Tor Instagram Livestream

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Name Tor Instagram Livestream
Date
Date Nov. 25, 2020
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Entries 27
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#1 Copy

Questioner

A character in The Stormlight Archive who eventually was able to heal of a wound. An old wound, and normally healing old wounds, with Regrowth, can't be healed.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a limitation of healing someone else, versus healing yourself. Healing someone else is a weaker method, at least as it's understood by the Radiants currently. Figuring out how to make Regrowth fix older wounds is more difficult. When you are highly Invested in such a way that you have a spren bond, then you are able to kind of rewrite your Spiritual self to better match your Cognitive self. Basically, what your soul is better comes to match your perception of your soul and who you are, and who you want to be becomes more important. And because of that, the Radiant bond is able to heal things and even change physiology that normal Regrowth wouldn't be capable of doing.

#2 Copy

Questioner

Is there a plan to release an art book of the Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

I would like to do this someday. I'd like to do something like what we call the Big White Book for Wheel of Time. And Song of Ice and Fire has one. I would probably release it after Book Five of the Stormlight Archive, which is a big break point. I'll finish Stormlight Five for release in 2023 (is the goal). That brings a lot of the major arcs to a close. Stormlight Six, then, will be a little longer of a wait. I'm gonna write the entire Era 3 of Mistborn in between. My goal is (we'll see how I stick with this) to start on those as soon as I finish Stormlight Five, and write them, all three, straight through, like I did with the first Mistborn trilogy. And then not release them until the whole trilogy is done, and then release them one a year. And then after that, work on Stormlight Six. So we'll see how that goes; that's several years off.

For right now, my focus is on getting the Skyward series finished and Wax and Wayne, Mistborn Era 2, finished. Those are my goals to have done by the time I start Stormlight Five.

And so, art book? Yeah, I bet after Stormlight Five, somewhere between Five and Six, we'll release an art book.

#3 Copy

Questioner

Will there be a Stormlight 4.5?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, the Rock novella, called Horneater, should be written to take place chronologically between Stormlight Four and Five. That'll have given us a novella between each of the books except One and Two. Maybe some day I'll fill in a hole there and put a novella between those two. I don't know that I'll do any between [Five and Six]. Likely, if we do an art book, that will be what's between [Five and Six].

#4 Copy

Questioner

Could new Orders eventually be formed?

Brandon Sanderson

This is plausibly possible but highly, highly unlikely. A lot of things are possible in the Stormlight Archive that are highly unlikely. So I rarely say "no," because I built the magic systems of the cosmere to be able to do a lot of things, 'cause I knew I was going to be writing in a lot of different worlds. Which means that very few things are completely off-limits. But there's a lot of things that are unlikely to happen.

#6 Copy

Questioner

Stormlight Five's title?

Brandon Sanderson

Haven't decided yet. It needs to fit the naming convention of The Stormlight Archive. Which means it needs to be named after an in-world book, and it also needs to fit with the palindrome. I have some options I'm choosing between. You can go look at the various threads on fan sites where they are trying hard to guess.

#7 Copy

Questioner

How long after Warbreaker do these events take place?

Brandon Sanderson

We have numbers in the wiki. We haven't canonized a lot of them in the books yet. Because my original plan for the cosmere involved more space between the series than I'm probably going to eventually do. What I've said is, that basically the books that have been released have all been chronological except for White Sand, which takes place before the other books chronologically. Wax and Wayne takes place after Stormlight Five, but before Stormlight Six. And that's all I'm saying about how far apart things are right now.

One thing you have to remember is, also, time dilation is a thing in the cosmere that comes up a lot more often than it does in our world, for various reasons, because of the way I am treating Investiture. So treat that how you will.

#8 Copy

Questioner

If Roshar's years are 500 days along, and I say someone is twenty years old, how does that equate to Earth time?

Brandon Sanderson

It equates to actually about 10% difference. Because while the years are 500 days, the days are shorter, and there are fewer months. It all works out mathematically to about 10%. So if I say someone is twenty in the books, they are twenty-two in Earth years. So kind of keep that in mind.

It's a small enough difference, I feel, that people who don't notice it or know about it won't really be thrown for a loop. But I like to have things like that. And normally in fantasy novels I don't make big differences in things like time, units of measurement. Or other things, like Roshar has a lower gravity than Earth. I don't deal with that in a lot of the fantasy books; I like to have some of it on Roshar, because one of my pitches to myself in making Roshar was to come up with a fantasy book where the worldbuilding was a little more like a science fiction book's worldbuilding.

#9 Copy

Questioner

Would a macaw be able to become a Radiant? Or do you need sentience?

Brandon Sanderson

You need sapience. A macaw could not become a Knight Radiant. A macaw could, theoretically, enter a symbiotic spren bond, which would have different effects. Like, Ryshadium or even most of the larger greatshells don't have sapience. But a lot of creatures on Roshar do have what I would term an in-between step between human-level intelligence and animal-level intelligence on Earth. Ryshadium are in this; chasmfiends, as well, are smarter than an animal can get on Earth.

#10 Copy

Rogaen

Any news on an Elantris sequel?

Brandon Sanderson

No news. I want to do this between Mistborn Era 3 books, is do some Elantris. But I'm gonna have to see how things play out in writing those books. It depends on a lot of factors.

I do plan to do them, still, just like I plan to do one Warbreaker sequel. But I have to balance these things, because I also want to do some new stuff in the cosmere, with new planets. Like, we need to do the Aethers. They're relevant to space-age cosmere, so I need to have at least a book or some novellas to get you used to that magic system, as well.

#11 Copy

Questioner

What effects does a spren bond have on a Ryshadium? Sapience, or more?

Brandon Sanderson

It increases their intelligence a great deal and gives them a little extra hardiness to survive in Roshar. And in exchange, the spren gets pulled into the Physical Realm, which they really like.

#12 Copy

Questioner

Any news about Alcatraz Six?

Brandon Sanderson

I will have a publication date for Alcatraz Six announced in the State of the Sanderson. It looks like they are settling in at Tor to figure out how to do that. It's a little later than I wanted it to be, because they want to do reissues of the first books in paperback. (Which they've never actually, in the Tor editions, never been in paperbacks.) And so they're doing that, and Book Six will be released in conjunction with that.

#13 Copy

Questioner

How's Skyward Three going?

Brandon Sanderson

It's going really well. I am loving writing Skyward Three. It is really fun to have a change of pace, to do a single viewpoint narrative in first person after working on the Stormlight Archive for so long. Epic fantasy is my first love. I really enjoy working on them. But by the time I'm done working with a Stormlight book, I need a change of pace, which is how my whole writing life is built around, giving me those changes of pace. And Skyward is the perfect break from Stormlight. It was designed that way. Just writing from Spensa's viewpoint is a blast, and it's fun. 

And I designed Skyward Three to be a little bit more of a popcorn adventure than Skyward Two was (and then Skyward Four will be), just 'cause I knew I would need that after Stormlight Three. So if you're looking forward to a fun adventure fiction that does deal with Spensa's character arc in ways that are still meaningful, but most of the story is just me having fun, then look forward to Skyward Three.

#14 Copy

Questioner

Have you plotted Lost Metal yet? Is that still its name?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

#15 Copy

Questioner

Could there be a cure for diabetes in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there very much could be a cure for diabetes in the cosmere. Right now, if you become a Knight Radiant, that would be a solution. That's not a solution for everyone; that's a very narrow solution. But there would be other solutions.

#16 Copy

Questioner

Are Parshendi/human hybrids possible?

Brandon Sanderson

They are. In fact, both the Horneaters and the Herdazians are descendants of human/Parshendi, human/listener hybrids. And there's very, very small remnants of it; they are mostly human. But they have a bit of listener heritage, just like a lot of us have some Neanderthal heritage. They, perhaps, have a little bit more in their past.

So, yes, this is possible.

#17 Copy

Questioner

Can some spren fully form and become human?

Brandon Sanderson

No spren becomes human; they are a different race. And so, no, that is not a thing that happens.

But there is some stuff in Rhythm of War along the lines I think you're asking, that I will not talk about because of spoilers.

#18 Copy

Questioner

Is Hoid your cameo character in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. No, he is not. I'm actually not very much like Hoid. The thing I share with him is a love of stories. So the closest he will be to me is when he's talking about storytelling; that's the part of me that is in him. But personality-wise, we are very different. He is a main character in the cosmere; I don't consider him... he's done cameos in other books, but I don't consider him to be an author insert character.

The closest I've come to an author insert is probably when I put my sword into the Wheel of Time, the one that was given to me by Wilson, Robert Jordan's very, very close cousin of his who was taking care of the armory that Robert Jordan had. I wrote my sword into it, like Robert Jordan wrote himself in as a ter'angreal in one of the books. And I could see myself doing a cameo for myself in that sort of manner. I probably wouldn't do a human cameo. Though I do that for a lot of my friends, is I write them into the books as cameos. So who knows.

#22 Copy

Questioner

Any other cameos we didn't know?

Brandon Sanderson

There are minor cameos to future important people in the cosmere that will eventually be made known. Those are all RAFOs.

If you're talking about friend cameos, I do write a lot of people who are friends, or people in the company, in. I think we've talked about most of those on the streams, so I don't think there are any that you can't find out about very easily. My favorite one is still Dan Wells, who I periodically write into the Stormlight books as a guy who miraculously survives really dangerous encounters. Since his books are all about killing off his friends, I figured I'd let my friends survive, that that would be somehow thematically appropriate for Dan.

#23 Copy

Questioner

Does Gallant's eyes being rainbow have any cosmere significance?

Brandon Sanderson

It is an indication of his spren bond; it's a way that I was getting across that. A lot of times, when you see kind of mother-of-pearl or a rainbow shimmer of luminescence, that is an indication of something happening with Investiture in the cosmere. You'll see it in White Sand being used; you see it periodically in manifestations of the Nahel bond, and that sort of thing.

#24 Copy

Argent

Are Intention and Intent the same thing? And how does it work?

Brandon Sanderson

I consider them the same thing; those are synonyms in cosmere terms.

I added this aspect to a lot of the cosmere magics relating to Intent. Meaning you have to be wanting to do things to make a lot of the different magics in the cosmere work. Why is this? Well, there are narrative reasons, and there are writerly reasons (for a lot of the things I do).

The narrative reasons are: because I did not want the cosmere magics... it's just safer, it's a lot safer for people. And it allows those who are experts in the magic and who actually work with it to become better. Knowing what you're doing, and knowing and learning; I want there to always be an aspect of learning and practice to a lot of the magic systems.

A more narrative reason (that's kind of a narrative reason) is that there are a lot of things I want to do with the cosmere magic that, when they interact with the physics of the real world, I need some wiggle room. You see this with destructive interference in sounds in Rhythm of War. Where the way that it would work in the cosmere, thinking of something as destructive interference actually creates for it a feeling, an Identity, as destructive interference. Where, in reality, destructive interference, there's nothing inherent to it being destructive interference. It's the same sound, just played in a different way. But in the cosmere, we can add this element of Identity to it, through Intent, that it is specifically made to do something. Which just allows me more gears and levers to play with as a designer of a magic system to make the physics work. And, basically, a lot of these things are... Imagine Intent, narratively, as the converter between real-world physics and cosmere physics, the little adapter that you stick between them. By adding Intent, I have an adapter.

That works really nicely; it's very writerly to try to explain this, but it works really nicely for smoothing the line between real-world physics and cosmere physics in a way that makes it much more fun for me to write, and much more consistent with both things, real physics and made-up physics.

#25 Copy

Questioner

Any teases on upcoming LGBT characters?

Brandon Sanderson

I put some hints in Rhythm of War. I should be making those canon by Book Five for you. But it wasn't quite time. I actually tried writing them harder into Rhythm of War, and they felt like it stood out too much; it was unnatural. So go ahead and begin your theorizing. It's not gonna be a big surprise; I think that people will figure it out pretty easily. But I'm not intending it to be a big surprise; I'm just trying to let things like what happened with Jasnah in this book come out naturally as they fit the characters.

No big surprises, but for those who would rather read about it in the book when it happens, then I will leave it to Book Five.

#26 Copy

Questioner

Is Wax a Cognitive Shadow, or did he really heal and come back?

Brandon Sanderson

Wax is not a Cognitive Shadow, good question. Wax did not every fully leave... the soul didn't leave the body. He didn't die, in other words. I should say that he didn't die and leave behind an imprint as a Cognitive Shadow. He could have been Invested in that moment enough to make one, so it's a good question; but he did not.

Event details
Name
Name Tor Instagram Livestream
Date
Date Nov. 25, 2020
Entries
Entries 27
Upload sources