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General Reddit 2016 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

When I was working on Mistborn 2 with my editor, he asked me, "Are Vin and Elend sleeping together?" I said, "Absolutely." He requested some confirmation of it on the page, and I explained something that has always been my policy, and one that has served me well.

I consider what I'm writing to be a very detailed script, which you the reader direct in your mind. Each person's version of the books will be slightly different, but in sometimes telling ways. The subtext of conversations will change, the visualizations of the characters, even larger implications are changed, distorted, and played with by the reader as they build the story in their imagination.

This is an area in which I prefer to leave the answers to the reader. For those who wish to imagine that the characters are having sex, then the implications are often there. (Though I've gotten better at that balance, I feel.) For those who don't want to imagine it, and wish to pretend the characters are living different standards, I will often leave the opportunity for that--unless it is a plot point I consider relevant.

Certainly, my upbringing and beliefs are an influence on this. I'm obviously more circumspect in these areas than I am in others.

But yes, for those who don't want to pretend otherwise, Vin and Elend were sleeping together. And Wax and Lessie never had a real ceremony. My editor tried to remove the word "wife" from one of the later books, and I insisted, as the shift in Wax's thinking was a deliberate point on my part--related to his changing psychology in the books. But even to him, it's more a 'common law wife' thing.

As a side note you'll likely find amusing, I do get a surprising number of emails from people who complain to me (even take me to task) for the amount of objectionable material I include in my books, and ask me why I have to wallow in filth as much as I do. I'm always bemused by this, as I doubt they have any idea how the books are perceived in this area by the general fantasy reading world...

legobmw99

Does this mean that Wayne and MeLaan's fling is "a plot point [you] consider relevant"?

Calling it right now, Wayne's... intimate... knowledge of Kandra biology will be a point on which the fate of the entire cosmere hinges. Because why wouldn't it.

Brandon Sanderson

The plot point isn't exactly what you think it is, but yes.

One of Wayne's roles is that of a character who points out absurdity, either through word or action. There is a certain level of absurdity in what I described up above, and I realize that. Some things I talk about explicitly in books, some things I don't.

On a certain level, Wayne showing that people do--yes indeed--actually have (and talk about) sex in Sanderson books is there for the same reason that a court jester could mock the king. When as a writer you notice you're doing something consistently, even if you decide you like the thing that you're doing, I feel it's a good idea to add a contrast somewhere in the stories.

It's one of the reasons that Hoid, though a very different kind of character from Wayne, has more leeway in what he says in Stormlight.

dragontales3

I know this was a few months ago, but I have a follow up question (huge fan of your work btw!): Do you purposely mention characters having sex to show that they are maybe not "good guys"/"bad guys" are mentioned having sex as a continuation of their lowered morals? Like OP mentioned with rape, of course that would be a sign that someone is a terrible person, but I can think of several other instances in your books were someone engages in consensual sex who later turns out to be more morally loose.

ETA: I mean premarital sex

Brandon Sanderson

I don't personally consider this to be a sign of who is good or bad, but I can't speak for how the morals that shape my own society might affect my unconscious application of morals in my books. That's certainly something for critics to analyze, not for me to speak on.

If it's relevant, though, I don't perceive it this way. More, the people I mention engaging in premarital sex are ones more likely to reject societal mores. (Such as MeLaan.) I also am more likely to do it for characters who are not primary viewpoint characters, for reasons I've mentioned--the ability to allow plausible deniability for readers who wish to view the characters in a certain way. I can see myself unconsciously letting myself say more about villains for a similar reason, though I don't intend it to be causal.

JordanCon 2016 ()
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Questioner

If the highstorms existed prior to the Shards' arrival, what's the relationship between the highstorms and the Stormfather?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh good question. I was wondering if someone was going to ask that… So, I'll tr-- Let me see… *sighs*

You know, I'm actually going to RAFO this one. *laughter* And let me tell you why, because I mean, I want to give you some reasons to be interested in the things that Dalinar will be talking about with the Stormfather. So this is a RAFO with an explicit promise that book 3-- These are things that are covered now that we have bonded the Stormfather to a person who can now ask some of these questions. I could totally just tell you now, but where's the fun in that? Read book three.

Shardcast Interview ()
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Ian Weiry Writer

You killed Rayse this book. Could you talk about why you decided to kill him off, and have Taravangian be Odium instead. Was that always part of the plan?

Brandon Sanderson

I always work in a way where I have different options and opportunities. Was it always the thing that I was absolutely going to do? No, I keep myself open on some of these things. 

The reason Rayse needed to go: he had been essentially defeated at the end of Oathbringer, when Dalinar does not go over to him. All of his rage, and everything he's trying to do cannot make that happen. He's defeated, at least in a philosophical sense. Now you can bring a defeated enemy back to be a threat again. You can find a new way to make them a threat, but I knew - in this book - Kaladin was not going to fall to him either. But once you've had two books in a row with the characters machinations not - things stymied by the heroes. I needed a different villain at that point.

And I also think that [al]though a lot of deep into the cosmere people are interested in the original Shards and getting their stories, for the average reader Taravangian is a much more identifiable villain. And I've been building him from book one to be not just really scary, but a philosophical opposite to Dalinar. These are all the reasons this book needed to go the way it did.

It has benefits and costs. The cost is Odium stops being the evil you don't know. The evil you don't know is a very powerful force in fantasy literature. The evil you do know does different things. And I lose that evil you don't know though you still have a bit of it, because the power of Odium - the Shard itself - I wouldn't say has volition completely, but it's still there and its a thing. It is constrained by Taravangian and directed by Taravangian, but it's the rage of a deity separated from its morals should be a scary thing. In the hands of someone who is essentially a fallible mortal, should be an even more scary thing. Rayse had gotten to the point where I no longer felt - if I was going to write the books the way I did. This basically became inevitable when I swapped and made Dalinar's book book three. [host reactions: OHhh sure!] I knew something big needed to shift, but fortunately I had several options. There is a version of The Stormlight Archive, where this doesn't happen. I think it's a worse version, but until something is written no matter how much something is in the outline, it's not canon even to me. I like to be willing to reassess what I'm doing.

Talking the other direction, the foreshadowing I put in the books the more I foreshadow, the more I do, the more that locks in what I need to do going forward, because I don't want to undermine that foreshadowing. 

There's a longwinded perhaps a little wishy washy answer to you. I can tell you why I made the decision, but I can't - the outlines are these things that are really organic, because I'm always working on them, and will often have lots of division points, these are different places it can go - because of the way I write characters.

I'm sure this will cause contention. But I did not decide in the original outline, who Shallan would end up with, or who anyone would end up with. I write character relationships as I feel they are appropriate on the page, and I revise the outline to match from that how things are feeling and how it's going. I know there are some shippers out there who are like 'that means there was a version of the ship I wanted, and you didn't do it. It was the nefarious beta readers who forced you not to! [Chaos denies] It was ?Calin's fault!' [hosts laugh]. I'm sure you've heard that before. I don't want to fuel that because these decisions are made not necessarily based on beta reader feedback. These decisions are made based on me giving life to the characters, and feeling where I feel they would legitimately they would go. And rebuilding my outline to match.

While I outline a lot more than my contemporaries, I am not a slave to the outline. I will change major things such as moving Dalinar's flashback sequences to book three which had ramifications all down the line. Or deciding I need to do more with Eshonai and Venli earlier in the series, which had other ramifications to their viewpoints later on because I feel it makes the best story.

Legion Release Party ()
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Shadow Guardian

If you had to pick three topics to learn and you have an aspect like Stephen?

Brandon Sanderson

Great question. I would love to have an interpreter with me who can interpret all languages. Maybe... because there's no one aspect who does all of that. It might be too big of an aspect. But I would love to be able to go on tour and be able to do that. So that would be definitely number one. Probably a writer, to look over my shoulder and improve my books. Speed up the editing process, and things like that. And then I would pick something probably like physics or chemistry. Something I know a little bit about, enough to know that I really don't know what I'm doing. Because I have to rely sometimes on Peter and people on physics questions and things like that, and it would be nice to just have it.

Skyward release party ()
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Stormlightning

Where you *inaudible* Hoid as a Lightweaver in Era 2?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid was a Lightweaver in Dragonsteel.

Stormlightning

I mean a spren Lightweaver. Unless the timeline's still, really--

Brandon Sanderson

Meaning was I planning for him to become a Lightweaver?

Stormlightning

Before Era 2 since we thought Era 2 was going to be Era 3.

Brandon Sanderson

 Hoid has never quite stopped being a Lightweaver. He is very happy to be fully empowered with things.

Stormlightning

Does that mean he was not fully a Lightweaver?

Brandon Sanderson

You will find out someday. His magic was not fully functional, but he was Lightweaving in Way of Kings

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Argent

Now that we have canon art of Ishar, Shalash, Jezrien, and Vedel, what Rosharan nationalities would you say they resemble the most?

Brandon Sanderson

Jezrien and Vedel would be seen as Alethi, most likely. Shalash would be seen as Azish, while Ishar would be seen as Shin, probably.

NightWillReign

Wait, but if Ishar looks like he’s from Shinovar, how did the Tukkari accept him as the God-Priest?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO--but is a question you're supposed to be asking.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 ()
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Overlord Jebus

Adolin is hit by Parshendi lightning, and then his Plate reacts and starts blocking out the light from the rest of the lightning strikes. Is he awakening his Shardplate as well as his Blade?

Brandon Sanderson

So Shardplate didn't have as much of a problem as the Blades did, so if someone else were wearing that they could have had the same effect.

Overlord Jebus

So it's more just a function of the Shardplate, really.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, but I mean the Shardplate needs to be a little more aware-- You know. It didn't have as much of an effect on Shardplate as the Blades.

Overlord Jebus

That being the Recreance?

Brandon Sanderson

The Recreance, yeah.

Salt Lake City signing ()
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Questioner

When Marsh and Sazed go to the Conventical of Seran, Marsh kind of tells Sazed, "You go do whatever you want, I gotta go do something, I'll be back." What was Marsh's purpose there? Why was he there?

Brandon Sanderson

I intend to do some Marsh stuff, from his viewpoint, eventually. I don't know if I'll ever get to it. There is actually something there. There is something that I intended to leave a place for me to play later on with. So the answer is a RAFO, but a legitimate RAFO. Not a "I'm trying to lead you on," or a "I don't feel like answering this right now."

Cosmere.es Interview ()
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Cosmere.es

We know that for example we have, I think it's Horneater for the next Kickstarter about Rock. And the other question that sometimes people ask is when will be the novella between The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance and if maybe you can say who's going to be the main character or not yet.

Brandon Sanderson

Right, no I can talk a little bit about it. So, it was going to be Lopen. But in Dawnshard I did a really solid job with his character arc, the sort of things I was planning to do with him and I feel like if I went back and did a novella with him now, it actually just wouldn't land very well. I managed to get it into Dawnshard and it really works and fits. That doesn't mean I won't do one focused about him later but it means that doing one early on is probably not going to happen. I might still do the thing I've always wanted to do, if I do the novella between 1 and 2, I might still do the Lopen mini-story about him being king, because he jokes about that all the time. And so now that I know it's not Lopen, I'm kind of searching through and being like, okay who's it going to be? Very high on the list of options is Teft, and I'd have to look and see, is there really a lot I can add to his arc or will it just be things you've already known? It's tricky at that point because I don't want to do anything that--the danger is I do something that would then [have] really neat implications being addressed in future books, and then it's not because I'm writing it after the fact. And that might drive me to go further afield to somebody who's much more of a smaller character, if that makes sense. We'll see what I end up doing. There are ideas I have, but none of them are really popping out to me right now.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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R'Shara

I was wondering if we can take the Death Rattles as written? So night is night, not knight. Reigns is reigns and not rains or reins, etc? Since they're written down by someone who is listening to someone else speaking, there could be confusion there. Then again, they're speaking Alethi, or the local tongue, and being translated to English, so their homonyms would be different. Also, are they always about the future, or can they be about the past?

Brandon Sanderson

So, this is a tricky one. I was tempted to go into it during the reigns/rains one--but since there is a follow up, let me see if I can explain it.

You note the mechanism I've said before that I rely upon, that of the idea that the books are done "in translation" from their original tongues. This is to give us another layer of plausibility in the linguistics--but it does introduce a kind of wildcard here in the interpreter. (Who is me.)

I am not against using word usages similar to homonyms as plot points, so long as the characters themselves are capable of making the misunderstanding. (The ending of the Mistborn trilogy involves some of these types of word and definition related issues.)

So you're not wrong to asking questions like this. I use them very sparingly, but I do use them. In that specific case, however, I was not intending there to be confusion.

Shadows of Self Newcastle UK signing ()
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Questioner

What is your favorite book that you've written?

Brandon Sanderson

My favorite book that I've written? I can't pick a favorite. It's like trying to pick a favorite child. 

Questioner

You always have a favorite child though...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah *laughter*, no favorite children, I just skyped with my children and they showed me their Halloween costumes, it's the cutest thing ever, but the littlest one, he's two, he's a Minion and he's so cute as a Minion, because he can barely talk as it is... and then the middle one is a skeleton and he just said "it's so scary dad, it's so scary, you're going to be so scared" and then he puts it on and I have to pretend to be scared. He scares himself looking at the mirror. And the seven year old's in karate now so he bought a ninja outfit and he thinks he's a real ninja because he's learning karate.

Skype Q&A ()
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Lightweaver Gaz

SPEAKING OF Shallan's Red I would like to know what his actual name is for fanfiction purposes.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh. Fanfiction purposes... I have not named him. I just call him Red.

Ravi

This is the "Ultra Gaz" fan I told you about. And she wants to write a fanfic about--

Brandon Sanderson

I don't have a name for him right now. If you write a fanfic, he'll call himself Red. So that's reasonable.

/r/fantasy AMA 2011 ()
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alanthiana

Allomancy can be such an internal form of magic... how would you see it being dealt with visually, if Mistborn were ever to have a TV/movie version?

Brandon Sanderson

Pushes and Pulls are going to be done (if this version of the film gets made) by having metals glow blue when an Allomancer is using their powers. There will be visual or auditory cues for the other powers as well.

State of the Sanderson 2016 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Tertiary Projects

Aether of Night

No progress. (Though you can still get a copy of the draft I wrote back in college, around the time I wrote Elantris. Also, requisite request that you sign up for my mailing list. I give some free fiction away on the newsletter every time I send it, and the chapters I set aside as Patreon rewards usually do make their way on here eventually, though many months later.)

Status: On hiatus (but still part of the Cosmere sequence, with seeds of the story already in other books).

JordanCon 2016 ()
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Questioner

You called Nightblood a miscrea-- a misformed Shardblade.

Brandon Sanderson

A Shardblade created with a different magic system.

Questioner

Is that an intentional creation or mimicry? Or--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is intentional.

Moderator

Intentional on the part of the person who made Nightblood…

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

General Reddit 2020 ()
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ABC_Testament_Soulcaster.png

ABC

In Rhythm of War, Navani mentions that perhaps Soulcasters, specifically Soulcaster metal, are another form of a Radiant spren. She uses the line ''Somehow the ancient spren had been coaxed into manifesting as Soulcasters instead of Blades?". Could this somehow be related to Testament and the brokenness of the Soulcaster Lin Davar and then Shallan had?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by related. But just in case, Testament was not the Soulcaster. But the fact that spren become Soulcasters is related to this in some ways.

Skyward release party ()
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Questioner

Do you have any updates on the Dark One TV series?

Brandon Sanderson

It's got an interesting history. Dark One is one I've been working on for a long time, and I actually wrote out a big pitch for it when I pitched Apocalypse Guard to Random House, and I said, "Here's one of the other ideas I'm gonna write someday." They're like, "Woo. We'll keep this in our binder." And that binder made its way to their TV department, who read the pitch and was like, "We have to have this!" and came to me and said "Can we buy this?" I'm like, "Well, I haven't written the books yet." They're like, "We don't care. We want this pitch." And the pitch, the idea is that a young man in our world, a knight shows up to assassinate him, and he finds out that there's kind of a Narnia-esque fantasy world that his father visited when he was a kid and screwed up, and they are super mad. And they have prophecies that this kid is gonna be the next Dark One, and so they're gonna assassinate him before the whole epic-fantasy-thing can happen, and the Dark One tries to conquer the world. They're just gonna take him out first. And so it's kind of this twisting the story on its head idea. And it's a really fun pitch.

So they bought it from me. I expanded it to a 30-page outline, sent it to them. I can't tell you who they got, but they've got somebody very big attached to it, which I'm very excited about, someone who I was excited about that my assistant Peter just about fell over dead when he heard the person attached. And we should be flying out to do pitches to studios and places early part of next year. We wanted to be doing it now, but I have a book launch, and they want me there with them.

It's going really well. It's been a wonderful experience. I'm very hopeful with that, I think it will be a very interesting story if it happens.

The Well of Ascension Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Vin Goes to Kredik Shaw

Originally, the Well of Ascension WAS in the mountains. That's the big reason for the rewrite of the ending. This section of the book felt TOO disjointed with the rest of the novel, and I felt that I needed to move the Well to Luthadel. That way, the fight for the city meant something–and I didn't have to send Vin out, have her come back, then send her north yet again.

It works far better this way. Of course, I had to do some major rewriting–and I had to explain why the Well isn't in the mountains. But, in this case, fixing one thing gave me motivation for fixing something else. I had worried about how easy it was to find the Well, and how difficult it would be to take Vin and Elend into the mountains to find it. All very awkward. Both the history and the current story work much better when I decided to have the Lord Ruler have moved the Well down and put his city on top of it.

Stormlight Three Update #5 ()
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geoffw35

When a writer can do something like this: Shallan killing the father she loves while whispering that lullaby, I know I've found a gem! I had to stop listening (audiobook) at that point and absorb what I experienced. What an emotional hit! I'd guess you were proud of that one.

Brandon Sanderson

I am indeed.

Made a little creepier by the fact that I had my Father in Law (a semi-pro musician) write the lullaby, then I used it this way...

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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minefieldpotato

So, it's mentioned throughout the Mistborn books that Allomancers can 'see' their metal reserves to determine how much they have left. What allows them to do this? I really have no theories, except the boring one: 'It's an innate property of Allomancy and its interaction with Preservation.'

Brandon Sanderson

It's just an innate part of the magic. Not really because of Preservation. A Surgebinder will know when their stormlight is running out. It's more similar to how you might know your strength is running out when you're holding something heavy, though obviously more delineated.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 ()
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Questioner

Are the [singers] living computers, and are spren variables in a computer system?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The answer is: I would say no, I wouldn't consider this. But I have considered this idea, and there is a place in the cosmere where people are using spren-- not spren but something similar on another planet, for a little bit of computation. Which I want to be able to write that story some day, but-- It's a very fun thing that I dug down a rabbit hole in one time. You might see this somewhere in the cosmere, but it's not actually Roshar. I wouldn't call them that.

Shire Post Mint Mistborn Coin AMA ()
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Argent

  • In analyzing the glyphs we've seen in the books, we've noticed that some of their "components" resemble the Thaylen symbols for consonants. The Thaylen don't have letters for vowels though - does that mean that glyphs also disregard vowels 100% of the time, or do vowels affect the way a glyph is written? For example, would "viv" and "vev" look exactly the same, or would there be some differences?
    • If vowels do affect the glyphs, do they affect them by somehow changing the consonant lines?
  • Our best theory for deciphering new glyphs is that the glyph "letters" actually correspond to two English letters - so writing "vev" is more akin to writing <ve> followed by <v_> (or perhaps <_v> followed by <ev>). How much of this is in the right direction?

Isaac Stewart

Good questions! The vowels don't affect the glyphs any more than the consonants do. I'm going to RAFO about the glyphs relationship with Thaylen. You're on the right track, however, on half of the word being written and then mirrored. That said, please remember that glyphs aren't meant to be read or even deciphered. They're learned in the same way that we can look at dozens of stylized pictures of cats and still be able to tell that it's a cat.

Argent

So, you've said that glyphs are not meant to be read several times, and I know that, but I think I've been misunderstanding you. I've been assuming they are just too complex and decorated - like an extravagant font. Are you saying they are not a hard writing system instead?

There are obviously some rules to how the glyphs are designed, but does your reply mean that there is always a little bit of "I'll do what looks cool"? Kind of like how the band Koяn decided to flip the "R" - it's still recognizable enough, but there's no rule that says when you can and can't do that?

Isaac Stewart

Let's see if I can explain further. Glyphs are recognized rather than read. If you learn the letters in an alphabet and you come upon an unfamiliar word, you can be reasonably certain you'll know how to pronounce it if you're already fluent in the language. You can at least read it, and you might know from context what it means. Glyphs are different in that if you come upon an unfamiliar glyph you might be able to guess what it means by its shape, but until someone tells you "that glyph means 'soup'" then you're still guessing.

The calligrapher's guild has rules they follow in creating glyphs, and there's a lot of artistic license, like the flipped R in Koяn, for the very reason that the guild isn't expecting people to read the glyphs. Those in the guild--and some scholars who are interested in how glyphs morph over time--might be able to decipher some of the glyphs for academic purposes.

How's that? Any clearer?

Argent

It is clearer, yes :( I think we might still bug you every now and then, but I am coming to terms with the idea that we won't get anywhere near the level of understanding we have for the women's script, for example. It just felt so close, with the slight similarities between some glyph components and the Thaylen letters, you know?

Isaac Stewart

There's definitely a relationship between the Thaylen letters and some of the glyph components (although it's not the biggest part of what makes up the glyphs). Imagine if back in the middle ages a culture decided to use some latin letters as the basis for symbols so that it would be easy to mark things for people who don't read. This hypothetical culture threw in a smattering of other alphabets in there too. So, if that sort of thing developed naturally over time with phonemes and symbols getting added as the culture encountered other cultures, then you might get a bit of an idea of what's going on with the glyphs.

ccstat

I admit I'm still a little confused. The glyphs are recognized based on their shapes, but those shapes also appear to be highly mutable. I'm not sure how to reconcile those two ideas.

If an established glyph can be stylized into a crown, a skyeel, or the other shapes that highprinces use as their symbols, how does someone associate the new shape with the standard one with which they are familiar? Does the stylized version preserve some core recognizable shape (since the constituent graphemes alone wouldn't be enough to decipher the meaning)? Or does each instance of a glyph have to be learned separately?

Isaac Stewart

I agree that those two ideas are hard to reconcile! Let me see if I can explain it a bit more without giving too much away.

There's a calligrapher's guild that creates (and I suspect controls to a certain extent) the official glyphs. If a new glyph needs to be made, they do it in a way they see is proper, based on canonized rules that have developed over time.

That doesn't keep amateur glyphmakers from creating things from time to time, and there's certainly a shift in shape as glyphs morph through the ages. The Guild is probably a lot like the Oxford English Dictionary folks, occasionally canonizing popular but unauthorized glyphs that get used so much that they become ubiquitous.

Usually it's just guild members who are morphing glyphs into poems and such. If a nobleperson wants a glyph for their house, they go to someone authorized by the guild, and they'll stylize things into a crown, a hammer, etc. A good example of this will be seen in one of the pieces of art in the new book. We've seen Dalinar's Tower and Crown. Watch for the Sword and Crown and compare the shapes inside the Sword with the shapes inside the Tower. Maybe that will help with some understanding.

Holiday signing ()
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chasmfriend

Who is Lady Truth?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, who do you think Lady Truth is?

chasmfriend

Tindwyl is who I hope it is. *long silence* Why is that a secret?

Brandon Sanderson

Because there are certain things I am not sure how much more I want to say in the books, or how much things-- So it's not that it needs to be a secret or something big and mysterious is happening, but it's because if I speak now I risk undermining things that I might do and I don't want to risk that even if there's a decent chance that whatever I say won't have anything to do with it. So a lot of times my RAFO's are "I know the answer to this, it's not a big secret, but I am not ready to just pin it down". Does that make sense? You've already pried a couple important things out of me so...

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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little_wilson

Do you know when we'll start seeing The Way of Kings? Sample chapters in particular. This series sounds freaking amazing and I can't wait to see more of it. So, yeah..now that the first draft is finished (congratulations, by the way), I'm quite curious...

Brandon Sanderson

My plan is to start releasing sample chapters of Kings next year sometime in the spring. Not too close to draw any attention away from the release of The Gathering Storm, but far enough ahead of the Kings launch to give a good preview. February, perhaps? If you don't see them by then, I officially give you permission to send my assistant a reminder email to 'poke' me into doing it.

General Reddit 2015 ()
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CrystalShadow

So is Harmony as excited for the space Mistborn as we are?

Brandon Sanderson

It will have four trilogies now. (Though part of me thinks I might need another interim cyberpunkish one between 1980's and full Space Opera.) Right now, though, I have four eras planned.

As for your original question, Harmony is excited, but also worried, perhaps in equal measure.

Stormlight Three Update #8 ()
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rsjac

Iirc he wrote all the Szeth and Dalinar flashbacks to see which set would fit better in Oathbringer, then settled on Dalinar

Peter Ahlstrom

This didn't actually happen. He was planning to do that, but the Dalinar chapters were just too good, and while he wrote them the way the book fit together became organized in his mind.

YouTube Livestream 24 ()
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Chloe

How does the revision process for Alcatraz differ from your adult series?

Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz is a very different process from other books, because when I write the Alcatraz books, I like to discovery write the whole book. And I usually approach this like an improv comedy sketch. Where what I'll do is, I'll brainstorm a bunch of 'props' to use in the story. For the first one, this was talking dinosaurs. Just things that occur to me. I make a big list; I'm like, "I have to draw at least three or four items from this list and make a story around it." And then I just start writing.

Because the books are improv, the revision process, then, needs to do more work to give a structure to the story. So they are really off-beat and a little off-kilter as I write them. I try to retain as much of that as possible, but inject actual story, foreshadowing, and these sorts of things that don't I don't have to do in my other books, generally, because I've outlined them. But I think discovery writing is an important enough skill for a writer to have, because sometimes you go off script in your outlined books, that it's good practice. And I consider the Alcatraz books to be practice for that skill.

That's what the revision process is. There's also a lot of cutting bad jokes in the revision process of the Alcatraz books. Because things that seem funny when you're writing the book don't always seem as funny in second or third draft. Sometimes it's because you've read it too many times. But a lot of times, you can tell; you're like, "I was just in a mood, and that one does not land."

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OrangeJedi

Could a non-native be able to be Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is possible.

JoyBlu

So someone who was born without a Breath and came to Nalthis could possibly be Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Possibly could be Returned. Yes. That's not very likely.

JoyBlu

So they could get a Divine Breath, even though never...

Brandon Sanderson

They could be given a Divine Breath, yes.