YouTube Livestream 12

Brandon Sanderson

I will start writing [Dawnshard] on Monday. I'm almost through with my revision of Songs of the Dead. Takes a lot less time for me to do a revision on that, because basically instead of fixing problems, because I'm co-authoring with Peter Orullian, I get to say, "This is working. Maybe change this to be like this." And give Peter the chance to make the changes. The book is looking really good, this last revision.

I thought a lot about the title for this one, because I wanted to fit with the other two: Edgedancer, and Horneater (which I will write). So I was thinking I need some sort of classic Brandon mashup word. For a while, I was thinking of calling it Wandersail, because Rysn's ship is the Wandersail, but I thought that would be duplicitous because the story has nothing to do with the story Wandersail, from Hoid's stories. And in fact, I'm more and more thinking that I want to do some picture book versions of Hoid's stories that would make nice read-alouds, and I would call one of those Wandersail. So I'm like, this is just a bad title for this book.

So, I thought I would dig into instead one of the things that we were talking about in the book, which is the Dawnshards. So, it is named Dawnshard. For those who are deep lore cosmerenauts and are wondering about the Dawnshards, we are going to talk about them in this novella. So, yes, we will be going to Aimia.

Right now, Rysn, probably Lopen as a secondary viewpoint character is my guess. But I haven't written it yet, so I have to see how the viewpoints work out.

Questioner

Will [Dawnshard] be available to buy in hardcover later?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it should be. We are probably only going to print for the Kickstarter, starting. As part of the Kickstarter, you get the ebook; everybody gets that. And then those who have ordered it will get the print book. I assume we'll have hardcovers on our store for sale. I assume we'll print enough that we can have some for sale.

One warning I'll make to you is that if I do an Arcanum Unbounded 2, we would put this as one of the anchor stories in that. So if you prefer to collect them in physical form in the collections, you can get the ebook now as part of the Kickstarter, and then you could wait for the physical form until later to get it in the collection. But we do have these nice ones that'll match the Edgedancer hardcover, if you'd rather have nice little hardcovers on your shelf. And my guess is that we'll do a printing with Tor as well to have bookstore distribution.

There probably will be an audiobook of it. My guess is that we would do an audiobook first, just of it, and then we would eventually do an audiobook of the full Arcanum Unbounded 2. If and when I end up writing that. The thing about Arcanum Unbounded 1, I had a bunch of stories waiting to be published in that. This would be the first, I think, new Cosmere story since Arcanum Unbounded. So it's probably a number of years away before we would get to a number 2. There will be a collection someday, I would bet; but I have to write a bunch more stories to go in it, first.

Brandon Sanderson

I will feel bad if the [Dawnshard] ebook isn't out by the time that Stormlight Four is. You don't have to have read that before this one; it's not hugely integrated, because it's about Rysn. But there are some things that happen, that you'll get to Book Four and be like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. They're mentioning a trip to Aimia. What happened there?" That the novella would help you with. And then, when you get to the Rysn interlude in this book (which is a little different from previous Rysn interludes), I wrote it in such a way as to not spoil the novella, in case people hadn't read it yet. And so it's a very different sort of interlude. But you would appreciate having read the novella when you get to it, I suspect.

Robert

In your last Reddit update, you gave a good rundown of your future projects until Stormlight Five. Time permitting, could you talk about other side projects, like the non-Cosmere short works collection, Apocalypse Guard, Alcatraz, and The Rithmatist?

Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz Six is done, being illustrated as we speak. We have the deal in hand from Tor to publish it. Alcatraz Six is a go. Should happen next year, I would suspect. And that is the actual ending to the Alcatraz series. Co-authored with Janci, who is amazing.

Apocalypse Guard has been kicked back to me from Dan, I think I mentioned before. I need to do a draft on it. Dan improved it wonderfully, but what he didn't fix is the ending, which is still broken, because endings aren't Dan's thing in the first place, they're kind of my thing. Which is part of why I pulled the book, is that the ending was not working. So, I need to fix the ending. Fortunately, I came up with a pretty good plan for doing it. So it's going to go on my list sometime during these next couple years, when I need a break between things I will do an Apocalypse Guard revision. It will probably only take me, I would guess, two to three weeks of work to fix it. So that's a strong plausibility that I will be fixing that book in the coming months.

Non-Cosmere collection. I have lots of stories for it; we actually commissioned all the art for it, but that's when we thought that Snapshot was going to get greenlit. It got really close to being greenlit as a movie, but then the option on that lapsed, as they didn't end up doing the greenlight last year. So now, we don't have a movie tie-in to push us to do that, which we still probably should do at some point, is get that collection out. With the couple of short stories I've written that would go in there that we're not gonna necessarily publish somewhere else. Though I did tell you guys, I am sending them out under a false name to see if I can get any magazines to pick them up. It's going to happen eventually; I don't know when. There's some new, cool talks that are happening around Snapshot, which is the most movie-friendly of the things for the non-Cosmere collection. We will see.

I know, for instance, in Spain, they want to take Defending Elysium, which is tied to the Skyward books, and do a Spanish translation of that, in conjunction with a Skyward book, so that might be happening. But I'm not sure how that's going to end up working.

This schedule for me does not include any little side novellas that I decide to write, or side short stories. It leaves some wiggle room, but not a lot, for me to do something like that. So we'll have to see. If some Secret Project pops up on the progress bars, you will know that I have felt too constrained by the schedule I have set for myself and have started writing something else. That hasn't happened in a little while, but it totally could happen. I think the last one of those was the Wizards of the Coast story, where I just had to write that.

Esper

Have you ever followed the cremposting subreddit?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't really follow it. I go to it when people tag me, and that's about it. I think it's hilarious, but it's not one that I track a lot.

That's for Cosmere memes, basically, and/or Brandon Sanderson memes. If you feel like going there and cremposting, you may do so. They tag me on some interesting things, now and then.

Pai Lanningham

Given that the 17th Shard picks through every word you say with a fine-toothed comb and argues over the tiniest details, what have you said in the past to most thoroughly troll them?

Brandon Sanderson

I try not to actively troll on those sorts of things. I like that people are interested in my work and are treating it with sincerity. It is far better than the alternative. So I don't do a ton of trolling. But I would call things like the Shardhunt and things like that that we did a bit of trolling. (If you weren't aware, that's where I was giving out codes you could find or could get from me that would unlock things. We did it for Steelheart, we did it for Wheel of Time, and I think we did it for one of the other books. And there's some trolling that goes on involved in that where I'm hiding these things and playing coy about what they would reveal, and stuff like that.)

I guess you would count, when someone asks me a question that a "yes" is a technically true answer but I know it's going to mislead them, I will still often say "yes." Because if they give me wiggle room on some of these very detailed questions, I will take it. So because of that, sometimes they grossly misinterpret things I say.

But I also, sometimes, am really tired and don't hear the question right and answer something, and then they don't grossly misinterpret it; I have just misled them. Both of those things happen.

17th Shard

Originally, it was said Way of Kings Prime had spoilers for later Stormlight. But we've released it now. Why is that? Do you still feel it has spoilers, or do you think it's safe or fine?

Brandon Sanderson

I think it is fine, though it still has minor spoilers. The whole thread with Dalinar and Elhokar, I felt, was a pretty big spoiler. Because a very similar relationship played out in the published books, just with different results. I thought that one's a spoiler.

I felt that some of the Taln stuff is slight spoilers. But one of the things that worked passably well in Way of Kings Prime is the question of, "Is this guy a Herald, or is he crazy?" That was a central theme for him. And that whole arc got transposed to Dalinar. "Am I seeing visions, or am I crazy?" Whole thing got transposed, and I knew by the time I was into the actual published versions of the Stormlight Archive, I knew by then that I couldn't do the same thing with Taln. We'd already had a plot cycle like that, plus I was going to be introducing the Heralds, and it was going to be very clear that the Heralds are back and that the Voidbringers are here. And so the question of "Are the Voidbringers actually coming back? Were the Heralds real?" Thats, like, a major theme of Way of Kings Prime. And that cannot be a theme of the published version. And so, for a while, I was still holding onto the hope that maybe I can do something like this with Taln. And eventually, I said, "No, I just can't." It would be too repetitive and what-not, and that's part of what made me realize it's okay to release Way of Kings Prime. The stuff that happens to Taln is going to be so different from where I'm going to be taking him moving forward that it's okay.

There's still some minor, slight things that are still gonna show up, but it would be hard to pick out what those are. And when they happen in the actual series, you'd be like, "Oh, I can see the resonance of this to the original." Just like the Elhokar/Dalinar thing (which is more overt) resonates through that one into this one.

Espion200

What cosmere location has the best tacos or equivalent? And is Hoid a regular visitor to that location?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how you feel about Soulcast meat. For people who are vegan, Soulcast meat involves using gemstones to make meat. Also, I would say that Soulcast meat has a certain flavor that is not bad, but it is acquired. And so, for some people, chouta is going to be, probably, the best street food in the cosmere.

But otherwise, like most things, if you want to default to "What has the most Earth-like of X," it is going to be Scadrial. Scadrial is the one that I intentionally kind of keep closer to Earth-style cultures and things. For various reasons; like, for instance, the fact that I want to do a computer programmer as a protagonist in an upcoming sequence, there are things like that that I've built Scadrial to feel more Earth-like.

Questioner

What is the biggest continuity error you've caught?

Karen Ahlstrom

If he puts in somebody that's dead...

Brandon Sanderson

Once in a while, it usually happens with Bridge Four characters, the side characters. One of them, I had accidentally get resurrected.

Peter Ahlstrom

Karen came to me yesterday, and she's like, "This guy is dead!" I'm like, "No no no, it's a different guy, it's okay."

Karen Ahlstrom

They didn't write his name. But there is a character with that exact description that is dead, and Peter convinced me it could have been a relative of theirs. So I'll give it to you.

Peter Ahlstrom

In Sadeas's warcamp [in Way of Kings], we had this character named Laresh, who came and delivered some recruits for the bridge. And we decided that he was really kind of a prototype for a different character who does the same thing, whose name also starts with "LA" [Lamaril], so we essentially said, "Eh, these are really the same guy. We'll just make them the same guy [in revision]."

Questioner

Did you do anything for Way of Kings Prime?

Karen Ahlstrom

I did not. I don't think I've even read that one. I did read Dragonsteel, but I haven't read Way of Kings Prime.

Brandon Sanderson

We had Kristy [Gilbert] look over it, who is a freelance editor friend of ours that we have do a lot of work because she's really good. She looked over Way of Kings Prime, but she's the only one, really.

You are getting this pretty raw. This has seen one editor, whose job was just to make changes. We just said, "Change things you think need to be changed to make it more readable." But it's still a draft.

Questioner

Who is your favorite minor Stormlight character?

Peter Ahlstrom

There's a new guy in Rhythm of War who has a really cool name.

Brandon Sanderson

Is this the Tuckerization? Stargyle? That's Steve Argyle. It is a cool name. I'm like, "How can I put a 'Steve' in that doesn't sound... He's a Lightweaver; what if he just made up a really cool stage name for himself?"