting environment you haven't seen before, and then ask what that does to the people, realistically, who live there, if that makes sense.

I do treat it seriously. This is canon; those moons are there. But how are the moons there? Cosmereological phenomenon that is impossible in our universe.

Some Anonymous

How high up are the moons away from the planet? Closer to hundreds of miles, like the ISS? Tens of thousands of miles, geosynchronous orbits? If you have that thought out?

Brandon Sanderson

We have discussed it, and I think I'm gonna RAFO it for now. I will say: my current impression is, definitely not as close as the ISS. But not so far, like... One of my inspirations, if you didn't pick up on it already, is obviously Anne McAffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books. Which, if you haven't read those, there are two planets that pass very close to each other, and when they do, dangerous environmental hazards pass from one planet to the other, risking extinction on the habited planet. And I've always loved that setup. And this is a little bit inspired by that. And I don't know how far apart those are, but I'm gonna say: I think it's further than the ISS. But who knows?

BimGab

Why are so many of your primary female characters named with "s" and "v"? Sarene, Siri, Shai, Shallan, Vin, Vivenna? Is there a reason?

(I ask because you're obviously able to find cool female-names with other letters too, Jasnah, Danlan, Navani and so on.)

Brandon Sanderson

No reason. I've noticed that trend myself; probably something to do with innate "this sounds right" things on my part. I think Vin/Vivenna is a coincidence. (Vin did start in a rough first draft as male, after all.) But there are also some other V names, a disproportionate number. So...just the way my ears work, and something I need to be aware of, I guess. Thanks for the question!

Mailliw73

How many Epics have "unique" powers like Firefight or Mitosis?

Brandon Sanderson

Less than 10% are both unique and useful.

Mailliw73

What about unique and useless? ;)

Brandon Sanderson

Happens fairly often.

Mailliw73

So, a power to, say, conjure Big Macs out of their pocket wouldn't be too crazy?

Brandon Sanderson

No. That's actually well within reason.

And actually quite powerful if you don't put a limit on concurrent mass created or speed of creation.

Voidus

What about an Epic whose only ability is to accurately tell the time?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Mailliw73

Can an Epic be given powers that are permanently countered by their weakness? Ex: Being able to breathe underwater, but whose weakness is water?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to say no on this one, unless the weakness is something more specific. (I.E, you can breathe under water, but your weakness is water with food coloring in it.) The weakness can relate somehow to the powers, but not in a way that if every time you use the abilities, they're automatically negated.

winter_cloud

What are some of the more common powers, then?

Brandon Sanderson

I based this off of comic books, so I assumed classic comic book superhero powers--various forms of flight, invulnerability, control over various types of matter, energy blasts--are common enough to have "standard powersets" for research purposes. Basically, this means that people like David and the lorists can make references that readers with a familiarity with comics can understand.

King_of_the_Kobolds

Is there any chance we could see the lorist categorization system published someday? As a sort of Reckonerverse Ars Arcanum?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible, but likely only if I come back to the world for more books beyond the original trilogy.

Voidus

How common would teleporting be?

Brandon Sanderson

Rare.

Mailliw73

Are powers such as being able to negate others' powers or being immune to Epic powers possible?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

holdencaufld

I feel like society on Roshar would develop a bit differently because of emotion spren. You'd have to be very careful talking/ interacting with people since you can't hide things like fear, anger, awe, anticipation, joy, passion and shame. Imagine going through high school having to deal with them...

The_Bravinator

I have to imagine it alters things like, say, the concept of masculinity. Obviously the Alethi have very strong ideas about masculinity, but attracting fearspren/feeling fear doesn't seem to be a negative within that like it would be in our culture. Men attract fearspren all the time, and it's totally fine.

It also seems like it might be taboo to mention someone else's emotion spren. People are constantly noticing internally that other people are attracting them, but they NEVER EVER comment on it (until the part in OB where they're investigating it in Kholinar). There must be a really strong boundary around commenting on other people's spren.

It's one thing I did want to ask Brandon about if he does another AMA--how emotion spren affect Rosharan culture.

Brandon Sanderson

This is some good theorizing here. I'd agree with what /u/The_Bravinator says.

The effects are all over the place, but they are just how life is on Roshar, so I rarely point them out. For example, the classic Alethi sort of idolizing being "straightforward" with people. No assassinations. (Well, supposedly.) You're used to being able to see people's emotions, so you take it for granted that only hyper untrustworthy people do things in ways that don't expose emotions. Emotions aren't bad, they simply are, and everyone has them. Views of masculinity are certainly changed.

The_Bravinator

Is it taboo to mention emotion spren that other people are attracting, or do people just not generally think to do so?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the situation, really. Not exactly the same, but note how in Earth societies the different responses to something like passing gas, depending on context, culture, etc.

Brandon Sanderson

Using the Atium

I hope that the use of all that atium in this chapter was spectacular enough for you—after all, I waited three books to finally have them find the Lord Ruler's cache. I think that discovering it before this moment would have been anticlimactic. In books one or two, it would simply have meant wealth. The characters getting rich is all well and good, but I think that would have meant a letdown for the reader. All of that anticipation for something so mundane?

Instead, I wanted to use an entire army's—or at least a large platoon's—worth of Allomancers burning atium to fight two hundred thousand koloss.

Brandon Sanderson

Breeze the Nobleman

Sazed mentions that Breeze does the best job of anyone he knows in imitating a nobleman. Well, if you remember Breeze's viewpoints from book two, you'll realize that there's a good reason for this. Breeze is a nobleman—full blooded, not a half-blood like the rest of them. He fled to the underground and pretended to be a half-breed (probably one of the only noblemen ever to do so) in order to gain the protection of the skaa rebellion.

If we had time for Breeze viewpoints in this book, we'd see that he's changed quite a bit from book two. The pivotal moment for him was when he snapped mentally at the end of the Siege of Luthadel. After living through the battle, Breeze has decided to enjoy what he has and not take it for granted. Though he acts a lot like the old Breeze, you should be noticing a lot more optimism and even kindness from Breeze in this book. He's decided to go ahead and love Allrianne, and he tries to help the emotions of others even more than he did back in book two.

Questioner

You've come a really long way since Elantris was first published. How has your process of writing changed ever since, in the sense that then you had the feedback from the publishing house maybe, now you have the feedback from the fans, from the critics, and also I can imagine, very much tighter deadlines. How can you reflect on Elantris from now?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, first let me say, I love you, but I had so much time back then! Now, it is a real challenge. Everybody left me alone. I wouldn't go back, because everyone left me alone at book signings, too. My books sat lonely on the shelves by themselves. But the great challenge of this phase of my career is finding enough time to do all the things I need to do. When I turned in Elantris to the publisher, they published it two years and three months later. When I turned in Words of Radiance, three months later. My books pay for the publisher to keep publishing, and they very much like to publish my books, and so it is difficult. I travel a lot, my signings are wonderful but long, and my deadlines are very tight, and everyone is stressed about me turning the books in. I'm just glad I spent all those years writing, with nobody knowing who I was, because that's when I built all of my habits. If you would've asked me, during that time, if it was nice that I hadn't published any books yet, I would've said, "No, I want to publish books," but that era was essential for turning me into the writer I am today. For those who don't know, I wrote thirteen novels before I sold one of them.

Questioner

At what point in making the Rithmatist magic system did the concept of the beauty of the drawings come in?

Brandon Sanderson

The beauty of the drawings is related to the idea of your perception influencing magic, which is a Cosmere rule. Giving things a mental order, the Cognitive aspect of it, it’s the same way that in Warbreaker, when you give an order to something you’ve Awakened with the magic, the way you perceive that order directly influences how it plays it out. I built this in because, number one, it’s better for philosophy if the answers aren’t, in some of these things, [internal?] answers where the author has said, “Truth is capital T Truth”, where the characters’ perceptions of truth allows for different people to believe different things and both be arguably right. Also because I wanted all the magic in the Cosmere to have some root in the Cognitive Realm. The idea of the magic there is, there’s a Spiritual thing which is kind of unknowable, kind of eternal, kind of all-places-one, there’s a Cognitive aspect, which is how you perceive it influences it, and then there’s the Physical world. The chalklings were built that way, how beautiful you perceive it as being, or the beings involved in this perceive it as being, will influence how well it works.

Second Questioner

In the books, in Rithmatist, you state that the better drawn a shape is, or a creation is, that makes it more powerful. Would that mean that if you drew a cube, would that be more powerful than a square?

Brandon Sanderson

The complexity of it, and how people perceive, you could make an argument that there’s some people who would be like, “The perfect cube is so hard to draw that that is inspiring”, but the average people, if you said, ”Who’s going to win this battle: this cool knight that I drew, or this cube?”, they’d say the cool knight. So that sort of general perception plays a lot into how it works.

Questioner

There's a Mistborn pen-and-paper RPG. Are you gonna add other magic systems, a la Rifts, where we're connecting the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

I have floated the idea to Crafty, who made a really great roleplaying game. They have been a delight to work with. They came to me and said, "What are your favorite RPGs? How can we make one that you'll be happy with?" And they took that and ran with it, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. And I really think they did a good job with [Mistborn: House War]. So they have been an excellent partner.

When I mentioned it to them, they said something that I respect a lot. They said, "Let's make sure that Mistborn is really good before we add other things." And I think, in the years intervening, watching how different film properties have not taken that same philosophy of "Let's take the thing we're doing and do it really well before we ask where else it'll go." I think that Crafty was very wise in that. I think it is likely we will do more, but they wanna make sure they are supporting the game they released and the IP that they've released before they do anything more.

So, I can't promise, but I do think there will likely be more.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Nine

Dinosaurs

I’d like to be able to tell you where this came from, why I put it in the book, but . . . well, I have no idea. Remember, this book was–in essence–a long free write. I didn’t have much of an outline, setting, or anything else in mind. When I got to this point in the book, I thought, “Hey, talking dinosaurs. Let’s put those in.” So I did.

I enjoyed them, however, and had a lot of fun using them. They show up later in the plot–if I add something to a book, even in a free write, I don’t want it to be random. Things exist in stories for a reason, even if that reason is to give a deeper explanation of where the English language came from.

Brandon Sanderson

Siri Does Her Show for the First Time

This little sequence is far more discomforting to me than the actual nudity, to be honest. Being somewhat of a prude as I am, I hesitated to put this into the book. I realize that to most readers, it's not even very risqué. But I'm the one writing the book, and I'm the one who decides what I include. I have to be willing to take responsibility for what's in my stories.

Why did I put this in if it discomforts me? Well, to be honest, there was no other way. It was what the story demanded. I couldn't see the priests not at least listening. (And, as I think will be mentioned later in the story, they did have some people watching the first nights—no matter what Bluefingers says in this chapter. He's not lying, he's just wrong. The priests would never let a potential assassin near their God King without taking precautions. There was even a soldier hiding under the bed that first night, and another watching from a secret chamber beside the hearth. It was still a risk to let Siri into the room, of course, but they were fairly certain—after taking her clothing and instructing the serving girls to watch carefully during the bathing—that Siri had no weapons on her.)

Regardless, it was ridiculous to think the priests wouldn't listen in, knowing what they do of the God King. That meant Siri had to either sleep with him for real, or find a way to distract them. This was a clever move on her part, and I like it when my characters can be appropriately clever. And so the scene stays. If I hadn't allowed her to do this, then I would have—as an author—been holding her back artificially.

Cheyenne Sedai

We only know the people of Komashi as having Investiture from Virtuosity, why does their Investiture seem to be split into the two streams of power known as hion? Is this something unique to Virtuosity as a Shard, or just how it happens to manifest on Komashi?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. This will be a theme you will see wherever Virtuosity is involved. So yeah. hmmmmm interesting. This will be a theme. There is a sub theme to this in the Cosmere. The Push and Pull. The opposites should be echoing through the magic systems. It is more expressed in Virtuosity than the others but do keep in mind that the Yin Yang sort of thing is there in the Cosmere as well in the general magic system, but more pronounced with Virtuosity, shall we say.

StrikerEZ

Just out of curiosity, what's your current plan on potentially writing other books while you write [Mistborn] Era Three? You've mentioned in the past potentially squeezing in other books between those three books.

Brandon Sanderson

Still thinking I might do that. Tor wanted me to set out my schedule, 'cause we're getting ready to sign the contacts for Era Three with Tor. (Our contracts are weird, let's just say. Sometimes we just hand them books, sometimes we do it ahead of time. But this time we're doing it ahead of time.) And they wanted delivery dates, and I said, "I am writing the whole trilogy before I release the first book." It's what I've wanted to do ever since I wrote Era One, I wanted to do this again. So Era Three is going to be a trilogy, written, that won't get released. And I know I'm going to need a break between books to do other things. And so I'm still thinking that I'll do some of these books that I've been promising people in between, and then release them in some order. It's possible I could write these books, and they could be released while I'm finishing Era Three.

But it's looking like Era Three... it's gonna be a little while. We are pretty sure Stormlight Five is 2024 now. I do apologize on that; though I have been writing on that. These weeks, I only get three and a half days to write, a lot of times. There's so many other things that I need to be doing. Stormlight Five is moving along, but there's too many things going on with it, and I had too many movie things happen this year, it slowed me down, and so we are sure it's 2024 at this point. And then that means, where do we put Era Three? I want to write all three books, I want to have a little time in between each one to write something else. I want the Era Three books to be around two hundred thousand words like Era One was, not a hundred thousand words like Era Two; just feels like the right length. They could get longer than that; they could end up at two fifty or even three hundred thousand. So that's gonna take me a couple of years of writing before I even get them done and ready to go out.

So, you're gonna get an ending to Era Two. And then you're gonna get an ending to Skyward. And then you're gonna get an ending to Stormlight. Where, there are still things going on in those settings and worlds, but you're gonna get three pretty sizeable endings in a row. And then, we're probably going to be doing other interesting things for a while before you end up getting into Era Two of Stormlight and Era Three of Mistborn. Interesting things such as: a prose version of White Sand that is actually revised and looking good, a non-Cosmere collection of fiction. Dark One, the novelization, is another thing that you can look forward to; my original outline, I'm working on it with Dan Wells, with turning it into a novel, and I'm very pleased with how that's going. These things are gonna have to fill the void while Brandon works on Era Three. And potentially Nightblood and potentially Elantris sequels.

Sapphire Bombay

Do you have concerns about constraints on your time over the next twenty years? What books do you plan to write between Stormlight Six and Ten?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a good question. I have concerns; I absolutely have concerns. This is definitely the biggest challenge of my career, is fitting everything in. What do I plan to write then? That's a good time for Dragonsteel. Whether I can do Dragonsteel concurrent, because Dragonsteel is so involved (this is the Hoid origin series), whether I can do that concurrent or not is a big question. I might need something a little lighter, meaning fewer viewpoints, shorter novels in between. Which would lend itself toward another era of Mistborn, as I've told people.

But there's also the possibility that I write other interesting things. For those following the Secret Projects, there is definitely... two of them are related in an interesting way. And another one of them implies lots more, and I won't promise that I'm going to, but these are all things that maybe I will end up doing more of. Consider them all finished, and you can't ask me "when are you gonna do this?" because there are no promises. But who knows what will pop out of the brain.

LuckyJim (paraphrased)

In Oathbringer Kaladin travels with a group of freed parshmen. One of them, Sah, dies, but what about his daughter Vai? Is she okay? Is anyone looking after her?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

She is okay, well, as okay as she can be considering the circumstances (dead father and living under the oppression of the Fused). She is being looked after.

Questioner

So at the end of [Oathbringer], how aware is Odium of what Nightblood is and can do?

Brandon Sanderson

Modestly. 

Questioner

Taking the sheath, that kind of thing?

Brandon Sanderson

He knows. I would say more than modestly, he is well aware.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventeen

The Mists Form

In writing this book, I had to nail down a few worldbuilding issues I'd been contemplating even before the first trilogy ended. What would happen to the mists, for instance, once Sazed took over and became Harmony?

The mists, obviously, are a big part of the series. It didn't make sense—either narratively or worldbuilding-wise—to lose them completely. However, they'd been created as an effect of Preservation trying to use his essence to fight against Ruin's destruction of the world. So . . . wouldn't they go away?

I decided that Sazed would still send them. They're part of the nature of the world now. To acknowledge what had happened, they wouldn't come every night any longer. But they would come. They were changed in that they are no longer simply the raw power of Preservation; they're now a part of Harmony—so they no longer pull away from Hemalurgy in the same way as they used to. They still have the odd effect of being able to power Allomancy. (And Feruchemy as well—if one knows how to do it.)

The mists are, in part, the raw power of creation. And when one is favored of Harmony, the mists have a greater effect than they might otherwise have. We'll see more of this later.

porcipotimus

*fan art of a whitespine*

Ben McSweeney

Well done. I had a difficult time with the whitespine's anatomy, to the point of largely redesigning the body again just before the deadline (we wrote an article about it on Brandon's blog, I think? -EDIT- We did! ), but you've interpreted it nicely considering the limited reference.

Missed the vestigial claws behind the primary legs though (sorry, your quality kicked my AD brain into gear :), and the skin could be bit smoother/slicker on the flanks (they get more shellie as they dry out, so maybe he's very dry).

porcipotimus

Oh snaps, you're right! I missed that detail :*( He did come out a bit chunkier than I think I would have liked (I imagined them looking a bit more agile and bug-like and less "tanky"/dragon-y than this) but alas I just went with it since I was having fun.

Ben McSweeney

The interview talks about a bunch of the design motif stuff we went through. There was an active need to step away from the chunkier arthropod/crustacean thing we had done with chasmfiends and axehounds and cremlings, and start to widen the field a little more. I think you were right to push away from being tanky-dragony. What you have here is remarkably close to some of our earlier designs.

At the end I was thinking of the flanks being clad in a sort of sharkskin, merging with the bonier protrusions along the spine flowing just under the skin... as the creature dries out, the skin contracts and even cracks with mineral buildup, and it becomes more rocky/tanky. It needs the storms to stay active, otherwise it's inclined to go into a sort of hibernation to conserve energy unless prey comes near. I imagine as things dry out, they crawl into cracks and hollow between the stones and blend in, waiting for the next storm. Still ready to snatch up prey or even emerge to hunt when prey draws near.

When the weather is wet, they're out and hunting all the other critters that come out to feed in the aftermath of fresh rainfall and the newly stripped, tossed landscape. Then they fill out a little and become more like sleek sharks stalking the mountains and chasms. They get shinier and smoother and more able to move quickly. That's when they become the real terror of the hills, stalking like wolves or tigers but climbing like goats.

It's still a mishmash design, it's not really as cohesive as I would have liked. There's room for evolutionary improvement... after all there's probably always another breed. Southern Whitespines, if you will. The Great Northern Rockback Whitespine. The tiny but deadly Deep Chasm Whitespine. The sleek and slender Eastern Spinybacked Whitespine (much more needly). I'm making all of this up as I go, but that's half the secret to doing this at all :)

vineyarddawg

Do you have a shardpen, or what? Does it change to a shardbrush or a shardpencil when you have to use those tools? And can a spren change into a shardPhotoShop, or what?

Ben McSweeney

Funny thing is, working digitally is kinda magical. I mean, you can turn back time. You can stack a hundred invisible sheets of paper and draw on each one separately, with the result being no thicker than a single page. You can cut and paste and warp and blur and save a perfect copy trapped in time just in case your next experiment goes horribly awry.

And if you do it right and well, nobody will never know the difference.

It ain't a shard, exactly, but it'll do. :)

Brandon Sanderson

Ars Arcanum

It's kind of surprising to me, but to some people, appendices like this can be very divisive topics. There are people who will pick up a book and check to see if it has a map and appendix–and if it has both, they're more likely to read it. (I was actually one of these when I was younger.) I guess the philosophy here, if I analyze my teenage self, was that if an author put so much work into a book–and if the book was so complex–that there had to be an appendix, then that was a book I wanted to read.

Others have the opposite reaction, I've come to learn. I've met people who think that this sort of thing in the back of a book indicates that the author is sloppy, and can't tell a tight story. Or, that the story is going to be too complicated to enjoy.

In Elantris, my first book, I fought for a pronunciation guide and a cast of characters in the back. I like appendixes, though now it's mostly because my untrustworthy brain often forgets who characters are. With the Mistborn trilogy being as complex as (hopefully) I want it to be, I figured I'd need cast lists in order to help you remember book one when reading book two.

So, book two has a bigger appendix. However, I wanted to do something in this one as well. One thing I knew people were going to ask about was a way to keep the metals straight. That's why I developed the quick reference chart, and my friend Isaac did that beautiful metal table for a visual reference–I absolutely love how it looks.

...

My magic systems are generally like a new science for the world in which they are practiced, so I like the feel this gives. Hopefully, you found this appendix useful. If not, I suspect you'll really appreciate the one in book two, as the cast of characters there will provide a lot of helpful reminders.

Brandon Sanderson

Another interesting note in this chapter is that we finally get to see what Raoden went through in chapter one. The washing process isn't all that exciting, but I have had several people remark that they were sad to have missed it. I guess that's just human curiosity. Well, for those who wondered what the process was, they finally got to see it in this chapter.

Freddie Washington

If you die in an alternate dimension [in Secret Project Two], do you die in your home dimension as well?

Brandon Sanderson

The way that this works is: you are physically picking up and leaving, so you don't leave behind a version of yourself. Now, if you go to a dimension where there is another version of you, it's like you were twins; there's two of you with different life experiences. You are two different individuals in that case, and you could each die, but you aren't hacking in like in the Matrix, where you're putting on something. You are actually physically leaving and going to another dimension.

Questioner

Could a Windrunner in Shardplate travel to other planets?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, theoretically possible. Take a long time.

Questioner

Yes, it would. 'Cause he wouldn't need to breathe, if he's got enough Stormlight.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, well, I mean, they can control pressure, so. You'd need oxygen scrubbers, but they can also, so... you can create a ball of air around yourself with their power anyway, so--

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eighteen

The ending of a book is both the best and worst part to read.

This is very true. I loathe and love endings. I remember still that some of the most sweet experiences in reading happened when I was in high school, and was nearing the end of one of my favorite books. Then, I would be done, and realize it would be another whole year before the next book came out. That infuriated me.

It kind of puts me in a tough place as a writer. I’m now putting people through this same sort of thing. I guess that’s why I figure I’m darned if I do, and darned if I don’t, so I might as well make people as annoyed with this book as possible.

Questioner

I was wondering if Sazed was based on any of your own explorations when you were developing your own path?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, definitely he is a part of me, but there are big things that are different from me as well. Really the main concept for him was "the Missionary for Every Religion" and that was a cool idea to me.

Badloss

I love, love Brandon Sanderson but I feel like every time he needs a "magic word" he just takes two regular words and jams them together.

Dreamshard, Shardblade, Shardplate, Lightweaving, Mistborn, Coinshot, Pewterarm, Coppercloud, Surgebinder, Soulcaster, etc etc etc

Sorry u/Mistborn I still love you

Brandon Sanderson

It's done intentionally. Let's look at our options.

I can create all-out fantasy words for terms like this. (Lait or crem from Stormlight are examples.) Problem is, the more you do this, the more you pile a difficult linguistics on top of a reader. The more words like this they have to learn, the more difficult it is to get into a story. If you were doing it, perhaps you'd go this direction. I feel that overloading on these terms is dangerous. Already, the main reason new readers put down my books is that they feel overwhelmed by the worldbuilding.

So we have the second option. Use a latin, germatic, or greek root and create a word that FEELS right, has some mental connection for the reader, but which isn't a real word. Allomancy/Feruchemy/Hemalurgy. Veristitalian. To a lesser extent, Elantris.

This so called "Harry Potter Spells" method gives some familiarity to the naming, makes them stick a little better in people's heads, which makes the books a little easier to get into. But they're also distracting to some readers who say, "Wait. There's no Latin in this world, so where did Latin root words come from?" And for others (particularly in translation) those roots mean nothing, and so these all end up lumped into the first group.

The final method is the pure Germanic method--creating compound words. It works in English very well because of our Germanic roots--and is one of the main ways (other than turning nouns into verbs or the other direction) that we create new words. Supermarket. Masterpiece. Newspaper. Thunderstorm. Footprint. Firework. Heartbeat. Yourself. None of those look odd to you because they are words that are "meant" to go together in your head.

I use some of batch one, some of batch two, but I do favor batch three--it does what I want it to. Works in the language, has an "otherworld" feel but is also very quickly understood by someone new to the series. There are arguments for all three methods, however.

Phantine

You can also just go the route of using an English word despite it clearly not being accurate.

"He tied a ribbon around his horse's third antennae, and patted its chitinous flank."

Brandon Sanderson

Agreed. Re-contextualizing English words can work too--I find it particularly useful to do what I mentioned above. Take a verb and make it a noun or vice versa. Or use a verb in a way that you normally don't. (Awakeners or Lashings are examples from my work, though Spice from Dune is one of the grand-daddy examples of this. As it is for a lot of fantastical linguistics.)

Brandon Sanderson

So, why does Raoden keep his identity secret from Sarene? I think his explanation here is earnest–he wants to get to know her without the truth of his identity throwing a crimp into the relationship. He, of course, intends to tell her eventually. At the risk of giving a spoiler, however, you needn't worry that this is going to turn into a "I'm mad at you for lying to me" plot. Those always annoy me too. (Chick flicks are famous for them. "Oh, you're really a rich prince? Well, I hate you for pretending to be a pauper to win my love!")

I'm a little bit chagrined at how much faking I have going on in this chapter. Sarene isn't telling Raoden about the outside world (a necessary plotting device because of the triad–three days have passed, and I had to have a reason why she hadn't told Raoden about events outside the city yet.) Raoden isn't telling Sarene who he really is. On top of that, I'm keeping the secret of Hrathen's potion from my own characters, and I have to do some more rationalizing in this chapter–explaining why Sarene has enough food, and why she can't do AonDor–to make it all work. Ah. . .why can't we all just be honest.

Questioner

In Words of Radiance, you started off a chapter talking about breaths, calling it the life of men. And then immediately afterwards, you had Kaladin bring up how the Alethi are soulcasted into statues. And I believe you said in a livestream that you can't Awaken stone-

Brandon Sanderson

Very, very, very hard.

Questioner

-but you can Awaken soulcasted stone. Was that intentional?

Brandon Sanderson

It's intentional to get you thinking. Do not expect this to be a major foreshadowing point.

To do something like I'm doing [with interconnected Cosmere stories], it's a dance. And the dance is to try to make sure each independent story works fantastically well on its own without any knowledge of the other pieces. That doesn't mean I won't bring those pieces in. (In fact, I do, quite a bit.) But I don't want to build huge climactic moments based on knowledge of a magic system that is not native to a given planet.

Isilel

Does military service raise one's nahn/dahn?

Let's say somebody from a very low nahn, who is basically a serf, right? I mean, they don't have the freedom of movement. So, what if a man like that rises to a sergeant and serves 25 years with distinction, does he go back to being a serf when/if he retires from the military? Would he be required to return to his village/town of origin? Can something like this be properly controlled, even? I mean, do they check traveling people's papers?

Brandon Sanderson

There's a lot of parts to this. Rising within nahns and dahns happens more easily in Roshar than rising in social status did in most societies that had similar things in our world—for instance India, or even England. To an extent, it is very easy to buy yourself up a rank. What you've got to remember is the very high ranks are harder to attain. By nature, the children of someone of a very high rank sometimes are shuffled down to a lower rank—until they hit a stable rank. There are certain ranks that are stable in that the children born to parents of that rank always have that rank at as well. Your example of the soldier who serves with distinction could very easily be granted a rank up. In fact, it would be very rare for a soldier to not get a level of promotion if they were a very low rank—to not be ranked up immediately. The social structure pushes people toward these stable ranks. For the serf level, if you're able to escape your life of serfdom and go to a city, often getting a job and that sort of thing does require some measure of paperwork listing where you're from and the like. But if you were a serf who was educated, that would be pretty easy to fake. What's keeping most people as serfs is the fact that breaking out of it is hard, and there are much fewer of those ranks than you might assume. The right of travel is kind of an assumed thing. To be lower ranked than that, something has to have gone wrong for your ancestors and that sort of thing. There are many fewer people of that rank than there are of the slightly higher ranks that have the right of travel. It's a natural check and balance against the nobility built into the system. There are a lot of things going on here. Movement between ranks is not as hard as you might expect.

Isilel

Ditto with the lighteyes—does exemplary service raise one's dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

It's much harder for a lighteyes, but the king and the highprinces can raise someone's dahn if they want to. But it is much harder. In the lower dahns, you can buy yourself up in rank. Or you can be appointed. For instance, if you're appointed as a citylord, that is going to convey a certain dahn, and you could jump two or three dahns just by getting that appointment. Now, if you serve poorly, if a lot of the people who have the right of travel leave—which this doesn't happen very often—if your town gets smaller and you're left with this struggling city, you would be demoted a dahn, most likely. If a lot of the citizens got up and left, that would be a sign. They could take away your set status by leaving. That’s something that’s built into the right of travel. So these things happen.

Isilel

If parents have different nahns/dahn's, how is child’s position calculated? For instance, if Shallan had married 10-dahner Kabsal, what dahn would their children belong to?

Brandon Sanderson

The highest dahn determines the dahn of the child, though that may not match the dahn of the highest parent. For instance, there are certain dahns that aren't conveyed to anyone except for your direct heir. The other children are a rank below. I believe that third dahn is one of the stable ranks. If you're the king, you're first dahn. Your kid inherits. If you have another kid who doesn't marry a highprince, and is not a highprince, then they're going to be third dahn, not second, because that's the stable rank that they would slip down to, along with highlords and the children of highprinces.

Isilel

Or, and another thing—what happens if a lighteyed child is born to darkeyes or even slaves? Which should happen often enough, given that male nobles seem rather promiscuous. Anyway, are such people automatically of tenth dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

The situation is very much taken into account in these sorts of cases. Normally—if there is such a thing as normal with this—one question that's going to come up is are they heterochromatic. Because you can end up with one eye of each color, both eyes light, or both eyes dark. That's going to influence it a lot, what happens here. Do you have any heirs? Was your child born lighteyed? This sort of thing is treated the same way that a lot of societies treated illegitimate children. The question of, do I need this person as an heir? Are they born darkeyed? Can I shuffle them off somewhere? Set them up, declare them to be this certain rank. Are you high enough rank to do that? Are you tenth dahn yourself? What happens with all of these things? There's no single answer to that. The most common thing that's probably going to happen is that they are born heterochromatic. Then you're in this weird place where you're probably declared to be tenth dahn, but you may have way more power and authority than that if one parent is of a very high dahn, just as a bastard child in a royal line would be treated in our world.