In Oathbringer, Kaladin was with Sah and the other parshmen. Are you going to release the rules for the game that they were playing?
I've been tempted to release the rules for that game. I can't promise I will, but I would like to.
Do you have any plans of writing any prequels for the Mistborn [series]?
No, not right now. One of the reasons that-- I have to put an asterisk on that. I did write out a prequel story happening hundreds of years earlier that was going to be the video game, that ended up never getting made. So there's a chance I will do something with that,a graphic novel or something. So there is a chance. What I won't probably tell is the story that you read in the epigraphs, the story of Rashek and Alendi and all those things, because I feel like that story is told best the way it is in the books, that you get it revealed as it's going along. If I told it again, I feel like it would just be a rehash of that. I can see myself telling other stories potentially, but I am the type that generally likes to keep moving forward. There are some great prequels out there to books that I love, but mostly I like sequels, so I like to move forward. Not impossible, but yeah.
On Roshar, if there was an AI would it appear as a soul or a bead?
In Shadesmar assuming there is an AI, would it appear as the soul of an object or a being? Most likely as a being, depending on various things going on.
Based off of your previous question, the first Kaladin became Adolin?
Adolin was actually in that book, and so the first Kaladin wasn't even-- didn't even become Adolin, like the first Kaladin was like-- you've read this book before probably. The young peasant boy trains to be a knight, that sort of thing and was just too familiar, it was too-- I was playing the tropes and hitting the nails on the head, but in a way that was not interesting. Adolin and Renarinare both in that book basically as the people that they ended up being. Shallan and Kaladin are the people that I basically pulled out and replaced with new characters, because neither of them were working. I'll someday release that book and you can read it and be horrified about this book where really, really different things happen, and the characters half feel like themselves and half don't. Bridge Four isn't in that version of the book, Bridge Four is actually in Dragonsteel. Which is another book I wrote, which is where Dalinar started too. I wrote 13 books before I sold one. Dragonsteel was number 7 or 8. Half the ideas for the version of The Way of Kings you read came from that and half the ideas came from the original Stormlight Archive.
In the second series of Stormlight Archive, are they going to be about the same characters?
That's an excellent question. So when I sat down to build The Stormlight Archive, there were a couple of things that I learned from The Wheel of Time. One was that the further an epic fantasy series goes, the more important it is that you have a structure to the series. It's very easy for the books to start blending into one another, and it's also very easy to let side characters take over books. This is very natural for us as writers, particularly in a big epic fantasy, and I felt that when I approached The Stormlight Archive there are a couple of things I did. One is that I said "All right, I'm going to confine all my side characters to these things called interludes, where I can just go crazy and do whatever I want, but they have to be like, isolated in their own containment unit called the interludes to prevent me from turning from the books just going in all directions at once."
The other thing I said is, "Each book is going to be about an order of Knights Radiant, and it's going to have a flashback sequence directly tied to that order." So that when you say "All right, which book is book three," you're like, "Oh, that's Dalinar's book, that's the Bondsmith book." All of the characters are in all of the books, but each book has kind of its own soul and theme that helps me as a writer structure where I'm going to release information, and what it's going to be about. And so when I set down this, I said said "I'm going to pick 10 characters, 10 orders (and they are not always going to be exactly what you expect), but I'm going to build each book to have a theme based around those things."
The first five were Dalinar, Kaladin, Shallan, Eshonai and Szeth. So those are the five books you are going to get in the first arc. And the second arc is Lift, Renarin, Ash, Taln and Jasnah, right. Now, all the characters from the first five will be in all those books, and some of them will still be main characters. You can expect it, like it is one series. All the ones that survive *crowd groans* no spoilers. But you can expect in the back five, people that you are expecting that are main characters now will still be main characters, and you will have a lot of space dedicated to them still, but the flashback sequences, and the themes of the book, will focus on those five. And so it hopefully will help it all have a structure and a feeling.
Between book 5 and book 6, in-world, there will be a time jump of about 10 years, so just be expecting that. But I can't say anything more without getting into spoilers, so I won't. But that's what you can expect.
In Mistborn 3, when Ruin is controlling Inquisitors. Before, they said that Inquisitors were bald. When Ruin is controlling them, does he still have them shave and stuff like that?
They still kind of go through their daily life. It's not like he's-- His control can get stronger, and weaker at times. And so they mostly kind of just do what they would normally be doing, until he moves that one right there at that moment where he seizes them, if that make sense. So yes, but it's less like he's like "I am now going to puppet-control them to go to the bathroom," right? He just lets them do that, and when he needs them he seizes control.
So I'm wondering, how omniscient are the Vessels?
This is a difficult question to answer because they don't know everything, but they could theoretically. And so, the actual Vessel needs to apply the power and learn things. And they don't know the future exactly. Particularly, you'll notice some hints of this in Oathbringer. There are certain things that really foul with their ability to see the future. It's whenever we kind of get the equivalence of an atium shadow right? Reflection that reflects that someone sees the future, and then suddenly you end up with this kind of difficult chain to follow.
Can you tell me who might be the most all-knowing out of all of them?
I will say the older they are the more they generally know.
So probably not Harmony then?
Probably not Harmony.
lWhat if you mixed-- ike in Alcatraz, what if you mixed like a Windbringer's Lens with like a Fire--forgot the name.
Oh man that would be terrible. You'd have a big black firestorm. It'd be awesome. Someone should do that.
So they are allowed to mix?
They can. It's very hard.
If you had a giant pool of milk or mercury, or some other liquid, on a cosmere planet, how would that manifest in the Cognitive Realm?
I will RAFO that. I've actually thought about it. You'll have to see. Those two things are slightly different, the two things you just mentioned.
Could you spike the ability to grow a gemheart out of a singer?
Yes, I think you could. Yeah.
Soul Forging. Emperor's Soul. If one created the stamp properly, could you, using it, say, Windrunner you stamp, rewrote past to be Lightweaver. Possible?
That is possible and a little easier than a lot of other things. It's gonna run into problems... in that the Oaths are gonna be hard to align.
Probably require some very fine crafting on the stamp.
Very fine crafting on the stamp. And there are certain people that they're just gonna have a hard time fitting into certain Orders. This is a lot easier though than just taking a random person and making them into one, because you're gonna already have Investiture that they've got.
And have the basis of the First Oath.
Yeah. So this is not as hard as it might at first sound. It's the sort of thing that people in the cosmere are looking at. Like, being able to transfer magics between-- and things like that is one of very much interest in the cosmere.
Could one, using a Hemalurgic spike, acquire a Divine Breath from one of the Returned?
...This should be possible.
So, Taravangian has his changes during the night while he sleeps. Has he ever thought to pull an all-nighter and see what happens?
Yes, it still happens.
While he's awake and conscious for it?
Yes.
If all the practitioners of the Dor but one just died, for whatever reason, would that remaining practitioner have access to more power?
No. Good question. There is magic systems that work that way but it is not the Dor-based magics. I've got an unpublished book that works exactly that way called Mythwalker. The magic system of that was called the Septs, and your family divided the power of the magic, but it was not a one-to-one ratio. If you had a total power, if one person had it was at a 1, but if two people have it each of them were at like a .8, and so suddenly it became this thing of, how many people in your family do you want to have power and things like that. It was really interesting. But the rest of the book was terrible.
Why are all the dead Shardblades blades?
That will be answered eventually, so I'm gonna RAFO that for now.
Is there one true Shardblade form for a spren?
"True" in this sense is mutable and it can change, based on perception. I would say yes, but it is not a kind of platonic truth, it is a momentary truth.
Will dead Shardblades change, when an owner has them for a long time will they slowly change or will they stay the same?
Shardblades have changed before that were considered dead.
Could an AI bond a spren?
RAFO
Would Hemalurgy work on an AI?
RAFO.
Will there be a Mistborn in space?
There will be, yes. Era 4 of Mistborn right now is in space, we’re on Era 2 though so we got a ways.
Do you know the movie order? I know you signed a deal, and I've been looking at it and it said they were going to do Stormlight first--
Well, they're co-developing Stormlight and Mistborn, and I’m not sure which one will end up working first. It's going to depend.
Adonalsium, did he have his own world before?
Yes, that world is the book Dragonsteel, which will be written as Hoid's backstory. That's a ways off, but it will still come. Chronologically it's first, but I'm going to write it right before I write the last Mistborn series, which is Mistborn Era 4.
So, are all birds in the cosmere referred to as chickens?
No. All birds on Roshar are referred to as chickens... What's going on here is a linguistic phenomenon, where they had lots of bird types on the planet they emigrated from. But over time the word for "bird" became genericized, chicken became genericized to mean bird. That's happened to a couple things on Roshar. Wine got genericized. They don't even really have wine; they don't have grapes, but they use it genericized to mean something different.
Where did you get the idea for the Alcatraz series?
I thought of Alcatraz first, someone named after a prison, and I'm like, "Why would you be named after a prison?" And it kind of just went from there.
I saw a quote that said that there were two people who knew how to awaken metal. Is that still true?
Read and find out.
How much time do you spend writing new material versus rewrites?
Rewrites are about half of my time I'd say. Between a third and a half. So I can usually budget the same amount of time that it took to write a book to do the revisions, and each given one is a bit faster. I write at about 2,000 words a day and I revise at about 10,000 words a day, but it goes slower when I have to do new chapters. Like, I'll do 10,000 words one day, and then 2,000 the next when I have to do new stuff.
Did you know from the beginning how you were planning to end [Alcatraz]? Because the whole time, I was going, "He'd better fulfill all of these promises."
I was. I'll tell you this, when I pitched that to the editor, they did not like it at all. They didn't like the idea of me ending on such a downer note. But I knew that the right way to do it was to have him give up on the series after that dark moment. A lot of the Alcatraz stuff I discovery wrote, but that ending I had from the beginning.
Would [Walter and Osmin's Detention Enterprises] be referred to as WODE?
You could totally do that if you wanted to.
I was told that in the end of... Alcatraz versus the [Dark Talent], it says that you would be writing another book from Bastille's point of view.
Yes, I am. So, if you are not familiar with this series, I did this weird thing with this series. Alcatraz books are kind of making fun of epic fantasy series. Part of the joke is that they're making fun of them. So when I pitched it to my editor, I said, "I want to tell everybody there's five books. But then end on a massive cliffhanger, and then have the main character refuse to write the last book. And then have a different character in the series write the last book." And the reason I did this is because the character, Alcatraz, had been promising that the books would end on a downer note. And I both wanted to have a downer note and not. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. So Bastille insisting she will write the last book has worked. I've got about half of it done. I have been having some friends read it and help me with it, because I want the voice to feel different, and I want the voice to feel right. So it's been a little tricky to make sure it doesn't just sound like Alcatraz, that it sounds like somebody new. But it will happen, and it's making progress.
Let's just say that Alcatraz's view on events is not very trustworthy, considering that's, like, the main theme of the books. So I'll let you know that.
Do you have any idea when it might be coming out?
I don't know for sure.
Let's go down the sequel list.
My next book coming out is Skyward. You can read sample chapters of that right now, we've been doing a lot of publicity. If you watch my social media, I'm sorry; you probably are done hearing about Skyward. But you can go read the chapters of that, it comes out in two weeks. I turned in the sequel to that, and I'm gonna try and squeeze in the third book before the year ends. We will see. 'Cause I would like to have that series done and ready to be read, and not have to--
Because, starting January, I promised my attention turns back to Stormlight. *crowd cheers* Everybody cheers for Stormlight. And I will be on Roshar until Book Four is done. Those books take, like, eighteen months. The Skyward books each took 3 months. So, you can see, a Stormlight book's a major undertaking, and nothing else gets done during Stormlight. Which is why it'd be really nice if I can squeeze in that third book, but I only have two and a half months, so I don't know if I'll be able to do it. But I'll start on Stormlight Four.
So that leaves you hanging on a few things. What about Wax and Wayne Four? Wax and Wayne Four will happen. I'm not sure when, but it will happen. I need to keep steady progress on Stormlight. It'd be really easy to get behind on that series, because they are so big and take a lot out of me... I have to take a good year, year-and-a-half break after a Stormlight book to make sure I'm not burned out on the series when I start again. At about eighteen months, actually about a year, I start to get really excited for working on it again, which is where I am right now. And that's where you want me to be when I'm writing a 400,000-word epic fantasy. So, Wax and Wayne Four will happen. But we will see.
Probably not any new Reckoners books for a while. That series is done. There's a Mizzy book in me somewhere, but I don't know when I would do that. Who knows.
Elantris and Warbreaker, sequels wouldn't be approached until after Stormlight Five. Probable they'll happen, but again, wait 'til Stormlight Five. Stormlight's two five-book arcs.
The Rithmatist. Oh, man, that book has been hard to do a sequel to. I tried to write a sequel, and it just didn't work. So I set it aside. I've got a new outline that I like for it, but it has to get slotted in. It's been a really tough book, probably the toughest book to figure out how to do right ever.
If the book is not on that list, then probably not a sequel coming anytime soon.
How do you decide what book you're gonna work on each day? Do you have, like, a schedule or something?
Good question. So, I can generally only be writing new prose on one book at a time. And so, I usually make the decision when I finish a book. I usually need something very different, once I finish a book, to try, to have a break from that world, rather than going right into it. So often, I have a lot of different projects floating, and I decide when I finish a book. A little bit of it is making sure, trying to keep myself from doing too many new things, when I still have things hanging. And that has been a constant struggle in my life. I taught myself how to write novellas, so that I could do some of these ideas-- Those are in Arcanum Unbounded. And most of those exist because I had ideas, and I'm like, "No no no. Don't start another series. Don't write another 300,000-word epic fantasy book that people are going to be asking for sequels to. Tell the actual story that you're excited about, but do it in 30,000 words, and then you can be done with it." And that's where Emperor's Soul came from, and that's where things like Edgedancer came from. Not having to balloon into their own huge series.
So, I decide. And once I get into the book, I need to keep momentum on it. I can't stop. If I stop, that's really bad for a book. You can see this with Rithmatist. Rithmatist was the series I was working on when The Wheel of Time came along. It was the one I was actively writing and working on the sequel to. And when Wheel of Time hit me like a freight train-- I actually wrote the first one in 2007, and it's been really hard to get back into that, because of that big interruption.
How long did it take you to figure out how to kill your characters without really ticking off your readers?
Well. I think it still does tick them off. But my thing is, if I make sure that somebody has a satisfying resolution, even if they don't get to see it, usually people are satisfied then. So, if what the character wanted finds satisfying resolution eventually, that is where I go.
How do you deal with hecklers? Do you ignore them, do you take their advice?
So, it depends. Hecklers, I ignore. Criticism, I don't. I am lucky in that I have a team, and I, these days, have my team watch. Like, "You read the one-star reviews. Tell me if there are things popping up that I need to pay attention to," and things like that. Reading one-star reviews is generally a bad experience, but reading three-star reviews is usually a really handy experience for you to do. That's what you're looking for, those three-stars, the people that could have loved the book-- and if you give it three stars, you liked it, but there were things that bugged you. And if you start seeing themes like that pop up, try to address them.
But also understand that art is about taste. Every type of art. And you are going to write things that are the right piece of art, but that somebody doesn't like. Just like some people don't like my favorite food. Some people hate it. I like mac and cheese, other people hate it. I have a friend who hates ice cream. I'm like, "What? Who hates ice cream?" But he hates ice cream. It's okay. So, learn to separate taste from things that are actually skill level problems. And as you're a new writer, in particular, focusing on craft, just practicing, is more important than the feedback, often, on your first few books. 'Cause you'll know. You'll figure it out. Your first couple books, you'll be like, "They don't have to tell me; I know what parts are not working." But you can't get better at that until you write them.
You have a good amount of accountants in your books.
My mother is an accountant. So accounting is one of my go-to references to my Mom. She's an accountant for the city of Idaho Falls. So that is why so many accountants pop up in my books.
Is that where [Lightsong], is that a direct, for her?
Yep. [Lightsong] is also based on a friend of mine who is a computer programmer, and you don't have computer programmers in fantasy worlds. So I'm like, "Well, what's the closest thing to that?"
I liked Snapshot quite a bit. Is there any chance you're gonna do more with that world in the future? Crossing over with Legion, or anything?
It's possible. They're kind of in the same cycle of me exploring reality and [plots], slightly futuristic. Snapshot, right now, is the best shot that we have as a movie. The screenplay came in, and it's great. It is better than the story is, which is fantastic. It's what you want to have happen with a screenplay, you want to have a collaboration, and someone take and integrate and do a better job. It's the first time I've gotten a screenplay back that has been better than the original... So, we have a really good shot, I think, at that one. The screenwriter knocked it out of the park.
Really, the third [White Sand graphic novel] is where we've done the most work, because authors-- this happens to a lot of us. Early work, we're good at doing scenes, and we're bad at endings, we're bad at bringing them together. And that's one of the things that I got better at over the years. And the ending of this one had some good things, but it had some really off-kilter things that we're fixing.
Are they gonna go to [Darkside]?
Don't have the plans yet, because I never wrote that book. But I do still have the outline, so it's possible that I'll go and I'll get with Rik [Hoskin]. (Who I really like; Rik has been great to work with. One of the best experiences I've had in collaborating has been working with Rik.) I can see myself saying, "Here are our story beats. I'm doing some dialogue, you're translating." We can maybe do something. But I can't promise.
The other thing is, we have that old Mistborn script, from the video game, that I could also turn into a graphic novel.
In The Rithmatist, in the Inception chamber, there's that chalk creature. Does that have anything to do with how they gain Rithmatic powers?
It has everything to do with how they gain Rithmatic powers.
In Stormlight, with Kaladin and his brother Tien, is there a connection or a reason why, whenever his brother finds a rock, that keeps coming up several times?
Yes. So, there's a couple themes going on here. One is just the subtle theme that Tien tends to find beauty in things that Kaladin finds dull. That's, of course, kind of the metaphor. But Tien also was a budding Lightweaver, and he saw color and light a little bit differently than other people did. And he has the same general effect that you'll see Shallan having on people, which is how the Lightweaver views you influences a little bit more how your mood is, and things like that... And there is a magical element to that, as well. There's both a metaphoric reason and an in-world reason.
Other Shards, other than Odium and Cultivation, can take physical form, right?
Yes.
Are there any Shards that can't?
No.
Could Ruin have taken physical form in The Well of Ascension?
So, yes. What it really counts to be physical, for someone like a Shard, is subject to debate, but he could have done some of the things that others have done. There were certain restrictions on both Ruin and Preservation, because of the deal that they had set up, that would not have made doing that very useful. But there is possibility he could have.
Kaladin kind of went back on his Oaths in the second book, right?
Yes. He started down that path.
How could Shallan or Lightweavers go back on the truths they make? And did Shallan do any of that in Oathbringer?
No, the Cryptics-- remember, how the spren is viewing this is very important. The Cryptics have an interesting relationship with truth. Harder to break your Oaths in that direction with a Cryptic. Harder to move forward, also, if you're not facing some of these things and interacting with them in the right way. But, while I can conceive a world that it could happen, it'd be really hard to for a Lightweaver to do some of the stuff. Particularly the ones close to Honor, you're gonna end up with more trouble along those lines, let's say.
So then, what happened with the Lightweavers during the Recreance? Did they break their Oaths?
They did break their Oaths. I mean, breaking your Oaths as in "walking away from the first Oath" will still do it, regardless of what Order you are. You can actively say, "I am breaking my Oaths and walking away." Anyone has that option. But you also are holding the life of a spren in your hand.
How did Preservation create the Terris prophecies in the first place, to make them known to people?
I'm gonna RAFO that, just because it gets really sticky when I have to explain this exactly, and I'm gonna shy away from that right now.
She noticed that the race in Skyward that the people are fighting are Krell, and that there are krell in Sixth of the Dusk.
That is not a direct connection. It's just, the Krell are a race of aliens from Forbidden Planet, one of my favorite classic science fiction movies, and I'm just doing it in Skyward as an homage to that. Krell in Sixth of the Dusk is just me looking for a thing that sounds like the right name for the thing.
So they're completely unrelated?
Completely unrelated. Other than the fact that I've watched Forbidden Planet, like, six times.
When Lift eats food, does she convert it directly into Stormlight, or some other form of Investiture?
RAFO.
The device the Ire were planning on using in Secret History. Were they testing it for something?
They actively wanted it to work there.
Like, say, something involving Sel and the Spiritual Realm?
There are different applications that they had considered, but I wouldn't call what they were doing a test, right then. They wanted to use it for what it was used for, yes.
Did Kelsier leave Scadrial when he went to the Ire fortress?
I consider him not having left, but being very close to leaving. He couldn't have actually gotten off-planet with the way that he existed at that point. So, no, he did not leave Scadrial. At least the sphere of influence of Scadrial.
Is Skyward gonna be related at all to Silverlight universities?
It is not, good question. Skyward is not related to the cosmere. It does mention Earth, which is kind of one of my dividing lines. But it is related to something else I've written.
What is the order of the Stormlight books? Like the first one is Kaladin's--
First one's Kaladin's. Second one's Shallan's. Third one is Dalinar's. Fourth one is Eshonai. Fifth one is Szeth. Sixth one is Lift. After that, I'm not sure if it's Taln or Renarin next. Probably Renarin.
Is there a Connection Aon?
Yes, but it has only slight cosmerological ramifications. It does have them, though.
You have written before on Reddit that you had to add some scenes for Perrin in the epilogue, even though the majority of the epilogue was Jordan's. Did you have to figure out endings for any other characters, or did he write them?
I did have to come up with endings for other major characters. Other than Perrin, they were strongly suggested by the notes or by the books. And technically, he had in the notes, Perrin's absolute end. One of the few things that it said was, "Perrin ends up as king." So, his absolute end. But I did have to do lesser than Perrin, but still some major.
Perrin finding Faile. Was that Jordan's? Or was that you?
That was me. He did write the scene-- I think this is the epilogue, where Mat comes back to Tuon, and things like that. Like, that whole scene was finished. The whole scene where Rand comes out of the cavern, all that stuff was finished. Some of the stuff with... Cadsuane, we had to extrapolate. Not extrapolate, he had some of the things in the notes. Some of the other ones, we had to. Others you would consider main characters, we decided on. Harriet decided on a couple of things.
Galad and Gawyn?
I'm gonna have to RAFO that, because I think Harriet has not wanted me to go down that path. I would say that major chunks of the Egwene and Gawyn plot were finished and written, particularly a lot of the stuff in Towers of Midnight. But there's a few things she's asked me to stay away from. One is who decided what happened to Egwene. Harriet has asked me to ease off on that one.
In The Stormlight Archive, do we ever find out how the Assassin in White, how he gets the sword?
Yes, that should be next book.
And does it intertwine any more with Warbreaker?
Oh... that you're gonna have to wait a little while for. You're talking about Nightblood. I thought you were talking about the Honorblade. Next book will explain how he got the Honorblade. How he ends up with Nightblood, really how Nightblood got onto the planet, is gonna take a little while. I will work it in. But it's gonna take a while.
Does that sword have a character arc, because it feels--
The sword is important and relevant to multiple series.
It's getting better.
He has learned some things in the intervening years. He learns real slowly.
At the end, Wit, with the little girl and the doll and bring the doll to life, it reminded me of Warbreaker.
Yeah, he was using Breath for that. He was using Breath he had gotten from somewhere, I'll say, but it was actually the other world's magic system. Vivenna was using them, too, in Oathbringer. When you see her fighting with her cloak. That's an actual fighting style people would do; her cloak's doing some extra stuff.
I also had a question about Sazed. When you were writing him as a character. So, I noticed he says "I think" a lot, which is a very Japanese thing to do.
Yes. So, I've used this before; Galladon does it too, "kolo." A lot of Earth languages do it. Japanese is one, Korean does it. And it is one of these things-- we don't do it the same way in English. "You know?" But it is one of those things, and it is a cultural thing from the Terris people, and should be a tick that will help you pick out people who have been socialized like Terris people.
Stormlight production by Bondsmiths. Is this a Dalinar-only thing, or a Bondsmith thing? Has it been used historically? Or am I getting RAFOd?
You're getting RAFOd... I'm gonna RAFO it. You should know the answer to that eventually. But not yet.
Matrim Cauthon, Kelsier, and Vasher all decide they need to get together and run a heist on Hoid. How do they do it? Why? And what are they looking for? Assuming they know where his "hideout" is...
Mat has to be persuaded. He doesn't think this is worth it. Once he knows about Fortune, he'd be interested.
Kelsier wants to beat him to a pulp.
Vasher is very utilitarian about it, and agrees that having access to him would be smart, but dangerous.
In between the first five [Stormlight books] and the second five, are you personally taking a ten-year break?
No, it shouldn't be ten years. I do plan to write the third Mistborn trilogy. (Second trilogy being four books. But, you know.) I do plan to write the second Mistborn trilogy before I do that. But those should be 200K words, which means I should be able to write one, do a novella, write one, do a novella, write one. So we're talking about probably that taking me five years to do all those. And then I come back. So it's probably a five-year break, would be my guess, during which you get a trilogy of Mistborn books. We have to work in Elantris there somewhere, but I have to stay focused at the same time, so it's kind of hard.
[Warbreaker] ends on, you could totally write a second one. Is that in the works?
It is, but it's kind of a distant plan. It's kind of just more for fun. I wrote this-- I had already written Way of Kings, and I wrote this as a prequel to Way of Kings on a different world, and then it got published before Way of Kings got published. But the characters from this were already continuity in Way of Kings, so I just kept using them, because I figured it works out. Really, Warbreaker, I see it as Vasher's (and Nightblood, the sequel), the prequel, to where he came from, who was Kaladin's swordmaster in the first version of Way of Kings back when Kaladin was training to be a Shardbearer in the first book. Vasher was a major part of that, and Warbreaker was a flashback to where he'd come from.
Vasher is Zahel, right?
Yes, Vasher is Zahel from The Stormlight Archive. Who is still kind of the swordmaster, but he's no longer Kaladin's, it didn't work out that way. But he ends up as Renarin's instead.
Can you tell me something about Hoid that nobody really knows?
So, I get asked this enough that I've run out of the easy facts. So usually, I have to RAFO that, just because rattling them off is really hard to do, the random facts ones. I used to be able to 'em, like early, I'm like, "This, that." But now, what do I say that won't be a spoiler? That's not known by anybody?
Let me ask you this. Is Hoid basically collecting these different Investitures from all the different planets?
You have definitely seen him trying to do this on multiple worlds. You have seen evidence of him using Breaths and Allomancy, and you have seen him... do something like Lightweaving that he calls Lightweaving, and you have also seen him try to get AonDor and fail. That's in the extra bonus scene in Elantris.
Before I read Oathbringer, I decided that if I had to pick an Order, I would be an Edgedancer. And then we got to the very end of Oathbringer, Mayalaran. It was very interesting, because my name is Maya, and I'm an Edgedancer, and I have long brown hair. And it kind of threw me for a loop. So I have to ask, who did you base that character off of?
That character is not based on anyone specific, but maybe I was channeling you somehow.
