About Bands of Mourning... Marasi finds ReLuur's missing spike, and she describes it as pewter... Which is not one of the four metals conventionally used in kandra blessings...
Yes.
...and is used to steal Feruchemical abilities. Was Marasi just mistaken, or is something going on there.
That you will eventually find out.
Where did the idea to split The Way of Kings and to make it take place in multiple places come from?
The Way of Kings taking place with the different timelines? So Way of Kings I wrote, the very first version of it--in its contemporary form, I wrote the first book about Dalinar when I was a teenager--but the very first book called The Way of Kings I wrote in 2002 and I tried to cram way too much into that book. The big failing of that book was I tried to do everyone's story at once. And so when I re-wrote it in 2009, or whenever it was, I decided I would take the characters and spread them out across the 10 book series and I would focus on a certain set of them early on and then transition into other ones. But in order to maintain some of the complexity I like in my books, particularly big epic fantasies, I added in the flashback sequence, one per character per book as a means to adding some depth and complexity but using it to build up a character you already knew, rather than doing someone completely different. And so this kind of allowed me to tell the story the way I wanted to, by doing-- That did mean I still had to have two separate timelines because I needed to do Shallan and I needed to do Kaladin, 'cause I knew they were going to be important, interacting together for the next few books. Which did put me in two different places but that was much better than the six different places the original had. And it's just because I like complexity, I like a book that everything comes together at once.
Have you ever justified the law of conservation of mass in the regeneration of shardplate?
Yeah, law of conservation of mass and the regeneration of shardplate. So conservation of energy and mass in the cosmere, you have to understand we are working on the Three Realms, Spiritual, Cognitive, and Physical and there is a lot of dense energy on the Spiritual plane. Most of the magics are working and creating a conduit to the Spiritual plane, pulling something through or sticking it back in. And so everything's conserved, but we have a dump of energy up there that we are kind of using as a dump of energy that we are pulling things back and forth with.
Did Vasher visit Roshar before the Recreance? Because he had-- *Brandon mumbles question* Because he had to see Shardblades, and... presumably live ones.
Yeah... I'll RAFO that. I'll RAFO that. It is an assumption that he had... He doesn't necessarily have to have seen alive ones. He could have heard records of them.
Okay. Because I've tried to make out a timeline, to be like, "Okay, if this is here..."
Kara has a timeline-- Not Kara-- Karen has a timeline in hand. But I would have to look at it to give you exact dates, but yeah.
Okay. So you didn't have to see...
He did not have to see.
First of all thank you for creating your own justified physics laws for your magic systems. Coming from a scientist I appreciate that, even though--
My pleasure. I like to have-- You know I was a chemist for one year in college, one year until I washed out. No really what it was… In high school chemistry is about blowing stuff up and doing cool experiments. They use that to trick you. *laughter* Because then you go to college and their like "Great! Now you are doing math equations, all day" And while I loved-- Oh, Eric's over here, he's like "Yes! That's what I love, math equations. Give me more!" I really did enjoy a lot of the concepts, I just did not enjoy the busy work so that's why I jumped ship. But I like my magic to make sense. Don't get me wrong, when I say "Err on the side of awesome" I don't mean "Write your stories in such a way that they don't make sense" but I will often start with "This is a cool image, I want to have work. How can I work out the logistics of that?" That's the difference between me and a science fiction writer. Science fiction writer extrapolates forward to what would happen with technology. I start with something cool and extrapolate backward.
Is there ever going to be a mash-up where different magic systems are actually going to collide and--
The question is is there going to be a mash-up where different magics, from my books, collide. Yes, there will be. I came up with the concept of what I call the cosmere… Long ago, it was about 20 years ago now, when I wrote my very first story that was about a guy traveling between different planets in a magical universe. Where he would go to the planet, try to figure out how the magic worked, then just get it working, then see if it was something he wanted to learn about and know. And that grew over 20 years into what I call the cosmere, which is a collection of planets in a fantasy universe, in which all of the magics are interacting in interesting ways. And we will eventually have some cool crossover books but right now the series I am writing are about the series themselves and so we won't have crossover yet but it will happen eventually.
How long either before modern day or before the Hierocracy was the Recreance?
Um...
Like 200 years-ish? 100 years-ish?
Okay, Recreance to Hierocracy is what you're asking?
Yes. Or to modern day, I don't care.
Uh, so Recreance to Hierocracy... Hierocracy is in recent memory. Recreance is not.
Okay. So that's probably like a 500-year difference. Something like that.
Uh, yeah, or more. Hierocracy, though, is recent-ish memory.
What has been your best writing experience?
What has been my best writing experience? There's a lot of them, I don't know if I can pick a best one. It's just the thing I love is, I spent ten years writing books kind of by myself alone at night working a graveyard shift at a hotel and the fact that I get to do this full time and I don't have to answer the phone and bring people laundry in the middle of writing a cool scene about shardblades. That's really nice. That I don't have to be-- I'm writing the climax and "Ah you would like a wake up call?" and then back to my climax. So being able to share the stories with people, having people who want to read them and support me is really fun.
How did you think of your powers with Alcatraz?
How did I think of the powers in Alcatraz. So if you aren't familiar with the Alcatraz books, they are books about a family who all have a magical talent and they are all based on stupid things that I do. *laughter* I am really good at breaking things. This is my phone. *shows phone, laughter ensues* This is my tablet, it only looks this nice because the last time I dropped it I have a nice assistant who took it to the store to fix it last month. So that'll last a few months. So Alcatraz's magical powers is that he is able to magically break things. I'm always late. I wasn't late today because we came up early to have dinner, but I was late to dinner. I'm late to everything So I have another character in that who has the superpower of magically arrive late to things, but he'll arrive late to things like bullets and tax day. They turn into superpowers. It started as me wanting the goofy things I do to become superpowers and extrapolated out from there.
How does the Nalthis year compare to normal years?
Uh, that's a PAFO. That's a Peter and find out. If you know much of orbits, and things like this, you will know that most of them have to be pretty close because of the nature of Goldilocks zones and things like this. But they all--
Yeah. Yeah. They all have to be "year-ish", but the exact "ish" is going to be...
Yes. Mhm.
So MeLaan... Will she get her body remade by Ranette? With like guns and, like, pull of her leg and...?
You'll have to see what she comes up with. She's already got some cool stuff.
What inspired you to write that series [Mistborn]? It's amazing.
Oh good question, what inspired me to write Mistborn… A couple of things have to come together for me to write a book. Usually it is not one idea. Usually one idea is kind of the sparking point but then I file it in the back of my brain and wait until other ideas stick to it and work in really cool ways. Mistborn is a conglomeration of several things. First off it was watching-- I guess it was reading-- reading Harry Potter and being like "Wow these Dark Lords sure get a tough time of it. They're always beaten by these dopey kids." Right? *laughter* Like Sauron, there's this little furry-footed British dude who's like-- destroys your whole empire or things like this. And I was like "These poor guys, what if we had a book where the Dark Lord won? Where-- What if Frodo got to the end and the Dark Lord was like 'Oh thanks for bringing my ring back.' and then killed him and took over the world." It was really, I'm a fan of The Wheel of Time and thinking what if Rand got to the end of The Wheel of Time and the Dark One is like "Okay, I'm all powerful, you're not, end." And he won. Oh the Pattern just broke.
As an aside for Wheel of Time fans, I actually wrote that scenes for my own catharsis. I actually wrote a scene, I never let anyone else see it, where Rand lost *laughter* and it's actually like this dramatic moment and he's like "I could just destroy the world right now" And I just wrote "And so he did, The end." *laughter* I had a good laugh over it and then deleted it.
So, what if the Dark Lord won, but I figured that would be a downer of a story so I filed that in the back of my head and it melded with my love of heist stories. You'll notice Steelheart is also a heist story. It's one of my favorite archetypes, the gang who all have their individual talents and they get together to do cool things like-- I think one of my favorite movies in recent times was actually Inception which was a heist story using people's brains. So cool, such a great concept. But one of my classic favorite movies is Sneakers, if you haven't seen that. It's so good! So that genre made me want to write a heist novel in a fantasy world so I developed that independently. Allomancy and Feruchemy were developed independently as cool magic systems, that eventually started interacting in interesting ways. And then Kelsier was the other kind of linchpin, him as a character, wanting to tell this story about a guy who had been an upper-class thief, a con-man who then got motivation to go "No I'm going to do something good with my life. I'm going to change the world. It's kind of hard to explain.
I have a question about [Tia]. I think she might-- and I *unintelligible* finished this, so I'm not sure-- but I think [Tia] might be an Epic and that her weakness might be cola. *Brandon and Isaac laugh* And so she stops it by drinking so much cola. And she stops it. But that's the only reason I can figure out why she drinks so much cola.
You haven't known very many adults who like their cola, have you?
What is your favorite book besides the ones that you wrote?
What is my favorite book besides the ones that I wrote. That is an excellent question. I would say my favorite classic... is Les Miserables. It is fantastic. I love how Victor Hugo writes character. My favorite fantasy novel is a book called Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly, because it is the book that I read when I was a teenager that made me fall in love with books and become a writer.
So I just finished Secret History about an hour ago.
Okay.
And I just have a simple yes or no question? Is Kelsier's spike made of lerasium?
No... Good question.
Did Lopen bond a spren or is he a squire?
As of right now, Lopen is a squire.
Okay, as of right now. So it's a potential RAFO.
Uh, I answered your question exactly. *questioner laughs* That's not a RAFO, that's an exact answer to the question you asked.
What would have happened if Vin had actually met up with Hoid in Mistborn-- er-- Hero of Ages?
Eh... Have you read Secret History?
I-- I have never heard of Secret-- I'm kind of new to the cosmere.
There is a short-- or a novella called Mistborn: Secret History that you should read that has a little bit to do with this. It doesn't answer that question exactly, but read it and then ask again, okay?
Have we seen Shardblades on worlds besides Roshar?
Do you count Nightblood? Yes or no?
No.
If you don't count Nightblood then I don't believe you have.
In the Stormlight Archive, Rock once mentions that there's a pool where he comes from. Is that somehow related to the pool in Elantris?
Look at what he says came out of that pool one time when he was there.
There's one little mentioned that Iadon's first wife is the one that's *unintelligible*. Is there ever-- is that ever important again?
Um, not specifically.
And... Fortune and Autonomy are Shards? Yes, no?
RAFO.
You mentioned the other ruined cities... Are there any other cities that you were thinking of putting into the book, but ended up not?
Yeah, I had-- I brainstormed a few with the team. Cities I was thinking of-- Toronto we-- Toronto was the big one.
What was the funny, weird thing about the city?
Um... I wanted to do a mushroom city, and I didn't do that. I dunno, I had a bunch of them that I bounced off of Isaac and Peter. This is the one we decided on just because the salt thing is so *unintelligible*, you know?
Yeah, we did a lot of Canadian cities, is what we were thinking at first.
And then Random House came in and said, "Can it be an American city? Please?" I'm like, "Okay, but you'll have to fight off the Canucks."
Are you gonna-- So you had the Reckoners series, right?
Uh-huh.
Are you gonna do another series, like, another trilogy after that? Kind of like what you did with Mistborn?
Um, maybe. The next series will be related to the Reckoners, but not directly tied to it. I might come back to the Reckoners, but I'm not one 100% sure.
I just finished reading the 10th anniversary edition of Elantris. I'm... still a LITTLE fuzzy on how the Chasm Line looks, added to the city. Is there any chance you might post a picture of Rao with the chasm line added?
I wish I could, but Elantris artwork is all Isaac's space. I haven't read the 10-year edition yet, but I was hearing it had all-new maps... they're not clearing it up? I'll have to take a look and see what you're seeing.
If you burned gold allomantically, who do you think you would see?
Hmmm... well, there'd certainly be a version of myself that joined the US Navy at 19, 'cause that was a thing that very nearly happened. A classified ad and one phone call made the difference that day.
It's hard to imagine a version of myself that isn't an animator, but it's easily feasible to imagine that I could have stayed in illustration and never split the XP to go dual-class. I have no idea what I'd be doing now or if I'd even still be drawing at all, but it'd certainly be different.
Somewhere down a leg of the Time Trousers is a version of me that never discovered Brandon's work, or decided to draw up some fan-art, or posted it to his fan-forums... or tried doing any of those things at a different time in life, because I happened to cross Sanderson's path at just the right time.
The thing about gold shadows is that they show you "a version of who you could have been", but there's a near-infinite set of possibilities for that.
Yeah, the default seems to be pivotal moments in your life, but life isn't exactly short on near-pivotal moments. It's sorta a rorschach test; when you think about gold, what are the moments in your life that you think are pivotal?
What do you think the Sailor would think of you if you met him via gold? From our limited sample (Vin and Miles) goldshadows haven't shown a tendency to get along very well...
Hard to guess. If military discipline took hold, he might be a different kind of person not just in terms of life history, but also personality and views. If he saw combat, he'd definitely be a very different Ben.
If could be an Epic, what would your Epic name be and what would your powers be?
Um, I'm not sure. Let's see... Epic name... Mr. Prolific. Right? That'd be a good name. *pause to sign and gets distracted*
What was your question? What was the answer to the High Epic? The question she asked?
Oh, oh, I was gonna-- My name was Mr. Prolific.
Mister what?
Mr. Prolific.
Mr. Prolific? *laughs*
What was your power?
If I could choose I'd be able to fly. But I don't think you get to choose. So it's probably the ability to make books materialize out of thin air. *group laughs* And then use them as weapons.
If I remember correctly, you did several fanart pieces of Brandon's novels, specifically Mistborn, before he ever commissioned you to do anything for him, right? What was your first introduction into all things Sanderson? And what's the story of him commissioning you to illustrate for him?
SO! Storytime.
The first time I heard the name Brandon Sanderson was around 2007. I was listening to Mennege and Stackpole's old Dragonpage Cover to Cover podcast (283A), where they used to talk craft and industry of genre novels and interview authors.
Brandon was there to talk about The Well of Ascension. I heard his elevator pitch (fantasy heist novel, superpowers, dark lord ruling for 1000 years, etc), and then he talked a bit about his thoughts on creativity and writing and I heard a kindred spirit. He and I have very similar views on creative production and craftsmanship, and I liked what I heard so much I went out and bought the first Mistborn novel, then the next, then the third in hardback when it came out.
I was especially hooked by his visually arresting concepts; men with steel spikes through their eyes, flat heads catching the light like Gendo specs, gleaming points emerging from the back of their skulls like horns? Giant raging blue hulks with their too-tight skin tearing off their muscles, carrying Big Damn Swords of pitted, jagged iron? Cloaked figures soaring over misty spired rooftops on invisible threads of force, flinging coins like bullets and slamming each other around with super-strength?
Yeah, I can work with that. :)
I figured what the heck, it'd be fun to draw new fan-art even if nothing came of it. I sketched up some Vin and Inquisitor and Koloss pieces, really basic stuff, and began posting to his fan-forums on the old Time-Waster's Guide (now long gone).
Unbeknownst to me, at that same time Brandon was looking into the market for a concept artist. Suddenly here I was on his doorstep, reasonably competent and already showing what I could do with his descriptions. He got in touch and let me know that he wanted someone to help him with a new project, a pitch for a series of epic novels that would require a strong visual component. And he was going to pay me.
Didn't even try to lowball.
So there's my "lucky break" story. Right place, right time, right work, right guy, right on.
Who's your favorite Cosmere character to draw?
Mmmm... lately, Adolin. But I don't get to draw the characters "officially" very often.
Does it mean you have drawn Adolin? Any chances were are going to see those sketches someday? As a die-hard fan of him, I am dying to see a proper representation.
There's a peek at Adolin's face on the Shardplate page, but just a peek. His armor does appear twice, both on the same Plate page and as Adolin's chapter icon, and those are Brandon-approved designs for both Plate and Blade... we might modify them as time goes on, but for now they're a good starting point.
Brandon's always been pretty cagey about releasing official illustrations of characters... Michael Whelan gets a pass because he's Michael flipping Whelan and because covers need faces, but we try to limit it within the pages of the book (covers change around the world, but the interiors go everywhere). This is because Brandon doesn't want to force one interpretation of a character's likeness down the reader's throat. He describes them, but the face you see in your mind is your own creation, and that should remain as valid as possible for as long as possible.
Someday we might collect those background works into a book, but not for a while. :)
Oh that's a shame. I really hoped to see a more detailed facial within the next book. The miniature was amazing. You did a great job: I especially loved the little bangs of hair. I wished we could see what hid under the helmet though or just Adolin without his armor.
I might do some unofficial version at some point. I like doing fan-art as much as anyone, it's how I got this job to start with. :)
One of the drawings in The Rithmatist contains a spoiler for the chapter that follows. How do you all normally ensure that doesn't happen? Do you read the whole book or is it more of relying on the art request telling you what to avoid?
That's something that falls at the feet of editing and layout, at the publisher. I produce illustrations to spec, but I don't get a lot of input on where they're ultimately placed on the page or in the book.
That being said, someone really should have caught that. [Peter], do you know if this is something that was fixed in later editions.
The illustrations are all the way Brandon designed them. Some of them contain information that comes up in the text of that chapter.
That's about as definitive an answer as an answer can be. :)
How does Hoid *inaudible* in Scadrial, Roshar, anywhere else he might be?
Have you read the story Mistborn: Secret History?
No, I have not yet.
Secret History has a big clue.
Have you seen the Deep Forger?
https://twitter.com/DeepForger
It seems like once the processing time comes down a bit, it'll be a pretty powerful tool for doing concept art and rough outlines, but I'm not really into the illustrating business. What are your thoughts on it?
It's pretty neat, but it's worth noting that what Deep Forger does is create an approximation based on certain distinct styles of painting, and then applies that effect to a photograph. It's not doing anything particularly creative, it can't produce a Monet or a Picasso from scratch, without input. And from looking at the samples, it seems that most of the time the photographic source origins are still pretty clear. Sorta the same way rotoscoping rarely fools anyone into thinking it's hand-keyed animation.
That being said, I'm often impressed by what I see people doing with Zbrush and other 3D sculpting software and then applying the right lighting and render techniques to create some very illustrated results. The trick is that it often takes as long (or longer) to produce content that way as opposed to illustrating it traditionally. The advantage is that you can often do a LOT more with a well-sculpted 3D model, even when it's a static object.
I don't feel that traditional illustration as a craft is particularly at threat, because the real value in an illustrator isn't in the skills their hands produce but in the brains that come up with ideas and new applications and twists, and that's some next-level AI stuff.
Digital painting has totally changed the landscape in which we work, but it hasn't changed the heart of the illustrator... just the tools. As such, we'll always be using the most effective and efficient tools that we can, but the fundamentals that lie beyond tools and techniques haven't changed much.
Yeah, I guess my real question is more along the lines of 'does this seem like it'll be a useful tool, and where would that fit in your normal workflow?'
I don't think it'd fit in the workflow of what I do... I could perhaps see some potential for it to serve as a method for creating photobash assets that would more easily merge with a larger painting (like serving as a method for creating backgrounds, if you have the right location or can dress a set), but part of the weakness of something like Deep Forger is that it requires an existing image to manipulate.
A huge part of what I do is visualize and illustrate things that don't exist, and often can't exist in the physical world. I can source reference and I do, pulling ideas from here and there to flesh out the kernel of a concept, but ultimately I don't have anything more than description and design mandates to build from... and that's something a computer can't quite do yet. Someday... maybe.
Thinking of all the interior art from The Rithmatest leads me to an important question...
Can you draw a perfect circle freehand? With chalk?
Hahaaaa, not a chance. But even a Rithmatist spends much of their young life learning that skill. Some have it easier than others, but it's not something that just comes to people with Rithmatic ability. It's very much a skill.
That being said, I do think the best way to draw a circle would be to lock your arm out and then spin on one foot, effectively turning yourself into a compass.
What is your conception of how spren would appear to the average person? Do they have a solid physicality of some kind or are they more ethereal/ghostlike?
Back during the pitch I did illustrate a few spren ideas for Brandon, but my understanding of them has expanded greatly since then. There's a lot I don't know, but I think I've got the basic idea down.
I see them as looking like they're made of Stormlight, sorta like many common sci-fi "holograms". I don't think any spren have physically solid forms unless the manifest fully, and the only examples we've seen of that so far are Blades.
In terms of their appearance, the text descriptions are always the first place I look. Never contradict the text, it's the common basis for all our interpretations.
Origin of Shardplate third book? Possibly? RAFO?
No, not quite. But hints?
Have we met Jezrien yet, in the books?
What's that?
Have we met the king of the Heralds in the books yet?
Uh, yes you have.
And it's not Zahel.
No. I-- Fans have picked out who he is. It-- he's moderately obvious. So the-- so he's not supposed to be a big secret. But I will pop him out a little bit more in the third book, so if you don't want to get spoilers you can wait til then.
What is Tia's cola brand?
Tia's cola brand is, um...
<Non-determined>?
Non-- Like it's a in-world cola. I just didn't want to mention a name of one. If-- If I were going to choose one, it would be something like RC, or something like that.
Yeah. Something obscure and random.
Like... obscure. Kind of indie cola. Probably one I've never even heard of, right?
Are all of the Heralds still alive?
The Oathpact has not been broken, so yes.
Could I have you write the name of-- or the intent of the Shard that's hiding on it's uninhabited world away from everybody?
Mostly because I don't want to canonize these things and so I get locked into it and the decision is absolutely made. I haven't changed many of them, but I have tweaked them before. I've tweaked like how I wanted to represent the intent, so...
Do you have plans to write a longer series?
Yes, The Way of Kings will come out next year.
Do you have new stuff, or new ideas?
Yes—one is The Silence Divine, a world like ours where you gain magic by diseases; another is a world where the only superheroes are all evil super villains and a group of regular people called the Executioners [Reckoners] gather to hunt them down and take them out.
Several fans asked whether there would be a sequel to Warbreaker.
Nightblood will be released after The Wheel of Time
Will there be any sequels to Elantris?
In 2015, the 10th anniversary of the series, he intends to release Dragonriders, three books based on side characters. They will take place 10 years after events, in the city of Dakhor.
So how many spikes did Paalm have before the end? Asked in Chicago, you said to follow-up after tour.
Paalm was only using one spike at a time, all of them made from the unknown metal.
Regarding the Mistbornbooks, do you think you will ever write a prequel trilogy?
I've considered it, but I don't think it's a good idea. I love the hero's journey, like Rand's journey at the beginning of the Wheel of Time. When writing the Mistborn books, I knew Robert Jordan had done epic fantasy the best it could be done, so I thought, 'what hasn’t been done?' The answer I came to was 'what if the hero lost?' The idea was a good one, but that would make a downer of a book.
[Star wars prequels reference] *general laughter*
*laughter*
I wrote Mistborn a thousand years after the hero lost. I'm thinking of writing a sequel set centuries after Mistborn.
Brandon went on to say that he wrote Mistborn as 1000 years after the heroes lost, and he is more strongly considering a sequel trilogy that would take place about 600 years after Mistborn.
Who is the Alethi Lift saw in Edgedancer? She saw a tall person when she wandered through...
Oh, the tall person? RAFO.
My question is about Yolen. If, or when, you chose to write Hoid's origin story, do you plan to keep the same plots in Yolen? Where the moss is taking over the planet?
So I need to give you some back history to this one... My epic fantasy books, this is all of them but not Steelheart and not The Rithmatist, so the epic fantasy, are all connected, if you weren't aware. They all have little ties between characters, and there's a character named Hoid who's shown up in all of the books basically; he's the same person. When I was earlier in my career, before I published, I tried writing his origin story and I failed. The book wasn't very good, and I tried it again later, after I was published, and I failed again. It still wasn't very good. And this still happens to me. Sometimes I try things out and they just don't work. So the question am I going to try it; when I go back to it will it be the same story? The core part of it will be the same. There are certain events that Hoid has talked about in the books that are published that I will make sure are still relevant, but the story continues to evolve in my head. So I will have to decide eventually what things I want to do and what I don't. I think it will change from what I originally planned, but the soul should be the same. The core should still be the same. It will be very different from Dragonsteel, though, which was the one I wrote in 1998, because that had Bridge Four in it, and I moved them to The Stormlight Archive. So most of that book is gone, and it ended up in The Stormlight Archive, so who knows what will go-- It'll be very different from that.
So at the end of Bands of Mourning with the, um, statue? Is that spike in the actual eye, is that *inaudible* or is that an *inaudible*?
That actually is not. Yeah, good question.
Are there any Shards who-- that have merged like Sazed's Shards?
That is a RAFO, good question. Excellent question.
Just trying to think outside the box.
I think that's the first time I've been asked that.
How hard was it for you to write Kaladin *inaudible* end of the second book?
It was pretty hard. Knowing people whom I love, who have depression, when they are in a depressive funk. And knowing I had to get that across accurately, but try not to make people hate him too much? It was a challenge.
You're very meticulous about your magic systems. Aren't you afraid sometimes that this takes away the sense of wonder? For example in The Way of Kings, it's more wonderous, in my opinion, than in Mistborn. So, how do you manage this?
This is an excellent question. It's actually something I think about a lot, and tomorrow my lecture ('cause they asked me to do a lecture) will be a little bit about this idea. So, if you're interested in writing, you can come to the lecture. But balance between a sense of wonder and a sense of understanding of the magic, that's a difficult balance. And I don't think there's a right way to do it. I think a lot of great books sometimes use both. For instance, I don't know if you've read Name of the Wind, but Pat Rothfuss uses both a hard magic system and a soft magic system. The Naming, which is very soft, and the Sympathy, which is very hard. Hard is a term for very rule-based, so we explain it a lot. The more you explain, the less sense of wonder you have. But the more you explain, the more you can also use the magic to solve all kinds of cool problems and create sort of an intellectual enjoyment. And so it's a different distinction between wonder and this sort of intellectual problem-solving sense, and I tend to go this direction a little bit. I think fantasy naturally has a bunch of wonder to it in the settings and the world, so I think that they balance each other naturally when I push a little bit in this direction. But it is a trade-off. It is something that I wonder about.
