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(Paraphrased) [Something about treating religion fairly]
I feel that a story is best when there are multiple people with strong viewpoints who disagree.
In a lot of books, religion is the weakness.
I always hate it when there’s a character in a book who expresses an opinion I have, and they’re the idiot.
Vasher Explains Some Things, but Leaves Some Things Hidden
I'm worried about leaving Vivenna's two questions unanswered. One is pretty obvious—how Vasher can hide how he looks—but the other is unintuitive. I wish I could explain better in the book, as I said above, but I decided in the end to just leave it hanging. It's a bit of a violation of Sanderson's First Law, but not a big one. The reason I feel I can get away with it is because Vasher didn't use his nature as a Returned to solve any problems. It is more a flavoring for his character than it is important to him getting out of danger or fixing things. He could have done everything he needed to in this book without being Returned. So I feel it's okay not to explain why he can be Returned and not die when he gives away his Breaths.
Can Vivenna change her appearance more? She can indeed. She could actually stoke that fragment of a divine Breath inside of her and start glowing like a Returned. She can't change her physical features to look like someone else, but she can change her age, her height (within reason), and her body shape (to an extent). It takes practice.
And yes, the scraggly miscreant is how Vasher sees himself. Not noble and Returned, which is part of how he suppresses his divine Breath.
Events in the second book may change that.
At what point when writing Dalinar's character did you realize that he was going to become the <champion>?
Ah, I am not going to answer that, because you're asking about future books. Sneaky, sneaky. There you go, that's not confirmed yet.
Elend Discovers that the Koloss have been left to Destroy, then Elend Executes Jastes
And here we have the scene where Elend Kills Jastes. This, more than anything, is a sign to Elend of the way the real world works. This chapter is a sign of innocence lost, and a measure of the price of idealism. Elend will never be the same man after this.
Some of my alpha readers rebelled against this scene, but–unlike the scene where Kelsier used Demoux to kill a man in book one–I decided not to cut it. This event says too much about what has happened to Elend, and it means too much to his character. However, I did arrange things a little differently. In the original draft, Elend struck and killed Jastes, then explained why he did it. In this version, he outlines Jastes' sins first, then takes his head off.
Now, finally, Elend and Vin have discovered Sazed's lies. Did you wonder about him sending the two of them off to climb the mountain in the winter? Spook was around to stop that, in case you were wondering.
And yes, Spook knew. Considering how long it took Vin to get over the fact that OreSeur knew about Kelsier's plan to die, you can imagine that she's not soon going to forgive Spook for this one. In his defense, he was pulled about between some very strong emotions and motivations, not the least of which being his uncle explaining that if he DIDN'T go, nobody would be there to explain the truth to Vin and Elend and keep them from trekking all the way to Terris. Besides, Spook didn't want to die, and this path offered him an escape. Can you blame him?
He'll blame himself. Book Three.
You teach a class at BYU. What are some of the typical mistakes you find writers in that class make?
Oh, there's a whole host of things we can talk about in this realm. I teach the class because I actually took the class when I was an undergraduate, and they were looking for a teacher—the teacher who was teaching it moved on—and I took it on because I didn't want them to cancel it. It's how to write science fiction and fantasy. And I would say that one of the big early issues with fantasy and science fiction writers is the infodump. They don't know how to balance those early pages, those early chapters, in making it interesting and exciting without dumping a whole bunch of worldbuilding on us, which is a real challenge because...we just had a panel on this here at the con; worldbuilding is what we read science fiction and fantasy for; it's the cool stuff; it's the cream that drives us to read this; it's what we love, and yet, throwing too much on us at the beginning can really stifle a book, and I would say that's a big rookie mistake.
Another big rookie mistake is assuming that all it takes is writing one book. Most authors, you know, you learn to write by writing. I like to use the metaphor lately of learning to hit a baseball with a baseball bat. You only learn to do that by practicing; you can't read about hitting a baseball and then go out and know how to do it. Certainly reading about it is going to help you with some things, and as you're swinging that baseball bat, the pros are not thinking about which muscles they're moving. They're not thinking about necessarily even their stance at that point; they've just done it so much and done it so well that they get to the point that they can do it, second nature. And that's what a writer wants to learn to do. And you do that by, at the beginning, you do think about your stance. You do think about your grip. You do work on these...you target certain things and you learn to extend the metaphor. You work on your prose or you work on your characters, or you specifically hone in on this, but at the end of the day, writing a lot and practicing is what's going to teach you to fix problems in your writing by instinct. And I wrote thirteen novels before I sold one. I don't think everyone has to do that, but I certainly think that your first job to do is to finish one novel, and then you need to start writing a second one.
Is it a possibility that we in the future get to see the characters from Children of the Nameless represented on magic cards?
It is a possibility, but as the other responder mentioned, I don't have any control over this--I think it's likely, but I certainly couldn't say when. I think the fact that Dack got a card--after being created by the comic book team--bodes well for Davriel, at the very least.
The video game is coming along very nicely. In fact, earlier just this week I built the whole plot sequence for that. It’s going to have some really good twists and turns and theoretically, if it works well, I will be writing all the dialogue and all the story.
Which is more on your plate
Which is more on my plate. But that can be fun, because the main character is a really sarcastic kind of a little bit of a jerk. And so I can actually write his dialogue on napkins while I’m sitting, waiting and be like “Alright, here’s a good line,” and things like that. That’s because most of it is gameplay. I have to just come up with lots of good wisecracks and then of course, I have to write the cutscenes. But those really aren’t that much in a game like this. It’s maybe a week’s worth of work to get all of that written.
How long before is the game going to be? I remember you saying it was going to be before Final Empire, but I was wondering how long before?
We are shooting for second century after The Lord Ruler's Ascension.
You've said you lifted the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel, what would Kaladin have been doing if not running bridges and what will happen to Dragonsteel without the Plains?
Both good questions. I've spoken before of the big changes that happened when I wrote The Way of Kings 2.0. One of them was bringing in the Shattered Plains. The problem was that there was a big hole in Kaladin's storyline, because in the original manuscript of The Way of Kings (major spoiler), he accepted the Shardblade. That was the prologue of the book; Kaladin—then known as Merin—saved Elhokar's life. They tried to take the Shardblade away from him, and Dalinar insisted that he be given it. So Merin was made a Shardbearer in the very first scenes of the book. And from that point, his character never worked. So in doing the second version of the book, I decided that no, we've got to build more into this, we've got to dig deeper, and he has to make the opposite decision, which is where the entire framework of him turning down the Shardblade and then being betrayed all came from. The problem was then what was he going to do? I knew I wanted him to have therefore ended up sold into slavery and have terrible things happen to him, but I couldn't figure out what Kaladin was going to do and was unable to write the book until I mashed in the Shattered Plains and said, "Ah, that was what he needed to be doing all along."
I really don't know what I'll do in Dragonsteel without that now. The problem is that it was the part of Dragonsteel that worked, but it was the part that was most at odds with the story in Dragonsteel. The story that I wanted to tell was the first half of the book, which is the more boring part. Hopefully as a better writer now I can make that part more interesting, but that was the core of what Dragonsteel was. The Shattered Plains was always just going to be a small diversion, but when I wrote it it was fascinating, and I ended up pouring tons of effort and time into it. In many ways it was a distraction, a deviation, a beautiful darling. So for a long time I've been thinking, "I can't kill my darling, because that's the most exciting part of the book." Yet it was at odds with what the story of the book was originally intended to be. I wasn't as good at controlling my stories back then, making them come out to have the tone I wanted. Anyway, we'll have to approach that when I actually write Dragonsteel.
What did you find most interesting about working within the Infinity Blade universe?
I was really interested by something that may be surprising to you, and that is the constraints that I had. I find that good creativity commonly comes from having really interesting limitations. I often say this about magic—the best magic comes from what the magic can't do—and the best characters are the ones who have really interesting limitations. In the same way, a lot of times the best stories come when you have some really interesting constraints. You can't have too many—but let me give an example.
I saw that they have healing magic in this world, and it works like standard video game healing—boom, you just drink a potion or cast a spell and you've been healed. If you look at that from a real-life perspective, that is way too easy to be interesting narratively, and it also has all kinds of wacky ramifications for the way society works. So I took this and said, "How can I make this work in the actual framework of a story, in a way that's interesting, different, that people haven't seen before, that does not contradict the video game, and yet also doesn't break the economy of this world?" So I built things so that drinking a potion or using a magic spell heals you but it also accelerates your metabolism and ages you for as long as it would have taken you to heal naturally from that injury. So what we've got here is something that doesn't really affect the video game at all, but if you look at it world-wise, yes we've still changed the world somewhat, but now there's an enormous cost. You don't want to heal every time you get a little cut, because you're taking weeks off your life. Taking the chance to heal yourself is only going to be something you're really going to do if it's life or death for you.
Projects in Development
Death by Pizza
I had a nice breakthrough on this book recently, making the main character far more interesting. (For those who don't know, this is about a necromancer who owns a pizza joint.) However, this remains a very out-of-left-field project for me, and something I did mostly for fun. (I have a nearly complete draft of the entire book.)
I don't anticipate doing this anytime soon, though I did briefly consider it as an alternative to the new YA series listed above. It's still just too strange for me to want to do right now. Perhaps eventually.
Status: On Hiatus
How would you have changed Steelheart from Young Adult to Adult.
More viewpoints. I probably would have shown other peoples-- like, a Prof thread would have been a big part of it. The big difference for me, for the Adult and the Young Adult is the characters you're focusing on, and the number of viewpoints. That's the basic thing I change.
Not so much about violence, or anything along those lines?
No, not really. For a middle grade, I will probably hold back a bit. That's why Rithmatist, which I consider middle grade, is a little less. But Steelheart-- Generally, in the business, we consider YA to be the genre that is not edited for content, and middle grade to be the one that is. And that's just-- Based on what's going on with teens, and things like that.
Why isn’t the next book about Szeth? He’s my favorite character and he only had /four/ chapters in the first book.
I know. Szeth-- The next book's not about Szeth because I didn't feel his backstory matched what was going on with this book well enough. I felt it matched Dalinar's.
Is Szeth in the third book?
Szeth will appear in the third book yes.
Yes!
More than the other ones I hope?
Does the sword corrupt him?
You'll have to see. *laughter* Where you're really going to get a lot of Szeth is Book 5. But you will see.
17th Shard user Treamayne made an interesting observation re: Surge glyphs - Can you comment? :3
No comment yet on this specifically, tho I'll respond to something in that thread regarding names and "screw yous" within glyphs.
Readers are trying to pronounce glyphs by reading them. Glyphs aren't read. They're memorized. Sounds might be found in glyphs.
Glyphs have evolved from the early days. Just like the Chinese character for "tree" doesn't look like a tree anymore.
Alethi glyphs are recognized by overall shape, not by the shapes/sounds that might be found within.
For example, the Bridge 4 glyph is still recognizable even if the component shapes are changed.
Hope this helps!
So let's see if I got it. The "kholin" glyphpair could, given enough time, no longer look like "khokh" & "linil"...
... but still be recognizable as "kholin" due to its overall shape?
That is correct. More ancient glyphs will have slowly morphed away from the original sounds found inside.
Who are the back five characters...
Jasnah, Renarin, Lift, Taln, and Ash. Yeah, being able to flashback to Herald times is something I've been really looking forward to. There should be some new flashbacks *inaudible*.
Chapter Twenty-One - Part Two
Being a Leader
Elend has always been a man prone to self-examination. I think it's one of the marks of a true scholar. In book one, he constantly compared himself to Kelsier. In this book, he no longer worries about trying to fill Kelsier's shoes. Instead, he worries that he is filling the Lord Ruler's shoes.
The themes of what it means to lead, and what is required of a leader, are fascinating to me. In fantasy books, we can deal with these themes on a macroscopic scale. But that's the epic format. These books let us deal with issues in exaggerated ways, which makes them easier to talk about and reference. Just like a doctor might look at microbes under a microscope to see them in a larger way, we expand and blow up our issues—giving them epic scope—to make them easier to handle and explain.
So, in a way, Elend's conflict here is an application of real-world issues. The fear of failure, the difficulty of living up to expectations, and what it means to lead and be followed.
He has a lot to work through, and one of the earliest problems I had in writing this book was dealing with how I wanted to show Elend's progression as a character. I eventually did a rewrite where I focused primarily on him and his motivations, though many of those edits don't come to light until later in the novel.
Chapter Three
So, Kelsier is very interesting to me as a character. Mostly because of what we see in this chapter. He is a man of dichotomy, which is one of the themes of this novel. On one hand, he's the joking, lighthearted man you see in the second half of the chapter. On the other hand, however, he's a very dangerous, even ruthless, man. He laughs at himself in this chapter, but he wasn't faking when he acted the way he did. There is an edge to Kelsier I've never built into a hero before. Sometimes, he makes me uncomfortable.
I've always thought in Steelheart, or in the Reckoners series, what influenced your characters like that, like was there comic books behind that?
I've read a lot of comics, so you can find--
Any specific ones that influenced you?
Watchman influenced everyone. Kingdom Come is one of first that made me really think about comics. My favorite was the old Eastman and Laird original Turtles. But I don't know if that's as much inspiration as me just enjoying it. I don't know. I like the graphic novels like the Killing Joke... that feel like a self-contained story.
At the end of Hero of Ages, there’s the--I forget what it’s called, when the kandra all remove their Hemalurgic nails--and then I forget which character wakes up and just sees the blobs everywhere, and then after what everything that happens I don’t really know what happened to the kandra after that.
They returned their spikes but that left them with holes in their memory.
Who did? The survivors?
Yeah, the survivors.
Do you think you'd have more creativity with ironpulling?
Yeah, you do. I really want to do something with ironpulling as a main character to show all the creativity, and stuff. But, I just feel like it'd be easier. There's so much metal around, bouncing off of stuff would be so much fun.
Something personal for you, with all of your success, you talk about having a group over near Dubai. What do you do to keep your head to fit in this room?
What do I do to keep my head to fit in this room. How do I keep my ego in check? Yeah. Changing diapers helps. *laughter* Last one is potty-training though so that won't last much longer. What else? Well having my children be like-- I say I write books and they go "Daddy writes books. I write books too" and then go and write one "You should use this one". They're very-- So children and family are very useful for that.
On the other thing that helps, number 1 you assume my ego wasn't enormous to start with, which it kind of was, if you talk to my friends. But really the nice thing is being a writer is not like being a movie star or a musician. What people love-- And granted they are very appreciative of me. But what they love are the characters in the books, they bond with the books. And that gives me this kind of layer where we are both like, the reader and me, are both participants in this, where we can put our arms around the other's shoulders and go "Look at that". Because the reader imagines in their head, I kind of get it 90% there and the reader does the rest. And so you guys are like part of it, right? And this just creates a nice relationship and keeps me grounded I think. But then again maybe I was never grounded so--
Of all the characters that you've written, which one do you think is the most like you, and is there one you want to be like?
Understand that there are none that are specifically "most like me." There's a piece of me in every one of them, it's been very hard for me to determine. If I had one that I think the best of is probably Sazed, maybe Dalinar. But I sure wouldn't mind being as clever as some of them are. You laugh, because, like, "You wrote them, Brandon." *laughter* The thing about being clever-- and I have some clever friends, I lived with a a guy named Ken Jennings for many years in college, and his brother's just as smart as him, and our mutual friend Earl, they were all on Quiz Bowl in college together, and he [Ken] won the Jeopardy thing, like 80 in a row. And Ken, and people like this, what really makes them smart is the speed of thought. They just snap off a retort, just like that, and you get them together, it's this weird thing, where, like, spacetime seems to warp around them and they start one-upping each other with references and cultural jokes and things like that, and you just step back, and, like, they're their own power source. Of random 80's inside jokes just going at each other. And that's what really makes someone witty, is the ability to pop it off. That's not smart, that's witty, in a book. Now they're also very smart. But in a book, you can emulate that, by giving yourself three hours to think of what the perfect comeback, and then writing it in the book. And they just came up with it, and everyone thinks you're brilliant, when you're just habitually that person who's like, "That would have been smart! That's what I should have said!"
You previously confirmed Kaladin has a depression. What about other two characters? Does Shallan has split personality disorder? And Dalinar has PTSD?
I don't know that I'd say Shallan has straight up DID--and that is a controversial topic even under the more current terminology. More, Shallan is certainly disassociating herself, but the result is something I consider very individual to her. (Unlike Kaladin's fairly textbook chemical depression.)
Dalinar has had some PTSD, though you'll see more of the traditional symptoms in Kaladin, and is a recovering alcoholic--and a few other things.
For all the spren, like the honorspren and the liespren, I’ve noticed that all of the characters, the honorspren have been girls and all the liespren have been boys. Is that just ‘cause all the people who attract liespren are girls and all the other people--
So it’s not a one to one ratio of people who are more likely to attract a spren of the opposite gender.
Is there a reason for that?
Yeah I’ll delve into it eventually in the books. Maybe just obliquely, but there is a reason for it.
Looking at the Future Mistborn Trilogy, what role will the "gods" play in that? The "gods" played a massive role in the original series, being a main character. However, seeing how the Mistborns worlds god is no longer a destructive force, what will be the new threat to their world? Themselves, the seventeenth shard, or more likely, Odium himself?
The current Wax/Wayne books will be smaller-scale Man vs Man type stories. The second trilogy will deal with something larger, but giving away too much now would be to reveal my hand.
Only one chapter left to write in Dalinar's flashbacks. This one will answer many questions you might have had about his past.
Were there any surprises for you as you wrote about his past? I know you like to discovery-write your characters
After writing Dalinar in book one, I had settled most of this. But yes, there were still some surprises.
Brandon, what has been the influence of your LDS religion on your writing? Have aspects of Mormon doctrine been incorporated into your worldbuilding?
I'm very interested in the concepts of religion and the ideas that surround it, and I often find myself writing books that deal with things I'm interested in myself. I allow the themes of books like these to grow naturally out of the world I've built and out of the stories that I want to tell. Specifically, I kind of let the characters decide what the themes of a book are going to be. I don't go into it saying, "I'm going to write about this," but the worlds that I create betray my own interests very strongly.
What is it about faith and deity? This is something that is unique about us as human beings, something very interesting to me, and it felt like this area was an open space to explore in fantasy in ways that hadn't been done before. I always find myself gravitating toward things that I feel haven't been explored as much as they could have been. That interests me and fascinates me.
Can Megan manifest a Cosmere reality? The Reckoners is not part of the Cosmere, but one of they main character's power is reaching into alternate dimensions. I want to see some epics on Roshar!
I wanted to avoid multi-verse theory type things in the Cosmere, in part because the Wheel of Time delved into these concepts, and even before working on the WoT was looking for ways to keep the Cosmere distinctive from it.
Beyond that, multiverses (along with time travel) really play havoc with continuity. I felt the cosmere was stronger if I kept to the three Realms--that's complex enough. Assume that in the cosmere, while different possible futures/pasts do branch (and can be seen) things like Allomantic gold are NOT looking at other realities--and there is only one reality, once events actually occur.
This does mean that time travel into the past is not going to be a factor in the cosmere.
This separation does let me divide these concepts off and play with them in other realms (like the Reckoners) where they're 'quarantined' so to speak.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Vin sits and thinks in the mists
Most of the logbook entries that you're seeing Vin reference in this book were used as epigraphs in the first book. As I mentioned in that book's annotations, one of my goals in this series was to finish the rough drafts of all three books before the first novel went into production. I had a lot of plans for the series when I started the first book, but I knew that there would be a lot of things I wouldn't be able to nail down until I had Book Three worked out. (You'd be surprised at the connections and ideas you come up with as you work through things on the page.)
I realized that I'd want to be able to foreshadow and worldbuild in a way that pointed toward the third book, as I thought that would give the series a powerful cohesion. For instance, when I was working on the first book (and planning the series) I knew I wanted to use the mist spirits and the koloss in this second book. However, when I was planning the series, my worldbuilding had included the use of SEVERAL different "Mist Spirits" rather than just one. In addition, as I was working on the first book, I realized that the koloss just weren't working, and so I cut them from that book to leave them for this novel, where I would have more time with them. (Allowing me to better define for myself what they were like.)
By the time I finished this book, I realized that–for the mythology I wanted–there could only be a single mist spirit. Also, I knew pretty darn well what koloss were. It was very helpful to have finished this novel before Book One came out, as I was able to go back and revise the logbook entries which referenced "spirits" in the mists so that they spoke of just a single spirit instead. I also had characters speak of koloss in book one the same way they do in book two.
Not big changes, but I think they improve the feel of the series.
Silverlight and Wandersail novellas...When?
Silverlight and Wandersail novellas. Silverlight...not soon. Wandersail, potentially while I'm working on Stormlight 4.
A Wandersail novella! I guess that means there may be more truth to that story than first thought!
Well...it would be about current characters, not the story that may or may not have happened in the past.
Bastille
Bastille’s character came quite early, and I was very pleased with how she turned out in the book. I did tweak a few things, making her a knight instead of a bodyguard, to keep her from looking too much like the bodyguard daughter in the Artemis Fowl books.
By the way, Bastille says something along the lines of “We’ve got plenty of sand” in this chapter. If you’ve finished the book, you’ll note that she’s not nearly as ignorant about the types of sand, and the importance of them, as she’s acting here. She pretends she knows less than she does because she doesn’t like to be reminded of her failure. However, she’s not very good at pretending, as she reveals later in this very chapter where she explains auras to Alcatraz.
I think Zach designed Flagship around his beliefs. Our goal is to have stories that are uplifting, that are a positive nature. You know, there's a dark side to everything, but we want it coming out as a positive experience, or outlook on mankind. He mentions that Dave Farland says you need to make moral choices about what you write, and what you advocate in your books. Do you feel like you have that opinion as well? Do you feel like your religion flows over into your writing at all at any point?
Yes and no. I don't go into books with a message. At the same time, I like to read about heroism, and I like to read about moral choices. I like to read about all spectra of moral choice, honestly. I like to approach an issue and say, you know there's going to be five or six valid points on this same issue, and everyone is going to think that their side is the moral side, and I want, in my books, each one to have a legitimate ground to stand on. I don't want to be picking a side necessarily; I want to be offering the item up for discussion. I think that true morality is making you think and consider your actions as opposed to just doing them, and I think there's a real strong morality to forcing you to see other perspectives and other sides. So I would say that I like my fiction to be moral but from that definition of moral. I don't look at my fiction as necessarily teaching people which way to act, though I do think about it a lot. I think about what my role is as someone who is writing fiction that people are reading and experiencing, and what influence I have over them, and what responsibility that affects upon me. These are all very important things that I think about quite a bit. At the end of the day I want to tell a great story about characters you care about, who sometimes think differently than you do.
Vivenna Finds an Alley to Sleep In
One of the big stories I'm worried about channeling here is Les Misérables. It's one of my favorite stories of all time, so sometimes it's difficult not to find myself drawing upon Hugo's story and characters. That constant fight to keep myself from leaning too much on what has come before went into overdrive in these chapters.
In the end, however, I think that Vivenna's scenes belong here and accent the story. So yes, if you noticed them, there are some echoes of Fantine in these sections—Vivenna selling her hair and noticing the prostitutes most prominent among them. These two items, most of all, I considered cutting. But in the end, I decided that if there was anyone I was proud to have influencing my writing, it was Hugo, and I left the references. Partially as an homage, I guess—though that's always the excuse of someone who ends up echoing a great story of the past.
Are we going to see Axies the Collector again? I love academic-type characters and his interlude was so much fun.
You will see Axies the Collector again.
When did you first really realize who the Lord Ruler was, if he was good or bad? Because I feel like you turned him into a good guy.
He is complicated. I started with that concept in mind. In fact, I had written a different book that had used the same concept that had not turned out, and I kind of recombined it into Mistborn. So I went into it knowing he was this complex character.
How would your characters fit in your power cube?
I guess it would depend on the cards. But I think I'll get a demonic tutor altered to have Miss Highwater in the art.
Mistborn game is going to be pushed back a year because of new consoles
Mistborn game main character = Fendin “Fiddle” Fathvell, a “rather droll nobleman”
Mistborn game fighting will be real-time, with time slowing/pausing while you set up Allomantic abilities
The first mistcloak will be seen in the Mistborn game
Will there be other crossover characters like Hoid?
There already have been.
Really?
Yes.
Can you tell?
I cannot say more than that, I think that they’re placed quite obviously, they were not very obvious before this book, they do exist, other crossovers do exist. But none so obvious as Hoid. I think there are several obvious ones in this novel, no one has yet found them that I know, but I think once they see them- once you look closely they’re there
Chapter Twenty-Six
This book, as I've mentioned before, is a little less "tight" than others I've written. There are chapters like this one, where nothing extremely important happens–I simply show life from one viewpoint, a state necessitated by one of the other two doing something very important. Still, despite it having very little to do with the overplot, I really like how this chapter turned out. Maybe I should force myself to do a strict triad system like this more often, for it forced me to have some chapters where the characters could just live. Sarene's light chapters center around her friends and family, giving us an opportunity to spend time with them and enjoy ourselves. The Lukel sourmellon exchange probably couldn't have happened in a book like Mistborn, where the pacing is far more tense.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Spook Remembers Clubs
Ah, fever delusions are such useful things for us authors. Every character should go through a few of them so that we have an opportunity to explore their backstory through the use of a very timely flashback.
On a more serious note, I'm glad I had an excuse for this one. I like to avoid flashbacks when I can—they're usually more of a hassle and an annoyance than they are useful. However, on occasion they can add something that would have been very hard to get across any other way. This is one of those times. We get to see Spook as a kid, the day that Clubs recruited him.
By this time, Clubs had already served in the Lord Ruler's army and had been wounded in the leg and discharged. Though I rarely mention it, the borderlands of the empire include a large population of rogue skaa who are constantly causing trouble. Despite what's believed in the rest of the empire, there were in fact some successful uprisings, most notably these clans who stuck to the desert wastes out there on the edges of habitable land.
...
Anyway, Clubs had been discharged, an event that left him without a means of supporting himself. However, during his time fighting, he'd Snapped and become a Smoker. So, he found his way into the underground, where he was paid very nicely for his abilities.
He was always a lot more softhearted than he let on. When he discovered what was going on with his nephew, he spent quite a bit of his savings to go rescue him and bring him back to Luthadel. Clubs spent twenty times as much money on travel expenses (skaa were forbidden to travel, so he had to stick to some very expensive hidden routes) as he did on that bag of coins he left with Spook's family.
Spook never really knew how much Clubs sacrificed for him. Or perhaps he did—his uncle's death, after all, affected him quite dramatically. Clubs was a far better parent to the boy than either his father or mother ever had been.
Considering inside the hardcover Words of Radiance is a giant, extremely high quality, official art of [Shallan], and she totally looks like the northern european stereotype. We might need /u/mistborn for this, because sometimes even official artwork is a mess [with regards to ethnicity].
Yeah, I've had a tough time pushing to get the images to work like I want. (Oathbringer's cover was more successful here.) The problem is that a lot of artists work from models, and it's hard to find appropriate models.
I've let Shallan slide because I know that if the films get made, she's likely to be cast with a Caucasian actress--and am more ready to make a fight over Kaladin, Jasnah, and Dalinar. So I don't particularly mind if people see Shallan as white, for various reasons--the main one being the one that's been brought up in this thread, I believe. The fact that Vedens, Alethi, and Horneaters aren't real Earth races--and can't really be cast with them. Shallan, having all three bloods intermixed, makes for a difficult description--particularly since I know the average reader is going to peg her as Irish in complexion because of the hair.
I would say that it's all right to imagine the characters however you would like, as it's your version of the story in your head. The Whelan art in book two is how I think most people will imagine her, and I'm fine with that--I wish I'd been able to get Kaladin looking a little more right on the book two cover, though I was successful with Jasnah on book three.
How would you cast Adolin? He's always been one I struggled to pinpoint too due to his blond hair and his mixed heritage. Blond hair and blue eyes do bring in given imagery which seems to clash with the Alethi racial identity. Or at least, it does to me as a reader. So how would you approach it while remaining faithful to your work?
I actually think Adolin could be somewhat easier than others.
When we make the movies, I'll probably suggest that we make anyone from Shin, Iri, or Rira (all along the coast there) look Caucasian. The books can handle a lot more of a learning curve, I feel, than the films--and we won't have things like the Interludes to jump over to Iri to explore their culture. So a race of strange, golden-skinned and haired people who ALSO aren't native to Roshar (different from the Caucasians in Shinovar) might just be too odd.
The Rirans, which Adolin comes from, are already a mixed ethnicity themselves--not even Iriali, so it's fine to make them Caucasian. So Adolin could be cast white, if they really want to. Basically, I'm expecting it to be a bit of a fight to get them to cast four of the leads (Kaladin/Dalinar/Jasnah/Navani) as Asian actors. Maybe I'll be wrong, but from what I've heard from actors in Hollywood, directors and studios are hesitant about not being able to cast known names in big roles. (Ignoring the fact that's hard for Asian American actors to become big names if they aren't ever given big roles...)
So, I can imagine allowing them to go with someone Caucasian for Adolin and Shallan, in exchange for pushing the rest of the cast to be how I'd like.
In a perfect world, though, I'd want someone like Dave Bautista for Dalinar--and someone like Alex Landi for Adolin. (Note that I'm not a casting director myself, so I have no idea who could act the role the right way--I'm just judging based on what I've seen of them in the past.)
How would you differentiate the "weird" Caucasian Shin eyes from the others in that case?
Would you go for Alita Battle Angel eyes or something to make the Shin distinctive?
No, I wouldn't do that. In this theoretical land, the Iriali and those around them would also have Shin eyes. That's basically how it is in the text right now. (Drehy, from Bridge Four, for example isn't Shin--but he's mentioned as looking like a person from "Western Roshar" which means Caucasian to them.)
Why do people think Szeth's eyes are creepy and "child-like" if Caucasian eyes are more prevalent on Roshar than being a uniquely Shin characteristic? I read it as the eyes being an exotic and strange Shin thing, just like their animals and plants.
They are exotic and strange. A pure-blooded Shin is a rare sight, and the way I have it now, even westerners like Drehy are mixed breeds. Even then, someone like them would not be something you see often. But at the same time, it might not be as rare as you think. Like encountering an American when in Japan. Something that happens regularly, but they still stand out. And many people from the rural parts of Alethkar would never have seen one.
Alright, who would win in a fight: Rand al'Thor or Vin?
Who would win in a fight, Rand al'Thor or Vin. I'm going to go with the person who's a pseudo-diety and held the powers of creation. Which is gonna be-- Yeah. I'm gunna say Rand on that one, pretty safely. With the caveat of "You have to pick when". If Vin where able to get to Rand while he's still on a farm, I think she'll do a better job than the Trollocs did. If you replace Narg with Vin, Rand is in trouble. If at the ends of their respective series, I still think Rand would win, even when Vin is at her most powerful., because he is able to bend reality. But I don't know, Jason?
Oh I definitely agree, but I'm a little bit biased here. But yeah it really does depend on the time. Like if you take Vin at the last few pages of Mistborn, I don't know because she's--
Yeah, certain spoiler-rific things happen there. So she could give him a fight at that point, but I'm going to side with Rand on this. I'm going to side with Rand versus any character in most pieces of fiction.
Your side characters often have physical infirmities. Can you explain why?
I feel that often, fiction tends to gloss over or ignore people like Clubs. So I find myself sticking them in.
Why I cut the deleted scene
This story began with the idea of taking some common tropes in science fiction—the brain in a jar, the Matrix-like virtual existence—and trying to flip them upside down. In every story I’ve seen with these tropes, they’re presented as terrible signs of a dystopian existence. I asked myself: What if putting people into a virtual existence turned out to be the right thing instead? What if this weren’t a dystopia, but a valid and workable system, with huge benefits for humankind?
Kai’s and Sophie’s stories grew out of this. I loved the idea that putting people into simulated worlds might actually be the rational solution, instead of the terrifying one. An extreme, but possibly logical, extrapolation of expanding populations and limited resources. There are certain branches of philosophy that ask us to judge what is best for all of humankind. I think an argument could be made for this case.
This is the first reason why I cut the deleted scene. It shifted the focus too much toward “Let’s escape the Matrix” instead of the theme of technology doing great things at the price of distancing us from human interaction.
All that said, Sophie’s arguments in the story do have validity. One of my thematic goals for the story was to reinforce how the fakeness in Kai’s and Sophie’s lives undermines the very things they’ve built their personalities upon.
For Kai, this is his heroism. The fact that there was never any actual danger for him meant that he was playing a video game on easy mode—all the while assuming he was on the most hardcore setting. This asks a question, however: if his heroism felt real to him, does it matter if he was never in danger? I’m not sure, but I found it one of the more intriguing elements of the story to contemplate.
Sophie has a similar built-in conflict. Just like Kai’s heroism is undermined by his safety net, her revolutions and quests for human rights are undermined by the fact that she was fighting wars that had already been won in the real world. Her state was intentionally built without these things, just so she could earn them.
And yet, does the fact that the conflict has been won before make her own struggle any less important and personal to her?
She thinks it does. She thinks that the conscious decision of the Wode to put her into a world with fake problems and suffering is an unconscionable act. One that undermines any and all progress she could have made.
I like that the deleted scene helps raise the stakes for questions like this. However, there’s a more important reason why I felt I needed to cut it. And that has to do with a problem I have noticed with my writing sometimes: The desire to have awesome twists just because they are unexpected.
In early books, such as Elantris, this was a much more pervasive a problem for me. I was eventually persuaded by my editor and agent that I should cut some of the twists from that book. (There were several more twists in the ending; you can see the deleted scenes for Elantris elsewhere on my website.) I was piling on too many surprises, and each was losing its impact while at the same time diluting the story’s theme and message.
I felt like this ending was one “Gotcha!” too many. I see this problem in other stories—often long, serialized works. The desire to keep things fresh by doing what the reader or viewer absolutely would never expect. Some of these twists completely undermine character growth and audience investment, all in the name of a sudden bang. Sometimes I worry that with twists, we writers need to be a little less preoccupied with whether or not we can do something, and a little more focused on whether it’s good for the story. (With apologies to Ian Malcolm.)
A twist should be a natural outgrowth of the story and its goals. In Perfect State, I decided that my story was about Kai getting duped: duped by the Wode, then duped by Melhi. The twists in the published version contributed to this goal, giving in-story proof that his heroism could be manipulated, and that his existence had grown too comfortable.
I worried that the extra epilogue would divert the story away from these ideas. And so, in the end, I cut it. (Though I’ll talk in the next annotation about some ramifications of this that still trouble me.)
If you had to pick one character to have dinner with, who would it be?
I’d pick Sazed. It would not be Kelsier, cause he’s kind of scary, and it would not be Hoid cause he would make fun of me.
What was your favorite book to write so far?
The question is what's my favorite book to write, I actually don't have one. They're all my favorites and all of my characters are my favorites, just like all of my children are my favorites.
Who/what was the inspiration for Wayne's character? He's the best!
Really, it started with the hats and went crazy from there.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Spook and Sazed Talk about Faith
I say that I don't try to put messages or morals into my writing, but that doesn't mean they don't appear there. It just means that I try to avoid sitting down and writing stories for the express purpose of getting across an agenda.
Every character in the book is a piece of me. Some of them voice my doubts; others voice my hopes. However, what Spook says here at the end of the chapter is my voice almost directly.
This is what religion means to me. It means that someone up there is watching. That someone is sorting everything out, and that someone cares about us and wants us to succeed. It means that if you try your best, you may not win—but winning won't end up being important. The fact that you tried your best, however, will be important.
I have real trouble believing that God, assuming He exists, is the type of being who would condemn the greater portion of mankind to eternal punishment because of their ignorance, their mistakes, and their . . . well, humanity. Yes, we need to try to be good people. Yes, the things we do wrong will cause us sorrow eventually. But there is someone watching, and that someone will do His best to make it all work out for us in the eternities. Or, most of the time, that is what I hope. Hope's enough for me right now.
Sorry to rant on you. To get back to the story, Spook is right. There are a lot of reasons to point fingers at religion and faith. We deserve it, and a pointed finger—the eyes of a critic—will hopefully make us into better people. Religion, as practiced by man, is far from perfect. The reason, then, to keep believing in the face of seeing the troubles religion can cause is directly related to the knowledge (or at least hope) that someone upstairs is going to make it all work out for us.
And the characters from [the last Mistborn series], do they end up on a different planet? Like the planet that Warbreaker takes place?
By the final Mistborn series there will be space travel between worlds.
When will we get the sequel [to Children of the Nameless]?
I'm putting this question on here because, dear readers, I know you very well. But let's not put the cart before the horse. I would not be opposed to doing something more with these characters in the future, if Wizards is amenable, but I've also got a lot on my plate. I suspect that if I were to do something more with Magic in the future, it wouldn't be for several years. (I have Stormlight 4 to write, after all.)
