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Questioner

This cosmere that you have is gigantic, enormous, and wonderful, by the way. But, it's one of those things... how long has that been kicking around in your head before you started putting it down on paper?

Brandon Sanderson

For those who aren't aware, and might just be here having read the Reckoners, all of my epic fantasy books are connected. But they're all connected through little cameos. And I did this before Marvel movies, let's just point that out! They're copying me, I'm sure. I'm sticking to that. But there's little cameos for the various things because there's a story behind the story. I started doing this because I knew, in my career, I was going to have to... just the way I am, I need to jump between worlds to keep myself really interested. But I also like big epics. So it's me trying to have my cake and eat it, too, right? Lots of little things, but a hidden big epic. Right now it's all cameos, you don't have to worry about it, it's never really relevant to the story. Each story is self-contained. And then, if you want more, you can dig into it, and... it goes pretty deep. The guy who bought the Emperor's Soul movie rights was like, "Oh, I hear that this is connected," so he went and started reading. And, like, a few months later, he called us and said, "Uhhh, I just read the whole Cosmere. Uhhh, my brain is breaking." So, you can jump down a rabbit hole with the Cosmere if you want.

So, how long has this been kicking around? I can trace it back to a couple of events in my youth, as a budding writer. First one was, I've talked about this idea that you're the director of the book when you read it. When I was a kid, what I would always do is, I would want to have some sort of... it's hard to explain. I wanted some control over the story, even though it was a book I was reading, I wanted to participate, and so I would always insert a character behind the scenes. Like, in the Anne McCaffrey books, when there's somebody who's a nobody, I'm like, "Actually, this is some secret agent type character," and things like this. And I would always insert these characters into the books. But I would even be like, "Oh, this is the character from this other book, that I'm now reading." I would have my own headcanon, is what you call it, that would be parallel to the book canon, with this story behind the story happening. I also remember really being blown away when Isaac Asimov tied the Robot books and the Foundation books together, and thinking that was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. Where I'd loved these two book series, and the conclusion to them is interwoven, and at the end of the Foundation books you kind of get a conclusion for the Robot sequence as well. That kind of blew my brain, and I'm like, "I need to do this."

So that's the origin, and that's kind of really the origin of Hoid. He's in the first book that I started writing, in very proto-form. He's kind of the same character who had been hanging out in Anne McCaffrey's books and other people's books as I'd read them. And that was it for a while, until I became a better writer, and then started actually building an epic. So, it's been around for a while. I would say the actual origin of the Cosmere was when I wrote Elantris, and then jumped back and wrote the book called Dragonsteel, which was this next book that I wrote after that, which was the origin of the Cosmere, kind of the prequel to all of it. And then I went and wrote White Sand. And those three together were my beginning. Only Elantris, of them, got published so far, although White Sand does have the graphic novel.

Brandon Sanderson

I have read some Andrea Norton. Andrea Norton was my grandmother's favorite author, and she shared it with me. She's the one fantasy reader in all of my family. My parents all thought I was weird, but my grandma, bless her: Mary Beth Sanderson. She was an English teacher, and she loved Andrea Norton, and she and I bonded over that. She shows up; Grandma shows up in The Sunlit Man. If you're reading Sunlit Man, and you run across an elderly woman with a beehive hair that she kept dyed black until she was well into her eighties and passed away, and it look really nice that way, and she was very proud of her hair, you will find my grandmother Mary Beth in that book.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Part Two

You were probably expecting Marsh's return–at least, you probably were when you read the chapter where he "died." Making Inquisitors via Hemalurgy requires killing other people (see book three for an explanation of the process) so there's a lot of mess involved.

Anyway, I planned for his return here. I wish, again, I could have done more with him. There was another whole book going on with him being watched by the Inquisitors–him thinking that he'd earned their suspicion when they were really just impressed with him and planning to make him one of them. That's how it usually works with Inquisitors–they grab a new recruit, usually an older one, and "draft" him into their ranks before one of the other Cantons has a chance to corrupt him too much. So, they were looking to make another Inquisitor, and Marsh happened to be the most promising recruit training in Luthadel at the time.

He never understood how far his infiltration would take him, or what it would end up costing him. The payoff is that he figured out how to kill Inquisitors–they were all built to have a weakness, so that the Lord Ruler would have power over them if he needed it. Pull out the right spike, and they come tumbling down.

Marsh's plan to kill the Lord Ruler is a good one too. Unfortunately, the Lord Ruler's power doesn't come only from Hemalurgy, but from other things as well. If he'd pulled off the bracelets instead. . . .

Questioner

The nature of humans on different worlds, like people from Warbreaker have a Breath, people from Scadrial, do they have a Breath as well?

Brandon Sanderson

They do not.

Questioner

That's specific to the Endowment Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup.

Questioner

I've read that Hoid does have a Breath. Was he born with a Breath or--

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid was not born on Taldain-- err Nalthis, on Nalthis. So no, he did not start with one. But the magic was much different when he started. He was before the Shattering of Adonalsium so things are weird regarding him.

Epic Games

How do you think games can improve their approach to storytelling?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, this is an interesting question because as a writer, I have to admit something about games. At its core, a game with great gameplay and a terrible story is still going to be a fun game. But a game with a great story and terrible gameplay is going to be a horrible game. There's no getting around the fact that first you have to have a very fun game. It just can't go the other way. So there's a reason why, historically, some of the writing for video games hasn’t been that great, and that's because you have to make sure you have a fun game first.

That said, the more money that's being involved in video games, the more production time we have, and the more opportunity we have to really be taken seriously as a large mass media experience, the more time I think can legitimately be and should be devoted to the story. You've seen some really awesome games with great stories come out like the Infamous series, for example.

I feel that the dialogue in video games tends to be cliched, and this bothers me because when you have cliched dialogue, you end up with cliched characters, you end up with cutscenes that are just jokes that people skip, and you lose a lot of depth of immersion for these stories. So I would like to see the dialogue get better, and I would also like to see character arcs get better. I frequently see video game characters making big decisions and changes in their lives based on very poor foreshadowing, or very poor character growth, where it's just—suddenly now I'm a bad guy, or suddenly now I'm a good guy, or whatnot. I would really like to see video games put more rigor into it, to let us experience a character's growth.

Brandon Sanderson

Denth's Motivations Here

If you're reading through for the second time, pay close attention to the things Denth says here about Lemex. They're having a conversation about how Lemex could be a patriot but still steal from the king. Well, Denth is kind of talking about himself here, and not Lemex. He's hinting that he thinks (or would like to think) that he can both do his job and be a good man at the same time.

These are things he's struggling with. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't care, but he does. He has kidnapped Vivenna here without her knowing it, and is very deftly manipulating her. (By the way, Jewels tails her to the assembly meeting, if you were wondering.) He does feel bad about this, just like he feels bad about killing Lemex. That doesn't stop him from doing things like this, though.

He does plan to get Vivenna's Breath. He knows, however, that in the end he can probably just torture her into giving it to him. In this scene, if you could see into his head, he's trying to figure out how exactly he can get her to give it to him without having to hurt her.

He doesn't really believe he can do it, though. Life has proven to Denth lately that he just has to do bad things. He almost sees it as inevitable.

Brandon Sanderson

By the way, the grate that Lightsong closes on the tunnel behind them . . . well, it didn't do any good. There's a lever and pulley on the other side, in the room beneath Mercystar's palace—and the locking mechanism is there too. The grate is there to keep people out of her palace, installed by her priests to keep unsavory elements (if there are any) from sneaking in through the tunnels. Vasher had to pull this very grate up before he could sneak into the tunnels himself. Mercystar's priests don't follow because they don't care that Lightsong snuck in and down; they just want to guard their goddess. So they arrange troops up above, waiting for Lightsong to return.

Questioner

I wanted to know what your stance on gods were, if you were trying-- If you had a meta-message about God.

Brandon Sanderson

If I what?

Questioner

If you had a meta-message about God.

Brandon Sanderson

I do not really. What I'm fascinated by ends up in the books and I'm fascinated by religion. But even in something like The Stormlight Archive, I don't want there necessarily even be a definitive answer? There are god... lowercase "g" gods. Whether there is a capital "G" God is still, in my opinion, left to the interpretation of various people. I'm not necessarily trying to say anything specific, I'm trying to say what the different characters say. Does that make sense? Jasnah doesn't speak my belief, but neither does Dalinar. But they speak their belief, and I try to respect their belief the best I can. So it's more like trying to be true to the different characters.

Mad Hatter

To go along with my other obsession what is your favorite type of hat?

Brandon Sanderson

I do have a fedora that I’m somewhat attached to, but I haven’t worn it in years. When I was a high school kid, I would wear my fedora around until I discovered that wearing a fedora was already cliché for a nerdy kid like myself, which I found annoying since I’d been doing it because I thought it was original. I still have that fedora, which sits in my closet, and someday perhaps I will wear it. But the problem is that Dan Wells, my friend who writes in my writing group and in my basement, already wears a hat around. So I would feel like I was just copying Dan. Maybe I need to get a fez or something.

Brandon Sanderson

Some people are very surprised by this chapter. It isn't the most narratively-surprising death I've ever written, but it was one of the more sudden ones. I'm sorry if you really liked Roial.

I wrote this book to be less of a "violent book" than some others I've written or read. However, on reflection, I realize that what I intended by this was to write a novel where the protagonists didn't rely on violence as much as they did on their wits. I didn't mean that I wouldn't let the bad guys be. . .well, bad.

(In addition, by the way, this is part of why Raoden and Sarene are such competent people. They don't have swords or magic to perform flashy fight scenes–so, instead, I gave them competence in relation to their personalities. In part, this is what amuses me by complaints that Raoden and Sarene are too flat as characters. Make a man the most brilliant swordsman ever, but make him emotionally incompetent, and you have a "deep" character. Make a man incapable with weaponry, but emotionally mature, and he's flat. Go figure.)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I don't think I'm particularly brutal with my characters. (I'm no David Gemmel, for instance. I swear, the body counts in that man's books. . . .) I am, however, realistic. People die in my books. Sometimes they're viewpoint characters. It happens. From a storyteller's viewpoint, I think it makes the tension more real. There IS danger for the characters. In a more philosophical bent, I think this makes the characters more heroic–they aren't protected from the consequences of their decisions. Even if those decisions are good. Choosing to try and overthrow a dictator like Telrii is a dangerous decision, and if the heroes are going to be considered "heroic" for that action, then I have no right to protect them from harm. Doing so would take away the "will" of my villains.

Questioner

The woman that dances with Wax in Bands of Mourning. I've heard a lot that it's Khriss, a lot of people say that, when I first heard that I thought "Is this Jasnah?" Could you give me a--

Brandon Sanderson

It is Khriss.

Questioner

I actually have a weird question. From the Mistborn series it says there are 16 Allomantic metals but then you go into Alloy of Law and the 16 are listed there, minus the atium and another one, so are there really 18 metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, you see those two were not really metals. Those were pieces, fragments, of a god.

Questioner

I thought that might be it but the symbols are the same above them from-- the atium symbol is the same as--

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's a different symbol, it might be reversed though.

Adam Horne

People were looking for a clarification on the spelling of Lumar, if you know the spelling.

Isaac Stewart

L-U-M-A-R. I mean, I guess we've canonized it now, huh.

Brandon Sanderson

Isaac named it, I said "Hey, come up with a good name for this."

Isaac Stewart

I can tell you, kind of, the process if people want to know about that. I put together some different things. "What are things that have resonance with The Princess Bride?" was one of the things, and I gave Brandon some options in that direction.

Brandon Sanderson

Which I didn't like many of.

Isaac Stewart

There was maybe one or two that felt like it. It was sort of in a way, not tuckerization, but sort of an homage to the roots of the story. Those weren't working, so we just went to: what are common root words for things in the story that make it feel that way, and that's where we came up with Lumar. It was a little more straightforward and simple than some of the other names of planets in the Cosmere, and we liked that it felt like it worked with the main character.

Brandon Sanderson

And also the fairy tale feel of it. Naming this planet something like Scadrial didn't feel right to me either, because where this planet came from and the story and things like that, plus this is likely to be the name... A lot of these names, like if you translate in world, a lot of the characters would call their planet "the planet," right? They are not going to name their planet. So when a person--in most of the books when I translate them talking about Roshar, I'm translating them referencing the planet or their word for it in their own individual language, which is going to be different in everybody's language, just for convenience sake. And we felt that the root words of this are what people would latch on to in-world, in-universe for calling this planet. The two words mashed together, are very, uh, yeah.

Isaac Stewart

I guess if you're on Roshar, you wouldn't be technically digging in the earth, you'd be digging in the Roshar.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Well, they don't have a lot of earth, but you know. If you use the word earthquake, right? I have chosen that I will use the word earthquake on all these planets even though none of them are earth. That's just how I'm translating, just add that filter that someone's translated this into English, and they've chosen the best word for your understanding, and we think that Lumar covers what they in-world would call this and evokes the same feeling.

Chaos

So, Brandon, it's Sunday now. Did Hero of Ages sell enough to become a bestseller?

*crosses fingers*

Brandon Sanderson

We'll know on Wednesday, but the distribution problems have us worried. A lot of stores didn't get the books on the shelves until Friday or Saturday, which only gave one or two days in that market to get on the list. We'll see. It's going to be close. It will depend on how many stores got the books on time, how well other authors did, and whether or not I sold copies at the RIGHT stores. (The ones which report to the New York Times list.)

I will post on Wednesday when I know, though it might not be until late in the day, as I've got a lot going on during tour on Wednesday.

clyguy

Someone else brought up the point, can blood be Awakened?

Brandon Sanderson

Anything can be Awakened.

clyguy

If you make a human-shaped mold and you poured blood into it and you Awakened it, would you have a Terminator T-1000 style blood-golem that could recombine?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, heh, well Awakening liquid is possible but I don't think it would work the way you want it to.

Questioner 2

If you had enough of a cloud in one place, could you Awaken a cloud?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, you could Awaken anything. It's probably not going to work the way you want it to. There is a reason why they Awaken the things that they do. For instance if you want to make a transforming golem, you would be much better off with something thicker.

Questioner

Would charcoal do anything?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, charcoal would work but probably not as well as chalk.

Questioner

Do you have a special way of coming up with your bad analogies?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I special way of coming up with bad analogies. Which are actually similes. So here's the thing-- So Steelheart, I wrote Steelheart in like 2008 or 2009, it was pretty early on, I had the idea-- I was touring for some book, I think-- I feel like it was Warbreaker or Mistborn 3, any way I was touring for one of these books and I get cut off in traffic, I get really mad at the person, and I imagine blowing up their car. I get horrified, like "If I had superpowers is this what I would do? Would I blow up cars of people who cut me off in traffic?" and I was like "OOh that's a story". So I went and wrote the prologue, like almost immediately, I think on that tour I wrote the prologue. I remember reading it at DragonCon that year, whenever year that was.

Then I put the whole book aside and had to wait for like 5 years because I'm like "I'm working on The Wheel of Time I have no time to write this other side project." I was much better at that and not going crazy on side projects when I was doing that. When I finally got back to it I had this prologue-- The prologue was ten years before in-world time, like the character grew ten years between the prologue and chapter 1, so I was "Alright I need a voice for this character" and I started writing, doing my standard thing. I was having so much trouble coming up with a distinctive voice for David, the main character, and I accidentally wrote a bad metaphor. That happens a lot when you're writing-- you just come across something and it's a terrible analogy and you delete it, but here I said "Well what if I ran with that?" The fun thing is by coincidence that became a metaphor for his entire personality. He tries so hard, is very earnest, but sometimes he tries a little too hard, and looks beyond the mark, and stumbles a bit. And that is who he became as a character, and the bad metaphors are a great metaphor for that.

Coming up with them now is really hard. Doing it on purpose is way harder than coming up with good metaphors. They are rough. Sometimes I'll sit-- Like the most time I spend staring at the screen when working on these books is coming up with one of David's metaphors.

Brandon Sanderson

I just really like Elend and Vin's relationship. It's one that really shouldn't work, but for some reason, they just get along so well in my head. I doubt that they could explain it either–but the two fit together in a very strange, "opposites meet" kind of way. They actually have a lot more chemistry, for me, than Sarene and Raoden–though those two are far better matched for each other. Maybe that's because the frustration and confusion Elend feels seems very realistic to me. He never really does know what Vin is feeling, even though her emotions are so blunt and simple when we're in her viewpoint.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-Nine

Vasher's Temper

Giving Vasher temper issues is part of a minor quest on my part to find more realistic conflicts and personality traits for my characters. It seems that much of the time, the flaws that writers give their heroes are really just backhanded talents. A hero is "too bold" or "too much of a bookworm." I'm guilty of this as much as anybody. (Siri's character flaws are an example.)

It's a tough balance. Real people tend to have flaws that make them . . . well, unlikable sometimes. Or at least difficult to get along with. We get grumpy, we make bad decisions, we say things we don't mean. It's hard to convey this in a story without making the characters unlikable. There are authors who are fantastic at doing so, and Vasher here was me toying with making a person have a more realistic temperament. There's no hidden advantage for him being like he is; he's simply got anger issues. Not extreme ones—it's not like he has to go to therapy. He's just prone to losing his temper like any number of people out there in the world.

Brandon Sanderson

Writing Fight Scenes

A fight should be more than a blow-by-blow. I've talked about this before. In a book, you can't get away with action for the sake of action—at least not in the same way you can in a movie.

With a visual medium, viewers can simply enjoy the blow-by-blow. Character X hits Character Y can be exciting. In books, it's dreadfully boring. I think I went a little too far toward that in this chapter.

What makes a fight work? Well, emotional impact for one. If we're tied to a character and think that they might be in danger, that can make a fight work—but only insofar as we're seeing the danger's emotional effect on the character. (Which is something books can do far better than movies.) Also, interesting discoveries and ramifications can work to make a fight more exciting.

Why is Elend forcing these men to fight like this? Where are the armies he promised? How are they going to win? Hopefully these questions drive the action. Thus the final way to make something exciting in an action scene is to show the characters being clever through the way they manipulate the fight or the magic or the area around them.

That's just my take on it.

LoneRavers

Ever drawn a Thunderclast ? ;)

Ben McSweeney

I have not! Now that the Chasmfiend is settled, Thunderclasts are high on my list. I have some ideas, but Brandon and I have yet to jam on the subject and we probably won't until they make an appearance in the novels. We'll get there though, never fear... it's a Chekov thing, you don't throw a name like "Thunderclast" out there and never come back to it. :)

fastlindyrick

Didn't a Thunderclast appear during one of Dalinar's flashbacks early in Words of Radiance? (The one in the Purelake.) There was a little bit of physical description of the beastie too... something like a giant stone skeleton with glowing red eyes.

Ben McSweeney

You're right! I just went and checked the WoR text, there is a brief description of a fight between full Knights Radiant and a thunderclast, early in the book, and with enough descriptors to start with. It's been so long since I read it, and it's not a Shallan scene so I couldn't work a page out of it, that I must have forgotten.

Well, now I have to do something sometime, don't I? :)

Brandon Sanderson

I was working on a book called The Rithmatist, and had just finished it in 2007, when I got a very interesting phone call. The phone call was from Harriet Rigney, who was Robert Jordan's widow, a week after his funeral. She called and said... I'd never met him or her. I'd seen him once at a convention. I didn't know them. And she asked, "Will you finish The Wheel of Time?" Just like that. I didn't know I was being considered, it just came as a phone call. And I said, after much deliberation and thought, I said "Blaeah. Yes. Absolutely." And that required me dropping everything I was working on at the time. Throwing everything into working on that. Any time I did have, I then spent on Stormlight, because I knew I wanted to release Stormlight around the same time I was doing Wheel of Time books. I thought it would be the best calling card that I could do for Wheel of Time fans. What that meant is, three projects I was working on at the time... Several of them actually. The main ones were: The Rithmatist which I just shelved. I said, "We can't publish this yet." The other one was Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians. And the other one was the Legion stories.

I have finished the Legion stories, after a 5-year delay on The Wheel of Time, and then a longer time delay of just being in a different mindset. I have Alcatraz Six, which is being written by Bastille, almost done. It's 45,000 words out of the 50,000 words it will be. So that will be out next year, I would guess. Somewhere around there.

The big cliffhanger, then, is The Aztlanian. Which, I tried writing. I tried working on it a few years ago. It just did not work. The outline that I had for it was wrong. And there was a certain amount of reading and study I needed to do before I felt I could do the book justice. The first one turned out well, but there's certain things looming over me on the first one that I think I did poorly that I want to correct in doing a sequel. And it's still looming over me. I still feel that I need to get it done. It's, like, the biggest promise so far I haven't fulfilled is getting that done, now that I have Alcatraz Six on the way. So, I will do it. But I can't really promise when. Because, there's certain things I want from the sequel that haven't filtered through my brain about exactly how to work yet. I do have confidence I'll do it.

But this is part of the price that I paid by saying yes to The Wheel of Time, was I had to shelve basically all my side projects. And I had to, for a while, dedicate myself only to the mainline Cosmere books and to The Wheel of Time. Sorry about that. But it will happen.

If I could go back, I would revise that ending to make it a little less cliffhanger-y.

Questioner

I had a question about [steel] Ferrings. So, I saw that you had mentioned in a previous talk that you could only move so fast with air resistance, like eventually you'd start burning up. If you were to become an Edgedancer as well?

Brandon Sanderson

If you can combine those two powers, Edgedancing and [steel] Ferring, then you are able to do things that would circumvent that restriction. Yes, indeed.

Scotch the Piper

Who is Hoid, as the narrator, telling the story [Tress] to?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO in that I believe it is evident in the books. Well... I believe some of it is evident. Not the specific individuals, but this far enough in the future of the Cosmere that I don't want to talk about individuals he might be speaking to. You can figure out the general tone; and people have. It was very clear, I think, to fans when they started posting. So you can ask on a fan forum, if you want them to give their thoughts; but I'm not gonna speak more than that.

There's stuff that is relating to all of this that I can't even talk about yet, because it gives too many spoilers. I'll be able to talk about them soon. Give me a couple years, and I can start talking more about timeline and when certain things are happening that I just can't do at the moment because of certain spoilerific reasons.

Questioner

Who is Hoid's best friend?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, back in the day it was Bat'Chor. It's been various people at various different times. Who is it right now? It depends on which "right now" you're talking about. He's in a bunch of different books in a bunch of different time periods. Bat'Chor probably was the closest to a best friend for a while in the books that were relevant.

WeiryWriter

Does Snapshot take place on the Reckoners' Earth, or one of the other Core Possibilities? (Based on the reading you did I would assume the latter, but it doesn't hurt to get confirmation on that).

Brandon Sanderson

It's one of the Other Core Possibilities.

The idea of going meta-series with Reckoners is to offer me the chance to play with quantum possibilities and alternate dimensions, which is something to cosmere's not set up to do. We'll see how big this one gets, but I'm fond of silver age comics, and the idea of alternate realities they explored. (Often in goofy ways because...well, silver age.) This also gives me a realm to do some magic, like the Epic powers, that I can hand-wave a little more, rather than confining everything to the structure of the cosmere.

Questioner

Have you ever considered doing graphic novels?

Brandon Sanderson

I have! Good question... So, yes I have. We're working on one of my unpublished novels, that is one of those thirteen. I think it is a good book, but not good enough to publish. But I think if we can rewrite it as a graphic novel I can cut out stuff that was bad. Because what was bad about it was like 100 thousand words of plot smashed across 200 thousand words of story. I think condensing is going to work really well. So we are going to do that. We actually got pages from that and things, and it's looking very nice. So we should have a graphic novel, and it is cosmere. It is part of the main continuity. So hopefully people will enjoy that.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter 10

Kal helps his father work on a young girl's hand

For years I had been wanting to do a full-blown flashback-sequence book. Flashbacks (or non-linear storytelling) can be a powerful narrative device, but they're also dangerous. They can make a book harder to get into (nothing new for this book) and can create frustration in readers who want to be progressing the story and not dwelling in the past.

The payoff, in my estimation, is a stronger piece of art. For example, as Kaladin is slowly being destroyed in the bridges we can show a flashback for contrast. The juxtaposition between the naive Kal wanting to go to war and the harsh realities of the Kaladin from years later suffering in war might be a little heavy-handed, but I feel that if the reader is on board with the character, this will be powerful instead of boring.

I often talk about how books grow out of separate ideas that buzz around in my head. One of those ideas was to create a character who was a surgeon in a fantasy world. A person who believed in science during an era where it was slowly seeping through the educated, but who had to fight against the ignorance around him.

Back when Kaladin was called Merin, he didn't work well as a character. He was too much the standard "farmboy who becomes a nobleman" from fantasy genre cliché. I struggled for years with different concepts for him, and it was when I combined him with the idea for this surgeon that things really started rolling. It's interesting, then, that he didn't actually become that surgeon character. In the final draft of the book, that character became his father—not a main character as I'd always intended—and Kaladin became the son of the character I'd developed in my head to take a lead role.

basham09

I am looking forward to picking up this new story and I had no idea it was coming out so soon! What made you decide to put aside all of your other stories to write Skyward?

Brandon Sanderson

I usually need a big break between Stormlight books to recharge, and I look for something different in style and genre. A space opera fight that really well, and gave me a much-needed breather.

Questioner

Will Kaladin ever find love?

Brandon Sanderson

He's asking that same question, as well.

Daniel Greene

It sounds like it [Secret Project Two] has incredible potential for a series; has that been in your head at all? Or is this a one-shot?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah. I am not going to turn this into a series, myself. But I brainstormed a lot of the ideas for this with Dan Wells, and so I can absolutely see Dan writing... And the fictional author of the Handbook itself, the in-world book, is a character that Dan and I have both used in our books. This guy, Cecil G. Bagsworth III, interdimensional explorer. He's the author of The Frugal Wizard's Handbook; he's actually a shared character of Dan and mine. If people like this book, I would expect that Dan'll want to take a crack at doing some other Frugal Wizard-adjacent story.

Questioner

What was the level of technology before the Ascension [of the Lord Ruler]? You mentioned gunpowder and canning, but everything else appears to be a blend of feudal Europe and the early Renaissance.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, it depends on the country you were in and the time period specifically we're talking. Right before the Ascension, we're looking at a society that is hitting industrialization. Basically, where you see the Final Empire stop is close to where they were, they got a little bit further. Except there were certain things that were forbidden.

Questioner

Do you have any plans <for, like, having any of your novels made into graphic novels>?

Brandon Sanderson

"Would I like to have any of my novels made into graphic novels?" We're actually doing one right now. I've hit-- I've kept away from doing this for a while because I didn't want to just give people the same story. So <I kept thinking>, "Oh, I'll write a side story for something." But then that requires so much time for me, that if I were going to do that I'd just release it as a novel. So we <caught> this kind of weird place where I wasn't sure what to do. But then my agent pitched taking one of my books that was unpublished during my days that I was trying to break in, that was pretty good, and had a good magic system, but needed a lot of editing. And said, "Why don't we do that? Because we can edit it during the same time that we're preparing the graphic novel, and then do a graphic novel version." And that turned out really well. We got another writer to help me and do the writing-- someone who knew comic books. And the script turned out fantastic, so we sent it in as being turned in. They've done 5 out of 6 issues. And it will be 18 issues, but they'll issue them in 6-issue clumps. They actually will only be graphic novels, there won't be-- And there will be three of those. So the first of those should come out next year. The first six. It's called White Sand. If you want to read the book, I do send that book out to people who just write to me. Because I don't think the book as it stands is good enough to charge you for. So be aware that if-- But it was written about the same time as Elantris, and it's just a little worse than Elantris.

Brandon Sanderson

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.

mazzeleczzare

Finally, thank you for writing Kaladin like this during this chapter [Rhythm of War Chapter Fifteen]. As someone who struggles with depression and is often brooding, I do have my good days and still have some serotonin in my brain. I get excited about doing things I’m good at and I think you nailed that aspect.

Brandon Sanderson

One of the worries I had starting this book with Kaladin down was that people would forget that he can be up--so I wanted to make sure to get there in this section as well.

Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz, everything we do is about seeing!

We end off here with some final talk of morals from Grandpa Smedry. I know that we’ve had a lot of lessons in this book, which is kind of an irony built in by me complaining so much about meaningful books.

However, I like it when things fit. I like it when things come together. And things came together really well in this book. The final conversations here round out the ideas, concepts, and themes of the novel.

W. Heus

How do you feel about the lack of prominent gay characters within the epic fantasy as a genre and do you ever include (or will ever include) gay or lesbian characters in your own work

Brandon Sanderson

That's an issue that I feel I should speak about delicately, because it's one of those charged issues that can create a lot of division. But my basic feeling is that a character should not be any more or less sympathetic, or more or less evil, or anything like that, because of sexual orientation or because of basic beliefs or philosophy on things like religion. So there are gay characters in my books, though so far they have been side characters. I don't make a big deal of it, because I tend not to make a big deal of the sexuality of side characters in general. For instance, in The Way of Kings, Drehy, a member of Bridge Four, is gay. He's based on a good friend of mine who is gay. There is a lesbian character in Alloy of Law; again I don't make a big deal of it though it's a little more obvious.

Basically, I just try to write characters and try to have different makeups of characters. I feel gay characters should be included, and I'm annoyed that sometimes there seems to be an association between including gay characters and using that as a means of making them seem like a reprehensible character. You may know what I'm talking about; I've seen it in books before and it bugs me. Just like it bugs me if an author makes a character religious and the tone of the book implies, "Well, obviously, religious people are all idiots, so I'm not going to make this character actively an idiot, I'm just going to represent them as being religious," which by the tone of the book indicates that they're an idiot. That's not to say that there can't be social structures like religions that will push people toward doing things that are questionable or morally reprehensible—there can, of course, and it will happen—but I'm talking about the individuals. I don't know that I have strong feelings on the subject other than that I think people should be represented as people.

I wrote a bit more about the subject in my essay on Dumbledore.

Yamato

Any advice for an aspiring fantasy writer? Besides the obligatory "Read a lot and write a lot!!!" Characterization advice is especially appreciated.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I do have my lectures on this topic. Go to writeaboutdragons.com and listen to the characterization lecture. I think you'll find it helpful.

Do remember that your characters should have passions, goals, and flaws that are distinct from the plot of the story. They can sometimes align, but a character should have a life and passions outside of what happens TO them.

Questioner

When will we get the sequel [to Children of the Nameless]?

Brandon Sanderson

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.)

agdeeds

Did anything help inspire Navani’s character in tWoK?

Brandon Sanderson

Numerous things. Partially, the fact that there’s a distinct lack of mothers in fantasy fiction. Everybody seems to be an orphan.

Partially, the need for a strong, well-rounded woman of an older, wiser nature to balance out Shallan’s impulsive nature.

And, in part, she was designed because I wanted a Fabrial engineer among the cast, and extrapolated personality from there.

HorseCannon

I didn't realize Horneaters had parshmen blood, didn't even realize that was possible. How closely are humans and parshmen related, do they have a common ancestor? Or is one an artificially created version of the other?

Brandon Sanderson

There was intermixing long ago. Horneaters and Herdazians are both a result. (Signs of this are the stone carapace on Herdazian fingernails and the Horneater extra jaw pieces--in the back of the mouth--for breaking shells.)

Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

ccstat

Are there Aimian-Human hybrids as well? (Either type of Aimian) If so, are the Thaylen people one of these?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Blightsong

*via private message*

Some of us believe that you are saying that humans and listeners existed pre-Shattering while some of us believe that you are saying that Horneaters and Herdazians existed pre-Shattering (you have mentioned that humans had been on Roshar since before the Shattering recently). What were you trying to say here?

Brandon Sanderson

Humans (other than those on Yolen) existed pre-Shattering, as did parshmen.

Wetlander

Did the Splintering happen before the Recreance?

Brandon Sanderson

I will reveal this as we go. However, be aware that in the past, when a Shard was killed, the person holding it, it is a slow burn to actually kill someone; because power cannot be destroyed. So, what it means to be killed means something a little different in these cases.

Hoser

Did Tanavast survive Honor's splintering?

Brandon Sanderson

Tanavast is dead. Good question. However, that is as of the start of The Way of Kings.

Hoser

So he could have survived the Splintering...

Brandon Sanderson

He could have survived the Splintering.

Hoser

...as a mortal...

Brandon Sanderson

Well, he could have survived for a time, but then he could not have then...

Hoser

...passed away in his sleep...

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

Ravi

Does [Nazh] ever have any arguments with Khriss?

Isaac Stewart

All the time.

Ravi

But, they're basically best friends anyway right?

Isaac Stewart

I don't know about that, I'd have to ask Brandon. But I imagine that they get along pretty well and he feels okay being grumpy around her.

Ravi

So it's not like Mythbusters where they're only friends on TV but not actually friends in real life?

Isaac Stewart

I would imagine it's not like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Information. That's the real power in this world

Everyone is an academic. (Or, well, nearly everyone.) This is intentional. Grandpa Smedry gives us a speech here about information, and if I had to pick one theme for this book, his comments would be it.

Isaac Asimov once complained that fantasy was all about dumb barbarians killing smart wizards–thereby making the genre anti-intelligence. I’ve always found this a shortsighted way of looking at the genre. To me, it’s all about being clever. I wanted heroes who were academics. People who were what we would call nerds. And I wanted to show them using information–rather than weapons–to save the day.

I do worry, however, that Grandpa Smedry droned on a bit long in this chapter. It’s the last place where I think we have this problem in the book, but this chapter itself is essentially one big conversation while preparing to go into the library. Not a lot happens.

We get those sometimes in my books. Hopefully, they set us up for the drama and climaxes later on. We need to know the characters, and have a groundwork, for the quick pacing that happens from chapter seven onward.

Kirrin

Marsh? The book doesn't mention him after he fights with Elend.

Brandon Sanderson

Marsh is alive. I changed this from when I talked to [Peter]. I realized some things about his use of Allomancy that would allow him to survive. Actually, he is immortal. He can pull off the same Allomancy/Feruchemy trick that the Lord Ruler did. (And he knows it too, since he was there when Sazed explained how it was done in Book One.) He's actually the only living person who actually knows this trick for certain. (Though there's a chance that Spook, Ham and Breeze heard about it from Vin and the others.) So yes, if there were another series, Marsh would make an appearance.

Douglas

I thought that trick required atium and involved burning the atium. With all the atium gone and Sazed not making any more, it would therefore not be possible even for a full mistborn/feruchemist. Am I wrong, is Sazed providing atium specifically for Marsh to allow a friend and valuable servant to survive, or what?

Brandon Sanderson

Marsh has the bag of atium that KanPaar sent to be sold, as well as several nuggets in his stomach. So, I guess 'immortal' is the wrong phrase. He's got the only remaining atium in the world and can keep himself around for a long, long while—but he WILL eventually run out. Unless Sazed does something.

Brandon Sanderson

You got it wrong. I'm not busy because I'm writing other books, I'm working on the licensing deals! Cardboard shardplate! Official Bridge Four loincloths! "There's spren in my poop" toilet paper!

Rutthed

Serious question: are there poopspren, and how would they fare in indoor plumbing situations?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, it depends on how you're defining spren. In the books, they don't make a distinction, but there are several varieties. At the basic level, everything has an identity--a soul, you might say, but more than that. This is based on how it is viewed, and how long it has been viewed that way. Feces would have this, but wouldn't have a very strong cognitive identity because of its transitional nature.

Other types of spren, the type that characters see and interact with, are cognitive ideals or concepts which have taken on literal personification over time. These are usually related to forces or emotions, and don't relate to this particular topic.

And that's far more than I ever expected to say on this...

Moosehead

I'm pretty sure it's a case of me just forgetting that I read such a part, but where in the book does Shallan find out about Kaladin's abilities? I know once Adolin confronts Shallan for the first time about her powers, he then asks if she can fly like 'him (Kaladin)', and she just goes yeah, as if she knew for some time now about Kaladin's abilities.

It's such a small thing but it's been grinding away at me. I know Shallan revealed to Kaladin by summoning her Shardblade over his shoulder in the chasm, but how did Kaladin reveal himself to Shallan?

Brandon Sanderson

If you re-read that scene, I believe she's confused by the question about her being able to fly, as so far as she knows, Radiants don't fly. (She only knows about herself and Jasnah.) She finds out about Kaladin sometime around when most everyone else finds out about him, I believe. I'd have to look back specifically to see if I noted it, but by the end of that battle, everyone will be talking about it and so she will know.

Jofwu

What special considerations do you have when designing a coin? (compared to other art that you typically do)

Isaac Stewart

I haven't designed a lot of coins, so I had that same question when first talking to Woody and Helen at Shire Post. Once we decided on the sizes for the coins, the biggest issue was designing something that's legible at that size. The images and text need to read well, and for the most part, I needed to keep the text from running over the top of the images (which affects legibility). The only change Shire Post asked to be made after seeing the first images was to separate the text from the images a bit.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Part Three

My one disappointment with this chapter is that I had to end up making it look like I was breaking my own rules. The Allomancy-Feruchemy-Hemalurgy triad is one of the most complex magic systems I've ever devised. The interplay between the three systems, mixed into the mythology of the setting (which involves the mists at a foundational level) makes for some very complicated rules. I try to explain them as simply as possible–simple, basic rules are necessary for most sequences to work.

Yet, the depth of complexity leads to some things that are confusing at first glance. I wasn't planning on having Vin draw upon the mists in this book–I was going to save it for later–but the initial version of this chapter (which had Vin simply grabbing the bracelets off the Lord Ruler’s arms with her hands) lacked the proper drama or impact. So, I moved up my timetable, and gave her access to some abilities she wasn't going to get until the next book.

A lot of the "Rules" of Allomancy are, in my mind, like our basic rules of physicist. They make simple sense, and can be explained easily. However, they only apply when generalities–or large-scale events–are explained. When you get down to the really advanced physics, traditional Newtonian Laws start to break apart.

The same is true for Allomancy. The vast majority of Allomancers aren't powerful enough to look beyond the basics. For them, simple rules like "You can't Push on metals inside of someone's body" apply. It's much easier to tell someone that, as opposed to "People's bodies interfere with Allomancy, making it much harder to affect metals inside of them–so hard, in fact, that only some people you'll never meet can Push on metals inside of people's bodies."

It is a matter of degree of power. Vin, for reasons I'll explain eventually, has access to far more Allomantic power than regular people. The Lord Ruler is the same way, though for different reasons. And so, he can affect metals that are blocked by blood. Vin has to draw upon another, external source of power in order to produce the same effect, but it is possible for her.

Narratively, I worry that this looks too much like I'm breaking my own rules. However, I had to balance drama with effect in this chapter, and eventually decided that I could make it work. I've established throughout the book that there are flaws in the commonly-perceived laws of Allomancy. There are metals nobody knows about. You can pierce copperclouds. In fact, one of the unwritten laws of Allomancy is that it isn't understood as well as everyone seems to think.

Clayton

I think you said you started with the Surges and worked from the bottom up. So what was the hardest Radiant Order to conceptualize in terms of virtual or ideal and powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Cracking how I wanted the Dustbringers to work was probably the trickiest of them all, because I knew that we were going to have (not to give spoilers) some things happening with the Dustbringers that would predispose readers toward them in a certain way that I did not want the Radiant Order to exemplify. And I wanted to be sure what I thought the distinction was and why it was possible that they could go in a different direction. (Trying to circumlocute all of these things to not spoil you.) They were the hardest, probably.

Building up how to make the Surges work, I would say that building up how I wanted the strong force and the weak force, and turning them into fantasticalized versions that basically have very little to do. Like, I even went kind of the surface tension, and things like that. Those were the trickiest. Like, gravity was pretty obvious and ended up working pretty well. I didn't one-to-one move the fundamental forces, by the way. I just took the idea of fundamental forces. But I wanted there to be nods to most of the fundamental forces in the Surges, just because that's where the inspiration was, and because I was gonna be using gravity, quite obviously, because that's the one that made me most excited, and as you can see the Windrunners and the Skybreakers were two of the first ones that we dealt a lot with.