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Argent

Does Lift turn food into Investiture directly or is it similar to the metals on--

Brandon Sanderson

Similar to the metals.

Argent

So like a gate?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

Okay, that's good to know.

Brandon Sanderson

She can metabolize-- She can draw-- It's not actually the food, it's-- It's not like the metals, not exactly. It's not-- What she can do is she can metabolize into Investiture instead of sugar. Does that make sense?

Argent

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

We metabolize food into sugar. She can metabolize it into Investiture. Does that make sense?

Argent

That makes a lot of sense. So if she eats--

Brandon Sanderson

She's got to have a blood sugar spike.

Argent

So if she eats like a cake it will give her more Investiture--

Brandon Sanderson

Faster. It will give her faster.

Argent

Whereas if she eats a vegetable...

Brandon Sanderson

Vegetable... More calories is going to equal more. But the better comparison would be a sausage and bread. Because bread is a fast blood sugar spike and the sausage is not. And that's how I'm working in my head. It's kind of a magical version of a blood sugar spike and I have it happen to her faster than it could happen. Like normally you eat a piece of bread and your blood sugar spikes in a half hour, it's going to go faster for Lift.

Argent

Hers is like five minutes.

Brandon Sanderson

Hers is like five minutes, but a sausage would be slower.

Chaos2651

Will Sazed appear at all in the Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

There are no current plans for him to do so.

Podman36

If [Leeching] would work with Breath, would it work with Lifeless? Could you Leech a Lifeless?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible.

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

*written* Is Felt and agent of Harmony? If not, is he a member of a secret society that we have seen?

Brandon Sanderson

*written* Felt is different in his allegiance depending on the part of his life.

*spoken* Felt's allegiance has changed at various times during-- yeah, we'll just say that. His allegiance has changed over the years. There are times he's been a rogue agent.

Questioner

What's the first movie you're gonna watch in your new underground massive headquarters?

Brandon Sanderson

...When we were auditioning audio/visual places, they all played the same movie for us, that we had never seen. They played a clip from Oblivion, the Tom Cruise movie. So even though I don't know if it's that great a movie, we're going to watch it, because we watched it three times-- the same clip at three different companies who were showing off their theater outfits. I guess it just has good audio. So we'll probably watch that.

Yata

Can a Misting hurt himself burning the wrong metals or a bad alloy ?

Brandon Sanderson

Not really, but they can swallow something they can't burn and end up with metal poisoning. Kind of similar.

Yata

So we may tell that a Misting's Allomancy is "safer" than a Mistborn's one.

Maybe because it's the original/natural way how Allomancy manifest itself (without godlike interferences)

Brandon Sanderson

Sure, you could potentially say that. You can still make yourself sick, though, so I'm not sure. I guess it comes down to your definition of "hurt." But I'd call it safer, yes.

Questioner

Does it mean anything different for you now that this is your own stuff, rather than the Wheel of Time?

Brandon Sanderson

Here's the weird thing. The Wheel of Time feels as much my own, even though probably, it shouldn't. The Wheel of Time is Robert Jordan's, let's be very frank on that. But the characters feel as much my own as Dalinar does. And the truth is, I knew Rand and Mat before I knew Dalinar, because I picked up the Wheel of Time in 1990, and I started writing Dragonsteel in '91. And so, I've known those characters longer than I've known any of my own characters. Even Hoid, who was there in that first one. He came after the Wheel of Time. And so, when I said yes to Harriet on the Wheel of Time, I did it... I mean, it was a fantastic opportunity. But I did it because this is something I would legitimately want to be part of. And I've talked before about some of the exciting things. Like, for years I'd been playing with a teleportation-based magic system, like gateways, because I had been reading Wheel of Time books and I'm like, "This is where that magic could go!" And I had it all sketched out in my notes. And then I had written, "I can't ever do this. It is too similar to the Wheel of Time."

And then the Wheel of Time... I was writing it. And I'd be like, "Well, here are my notes on how to manipulate this magic system," because I'd spent years wanting to do this. And Perrin is, like, my high school friend. I was one of these nerdy, bookish people, who my friends were my characters in the books. (And, yes, I wasn't that lonely. I did have real friends.)

So, does it feel different to me? No, it really doesn't. I mean, I'm really proud of this. I've been planning forever for this. So, this is my baby. But... When I was offered the Wheel of Time, one thing about it was, when Harriet gave it to me... Finding somebody to finish the Wheel of Time had been a dying request from Robert Jordan for her. She didn't grieve until she found someone to do it, and then she went and grieved for a year, and left me basically on my own. Now, when it came to editing, she then came in as an editor and had a very strong hand and was very important that she do that. But in the process of outlining the three books, writing the first one, and deciding on the plot archetypes and all these things, I did that basically just me and Robert Jordan's notes. And there was a large amount of ownership that Harriet allowed me to take, even though it's made very clear, "The Wheel of Time is not mine." But the characters kind of are mine, in the same way they're all of yours, if that makes any sense.

So, no. It's a long answer, isn't it? One question I get a lot, people ask me, "Does it hurt to kill off characters? Does it hurt to have characters that you don't get to write about anymore?" And usually, my answer is "No." Because I have built a plot arc for years when I'm writing a book, where I know what risks that character's going to take, and I build into it then the consequences of those actions. And it's like, they demand to be allowed to do this, and then there is a ramification. And when I actually write it, yes, there's a sorrow to it, but at the same time, it's fulfilling what that character wanted to do for years and who they are, if that makes any sense. So, they are then done, and I don't feel a need to write any more about them. I'm not gonna mention any names, not give spoilers, but for a lot of these characters, I'm like, "No, I don't feel a need to write any more stories, because I told the story that they needed to have told, and that feels awesome."

The exception is the Wheel of Time. Because, in some ways, the Wheel of Time is the only one... Now, I made the decision that no more Wheel of Time books should be written. It really belongs to Harriet, but when Harriet... She actually asked me what I thought we should do, and I was very up front with "No more Wheel of Time should be done." Because Robert Jordan didn't want it to be done. But the only ones that hurt are not being able to write more stories about some of those characters, because I don't feel their stories are completely told, and I don't feel that I can. So, that is painful. I feel it's good. It's the pain of having lost Robert Jordan. So, it's not a good pain, but it's a necessary pain. And it's a pain that I shouldn't relinquish by simply going and writing all these books, but that is a pain. Not being able to tell the stories of these characters that I really feel didn't quite get told. So you'll have to tell them all in your own head.

Wincompetence

I'd very much like a story, even a short one, from the point of view of a spren.

Specifically a spren that is bound to a surgebinder. Syl, Glys, Pattern, etc. I'd like to see how they go from Shadesmar to crossing over and losing their thought, to slowly regaining it and forming a bond in more than one way with their surgebinder.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a matter of when, not if--but you might have to wait a few books.

Mi'chelle Walker

Is the city that the Parshendi are in Urithiru?

Brandon Sanderson

In The Way of Kings, Jasnah tells Shallan that Urithiru is not on the Shattered Plains. So either Jasnah is incorrect or that is not Urithiru.

Mi'chelle Walker

In other words, you’re not going to tell me?

Brandon Sanderson

I’m just clarifying for you so that you have all the information you need in order to make judgments and ask questions.

spookytus

I want to know if Shadesmar contains memespren or (since they're defined as idea viruses) memetic plague. If anyone can make literal meme magic, it'd be u/mistborn.

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. Yeah, that could probably become a thing in the cosmere, though I doubt I'd go there. (At least, if I did, it would have to be done very carefully.)

Argent

For Terris names, is it safe to assume the first vowel is always long?

Brandon Sanderson

This is frequently the case, but it's not 100%.

Questioner

You have, like you said, thousands of years of history--mostly I'm talking about Stormlight Archives--you have, you know, Radiants have done this, and Heralds have done this, you have in some ways figured out what happened and what's going to happen with that stuff. And you have a, at least I think, friend/author Patrick Rothfuss who also has kind of this mythos of stuff that happened many, many years ago, have you guys ever talked to make sure you're not going to do the same cool thing?

Brandon Sanderson

You know we-- *laughter* Good question. No I haven't ever asked him about that. We haven't spent a lot of time-- Like the only thing I ever remember talking to Pat with-- about world-building wise was magic and his magic and things like that. I was really interested in sympathetic magic also, Warbreaker has an element to it. I really liked how he did his sympathetic magic in Kingkiller. But when I get together with Pat I try not to ask the questions that I know the fans are asking him a lot, I try to be somebody who's a colleague that we can talk about other sorts of things to give him a break from that. I never ask him when the next book will be out *laughter* That's your job not mine. I ask him how his kid is, and I ask him how has it been working with DAW lately, are there any frustrations for you in the business, and that sort of stuff. The stuff he can't talk with other people about. He can talk about his kids but he can't really talk about publisher stuff with a lot of other people.

Questioner

So what are the chances, once that last Stormlight comes out, that you might open up that worldbuilding wiki up for viewing?

Brandon Sanderson

You don't know, I might do that. That's feasible.

Questioner

It seems like it might be a cool way, other than like waiting another 3–4 years for it to be edited into 2 or 3 atlases or whatever, in this day and age a wiki seems like a good way to do that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. The fun thing is, it's now like 15 years old, so it's got all the old stuff from the original write in it as well.

Questioner

Which would also be kind of cool to see.

Brandon Sanderson

Which would be cool to see how I've changed things. There's stuff in there before spren were even part of the world and stuff like that.

Questioner

Could a bloodmaker heal a Shardblade wound?

Brandon Sanderson

Could a...whatmaker? Oh, could a bloodmaker heal a Shardblade wound? Um, yes, yes they could. So, what...so, yes, this is possible. (Long pause) Is it possible? I haven't actually thought about it. I have to work through the mechanics of the magics. Jury's out. Jury's out. I've gotta go and look at the actual mechanics, so I'm gonna "jury's out" on that one. That's a read and find out as, you would think I'd figured that one out, because I'm planning for the conflicts but I haven't, like... So what's happening with the healing on Roshar is that they are using Stormlight to bridge the severed soul and glue it back together, right. So, the magic of bloodmaking is different to an extent, in that it is prompting healing directly from the body, right... I'm gonna go with yes, until I look at it but, jury's out.

Questioner

Is there a meaning for Adolin's name, like there is for Kaladin?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Okay, do you want to tell me it?

Brandon Sanderson

Honestly I have to look them up. So I don't have them off the top of-- I should. I just have to look them up. It’s like there's technically a meaning to almost every name but yeah.

Questioner

How many scripts did you write and submit before you got Elantris picked up?

Brandon Sanderson

How many scripts did I write and send out before I got Elantris picked up? So novel-length things, Elantris was my sixth. It sold while I was writing my thirteenth, which was The Way of Kings. You shouldn't have to do that, I was really bad when I started. The other thing is I was not good at revising, and I sometimes wouldn't even send books out, because I was like "I can learn do that better, I'll just write another book", which was the wrong attitude to have but it ended up working out for me so I don't know that I'd change anything! I did collect rejections but really-- My first five books were very experimental. Someone told me your first five books are usually terrible, which is not necessarily true but it was the right advice for me. I sat down and I wrote five.

My first one was an epic fantasy, because I was pretty sure that's what I love. My second one was a space opera. My third one was a sequel to that epic fantasy. Then my fourth one was a comedy, like a Bob Asprin-style fantasy farce. And then there was a cyberpunk. And then there was Elantris. I wrote those five, and after I sat down and wrote those five and said, "ok, epic fantasy's what I love, I'm gonna go with that." That's when the idea of the Cosmere started going for me, and I sat down and I wrote Elantris, a book called Dragonsteel which is kind of Hoid's origin story, and a book called White Sand which we're currently making into a graphic novel. Those three books I got the best feedback on when I was submitting them and that's when I really started to push it, in getting it published. So you can imagine that what I did is I practiced for a while, I wrote a book that I thought was pretty good and during the three years it took to sell that, I ended up writing some more, because I do that. 

Questioner

Can you turn a parshman into a Parshendi by giving them breath?

Brandon Sanderson

Parshendi is a nationality. So, no. No more than you could make someone an American by teaching them to speak with an American accent. But also, how do you define being a Parshendi when the culture is basically collapsed at this point? Basically, no.

Nepene

If Ruin had won, what would his long term goals for the Cosmere be?

Brandon Sanderson

Ruin's goals and motives were about fulfilling the needs of the Shard inside of him. It overwhelmed his personality, and corrupted him. He would seek for all things to be reduced to a state of entropic equilibrium.

Darnam (paraphrased)

Would you please draw Aon Aon with the chasm line, so we know where the calamity the chasm lines are?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I always imagined it right there. Um, and so if you finished it... but the strictures of the first book, I didn't quite know what I was doing yet, and I was trying to match a map that didn't quite match what I had in my head. I could do it so much better now. But, the problem is, it is kinda down here at the bottom of this, but where I described it....if you don't mind me putting in this... I described it right there in the book, and it needs to be up more.

Argent

Why were seons unaffected by the Reod?

Brandon Sanderson

They were.

Argent

They were? How?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

dswint916

Will Marsh continue to shadow the Mistborn series?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes that character will continue to play a role in the future of Mistborn.

mcase19

Could someone Feruchemically storing connection in an Aonic nation become an Elantrian?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a little tougher than that, but it would be a start. And for some people, it would be enough.

yahasgaruna

Is it tougher because of some inherent difficultly with the selection process of Elantrians? Or because of something to do with using connection?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm getting a few too many 17th Shard style questions on the thread. I'm going to start curtailing them, as waking up to an hour' or two's worth of detailed cosmere questions each day is going to seriously impact my ability to actually write. So I'm going to liberally apply RAFO from here out.

So RAFO. :)

Questioner

In the Well of Ascension, Kwaan says that Ruin changed the words in the Feruchemists' metalminds. Ruin can't *inaudible* metal plates. I was wondering what the difference was?

Brandon Sanderson

Because they're in the person's head before they're going in the plates. And he can affect the power as it's transcribed between. Because the power is partially him, the Power of Creation of that world. So there is a bit of him inside of every person, and as the power is going from person into plate... It's kind of like how people can hack your phone through your wifi. Does that make sense? So, that's what's going on there.

Questioner

So in The Stormlight Archive series--

Brandon Sanderson

The Stormlight Archive? How old are you? *laughter* How old are you?

Questioner

Nine.

Brandon Sanderson

Nine?! You're reading The Stormlight Archive? You are awesome! *cheers*

Questioner

So the character Lift, for her powers, why does she have to eat food instead of sucking in--

Brandon Sanderson

So why does Lift have to eat food instead of sucking in Stormlight. So Lift is a really weird one, she visited the Old Magic and asked something very strange. And the Old Magic didn't know how to treat that and answered with something equally strange. So you will eventually see what happened with Lift and things like that but suffice it to say some really weird things are going on with Lift.

Cheese_Ninja

Kaladin: “Have you ever had to choose between two equally distasteful choices?” Vasher: “Every day I choose to keep breathing.”

Does that mean he needs to consume Stormlight on a daily basis rather than weekly?

Brandon Sanderson

This is more mundane than that. Vasher is indicating that not letting himself die is a tough choice for him.

Questioner

How many other characters are in this *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Oh I'm not going to give you an exact number.

Questioner

I'm guessing one or two, so far at least.

Brandon Sanderson

But there are multiples.

Questioner

Does Hoid go to the same place the Elantrians are going?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Marc Aplin

Okay, the next question we have (I think this one you might have answered before) but have we met all the main point-of-view characters yet? Or, if not, what percentage are we talking?

Brandon Sanderson

You have met almost all of them. Let me do a count... Let's see. The main characters in the book are (in the series) Kaladin, and Dalinar, Adolin, Jasnah, Shallan, and Navani, whom you all met in this book and most of them had viewpoints. Szeth, Taravangian, and Taln. And one of the other Heralds; I'm not going to tell you who that is. But I think you've met...you have, I'm sure, met that person; I know which scene they're in. And so, I think you've met them all, basically. Taln is the person who shows up in the epilogue.

Gabriel Rumbaut

A lot of your characters seem to go through crises of faith, particularly Sazed in The Hero of Ages where he essentially questions all his... everything he's come to believe. Have you ever experienced any conflicts with your own religious faith about including such characters in your books?

Brandon Sanderson

That's also a good question. Conflicts is perhaps the wrong way to put it. I believe strongly in the precepts of people like Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living and I find that if I'm interested in something I should question it, I should examine it from as many directions as I can.

I tend to do that in my fiction. It's the way I express myself. Rather than actually writing a journal, I don't actually do that. I write stories that explore what I'm working on, myself, what I'm interested in and I find it vital that I attack them from lots of different directions, not just the way I am, but the way I see other people exploring the same problems, the same questions.

It's just--it's valuable to me as a writer and as a person to explore these things in depth, so I've never seen conflict but I certainly have expressed my own questions and examinations through characters as they have reached similar moments in their lives.

Nasa1225

Theoretically, what would happen if one were to compound chromium?

Brandon Sanderson

As expected, this one is a RAFO.

Rah179

Could you give us a snippet about the Dustbringers? Or Willshapers?

Brandon Sanderson

Dustbringers never liked their name, and tried hard to get people to use another title for them.

awakenedtassel

Was there a mechanical reason they weren't able to effect the name change, or was it just because the new name didn't catch on?

Brandon Sanderson

The latter.

Pagerunner

If you need to bring food into Shadesmar, why don't you need to bring air?

Brandon Sanderson

Y'know, we actually talked and thought about this. There are certain things I just decided for narrative reasons... I wanted Shadesmar to be travelable and I wanted it to be a real place, and so I just made air, I came up with kind of my own hacks. There are times I do this for narrative reasons. 

Let me give you an easier example. In the Mistborn books, and I've told people this before, I was working on speed bubbles. Slowing down time, speeding up time in a small little bubble around you, right? I went to Peter and I'm like, "This is what I'm going to do, what are the problems with this?" And he's like, "Well, redshift." Which means that basically you would be irradiating everyone with the light coming from inside the speed bubble. I'm like, "alright, we're just going to say that doesn't happen." This is where the line between for me science fiction and fantasy exists. When I'm building my story, I do try to have one foot in science with things like this. But I tend to work backward... A lot of science fiction starts with what we have now and extrapolates forward to [an] interesting, plausible premise. For my fantasy works, I start with some cool idea. And then I work backward in plausibility, trying to justify it. And we kind of meet in the center, but at the end of the day I am breaking the laws of thermodynamics, right? Just straight-up breaking laws-- I mean, we have our whole Realmatic Theory and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, I am trying to tell stories where certain extreme situations exist. Like, I bent over backwards to make the science of Roshar work with the greatshells, but at the end of the day, we still have to have a magical solution, right. To get beasties as big as we want to do, it doesn't matter how high your oxygen content is, if you've got .7 gravity or not, all these concessions we've made: the square-cube law says those things crush themselves. You just can't have things this big. And so we built in a magical solution. The spren creating this symbiotic bond is making it so these things don't crush themselves. 

And when I was looking at Shadesmar, there are a couple things-- what I want for the narrative is this place. I am going to work backward and try to make as many concessions and nods toward science as I can. But the air one, I just said "You know what? There's just gonna be air in Shadesmar. I am just gonna make it so that you can." I want you to be able to walk between the planets on Shadesmar, I don't want people to have to worry about bringing a Windrunner with them and plants or whatever to get oxygen. I'm just gonna make that the case. Your in-world answers, I'm like "Well, air kind of permeates and has escaped through and things," but really do we have an oxygen cycle there? We've got plants, but are they really--

The answer is, there is air in Shadesmar because I want there to be air in Shadesmar. 

Questioner

So I know that there's going to be a second Mistborn trilogy. Is Alloy part of it?

Brandon Sanderson

No. This is foreshadowing the second trilogy. I may do some more books with these characters.

Questioner

So is the second trilogy in the same time period?

Brandon Sanderson

It will be a little future forward from this. More like mid–20th century.

twixttwists

Since the dead spren are said to have been more or less "reabsorbed" into the cosmere, why did they leave behind physical shards at all?

Brandon Sanderson

We'll find out more about dead spren as the books move forward.

Only4DNDandCigars

I was reading Elantris, with my passive work being Jorge Luis Borges "Book of Imaginary Beings". The chapters are encyclopedic and short, and are meant to have a kaleidoscope style of reading. With Cosmere on my mind, I can across a really interesting entry:

Sylphs For each of the four roots or elements into which the Greeks divided matter there was a corresponding spirit. In the words of Paracelsus, the sixteenth-century Swiss alchemist and physician, we find four elementary spirits: the Gnomes of the earth, the Nymphs of water, the Salamanders of fire, and the Sylphs or Sylphides of air. The words are Greek origin. Litre has sought the etymology of "sylph" in the Celtic tongues, but it is most unlikely that Paracelsus would have known, or even suspected the existence of, those languages. Today, no one believes in Sylphs, but the phrase "a syphlike figure" is still applied to slender women, as a somewhat cliched compliment. The Sylphs occupy a place between that of material beings and that of immaterial beings. Romantic poetry and the ballet find them useful.

I don't think it is a far stretch or much of projection when I say that reminds me of a certain Spren. Either way, it made my day to come across this while reading.

Brandon Sanderson

If you poke around a bit, you can probably find where the names of some other spren (like Notum) come from. In a lot of their names, I'm looking for something similar to what I did with Syl. My rationale is that if you heard her name in-world (which might not actually be the exact sounds Syl) you'd have the benefit of local traditions, word roots, and mythologies. You'd hear it and say, "Huh, that sounds like a word for wind." So, when the books are "translated" to English, the translator creates names in English that evoke the same feel in readers here.

Ashley

Do you spend the most time on your magic systems, or do you find yourself spending equal amounts of time on other aspects of worldbuilding/plot such as religion/culture/language/geography? 

Brandon Sanderson

It really depends on the novel. With some I spend a lot of time on areas that in others I don't spend much time on at all. With every book I spend a serious amount of time on the magic system. That's consistent—it's just something I like to do.

For a given book or series I may spend more time on a given aspect. I'd say the other big aspect that takes a lot of time is characterizing the characters the right way. That takes a lot of work, but I tend to do that during my actual writing period, whereas I spend the planning period focusing on worldbuilding and plot. It's when I actually sit down to write a chapter that I explore who a character is, and so it's really hard to pin down timewise which one I spend more time on. And that varies based on the book.

Questioner

Yesterday, you talked about other writers that came before you, and talked fantasy today. And although you're writing and selling quite novel, and this is part of the magic, I wanted to ask if you had to choose one author who is an inspiration for you, who would it be?

Brandon Sanderson

There's a bunch. So, I love how Guy Gavriel Kay is able to tell epic fantasy stories in one volume that are really compelling, that's one of his things. I like how Nora Jemisin is able to use literary trappings to tell really powerful stories. Like, if you guys haven't read The Fifth [Season], it's in second person, it's just crazy, but it works.

I actually envy a lot of the videogame writers, because they can do things that I can't do and it's a lot of fun. Like, the guy who wrote Undertale, Toby Fox, right? Like, that story is the type of story that I can't tell because it only works in that medium. I think it's really cool and so I envy their ability to tell stories the way that they tell them. So, that's just a couple [of inspirations].

mistlepro

my question was Aona/Skai Shards shattering the event we saw the aftermath of in Elantris? Or a further final apocalypse?

Brandon Sanderson

The events in Elantris happened many years before The Way of Kings. That’s all I’ve said for now.

mistlepro

But I thought the monks of Dakhor and the ChayShin(?) were all AonDor related? The energy familiars are related to Skai?

Brandon Sanderson

What the Dakhor did accessed the Dor, but it was not AonDor—they weren’t using Aons, but different symbols.

Questioner

When you're designing your magic systems, what is it you typically go into?

Brandon Sanderson

At that thing I said, brandonsanderson.com/writing/advice, I've got three essays on magic systems that can cover it way better than talking about it right now. That'll get you really into it. I would suggest those, they're called Sanderson's Laws, because I'm really humble. Asimov has them, and Clarke has them; so I can have them, there's not fantasy guys who have laws. So go read those, and they will talk you through how I develop a magic system.

Questioner

I was wondering about the background behind one of them. Stormlight.

Brandon Sanderson

Background behind the magic system in Stormlight traces back to my early history as a science major. I was a biochemistry major in college, before I jumped ship to English. And I've always been interested in the sciences quite a bit, and you'll see that in writing as a theme through my magics. The magic system of Roshar is based on the idea of the fundamental forces. I love the idea of the fundamental forces. This idea that there are certain interactions between parts of matter and energy that transcend everything else and rule how our entire world works was fascinating. So I wanted to come up with this idea of ten fundamental forces that worked with the magic system of the cosmere. Because there are extra forces, because there's weird stuff in the cosmere. Some of them are one-to-one. Gravitation is just one of the fundamental forces. And the strong and weak forces, I played with and came up with some things for that too, so you'll see that. But on the other hand, we've got things like transcending between the Physical Realm and the Cognitive Realm, which is a very cosmere-type thing. So, I built ten fundamental forces. And then I was playing with the idea (which I have in the cosmere) of pieces of energy becoming sapient. You've seen it happen in Elantris, you've seen it happen in Warbreaker. Way of Kings is one of the places I really wanted to show off how this works. So, the idea of the spren connecting a bond to the force that they're related to in certain ways, that just grew out of that.

Overlord Jebus

Is Dragonsteel Adonalsiumium?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. I'm not even sure how I'm going to canonize Dragonsteel when I add it in.

Evilkill78

Have we seen Trell under another name before?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, in part because the question makes some assumptions.

Boogalyhu34

What would happen to a bonded spren if its human was hemalurgically spiked and had his surges stolen?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. :)

Aerlion

Is it possible to use Hemalurgic spikes to steal multiple attributes from the same person?

Brandon Sanderson

No. At least, this isn't thought to be possible

Questioner

Who was the first Feruchemist?

Brandon Sanderson

Who was the first Feruchemist? I don't have their name written down. It's fairly ancient of date.

Questioner

Were they born or were they created?

Brandon Sanderson

The first Feruchemist, were they born or created? Both. I don't see those two as mutually exclusive. See how good I am at dodging questions, now? I've been dealing with the Wheel of Time fans long enough. They've really whipped me into shape for dodging questions.

Brandon Sanderson

I’m going to read to you from the flashback sequence from [Stormlight Four], and the flashbacks are being split between Eshonai and Venli.

Now, there’s some things to be aware of in this flashback. The first is that, when I wrote this, I was specifically trying to get the tone and character right, ‘cause I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do Eshonai or if I was gonna do Venli. Turned out that I decided to do a hybrid between them. But what that means is, when I wrote this scene in particular, I wasn’t really even planning for it to go in the book. What I was doing is searching for the tone.

Which means it has some continuity problems that I knew about, even when I started it. For instance, I think there might have been more people with Eshonai when this event happened, mentioned earlier. It may not happen at the time or place that it says in here. Basically, a version of this chapter will end up in the final book. But the actual exact details around it might change a lot.

The flashbacks tend to go through some of the most rigorous changes because of continuity. Because we have a whole timeline that Karen is very good at keeping track of. And when I write a chapter like this, I’m just not paying attention to it at all. I’m just ignoring it, ‘cause I want to see if the character works. But we’re gonna just see briefly from Eshonai here.

Paleo

Does aluminum actually store Identity or is it more like a sink so you just dump it in and it poofs away.

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that for now. Sorry, I want to get into that eventually.

Questioner

What if you Soulstamped a city?

Brandon Sanderson

Soulstaped a city... So if you're a really good Forger-- It is possible to do things like that, but it requires a lot of work and time. Just one thing to keep in mind with Soulstamps, and anything that does this, rewriting your spiritweb, right, like, requires Invesiture. A lot of Investiture. And so, for instance, what Shai can do is really cool, but what an Elantrian can do is gonna look a lot more dramatic, right? Shooting a column of fire, you would say "Which takes more power, making the wall have flowers on it or shooting a column of fire?" Making the wall have flowers takes way more Investiture. It's a lot easier to pull off some dramatic effects with others, but the actual changing of the soul and overwr-- ...So just keep in mind the extent-- This is why you don't see Shai Forge it so the whole building disappears. Right? And stuff like this. Which is not outside of reason for a couple of Elantrians with the right program to put into place. But I mean effectively-- They could blow it up, essentially, that's what they would do

Bystander

Make a new hole, rather than making one that has existed.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Exactly. Do keep in mind, people like to ask, you've probably seen people ask, "Could I rewrite myself to be a Knight Radiant?" Right? WELL... There are certain things that you just-- you can't fake without enough energy that it becomes impractical. Usually what I use as an example to that is: Yes, we can turn hydrogen into gold, if we wanted to. Right? We can do that! It might take more energy than the earth creates in an entire year, but we can do that.

I get a lot of questions with this that I'm like "is it possible?" and I'm like "Guys, is it possible?" ...You should probably be like, "Is it possible, with reasonable amounts of energy provided by one Invested person".

Brandon Sanderson

Vasher Fights the Soldiers and Finally Pulls Nightblood

In my annotations, I've often talked about focus scenes. These are the scenes of a book that I imagine cinematically before I sit down and write the novel. They're part of what drives me to want to work on that book in particular, and I need a few really good ones before I'll write a book.

This was one of the primary focus scenes for this book. I had this in mind before I developed a lot of the rest of the story. I'm glad that I was able to write to a point where I was able to use it. Vasher, Awakening a rope to save himself, then fighting alongside Awakened sets of clothing. Then finally, at long last, drawing Nightblood. You probably knew that had to happen in this book. I certainly built up to it long enough.

I originally imagined the pulling of Nightblood from a body a little like a dark "sword in the stone" moment. I don't think that quite made the transition to the final book, but hopefully the image of a black sword leaking smoke is visually potent for you. I ended the scene in my head with Vasher standing amid those puffs of black smoke that used to be bodies, Nightblood at his side, feeding off of him with pulsing black veins.

Questioner

How does Kelsier meet Gemmel?

Brandon Sanderson

How does Kelsier meet Gemmel.  Gemmel was directed to find Kelsier.  

lyra256

I had always pictured the Shardplate a little more "flow-y", almost unrealistic in its elegance of interlocking plates. These [Words of Radiance illustrations] seem much more classic to me, with the small plates only at tight corners. Why was it taken in this direction?

Also why the skirts? Did the cod pieces just never quite look right?

Ben McSweeney

1) Partly because of my own aesthetics, and partly for practical purposes. My goals when designing for Brandon are generally twofold: follow the text to the letter (getting creative where ambiguity allows) and think about long-term developments for the Stormlight IP.

While the structure of Shardplate as described necessitates some magical properties, I wanted to encourage a design that could be practically adapted outside of a CGI render. The designs we went with are meant to bridge a space between historical accuracy (most of which is driven by function) and complete dreamspace (where form can take precedent).

That being said, when I imagine it in motion I envision a lot of parts that move in ways you wouldn't expect from classic armor, because the plates are layered, providing areas of overlap rather than interlock.

If this were made of actual metal it would be far too heavy and have way too many loose parts to work... even for cosplay or live adaptation, someone's gonna have to make adjustments.

2) Interestingly enough, there is a design in the production notes for what's beneath the skirt... it's meant to be a part of the extended faulds and belt, worn over the cuisses, which do connect to the codpiece beneath. The armor over the upper legs and groin is effectively doubled-up. I even did a little doodle for the... "cleaning access" function, because that part was in the early drafts and it made me laugh out loud. We don't see this in the published illustration because Shallan didn't ask Adolin to show her his butt on the training field, yet in retrospect I probably should have figured out a way to slip something into the margins.

We plan to collect of those visual notes and errata in book of their own (The Art of Stormlight sorta thing), but probably not until we're closer to the mid-point.