Found 14294 entries in 0.351 seconds.
LewsTherinTelescope
You've said that Darro, from Aether of Night, will be appearing in the Nightblood novel. Will he be appearing as a worldhopper (presumably from the Aether planet) or as a transplanted character, similar to how you've said Dalinar was in Dragonsteel before being moved to Stormlight?
And (probably entering RAFO territory) if he is a worldhopper, will he have a functional Amberite in the Nightblood novel?
Brandon Sanderson
It's a RAFO, as mostly I just haven't decided on a lot of things about this novel yet.
If it helps, my instinct is just to make him a local, as the Aether planet (though canon because of things in Stormlight) isn't one I've completely finished worldbuilding yet.
Questioner
What is your favorite Dresden Files book?
Brandon Sanderson
I am going to say that I prefer Codex Alera. I read those and [?]. The second one? yeah, I don't know. They are all very good. I'm reading The Aeronaut's Windlass right now and I'm liking that a lot, but i really like Codex Alera.
Questioner
Was Syl starting to bond with Tien before he died?
Brandon Sanderson
No, good question. But Tien was starting to bond a different spren.
Questioner
I was suspecting that he was bonding a spren, but then Syl says, at one point, I think she was familiar with Kaladin's hometown, so I was like, maybe!
Brandon Sanderson
Good question, but no, he was going in a different direction.
Questioner
Can you tell me--
Brandon Sanderson
Lightweaver.
Questioner
Which is your favorite Epic to write?
Brandon Sanderson
To write? Obliteration, because he's creepy in the way I like people to be creepy.
Jesse
I love stories in any medium, and I would love to tell one myself. But, I don't think I have anything in particular to say that hasn't been done a thousand times before. I invariably come across some story that already parallels my ideas. What makes a story worth telling even when its like has been done before?
Brandon Sanderson
The answer is simple: YOU are what makes your story worth telling. Harry Potter wasn't an original story, and yet told very well, it became an excellent series.
My suggestion to you is to ask what unique passions or life experiences you have that aren't found in the average fantasy book. This genre still has a lot of room to grow. A person passionate about sports could write a very different fantasy novel from one passionate about lawn care—assuming they take what they know and love and make us, as readers, come to know and love it as well.
Good luck!
Questioner
Why are humans so consistent throughout the cosmere?
Brandon Sanderson
One reason is that some of the people who made humans in the cosmere used a model that were other humans. That's one of the reasons.
Zas678
(paraphrased)
There is a debate on what to call Shallan's Symbols, so we don't have such an ambiguous term for it .
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
The Symbolhead?
Zas678
(paraphrased)
Yeah, the Symbolhead, Shallanspren.
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
*laughter*
Zas678
(paraphrased)
We don't really know what to call them.
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
Do I want to canonize this yet?
Zas678
(paraphrased)
You don't have to canonize it yet.
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
I don't know if I want to canonize it yet. But I will say this. They are spren, that should be pretty obvious. They are the spren connected to what Shallan is capable of doing. But I don’t know if I want to canonize it yet. Truthspren is as good a name as any, and I would suggest you use that until further notice.
How does Snapping work after Sazed changed it? If you don't want to reveal it all right now, are there any hints you can give us?
He couldn't get rid of this entirely. I don't want to spoil things, but Snapping was built into Allomancy primarily because of larger-scale magical issues. This is getting deep into the issue, but it has to do with a person's spiritual makeup and a 'wounded' spirit being easier to fill with something else, kind of like a cut would let something into the bloodstream. Sazed made this threshold on Scadrial much easier to obtain.
Windreader
(paraphrased)
I ended up asking if Kaladin had found captivityspren (taut wire spren in jail, [Words of Radiance Chapter 62])
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
No.
Questioner
We both know that Hoid travels through space, but we’re not sure how he travels through time.
Brandon Sanderson
I haven’t answered that yet. Let’s just say he’s not living every moment of it, not experiencing every moment of it.
Questioner
So there's a popular theory on the internet--
Brandon Sanderson
Oh no--
Questioner
--that Brandon Sanderson is actually a robot, or a collection of robots. So they've never actually heard you dispute this.
Brandon Sanderson
Right right right, well, the thing is-- the way we were programmed doesn't let us lie. So this is a problem for disputing it. So I'll just say "No comment".
Aerin
What does M-Bot have against Doomslug and Rig?
Brandon Sanderson
M-Bot treats Rig kind of like you might treat a doctor. Even though he's good for you, you may not enjoy having someone poke around at you.
With Doomslug, it isn't that he has a lot against Doomslug. Doomslug just isn't a good conversationalist. She does a lot of repeating back at you what you say. So getting trapped only with Doomslug would be--
Aerin
Can the second book have Doomslug with a bow?
Brandon Sanderson
In a bow? I will try to get Doomslug a bow.
Avi Dobkin
Hoid, Wayne, Kelsier and Wax are playing cards. How many aces are there?
Brandon Sanderson
Only Wayne and Hoid are likely to cheat, and they'd be in cahoots.
Questioner
What do you wish that you could have asked your favorite writers about writing when you first became a writer? And what do you think they would have said?
Brandon Sanderson
This one is easy. I would have said, "How do you finish your book, Mr. Jordan? Specifically: X, Y, and Z that you didn't put in the notes."
Otherwise-- You know, a lot of the things that you do as a writer aren't about what you ask other writers. And a lot of the advice you'll get as a writer won't work for you until you have written. So I wouldn't have known the right questions to ask them until I was struggling through that myself.
Brandon Sanderson
Updates on Minor Projects
Potential Cosmere Stories
Keep the following on your radar, as they may happen someday. However, as I'll be knee-deep in Stormlight in 2019, don't expect anything to happen on any of them until it is done. The list includes: Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel, Sixth of the Dusk sequel, Silverlight novella, Threnody novel, Aether of Night, Silence Divine.
Krios
(paraphrased)
At the end of Oathbringer, Kaladin says that the Oaths are about perception. So, what would happen when a crazy person bonds a crazy spren? Is there a hard limit to what the Oaths allow or could they just go on a John Wick style rampage?
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
Perception will get you a very long way, like Nightblood proves. So you can go beyond the Oaths, but there will be a hard limit. Although it will be hard to find a such fitting pair of human and spren.
Questioner
Do you ever reach a point where you've got your outline done, but you've got an impasse where you can't figure out how to get from A to B?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
Do you just start writing and hope for the best?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, you've got your outline, but you don't know how to get from Point A to Point B. What do you do? I just start writing. I find that the number one thing that helps me get me past problems in my stories is writing. Even if I take what I've written-- And this is very hard for some newer writers, is to know what your writing is gonna be set aside and not end up in the final product. But if you can change your mind over to you being the product, not the book-- Again, it's much easier to say "I'm gonna write today, and it's exploration that is not gonna end up in the book." And doing that will help you explore; you can try three different ones of those, and it will get you further faster than sitting and staring at the page, worrying that each paragraph has to be the right direction that you're going, that you're gonna to screw something up. Writer's block, the easiest way to get over writer's block I've found is to write anyway, even if you just have ninjas attack. In a world where no ninjas exist. *laughter* Like, you're writing a Regency romance and ninjas show up. Writing anything will get your mind working on the problems you've had and help you get past it. Another good thing to try is jumping to other viewpoints, or to-- setting the scene in a different location, to just kind of jar yourself out of that.
Questioner
So, you mentioned in your Q&A about how you're usually writing one [book] and revising another. Where are you at in the process right now?
Brandon Sanderson
I am writing the sequel to Skyward, I am outlining Stormlight 4, and I am revising Secret Project that I can't talk about that's a secret project. The one that was on my website. We had a progress bar for it, but I haven't said what it is. There are many, many theories online about that one.
Josh
The Allomantic metals are separated into four quadrants. Do the Shards have classifications as well, in groups of four?
Brandon Sanderson
This division, the Allomantic division is a thing researchers and scholars placed upon it.
How is Harmony balanced when a part of Preservation's power is expended on human sentience? Isn't that what caused all the trouble to begin with?
Indeed. Hm... What could Sazed be doing with that extra power...
Questioner
You mentioned the other ruined cities... Are there any other cities that you were thinking of putting into the book, but ended up not?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, I had-- I brainstormed a few with the team. Cities I was thinking of-- Toronto we-- Toronto was the big one.
Isaac Stewart
What was the funny, weird thing about the city?
Brandon Sanderson
Um... I wanted to do a mushroom city, and I didn't do that. I dunno, I had a bunch of them that I bounced off of Isaac and Peter. This is the one we decided on just because the salt thing is so *unintelligible*, you know?
Isaac Stewart
Yeah, we did a lot of Canadian cities, is what we were thinking at first.
Brandon Sanderson
And then Random House came in and said, "Can it be an American city? Please?" I'm like, "Okay, but you'll have to fight off the Canucks."
Questioner
How far ahead in the timeline is Sixth of Dusk?
Brandon Sanderson
Pretty far.
Questioner
Can I have a general--
Brandon Sanderson
Most people that I'm writing about now are dead.
Questioner
Is it up into the third trilogy of Mistborn?
Brandon Sanderson
It is that era, yes.
Questioner
Sweet! That's what I thought.
Brandon Sanderson
It might be a little bit before that trilogy, but it's that era.
Questioner
Is there a similar relationship between Endowment and Hallandren's jungle as there is between Harmony and Elendel Basin ?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes and no. The flowers are being fed by something that's very similar to what you might find on other planets. So the ground is saturated with something that is having a similar effect as Elendel Basin. But it's not the same thing. Elendel Basin was just crafted really, really well, and then it was endowed with a little bit of extra oomph. Here [in Hallandren's jungle], we have this extra seeping into the ground from the pool, which is saturated around and causing the flowers and causing what's going on there.
Questioner
(paraphrased)
Is it possible for a seon to abandon someone?
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
Yes and we might see it in a later book. He avoided answering the follow up about how this could happen.
Brandon Sanderson
The God King Has No Tongue
Okay, so here we have the first major reversal in the book. There are several reasons I wanted to write this story. The first was that I loved the concept of the woman being sent to the terrible emperor, only to discover that he was a puppet of someone else. This was a big part of the original Mythwalker plot for Siri, and was a big part of what intrigued me about that story. (As a side note, Mythwalker was also the first place where I tried out the words koloss and skaa for races. They were completely different then, however.)
After writing Mistborn, I became increasingly intrigued with the idea of a complete reversal book—a book that did things very differently from the way I'd done them before. I'd dealt with an all-powerful emperor, and so people would (unconsciously) expect the God King here to be like the Lord Ruler. That gave me more opportunity to use their expectations against them and pull off a reversal of roles like the one in this chapter.
I hope it worked. By now, you were probably suspecting that something odd was up with the God King. However, I hope you weren't expecting something as redefining as the lack of a tongue. In this society, with this magic system, that is an even greater symbol of powerlessness than it would be in our society.
Questioner
I was curious about the concept of flow, and how the Thrill compares to that.
Brandon Sanderson
What do you mean? Expand upon that.
[clarification]
So you mean like in the zone, in the moment. The Thrill does overlap with that a little bit, but the Thrill is something distinct. It does give you some of that focus.
Questioner
For some of the future Mistborn books, are you going to have them traveling between the worlds? Will they use shuttles, like we do now?
Brandon Sanderson
There will be a science fiction/space opera Mistborn series, that'll be like Star Wars type stuff, but with the cosmere.
Questioner
How does that work with the magic, then?
Brandon Sanderson
The magic will become the means by which faster-than-light travel is possible. Which is built into Allomancy somewhere.
Questioner
So if a Mistborn goes to another planet, he'll still be a Mistborn there?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. The magics almost all work on other planets.
Questioner
How would the city of Boston change over time in the Cognitive Realm, because its harbors have been constantly filled in with dirt?
Brandon Sanderson
Right, right, right. It will change to match, but there will be a time lapse, right? They'll be lagging behind.
Questioner
So, you could dump it full of dirt, and then it might take like five or ten years before it actually appears as land.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, that's exactly about how it would go.
Questioner
What race is Sazed? We have an argument on this but...
Brandon Sanderson
The Terris have intermixed to the point that they-- Skin tone run the gamut, from being indistinguishable to being darker-skinned. When I write them and say darker-skinned they get as dark as perhaps a dark Indian, East Indian. But they can range in that skin tone.
Zas678
(paraphrased)
Why did Bloody Tan see TenSoon (as the Survivor) and Marsh (as Ironeyes)?
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
He said that he was not answering any questions on what Bloody Tan saw, or thought he saw.
TheMightyTweet
Why didn’t the Parshendi use fire arrows? The bridges are made of wood for Storm’s sake!
Brandon Sanderson
This is a pretty strong hardwoord we’re talking about. Fire arrows worked against slow-moving siege equipment.
But something carried at this speed, then crossed quickly, made of hardwood–the fires wouldn’t have time to get a hold.
Glamdring804
How advanced is astronomy on Roshar? Because it's something you haven't really talked about, and I'm thinking--
Brandon Sanderson
Depends on the region. Some people, the astronomy's getting moderately well.
Glamdring804
Surely they've seen Ashyn and Braize in the sky, and I'm wondering how long it will be before they start detecting signs of civilization on Ashyn.
Brandon Sanderson
That would depend on a couple of things, such as, the easiest way to detect civilization is with radio waves, so-- You need some good telescopes. I don't think that would be, even if they spotted it, as revolutionary as you might think it would be, because we thought there were people on all of our planets for most of the history of mankind, and it didn't really affect how we viewed cosmology. I think if you went to Roshar and asked them, they'd be like "Yeah, totally, people live on those planets. Obviously." Just like if you went back and said "Do people live on the moon?" in the 1700s, people would be like, "Yeah probably, seems like they must."
mail-mi
Shouldn't the rest of Roshar be more Earth-like, more Shinovar-like, kind of, with Cultivation on Roshar?
Brandon Sanderson
Um, you are mistakenly assuming that Cultivation means Earth-like flora and fauna. Roshar is very bountiful, and, um, like it's not a barren land. Um, Roshar is very, um...
zas678
Thriving?
Brandon Sanderson
It's thriving. Yeah, it just has a different ecology. Um, you're mistakenly assuming that our ecology is the only sort that can be bountiful.
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
There is a cameo of Josh & Mi'chele in Alloy of Law! There's a gunfight at their wedding reception
Ace_of_Face
Not really a question, but the one thing that disappointed me was that you didn't come up with new slang names for Allomancers! After three hundred years, do you really think they would still be calling steel Mistings "Coinshots"?
Brandon Sanderson
I toyed with this one, but decided that I would keep them the same for a few reasons. First off, I felt that certain things in-world would hamper some linguistic diversity. (Having the books Sazed left behind as a guide to Allomanc and history, everyone living in a small geographic area, the semi-religious nature of Allomancy making people look at it in traditional ways.) So, while I advanced the slang of the world, some of the terms I decided to leave the same.
Another reason for this came when I was writing the book. At first, I experimented with greater linguistic diversity--I even tried a vowel shift, as I figured three hundred years might be enough for that. In the end, I pulled back. I was already worried that this book not feel "Mistborn" enough, and so I wanted some direct ties back to the original series. Fiddling too much with the language while changing the setting and characters so drastically felt like a mistake to me.
Questioner
(paraphrased)
Are the usual quadrants (Physical, Mental, Temporal, Enhancement) preserved in Feruchemy and Hemalurgy?
Brandon Sanderson
(paraphrased)
No. In Feruchemy, it is based Realmatically. There is a quadrant of Spiritual, a quadrant of Cognitive and two quadrants of Physical.
According to [Sanderson's Second Law of Magic] your characters have flaws, weaknesses. What is the reason, that in a lot of them (Vin, Elend, Kaladin, Dalinar, Spook, etc) the most significant weakness is the lack of self-confidence?
It's because of mode-shifting. The people you noted have been doing one thing for a long time, and are now forced into something else. The self confidence is a side effect of that. However, I wouldn't say it's the primary character attribute for any of them, however. I think you're blanketing self confidence as a larger issue, when it's the smaller part of something larger for each character.
Vin: Trusting Others
Elend: Idealism
Dalinar: Conflict between the killer he was and the man he wishes to be.
Spook: Self Worth
FeatherWriter
Is something wrong with Roshar's afterlife?
Brandon Sanderson
Uh, why do you ask?
FeatherWriter
Because of the Tranquiline Halls stuff? Needing to reclaim them?
Brandon Sanderson
Um. So, I'm... not going to answer anything about Roshar's afterlife.
Questioner
Are the people from Dalinar's visions, the ones he has the vision through, related to one another?
Brandon Sanderson
No. It's not a Wheel of Time thing where you are going through generations. Good question.
Questioner
Where would you suggest a beginning writer start writing? Like, novellas? With short stories?
Brandon Sanderson
I'd recommend you start with the format you read the most. Once upon a time, short stories was the way to begin. But that's because a lot of the readership read short stories, got used to reading them, and magazine subscriptions were a big deal. Once the novel became the dominant form... I don't feel like you should write something you don't read. We use, in writing, a phrase: "Write what you know." This doesn't necessarily mean you can't write about someone very different from yourself. But your experience is part of what's gonna make your story unique. And so, putting part of yourself into every book is important. And also, writing in genres that you are familiar with, that you know the tropes of so you can use them in new ways. So, start on novels if you read novels.
Good to see annotations again! Would love to see Stormlight ones, though I imagine the time sink would be a bit too much!
I tried doing them for TWOK, and yes, they were just draining too much writing time. :(
Questioner
Worldbringers and Worldsingers, similar mission?
Brandon Sanderson
The similarity of the names is intentional.
Questioner
Similar origin?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
Did Hoid start them?
Brandon Sanderson
That's a RAFO. That's a RAFO, but definitely they have a similar origin.
abriggs08
I just read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell in the Dangerous Women anthology. Having the knowledge that this is a story set in the Cosmere is anyone aware if Hoid (aka Wit) is in this story? I'd imagine that he isn't as its not a novel worthy plot but I was just curious.
Peter Ahlstrom
Yep. Hoid is in there. Brandon just forgot, but we talked about it and he remembered. Hoid had to have a reason for being there. And there is a reason.
Gogis
It makes sense that [Davriel]’s in the combat suit, because it’s war time, and it’s a game about combat, but I love my lazy, smart, tea-drinking good for nothing anti-hero.
Brandon Sanderson
We should get a version like that eventually.
Creative and I both wanted his first appearance to be a non-black version, even though Dav has a very strong secondary blue mode. (And some white he pretends isn't there.) I pitched them on the idea of him using the mask and cloak to hide his true nature, and it was pretty clear he would be using that mode on Ravnica. You'll have to wait for him to be a little more in his element for a more Dav-like card.
Brandon Sanderson
I posted about this on the other thread, but I do think we will get another card some day. This is actually a very good representation of Davriel in stealth mode, where he uses only his thoughsieze powers and wears his mask. As much as we would like a planeswalker card with art of a dude sitting at a cafe and complaining, it doesn't really fit the tone of the set...
KaladinarLighteyes
Does that mean Davriel is confirmed to live through the war?
Brandon Sanderson
I can't give any confirmations (and know less about the current storyline than you probably think I do) but I'd be VERY surprised if Davriel were a casualty of the current conflict.
Questioner
The world of Sixth of the Dusk [First of the Sun], is it going to make another appearance?
Brandon Sanderson
It will likely make another appearance, I am unlikely to do another story there just because I have too many things to do sequels too, but if you keep your eyes open, you can see...
Questioner
Is Hoid related?
Brandon Sanderson
You will see some more.
Maru Nui
What happens when you burn a Hemalurgic spike?
Brandon Sanderson
Burning a Hemalurgic spike would have the effect of splicing your spiritual DNA to that of the person's that is in the spike, which would have some very strange consequences.
Questioner
Is there still some movement on possible Mistborn tv show-- movies?
Brandon Sanderson
Slow movement, yes. There is definite movement; DMG are good folks, and they are trying hard. So, there is a chance still.
17th Shard
Will you ever write a book or series where different magic systems come into the same world?
Brandon Sanderson
Where different magic systems come into the same world. Um…I have already.
17th Shard
Published novels?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
17th Shard
I mean like different magic systems from different worlds.
Brandon Sanderson
That's what I said.
You're asking if I'll do it obviously. Where that's the focus of the novel? Someday I might. Right now I've been planning in the back of my head, but I'm not sure if I'll do it. See, here's the thing: I like all of this stuff to be behind the scenes; I don't want any reader to walk up on the shelf and pull it out and feel like they are completely lost because they have to read 27 Sanderson novels before this one makes sense. And so that would be my hesitance in ever doing that. But I already have in very subtle ways. And if were going to do a conflux book, I might just post it on my website. I don't know, I'm not sure. It depends on how popular the things are and whatnot. But, I don't think I want to do that to my casual readers.
17th Shard
Right, they wouldn't have any of the background.
Brandon Sanderson
Right, they wouldn't have any of the background. Thing is, some of the magic systems do cross worlds, and have before. And that has not happened obviously; you haven't really seen it. Right now Liar of Partinel and Stormlight Archives share a magic system, because with the unifying theory of magic there's a certain number of things that magic can do, and there's a lot of different ones, but when they get similar they tend to work in the same way. So Lightweaving shows up in both books. I may change that for Liar of Partinel, but it's kind of integral to that book and it's kind of integral to Stormlight Archive right now too. This is one of the reasons why I had to decide to do either Dragonsteel or Stormlight Archive as the big epic.
Some of the magic systems have been discovered on different planets, and some of them do work. A lot of them don't, but some of them do. It depends on your spiritual DNA, what people are able to do, and things like that. But, if you find a way to do illusion magic in one of my worlds it's going to work pretty much like Lightweaving, regardless of which planet you're on. If that makes sense.
Questioner
Comic book. Will there be more?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. This is three parts, so we'll at least get that done.
Questioner
Yesterday you said that crem was actually like Shard poop.
Brandon Sanderson
No, I was saying that it was more like that than what they were saying.
Questioner
It's not really poop?
Brandon Sanderson
No, its not.
Questioner
Dang it, I like poop jokes! Can you make it poop so i can have a poop joke.
Brandon Sanderson
Ok, for the next thirty seconds it is.
