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Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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Gruuler

And where did the essence [Entities] come from? There's like a million questions in that one question, everything from the specific plane, how did it gain sentience, etc, but is it possible to give us at least a brief overview of how it came to be?

Brandon Sanderson

I can't say too much on the second, though I can tell you that the Entities both came from ancient planes that were destroyed, their power condensed into these "entities." (The Soul cards from M15 were an inspiration here.) If I do another story in coming years, I would want to dig into this more specifically.

/r/Fantasy_Bookclub Alloy of Law Q&A ()
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zas678

How long before [The Way of Kings] is Alloy of Law? I heard somewhere that it's a hundred years, but I don't think that's right.

Brandon Sanderson

I intended them to be happening roughly close to one another, with [The Way of Kings] slightly before.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Using Hemalurgy, could you steal the boon from the Old Magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, from the Nightwatcher? This is theoretically possible.

Questioner

Would that take the [curse] with it as well?

Brandon Sanderson

*Hesitantly* Yes. Though it's also theoretically possible to split them apart, that would be a lot harder. Getting the boon, if you knew what you were doing, would not be that difficult.

Now, what Cultivation would do to you when she found out that had happened is another thing entirely. Because those are willful grants of Investiture.

Questioner

Similar to Endowment's with the Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, things like that. When you get a Shard involved and the Shard has..  power to... Same thing like...it's on a much grander scale what's happening with the spren bond, right?

Questioner

When Hemalurgy does spread, most Shards will not be happy about this, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is correct.

The Fringe Magazine: Author Interview: Brandon Sanderson ()
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Scott Wilson

How hard was it to write the last 3 books in the Robert Jordan series? Inevitably, there would be those that criticized your work no matter how good it was just because it wasn't written by Jordan.

Brandon Sanderson

I've said myself that I could never replace him—Robert Jordan should have been the one to finish the series. My main goal in writing the books has been not to imitate him, but to stay true to the souls of the characters. I think of it as taking over as director for a few scenes of a movie while maintaining the same actors and script. I can be proud of my role as director, but ultimately the end result still belongs to Robert Jordan—and to his fans. Part of me is sad that now I can't just be one of them; I didn't get to rush out and buy and read a new Robert Jordan book this past November like they did.

When I was first offered the project, the fact that I could never write these books as well as Robert Jordan would have written them tempted me to decline. I knew that no matter what I did, it would not be the same as what could have been. I don't believe the books could be as good written by anyone else as they could have written by Robert Jordan. And so that was the main consideration for potentially saying no. But in the end, I decided if I did say no, and someone else got the book and screwed it up, that it would be partially my fault.

I honestly and sincerely believe that I am the person who can do these books the best now that Robert Jordan is gone. I would rather he be here to write them, but if he can't be here to write them, I want to do it myself because at least I know they're in the hands of someone who has been reading them for decades and who sincerely cares about the series.

Lytherus Steelheart interview ()
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Lauren Zurchin

[Tell us about] coming up with the names for the Epics.

Brandon Sanderson

It was really all right. I wouldn't say "proud" with regard to 'Steelheart', more "ecstatic" because I came up with the name very early on. And I'm like, "Oh, I hope no one has used this. I hope no one has used this." And then I went and looked and there were no major superheroes with that name listed on the various lists that I found. So I figure I'm pretty safe. But from going on there, finding names was really difficult. I wanted to do things that hadn't been used by any major Marvel or DC characters. And they have lots and lots and lots of characters—lots of them! And so, my instinct was if there's a Wikipedia article dedicated to this character, they're probably too big a character for me to use that name. And so, I spent most of the time either there, or there are resources on various fan sites that just list all the characters that I could search, just by names. And I would have a list of twelve names for a superhero or supervillain, and spend all this time trying to figure in, and all twelve would have been used, and I would have to go back to the drawing board and come up with twelve more, or something like that.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Moash killed a god? One of the Heralds?

Brandon Sanderson

He did. One of the Heralds. And trapped his soul so he couldn't be reborn.

Questioner

That's what it is. Trapped his soul, didn't actually kill him?

Brandon Sanderson

It's killed him-- It was like, extra killed. The Heralds are bound to a cycle of rebirth that happens-- that they wanted to make sure didn't happen that time.

Kraków signing ()
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Questioner

If I spoke the words <inaudible>

Brandon Sanderson

If you spoke the words it would depend on the spren to choose, but I think so!

Questioner

So, can I try?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure, go for it!

Questioner

Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.

Translator

So just waiting for the spren to appear.

Brandon Sanderson

*completely serious*

These words are accepted.

Mormon Artist Interview ()
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Nathan Morris

How did you get your start as a published author?

Brandon Sanderson

By this time, I had already written about twelve or thirteen novels, which I was trying to market for publishing. I was still working the graveyard shift at the hotel, and eventually one of the manuscripts that I'd sent somewhere got me a callback from an editor who had finally looked at my manuscript and wanted to buy it. I actually got the phone call as a voicemail. It was from an editor that I'd sent a book to eighteen months before. By that time I had pretty much given up on it; eighteen months is a lot longer than you expect for them to ever get back to you. You figure, "Okay, it's either lost or they didn't like it and just rejected it but forgot to send you a letter." It's a funny story, though. The one who gave it to the person who finally contacted me was actually an agent I had met and talked to at a convention. He said to me then, "Oh, you seem so nice," and later told me that it was because I was such a nice guy that he didn't want to just reject the book without looking at it. I guess that got me lots of points, because he sat on it for all those eighteen months before he eventually looked at it. But by then all my contact info was wrong, because during the time that I had sent the book out, I had moved and had AOL get rid of my e-mail address because I stopped paying for the service. I had also purchased a cell phone, so my phone number was no longer accurate. So this person, who would later become my editor, had to google me. He found my contact information on my BYU grad student page, which fortunately I had kept up-to-date, and when he called me, the voicemail said, "Hi, I don't know if this is the right Brandon Sanderson, but if it is, you sent me a manuscript about eighteen months ago, and I finally started looking at it last night. I got a few hundred pages into it, and I knew I had to call you and make sure it's still available, because I think I want to buy it."

I called him back, and then I called the agent that I had met, because it seemed like his editorial style matched mine. He handled the contract negotiations, and I became an author. I quit my graveyard shift job, taught freshman English composition in between to keep me going while we were waiting for the books to actually come out, and fortunately I've never had to go and get another real job. I've always worried I would have to.

Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A ()
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Justin

This question delves into religion greatly since I spent a good portion of my free time studying theology. Besides that, being a Christian, I sighted many interesting pieces in "Warbreaker," about the pitfalls of blind faith.

I'm wondering if you are criticizing some religious sects who elevate themselves as God though use God or some other deity as a method of control. With more relevance to the Christian faith, are we seeing the consequences of humans who rely on human reasoning for their understanding of God, an often superficial explanation?

Brandon Sanderson

Religious themes are interesting to me. I rarely go into a book saying, "I am going to expose this foible of religion" or "I am going to highlight this wonderful part of religion." I go into a book telling stories about characters, and the ways that they believe and the things that they believe have an effect on them. I try to present those as realistically as possible.

I do think that there is a dangerous line between faith and what goes beyond that. You call it blind faith, yet at the same time there is something to be said for trusting those who have gone before and for not having to fall in a pit yourself because other people already fell in that pit. Where that line comes is a subject of great debate between religious people and non-religious people. I do think that questions should always be allowed and should always be asked. It is important to be asking questions.

I don't really mind how people believe, or what faiths people have. I think it's a fascinating part of us, that we all have different faiths. Where we stray into danger is in how we treat people who don't agree with our faiths. That, I think, is a very dangerous and frightening thing—the ways that various people treat others who disagree with them. No matter what side you're on, whether they belittle them, discard them, or destroy them, these various things are one of the great pitfalls of any type of belief or faith. So I deal with that. But again it's not because I sit down and say, "I am now going to write a book about this, or tell a story about this." It's because that's what's important to the characters I'm writing.

That said, when I was approaching WARBREAKER, I did think distinctly to myself, "You know, religion's been the bad guy in the past two stories you've told. You probably ought to do something different." That's why the—Spoiler alert!—the religion in WARBREAKER is vindicated in the end. I think there are some very good things about their religion, and though Siri is convinced that they are the bad guys, it turns out that indeed they are not. In fact, they are quite good...though there are certain things they're doing that I wouldn't necessarily agree with.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 ()
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ethnicallyambiguous

If Nightblood were a Magic card, what would its abilities/stats be?

Brandon Sanderson

Equipment. When equipped creature does combat damage, destroy all other creatures. During your upkeep, pay WUBRG or you lose the game. (Note, I have no development chops, so I have no idea how to properly cost the artifact or the equip.)

JordanCon 2018 ()
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Questioner

In reading about Adonalsium and Odium, I get the sense that it's more related to lerasium and atium than it is to, like, Preservation or Ruin. Because, sometimes it seems like we're identifying... Odium and Adonalsium as beings instead of, like, the body of--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it is a little confusing by design. The question is, like, telling the difference between the Vessel who is holding the power, the intent of that power, and the physical manifestations of that power as Investiture or as whatever, these things are confusing. And I did this on purpose. I like that blurring between them. One of the things I did when I was designing the magic for the cosmere, was-- you guys know this very easily from looking at the books, I love the ideas of quantum theory, string theory, all this stuff. And even, just looking at quantum mechanics as we understand them right now. And the further you get into the details, the more the rules that you built, everything you understand upon, become blurry. And we live in this world where certain scientific principles, like-- I was sitting at a writing group, talking to my friend who's a mathematician, and I'm like, "I really like math 'cause it is objective. One plus one equals two." And he's like, "Well, the further you get in math, the less that actually is true, and the more 'One plus one equals two' is a philosophical statement, not an actual objective truth." And we talked about the nature of, the further you dig into things--

So, I tried to build the cosmere magic-- For instance, how the Bands of Mourning work. We are getting away from Step 1, which is, "Metals push or pull." We can get that. Into Step 2, where we are building complex machines out of the interactions between the magic. And we will then get to Step 3, where it's like, we can explain the principles, but you need to be a computer engineer to understand exactly how the computer is working. And I wanted to be able to build to get to that point. With the philosophy of, "What is the power, what is the individual, what is the intent," and things like that, we're kind of going that direction, in a philosophical direction. What does it mean? What are the answers?

Humans like things to be divided and put in boxes, but in nature, these boxes are usually arbitrary, of our distinction. So, I like that aspect of our interaction with the real world. So, the answer to your question is, this is not a question for me, this is a question for philosophers. Where does the intent stop, and the being begin? And what does it mean to have a body? Is the body of the original person that has taken up the Shard, the Vessel, when that drops out when they die, is that their real body? Or is that just the power pushing out something that it absorbed and recreating it, and dropping a copy of it? What is that? What's going on there? What's it mean? How much can a Vessel influence their intent? This is all a question for philosophers, that I'm going to explore in the books, but it's not the sort of thing that you're like--

Does one plus one equal two? The answer is, one plus one equals two according to this proof that we believe explains the universe, but is a little fuzzier than you think it is.

General Twitter 2011 ()
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atheistcanuck

The Almighty’s original name was Tanavast, yes/no?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. The concept of the “Almighty” in Roshar has a lot of meanings, many of them wrong.

atheistcanuck

But the person who held the Shard Honor was originally named Tanavast?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You wiggled it out of me. That was the name of the original holder of the Shard Honor.

Stormlight Three Update #4 ()
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Argent

How can Szeth apply multiple Basic Lashings to an object - wouldn't the first one send the object immediately beyond his grasp?

Brandon Sanderson

Hold something in your hand. There is a "basic lashing" pulling it downward. How hard is it to keep holding on to?

Often, though, then I have him Lash multiple times, he either does it all at once or in very quick succession.

Argent

I was mostly interested in cases where Szeth lashes really heavy objects - stone blocks or tables - to the side. They are not things he can hold (usually), and my understanding of physics suggests that a second after the first Lashing the object would be 9.81 (well, less for Roshar) meters away.

Maybe I can find an example where it feels weird.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, please. It's entirely likely I've made a mistake somewhere.

With the blocks, the ones I remember are where he has to overcome friction.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing ()
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Questioner

You do a lot of insider *inaudible* and you have *inaudible. How does that inform your process going forward *inaudible* the new books, knowing that you might someday have to tell people-?

Brandon Sanderson

So, how does it inform my new books, knowing that I put so much stuff on my website? On there, I have annotations for a lot of my books, chapter-by-chapter. I have a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. I grew up in the internet era. Well, at least I became a writer in the internet era. So I'm used to having extra information. I remember waiting for Wheel of Time books, and like, "When is this gonna be done?" And nobody knew, it was all hearsay. So, when I developed my website, I'm like, "Let's put a progress bar on so that it's right there, and you can go to the source and find out when the next book is gonna be done." So I just started, from the get-go, doing this extra bonus material. I feel like in this genre... Science fiction and fantasy people are very tech savvy. I'm willing to bet that every one in this room could torrent the books for free if they wanted to. And instead they buy them and support me. It's a genre where I am directly supported by fans as a conscious choice on their part. So I feel that it's my part to give them everything I can as this sort of additional content with the book. Because it's not just the book, it's everything surrounding it that you're buying into. And that's just kind of a personal quest of mine. It does make me more aware of my process. Because I'm like, "Oh, they're gonna ask me where I came up with this character. Where did I come up with this character as I'm designing it?" And I'll write down some notes on, "This is what inspired me here." It gets much harder for me to talk about Elantris and Mistborn, 'cause I can't dig so deep into my my influences, even Way of Kings sometimes, because they go back so far. But books that are newer, I can be, "Hey, this is exactly where my influences came from." Because I am <so conscious> now. Good question.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Is Warbreaker 2, is that near-future?

Brandon Sanderson

Distant future.

Footnote: The Questioner appears to be asking about when the Warbreaker 2 novel will be released, not where it will fall in the timeline.
Berlin signing ()
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Questioner

I reread Words of Radiance, and I was wondering about the timing of the bond breaking. It started to weaken after he had that incompatible oath. And it really broke after he tried to protect someone, so that made no sense for me, because that's what h's doing, and he would have been able to protect even more people if he could have used his powers. We had some theories about that. If it's just the time, because he didn't find the words, or if the Stormfather took it actively from him. Or if he just tried to use too much power, and that broke the bond.

Brandon Sanderson

So it's a little spoilery, so I don't want to dig into it too much, in case people haven't read the book. So... imagine there's a hose with a kink in it. You've caused the kink, and now you're trying to force water through the hose. And then you break something, because you're still holding the kink down. Basically, you want the power, but to not have to go through the proper channels to get it. That's was what was dangerous there.

The way the Stormlight magic works is, there are certain restrictions placed on you. And you can't access the power without those restrictions. And there is also the will of another individual involved, which is important to it, as well. So imagine the kinked hose, if that helps.

Shadows of Self San Jose signing ()
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Questioner

I was wondering if you were planning on writing anything else in the Elantris world?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There will be some more [clipped off]. Yeah. I'm going to do some more full books. I'd like to get Shai into things a little bit more, but I don't wanna ruin The Emperor's Soul by writing a bad sequel. Mmhmm, you know, it just turned out so well.

Stormlight Three Update #6 ()
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yafeshan

I am space nerd with a love of fantasy, so; Why is Scadrial prime example planet to invent space travel. Is its allomancy/ferruchemy/hemalurgy combination more suitable for that kind of technology or do they have other incentives to invent space travel other than regular technology development? Is it related to the intervention of unknown metal/shard/beings we saw?

Brandon Sanderson

There are a bunch of reasons.

The most technologically advanced of the planets (Taldain) is extremely isolationist because of its Shard, while Harmony is very interested in the progress of his people.

Scadrial has an advanced understanding of metallurgy, and for many years was quietly open to visitors from across the cosmere. In the modern era, that has enhanced. It's a much safer place to visit than, say, Sel, Threnody, or First of the Sun.

There are other reasons, too, which we'll get into as the world progresses. Having some prominent cosmere-aware people pulling strings behind the scenes is a big help. If you know other worlds are out there, and are populated, then you're more likely to push toward space travel.

SpoCon 2013 ()
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Questioner

You have books that contain three completely different magic systems, that they're little or no resemblance to anything I've seen before. Where do they come from?

Brandon Sanderson

This comes from my personal philosophy on the fantasy genre. I've been reading it for 20+ years now. I love the fantasy genre. But I personally feel that the genre hit some points in its career where it stagnated a little bit. It was not branching out as much as it should. And that was part of the drive behind me writing what I write. Now, I'm not pointing any fingers, it was just on us of the new generation to say, "All right, where can we take this genre?"

That's what happened in science fiction. If you go back, science fiction was one thing. And then the next generation made it something else. And then the next generation made it something else. It's why science fiction has such depth to it. And you can still find all the original stuff, and people are writing things like that right now, but you can also find this whole wide variety. And so the genre is extremely varied. And fantasy is a newer genre. It really is epic fantasy, really though. Fantasy goes all the way back. But epic fantasy was a genre that did not have enough of this variation to it, in my opinion.

The trick is that being really varied with your plots, you can do it, it just makes generally bad plot. You can do completely unexpected or completely depressing, you can do weird things with plot, but they're either confusing, or they aren't very fun to read. That's not to say nobody has ever done it, people do, but I really felt that fantasy, rather than plot, the place that it needed to innovate was in setting, and maybe in style. I really like how fantasy is kind of inching toward this... you see more gunpowder fantasies nowadays, you see more fantasies set in an African culture or an Asian culture, things like this. And this sort of expansion has really helped the genre quite a bit.

So, the magic systems, where do they come from? They're what I'm most excited about in the genre, so it's what I do naturally. Mostly, when I buy books and I read them, I'm like, "Come on. This same magic. Again? Can't we do something new?" So, it just happens naturally. I do want to say, at the end of the day, a generic magic system and a generic setting plus fantastic writing and characters is still better than the best setting you can imagine with boring characters. So, as writers, I would say to you, keep that in mind. You really need to learn to write killer characters and an engaging plot. But then, I suggest a lot of variety with the setting or the style, and ways that you can approach your writing.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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Melhay

In Mistborn: There was mention of a man named Adonalsium. We were wondering if this man may have been Preservation, who "died" before Vin took over. Is that who he was or was he someone else?

Brandon Sanderson

The man who died before Vin took over was named Leras. (I've occasionally written it as Laras. I've said the names in my head for years, but I'm only now writing them down as people ask me on forums.) Leras, like Ati (aka Ruin), were NOT Adonalsium. (Sorry about the typo on that one in Mistborn 3. I wrote it down on the manuscript, and it didn't get put in quite right. We'll get it fixed.)

Adonalsium was something or someone else. You will find out more. There are clues in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings.

Babel Clash: Brandon Sanderson and Brent Weeks ()
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Brandon Sanderson

I thought I'd do a post on pacing, chapter length, and pulling readers through a story. This is something I've been thinking about. Specifically, I’ve noticed at many authors in fantasy seem to be adopting a more thriller-style (genre, not the music video) of pacing. Shorter chapters, with cliffhanger endings that make for a quick turn to the next page.

Perhaps it's always been this way, and I'm just more sensitive to writing methodology now, as I'm a writer myself. But it does seem to be happening more. A good example are the Codex Alera books by Jim Butcher. But I've noticed some of it in your own books, Brent. It makes me wonder if this is a reaction, on our part as a genre, but the huge teen-fantasy bubble that happened surrounding Harry Potter. YA and middle grade also tend to be more quickly paced, more tight in this regard.

Oddly, I've found myself reacting against it. Not that I don't like this style of storytelling—in fact, I think it works very well. Jim's novel that I mentioned above was a real pleasure to read. Terry Pratchett does this in his books, and they're excellent. But I don't know if it matches every project and every story.

Conventional wisdom in writing is that you don't want the reader to stop and take a break, otherwise they might not return to the book. You always want to leave them hanging. And yet, I don't know if this kind of pacing works very well in the very long form novels. When I write my books these days, I WANT to give the reader some breathing room. Some time to step away from the book, if they want, and digest what has happened. I feel that if I pace them absolutely break-neck, the experience will be exhausting and draining across the long haul, and the book will end up unfulfilling.

Prague Signing ()
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Questioner

The second one is Starsight and the third one will be?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably Nowhere is what it's called. My US publisher doesn't like that title but I do because they go to Nowhere so we'll see if they persuade me not to use the title. That's the working title right now.

Questioner

When will it be in the English?

Brandon Sanderson

Published? It's probably not for a little while because next year is Stormlight 4 and everything I have is dedicated to writing that and so I won't start Skyward 3 until January at the earliest and probably turn it in. So I would guess two years from now would be when we would see Skyward 3. It depends on whether I write that or the last Wax and Wayne book next.

Elantris Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

We have a nice little cliff-hanger at the end of this section. However, you have to remember the format of the triad system–when we go back to Sarene, we'll be jumping back in time a bit. That means that you won't immediately discover what is going on with the gate of Elantris.

Dramatically, this is my favorite of the triad structures. We get to hold this cliffhanger for a long time, building it through the next chapter.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

The Romance Starts to Work

Anyway, this is the part I told you about earlier—the place where the Spook romance starts to work. For there to be real romance, I believe there has to be interaction. I've never been a fan of the "love at first sight" types of romances in books, though I do have to admit that such things afflict teenagers regularly. My goal here, then, is to show Spook moving a little bit beyond the infatuation stage and into the stage of knowing and caring for someone.

The book doesn't take their relationship very far, and that is intentional. There just isn't the time.

YouTube Livestream 2 ()
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Austin Alager

How much of the cosmere did you plan ahead when you started? What advice would you give for writing an extended universe, aside from making each book stand on its own?

Brandon Sanderson

You've got the most important one there already, so good for you.

I did not have most of the cosmere (in fact, any of the cosmere) really ready when I wrote Elantris. I have a big advantage in that my early books were terrible and didn't get published, and so when I did get published, I knew what I was doing, I had already written a bunch of these books, I had already started putting them in the same universe, and I was able to do a reboot, basically, from the beginning by releasing Elantris and Mistborn. If those early books had been published, then the cosmere would be a lot less cohesive than it is, because I was able to say, "Wow, someone bought Elantris (which was the first book I wrote back in the Cosmere sequence, back before I really knew it was going to be the Cosmere sequence)." When I put the pool in, I had no idea what the pool was. I just put it in. I'm like, "This is a cool thing. I'll figure out what to do with it." But, by the time I was writing Mistborn, I had put pools into things like Aether of Night, and I had the whole of Adonalsium (I came up with that while writing Dragonsteel, which was the book I wrote after Elantris). So, it was really fortunate that I was able to basically do a reboot and restart continuity by publishing Elantris and then writing the Mistborn trilogy, knowing by then about the whole cosmere and things like that.

A Memory of Light Los Angeles Signing ()
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Questioner (paraphrased)

Why do the Shardblades in The Stormlight Archive have the effect on flesh (human tissue) that they do?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He originally wrote the scene in the prologue with the assassin Szeth using a traditional sword, but it was so bloody and gruesome that Brandon was actually disgusted. He had to find a way to avoid that and so he came up with a new way for the swords to behave.

Words of Radiance release party ()
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Questioner

How do you suggest dealing with worldbuilding disease?

Brandon Sanderson

So, worldbuilder's disease is what we call it when you spend all of your time worldbuilding, and none of it writing. And this is a big deal for those of us like myself who like to worldbuild. You have to learn. And my biggest piece of advice for worldbuilder's disease is to set goals. Say "I am going to be done worldbuilding on this day." Or "On this day, I at least have to write Chapter One." And just give yourself limits, and say, "I have to do this." You can always add more in later. If you write your book and find holes, you can fill those in later. You can write down, "I need to know more about this." So set a goal, and say, "I need to start writing on this date." And then keep that date. That's the number one thing I'd suggest, you've just got to practice writing.

The other big thing, you can also practice writing something that you're not worldbuilding, to practice your writing. You say, "I'm gonna write this other story that's in the history of this world that's just gonna be for me. That's part of my worldbuilding. It's not my main story. So I don't have to stress about it, if everything's right, because it's just gonna be the background for my story eventually."

Epic Games interview ()
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Epic Games

How do you think the digital space is changing the publishing industry?

Brandon Sanderson

It's doing a lot of things. It is making it easier for people who don't frequently read books to run across books. I'm hoping that people who love to play their Infinity Blade games will see the story there and download it, and remember that they once loved to read books. Because a lot of people who are playing games read occasionally. I've found that most people, when they read a good book, say, "Wow, I really do like reading great books. Why don't I do this more often?" It's just a factor of that it slips our mind or we don't find time, or video games and movies are really flashy and books are anything but flashy. But there's just a wonderful experience to reading a book. I think there's space for all of these things, and I hope that more people can discover and be reminded of why they love books.

It's also taking away some of the constraints. Book length is no longer as much of a factor as it used to be. You can have a really long book or a really short book, and the binding doesn't dictate the length of your story, which I really like.

DragonCon 2016 ()
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Jennifer Liang

Okay, so I think the question everybody wants to ask you all the time is, what are you working on right now?

Brandon Sanderson

What am I working on right now. Well--

Crowd

*assorted cheers of Stormlight and other title*

Jennifer Liang

This isn't a vote. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I think they say that because they all know-- they watch the progress bars on the website. Which I actually put there early in my career, before I was-- As Dan, my friend Dan, Dan Wells-- he says "You used to be Brandon Sanderson. Now you're BRANDON SANDERSON." So before I was BRANDON SANDERSON I put those bars on the website because I was a Wheel of Time fan. And it helps so much to know how far along a book is, if you're waiting for it. I know not all authors work that way, so don't go harass other authors who do that. Some-- I have some friends who, y'know, if they-- The more they talk about the book to people, the harder it is for them to write. And so they get very closemouthed and quiet. And I am not that way, I am a very open person, so posting that up there gives me some kind of accountability in some ways. Like, alright the fans get to know what's going on--

So I'm working on the third Stormlight book. *cheers and applause* That is currently 330 thousand words long. *cheers* Which, for comparison, the original Way of Kings was around 300 thousand and Words of Radiance was around 400. And so-- And it's only three-quarters the way done... *laughter* So I've prepared the publisher that they have to go through this again. Maybe I'll be able to get the future books in the series a little shorter. But this one is going to be a big one. Which I know you guys are so sad about. *laughter* I anticipate it being published about one year after I hit 100% on the first draft. So if you watch that progress bar, right when that ticks to 100, you're looking at about a one year period. I've been doing really well, momentum's being really good lately. And so I'm expecting that to be October, but just watch as that goes. It will slowly tick up. It's not ticking up right now because I'm actually doing revisions for Part 3 of the book. Which I'm doing the revisions as I write the book this time to get my editior-- Who's bipolar-- I give him the cha- parts when he's manic, so he revises them, and that let's us get through the periods where he's not manic. And he's manic right now, so I'm going to send him a part and be like "Okay Moshe, time to work on this." You just have to learn how to work the business this way when you've got an editor like Moshe. Book's going really well. This will have, most likely, Dalinar's flashback sequence in it, and I will be reading one of those at my reading tomorrow. *cheers*

Which I like to read from those, because they take place before the first book so it's not a huge spoiler for people who haven't finished, like, Words of Radiance, or anything like that yet. Because it takes place before the series, but they're also very self-contained sequences. They read very well.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-Four - Part Two

Slowswift's Young Men

One may be left wondering about the two unfortunate men whom Vin used in her ploy. Aledin and Troalin were brothers, actually—cousins to Slowswift; men whose mother was executed by the Steel Ministry for her dalliance with a skaa serving man. (Her husband and their father had passed away some years before.)

Yomen—who was in charge in the city by then—allowed her legitimate sons to keep their titles and not suffer disgrace in exchange for their silence about their mother's dalliance, which would have been an embarrassment to all. They remained in Fadrex, but never got over what had been done to their mother and were known by Slowswift as dissidents against the obligator's reign.

Both were implicated in Vin's infiltration of the cache, as Yomen had other spies watching her that she never noticed—spies whose job was to stay out of the way and make sure the door shut behind her when she sneaked in. The brothers were tossed in a dungeon, only to be released after the beginning of the alliance between Elend and Yomen. They made it into the cache before the end, and later became distinguished leaders under Spook's reign.

ICon 2019 ()
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Questioner

Your magic systems are very structured, and specific rules that dominate them. But are there any universal laws that apply to all of the magic systems in the cosmere together?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there's several of them. Basically, the most important one and relevant to people who enjoy real physics is that I consider something called Investiture to be a third state of matter and energy. So, instead of e=mc^2, we have a third thing, Investiture, in there. And you can change Investiture to matter or to energy. And so, because of that, that law that you can do this, is where we see a lot of the cosmere magics living.

We also have a kind of rule that beings all exist, everything exists on three different levels. The Physical, the Spiritual, and the Cognitive. And, like we have DNA for our Physical self, we also have Mental DNA and Spiritual DNA, and all three influence one another. For instance, you couldn't test an Allomancer's blood and find the Allomancy gene, because it is in a different set of their DNA. You just have three sets. You could compose a test that could test it on the Spiritual Realm, but you're gonna have to use a different branch of physics to do that and determine who was an Allomancer. And so they all work on this kind of fundamental rules of: your Identity, your Connection, and being part of your soul, and the magics working through those things.

So there's some fundamental rules about this, about changing forms from energy to matter, and you having this Identity, Investiture, and Connection stored in your Spiritual DNA that are really relevant to everything.

General Reddit 2019 ()
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DaddyMcLongLegs

Is the footwear for Plate a version of sabatons? Meaning, is it a form fitting armor over a boot? I ask because I was wondering how an Edgedancer would use Abrasion on the Shardplate they were wearing?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardplate as it is used by Shardbearers in the modern era of Roshar would interfere with Edgedancers moving like they do. (Yes, it does fit around the boot entirely.)

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

The Symbol of the Spear

I'm not trying to overtly duplicate Christianity with the spear becoming the symbol of the Church of the Survivor much like the cross became for Christians. It just seemed a very natural symbol, and I do very much like playing with the idea of how a religion grows and changes from a loose set of beliefs into an organized theology.

Grasping for the Wind Interview ()
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John Ottinger

Your battle system involving bridges and plateaus is both complex and innovative. In writing these scenes, was a significant amount of research necessary, and did you encounter any difficulties when writing the sequences?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes to both questions. This is not going to be immediately obvious, but the big difficulty was in designing bridges that were mobile but also strong enough to support a cavalry charge. It took a lot of research and talk with my editor, looking at the engineering of it and the physics of the world to actually be able to create these things. I'm sure fans are going to try to diagram them out. That was one aspect of it: how were the bridges going to be set?

I approached this first from a "how would you actually fight on these plains?" direction. But also I wanted to evoke the concept of a terrible siege, with a man running with a ladder toward a wall. And yet that's been done so much. The Shattered Plains came from me wanting to do something new. I liked the idea of battles taking place in a situation that could never exist on our planet, what it would require, what it would take out of the people, and how it would naturally grow. And so I did a lot of reading about siege equipment. I did a lot of reading about weights of various woods, did a lot playing with the length, the span between the chasms, etc. One thing that people should know if they are trying to figure all this out is that Roshar has less gravity than Earth does. This is a natural outgrowth of my requirements both for the bridges and for the size of the creatures that appear in the book—of course they couldn't get that large even with the point-seven gravity that Roshar has, but we also have magical reasons they can grow the size they do. That's one factor to take into account.