Sparkle Hearts
The assassin Liss. Have we seen her anywhere else?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO. Sorry.
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The assassin Liss. Have we seen her anywhere else?
RAFO. Sorry.
If someone aluminum or duralumin burned the feruchemically charged metals, what would happen?
Basically the same thing as above, except with aluminum. Aluminum, they would just go away.
Will there be a second part of Warbringer [Warbreaker]?
Some day. I can’t promise when, it will be a side project, but it will happen.
How many smacks would it take from a Shardblade to break, say, a metalmind.
A metalmind? Depends on how much it's invested.
Are there any other projects that you're currently working on?
Right now I'm working on a children's series. It's a middle-grade series, a genre targeted at ten- to thirteen-year-olds. Even though it's marketed for that age group, I wrote it for anyone to read. It's a more humorous fantasy series about a kid named Alcatraz who discovers that librarians secretly rule the world. He's part of this family whose members all have really silly magical powers that they use to fight the librarians. For example, his grandpa's superpower is the ability to arrive late to appointments. They use these powers in fun and interesting ways to resist the librarians' control of the world. They are very fun books and have actually been optioned by DreamWorks for a movie. We're hoping that it ends up getting made. The website for the series is evillibrarians.com, and it should be going live in just a short period of time. It will feature a blog written by the evil librarians griping about Alcatraz and his family.
I also have a standalone book that will be released this summer called Warbreaker. I've posted all of the drafts for it on my website. That way people can download and read it, and then if they like it, they can go out and buy it when it's available. It's coming out in June in hardcover. After that, I'll be working on the final book for the Wheel of Time series, and from there I'll be starting a new multi-volume series called The Way of Kings.
When are we going to find out about how Elhokar can see like the symbols in the mirror and stuff like that. He can Soulcast then, right?
You’ll have to see, you’ll have to see...
Do you plan for the Stormlight Archive to stay grounded to it's world, or will there be some interplay with the rest of the Cosmere, as, literally, worlds collide?
Mostly grounded, though as I've answered in other questions, the further into the future of the cosmere we go, the more interactions between the worlds will happen. There is a certain inevitability as more and more people discover the true nature of the universe.
Elsecaller
I will reach my potential
Elsecaller oaths are, like those of the Lightweavers or Skybreakers, themed toward the individual. In this case, the theme is progress—becoming better with each oath, seeking to explore their true potential and reach it. Because of this, the Order is open to many different types, so long as they want to improve themselves.
Thoughtful, careful, and cautious, the Elsecallers are generally regarded as the wisest of the Radiants. They seek self-improvement and personal betterment in their lives, but aren’t limited to one specific theme or set of Ideals. This makes them one of the most open and welcoming of orders, though they do tend to attract those who are less flamboyant. They have their share of scholars, and often a large number of theologians, but also attract those who are interested in leadership. They are good at encouraging others, but some are known to set their sights upon the things they want and then seize them. In the Knights Radiant, they tend to be among the best tacticians, and are logistical geniuses, aided in part by their abilities to create food and water for armies, but also their ability to move in and out of Shadesmar.
Can you reveal something about Adolin, however small, that we don't know yet?
Much of Adolin's early sense of morality was instilled in him by his mother.
Have we ever seen the Physical embodiment of either Odium or Cultivation? Similar to what we saw with Ruin chasing...Vin?
So... Physical embodiment is kind of hard thing to define with Shards because you could argue that everything is a physical embodiment of them, does that make sense?
Yes. I mean more a physical form that the uses share--
Oh okay, okay. So have you ever seen Odium’s? I don’t believe you’ve seen Odium’s.
What about Cultivation’s?
Cultivation is a RAFO.
When you were writing Elantris, did you think of the artwork for all the symbols and stuff as you were writing?
I did, I drew them myself. Those are the only ones that I did the symbols for. After that book, I went and got somebody who knew what they were doing, so they look a little pedestrian compared to the other ones, but I did them all myself.
Then I asked him about Jasnah in Shadesmar.
He said that he still is not sure whether to include it in the book or not, but he most likely won't. The reason is that he fears it will lessen the impact of something that will need to happen later in the book. so, it implies some characters will visit Shadesmar and have some important adventures there, which Jasnah's story may spoil. he is looking forward to showing Shadesmar on Roshar; we saw it on Scadrial, but on Scadrial it is mostly uninhabited, while in Roshar there are all the Spren.
How many pages of notes do you have on your own universe?
I’m only around 1,000-2,000 or so, at this point. (I guess I’m slacking.)
Is Galladon the Dula in Way of Kings?
Are we going to find out in the next few Stormlight books about axial interconnection?
Yes. Modern Mistborn (Not Wax&Wayne 4 I'm afraid) will delve into this.
I was one of your beta readers. So, I wanted to know whether Lord Harms ever got off the roof?
Lord Harms. Yes, I did because people were so--*grumbling* 'Lords Harms Lord Harms'. Alright. Fine. So, I mentioned Wax saying, "go get Lord Harms back," or something like that. I did put it in at some point.
MY OWN WRITING
I ran into this problem full-on when I first conceived the idea for Mistborn. For those who haven’t read the series, one of the main premises is this: A young man followed the hero’s cycle from a fantasy novel, but failed at the end. The thing that made me want to write it, originally, was the thought, “What if Rand lost the Last Battle? What if Frodo had failed to destroy the ring? What if the Dark Lord won?”
A very intriguing thought. And yet, I realized early on that if I wrote the book as I was planning, I would fail. That story undermines itself. Perhaps there is someone out there who can write it in a way that engages the reader without betraying them at the end, but that person was not me. By the point I started that book, I was in the camp of those who (despite having a great love for the fantasy epics of the past) wanted to explore where fantasy could go, not where it had already been. I wasn’t interested in writing a standard hero’s journey. Jordan had done that already, and had done it well.
And so, I set Mistborn a thousand years after the hero’s failure. I made my original concept into the backstory. People have asked (a surprisingly large number of them) when I’ll write the prequel story, the story of Rashek and Alendi. My answer is to smile, shake my head, and say, “I don’t think it’s likely.” To explain why would require a lecture divided into three lengthy parts, and you know how boring that kind of thing can be.
Now, some of you may be thinking the obvious thought: “But Brandon, Mistborn is a postmodern fantasy epic.”
Indeed it is. I was intrigued by the concept of writing a postmodern fantasy, and that’s what Mistborn is. In each book, I consciously took aspects of the fantasy epic and twisted them about. My story above wasn’t to discourage that type of writing; it was to explain one major way that it could go bad, if you’re not careful.
I tried to walk a line in Mistborn. Enough archetype that I could resonate with the themes from fantasy that I wanted to play with, but enough originality to keep the readers from expecting a standard ending. It’s the type of balance that I can never walk perfectly because there is just too much variety to be had in the world. Some people are going to read the books and feel betrayed because of the things I pull; others are going to find that they’re not original enough for their taste.
The success of the books was in hitting the right balance for the right people; those like myself who love the old epics, and like some resonance with them—but who also want something new in their storytelling. That careful blend of the familiar and the strange, mixed up and served to people who have tastes like my own. That’s basically one of the only measures we authors can use. (And note, I’m not the only one—by a long shot—doing postmodern fantasy. Look to Jacqueline Carey’s series The Sundering for another example of someone doing the right blend, I feel, in a postmodern fantasy epic.)
The Rosharan year is 1.10 Earth years. The Rosharan hour is a little bit shorter.
Let me guess: it's 50 minutes.
E: no, just checked on calculator, apparently it's 57.816 minutes.
But it's 50 Rosharan minutes.
Folks,
I've turned my full attention back to this book, and have done a heavy rewrite of Chapter One, which helped me pound out who Midius is (in my mind at least.) You can see the effect your comments had. Here's the new version. As always, comments are welcome!
All, here's an experimental change I'm considering for the Theus chapters (and note the new Midius chapter at the bottom of the previous page.) I think this may soften the brutality somewhat, even though it's all still there. It will make for a drastic change in feel for the king as a character, but I'm very tempted to do this instead. Reactions?
NEW CHAPTER TWO BEGINNING
It’s a bad day to kill, Theusa thought. Too cloudy. A man should be able to see the sun when he dies, feel the warmth on his skin one last time.
She marched down the dusty path, crops to her right and left, guards behind her. The men of her personal guard wore woolen cloaks over bronze breastplates. Bronze. So expensive. What farming supplies could she have traded for instead of the valuable metal armor?
And yet, she really had no choice. The armor meant something. Strength. Power. She needed to show both.
Several of the soldiers pulled their cloaks tight against the morning’s spring chill. Theusa herself wore a woolen dress and shawl, the copper crown on her head the only real indication of her station. King. It had been twenty-some years since anyone had dared question her right to that title. In the open, at least.
Her breath puffed in front of her, and she pulled her shawl close. I’m getting old, she thought with annoyance.
Behind her towered the grand city state of Partinel, circled entirely--lake and all--by a rough stone wall reaching some fifteen feet high. The wall had been commissioned, then finished, by Yornes the grand, her father-in-law. She’d married his son, Didarion, in her twenty-third year of life.
Didarion been a short time later. That had been almost thirty years ago, now.
Old indeed, Theusa thought, passing out of the ring of crops. Partinel’s trune ring was one of the largest in the Cluster, but it still provided a relatively small area in which to grow food. They grew right up to the edge of the city wall in a full circle around the city. Running in a loop around them was a narrow, earthen road. Beyond that, a wide patch of carefully-watched and cultivated walnut trees ran around the city. Her people cut down one group of trees every year and planted a new patch. It was a good system, giving them both hardwood for trade and nuts for food. In the Cluster, no land could be wasted.
Because beyond the trees, the land became white. The walnuts stands marked the border, the edge of Partinel’s trune ring and the beginning of fainlands.
Theusa could see the fain forest through a patch of walnut saplings. She paused, looking out at the hostile, bleached landscape. Bone white trees, with colorless undergrowth twisting and creeping around the trunks. White leaves fluttered in the breeze, sometimes passing into the trune ring, dusted with a prickly white fungus.
Skullmoss, the herald of all fain life. Her soldiers and workers gathered the leaves anyway and burned them, though it wasn’t really nessissary. Though eating something fain--animal or plant--was deadly to a human, simple interaction with it was not. Besides, fain life, even the skullmoss, could not live inside of a trune ring.
That’s how it had always been. White trees beyond the border, trune life within. People could go out into the fainlands--there was no real danger, for skullmoss couldn’t corrupt a living creature. Some brave cities even used fain trees for lumber, though Theusa had never dared.
She shivered, turning away from the fain forest and turning to where a group of soldiers--with leather vests and skirts--stood guarding a few huddled people. The prisoners included one man, his wife, and two children. All knelt in the dirt, wearing linen smocks tied with sashes.
The father looked up as Theusa approached, and his eyes widened. Her reputation preceded her. The Bear of Partinel, some called her: a stocky, square-faced woman with graying hair. Theusa walked up to the kneeling father, then bent down on one knee, regarding the man.
The peasant had a face covered in dirt, but his sandaled feet were a dusty white. Skullmoss. Theusa avoided touching the dust, though it should be unable to infect anything within a trune ring. She studied the man for a time, reading the pain and fear in his face. He lowered his eyes beneath the scruitiny.
“Everyone has a place, young man,” she finally said.
The outsider glanced back up.
“The people of this city,” Theusa continued, “they belong here. They work these crops, hauling water from the stormsea to the troughs. Their fathers bled to build and defend that wall. They were born here. They will die here. They are mine.”
“I can work, lady,” the man whispered. “I can grow food, build walls, and fight.”
Theusa shook her head. “That’s not your place, I’m afraid. Our men wait upon drawn lots for the right to work the fields and gain a little extra for their families. There is no room for you. You know this.”
“Please,” the man said. He tried to move forward, but one of the soldiers had his hand on the man’s shoulder, holding him down.
Theusa stood. Jend, faithful as always, waited at the head of her soldiers. He handed Theusa a small sack. She judged the weight, feeling the kernels of grain through the canvas, then tossed it to the ground before the outsider. The man looked confused.
“Take it,” Theusa said. “Go find a spot of ground that the fainlands have relinquished, try to live there as a chance cropper.”
“The moss is everywhere lately,” the man said. “If clearings open up, they are gone before the next season begins.”
“Then boil the grain and use it to sustain you as you find your way to Rens,” Theusa said. “They take in outsiders. I don’t care. Just take the sack and go.”
The man reached out a careful hand, accepting the grain. His family watched, silent, yet obviously confused. This was the Bear of Partinel? A woman who would give free grain to those who tried to sneak into her city? What of the rumors?
“Thank you, lady,” the man whispered.
Theusa nodded, then looked to Jend. “Kill the woman.”
“Wha--” the outsider got halfway through the word before Jend unsheathed his bronze gladius and rammed it into the stomach of the kneeling outsider woman. She gasped in shock, and her husband screamed, trying to get to her. The guards held him firmly as Jend pulled the sword free, then he cut at the woman’s neck. The weapon got lodged in the vertebrae, and it took him three hacks to get the head free. Even so, the execution was over in just a few heartbeats.
The outsider continued to scream. Theusa stooped down again--just out of the man’s reach--blood trickling across the packed earth in front of her. One of the guards slapped the outsider, interrupting his yells.
“I am sorry to do this,” Theusa said. “Though I doubt you care how I feel. You must understand, however. Everyone has a place. The people of this city, they are mine--and my place is to look after them.”
The outsider hissed curses at her. His children--the boy a young teen, the girl perhaps a few years younger--were sobbing at the sight of their mother’s death.
“You knew the penalty for trying to sneak into my city,” Theusa said softly. “Everyone does. Try it again, and my men will find the rest of your family--wherever you’ve left them--and kill them.”
Then, she stood, leaving the screaming peasant behind to yell himself ragged. Theusa’s personal guards moved behind her as she returned to the corridor through the wheat, Jend cleaning his gladius and sheathing it. Over the tops of the green spring plants, Theusa could see a man waiting for her before the city.
(Edit, cleaned up language.)
Thanks for the comments, folks. A new version has been uploaded, mostly making minor tweaks as suggested by db. Some good points, and the prose needed streamlining.
Dawn:
For some reason, this just feels less brutal to me. Theusa's language is softer than Theus's had been, and I think more reasonable. Still brutal, yet somehow it works better for me. That might just be because I've seen (and written) too many characters that feel like Theus, and changing the character to a female (who's a bit older, and who is arguably the legitimate ruler of the city) makes them feel a lot more exciting to write.
Gruff, Gritty, Male solder king: Feels overdone.
Gruff, gritty, grandmother king: Not so much.
I know it's more about how well the character is done, and less about whether it's been done before or not. However, excitement on my part seems to make for a better story over-all. So, I'm wondering if this character will be more exciting for me this way, or just much more trouble. (I'll have to think of what to do for the next Theus chapter, for instance. I really liked the fight there, and I can't really put Theusa in the same role.)
DavidB
There are, unfortunately, reasons why I have to start the book where I did. I can't get into it without major spoilers. You are perfectly right about this chapter lacking a hook, which is why I decided from the get-go that I'd need to start with a scene from the middle of the book, then jump back.
So, this chapter should be considered the SECOND, and not the one that introduces Midius's character.
My goal is to try some new things with this book. Who knows if it will work, but they will present narrative challenges for me, because even when we flash back, we're starting in the middle of a story, with Hoid already dead.
I'll admit, I'm really torn on this one. I can't quite decide which way to go. The thing is, I've been thinking about the characters so much that they're both--Theus and Theusa--now formed in my head. I know their motivations and their feelings, but I can only use one of them.
With Theus I gain the ability to have he, himself fight. I can show him with his family, which could really round out his character. Yet, I worry that he's too similar to other characters I've written. (Cett and Straff both come to mind from the Mistborn trilogy, though neither of them are as rounded, as well as Iadon from Elantris. I've done a lot of brutal rulers.)
With Thesua, I lose the two things I mentioned above. I couldn't soften her by showing a spouse and children, and while she'd still have a daughter, I don't see the child being as much of an influence on reader opinion. And, there would be less action in the book by a slight amount as Theusa will not be a warrior, and will have to rely on Jend to do her combat.
However, I gain a tad of originality. (How many tyrant grandmother city-state rulers are there in fiction? Have to be fewer than men like Theus.) I also gain some subtlety--Theusa's rule would be much more tenuous, because of her gender, and there would be a lot of politics working against her.
Both would play off of Yunmi very well, if for different reasons. Midius's interactions lean slightly toward me liking Theus, but not a huge amount.
I keep going back and forth on this one. So, I'll put off the decision until tomorrow and write a Yunmi chapter instead. Huzzah!
After much playing with the plot and wrangling, I've decided to go with the male version of the character. The new Midius chapter is here to stay, however.
I'll just have to do the old grandma tyrant king in some other book.
Part One Wrap-up
Once I was to this point in the book, I knew that I had something. I needed a book to follow Elantris—one that did all the things that Elantris did well, but then expanded and showed off my strengths. In other words, I needed a "You haven't seen ANYTHING yet" book.
Mistborn is, hopefully, that book. I took the best magic system I've ever developed, and put it together with two killer ideas and some of my best characters. I cannibalized two of my books for their best elements, then combined those with things I'd been working on for years in my head. This is the result.
Aborted attack on the walls
The end scene of this chapter, with the army outside making test on the Luthadel walls, was one that Moshe suggested that we add. It came into the book very late in the process, during the last major revision, well over a year after I'd finished the first draft of the novel. The purpose of the scene was to give a reminder of the armies and the pressure they're applying to the city. We knew we needed to keep the reader thinking about the armies, and this chapter was a way of speeding up the book by making it longer, as I talked about before.
A test on the walls, then, makes sense. This also let me show off a bit how Allomancers might be used in battle, which I'd never been able to do in book one.
I'm overjoyed to hear that you're probably doing a sequel to Elantris. I was wondering, though, if you plan to discuss anything further about the religions you mention less in the book. I think both Jesker and the Jeskeri Mysteries receive too little attention for how interesting they could be. It would be interesting if we got to learn more about the origins/tenets of both. It's rankled ever since the first time I read the book that something which seems so significant as Jesker is left so undeveloped.
Yes, actually. I want to focus more on Jesker, and the Mysteries, as well as the original religion that spawned both Shu-Dereth and Shu-Korath.
Jesker is very important, as you have noticed, since it's the religion tied to understanding the Dor. It's actually much older than the other religions, relating back to things that happened long ago. Because of this, it retains hints of things such as the origin of the Seons and the like.
What's with Kaladin being special with his oaths that he explodes with power every time he says it?
That is a function of Windrunners being very close to Bondsmiths, which has certain effects.
Would other Windrunners also do that, as well?
Yep.
What is your most memorable gaming experience/best gaming memory?
Probably Final Fantasy 10. At that time I was working the graveyard shift at a hotel, and I was doing a lot of writing on my own trying to get published. I would come home every morning at seven a.m. and play for a couple of hours alone in the quiet apartment, thinking about my own stories, experiencing the story of the game.
Other than that, I would say, honestly, the game that sucked most of my time was probably the original X-Wing game, which really made me feel like I got to be an X-Wing pilot, which, you know—Star Wars geek! That was so much fun! In a lot of ways every space game since then has failed to live up to the sense that I got from that game.
Chapter Twenty
All right. It's true. I lied to you.
I really am going to get to that scene with the altar. I promise. It’s not a gimmick. Or, uh, it’s not just a gimmick. You’ll find out more in book two, but let’s just say that an Oculator’s blood mixed with glass when you forge a lens will make it so that anyone–not just Oculators–can activate it.
Odium said to Taravangian, "You did this without access to Fortune or the Spiritual Realm?" How does one access Fortune without the Spiritual Realm or Feruchemical chromium, as almost all future sight tends to utilize the Spiritual Realm in some way?
So, that line is mostly just me saying... *long pause* I think you're picking apart those things too much.
Right, that makes sense. Hey, Odium said it, so I didn't know-- Gotta take that seriously, so.
So, yeah, don't read too much into picking apart those two things. You can read it as-- Honestly, that is me making sure I am being clear in the text.
That there are those are two different things.
Yeah those are two different things, but they are just interrelated. Fortune is a property, and the Spiritual Realm is a place, but not a place. Do you know what I mean? To use Fortune, you're always involving the Spiritual Realm, but in the Spiritual Realm, you're not always involving Fortune.
The question is, can you read [women's script]?
I can’t read it, Isaac can.
Isaac can’t read it.
He came up with it!
I told you where it came from, the writing system, right? That I told Isaac, “I want it to look like waveforms,” and he developed it to look like waveforms on the little thing when you speak voice- and things like that, and that was my goal for the system was something that was a line with waveforms across it. And he developed it then.
Dalinar and Lan, who wins in a swordfight? Both full Shardbearers.
Both full Shardbearers. Lan probably wins, I would guess. Lan is more pure swordsman than Dalinar. Dalinar spent a lot of time on things like battlefield tactics.
I don't know if you remember the scene where Vin sat outside this same room, crouching in the darkness, looking in at the laughter and the warmth. I loved putting that scene in, however, because I knew I was going to eventually have this scene–where Vin could reflect on how far she's come.
My small question. With his [Mraize's] goals kind of explained here having to do with Stormlight and moving it. Is he aware of Lifts relationship with Investive and Stormlight? She’s like a renewable battery if he could get her off the prison! Get her off. Get her to eat. Stormlight anywhere.
He is aware of Lift, and is very curious about her. But she isn't able to produce on the scale he wants. One person who could charge batteries by touching them would certainly be cool--but if you're goal is to (say) dominate and monopolize the battery distribution to all of America, that person would be more of a curiosity (scientific implications aside) than a huge asset.
I asked whether aluminum blocking Investiture is simply an on/off situation, or whether different amounts/different alloys would inhibit it in different degree.
It was theoretically possible.
Originally, when Raoden and Galladon got to the top of the stairwell, they hacked their way through the door with Seolin's sword. When I got to this point, I'd completely forgotten that I'd already established that there was at least one axe in Elantris. In the rewrite, I put that in instead.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Allomantic Secrets
Some people have asked me why the Lord Ruler was so careful to keep secrets about Allomancy. What would it have mattered if he let out that there were atium Mistings?
Some of the secrets offered a sizable tactical advantage. Keeping back duralumin and aluminum gave him and his Inquisitors (the only ones told about those metals, other than a few select obligators) tools that nobody knew about. Very few Inquisitors could burn duralumin (and most who did it gained the ability through the use of spikes reused from previous, dead Inquisitors—and those spikes were therefore much weaker.). However, those who did have the power could appear inordinately skilled in Allomancy, enhancing the Lord Ruler's divine reputation.
Beyond that, knowledge is power. I believe that. And I think that if you're the Lord Ruler, you want to keep a few secrets about your magic system. Mistborn are very rare. Mistings among the nobility—particularly in the early centuries—were not rare. If they'd known about atium Mistings, it could have upset the balance by creating too many superwarriors.
Plus, if there are unknown superwarriors to be had, then you want to keep them for yourself.
We know for previous WoBs that Truthwatchers are worried about knowledge and helping people with it (wob#8500). In the test you recently released, the new info about them says that they are worried about the use of the knowledge and the leaders trying to deceive the people they lead. So, I think they have some things in common with Windrunners and Edgedancers, because the three Orders are more worried about the common people than about the elite. Protecting those who can not protect themselves, remembering those who had been forgotten; both of this Second Ideals refers to the common people, that people that the leaders don't really care about.
Considering all of this, and following the example of the Second Ideal of Windrunners and Edgedancers, which are the most worried about the common people with no epic powers, I wrote a theoric PURE (without corrupted sprens like Glysn) Second Ideal for Truthwatchers:
"I will seek truth, to prevent others from being deceived."
I know you are RAFO'ing this, but I would only like to know if my approach of the Truthwatchers Order is correct.
[That] is, I'm afraid, a RAFO as I don't want to talk too much about the oaths of given orders until I write books about those orders, as it would constrain the story a little too much. Your theorizing is sound, however.
Part Five: Updates on Minor Projects
For many of these little projects, you may want to glance back at previous State of the Sanderson documents to see what they even are, as this is pretty long already and I don’t want to keep making the same pitch every year. So really, take note if a specific idea interested you, but don’t worry if you’re confused and you don’t get many details here on these.
The Reckoners, Legion
Both are completed. Though I’ve had enough people asking after them that we’re toying with doing some audio-original novellas set in these worlds. For example, one of my big goals for Legion was to get it made into a television series. While that could still happen, as it’s under option by a production company, I’ve been thinking that maybe I could do something like that on my own—as an audio series. We could create a sequence of episodes written by a writer’s room with me as the “showrunner.” I could see doing something like this with the Reckoners to continue that story, for those who want to know what happens next.
If we can get these off the ground, I’ll let you know. Also, if you like The Original, please let me know—as that will influence me in doing similar projects with Legion and the Reckoners.
STATUS: Completed, but cool things could still happen.
Adamant
No change from last year. This space opera series of novellas is in limbo until I find the right time to work on them. It will happen eventually.
STATUS: No movement.
Starburner/Soulburner
Something’s happening here, but it’s hush-hush for now.
The Apocalypse Guard
Well, this book got weirder—as expected with Dan and me working together on something. It’s moved to the back burner, as even Dan’s revision wasn’t enough to get it where we want it to be. So this one is entering limbo for now.
STATUS: No motion for months now, might be dead.
Other Projects
Untitled Threnody Novel, Sixth of the Dusk sequel, another story with Shai, and The Silence Divine persist as “maybe” stories that someday I might write. They are joined by a Secret Standalone Cosmere Book, that wacky YA Cosmere Book with Magic Kites, Untitled First of the Sun YA novel (not involving Sixth), and a few others as Cosmere novels that might someday make it to the front burner. (Once Skyward is done, I think it would be good to do a YA book in the Cosmere, so I’ve begun working on possible ideas.) Aether of Night also is still hanging around, maybe needing a novel. So we’ll see. I’ll talk a little more about the Cosmere in a future section, after we get to the film stuff.
If I write a novella to go with the Stormlight Kickstarter, it has about an equal chance of being Wandersail (a Rysn novella), Horneater (a Rock novella), or a sequel to Sixth of the Dusk (which is tricky because it reveals maybe a little too much about Space Age Cosmere politics).
I was wondering if the Tranquiline halls, if that's in the spiritual, the physical, or the Cognitive?
So... that's a big fat RAFO, because that's actually a false dilemma, there are other options than those three. One of which just being that it is a mythological piece from their theology and not an actual location.
So it's not an actual place?
That's a fourth option for the three, does that makes sense? So its a bigger RAFO even than that, it's a RAFO in that I'm not going to confirm that its one of those three. Good question.
How do I decide whether to do first person, or third person?
Good question! If you're a writer, one thing I'll mention to you if you haven't watched them, I recorded my BYU university lectures, which are on writing science fiction fantasy, and put them on Youtube. So if you just Google "Sanderson lectures," you'll find my whole class there, and I do a whole section on first and third person.
It breaks down to a couple of decisions. Third person tends to be really good with a large cast. Because you can take this large cast and you are constantly mentioning their name. It's actually a pretty big deal. First person... How often do you guys finish a first person book and you can't remember what the character's name was? You've read a whole book about them. And if you have three or four characters, jumping between, it gets real easy to lose perspective. And first person also, depending on how you do it, can sometimes lack a little bit of immediacy. Because the person themselves is telling the story, there's a part of your brain that says, "Well, they obviously survived long enough to tell me their story." Even if they're telling it in present tense, or even if you know that occasionally you'll read a first person book where it turns out they were a ghost all along or something like that. Like, that happens. But there's just this sort of thing in our brain that says, first person tends to work really well for a single narrator, maybe two, in a story that they are telling yourself that they can infuse with their voice. Third person tends to work very well for longer epics, and tends to work with multiple viewpoints a little bit better. It's just easier for readers to track and things like that. Partially it's just kind of a gut instinct, what feels right for the book.
What percentage of the underlying Cosmere have we uncovered? Like five percent, fifteen percent?
The number of planets? Or…
No, not even that. Like how much do we know about the underlying metaphysics? Of the rules? You said that there's a lot more that we don't know.
There is a lot you don't know.
I was wondering if you could put a number on it?
I don't know if I can put a number on it. If you've read Dragonsteel you have a lot more, because there's talk of philosophy in that book about it. But I can't give a percentage because I know it all. And I can't remember at times. I often have to go back and research and say, okay, what did I put in, what haven't I included and so on. I would say that you know enough to be dangerous, but not the majority by far. There is an underlying theorem of magic for all of these worlds, which I don't think has been mentioned before. But yeah, it's kinda one of the things that may amaze. People keep trying to look for a unifying theory of physics. You know, the great, unifying... I have a little science background and I wanted there to be a unifying theory of magic, which there is, in these books at least. It's not simple, it's not like one sentence, but you can map out how the magic all fits together in this kind of super theorem.
Was utilitarianism the inspiration or part of the inspiration for Taravangian?
Yes, definitely.
Kandra are a race that will also get a lot of development as the series progresses. During the development of this book, I tried to resist using the "there's a spy among us" plot, but in the end, I just couldn't do it. The pieces were all there, and I wanted to play with the concepts of trust and reliability.
In the first book, Vin learned to trust. She learned that it was better to trust and be betrayed than to suspect everyone. The nice twist on that in book one was that there WAS no traitor in the book. Everyone stayed true to Kelsier and his vision.
So, in this book, I had to sew seeds of distrust. I wanted Vin to have to deal with those problems again, and really have to confront her suspicions and paranoia. The only way to do that was to have her begin suspecting members of the crew.
Besides, you don't just put in a race of shapeshifters then ignore the tension of people wondering if someone they know has been replaced. That would just be irresponsible.
Why so many characters from Warbreaker [in Stormlight]?
'Cause Warbreaker is a prequel to Stormlight. I wrote Stormlight first, and then I actually went and wrote Warbreaker about Kaladin's swordmaster, but then that version of Stormlight didn't get published, and this one did, but they're very interconnected to me.
Which is your favorite of the ten fools, and why?
Uh-- I don't know. I honestly don't know.
Can you give me a name of one of them, then?
That I haven't named yet? Those are in the notes, I have to look those things up. I don't know. We're gonna do a ten fools painting for the next one, maybe. We were gonna do it for this one. I'm not sure who my favorite is. I'd have to sit and think about it, perhaps more time than we have right now. It's going to depend on Isaac's sketches of them and things like that. Maybe, uh, Jezrien's fool. Probably Jezrien's fool.
What's the name of that one?
I can't remember. Like I said, I have 'em in a list. I have to go look at the notes and look them up every time. I don't use them, like, I just write--
Not like the Heralds, that you're using all the time. They're just the ten fools.
Right, I just use, even when I'm writing, I'm like "Jezrien's Fool," and then I go look up the name of it.
Asked for a dedication from a resident of Yolen.
Got "May two worlds become one to you" He stressed that it's worlds not realms!!!
One thought—you might want to go through the book after each section ending and read ONLY the italicized epigrams at the beginnings of chapters. They tell a story in and of themselves. I will, for those of you who are epigram-challenged, dump some of the more important sections into the narrative later. However, there are some subtle things you'll miss if you don't read through all of the introductions.
The concept of these epigrams—telling a story within a story—was another of the big things that made me want to write the book. There really is a third viewpoint happening in this book—a first person viewpoint that comes in each chapter, if only very briefly. Who is writing them? Where do they come from? You'll find out soon. (Like, in just a couple of chapters.)
How do Windrunners rotate as they are moving through the air, since a force on their center of mass can't be rotation.
Yeah but wind resistance can. Same with [how] skydivers work.
Okay, so they kind of instinctively do it, or learn.
Yeah. You learn but-- you put your fingers out you go spinning around the right way. Kaladin gets better at this and you'll see some direct references to that in [Oathbringer] where he's talking about some of these ideas.
On a similar note, The Way of Kings has a lot of symbols associated with different aspects of the book. Were you involved with creating those, and if so, how did you design them?
I created forty-plus symbols for The Way of Kings. Many of these are found in the color charts in the hardcover version of the book (link here). My absolute favorites are used at the beginning of each Part (one of them is debossed on the book's hardcase beneath the dust jacket). I used Arabic word art and the shard blades as inspiration for these. Many of the originals were drawn on an iPod Touch and later brought into Photoshop for clean up.
If all of the atium was burned at the end of era one to destroy ruin, how has Marsh survived into era 2?
Not all was burned, all that was in the well was, but there was a bag of atium left and some people had some other little bits of atium
And, as for the ending lines–yes, I did it again. The same little cliffhanger-extension from before. I figured that it was fitting, since this structure threw Hrathen into the city. Why not use the triad system to do the same thing with his getting healed?
How did you come up with Kaladin?
With Kaladin? Um, it was the idea of healer who finds out that they're really good at killing people. Yeah, he's really good at killing people. And that comflict of, "Am I a healer or am I a hurter?" Like, "Can I hurt to hurt to heal?" *inaudible*
If Urithiru was real, would you live in it?
No.