Are we going to find out more about Hoid in the next book?
Yes, but only little bits and pieces until a little later. The further we get along, the more comfortable I will be giving you Hoid stuff. Particularly in Stormlight. So yes, but it's a tentative yes.
If you infused a ruby and split it into three or more pieces, would you be able to create a groupchat spanreed?
This has been attempted so far unsuccessfully. Good question! It is very plausible in the magic system.
I've always felt this was related to quantum entanglement. Is that part of where you got the idea from?
Absolutely. I mean, I know that's not how quantum entanglement actually works. But the magic systems all in the Stormlight Archive grew out of my interest in the fundamental forces. We are several magical steps removed from the actual science in each of these cases, but that was the origin for all those magics. The quantum entanglement fascinates me, particularly the way that we think things should work and find out they don't. I love that stuff.
Is Hoid the only one of his kind that we've met in the Cosmere books?
What do you mean by his kind?
Is he the only one from the planet he's originally from that we've met?
No. Because Ati and Leras, the Ruin and Preservation, were both from that same planet.
[...]
All of the Shards of Adonalsium were from that planet.
How would an Awakened with Breath piece of cloth react if it got hit with a Shardblade?
A Shardblade would probably be able to cut it, but it depends on how much Breath we're talking about.
So if it had enough, it might be able to block it
Yes.
Approximately how much Breath would it take to invest a regular object enough to that a Shardblade couldn't cut it?
I would have to look at the notes. One of the things we're doing right now is, we're unifying the actual unit of investiture. So, I'm not going to answer that until I have that codified, but it is one of the projects we're working on right now. I'll have some answers for you more...we'll just get a unit of measurement that we can use, probably based on that.
Has Hoid just collected--<like he does>--the spren, or...?
He has legitimately bonded the spren. Let's just say, he has given up on trying to cheat some of the systems and has decided to try to play by the rules.
Do you already have the Ideals figured out for all the other orders?
Yes, but I don't always stick to 100% the wording. I got the sentiment and a sample phrase. But for a lot of them, they vary based on the individual. So there's some flexibility. I don't tell people what they are, generally, because I need the freedom to change just in case I decide to.
If someone was a good enough writer, would you ever consider letting someone else write in the Cosmere?
It is a possibility. I'd be very wary of doing it, but right now, Isaac, who's my illustrator, wants to do it, and he's been a friend for many years. So I've said, "If you really want to you can." So I'm open to the idea. You probably want to be a professional writer first, and have your own things published.
When you were writing Elantris, did you think of the artwork for all the symbols and stuff as you were writing?
I did, I drew them myself. Those are the only ones that I did the symbols for. After that book, I went and got somebody who knew what they were doing, so they look a little pedestrian compared to the other ones, but I did them all myself.
Is there any possibility of a Legion television show?
There is, we have sold the rights to a company called Cinaflex in Canada, they are trying to develop one right now. Hopefully, it turns out alright. We probably have to change the title because there is a Marvel Legion series, we would probably just call it Leeds.
That would be awesome. What about Snapshot?
Snapshot's at MGM, they have a really sharp screenplay that I love. Best screenplay based on my work that anyone's ever turned in. I'm really, really excited and hopeful for that one but there is no greenlight yet so who knows.
How far are you into the Cosmere stuff, like how much more can we expect?
There are 10 books of Stormlight, around 12 Mistborn, 3 Elantris, 2 Warbreaker, 1 Threnody, 3 Dragonsteel.
Is finding out what the deal was with Mare, is that an Era 2 thing we're going find out or is that...
No, unfortunately it is to be left, probably, as a mystery. It is a minor secret that I do not consider a major Cosmere thing, more of a backstory thing. I might eventually get around to it. The chances of it factoring in are very, very slim. I stay closed lipped about it because there is a part of me that thinks I will work it into Secret History 2, sort of like flash-backing material, but I'm not 100% sure I will.
Is there a reason Kaladin is always talking about the Survivor.
Yes. The Survivor? No. You're trying to get me to slip up on something; no. He does not know Kelsier, nice try.
But are they connected?
Only thematically.
I have a question, because I really like Magic: the Gathering. What set are you collecting right now?
I'm always kind of collecting some of everything. Right now I'm building a Theros cube, so kinda working on that. It's just, I have all my old ones so I'm just like, "Eh, I'll build a cube out of these", so I've just been putting that together, and then I've been building this really weird one that's a commander cube. So I'm grabbing specific cards from here and there and putting them together.
Do you relate more to Kaladin or to Dalinar?
Dalinar.
I'm supposed to ask how Odium and Honor's Investiture could be so similar.
Odium and Honor, like a lot of the Shards, can be considered to have a similar theme. But that is very common among the Shards, in my opinion.
What is the stylization of the symbol of the Faithful in the Reckoners series
It's the Superman symbol, but I couldn't say that.
So why does Rand bow to the Empress when the actual prophecy was that she was supposed to bend to him, it was changed by one of the...
So that was actually in Robert Jordan's notes, that this is what he was supposed to do. It was to fulfill that prophecy, and so I don't have an explanation to that other than he made sure to include "this needs to happen", so I did it.
Even though the prophecy was not supposed to be that way?
Yeah. That one was very clear in the notes; needs to happen.
If you could choose to cast someone for Vin who would you pick?
Ellen Page from 10 years ago. Is that ok?
*laughs* Yes.
I think she would've been very good.
What's your favorite Magic card to use?
My favorite Magic card is Vesuvan Doppelganger, from the old days.
I'm just curious, there are 16 Allomantic metals, 16 Feruchemical metals, there are 16 Shards of Adonalsium. Are there 16 surges?
No.
So there's no correlation?
10 is an important number on Roshar.
Where do you come up with your names for books?
It really depends on the book. Sometimes I'm using a real world culture's linguistics as inspiration, sometimes I'm building a linguistic trick for them, so it really depends. Listen to my podcast, Writing Excuses, look for the episode on, we're doing one on con-langs or naming. We've got some episodes on that.
I want to know if Nightblood can be killed in the same way as a spren.
Well, that's a RAFO. Nightblood does not have the same spren bond, and so the renouncing of Oaths is not going to affect him, but there are certain things that could.
We know the Moon Scepter helps to change Identity [and/or/of] Investiture? So in the case of Raoden using *inaudible* Elantrians off-planet, would the Moon Scepter allow them to...
So the Moon Scepter is part of a key that they are trying to figure out how to do this. Because, Elantrian magic can be really powerful. All of the Selish magics can be really powerful. Because they are drawing from the Dor the way that they do, you're basically hooked up to a giant battery.
So, none of the other Cosmere magics you've seen have that level going on. The closest you're going to get is when you've got a Bondsmith powering the magic for the Knights Radiant. Cracking how to make that work on other planets is a really important thing that people are trying to figure out.
Is there a reason, with 16 being such an important number, that there are only 10 orders of Radiants
That is relevant.
Am I going to have to read and find out?
Let's just say 10 is a number that is relevant to Roshar and its inhabitants.
And what's the significance of the number 10?
The significance is that it is very significant.
Will we find out by reading it?
Maybe, that's why you're getting a RAFO. Potentially.
So, in Oathbringer, you said that Hoid still has a god worshipping him. Can you give some back story to that?
I cannot, I mean I can, but I'm not going to.
It will be revealed later?
Maybe. I plan to get all of this stuff eventually into his memoir when he writes it. Or when I write his memoir for him.
I have to post the Pattern deleted scene some time because, whenever I see someone dress up as Pattern, which doesn't happen that often, I wanna quote that scene but it's not in the book anymore, where Pattern talks about how famous he is. Yeah, so, I need to post that scene.
I was wondering if an aluminum Feruchemist, if he stores up Spiritual Identity, could he survive a hit from a Shardblade?
I'll RAFO that. Identity is not the right place to go for that. Exact mechanics are RAFO, but that's kinda along the wrong path.
It sounds like Adolin's sword Maya might be able to be resurrected?
*presumably nods yes*
Is it possible that other swords could be resurrected as well?
Hmmmm, the coveted RAFO card.
Szeth has trained with all ten surges, is he going to also help train new Radiants?
That is something you can expect has been an advantage to them in the intervening time, so yes.
How's Nightblood going to react to Szeth's spren?
Hmmmm! I'll give you a RAFO on that, here's your card.
I know I mentioned my tattoo that I wanted to get yesterday, and I was wondering what, cause I want the planets that feature in that system to be colored and everything is black and white, and so I was wondering what color I could get for each of them.
Wow, ok, I don't know if I can answer that right here, you probably want to email that to us. I can give you an off the cuff answer. I don't know if it'll be like a canonical answer or something like that. Give them to me and I'll tell you what my instincts say.
Sel?
I would do Sel as a blue color. Probably a light blue.
Nalthis?
Nalthis i would do as like a vibrant pink, orange, or something like that.
Taldain?
Taldain I would do as yellow.
Would I do like the half and half or?
I would do half and half, yeah, or if you wanna do black and white. Black and white would work very well for them.
Scadrial?
Scadrial I would do as a rust red, like a deep red.
Threnody?
Threnody, lets see.
I was thinking like a dark blue/green mix as well.
The problem is you would want to do Roshar as either a brown or a Kholin blue. Probably a brown for the stone, so in that case you could Threnody as like a dark blue and you could do Sel as light blue. You don't have a green in there, so Sel could go green if you wanted it to.
I forgot to ask about Sixth of the Dusk.
Oh, that would be mostly water, so that's a blue one.
Like a vibrant blue?
Vibrant blue. So we've got three blues. But you can change one of those to green, and I would say Sel goes green.
Like an emerald green?
Like a grass green. Because a lot of people are concentrating on the *inaudible*.
So Wayne is my absolute favorite character. What was your main inspiration for him?
Wayne started with a character, I wanted to do someone who changed personalities based on the hat they wore, and it actually started as a haberdasher, a hat maker, and as a character staring in his own story in the Mistborn world and it didn't work. He needed somebody to play off of and so I shelved it and started The Alloy of Law where he could have somebody to play off of. Wax actually grew out of Wayne.
I just found out today that you have a charity called the Lightweaver Foundation.
I do.
What are you trying to accomplish with it?
I'm trying to find ways to give away my money.
Excellent!
It's less that I'm trying to funnel money into it from other sources. Sometimes, we sell things or do things that I want to do for charity, but mostly it's, so far we've put a library in the homeless shelter in Salt Lake and we've donated a bunch of books to schools and prisons and libraries. When someone comes and says, "Hey, can you donate to this thing," I just funnel it through the charity. It basically exists to give away my money.
Book six is halfway done, Bastille is writing it. She's doing a very good job; I'm quite excited by her version. It involves lots of stabbing things and Bastille making fun of Alcatraz. It's turning out really well and I think you're going to like it.
Do you have any updates on the next Wax and Wayne book?
No updates right now; cancelling the Apocalypse Guard and writing a new book in its place has put me just a little behind, but it was the right thing to do *inaudible*. And so I'm just finishing up Skyward 2 and Skyward 1 is coming out in November and I have until January to write something else, because January I need to start another Stormlight book so if it doesn't happen before then I'll probably do it in breaks between chunks of Stormlight.
On your Tor.com release of Oathbringer, I made a comment, it was about the Windblades being powered by Urithiru. Would that be barking up the right tree or the wrong tree?
That is a, barking up the wrong tree. Good question. I don't think I've seen that question before.
Even [Alice?] brings it up in the next chapter.
Did she? No, that's a false correlation, the strata are more just there because of how Roshar works, than they are to make you draw a parallel there.
And only Shallan and others can really see the colors *inaudible*.
Mmmm. That is not a false correlation, right there.
How do you make good characters, good heroes, and good villains. How?
That's a big question. Best thing I can tell you is, try to look for the nobility in every person, even if you may not agree with them yourself. Listen to the character. Every person is a hero in their own story.
I was curious about how you see your writing and your job in context of your discipleship.
I think that making good on talents you're given is a very important thing. I think art is good for art's sake, and it is an innate and inherent good. Expressing who you are in fiction and exploring who other people are brings us together, makes us closer, makes us understand people when you read fiction written about people very different from yourself. I think pure religion will try to understand other people's viewpoints and listen. So I think that that is all very important, and I think that fiction is comfort in a lot of people's lives
I don't sit down to write a book and say, "My job is to convert anybody, or to preach." I try to present the world as it is through lots of different people's eyes, and I think that is an innate good. This is the big argument that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien had, though. They were on different sides of that argument. What is the nature of allegory in fiction. I err a little more on Tolkien's side.
I've started a lot of little things of literature, but I've never been able to finish, 'cause I start on one thing with all these ideas, and then I get all these ideas about something else, and I don't see the two worlds fitting. So I start on something else. So, how do I...?
So, this is Professor Sanderson saying, "You need to make yourself do it." You won't learn how to finish stories until you start doing it. And doing that, learning to keep on a story, even when it starts to get hard, and you're more excited about something else, and this one's not turning out the way you like, or things like that. Learning to finish it anyway is the only way you'll learn how to do that, and make it good. So, you have to finish stories. Don't stress too much about them turning out right. Books that you write are all practice. Even for me, right now. Practice at getting better. You want to be a better writer. Rather than a person who wrote a book, you want to be a writer who can write great books. So, practice like you're practicing piano, or whatever it is. Just tell yourself, you've just gotta finish.
Do you agree with, "You should know the ending?"
It depends on... everybody's different. Some writers are better if they don't. Some writers are better if they write toward an ending, get there, and then revise so that ending matches. You'll have to do that. Some writers are better if they have a strong outline. Go watch my university lectures, on YouTube. In the early lectures, I talk a lot about discovery writing versus outline writing, the advantages and disadvantages.
How do you build all your characters?
Characters are the hardest for me to explain. The answer I can give you is, I usually try writing and just experiment with the viewpoint and voice, and see if that works. And if it does, then I start working them into the book. But often, I'll do freewrites. I'm looking for conflict, looking for an interesting perspective of seeing the world. I'm just looking for something different about them.
So, like, in Mistborn, do you create your characters individually, and then you add them to the story?
A lot of times. Like, Kelsier was created before I started writing Mistborn. Vin was also, but Vin changed a whole bunch, to the point that, really, I started writing the book, experimented with different voices, and found the one I wanted for her.
How were you able to diversify the amount of characters you have? Like, Shallan, she had such a dark past. How do you get that so accurately?
I've had some help on Shallan. I've got some friends who have dealt with similar issues that I interview, I get notes from, and I have read the books and tell me where am I going wrong, where am I going right. That's really handy. Listening to people, interviewing people, using primary sources. Invaluable when doing characters. Even the newest book I'm working on, Skyward... Like, in that one, it's nothing about a deep, dark past, but the main character's a fighter pilot. And I got a ton of stuff wrong. But fortunately, I found some fighter pilots to read the book and tell me where I was going wrong. So it got right.
I'm curious, how did you get the inspiration for putting lights in spheres that give people powers?
So, I bet, if you track back where the origin of this is, a lot of the ideas like this goes back to Dune, where magic as part of the economy was really fascinating to me when I read it as a teenager. And so, I've always looked for economic components to my magic. And I loved the idea of coinage being useful for something. So, the idea that you have these spheres that act as light was really fun for my worldbuilding and things like that. It means people just don't use fire as often, and you have an economy that can go late at night without burning candle wax to go late at night. You're just using a side effect of your money that you already have. And this led some really cool worldbuilding directions. I would say the origin probably goes back to Dune.
Where did it come from as Stormlight? Partially, it's just, the way I built the Cosmere, I wanted commodifiable magic that you could use in an economy and trade, because of the way the Cosmere worked and the greater, larger where I was going for the future books, that just made it a lot more interesting to me.
Do you think you would ever teach a class at the Storymakers conference?
I do, every once in a while, teach at Storymakers, yeah. I really like that conference. I think it is probably the best writing conference in the region. I can't make it every year, though. But every three or four years, I go in and I teach one.
I wanna know how many series you're working on right now.
If you really wanna know, go Google "State of the Sanderson.' Every December, I go through all the series that I'm working on. I say where they are, and what I'm planning to do with them, and which ones are done and which ones aren't. So just Google that.
Another question on that is, how do you keep your characters straight in the different books that you write?
Keeping characters straight isn't tough. Keeping events, which things I've said and which things I haven't... and in that case, it's a matter of having a good continuity editor. Or rereading the books before you write the next one. Once in a while, I will have changed my mind in the middle of writing a book, and I forget. So, I go trying to write the sequel, and my continuity editor's like, "You explained this already. You have this whole thing." And I still, like... Mistborn, I changed silver to tin, and I still have just never been able to remember that. My fingers want to type "silver."
I have to say, I find more gospel conversations after going through The Stormlight Archive with people than any other fictional book I've ever read. Does that intentionally bleed in, or is that just part of who you are?
It's a little of both. I don't preach in my books. What I am determines part of what I find heroic. But I'm very fascinated by religion. So I like to have lots of different people in the books who have lots of different viewpoints on religion that talk about it, like we kind of do in real life. So, you know, you have someone like Dalinar, who is kind of very... almost revolutionarily faithful. And you have Kaladin who's just straight-up agnostic, "Don't know, don't care." You have Jasnah, who's an atheist. You have someone more like Navani, who's a classic conservative faithful. I just like having all of these different people interacting.
When you kill characters, how do you make them dramatic?
There are lots of different philosophies on this. Certain authors do it certain ways. It depends on the emotion you're going for. Usually, it depends on if it's a tragedy or not. A tragedy is, they don't fulfill the character arc that they're promised. They make wrong decisions at the wrong moment. And you, the reader, are left disappointed in them. And the opposite, like a heroic story, they make the decision. It might have consequences, so you're left sad, but also thrilled. And it depends on which emotion you want. And some writers prefer a method where they want you to never know who's safe and who isn't. And those writers will often kill a character in the middle of a plot arc, out of nowhere. And those are three different ways. I am way more likely to use the first two. A character who makes the wrong decision, and then dies because of it, as a tragedy. Or a character who makes a hard decision, fulfills their character arc, and may not make it anyway, still can feel very uplifting despite the loss.
Are you planning on doing a sixth Alcatraz?
Yes, from Bastille's viewpoint. She is currently writing it. We are just waiting for her to finish. That shouldn't be too long.
And things aren't as bad as Alcatraz made them seem. He's a little melodramatic, if you can't tell.
Where would you suggest a beginning writer start writing? Like, novellas? With short stories?
I'd recommend you start with the format you read the most. Once upon a time, short stories was the way to begin. But that's because a lot of the readership read short stories, got used to reading them, and magazine subscriptions were a big deal. Once the novel became the dominant form... I don't feel like you should write something you don't read. We use, in writing, a phrase: "Write what you know." This doesn't necessarily mean you can't write about someone very different from yourself. But your experience is part of what's gonna make your story unique. And so, putting part of yourself into every book is important. And also, writing in genres that you are familiar with, that you know the tropes of so you can use them in new ways. So, start on novels if you read novels.
Have you ever wanted to write an alternate ending to a book or a series?
I actually did that with Words of Radiance. There's some small tweaks that I made. The end result was too much confusion among fans, which one's the canon, even though they were just minor things, that I feel like that was an experiment that I just don't ever wanna go back on.
Like Mistborn One, there are things I don't like about the ending of that. It's a little too deus ex machina. A little too unforeshadowed, some of the things that happen. But that's just my lack of skill as a writer during that era. And you just learn and grow. You learn how to do things right by doing them poorly on occasion.
Have you ever regretted killing off a character, or not killing off a character, in your book series?
Yes. In the middle of Words of Radiance, there is a character who dies, but comes back. And in my original draft, it was very clear. (Wink wink, reader; this character's coming back.) And I think that was actually the version I wanted. Because I felt like, when I did the original draft, and I sent it to beta readers, they're like, "Oh, well this character's obviously gonna come back." And I'm like, "They figured me out!" And I made it hardcore, so they had real worry the character wasn't coming back. But that was not a major moment in the series, it was removing a character so another character could shine. So, I should have just been okay with them knowing that character was coming back, because there are... I feel like I faked out the readers for no big gain. There wasn't really reason to try so hard to fake out readers on that thing. Where there are some legitimate characters where, you know, either, really they're dead and I want people to mourn their deaths. Or there are other characters where their return, I want to be very dramatic. And I feel like you've only got a certain amount of that energy from readers that you can play with them that way. And I shouldn't use it for things where I just want a character out of the way for a while.
