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West Jordan signing ()
#4701 Copy

Questioner

How many Stormlight Archive books are you planning? And how long is the next one going to be?

Brandon Sanderson

Two series of five. So one ten book series, but you can view it as two sequences of five. My goal actually right now is to do the first five, take a little break, and maybe do the second Mistborn trilogy, or maybe do the White Sand trilogy. These are chunks of the Cosmere that are a part of the greater arc, but the next [Stormlight Archive] book will probably not be as long. This is because I actually felt Way of Kings was too long, but it was what it needed to be, for what I was establishing. There was no sooner place to cut this, so I had to do it in this place. When I first turned it in to my editor in 2002, it scared him to death because of how big it was. I do plan the others to be more around the size of Gathering Storm and things, which are still big books, but I’m hoping that they will be a little bit shorter, because those chunks are more manageable when the books are a little bit shorter. I can actually make the book tighter more easily.

I think Way of Kings turned out very tight, but it was so hard, because the longer you go with a sequence like that, the harder it is to make sure that everything, everyone is keeping track of everything. And the longer you go, the more of an instinct the reader will have to start following certain characters instead of reading it first as mixed, which makes for a better book. They’ll be like “Ah, I don’t remember this as well; I’ll just keep reading Kaladin,” or something like that. That’s actually a reason for me to keep them shorter, so you don’t have as much of an impetus to do that.

White Sand vol.1 release party ()
#4705 Copy

Questioner

In the Graphic Audio books... Obviously they had to change things, and when Vasher wake-- or puts the rest of the Breath into the rope he uses a different Command. He says, "My breath to give for life to live." Is that that canon, or is that just...

Brandon Sanderson

So here's the thing... You have to be ver--...

Questioner

I mean, I know he's got to...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah...

Questioner

...You know, he has to be careful with his Commands so he doesn't give away his Divine Breath. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

I'm just wondered if that's the...

Brandon Sanderson

I think that's canon.

Questioner

Canon. 'Cause it's not in the regular book.

Brandon Sanderson

But it's not in the regular book. I'm gonna have to go back and look, but I think that's canon.

Questioner

Okay, cool.

Brandon Sanderson

Pretty sure. So yeah, you have to be really careful when you've got a Divine Breath, what you're doing. *interruption* I'm gonna have to go to Isaac and Peter to make sure that that's the canon thing. That they got that from us. But for now you can pretend that it is.

Teen Author Boot Camp ()
#4706 Copy

mail-mi (paraphrased)

There's a bunch of us on 17th Shard doing a role playing game set in the Reckoners universe, and we were wondering if there are any powerful Epics on the west coast that we should know about.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Night's Whisper is a super powerful Epic on the west coast, and Obliteration could definitely be there for Oregon's destruction.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
#4707 Copy

Questioner

So are the rumors true are you [and Pat Rothfuss] going to write a book together?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but every time we are on a panel we are like "AH we should write a book together." It's highly unlikely, that we would ever do anything together. Just because our writing styles are so different. Pat's writing process-- It's not so much style it's the writing process-- is so different. But you can hold out hope. Perhaps some day I will have a pitch for Pat or something like that. But I would hate to inconvenience his fans by distracting him with something else.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
#4708 Copy

Aldoth

A bit left of center question. Are you a role player? I ask because on Writing Excuses I think I heard you mention it.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I am a role player. Have been since I discovered the TMNT RPG back when I was a young teen, and have been doing it pretty much ever since. When I play, I’m almost always some kind of magic user (duh). When I GM, I prefer to homebrew my own system.

Ben McSweeney AMA ()
#4709 Copy

Kopaka99559

Which of your illustrations would you say was the most enjoyable to create?

Ben McSweeney

Shardplate and Blades, hands down. It was also kinda the easiest, because I'd been doodling different types of Plate since the first pitch to Tor back in 2008. Brandon basically gave me a big ol' present with that one. :)

Discounting that, probably the Chasmfiend, just because it was one of those designs that was awful and failing and then suddenly I figured out a solution, and ultimately I loved the results. That nosedive is the worst on the way down, but man it feels good when you pull out of it.

platysaur

Chasmfiends are some of the most badass and terrifying creatures in fantasy, I think. So in that regard, you did an amazing job! Whitespines are pretty awesome too.

Ben McSweeney

Thank you! The whitespine design was particularly challenging, we almost went with a different creature up until just a few weeks before the deadline, when I scrapped it and redrew it all again. It really was a bad design, anatomically, and while I could have let it pass I would have hated it forever. The end result isn't perfect, but it's much better.

I think there's a blog post about it on Brandon's website, somewhere. Isaac did a whole interview with me, including pictures of the previous designs.

platysaur

Interesting story! Thanks for replying. I can't wait to see what you have next for Stormlight Archive! And great job on Shadows of Self too, I just finished it yesterday. I love the dude's super long and pointy mustache.

Ben McSweeney

Haha, I think Isaac came up with the description of the moustache, so he deserves much of the credit. They are dangerous-looking, aren't they?

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#4710 Copy

-lurcher-

"Ghostbloods" is an interesting name to me. Is that a name that originated on Roshar or somewhere else? Does the group have to do either with ghosts or blood? Or is it more a metaphorical name?

Brandon Sanderson

The name of the Ghostbloods has roots in specific cosmere events, and means something in world.

Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing ()
#4711 Copy

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said ettmetal is chemically reactive, not nuclear.

The longer answer makes it sound like Harmonium isn't a Lerasium/Atium alloy, but a whole new metal. He described it as "super-cesium," and that its volatility was based on electrons, not on protons or neutrons.

"It is not unstable, it is reactive. So it's like a "super-cesium". It reacts so violently..."

Skyward release party ()
#4712 Copy

Shqueeves

Stormlight, when you hold it, gives a sense of immediate urgency or movement. Does Voidlight have a similar emotional impact?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Shqueeves

Is it the same as the urgency, or is it something different?

Brandon Sanderson

Something different.

Shqueeves

What is it?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. Good question.

Skyward Houston signing ()
#4714 Copy

Questioner

Are we ever going to see the Moon Scepter on screen and what it does?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you should see the Moon Scepter on screen. What it does is it works as a kind of Rosetta Stone for interpreting some of the magics.

Questioner

So that's why Hoid wanted it?

Brandon Sanderson

That's why Hoid wanted it, yes. He's  trying to figure out how to give himself-- To be able to use the magics on Sel, and that's a key that he wanted.

JordanCon 2016 ()
#4717 Copy

Questioner

In the original Mistborn series, when Leras plans the 1 in 16 Snapping, was he not aware of chromium and nicrosil? Or--

Brandon Sanderson

He was aware that they would not be aware of and were not aware of it. He was using the kind of vague ability in some of the cosmere magics to read possibilities on the future. He was also already not completely there when he was building this.

Writing for Charity Conference ()
#4719 Copy

Zas678 (paraphrased)

A question related to that. There's an idea going around that all the spren that can Nahel Bond, all Knight Radiant spren are called honorspren, and then Nohadon talks specifically about honorspren. Is that the case? You know, is it just the Windrunner spren, or is it all the spren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I'm going to deal with this in the next book. So I'll just go ahead and let it be a literal RAFO. It is coming.

*interruption, leading Brandon to lose his train of though*

So what we are dealing with here is that all spren are indeed all pieces of the one who has gone, so those spren are all- except the Windrunner spren, the spren like Syl, have certain umm.

Zas678 (paraphrased)

Nohadon mentioned that "All the spren aren't as discerning as honorspren."

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

So there has been dissension among them about who gets to call themselves honorspren, if that makes sense, and there is some disagreement among scholars about which ones are really, you know "This is what defines an honorspren".

But the spren you are running into are all *inaudible* of either Honor or Cultivation, or some mixture between them. And you can usually tell the ones that are more Honor, and the ones that are more Cultivation. That should be able to be *inaudible*.

Shadows of Self Houston signing ()
#4721 Copy

Questioner

Are there any actors that you would love to see in an adaptation of your work?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, excellent. Are there any actors I would love to see in an adaptation of my work? Wow, you know, you toy with this in your head, but I usually only do it after I've written the book because-- and then it's kind of hard because I'm like this character is the person in my head, not a specific actor. But we've had to start doing it, where people come when they're making the films and they're like "Who do you see in this role", or something like this. And so I have come up with some of these things. For instance, the guys who have Mistborn keep talking about Sazed, and they kind of want to go Asian with Sazed, which I think would work just fine for the Terris, and they keep using Chow Yun Fat as someone they would look at. Which would be pretty cool. 

Legion I wrote with a few actors in mind, one of the few books I've done that, so if you've read that I actually cast Ivy, JC, and Tobias as three actors I like. You should read it and see if you can figure out who those three are, because I've said online and you can read that and say "I wonder", and then you just google it and they'll all be there. One of them is from Firefly, so-- I'll give you a hint, this character's initials have been the same in like five or six different movies, and they're the same initials I use for the character and the fact that he's playing a character with the same initials, and so I use those initials. But for the most part I don't really think on this too much, because you spend a lot of time thinking about it, like when someone first bought Mistborn I was like "Ooh who do we get to play Vin"? And now all those actors, they're all like ten years older than being able to play Vin now, so it's like what was the point in doing all that. So I'm just going to let something actually get to casting, and then hopefully they'll invite me in and I can give my feedback.

Words of Radiance San Diego signing ()
#4722 Copy

Questioner (paraphrased)

Will we see more of Szeth’s backstory, including how he became a Truthless?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That, you will have to wait for his flashback sequences in a future book. Each character gets a set of flashback sequences. I'm not going to promise that the characters live to the book where their flashback sequences are. You might have a character die and then get their flashbacks the next book to get more information on them. This will be Shallan's flashback, then the next book will be Szeth's flashback, then Eshonai, then Dalinar.

Arcanum Unbounded release party ()
#4729 Copy

Questioner

At one point, you mentioned that Kelsier scared you. Could you talk a little more about why?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Kelsier is one of my favorite characters. I like them all, whoever I'm writing, right? But one of the things that makes Kelsier tick is (and this was my original pitch for him to myself) in another story, he'd be the villain. Kelsier has this hard edge to him. He's one of those people that, when channeled wrong, he becomes the best and most interesting villain. But he happened to be in a situation that pushed him the other direction, and he became a hero. But he still has that edge to him. And there is a darkness to Kelseir that doesn't exist in most of the heroes in my books. Someone like Kaladin has a darkness to him, too, but a darkness that they're fighting against. Whereas Kelsier has embraced this darkness. It is part of what makes him him. So, Kelsier is a little frightening to me as a writer, just because he's a character that I can't guarantee will make good decisions.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#4731 Copy

Logic_Nuke

Could decapitation kill a Gold Compounder? With a guillotine, for example?

Brandon Sanderson

Most forms of extreme cosmere healing don't care much what is done to the physical body, as the person's spiritual template is in power at the time.

Words of Radiance Seattle signing ()
#4732 Copy

Questioner

I know Hoid jumps around and meets various people that are very influential in the various books. I'm curious as to how he knows who he needs to meet, how's he lead to them.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a RAFO, but it is a question you're supposed to be asking-- You know what a RAFO is?

Questioner

No.

Brandon Sanderson

It means Read and Find Out. If you watch at the end of this book he's not always certain why he needs to be where he needs to be. So there is some measure-- something is going on here but it is not made clear yet and I don't want to clear it up with you quite yet.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
#4734 Copy

Questioner

Now the Wit, does he have a spren, is he a Herald, is he one of the older people?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Wit is an immortal who travels between worlds. Who-- His magic is not from Roshar. He is in all the other books, if you look for him. So he's in Warbreaker, he's in all three Mistborn books, he's in-- yeah...

*points to Argent and Kurkistan* These guys can point you to everything, they're from the fansite and they've found out about all kinds of things about him. But he is popping up everywhere.

Warbreaker Annotations ()
#4735 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my dear wife, Emily. I started writing this book when we were dating, and worked on it all through our engagement. I even took it on our honeymoon to Hawaii—though I didn't actually get any writing done on it then.

When I proposed to her, I wrote out a little poem in the form of a proposal that I said I'd use as the Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians dedication. She didn't want it to appear in the book, however, because a live dedication in a novel would have embarrassed her.

However, I asked if she'd mind having Warbreaker dedicated to her, and she was excited about that. You may know that when we were married, I commissioned a large batch of swords—inscribed with names from my books—and gave them to my closest friends. I named Emily's sword Lightsong, and she carried it around at the reception. (Mine is named Dragonsteel.)

So, anyway, this book is very dear to her. It's the first one of mine she had input on during the editing process. And now it's finally published, about three years since the date of our wedding. Ah, how time flies.

As a side note, when I was a teenager, I dreamed of someday proposing to my wife via a book dedication. Back then, being married and getting published were both very, very distant goals of mine. Like twin holy grails, shining on the mountain, virtually unobtainable but hoped for nonetheless.

I can still remember thinking of how cool it would be to surprise my soon-to-be-fiancée by walking with her into the bookstore to see if my new book was on the shelves yet. (In my daydream, it was the Cosmic Comics store back in Lincoln, which sold sf/fantasy books. It's the place where I first saw Eye of the World on a store shelf, by the way.) I imagined myself walking over and finding it on the shelf during its release week, then calling her over. That would be the first time she'd see the dedication, which would be a proposal to her. Of course, I'd have worked it out with the bookstore owner so that there was a ring taped to the next page.

Ah, ignorance. It was a fond dream. What I didn't realize is that often, there are years between the writing of a book and its publication. I didn't really think that Emily would want to wait three years for a proposal, just so that I could surprise her by having it in the front of a published book. . . .

Sometimes, though, it's still amazing to me to look back at that sixteen-year-old version of myself and realize that I've achieved both of those goals. I'm not only a published author, but I'm writing fantasy books as a full-time job. And I'm not only married, but I'm married to just about the most wonderful woman who's ever lived.

So those things weren't so unobtainable after all. But they're still just as precious as I imagined.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#4738 Copy

Spoolofwhool

Aluminum in the cosmere cannot be Invested or generally affected by Investiture processes. The exception to this however is the Metallic Arts where aluminum can be burned, turned into a metalmind, or charged with Hemalurgy. Is this due to an exception in the normally Investiture-proof properties of aluminum specifically for the Metallic Arts? If so, what kind of Connection is there between the Metallic Arts and aluminum which allows this to occur?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO 

Skyward Anchorage signing ()
#4739 Copy

Questioner

How about the Way of Kings board game?

Brandon Sanderson

...Too early to say. There have been some hiccups, how about that? Reckoners board game, though, came out and is really a lot of fun. So if you're looking for Brandon Sanderson themed board games, we do have two of them for you. But the Stormlight one, we shall see. Right now, we are being very cautious with that one.

JordanCon 2021 ()
#4741 Copy

Jofwu

The Seventeenth Shard was looking for a certain individual on Roshar. Have they found him yet? Or, what are they doing?

Brandon Sanderson

They never managed to find him. He is tricksy, as you might imagine, he is a tricksy hobbit. And so they have never managed to find him. They think they got close a couple times, but they actually didn't. And by the point of Rhythm of War, they have given up and left planet, because he kind of went behind their backs and was talking to people and things like that.

We will catch up to those three at some point, I hope, and find out what they've been up to. They kept looking in the wrong countries.

Google+ Hangout ()
#4742 Copy

Tristan Brand

You're planning the Stormlight Archive as this big long ten book series and I imagine that obviously look at your work with the Wheel of Time the other big long epic series, one of the issues that at least some fans perceive is that these series are at least perceived to sag or at least slow down at some point in the middle. People start to get very bogged down and it takes years for the next one's out, is that something you're considering for your structuring of the Stormlight Archive and what are you trying to do to address that?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question, it is actually something that I've very consciously thought about when designing this story. One of the reasons that I didn't release The Way of Kings when I wrote it back in 2002 is that I hadn't figured out this problem yet. And it's one of the reasons that I shelved the book and re-wrote it from scratch back a couple of years ago.

I really was conscious of it because I have an advantage over authors like George Martin and Robert Jordan, who have had these kinds of accusations levelled at them, in that I've read them! I've read Robert Jordan. Robert Jordan didn't get to read Robert Jordan in the same way, and I can see he's kind of pushed his way through the snow for some of us to fall behind and see some of the things that he did, even after he said "Boy, I think I might have done that differently." We can learn from that.

What I'm trying to do is... first off The Stormlight Archive is divided in my head into two five book series, it is a ten booker but it is two big five book sequences, which I do think that will give me more of a vision of a beginning, middle, and end for each of the sequences.

The other thing I'm doing is I consciously did some little thing in the books. For instance, one of the reasons we end up with sprawl in epic fantasy series is I think writers start writing side characters and getting really interested in them. The side characters are awesome, they let you see the breadth of the world and dabble in different places. What I did is I let myself have the interludes in The Way of Kings, and I will continue to do those in the future books, and I told myself I can write these interludes but those characters can't become main characters. Those characters have to be just glimpses.

The other main thing that I'm doing is that each book in The Stormlight Archive is focused on a character. That character gets flashbacks and we get into the backstory and that gives me a beginning, middle, and end and a thematic way to tie that book together, specifically to that character, which I hope will make each character, each book feel more individual.

Which is part of also the problem I feel with the big long series, that they start to blend. And then, if the author starts to view some of them as blending then you stop having big climaxes at the ends of some of them and view them too blended together. This isn't a problem when the series is finished. I think that when the Wheel of Time can be read beginning to end straight-through, a lot of this worry about middle-meandering is going to go away, because you can see it as a whole. But certainly while you're releasing it, you get just these little glimpses that feel so short to us.

I feel that if I can take each book and apply it to one character, give a deep flashback for each one and thematically tie it to them, each book will have its own identity and hopefully will avoid some of that. That's my goal, who knows if I'll be able to pull it off but it is my intention.

Google Moderator

You seem to be pulling it off so far Brandon.

Brandon Sanderson

Well I only have one book yet! I mean none of these, none of these series... they all started with great first books, in fact I feel that a lot of them are great all the way through, but the sprawl issue doesn't usually start to hit til around book four is really where the, where the problems show up.

/r/fantasy AMA 2011 ()
#4743 Copy

staircasewit

You’ve mentioned some of the characters who we are going to see throughout the Stormlight Archive series (Shallan, Dalinar, Szeth, Jasnah, etc.). However, I don’t remember seeing you comment on Wit. Are we going to see Wit (or plain ol’ Hoid) more throughout the series? Or less? (Hopefully more! :D)

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid has a large part of the story in the Stormlight Archive. You will be seeing much more of him. However, he will not get a 'book' of his own, most likely. He will get his own novels, just not among the Stormlight sequence.

Orem signing ()
#4744 Copy

Questioner

I was wondering if you meant to do the arms thing in the beginning of Mistborn with Sazed.

Brandon Sanderson

I did, I did. I feel kind of silly because it actually is a pun. And the entire Mistborn trilogy is therefore based on a pun. The first paragraph of the first chapter, like, the first epigraph. But you know, if you can't tell from me naming my character Wax and Wayne, that I have a slight problem with puns.

JordanCon 2018 ()
#4745 Copy

Questioner

I know that with Harmony, he has difficulty interacting because he holds two Shards. Did Adonalsium, since he had all these other personality traits, also have issues directly interfering? 

Brandon Sanderson

A RAFO! Good question. I've never been asked that question before.

Stormlight Three Update #3 ()
#4746 Copy

Ghodicu

The pocket companion states that there are three spren that can bond a person to make them into a bondsmith, the Stormfather being one of them. As far as I recall the books implied that the number was low, and implied heavily that it was around that number in an epigraph, but didn't actually have a straight confirmation. So, should I take that as canon?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you can take that as canon. They came to me for that information.

yahasgaruna

Sweet. I guess it hasn't been canonized which three spren these are? I seem to recall that the prevailing theory on 17th Shard was that Nightwatcher was one of them, and the third was that weird spren with too many faces that Axies the Collector looked at in the tWoK interlude.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. :)

Alloy of Law Milton Keynes signing ()
#4747 Copy

Questioner (paraphrased)

How does compounding work in Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I can explain this better in person because I know things that the characters in the book don’t. So, they haven’t worked a lot of this out. All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.

In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.

In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.

Bands of Mourning release party ()
#4749 Copy

Questioner

This is kind of a shot in the dark but is there anything you want to tell me about whoever writes the Ars Arcanum?

Brandon Sanderson

The person who writes the Ars Arcanum is a character in-world from a book that is been written but has not been published.

Questioner

Is it a book that has been announced?

Brandon Sanderson

It is a book that's been announced, the title is known.

Footnote: The Ars Arcanum are written by Khriss, a character originally from White Sand.
#ars arcanum #khriss
Shadows of Self release party ()
#4750 Copy

Questioner

Who's Tarah?

Brandon Sanderson

*long pause* Why do you want to know?  ...Tell me why you want to know.

Questioner

Because she's important to Kaladin and Kaladin's important to me?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, that's a decent answer. She-- um. Ehhhh. She was someone Kaladin cared for deeply in a romantic way.