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Is The Lost Metal planned to be the actual conclusion of the Wax & Wayne story then, or more of an epilogue to it and/or transition to [Era 3]?
Brandon Sanderson
It is an actual conclusion.
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Is The Lost Metal planned to be the actual conclusion of the Wax & Wayne story then, or more of an epilogue to it and/or transition to [Era 3]?
It is an actual conclusion.
Do you still plan to write Wax and Wayne four?
So I've got time, probably, to work on one more project this year, cause Skyward 2 is almost done. I'm still not 100% sure what it'll be. It's probably gonna be Skyward 3 cause it'll be super nice to just have that locked up and done. If that's the case, then Wax and Wayne 4 will probably be written in between parts of Stormlight 4, as I'm writing it, as I need breaks. If I can manage the way I take my breaks, that might be helpful for us getting the book out. One of the things I've learned to do is to take my breaks as novellas, which is why you see a lot more novellas from me than standalone novels across the last five to ten years. And that's because I realized as I was doing breaks as novels that, number one it took a lot longer, particularly in revision, and number two it ended up promising sequels, because I am incapable of finishing a novel without promising sequels, apparently. But I am capable of finishing shorter works without promising sequels. If I can get that, I really do want to get Wax and Wayne 4 done in a reasonable amount of time, but we'll see.
Updates on Main Projects
Mistborn
Wax and Wayne 4 is on the slate next after I finish Skyward. (Though if it's going well, I may do the entire trilogy for Skyward first.) I need four or five months at least to do Wax and Wayne, so rain or shine, my plan is to get into this on September 1st at the latest. Hopefully a little earlier.
This will wrap up the second era of Mistborn books. (And yes, I've settled—at long last—on just calling it that. All the other terms I tried were just too confusing.) Once the Wax and Wayne books are done, I'll look to do something else for a little while before coming back for Era Three. (1980s spy thriller Mistborn.)
Status: To be written in 2018.
What percent confident are you that Mistborn 2.4 will be named The Lost Metal? In that same vein, what percent confident are you that Stormlight 5 will be named Stones Unhallowed? (I think that's a fantastic title btw and you should definitely keep it.)
I'm probably around 95% on Lost Metal and 70% on Stones Unhallowed.
When are we gonna get more books in Wax & Wayne?
There will be one more, and it will be my next book I'm writing next year. Once I finish Apocalypse Guard, I'll write it next year. So just watch a percentage bar on my website, it will tell you when it's gonna come out.
Does The Lost Metal takes place in Southern Scadrial?
No, it's in the Basin. However it will have stuff about South Scadrial in it. His exact words were he doesn't want to write anything set in south Scadrial "yet".
Main Projects
Mistborn
The Lost Metal, Wax and Wayne Four, will be my next non-YA novel project. I still intend to write it so that it can come out in 2018. You should see a progress bar for it pop up sometime in the fall of 2017.
This will be the last Wax and Wayne book. Because of fan outcry, we're just going to call the Wax and Wayne books "Era Two" of Mistborn from here out, and I'm sorry for the "Era 1.5 fiasco" of last year. That would have worked if I'd started calling it that from the get-go, but it's too late now.
Once Era Two is done, we'll let Mistborn lie fallow for a few years while I move on to Elantris/Warbreaker sequels. (See below.)
Status: Book Seven (W&W 4) being outlined.
Secret history gave a lot of answers but a lot more questions. Will we get more answers in the next Mistborn book?
The next Mistborn book will have some answers but not Secret History level answers. It is still mostly focused on Wax and Wayne, Steris and Marasi, and finishing up their stories. By the time we get to third era Mistborn we are gonna start seeing a lot more creep in of some of this stuff. Its really fourth era were gonna see the most. The further we go in the Cosmere the more things will creep in. Mistborn; there be a lot more creeping in than in Way of Kings.
What book are you most excited about working on?
I would say the Wax&Wayne book, the last one, I am really eager to do. I've got a lot of really good notes for it.
[My son] would like to know when you're planning to write Bastille?
..We're close. The fact that I ditched Apocalypse Guard has slow me down a bit. I was planning to write Bastille very soon. But it's gonna depend on how soon I finish [Skyward], when I need to go into Wax & Wayne. I need to go into Wax & Wayne, like, July at the latest. So, it's gonna depend on how long Skyward takes. But I'm gonna try to slip it in there.
Would it be too much to ask for another Mistborn novel?
The last Wax and Wayne book should be one of my projects this year. We'll see how Skyward finishes up.
So in one of your State of the Sanderson posts you said that the "Wax and Wayne" series was going to come out in late 2019, but then you decided to write another trilogy that lasted two years, so--
So Wax & Wayne 4. Abandoning Apocalypse Guard has put me a little on the rocks for when I'm going to do that. Right now I'm planning Wax & Wayne 4 to be a book I use as a break from doing revisions on Stormlight 4. Stormlight 4 I have to start in January if I'm going to meet my stated goal of having them come out every three years, which I realize is a long time between books, but remember that they're four times longer than a normal book! *laughter*. You're laughing, but Oathbringer was 450,000 words, Skyward is 110,000. So Oathbringer is longer than four Skywards. I do have Skyward 2 done, and am going through the editing process right now. *applause* So Wax & Wayne 4 is very much on my radar-- I wrote the first one taking a break from Towers of Midnight, so the chances are good I'll need a break from Stormlight 4 and write it there. I don't know if it'll be out next year or the following summer. Stormlight 4 we're shooting for the fall of 2020, and I should be able to get it right around that time if I start in January, so that's the plan.
What's the timeline looking on the next Mistborn book?
Uhhhh, indeterminate. It's going to depend on how Skyward 2 goes and whether I use [The Lost Metal] as a break in the middle of Stormlight or if I do it right before Stormlight 4. It shouldn't be too long.
When might we expect a sequel to Warbreaker?
When might you expect a sequel to Warbreaker. Okay, let me go down the list. I have finished three books, alright? The finished books are: Bands of Mourning, which is the sequel to the one you-- many of you bought today; I have finished Calamity, the last book of The Reckoners; and I've finished, a while ago, the fifth book of the Alcatraz series, for the middle-grade series. Which I finished a while ago, but we had to wait for the contracts to run out before I could release it, it's a big complicated thing. So those are in the queue, and they are coming.
Now I am writing, right now, Stormlight 3. Yes working on that. It's actually-- Anytime I mention Stormlight people are contractually obligated to shout in my crowds. So I'm finishing that and my goal is to have it done by May or June. If it is done by May or June the publisher has said they will publish it Christmastime, so November/December next year. If I miss May or June then it gets pushed back to the Spring sometime. So just watch the progress bars on my website and you'll see-- you'll be able to gauge. It's slowed down a lot because of revisions and touring but they should pick back up as soon as I get home.
After that I'm going to write a book called The Apocalypse Guard, which is my follow-up to Steelheart. Not the same world but the same style, fast-paced, frantic action sort of things. In the US those are published as teen books, here they're published as adult books, I don't even know what they are but I want to have a follow-up for my teen publisher. Something that's similar. So we're going to do that, then I'm going to do Rithmatist 2, and then I will do finally the fourth Wax and Wayne book which will wrap up Era 2 of Mistborn. Then I will do Stormlight 4.
If the book, such as Warbreaker sequel, is not in that list it means it is coming post-Stormlight 4. So we've got a little ways to wait, but I will get around to doing them, I promise.
So, there will be a total of four Wax and Wayne era Mistborn novels. Alloy of Law, plus a Trilogy I plotted after finishing it.
so this 5 and 6 are not the end of this era, there is one more we should wait for, right?
Yes. The last of this era is tentatively called The Lost Metal.
When will you clear up the things at the end of Bands of Mourning?
That is mostly setup for Era 3 of Mistborn. You can find some answers in Arcanum Unbounded; if you haven't read that, I would recommend that. If you get the the end of Bands of Mourning and you're like "huuuuh?" there are some answers in Arcanum Unbounded, but mostly I'm doing stuff that is Era 3 of Mistborn, which will be written after Stormlight 5. There will be a Wax & Wayne 4. Wax & Wayne 4 will touch on these, but it's not the central theme of the Wax & Wayne books; it's the central theme of Era 3.
When were you planning on having the fourth Wax & Wayne book?
So, it'll be the next Cosmere book I write. I probably won't get to it until earlier next year. So well see when the publisher decides to publish it after I turn it in.
Is there going to be another Wax and Wayne book?
Yes, there will be one more.
Yes? And when's it coming out?
I have it scheduled to be one of the things right after Stormlight 4 but before Stormlight 5. So i have to get Stormlight 4 done, that will take another couple months writing and about six months of editing. So you watch sometime around July on my website we should start seeing the Wax and Wayne progress bar pop up or the Skyward 3 progress bar. Those are the two things I need to write.
So how's Waxillium doing?
Slow but sure. I'm pretty sure I will be finishing it up soon here.
It'll be out next year, then? 2019?
Maybe. Maybe. I can't promise yet. It depends on how the writing goes the last half of this year. January 1st, I have to start on Stormlight Four. And so I'm trying to squeeze the last Wax & Wayne in after I finish Skyward 2.
Is Hoid going to be in The Lost Metal?
Hoid has made an appearance in almost all the books, so you can bet odds are good he will be in The Lost Metal.
Have you plotted Lost Metal yet? Is that still its name?
Lost Metal is still the name. I have my original one-page outline from my first plotting session, when I built Era Two to actually be an Era, rather than a little dalliance. I do not have the full multi-page outline, which I will probably be doing while my editor is editing Skyward Three early next year. And I'll get the Wax and Wayne Four book really into good shape with the outline, and then I'll go back and do the last revisions on Skyward Three, and then I'll start working on Wax and Wayne.
I'm guessing that the Wax and Wayne book, I won't start it officially until, like, March or April, will be my guess. Just because we need to immediately go into revisions on Skyward Three if we're gonna have it out for next Christmastime. (Which my publisher was very hesitant about agreeing to. But I really like to have at least a release every year. I don't like to skip years, whenever I can make it happen. So they agreed to, instead of doing it the following spring, to do it next year around Christmastime.) Which means that I need to do the revisions really fast. So I am going to work on that.
Projected Schedule
My projected publication schedule looking forward swaps The Apocalypse Guard out for Skyward and moves the Legion collection into the place of Wax and Wayne 4, reflecting what I actually wrote this year. (Note, these are always very speculative. And Peter is probably already worried about Stormlight 4.)
September 2018: Stephen Leeds/Legion Collection
November 2018: Skyward
Fall 2019: Wax and Wayne 4
Sometime 2019: Skyward 2
Sometime 2020: Stormlight 4
Sometime 2020: Skyward 3
Can we get a small, just a small tidbit or a reveal of what Marasi is going to be doing in The Lost Metal?
So, opening scene of The Lost Metal is her and Wayne. It's a couple of years later and Wax is basically retired to <a thing> and Wayne is her deputy now instead, mainly so she can keep him channeled in the right direction.
Do you have any updates on the next Wax and Wayne book?
No updates right now; cancelling the Apocalypse Guard and writing a new book in its place has put me just a little behind, but it was the right thing to do *inaudible*. And so I'm just finishing up Skyward 2 and Skyward 1 is coming out in November and I have until January to write something else, because January I need to start another Stormlight book so if it doesn't happen before then I'll probably do it in breaks between chunks of Stormlight.
Are you planning on writing more broadsheet stories for The Lost Metal?
I'm assuming at this point that I'll do what I've done in the last two. I didn't do much on the Alloy ones, at all. That you, Peter, and...
On the first one, I wrote Allomancer Jak. You wrote the next two.
One of our goals is eventually to have Isaac writing some Mistborn books or graphic novels, because he's the only person who knows it as well as I do and who could do it justice. People want more Cosmere, so the goal is eventually to do that. But he has his hands full with White Sand stuff right now.
Which is preparatory for...
Outlining a couple of Cosmere stories right now.
But right now, you're the only one who's written canon Cosmere fiction other than me, because the Nikki Savage story is in-world fiction, but it's, you know.
And the other Allomancer Jak story. I can't remember exactly what it was; the Lord Ruler's cufflinks?
Any idea when we'll learn more about The Lost Metal?
Yeah, probably middle next year you'll know more about it. It's going to depend on how working on Stormlight 4 goes.
So Wayne is my absolute favorite character. What was your main inspiration for him?
Wayne started with a character, I wanted to do someone who changed personalities based on the hat they wore, and it actually started as a haberdasher, a hat maker, and as a character staring in his own story in the Mistborn world and it didn't work. He needed somebody to play off of and so I shelved it and started The Alloy of Law where he could have somebody to play off of. Wax actually grew out of Wayne.
When are we going to see Ironeyes again?
He will probably make an appearance in The Lost Metal. I’m not sure he will be back from where he is in time.
Updates on Main Projects
Mistborn
My big failure in 2018 was not getting to Wax and Wayne Four. But all is not lost! I am going to do whatever I can to squeeze this in next year. I'm feeling I might need a break in the middle of Stormlight Four, as I sometimes do. If so, I might squeeze this in there. But it will depend on a many factors. So, we'll have to take a wait-and-see attitude.
I'm going to try to hold myself back from doing any other side projects, like Children of the Nameless or The Original from this year, until Wax and Wayne is finished. Book Four will be the conclusion of their story, and the wrap-up of era two of Mistborn. (And I have big things planned for Era Three, which I am planning to write between Stormlight Five and Stormlight Six.)
Status: Pushed off for now, but to be written very soon. No release date yet.
Are you going to make more Wax and Wayne books in the Mistborn universe?
There is one more Wax and Wayne book, called The Lost Metal, that I'm working on. After that, we're going to jump a generation and do a 1980's era tech Mistborn.
C-cyberpunk Mistborn??
This one won't reach true cyberpunk levels, but I'm hoping to have the time to squeeze in a more cyberpunk-influenced sequence later.
Projected Schedule of Releases
Starsight (Skyward Two): November 2019
White Sand Three: Sometime 2019–2020
Stormlight Four: Fall 2020
Skyward Three: 2021
Wax and Wayne Four: Sometime 2020 or 2021
Main Book Projects
Mistborn
And speaking of Mistborn, how is Scadrial doing? My current plan is still to have the Mistborn books stretch throughout my career, establishing stories in different eras of time with different sets of characters.
The original pitch was for three trilogies. The Wax and Wayne books expanded this to four series. (You can imagine Wax and Wayne as series 1.5, if you want.) This means there will still be a contemporary trilogy, and a science fiction trilogy, in the future.
I have one more book to do in the Wax and Wayne series, and I'm planning to write it sometime between Stormlight books three and four. Until then, Wax and Wayne three—The Bands of Mourning—comes out in January!
Status: Era 1.5 book three done; book four coming soonish