Questioner
As Dragonsteel expands and you have other writers like Janci and Dan telling stories in your worlds, how do you manage the difference in approaches to writing?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, so this is something we're kind of finding our way through. You'll notice that I experimented with this a bunch with side projects before I decided to do some mainline projects. And I picked two of the writers that I'm very closest with and know the best. I don't anticipate going a lot further than that, right? I do like the idea of seeing what a few other writers can add to things like the Cosmere, but I don't want to turn into Forgotten Realms, where there's always a new book coming out by a new author. I do think that some places have done a better job of this though. Like, Black Library tends to have a very good reputation with the authors that they invite in and cultivate a stable of authors rather than just, you never know who's going to be writing one. I know that I didn't necessarily like this in comics, when I read more comics, not knowing when an author on a book was gonna be fired or when you were not gonna start seeing the original creator anymore. You will never not be seeing me writing books.
How do I approach it differently? When I hand it to someone, like with Skyward, I do envision it as being Janci's now. That I am overseeing. These are now her stories. It's kind of like how I felt... Harriet told me when I took over the Wheel of Time, Harriet came to me and said, "You are the author now, Brandon. You need to follow your instances as a writer and do your best job. You do want to look at what Robert Jorden was going to do and you want to try and fulfill his vision too." But she was very clear with me, it's like, "You are the writer now." And that gave me a certain level of ownership that I feel I needed. And despite some things about what I did definitely being... You know, I'm not without criticism, and deserved criticism. I think that me taking over that series went better than the vast majority of this happening in the past. You can just look at that both in aggregate reviews, you can also look at that at sales, you can just kind of look at... Really trying not to blow my own horn, but I think Wheel of Time is the gold standard in sci-fi/fantasy for an author passing away and someone else taking over the series. And part of the reason, in fact, I would say one of the biggest reasons for that, was Harriet coming to me and saying, "You need to be the author. You need the freedom and flexibility to treat this like your own series. You're not writing this for someone as just a work-for-hire; get this, chop wood, be done. We are handing you the keys to the house." And then, of course, the fact that she was also the editor to keep me a little reigned in in the right places was a big key.
But I bring that same sort of feeling to the authors I'm working with, with: "I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna help you outline. I'm gonna help you worldbuild. I'm gonna give feedback on the drafts. I'm gonna do everything I can to make this really excellent." But when you read Dan's Cosmere book, it's Dan's Cosmere book; it's not Dan writing Brandon's Cosmere book. It's Dan writing Dan's Cosmere book with Brandon deeply involved and trying to help out. And I think this is gonna lead to just better books. I think it's gonna lead to much better books.
I remember when I went to Blizzard once. They had me in (they had Pat Rothfuss in a separate time), and one of the reasons they had me in is they're like, "We would like you to write this story for us." They wanted to investigate having me write books for them. And it was a wonderful experience, everyone there was great, but I very quickly could tell I was the wrong person for the project. Because they already knew the exact book they wanted. They had every bit of lore that they wanted in that nailed down. The level of flexibility that I could have in telling a story in the Warcraft world was just almost nil. (They were actually investigating people for Overwatch back when it was Overwatch, but they also talked about Warcraft stuff.) It was like, "You could tell this story. This is what happens in it: boom boom boom boom boom boom boom." And it's all just completely already done, they just need someone to put the words on the page. And that is not me. That's not a project I was the least bit interested in.
Adam Horne
Seems like a lot of movie experiences are built like that.
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, a lot of movie experiences are built like that, too. And because of that, I politely declined that opportunity. And I have learned (particularly in these kind of collaborations) that the best things that we came up with were things where I said, "Here is my world. Here's what makes it exciting. Here's what I love about the characters. What do you want to do in this world?" And together, developing something that really matches them. Particularly when I can kind of hand off characters that I have not spent a lot of time on or have them invent all new characters.
That's what you should expect with the collaborations I'm doing. Quality control, hopefully by Brandon, hopefully really great stories, but stories I could not have written, because just handing people my outlines hasn't really worked. The best example of that being White Sand the Graphic novel. Isaac has made that book great, by kind of taking some real ownership over it. The first stuff that we did (even before he did this latest revision that you guys can now get), it felt like my outline got really stiff when someone else played with it, and some of the stuff that makes reading a Brandon Sanderson book really fun and enjoyable didn't end up in there.
There's a long rambling answer to you; I hope that's relevant and helpful. But, that's the way I am approaching this.
