YouTube Livestream 5

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Name YouTube Livestream 5
Date
Date March 16, 2020
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Entries 16
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#1 Copy

Tanner Boyce

I was hoping that you would talk about about the book you wanted to write about people getting magic powers from when they're sick.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, The Silence Divine. It would be a really great time to write this right now. In fact, someone wrote to me on Reddit and was like, "Hey, you gonna write this now?" The problem is, it is not a good time to write this because Stormlight Four is due July 1st, and I am needing to finish the third draft this week, and then launch into the fourth of five drafts.

This story, I always get a ton of offers from people to help me out with it. Which I really do appreciate you guys doing that, because my immunology experience is kind of low, which is why I didn't actually write this story when I wanted to.

So, this cool story about people who get a disease get magical talents while they have the disease and what-not, I will write this someday. This takes place on Ashyn, which is in the Rosharan system. And there is kind of deep lore stuff about the history of Roshar that Ashyn is related to, and I want to do that. And there's some fun inter-connectivity to the magics. I just haven't had the time, yet.

If there are those who are watching who are very into immunology, I do have people offering to help me out. I certainly wouldn't say no to more offers of help, since some of you may have already written to me and said "I'll help out!" And that was on Reddit, which has a terrible message management system. So I'm usually good at copying and pasting usernames and/or emails of people into a file, but not always.

Some day, I'll write this story. The trick is... viruses and bacterias are so different, I have to commit to one or the other. Or, I could do both, but then I'm gonna have to deal with that. And then there's the whole part of it, me wanting certain chronic diseases to have longer-lasting abilities, and I'm not sure if that will work. There's just all sorts of questions that I just need to sit down with a panel of experts and ask them my stupid questions and have them tell me what I'm doing wrong so we can actually make this work.

I think it'll be great when I write it someday. The thing is, I have to finish this (Stormlight [Four]). And then, I really do want to have a novella in the Stormlight universe (probably not this one; something actually on Roshar) to do with the Kickstarter. Because a lot of people are fans and want to read new stuff, but do not have the means or the inclination to spend $200 on the leatherbound copy of The Way of Kings. And we would like to have something on there that people who want to spend less money can get all the swag, instead of buying this very beautiful but very expensive book, they could also just buy the novella. So I want to do something like Edgedancer that will take place between books three and four.

#2 Copy

Questioner

How can you control the ramping of power levels from human to godlike?

Brandon Sanderson

Knowing how long your series is gonna be, or at least how long you would like it to be at the start, is definitely going to be a help here. Also, understanding how to make character conflicts that both fall into the character's skill wheelhouse and those that don't, meaning finding a challenge for a character... I often talk to my boss about the idea that stories happen around the things that the character or the magic can't do, generally. This is just kind of storytelling basics. If you've got a character that is an excellent, excellent boxer, then you tell a story about either someone who is a stronger boxer than them that they have to face, or you tell a story about boxing being a side story to the rest of the character's story. And this is just so that there's tension and conflict. And getting good at balancing those is going to be very helpful for you. Because you don't want to just have things happen that the character's skill means nothing to. If your character's a boxer, you need boxing matches to be happening in your story in almost all varieties of stories you're going to be writing. And if your boxer's the best boxer in the world, you still are going to be expected to have boxing matches, you're going to have to find a way to make it still tense. But you can do this in a lot of different ways. It can be someone is better than them. It can be that they get injured. It can be they get older, and their skill isn't what it once was. Or they can be at the height of their skill, but there's some sort of marathon they have to go through, where they're going to have to defeat a bunch of opponents in a row. Just understanding how you can ramp up those kinds of conflicts and then how you can balance them with character conflicts, internal conflicts, and conflicts about what the character cannot do, and you will find that it works. Superman still works as a character -- I know that there are a lot of stories that don't work with him, but there are a lot of stories that still do, and he's near deific in power. Rand al'Thor in the Wheel of Time is basically a demigod by the time I took over the books, and he was a blast to write. I never felt worried about power level concerns in the three books I was writing, because I was able to balance these sorts of things because Robert Jordan had left me the seeds or the half-done story threads to be able to do this. So, practice those things.

#3 Copy

Questioner

How do you decide which stories need to be told when as you work your way through the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Mostly which stories need to tell when in the cosmere is affected by what I'm most excited to write right now. The cosmere so far has been separated enough that I can look at what I'm really passionate about and write it, and there's been no reason so far to put those very out of order chronologically. The further we go, the more that'll have to be. Like, the Wax and Wayne books happen chronologically after Stormlight 1 through 5. So it's already begun a little bit, but for the most part it was "What am I passionate about writing? What do I feel like is the best book for me to write?" And then I make sure it fits into the chronology rather than otherwise. Again, the further we go, the more these things lock into place. Like White Sand is jumping backward in time, and when I do Dragonsteel, it's going to jump even further, so this will happen more and more as we go, but right now? I write what I'm passionate about.

#5 Copy

Questioner

So far, the Stormlight Archive's book titles have the abbreviations: WoK, WoR, O, and RoW. Will Book Five's abbreviation be KoW, making the complete ketek?

Brandon Sanderson

Great question. Way back when I started working on the Stormlight Archive, I wanted to do this. And then I just didn't think it would work out, for various reasons, and I backed away from it, coming up with my kind of working titles that were not a ketek. After I changed Book Two to Words of Radiance, I realized I might have a chance to do this, and it started to kind of get in my head, that maybe I do it, maybe I wouldn't. I waited to see if Book Three would work as a single-word title, which it did. And so I am intending to do this.

The question we have internally is where we put the "T." Because Way of Kings actually has a "the" in it, where Words of Radiance and Oathbringer do not, and neither does Rhythm of War. So, is it going to have a T at the end, or not? That is subject to debate, even internally, right now.

#6 Copy

David Gelber

Is there any story which you would want to reimagine if you had the time to write it?

Brandon Sanderson

The one I am most likely to want to reimagine is Mistborn, because I am doing the screenplay. As you can see, we now have the progress bar up on that. And it's been very fun to reimagine it, kind of doing some of the things that over the years I'd wished I'd done. No spoilers, but the ending of Mistborn has a bit of a deus ex machina to it, that I would rather find a way to not have happen. I'd like a little of the pacing and plotting to be more elegant. A bunch of stuff with the skaa rebellion and things just never quite came together in the book the way I wanted it to. So that's the one of mine I'm most likely to actually reimagine.

There's a decent chance if I decide to adapt Emperor's Soul to the screen, that I would have to do a reimagining of that, as well, to make it work as a film, rather than happening in one room.

#7 Copy

Questioner

Characters in your own books that are the hardest to write?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't really even approach that way; it's hard for me to answer. Because characters are not on a difficulty level for me as characters. Some sequences with given characters are difficult to write. Sazed in Book Three of Mistborn is a great example, because what Sazed is going through is a difficult thing to make interesting on the page, and that was a big challenge. Dalinar in Way of Kings was difficult to write, for the same reasons. What he's going through was a tough sort of thing to convey in a way that is engaging for readers. So, some things can have a challenge.

Lately, Shallan tends to be the toughest, just balancing all of her different alters and things like that. It is a challenge.

#8 Copy

Joshua Gibson

Has becoming an Eagle Scout affected your career?

Brandon Sanderson

It's hard to say, because it's hard to say who I would be if I hadn't done things that I did back when I was a teenager. I do think that getting me outside, rather than always being inside, was good for me. Being a scout, and going on camp outs, and being familiar with that let me, when my friend Micah (who Captain Demoux is named after, Micah DeMoux) asked me in college if I wanted to go with him on photography trips (he's a fine art photographer), and he wanted someone to just go along with him and hold his equipment and stuff like that. And it involved camping, and things like that. And I was able to say "Yeah, sure. I can do that. I've done that." And it was just not outside the ordinary for me. And that is where I went to slot canyons and Goblin Valley in southern Utah and Zion's National Park. And the ecology of Roshar is deeply influenced by all those trips to southern Utah I took visiting all of the amazing landscape that we have here in Arches National Park and Bryce Canyon and Little Wild Horse and all of that stuff.

That's one thing I can point to, that maybe I would have said "no" if I just hadn't camped a bunch as a teenager.

#9 Copy

Mark Lindberg

What is the status of the audio novella you're working on with Mary Robinette?

Brandon Sanderson

We got the final version of it last week. So right now, it's just a matter of going to the publisher (which I believe is Recorded Books, on that one) and finding a release date for it. It turned out really well. I am super excited for you guys to read this, because it's taking what I think I do best and what Mary Robinette does best and combining them, and playing to both of our strengths. The narration came out really well. Max, who was the publisher on it, went and got some music done with it, and things like that, so it's scored. (And I think he worked with someone who works at Skywalker Sound, for that.) It's been a great experience. Mary Robinette's contribution to it was killer, so I'm really excited for you guys to hear this thing. And I think it will be out within a month. I can't say for sure, but should be pretty soon.

It's called The Original, for those who don't know.

#10 Copy

Reflex Jack

Do you have a favorite line out of all your novels?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm bad at quoting my own books. They have been a sentiment in my head for years before I write the actual words. (This is one of the reasons why I have problems when people say "can you give me one of the Oaths of the Orders of Knights Radiant that you haven't given yet?" I'm like, "No." I know what the sentiment is. But I don't know the wording of it.)

But I'm quite fond of the scene in Mistborn where Kelsier explains that Mistborn don't need to make sense because they're mysterious and cool. That's a fun line. I enjoy that line.

#11 Copy

Nicole Joy White

Will you ever revisit the Emperor's Soul world?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I've got another story about Shai I want to write, actually. Whether I'll get to it or not...

I had inspiration strike for a story I think will be really cool if I can find the time to write it. (That's always the thing, right?) But because I am moving more and more to coauthoring things that are not Cosmere, goal is that hopefully that'll leave me a little more time for Cosmere stuff, moving forward. So, we will see.

I wouldn't be surprised, for instance, if Skyward is the last non-Cosmere series I do that is not coauthored. So that I can divide some of my time off with another author. The experience of working with Mary Robinette on The Original has been so good. And the experience... even though he didn't fix it, Dan's improvements to Apocalypse Guard are so incredible, I'm actually gonna try and fix that this summer. I think we might do more of that. It's gonna depend on what people think of The Original, and theoretically the Apocalypse Guard when we release it.

#12 Copy

Nick Cantrell

One thing I've always struggled with in writing is creating meaningful quotes or pieces of art in-universe. Poems, philosophers, etc. How do you go about doing this?

Brandon Sanderson

The best way is, for me, to steep myself a lot in somebody's style after the book is done. So I finish the book... I do this sometimes with other things, too. For instance, Taravangian's viewpoint where he's very smart in Oathbringer. I wanted this to feel very different. Another one I did it for in Oathbringer was the ardent who's reading the romance novel. And once I finish the book, I go read a ton of someone else's style, and I kind of try to do a Weird Al version. You know how Weird Al will do style parodies, where he's doing a song in the style of someone else? Or you might learn how to paint using some great master's style, and then try a different great master's style? I try to evoke that style in what I'm writing. For instance, with Taravangian, I used Faukner. Went and read a bunch of Faulkner. Very steeped myself in Faulkner, tried to get some of the big, meaty Faulkner-esque paragraphs and complex sentences and things like that. Just so that when you read Taravangian, even if you're not like "Oh, he's doing Faulkner," you'd be like "Something's odd. It's almost like Brandon had someone else write this chapter." That works really well for poetry, also, for songs in-world and things like that.

If that doesn't work, something else you can do is do what I did. My father-in-law is a musician who is a singer/songwriter. (Matt Bushman on Spotify.) He has since retired from that, but he's a very good songwriter. And I had him write a couple of my songs for Words of Radiance. I had him wright all the epigraphs of the song. I just hired him. And I had him write Shallan's lullaby for that book. And that worked out really well. 'Cause again, I wanted something that felt like I hadn't written it. So I had someone else write it.

So those are two different ways you can kind of shake up your style. (One by not actually doing anything in your style, but you know what I mean.)

#13 Copy

Benjamin Shaw

You've mentioned exploring alternative ways to tell the cosmere story due to time constraints. Besides books and films, what other mediums are you considering?

Brandon Sanderson

Graphic novels, obviously, since White Sand is our first foray into graphic novels. We intend to do more graphic novels. We've learned a ton. We appreciate everybody who supported White Sand in its graphic novel form. And we think we're gonna just be way better as we move forward. And so we're excited to try that out and see what you guys think of that.

What else would we do? Video games will not be easier. They will take more time. While I do want to do that, they are not a time-saving method. And indeed, film is not a time-saving method, if I have to write all the screenplays myself. Which, hopefully, I won't have to; but we shall see. So far I've not loved any of the Mistborn screenplays that have come in, which is why I'm doing it myself. We'll see if I can do one that works.

#14 Copy

Questioner

Could you describe outlining with examples?

Brandon Sanderson

I have posted my outline for Skyward on my website. https://www.brandonsanderson.com/writing-advice/

This is the actual outline that I sent to my editor, and that I used to write the book. We also have on that same place the two first chapters I tried before I settled on the third one, which is the one that ended up in the book. I threw away two beginnings to that book before I settled on the one that I liked.

The outlining process for me is usually very goal-based and goal-driven, like I talk about in my class. Where I start with what I want to have happen, and then I write bullet points underneath it in order to get to that place. In the outline for Skyward you will read (I mention this at the top of the outline), I have already taken those bullet points and shuffled them together into chapters or scenes. This is because I wanted my editor to be able to understand, and it was a single-viewpoint novel. (That actually ended up being a double-viewpoint novel, but it was originally started as a single-viewpoint novel.)  So I could do that. My Stormlight ones, generally don't have the whole outline. It's still broken up by viewpoint, and kind-of goal.

But give that a look, and see how it works for you, if that makes any sense to you. Basically, I'm trying to earn my ending. That's what an outline is about. Coming up with my ending, and finding the things that will let me earn it.

#15 Copy

Augustine Soto

When one of your books gets a live-action adaptation, will you make a cameo? If so, which character would you like to be?

Brandon Sanderson

My goal is to cameo in all of my adaptations as a person who dies in a different way in each movie. Or something terrible happens to them. I love this idea because I kill characters in the books, so this is, like, revenge of a sort. Basically, I get to be the Kenny for all the Cosmere films. You'll have to be watching out and see. When you see Brandon, and then a wall will fall on me. Or a koloss will throw me to be feasted upon by the others. Or I'll get tossed off a wall. Or anything like that, that's what we want to do.

Peter Jackson did that to himself, right? In Return of the King. He gets shot with an arrow.

I want you to be able to spot me. And then watch me die.

#16 Copy

Stephanie Akroyd

What critical steps would you take to facilitate a believable descent-into-madness type character arc?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how accurate you want to be with your psychology. This is one of those areas that I have made a special area of expertise, where I would say I'm still not an expert, but I'm better than the 10% knowledge I am in a lot of other things. And one of the things about psychology, you even heard me earlier saying Taln was wondering whether he was a crazy man or not: we talk about psychology in ways that can be very harmful or hurtful to people who are dealing with it. And you can just go read about people with Dissociative Identity Disorder and how they feel about how they're represented in media. (I'll give you a hint. It makes them really depressed how some of things things are represented in media.) And those of us who write novels, we are definitely fueling this, right?

And you can see, if you've read the Stormlight Archive, I go both directions. I have what I hope are very accurate and realistic depictions of mental health, and I have the Fused and the Heralds, who are using more a magical sort of pop culture version of: their minds are just degrading. They don't actually have a legitimate psychological psychosis or anything like that.

And you're gonna have to ask yourself: which direction do you want to go? I'm not gonna sit here and sit on a high horse and tell you you're just being harmful if you're just showing a descent into madness, because that can be really fun. The Shining is a great movie. And I don't think The Shining is necessarily harmful; it was done really well. But if you do things poorly, it can be very harmful. So I would say to you, number one, take some concern for that, and kind of ask yourself how you're going to approach that.

Otherwise, one of the things I would keep in mind is that the best books that do this for me are ones where I don't catch on at first, either. And that's part of the fun of this type of story. Whether it be a Lovecraft story, or whether it be The Shining. As you are going through, you are through this character's eyes. You are experiencing the world as they experience. And you are going to believe what's written on the page is true, and that the character is trustworthy, until it becomes evident it isn't. And that moment can be really cool. And keep in mind that that's one of the big reveals that you're gonna have for your story. And try to decide where that breaking point is gonna be. And make sure that that one works. If you can make that one work and then earn it, you're gonna have, I think, a stronger story.

Event details
Name
Name YouTube Livestream 5
Date
Date March 16, 2020
Entries
Entries 16
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