Someone asked about corrupt religions in Elantris & Mistborn.
He mentioned that he teaches one class/year at BYU on sci-fi writing. He fears the misuse of religion, but that he presents "fair and balanced" viewpoints in his books. He also stated that "fiction helps you see through other people's eyes" and quoted Robert Jordan: "I really like when my books raise questions, I just don't like giving the answers."
How much pre-writing do you do for each book?
He wrote 50k words backstory for Mistborn, and 200k words backstory for The Way of Kings. It takes about 8 months to write a novel. Though it only took a month to write Alcatraz, which was a parody of conspiracies, and included bad super-powers, an anti-epic fantasy (and that a possible movie from Dreamworks was in the works at the time).
How do you find an agent?
One way is to go to awards ceremonies or writing conventions, such as WorldCon. Brandon stated he met his agent while he was attending the Nebula Awards in NY. He was at a bar, drinking sprite, and talked to someone nearby who happened to be Jim Mintz, an editor at Tor, and also met his agent, Moshe Feder (who was at the signing as well).
Was Elantris intended to be a zombie story?
Yes, but he disguised it so that it would not be typecast as a horror story by potential readers. He wanted to do a story about heroic zombies, since he had never heard of such a tale.
On Allomancy, he said that tin and pewter are opposites in a sense, that they strengthen different aspects of the body, and that there will be a published poster to explain some apparent inconsistencies among the last four metals.
He wrote three drafts of The Final Empire, two rough and one polished. He may do another book in the Mistborn world, but it would be in the far future as opposed to being a sequel, and the world may actually progress scientifically.
