Stormlight Three Update #8

Brandon Sanderson

This might be our final Oathbringer update--as today, I finished the fifth and final draft of the book, and am ready to send it off to Tor. From here, the book is in /u/peterahlstrom's hands as he handles the copyedits, the gamma read, and the proofreads. It's possible I'll make a few small tweaks to the text, but the book is mainly his burden now.

I'm extremely pleased with the final draft, which I managed to cut to 450k words. That meant trimming about 64k off of it--roughly 12.5%. These are mostly line edits, with only a few small scenes being cut out. I improved pacing, and even added a few small sections to smooth out certain plot lines.

Fans tend to hate the idea of cutting--but trust me, this version reads far better. I did make sure to keep anything substantive I cut so you can see it later as deleted scenes.

We're still planning a November 14th release in the US. (I think UK releases on Thursdays instead of Tuesdays, so it would be a few days later over there.) Simultaneous audio and--if we can swing it--simultaneous Spanish.

For now, I'm at Supanova in Sydney and Perth--which unfortunately means I won't be monitoring these comments (or my direct messages.) Be forewarned, you might not get a reply to questions posted here. (I will try to do a proper AMA about the book once it's out.)

My next project will be The Apocalypse Guard, a book with loose connections to the Reckoners. I'm chomping at the bit to do some actual writing again, as I've been working on revisions of Oathbringer nonstop for almost exactly six months now. I think the last time I wrote anything non-Stormlight was Snapshot, fourteen months ago. Whew!

By the files in my folders, the first chapter I wrote for Stormlight Thee was started on June 24, 2014. The last scene I added was written today, in my hotel in Sydney. The bulk of the writing happened June 2015-December 2016, with revisions lasting until just now.

It clocks in at 122 chapters, with 14 interludes, plus a prologue, epilogue, and ketek.

Looking forward to you all being able to read it, come November. Thanks, as always, for your support--and your patience.

Le7o

How many books will the series have?

Brandon Sanderson

Two 5 book arcs.

hisagishi

Just wondering what color the book is and what are the glyphs on it for the hardcover version? (book one and two are blue and red and have the glyphs for justice and something else IIRC)

Brandon Sanderson

This is the Bondsmith book, so the color (yellow) and glyph should match that. (Theoretically.)

Khalku

How do you decide where/what to cut in a project of this size? When you say it reads better, are you constantly reading the whole thing and re-reading?

Brandon Sanderson

That's exactly how I revise--I re-read the book, making notes about what is working and what isn't, then plan strategies for fixing it. I incorporate beta reader feedback into this. When a section I felt was explosive and interesting gets "meh" responses from the majority of readers, I have to ask myself why, look at the sections again and decide--is this the sort of section I leave as is or change? In some cases, you leave it, as while it might be only okay to some readers, it includes scenes that some others will absolutely love. In other cases, I've miss-evaluated somehow, and need to attack it again.

This is all done as I re-read the book again, using my notes as a guide on what to fix.

Arkadious4028

In your opinion, who would win a fight between a Fullborn (with compounding knowledge of the sixteen base metals) and Nicol Bolas?

Brandon Sanderson

I think Bolas is more powerful in his realm and continuity than your average fullborn is--but that said, we haven't seen any with real mastery of all the metals. But I'd say if you take the lore of the two universes into account, Bolas wins.

rsjac

Iirc he wrote all the Szeth and Dalinar flashbacks to see which set would fit better in Oathbringer, then settled on Dalinar

Peter Ahlstrom

This didn't actually happen. He was planning to do that, but the Dalinar chapters were just too good, and while he wrote them the way the book fit together became organized in his mind.