WorldCon 76

Event details
Name
Name WorldCon 76
Date
Date Aug. 18, 2018
Location
Location San Jose, CA
Entries
Entries 41
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#1 Copy

Questioner

Was the Thaylen accent changed between The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance? Because the Wind's Pleasure crew and Tvlakv all sound a bit different.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. That's not intentional. That is just more, I leave the accents completely up to the audiobook readers. I don't tell them an accent... I do try to send them pronunciation guides, but those don't always arrive in time, which is why you can see some discrepancies. But, yeah, I let them pick the accents.

#2 Copy

Questioner

So how's Waxillium doing?

Brandon Sanderson

Slow but sure. I'm pretty sure I will be finishing it up soon here.

Questioner

It'll be out next year, then? 2019?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

#3 Copy

Questioner

My daughter... wants to know how old you were when you finished your first novel?

Brandon Sanderson

I started my first when I was sixteen, but didn't finish a novel 'til I was twenty-two.

#4 Copy

Questioner

In the '80s arc of Mistborn, is there going to be a lot of traffic in Elendel? Because I worked for Google Maps for two years mapping Paris and London, downtown, and I take one look at that map, and I'm like, "Oh, they're gonna have traffic problems."

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. We anticipate really tough traffic. And they thought they laid it out well, but...

#6 Copy

Questioner

Is there a TV show or a movie that you really like in the fantasy genre?

Brandon Sanderson

My favorite fantasy movie? Uh... probably Willow. No, it's gotta be The Lord of the Rings... Probably the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings. They're just better. But I really liked Willow.

Questioner

I'll check that out.

Brandon Sanderson

It's from the '80s, so... It's still fun.

#11 Copy

Sparkle Hearts

The Girl That Looked Up. Is that a real story that happened in Roshar? Or just a metaphor?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Hoid heard it from someone. He did not make it up.

Sparkle Hearts

Because I think Shallan told the story...

Brandon Sanderson

Well, he told the story, too- He knew the story, she knew the story... What you're asking is if it's actually historical?

Sparkle Hearts

Yes. Did it happen?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll give you a RAFO. Because there's actually a little bit to it that I can't talk about. That probably tells you more than I even should already...

There are some weird things about that story, particularly the version that Hoid is involved in.

...Shallan tells half the story, and then later on, Hoid comes, and the story happens again differently. But there are weird things when Hoid is involved in the story that are relevant.

#12 Copy

Questioner

I'm an aspiring writer. I want to be a writer, and I'm working on submitting a story to Writers of the Future. Would you recommend starting shorter? Something less ambitious?

Brandon Sanderson

So, here's the thing: there are advantages to both ways. Sometimes, if you're the type that might get discouraged by trying something so big, and having it spiral out of control, then sometimes it's better to start small. Most of the time, as long as you're okay with the fact that your first one might spiral out of control, that process will teach you so much, that it's better to start ambitious, and just see where it goes. And just know, you may have to come back to it. Like, my first book, I never finished. I started when I was sixteen. But I wrote a big chunk of it, and it taught me so much. And then my next book, I did finish. And then eventually I came back to that first one, and used those ideas again for another book later on. So as long as you're okay with the idea as a new writer, it may not turn out exactly like you want it to, go ahead and start with something ambitious. Write what you're passionate about, and what you're excited about, and just be willing to let the process teach you. 'Cause nothing will make you a better writer than practicing.

#13 Copy

Questioner

When you finished a book, or years away from a book, when you realized, "Oh, there was a loophole here, something didn't make sense." How do you react to that?

Brandon Sanderson

I react to it by saying, "Well, that always happens." Happens to everybody. You got two options. Well, maybe, like, three. One is, you just leave it alone. One is to do what Tolkien did, where he just rewrote the book. The Hobbit, he just did a new version that had the loophole closed. Or you can later on find a reason to explain it in world, which we call 'retconning' it. Any of those are fine. Don't stress about it: everybody makes mistakes. If Grandpa Tolkien had loopholes, then everybody's gonna have loopholes.

#14 Copy

Questioner

How do you get illustrators for your leatherbounds?

Brandon Sanderson

My assistant Isaac, who's my art director. He just looks around on the internet, and finds people who are doing really interesting art, and he asks if he can license them. So, if you know an artist, or are an artist, that's done art of my work, you send it to Isaac.

#15 Copy

Questioner

Do you have any general advice for an aspiring fantasy writer, things I should be doing to try to--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So, coming to WorldCon's a good start. I don't know if you found them, but going to any panels that editors are sitting on. Often, there's a panel that will be like, "What's new from Tor.com" or "What's new--" That's just a good place to watch what the editors are excited about and learn from them. Maybe if you see them at a party or something later on, you can ask them about the things that they're releasing, and stuff like that.

The number one thing that makes a great writer is a mediocre writer who's willing to practice. Try not to put too much investment into any one piece. You wanna put your whole heart into it, but don't base your whole career whether on that piece turns out right. I'm not explaining this well, but idea is that the purpose of your writing time is to train yourself to be a better writer. And hopefully the product is this awesome book that you're passionate about, but if it goes haywire, that's gonna teach you, sometimes, a lot more than anything else. So just stick at it. Practice. Be willing to do it regularly and consistently. And if you can teach yourself to be consistent, that's your number one goal.

I was asking my agent the other night, just last night actually, I'm like, "So what breaks someone in these days?" 'Cause the market's so different. He said, "It's the same thing that always broke someone in: they write a great book." He says, "I've never picked up a book by an author as an agent that I have been passionate about and thought was great that didn't sell." So it says that a good book still sells, in his opinion. Breaking through that agent veil can be really tough, and self-publishing is a totally valid method of going these days.

I have a series of YouTube lectures, which are my university course that I just recorded. So go give those a watch. We talk a whole bunch about writing and the business and things like that.

#18 Copy

Questioner

What was the metal that Hoid gave Vivenna and her crew to use the fabrial?

Brandon Sanderson

You're asking, what metal it was that let them use the fabrial without the screamers detecting them? So, should be aluminum. I don't think there's anything sneaky about that. The only thing that I've had to change is, I wanted the sheathes that they use with Shardblades to be aluminum, and Peter tells me I just can't do that. It's not in continuity. So we have to have some sort of aluminum... alloy, or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what I wrote that broke the continuity on that, but he is certain that those can't be aluminum. So, those aren't aluminum, but it was aluminum around that. And Hoid's bag has an aluminum lining, too.

#19 Copy

Questioner

How much longer will that Oathbringer series...

Brandon Sanderson

So, it's two arcs of five. So, we've got three books out right now. Book Four and Book Five will be about two, two-and-a-half year things, maybe as much as three between. They are big books. I write them as a trilogy, so they take about three years. Each volume is a trilogy with three books put in together as one. That arc shouldn't take me too much longer, though; I'm starting on Book Four in January, and it is-- I will write until that one is done. Then, there's gonna be a second five-book arc. So, if you're waiting, wait until Book Five is out. My editor says I have to finish it before he retires, and he's in his sixties. Moshe, yeah. We'll see if I can manage that, but that's what he wants.

#21 Copy

Questioner

Rithmatist? Is there...

Brandon Sanderson

Someday, there will be a sequel. I sat down and tried to write it. And I ran into some things that were just kind of problems, both in the worldbuilding and in the story I was gonna write, and it just didn't work. So I put it aside, and I've been working on the outline, and when I feel comfortable that I can do a sequel that's as good as the first one, I will write it, but it was not going well enough, that I felt it was... something was missing. So, I will take another stab at it before too much longer...

I now wish that I had not left that little teaser at the end of the first one. If I would have wrapped that up a little tighter, then you wouldn't have... I mean, I would still write it, but I feel bad about that teaser that there's more when it has been hard to get that sequel done.

#22 Copy

Questioner

The Letters in Stormlight Archive. Wit and Sazed; are those the two people that are talking to each other?

Brandon Sanderson

Wit and Sazed are both involved in the Letters. Sazed is in there, and there are others, as well.

#23 Copy

Thousandarms97

I know Allomancy is, like, "alloy" and "mancy." Were you inspired by "alomancy", which is the divination of salt?

Brandon Sanderson

I wanted to use "mancy" because in part I was working in a seeing-the-future with atium. And I thought: number one, it's resonant; and number two, it works because we are looking at the future. So that's where the name came from.

Thousandarms97

No future salt-based magic system, though?

Brandon Sanderson

No. I've toyed with it for a while, but I just have never come up with anything that I'm satisfied with.

#24 Copy

Questioner

Is Skyward in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

No, Skyward is not in the Cosmere. It started out there, and I pulled it out for continuity reasons. It is related to something else I’ve written in the past, though.

#26 Copy

Questioner

You were in Toronto, and you read something you'd written on a plane about a really young girl, and a coffee machine...

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, young girl with a coffee machine, yes, that was the Apocalypse Guard. The opening of it turned out really well, then I lost control of it, spiraled out of control. I haven't figured out how to fix it yet, but I actually pulled it from the publisher. And I will eventually release it, but I gotta fix it first. It was mostly worldbuilding issues. It just didn't come together at the end; too implausible, too many things to keep track of, too many infodumps.

#27 Copy

Questioner

Will there be a Hero of Ages leatherbound edition?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it will be this Christmas. Isaac just turned in the Hemalurgic Table artwork. So we shipped it to the publisher last week, so we should have them in time for Christmas. And the Hemalurgic Table, he knocked that one out of the park. We've been waiting a long time to get that one.

#28 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

The other thing that I might end up doing is, Dan and I are working on noodling on The Apocalypse Guard its possible that would be after Skyward, next YA thing. Because I've already written one book and the Dan can write the second book and then I write the third book. So taking a little pressure off, something like that. Dan has really good ideas on how to fix that book.

SparkleHearts

So is it gonna be kind of like a shared universe thing?

Brandon Sanderson

No, we would just co-author it, Brandon and Dan. What would happen is I've already him-- Like, the the first book. The idea is that he'll rip out the bad chunks and write newer things to go in there, and then he will write a second book, and then I write a third and together we have a trilogy. Which could work really well because Dan's strengths as an author really align well with my weaknesses, and my strengths align really well with his weaknesses.

#29 Copy

Questioner

You mentioned that Adolin was supposed to be killed in the... *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he was supposed to, I mean the original outline had, not the original... The outline for the 2002 version, he died in. He never died in the outline for the 2010 version. By then, I had reworked *inaudible*. But he did-- I'll eventually release The Way of Kings Prime, and you'll be able to see. Both Adolin and Elhokar died in that one. Yeah, the confrontation between Dalinar and Elhokar *inaudible*, Dalinar has to kill him to better the country. It's a really <unlikely thing> for Dalinar. I went a different direction in the published version. Those are two of the big things. Navani's not in the books at all. There are a whole bunch of things that I changed... Yeah, Dalinar killed Elhokar *inaudible*.

SparkleHearts

How did... Adolin die, then?

Brandon Sanderson

Adolin died in a highstorm, I'm pretty sure. He got caught in the wrong time. Like, Adolin was not as big a character. Renarin was always the big character. So, things went wrong, and Renarin's brother got... so.

#30 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Say I'm excited about this, but I'm going to stake a claim on the panel's official cabbagehead position. Every time I'm on a panel or doing a podcast it is good to have a cabbagehead. Which is, I'm the writer, right? My job is, I've found, to know enough about these things to be dangerous, so if there are writers out there and you're feeling a little overwhelmed by this, here's how I approach it. I, when I was first writing epic fantasy I found out a few of these things, and I'm like, "Oh no, this kind of destroy the types of stories I want to tell."

But the more I learned the more I realized, no, it can shape the types of stories I want to tell it doesn't have to destroy them at all. What I did was I used this kind of rule, that is it takes actually a fairly brief amount of time to become dangerously knowledgeable in a subject. Like say, if you can get yourself 20 or 30 percent of the way there, you know enough to know what you don't know. My goal is to always get myself there with research, usually on pop-history books or pop-medicine books or things like this. Write my stories, and then to find an expert, which I've used extensively, particularly in the Stormlight books, where one of my characters is a field surgeon, that's his training, and go and say "What am I doing wrong?"

Usually, the response I get from the medical professionals is "Wow, this isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, you're still wrong about a ton of things. But you don't have to rip apart your story, the fundamentals are there, you know that a gut wounds is really dangerous and often takes a long time to kill. You know about these things and you are trying to deal with them and approach them. I can give you some tips to make it more authentic." That balance has just worked wonderfully well for me. 

#31 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

That's actually a really good point because often times you can also get away with things in fiction by making main characters who don't know what they are doing. Obviously, I couldn't do this when my character was a trauma surgeon. But, for instance, I'm pretty bad with horses. If you haven't read my books, I've ridden horses a couple of times, enough to know that people who really like horses really like you to get your horse stuff right.

And so, when I was approaching this series, I'm like, my character is the proverbial cabbagehead when it come to horses. He gets things wrong; he doesn't know what he's doing, and a lot of times if you do that, you not only give yourself a reason for your early readers, your beta readers, who know something about it to point out, "Oh here, here is a great way, here's what I see someone who doesn't know about horses do wrong." It's really fun, put it in the book; but it also gives you a sort of plausible deniability, where you're like, "Yes, that was from Kaladin's viewpoint, he has no idea about horses, he's describing it wrong. He's scared of the things."

#33 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

I will say that one thing that I did after doing a lot of this research was I just decided early on I needed some natural antibiotics. I just did. Because I'm telling a story about a bunch of people who are slaves in a warfare situation whose lives are not cared for, and there's one guy with some medical training who ends up among them, and he considers it his job to keep these guys alive. And I learned very [early] on I needed some natural antibiotics. I just needed-- And that's the thing you can do in an epic fantasy, is you can decide, "You know what? I'm going to make this call, I'm going to build into my setting this way around it," because there were certain stories I wanted to tell, and if he couldn't save anybody, then this story doesn't work. 

#34 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things I relied on my surgeons for when I was working was, they would periodically say, "Cauterize this one, not this one." I'm not sure I ever really figured out why, but I just did what they said. But I think that could be really handy for the audience. Any suggestions?

Panelist 1

Yeah, I had that on my list. So, cautery has been around for a very long time, and properly applied it can both stop bleeding, what we mostly use it for now, and limit infection by sealing the skin. So that's a perfectly valid therapy from way way back. 

Panelist 2

From a surgeons perspective cautery is a primary tool that I use in the operating room all the time. Mainly on small vessels. In the same, when you're doing abdominal surgery is that charcoal doesn't bleed, today. The problem with cauterizing a very large vessel is that it will stop the bleeding, and then the eschar, the charred part falls off and it starts bleeding again. So cauterizing your entire arm to stop bleeding is not as effective as cauterizing, say, an open bleeding wound that doesn't involve a major blood vessel.

#35 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

I actually have a really good resource for you writers out there, if you want. There's a YouTube series done by historical fighting recreationists in the U.K. And a lot of times, if I'm like-- I was writing Oathbringer, my latest book, I'm like, "I need spear versus dagger." Which is, you don't want to be in that fight, but someone got in that fight, and I'm like "Alright, what are his chances, what would he do to actually win?" And I Googled on this YouTube series, which I really love, and lo and behold, they had 20 matches of dagger versus spear with some discussion about what the strategy for the dagger fighter was, and what the strategy for the spear fighter was. They played it out and showed you. The dagger fighter won a couple times, it's totally possible. Grab the front of the spear, yank them forward, get in close range. But it was really helpful. So this is called Schola Gladiatoria, on YouTube. I've been following it for years, and it's really great. You'll be able to find sets of, you, "here's 2 swords versus sword and shield." He also does reviews of historical weapons saying, "Here is what it was used for." He just really likes swords so he buys them frequently and talks about them. Really great resource.

#36 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things I read regarding blunt trauma that Hollywood and authors like to ignore is-- I've been told by several experts, the old "Hit 'em on the back of the head and knock them out thing" is just not a thing. If you hit them on the back of the head hard enough to knock them out, chances are you have done serious damage to them. This [is] just not a thing.

#37 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

This is where the writers can exploit this a little bit, and it's always a balance, right, as a novelist. The original question was: Alexander the Great survived, famously, a punctured lung. And so, the fact that it does happen means you can get away with it in your fiction, you can get away with a lot of things. But as it was brought up earlier on the panel, one of the things we try to do in fantasy, and I would say the hallmark of an epic fantasy is the sense of immersion. That's why we are writing epic fantasy, we want to draw people in, and while you are reading this book you want to feel like this is a real place and these are real events that happened.

#38 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so the question is: How do you draw the line between deciding to be realistic, and to fudge it in the name of drama, essentially. Pointed out, like, at the end someone gets shot in a way that would normally lay them out but you need the story to keep going. You have a number of options here, and sub-genre and tone is going to have a lot to do with it. The fact that Star Wars is not in any way realistic in its physics does not prevent it from being enjoyed by even a lot of us who understand how bad the physics is, right? Because Star Wars does not present itself as a story where they need to get the physics right. Whereas a hard science fiction movie that we're watching then make an enormous error-- I love The Martian, but this is why Andy Weir gets so much flack. It was way better than 99.9 percent of all science fiction stories; he gets one thing wrong and people will notice it because it's a hard science fiction story.

So, you're going to have to decide on the tone of your story, that's a large part of it. And the other thing is, you build up, in some ways, credibility, like I said, often with the small details. And then you use those small details. We often call it the pyramid of abstraction. You lay the foundation with concrete details, building the scene so the reader is on board for what you're doing. And then, when you need to fudge it and strain plausibility, even in a very realistic story, the reader generally gets on board and goes with it, and doesn't let it break immersion for them. In your example, if all the way through this story you had dealt with these things very realistically, at the end you even dealt with it realistically, but had the character kind of overcome it for a little while and push through. I am totally on board to buy that, right? I am there with you. I'm like, "This is the climatic moment. Yeah, he should have dropped, but instead, he manages to stand up and push the fire alarm or something like that." This sort of thing, readers will be on board. You just need to make sure to keep them on board and to sell them on the idea of the tone of your story. 

Panelist

As Sidney and Jen pointed out earlier, the wound that is ultimately fatal, often is not immediately fatal. That's one of the other Hollywood tropes that I sometimes hate is: sometimes he gets shot and immediately falls down. No, doesn't happen. A headshot maybe, but that's about it. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I was interviewing some people for a story I was writing, and I interviewed someone who had been shot. And he said "It felt like someone had tapped me on the back, just like that, and I didn't know I had been shot." The bullet went all the way through him, but he still was up and doing things for another couple of minutes.

#39 Copy

Questioner

*Inaudible about placebo effect and wound severity*

Panelist

The placebo effect is a very strong thing. I'm not sure it's ever actually stopped bleeding or stopped an infection. But it can affect a patient's attitude, and willingness to participate in care. So I think it's a real thing, I'm just not sure it applies as much to trauma as to a lot of other illnesses.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I've read a lot about it recently because I was really interested. But yeah, it ends when you have this sort of thing, it doesn't do anything here. But the really fascinating thing, if you want to take a little tidbit is: the placebo effect, for what it works on, works on people who know it's a placebo, too.

#40 Copy

Questioner

I was asking about the diets of the Shin, Stone Shamanism, because Szeth in one of the interludes talks about the stone walkers, being able to eat food on any day of the week, so I was wondering what that actually referred to.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

#41 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things I read when I was researching for Stormlight that was really interesting, I kind of dug into, was this idea that practical medicine, particularly through the Middle Ages up approaching the Renaissance, was actually the one that was regarded with fear, superstition, and dislike. Which is why it fell to the barbers. And what we would call the "superstitious physician" was a well-respected position, depending on where you were looking. And it was this weird area where people who were approaching things practically and actually doing what you needed to do, were being ostracized and vilified. It wasn't as bad as being an executioner; that was the worst deal. But there was this sort of thing, that those people stayed-- You did not want your son or daughter marrying into that family, and these sorts of things. It was really interesting.

Event details
Name
Name WorldCon 76
Date
Date Aug. 18, 2018
Location
Location San Jose, CA
Entries
Entries 41
Upload sources