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Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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DataLoreHD

Aside of the mind probe stealing spell, did Davriel have any other spells of his own? If not, why didn't he try to learn something which comes in handy in battle (e.g. Doom Blade)?

Brandon Sanderson

Remember, he loses what he grabs over time. Generally, he can keep a few stolen spells in the back of his mind--but even they weaken. So he can't really learn Doom Blade. He has to work with what he finds in the brains of nearby people.

General Reddit 2019 ()
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Fox_GVDRM_old.png source.png

TheFoxQR

Is this (see sources) a valid breakdown of known Rosharan Magic? The idea here is that two Shards on Scadriel gave us 3 systems - two mono-shardic and one di-shardic. Mono-shardic systems being each shard expressing itself, and multi-shardic systems arising from an interaction between the two. So by that logic, on Roshar, 3 shards should give us 3 mono-shardic, 3 di-shardic, and 1 tri-shardic systems. It is mentioned that Odium (the Void) is bound by the powers of Honor and Cultivation. With the caveat that the Everstorm is also probably in between Honor and Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. I'd suggest the chart is worth studying, however.

Footnote: I don't know if Brandon was talking about the Voidbinding chart or my linked chart.
Boskone 54 ()
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Questioner

So North America being islands, was that just another bit of color?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. That was based around the idea of, I want to do this cool thing. I’m just going to do this cool thing. Peter did not have a chance to look at that and tell me if the physics of that planet work or not. But once we pulled it out of the Cosmere, we didn’t have to worry if the physics do.

Questioner

I wasn’t sure if it was tied to history of the magic or?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I didn’t tie it to the history of the magic. I just said, I’m going to do a small planet and we’re just going to make it a big atoll. You’ll see the same things in Europe if we ever do a map of that, which we probably won’t, but South America you’ll see similar stuff.

Firefight San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

I had a question about how the Alethi women exhibit their wealth through their dresses. So I know there’s embroidery in the fabric and the fact that you're kind of disabling one arm? But besides that?

Brandon Sanderson

So gemstones, like well cut gemstones and then fill them with Stormlight. 

Questioner

Oh ok, but they're round, so...

Brandon Sanderson

No no, not the spheres, the actual stones. Gemstone rocks will still hold-- The sphere is just the way to make sure you don't lose them, you can make any sort of jewellery or gemstone, in your hair or anything like that, glowing would be how they would show off their wealth.

Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

On all the cosmere worlds, it seem as if-- do all the humans have what you call innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's see...

*thinks*

I believe that they all do. I don't think that you've seen anyone without innate Investiture yet.

Questioner

Because when they don't have Breath anymore, they would get Drabs, and those don't have innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

They don't have innate Investiture. And on Scadrial they have the pieces of Ruin and Preservation in them. And they do have it on Roshar.

Questioner

Which Shard is that?

Brandon Sanderson

You'll have to read and find out. *gives card*

So yes, I don't think you've seen any worlds where they don't.

Salt Lake City signing ()
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Questioner

Steelheart and The Rithmatist, are they a part of the Cosmere as well?

Brandon Sanderson

They are not, yup.

Questioner

Just someone in line said that Steelheart was Hoid's planet, but I thought that they were not part of it.

Brandon Sanderson

They are not part of it. Anything that mentions Earth is something that I didn't want to be in the Cosmere.

FanX Spring 2019 ()
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Questioner

At the end of Oathbringer, or near the end, Kaladin is talking to Syl about not getting Shallan or whatever, and he says that she really just reminded him of someone, who is it that she reminded him of?

Brandon Sanderson

She reminded him of Tien, his brother, because his brother was a burgeoning Lightweaver, and Lightweavers, you'll notice, when they're around someone, that person starts to act a little bit more like a little bit of their best self. There's a bit of, also, counteraction to feelings of darkness and despair, it's just a natural Lightweaver sort of thing. And so, part of what Kaladin was drawing from Shallan was that feeling. I think it could've totally become love. And he's now cutting that off, he's saying it couldn't at all have become-- it could have. But that was part of what was drawing him in.

The Alloy of Law Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eighteen

Vindication

I didn't really intend Ranette to become a kind of "Q" figure, providing Wax with a cool gun. I had written into the outline (once I added her) that he got a new Sterrion from her.

However, I wanted some more quirk to her character. Beyond that, I felt that one of the things this book should do is show the ways that Allomancy—and dealing with Allomancers—has entered the common consciousness of the world. It makes sense to build guns to deal with them, just as now we build guns specifically to deal with armor, or specific situations a combatant might find themselves in.

I felt that I wanted to integrate the Metallic Arts more into real society. You may notice, for instance, that I worked hard in this book to work Allomancy and metallurgy into the way that people speak. The metaphors they use, the way they see the world. A person who is up to no good is a "bad alloy." That sort of thing.

It would be possible to overdo this, of course, but I feel—looking back objectively at the original trilogy—that I didn't do enough of it. That's okay, because in the original trilogy Allomancy was something that you kept hidden, and the common people didn't know much about it. Feruchemy was an underground art, and only the Inquisitors knew of Hemalurgy.

Now however, at least two of the three are very common in society. I wanted to account for that. Building Vindication, the special Allomancer's gun, was a way to integrate the two halves of this book—the historical western and the fantasy.

General Reddit 2019 ()
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Khalku

Roughly 2 years for a book means it'll be 4 years for the end of the first half and 14 years total from now, minimum, before the conclusion of Stormlight.

Brandon Sanderson

This is correct, I'm afraid.

Know that books 1-5 are what I consider a complete arc, with 6-10 being a slightly different (but intertwined) arc. So there is that--but these books just take a ton of time to write.

horvito770

Are we still going to see the same characters in arc 2? Or will it be a mostly deprecate story with certain aspects intertwined?

Brandon Sanderson

The second arc will still have some of the current main characters as main characters still. And it will be very connected to this story--but they are separate arcs, with a different focus. (The Heralds, for example, will be a larger part of the second arc.)

IcyRider8

Is it possible for current Stormlight character to make an appearance in other cosmere books? I was thinking about it, Dalinar as a Shard if he becomes one may appear somewhere else or some characters could become worldhoppers and explore another worlds. Would be really cool!

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible for current Stormlight characters to appear in other books. That's all I will say for now, though. :)

Phantine

Besides Wit?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, besides Wit.

ICon 2019 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

I often, when I'm building languages, there are a lot of different ways that I go. I am not a philologist like Tolkien was. I'm not a linguist. Peter is, my editorial assistant, but I am not. I have had a little bit of schooling in linguistics, but not enough to be creating complete con-langs out of nowhere. So I'm usually using a few tricks to develop my language, one of which is to look for historical languages and seek inspiration from them.

And the pitch for myself on the whole thing, in Fjorden, was what if the Vikings had created a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and had instead of conquering the world as Viking, Nordic destroyers, they had become a religious group. They're really based off of the Geats, which is Beowulf's people, which are Nor--are British, they're British Vikings, basically. And so when I was developing them, I was using a bit of Nordic--old Nordic and things like that--and I'm using a bit of old English, and just trying to get that feel. In Beowulf, because in Beowulf they have some Danes and you have some people from the British isles, and there's this crossing over, and things like this, and it's this interesting sort of mix and hodge-podge of cultures and languages, from, 1000AD, and i really liked that feel, I really liked that linguistic flavor, so to speak, and so, I was really reaching towards lots of names out of Beowulf as inspiration.

LTUE 2020 ()
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Questioner

I loved Warbreaker so much. It was one of my favorites. The only problem I had was the end was a little abrupt, with Siri and Susebron. Do you know, will we have a novella, or understand more what happens after that?

Brandon Sanderson

So when I write the sequel, I will make sure that I include some stuff. The sequel isn't about them. It's about Vivenna, but I will at least indicate what's going on with them. The whole ending was just a little bit abrupt on that one. It was more of a discovery-written book than my others. But yeah, that is one of its kind of drawbacks is that ending.

Questioner

Will we see them for like a little scene at all?

Brandon Sanderson

You might get a letter from them, is what I'm planning. It's possible I'll sneak into an interlude or something like that with them, but we'll have to see when I actually write it.

Warbreaker Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Lightsong Uses the Word "Statistical"

It's very subtle, and my editor tried to cut it three times as not being appropriate, but I managed to fight and get Lightsong's little thought about statistical probability into his narrative here. This is just one of several tiny clues in the way he thinks and talks that indicates he was an accountant before he Returned.

Boskone 54 ()
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Questioner

Is being a Knight Radiant at all genetic? Because you have Jasnah, Dalinar, and Renarin in the same family.

Brandon Sanderson

It is not genetic, however… Um… Families or people close to one another are more likely. It’s not genetic. So for instance, if everyone were adopted it would still have the same prevalence.

Questioner

Okay, fascinating!

Questioner

[interruption hard to hear]

Brandon Sanderson

Well, there are a couple of reasons for that. One is which, attracting the attention of a spren can mean that other spren are paying attention to that area. There are also things in the Cosmere (the shared universe of them) where people are connected spiritually. Um… and that’s part of the magic as well. So… You are more likely to become a Radiant if you know a Radiant.

17th Shard Forum Q&A ()
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Odium's_Shard

Does the Spiritual power used in any given magic system come from the supporting Shard itself, or through it from the remains of Adonalsium and the Power of Creation?

Brandon Sanderson

From the Shard in most cases. But it's also often built into the world innately, and so the Shard (if someone is holding it) doesn't always have control over who can or cannot use the magic.

Firefight release party ()
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Questioner

What is it like for you when you end a characters life? Like how is it for you emotionally?

Brandon Sanderson

How is it for me emotionally--

Questioner

Like when I lost a character in Mistborn, I couldn't read. I was done.

Brandon Sanderson

...The thing about it is I am a planner as a writer. So I have usually prepared a great deal. That means that I am prepared and ready for the character's passing. And the way that I usually build in character death is that it is more the characters demanding it than I'm killing them. It is them saying "This is the risk I demand to take" and me as the narrator saying "Well that risk has certain consequences and sometimes I will protect you from those consequences, sometimes I won't" The narrator will decide when I should and when I shouldn't, but the character decides when they make those risks, if that makes sense? It's kind of this pseudo-organic process, talking about characters is the one that is most organic to me-- Plots and worlds I can talk a lot about the nuts and bolts, with characters it's a feeling and an instinct of what they would do. And then I have to decide what I do with the consequences to that. But usually I've planned it out quite a bit ahead of time, it doesn't happen off the cuff for me and so I'm ready for it. I do apologize but I feel that it makes a stronger story.

Warbreaker Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Four - Part Two

Hawaii

Why, yes, I did visit Hawaii in the middle of writing this book. Did you notice?

Following Mistborn, I wanted to do a book set in a place that looked very different from the Final Empire. What's different from a burned-out wasteland? Why, a tropical paradise of course! One of the great things about being an author is the ability to justify going to Hawaii just so I could do research on how to properly describe the plants, landscape, and atmosphere in a place like that. It's really a tough job, but I'm willing to sacrifice for you all. No need to thank me.

Orem Signing ()
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JoyBlu

In order to have a Breath, do you have to be native to Nalthis?

Brandon Sanderson

Not to be given Breaths, but people who are not native to Nalthis are not born with that Investiture.

JoyBlu

So, you have to be born on that planet?

Brandon Sanderson

There are exceptions. Most of the time.

JoyBlu

If both your parents were Nalthians, and they moved off planet, and they had a child that was born on a different planet—

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible for that child to have a Breath, but it would not continue too long. But yes, that child would probably have a Breath, depending...

Joyblu

If both of his parents had Breaths.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmmhmm.

Berlin signing ()
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Questioner

I think [my class] enjoy [Skyward] because you have space fights for boys, and for the girls you have a female protagonist. We wondered if this was your intention for choosing a female protagonist?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it really wasn't. My intention for choosing a female protagonist was, she was the character I was most interested about writing in this world. I do try to make sure I have a balance, kind of in vague terms. But mostly I'm like, "Who is the character that this story matches best?" And Spensa, she was raised on Conan books, and she wants to be a warrior like that. And she's very different, she's very weird, in the sort of weird way I like to write people. And she's just somebody that I was kind of bursting at the seams to tell her story and to get her into a book.

The original idea for Skyward came from my love of stories about boys and dragons. There's this classic story that gets told. Kid finds a dragon egg, and then they hatch the dragon egg in secret and become this dragon rider. It's the story of How to Train Your Dragon. (Not a dragon egg, but he finds a dragon.) It's the story of Eragon. It's the story of one of my favorite books of all time, Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen. There's just a ton of this type of story. And one of the things I like to do is isolate a story's archetype, kind of try to break it down to "Why do I love it? What makes it work?" And then try to build it up in a new and different way.

Stormlight, the Bridge Four sequence, I built off of an underdog sports story. Like, if you've seen Hoosiers or Miracle or any of these stories about an underdog sports team who takes on the world. That sort of archetype became the Bridge Four sequence. And Skyward came from the kid and his dragon stories. And that was the seed of it. But Spensa was always going to be the protagonist of that. She was just a character I knew I needed to write.

Alloy of Law Seattle Signing ()
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WetlanderNW

In whose voice is the "Ars Arcanum" written? Hoid's?

Brandon Sanderson

I've avoided answering that question. It's either Hoid or a member of the Seventeenth Shard. That's as much answer as I'm giving anyone right now.

Footnote: It has since been revealed that the author of all the Ars Arcana is Khriss. He has also said she is not a part of the Seventeenth Shard. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2-jordancon-2016/#e180
Sources: Tor
WorldCon 76 ()
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Questioner

I was asking about the diets of the Shin, Stone Shamanism, because Szeth in one of the interludes talks about the stone walkers, being able to eat food on any day of the week, so I was wondering what that actually referred to.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Boskone 54 ()
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Questioner

We know that Hoid is really old. Is there anyone else around that same age who is not a Shardholder?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He communicates with one of these people by a letter in one of them.

Questioner

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Not very many, let’s say that.

Calamity Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

What would happen if you went to the Nightwatcher asked for your boon to have a boon and no curse?

Brandon Sanderson

You would…

Questioner

Probably end up with nothing?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the mood the Nightwatcher is in.  When you read Book 3 of Stormlight you’ll get to see a little bit of what the Nightwatcher is, and that will inform what you think about these things, okay?

Sasquan 2015 ()
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Questioner

How did you get started with Writing Excuses?

Brandon Sanderson

So Writing Excuses. My dopey brother, who barely reads any fantasy or science fiction or anything-- he's a computer programmer, I love him, but he is not a big reader. Who now has a Hugo award *laughter* He came and said "You know I'm taking a podcasting class, these are getting really popular. You should do one of these. You and Dan should get together and do an old-school radio drama and I'll record it." And I was not interested because "This is just like writing my books. I'm not interested." But I thought about that for several months and thought "You know--" I started listening to a lot of podcasts and thought "You know there isn't a really good writing podcast" I couldn't find one. Now since then I've found others who are good. But I wasn't able to find one, particularly one that had the quick and efficient style that I wanted. A lot of podcasts, I love them but they ramble. They just go on. You just listen for hours and hours and they sometimes get to the point. I wanted something focused. So I called up Jordan and I said "What about a writing podcast? People ask me for writing advice a lot. I have this degree, I've been trained as a teacher but I don't teach very much. What can I do to help people with writing?" And so I pitched it to Dan, got Jordan to do all of the editing and producing, and then went and grabbed Howard, who we didn't know that well at that time but I had seen him speak and knew he was clever and fun and I'm more of the dry professorly type. So I could play straight man and having Howard kind of be-- he calls it "I'm the bonehead I don't know anything" but he does know what's going on, he's just good at playing that role. And then we added Mary after we realized we were three white, Mormon dudes *laughter* with kind of the same view on life. Now granted Howard and Dan are insane so that's different *laughter* So we brought in Mary, who we fly in, or we fly to her, we don't like the Skyping podcasting thing so we do them in person. Just to make sure we were adding more variety to the podcast. Plus she had been the best guest we had had on, her puppeteering episode was great. So that's kind of the evolution of it.

This year is the year we decided to give it a different sort of structure. "Okay we've done this now for nine seasons, let's try something new with each subsequent season."

Salt Lake City Comic-Con 2014 ()
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Questioner

How did you come up with the idea for the cosmere? Because I just think it is the greatest idea ever and the more I learn about it the less I realize I know.

Brandon Sanderson

It was partially me wanting to do a big fantasy epic that also had room for standalones, I wanted to do both and so the idea of the hidden epic behind the scenes was really appealing for me 'cause it let me do everything I wanted to do.

West Jordan signing ()
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Questioner

We all love you as an author; are there any authors that you’ve been able to read that you would recommend?

Brandon Sanderson

I read a lot of Terry Pratchett. First of all because I think he’s a genius, but secondly because he’s a very different type of writer than I am. If he were writing books that were very similar to mine, I couldn’t read him as frequently, because I would worry about influence. It’s okay to read, and I love to read, and it’s okay to be influenced, but if I were to read as much of someone else as I did of Pratchett,my style would shift to theirs. It’s not going to happen with Pratchett, because he’s so distinctly different. So that’s a good reason for me to read Pratchett. Other than that, I do really like a lot of what people are doing. This year I spent half of my year reading Wheel of Time, and the other half reading the Hugo award nominees, because I wanted to vote in the Hugo awards, so I read a lot of those books. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was very good, and it was one of those.

I do like Pat Rothfuss quite a bit, I mean he is really really good, in ways I wished I could be. I mean he is just great. There are things that I think I do better, but there are areas that he does way better than I do.

I mean we do have different talent areas. I mean Rothfuss is able to write in a way that is just beautiful, it feels like prose, it feels like poetry. It feels like every line is poetry, but it doesn’t distract you. A lot of people will try to do that, and I’ll be like “You’re trying too hard,” or “You don’t have a good story.” But for him, I read it, and it’s beautiful, and it doesn’t burden the story. And I know of very few people who are able to do what he does in that way. He also, and this is one thing that makes him a genius, he’s able to write a main character that I really don’t like, and yet I love reading about him. The character is very deeply flawed, and yet it’s fascinating, and that is something that I haven’t seen someone do in that same way—I mean George Martin can kind of do it, but for him it’s more like I loathe them as individuals and I just watch the train wreck, but with Rothfuss, it’s “You are not a really great guy, and you don’t think you’re a great guy, and you’re kind of a jerk, but you’re also really interesting to read, and I like you while I dislike you at the same time.” And that’s a really interesting talent he has.

Calamity release party ()
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Questioner

What is Tia's cola brand?

Brandon Sanderson

Tia's cola brand is, um...

Questioner

<Non-determined>?

Brandon Sanderson

Non-- Like it's a in-world cola. I just didn't want to mention a name of one. If-- If I were going to choose one, it would be something like RC, or something like that.

Questioner

Yeah. Something obscure and random.

Brandon Sanderson

Like... obscure. Kind of indie cola. Probably one I've never even heard of, right?

Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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Nallebjurn

Is it a possibility that we in the future get to see the characters from Children of the Nameless represented on magic cards?

Brandon Sanderson

It is a possibility, but as the other responder mentioned, I don't have any control over this--I think it's likely, but I certainly couldn't say when. I think the fact that Dack got a card--after being created by the comic book team--bodes well for Davriel, at the very least.

ICon 2019 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

So, what's going on here is that when I was writing Elantris... number one, Elantris is my only book that I wrote not knowing if it would get published. For those who don't know, Elantris is my sixth novel and I wrote thirteen before I sold it. And so, I was finishing my thirteenth unpublished novel when Elantris finally sold and so Mistborn is number fourteen. I didn't publish any of those other ones.

So, Elantris was the only book that I wrote without a professional team behind me. And even those early Mistborn books, I did have assistants and things... For instance, I now have a team of fifteen people that work for me, of which nine are full-time. The Brandon Sanderson business is... we take this very seriously and I have two full-time editors who work on my staff in addition to my editors at the publishers.

When I wrote Elantris, I didn't have that whole team backing me, it was just me. So, when we did the tenth anniversary edition, I said, "Let's look and see if people can actually walk in the time I say to the places I say. Let's make sure you can actually see the things they say you should be able to see". And lo and behold, they're like "You say he looks out of his window and sees Elantris, but you put his house over here and there's stuff in the way" and things like this. This is the sort of stuff that, as a writer, it's just really hard to do without a team specifically looking to ask "Can a person walk to... this distance?" and things like that.

Now that I have those resources, I was able to just update it. All the changes to Elantris, none of them change the story, but all of them were meant for these reasons: People can't actually walk this distance or it takes them too long. Like, it would take fifteen minutes, you say it takes an hour... what happened? It's just easier to say "No, it took fifteen minutes", right, and stuff like that. So, those are what the updates were mostly.

With me adding the scene - I don't know if you guys put in the bonus scene - *affirmative from the interviewer* the bonus Hoid scene in the back, which... the story of Hoid, if you don't know, is... he's the character that connects all the Cosmere. When I first started writing, Elantris was the first book ever I put him in and then he appeared in Dragonsteel, which is an unpublished novel, and in White Sand and in Aether of Night, but just little, tiny cameos.

My feeling was - early on - that people wouldn't put up with this <false> behind the scenes continuity. I thought it would scare people off of the series and things like that. I don't want someone to pick up Elantris and be like "Oh, to understand Elantris, I have to read all of that". I just wanted them to be able to enjoy Elantris, but I found out very quickly: fans, number one, loved it. They weren't intimidated by it. Plus, the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe] has done way more of that, right? *laughter from audience* When I started, the MCU wasn't out yet. People were not used to, you know, dealing with continuity between different series and things like that on the level they're willing to now. But I found that, even with the early books, there were at least people like "No, you can trust us more, you can give us more of this. It won't turn us off to the books if we know that Hoid is around" and so, I've started... like, you know, I wrote into Elantris a little bit more Hoid for a bonus scene at the end, stuff like that.

Legion Release Party ()
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R'Shara

The Fused were looking for something at the palace at Kholinar at the end. Were they looking for Hoid's Cryptic?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they were. Good question! Did people think they were looking for the black gemstone? That would be the other big guess. But they were looking for the Cryptic.

General Reddit 2018 ()
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Jamester86

So something I've noticed in the fantasy genre that I love is that my 2 favorite authors (Sanderson and Rothfuss) don't use the traditional fantasy medieval setting (that I love) of castles, knights, feudalism etc. Now there are plenty of great authors that do (GRRMartin comes to mind as one that does it right), BUT the truth is, a good story eclipses all minor details like setting. An example I always give is that Patrick Rothfuss could write about brushing your teeth and it would make a fascinating read, and Sanderson would make an intriguing plot with amazing characterization throughout the dental hygiene experience. But I digress.

My question (If Brandon would be so kind as to show up, and if not, if anyone has any insight) is why; why doesn't the cosmere have any traditional medieval fantasy settings? Mistborn has keeps, but the society is not the traditional technology and setting of the medieval time period, nor do any of the other worlds given us.

Brandon Sanderson

There are both in-world reasons and writing reasons.

The writing reasons are obvious. I grew up on a steady diet of fantasy in a faux-medieval setting. I felt that some of these stories were really good, and enjoyed them--but at the same time, I felt the genre had been there and done that. In some ways, GRRM doing fantasy with the eye of a true medievalist provided a capstone to this era of fantasy.

When I sat down to write, didn't want to write what I was tired of reading. Dragonsteel (which never got published) was bronze age, White Sand was industrial, and Elantris was (kind of) Renaissance. (As you noticed, Mistborn is somewhere around 1820's. I modeled a lot of the society around the fascinating culture/industry of canals as shipping lanes that happened in England right before railroads took over.)

The other big reason, writing wise, is that I feel some of the magics that I enjoy dealing with in my settings need a certain near-industrial mindset to be interesting. The stories I want to tell are about people applying scientific principles to magic--and about the commodification and the economics of magic. Those are early-modern era stories.

The in-world reasoning I have is that on some of these planets, those eras existed--but the books are taking place when the stories of the worlds start smashing into one another. In addition, however, the Shards have an influence on this, because of things they saw happen on their own home planet.

The Well of Ascension Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sazed's Arrival

I debated how to have the crew react to the koloss threat. It seemed that having them get worked up about it would be out of character. They all know there's little they can do at the moment–the koloss are too far away to be a pertinent threat, and the other armies have them boxed in.

I eventually realized that the crew might see the koloss as an advantage. They are an opportunistic group, and have been feeling overwhelmed by events. Any change in the status could end up being an advantage to them.

So it is that twenty-thousand monsters marching on their city gets dismissed almost as easily as Sazed's warnings about the mists. The crew members aren't fools, but they are pragmatists. They have enough to worry about at the moment. More nebulous threats will wait.

Tor.com Q&A with Brandon Sanderson ()
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Maru Nui

You've said you lifted the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel, what would Kaladin have been doing if not running bridges and what will happen to Dragonsteel without the Plains?

Brandon Sanderson

Both good questions. I've spoken before of the big changes that happened when I wrote The Way of Kings 2.0. One of them was bringing in the Shattered Plains. The problem was that there was a big hole in Kaladin's storyline, because in the original manuscript of The Way of Kings (major spoiler), he accepted the Shardblade. That was the prologue of the book; Kaladin—then known as Merin—saved Elhokar's life. They tried to take the Shardblade away from him, and Dalinar insisted that he be given it. So Merin was made a Shardbearer in the very first scenes of the book. And from that point, his character never worked. So in doing the second version of the book, I decided that no, we've got to build more into this, we've got to dig deeper, and he has to make the opposite decision, which is where the entire framework of him turning down the Shardblade and then being betrayed all came from. The problem was then what was he going to do? I knew I wanted him to have therefore ended up sold into slavery and have terrible things happen to him, but I couldn't figure out what Kaladin was going to do and was unable to write the book until I mashed in the Shattered Plains and said, "Ah, that was what he needed to be doing all along."

I really don't know what I'll do in Dragonsteel without that now. The problem is that it was the part of Dragonsteel that worked, but it was the part that was most at odds with the story in Dragonsteel. The story that I wanted to tell was the first half of the book, which is the more boring part. Hopefully as a better writer now I can make that part more interesting, but that was the core of what Dragonsteel was. The Shattered Plains was always just going to be a small diversion, but when I wrote it it was fascinating, and I ended up pouring tons of effort and time into it. In many ways it was a distraction, a deviation, a beautiful darling. So for a long time I've been thinking, "I can't kill my darling, because that's the most exciting part of the book." Yet it was at odds with what the story of the book was originally intended to be. I wasn't as good at controlling my stories back then, making them come out to have the tone I wanted. Anyway, we'll have to approach that when I actually write Dragonsteel.

The Way of Kings Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Three

Shallan

I chose to use Shallan as my other main character in Part One, rather than Dalinar, because I felt her sequence better offset Kaladin's. He was going to some very dark places, and her sequence is a little lighter.

She is the only "new" main character in this book. Kaladin (under a different name) was in Way of Kings Prime, and Dalinar was there virtually unchanged from how he is now. The character in Shallan's place, however, never panned out. That left me with work to do in order to replace Jasnah's ward.

Shallan grew out of my desire to have an artist character to do the sketches in the book. Those were things I'd wanted to do forever, but hadn't had the means to accomplish when writing the first version of the book. I now had the contacts and resources to do these drawings, like from the sketchbook of a natural historian such as Darwin.

One of the things that interests me about scientists in earlier eras is how broad their knowledge base was. You really could just be a "scientist" and that would mean that you had studied everything. Now, we need to specialize more, and our foundations seem to be less and less generalized. A physicist may not pay attention to sociology at all.

Classical scholars were different. You were expected to know languages, natural science, physical science, and theology all as if they were really one study. Shallan is my stab at writing someone like this.