Recent entries

Questioner

If you were a Misting, which power would you have?

Brandon Sanderson

Coinshot. Coinshot for sure.

Questioner

Would you rather be a misting or a Twinborn, and then which power would you choose?

Brandon Sanderson

What powers would I have? ...I would probably pick Twinborn because "Hey extra power" right? I would probably have Wax's powers from Alloy of Law, those are the ones I find the most interesting. Which is why I started with them there. I think I will be able to do cool things with them. Others are cool as well but-- With all this metal around, jumping on it would be so much fun.

Questioner

Do you find it hard working with multiple publishers and multiple houses?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I find it hard working with multiple publishers… and multiple houses as a writer? Uh, yes there are some hard parts to it. I do two tours a year instead of one, because I have two publishers now-- And that's rough. Every time one publisher asks for something the other one is like "Well we want that to" so I'm going to BEA, that's the Book Expo, and the other is like "Well you have to come to this thing for us". So it fills my time a lot more, which is hard. But at the same time it is also very nice because it gives me a little more credibility with both. That they both know that they kind of have to make me happy. That is pretty nice. And there is also the peace of mind that if for some reason one of things I was doing tanked I've always got another one. That was much more important to me early in my career, when I was doing the Alcatraz books with Scholastic and the epic fantasies with Tor.

Questioner

If you had the choice of being an Epic and being evil or not, would you take that choice--

Brandon Sanderson (Paraphrased)

Would I make the choice to become an Epic? Well they ALL GO EVIL so NO. No no no no. I'd be a Mistborn, yes yes yes yes. *laughter* Epic? No no no no.  

Questioner

You talked earlier about your writing process when you were in college. What's it like now?

Brandon Sanderson

What's my writing process like now? So I'm a writer. That means I don't have to get up in the morning unless I have to come to some signing like this. I hope you guys appreciate the fact that I got up at 6:45 this morning. Normally I get up at noon. So I get up at noon, I write from noon to 5, I then go hangout with my family from 5 until 9 or so, and at about 9 o'clock I go back to work and I write from like 9 to 3. Or something like that. And then I goof-off and go to bed at about 4. It is a great life. Except when I'm on tour and they are like "Yeah you need to be up for a flight at 8 o'clock" and I'm like "AHHHHH! Curse you Brandon and you staying up late all the other nights!"

Questioner

Can you give us some more tidbits about Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson

Can I give you more tidbits about Hoid? He loves bacon. *laughter* No I can't give you any, you'll have to go online and find out more tidbits about Hoid. I'm very tight-lipped.

Questioner

What is the most interesting or awesome thing you found in your South American research for The Aztlanian?

Brandon Sanderson

What is the most awesome thing I've come up with in my research for The Aztlanian.  So the question, for those of you who read The Rithmatist, I'm working on a sequel doing a lot of research on South American and Central American cultures. The Aztecs all the way down to the Incas *audio obscured* city was just so cool reading about that. One of the big things that I discovered was that a lot of records indicate that Meso-American culture was way bigger than, way more populated than people are usually taught. It's just that they lost somewhere around 60%-- This enormous number to diseases that were brought over. Way more than I originally expected. And reading about some of this, like the early accounts of how many people there were, their civilizations. Later on when the explorers really started coming, talking about there being these ghost cities, of empty-- the people all left them because so many people died and things like this. That what happened was almost like a post-Apocalyptic-- Like when the invasion of the Aztecs, of Mexico, was happening they were basically invading a post-Apocalyptic society where everyone was already dead. They'd even lost their emperor, Montezuma the First had died from this stuff. It's very interesting, all these things reading about-- There is a ton to learn.

Questioner

In Steelheart, what does his past life have to do with his weakness? 

Brandon Sanderson

What does Steelheart's past life have to do with his weakness? I can't tell you that, because it's a spoiler. When you come through the line I can tell it to you. When you come through the line talk to me, because I can't answer spoiler questions.

Questioner

I have read it already.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but who here hasn't read Steelheart? *people raise their hands* See? That's why we can't answer that. But I will answer it when you come through the line.

Questioner

You kinda talked about where you got the idea for <highstorms>, but in the Firefight-- The Reckoners series, was there a particular character you gave them their powers because you thought that power was [cool]? 

Brandon Sanderson

So the question is: In The Reckoners, was there a particular power that I gave to someone because I just thought that power was cool. And yeah, the tensors. They can turn things to dust. For years I'd been walking around looking at our society where we have all this metal and this wood around, and things like that. I just loved the idea of just being able to turn it to dust. Maybe it's like a "reducing things to their more primal state" or whatever-- but anyway it was one of those magics that was in my head for a while. And really superheroes are magic. I don't pretend that they're science fiction, they're magic. So I just designed these magics that feel cool to me.

Questioner

So Kaladin, he has a lot of Christ-like qualities being the who protects those who can't protect themselves. When you were writing the character of Kaladin did you ever make a conscious decision to make him a Christ figure or--

Brandon Sanderson

The question is... Kaladin has some Christ-figure feel to him, was that intentional when I was writing the character. Actually it wasn't, there's nothing really intentional about that allusion.  But I can definitely see it. Being Christian myself a lot of what I find heroic is related to my faith. But I very rarely do conscious things like that, mostly-- This is for English majors, "I bet he got it from here" and things like that. So it was not intentional but I can totally see where you are making that connection.

Questioner

If you could bring one character from another universe into the cosmere, Who would it be?

Brandon Sanderson

What an interesting question. I'll play along in a moment, but I'll point out that it's generally not tempting for me to write other creator's characters. The ones I were most interested in writing were those in The Wheel of Time--and somehow, that ended up happening already.

Generally, when I consider a character that I love, my mind starts breaking down the "Why." I look at what effect they had on me, and what about them I really love--what is it this character does to the story that is so intriguing. Often, if I boil that down, I can start creating new characters who draw upon this, and other traditions--and that is what excites me.

That said, who would I bring to the cosmere, if I had the chance? I'll take a different tactic on this than, perhaps, you'd assume. I'd grab some of my favorite villains from other media, because it would be interesting to see how the characters would react. If Magneto were to deal with a world of people with magic, how would he react--and how would the characters react to him? What about Moriarty? Javert? (Okay, Nale's already got some Javert in him.)

Cthulhu? Nah. That's going to far

TheHunter (paraphrased)

[Brandon Sanderson] said that someone in Poland had figured it out who the Terriswoman in Warbreaker was, and I asked him if it was Lemex's nurse.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He nodded and smiled. He said he had no idea how anyone figured it out, which is interesting.

Questioner

Did every Order of Knights Radiant have Ryshadium?

Brandon Sanderson

The Ryshadium were a separate not always-- not just associated with Knights Radiant.

Questioner

Did every Order have Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson

Every Order was capable of it.

Questioner

Did every Order of Knights Radiant have Shardblades?

Brandon Sanderson

Every Order was capable of Shardblades.

Questioner

Hemalurgy is mentioned as something that has "broad implications." But that's of Ruin, right? (Or now it is of Harmony.)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but don't take the "of Ruin" and "of Preservation" too strongly, but yes.

Questioner

But, I mean, somebody couldn't just walk along with a metal spike on, say, Nalthis, and stab 'em and now they have the power, could they?

Brandon Sanderson

If they knew where to stab them, yes, they could.

Questioner

Anywhere in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

You can stab someone and get their power?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy has been built in such a way that it rips off pieces of the soul. If you can rip off the right piece of the soul and attach it to somebody else, it will change your Identity, and it can rewrite anything that's attached to your soul. Identity, Connection, it can rewrite Investiture, all of this stuff it could potentially do.

Questioner

And do the things you stab people with—are they always metal or does that depend on the planet?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's metal, that's—

Questioner

*inaudble*

Brandon Sanderson

Well yes, you could make it do something like that. That is totally possible. But the metal— Yeah. Anyway.

Questioner

With the other Shards you kind of have to be near that Shard to get that—there's no Allomancy.

Brandon Sanderson

To get it, yes. To have that part of your soul. But, for instance, Allomancy would work on other planets. The only one that's going to have trouble working on other planets, right now, are the ones on Sel because of the way that the magics are built.

Brandon Sanderson

...the Diem had been investigating, does that make sense? One of his former faces. So you're not supposed to be able to spot him. Like early on I was really planning Hoid to be-- When I write the parallel novel you'll be able to see "Oh" these things that he had his fingers on. But that's why in Elantris he's barely even in the book. Same thing with Mistborn. But then people really liked it and I was having a lot of fun with it and so in Warbreaker I expanded his part. And I'd always planned for him to be a big part of Way of Kings when that came along. *audio obscured* But in the graphic novel I think we're going to give him an expanded role, just because people are expecting it so much.

Questioner

So I was reading that one of the worlds, I think it was Yolen, is going to be a disease oriented magic?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not Yolen, it's Ashyn...

Questioner

How does that work?

Brandon Sanderson

Viruses and bacteria, various strains of them, have evolved in-line with the Investiture on the planet to grant you a magical ability when you catch the disease, because they want you to stay alive long enough to--

Questioner

To transmit it.

Brandon Sanderson

--o transmit it. So it becomes part of the transmission vector. So you have superpowers or whatever-- You can fly as long as you have the common cold, but when you get over it, you can't anymore.

Questioner

Is the guy he took his name from related to Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson

Define related.

Questioners

Blood related.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to RAFO that.

Questioner

So the one thing I've been wondering since the one statement where he [Hoid] said he didn't want to watch Roshar fall, but he would. Has he seen any worlds die?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, he has.

Questioner

Is Hoid a dragon?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh I will give you a RAFO card. You're very good, Have you read Dragonsteel?

Questioner

I have not but--

Brandon Sanderson

Don't read it, it's bad.

Questioner

Okay then. I am just-- What? Okay then. That's awesome. We have some ideas but-- Hoid is amazing. I figured he was really old but it's cool knowing for sure that he's exceptionally old.

Brandon Sanderson

He is one of the oldest people in the cosmere, but he is not the oldest.

Questioner

Ahhh...

Brandon Sanderson

The person he is writing a letter to is indeed older than he is.

Questioner

Could someone bond with two spren and wield two swords?

Brandon Sanderson

It is theoretically possible, but the spren aren't going to like it.  So you are not going to see it very often.

Questioner

I was actually wondering if you'd do space opera? *audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

There will be space opera in the cosmere. There'll be quite a bit of it actually. The only space opera I've written currently has not been true space opera. I don't know if you've read my two science fiction stories. They're both free on my website. And they're a little more social science fiction, though they take place far future, kind of space opera-y. They're not cosmere right now-- Err they are not cosmere. But I will eventually write full-blown space operas. They're going to be awesome.

Questioner

What is a sparkflicker and what are they used for?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh good question... You'll be interested in this. Sparkflickers are-- Herdazians, their fingernails are stone. A sparkflicker is so they can start fires. They're actually flint-and-steel-ing. So a sparkflicker is a fire-creator using their actual fingernails.

Questioner

So they don't have a martial application?

Brandon Sanderson

...Not really. I mean the sparkflicker, no. The nails? Yes, if your fingernails are rough. But there is a deep implication to that that I don't think people have quite picked out yet.

Questioner

Can you, if you're really good at iron and steel, Push and Pull on something in the same space?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes you can.

Questioner

Do Allomantic Pushes and Pulls generate friction?

Brandon Sanderson

Do they generate friction. So... *sighs* I've had to ask myself this because if they didn't generate friction certain things that I do in the books wouldn't happen. I assume if you've seen the physics of it you've noticed. I have to go with yes. But the physics of it I'm a little wishy-washy on. I mean it's pretty obvious from the way I do things that they do.

Questioner

Yes! I have won the argument on the 17th Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

I mean, you've seen the science of it, right? You Push things up and they stay there. And so if they didn't generate friction, two people couldn't both Push on a coin to hold it in place, but it does get held in place.

Questioner

I just won a 17 page argument.

Brandon Sanderson

But I have to tell you... Peter is going to have to break his brain making the physics of that work. But I mean, it's canon. I put it in the books so it’s not like we can just ignore the fact.

Questioner

Is Cultivation the same thing as the Nightwatcher?

Brandon Sanderson

They are related but they are not exactly the same. It's more like the similarity between the Stormfather and Honor.

Questioner

So with the cosmere, do you come up with stories and see if they fit? Or does the cosmere  kind of lend itself to stories already?

Brandon Sanderson

It's mostly the first. *audio obscured* When I come up with a story I'll ask, "Does this fit the cosmere?" and if not-- Like, for instance,  this one, that I read tonight [Perfect State], just doesn't fit the cosmere. I don’t want to be doing far-future science fiction stuff yet in the cosmere, and when I do, virtual reality is not a cosmere thing. So I can't write that as cosmere. Or the Rithmatist which I bounced back and forth. Would have been, could have not been. I just eventually decided it didn't fit the story. When things do fit, I put them in.

Questioner

Is that a really exciting moment? Or just sort of "Ohhh that's nice"

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it's just like that. I like all my stories.  The Cosmere-- One of my rules for myself is "The Cosmere is not my entire body of work" because then I would just be shoehorning  things in and I've found sometimes when authors create a multiverse they shoehorn everything in. Stephen King did this, Asimov did this. It doesn't work. I think if it is an intentional thing I'm deliberately doing, then it gains more power, it's cooler than if I were trying to make everything connected.

Questioner

Is Investiture universal? By that I mean, if an Allomancer got Stormlight somehow could they use that to fuel Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

That is always possible, so yes.  But in some case it requires some quote-unquote hacking, like an AC vs a DC current or we've got a 120 Volt and they've got 240. Does that make sense? It might require-- I guess hacking is the wrong term, adapters.

Questioner

Anything you can tell us about Frost?

Brandon Sanderson

What do you want to know about Frost?

Questioner

Everything.

Brandon Sanderson

Then no. I'm not going to tell you everything about Frost. He's still alive.

Questioner

He's immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. He can be killed, he's just functionally immortal, he doesn't age.

Questioner

Has he always been able to take the form of that-- *audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He was born as one.

Questioner

Born as one.

Brandon Sanderson

It is a race.

squirenonny

Was there any particular reason that you are looking at doing Mistborn in the 40's?

Brandon Sanderson

Just because I want to see-- It's where I feel excited by a story and if I go all the way to the 80's, which I’m going to do eventually, we lose the Age of Exploration, my last shots at it. I think in the 40's we could still have a shot at Age of Exploration even though it's well past that, you know what I mean? The last remnants of my chance of doing that, I think. The exploration hits late here, but by the 80's they're launching satellites, right? The world is known. So if I want to do one more thing before then I could do-- The thing about the Mistborn world is that it is mostly uninhabited.  It's like an Earth-sized planet where most of the continents have no people. That’s really exciting from a storytelling aspect.

squirenonny

So my friend wanted me to ask, after we both read Firefight, is there anything you can tell us about Instabam?

Brandon Sanderson

Instabam, oh. What do you want to know about Instabam?

squirenonny

Powers or anything.

Brandon Sanderson

See facetiously in my head I had Instabam have power over instant potatoes, but I'm probably not going to do that. But that is what I had in my head when I wrote that name. Yeah, instant potatoes, "Poom". Can cook food at the snap of fingers. I don't know what their powers are. I didn't work that out.

Squirenonny

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

You can say instant potatoes if you want.

Questioner

Shardplate. Are we going to find out where that comes from?

Brandon Sanderson

You will eventually find out, but it is not the next book.

Questioner

And my last one, Obliteration, the Epic, is based on an author.

Brandon Sanderson

He is based on an author.

Questioner

It's Jim Butcher, right?

Brandon Sanderson

I couldn't say if it were, with these handsome locks and wearing a trenchcoat, and the goatee.

Questioner

It's totally Jim Butcher.

Brandon Sanderson

Well Jim Butcher doesn't have hair like this anymore. He cut his hair.

Questioner

My other question is about the phrase "Shadows of Self".  It's mentioned in the last Mistborn book. Is it a specific shadow? Are we going to see if that shadow's in Shadows of Self?

Brandon Sanderson

We are not going-- Well yes and no. What it is referencing in this book is the different roles that each person plays in their life. That is the core meaning of Shadows of Self. But then, there is also, there is a kandra involved, which they change shape and become different people, so "who are you?" and identity is a big thing.

Questioner

My first question is about Shallan and whether what she does with her drawings and the deserters in Words of Radiance, kind of changing them, is at all similar to what Shai does in The Emperor's Soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Umm, that's a good question. There are similarities, but only so much that The Emperor's Soul is cosmere and is relying on the same foundation of magic. But good question. Are you getting at me saying you've seen somebody do it before?

Questioner

I talked to Alice.

Brandon Sanderson

So you have seen what she does before, but that is not what I was pointing at. It's someth-- No one is going to expect it.

Brandon Sanderson

Koloss are something I've been trying to work in for a time. Originally, in the very first draft of Mistborn one, I had them make an appearance in the prologue:

The skaa worked the fields with the lethargy of the hopeless, their motions methodical and listless. Though the sun's light was darkened and ruddied by the ever-present smoke, the day was still oppressively hot. Yet, no skaa man paused to wipe his soot-stained brow–being seen resting by a koloss fieldmaster would invite a whipping.

So, the skaa worked. Eyes down, watching the dirt by their feet, they dug at the weeds–daring not to speak, barely even daring to think. Koloss stalked amidst them, blood-drop eyes alert for signs of skaa laziness.

Obviously, I changed their place in the world drastically. During the drafting of book one, I was still working out what I wanted the koloss to be. I knew they were going to be something monstrous, and as the first draft of Mistborn One progressed, I slowly cut them from the book and decided to save them for book two. As the characters talked about them, the koloss reputation became more and more nasty–and I went so far as to explain that the Lord Ruler himself feared to keep them near human settlements.

So, when it came to plan book two, I put a lot of effort into developing the koloss. I wanted them to be cool visually, live up to their reputations, and work within the worldbuilding and magic of the setting. You'll find out a lot more about them as the series progresses.

Brandon Sanderson

The koloss army was another thing that got shuffled about in this book. Originally, the Luthadel folks discovered its advance pretty early on. All of their discussions, then, talked about the fact that they had three armies bearing down on them.

I pushed back knowledge of the koloss for a couple of reasons. First off, koloss are scary–and I think they deserve to be treated differently from the other two armies. Their appearance can throw a real wrench into things later on, once Elend and company hear about them. It allows for the reader to know something that most of the characters do not, and leads to anticipation and tension.

In addition, it gives Sazed another good reason to exist in the plot. Now he knows about the koloss and nobody else inside the city does. His mission, therefore, is even more vital. He has to bring information back to his friends.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Nineteen

Some of my readers thought that Sazed expended far too much of his speed in order to get to Luthadel. I don't agree. What he saw in that village disturbed him greatly. Remember, he's been spending the last six months investigating news of the mists killing people, and now he found an entire village where something like that happened. He's worried and he's eager to get back to Luthadel. In the face of that, the use of his metalminds makes sense, I think.

Brandon Sanderson

Straff is generally everyone's least favorite character–though that's kind of what I expected. He's not insane; he’s just a terrible person. Those do, unfortunately, exist–given his power and upbringing, he’s not all that surprising in his bullyness.

I wanted to provide a range of villains for this series. The Lord Ruler was one type of villain–the untouchable god, distant and mysterious. Straff is another: the downright, simple bully with too much power and not enough wisdom. Zane is our third villain–sympathetic, edgy, and possibly more dangerous than either of the two.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eighteen

As I said before, the Zane chapters originally started earlier in the book. I pushed them back in order to keep the mystery a little longer and to streamline the beginning.

Now I can finally get into his story. Zane is important for several reasons, many of which I can't really explain without spoiling not only this book, but the next one. One of his most basic functions is to provide a foil for Elend. An opposite. Elend is safety, and Zane is danger. They share many similar features, but in Zane, most of those features are twisted.

He also represents a throwback to Kelsier. He is more like the Survivor than he'll probably ever understand.

Making him insane like this was a gamble on my part. I worry that, at first, it seems cliche. There's a whole lot more going on with Zane than you might assume, but your introduction to him is that of a schizophrenic villain who likes to cut himself. This might just seem like a grab-bag of psychosis, but I ask you to stick with me on this one. Zane has been many of my alpha-readers favorite character.

Matthew Scott

Hello everyone.

This is Matthew Scott, the CEO for Little Orbit, and I think we're overdue for a final update on Mistborn: Birthright.

First, we can now definitively say that this project isn't going to happen. Please know that it's not for a lack of effort. Even as a publisher, the video game industry isn't easy, and sometimes the best will in the world isn't enough.

Second, I want to thank all of Sanderson's fans who reached out with their feedback, encouragement and support over the years. It was truly a great experience to be adopted as part of the Cosmere community.

Lastly, I would like to thank Brandon, himself. He was a patient, great business partner, who produced an amazing story for the game. I still hope he finds a way to release the details or reuse it in some fashion.

Mistborn has been a personal passion project of mine, that we started back in 2011.

Many people don't know that by mid 2012 our internal development group at Little Orbit had a completed vertical slice for the game that we showed to a few journalists at E3. The game was much smaller in scope at that point, but progress was good. Then in late summer, a partner in our development studio sold his stake to a major publisher, and we had to get creative on how to split up Little Orbit / Game Machine / Papaya Studios. In the end, half of the development team went along with the deal, so Mistborn got shelved for a time.

From there it took about a year to get the project back on track.

During the break, we internally agreed that Mistborn fans deserved a bigger/better version of the game. During this second iteration, we engaged a number of larger RPG developers, and we started talks with Obsidian. Chris Avellone was a huge advocate, and he has always been a big fan of Brandon. But after months of discussion, their schedule proved to be too complex, and the game went back on the shelf.

We spent more time to rethink our approach, and we decided to increase the budget as our search continued. In 2014, we started talks with High Voltage Studios. The goal was to use their Saints Row technology to make a spectacular open world Mistborn game. I still believe that this is the best vision for the game. It combined elements of Assassin's Creed and Dishonored with the physics gameplay of Allomancy. We got our funding secured and even had a kickoff with Brandon in early 2015.

And then the unthinkable happened.

In a series of months two of Little Orbit's retail distributors went out of business taking large chunks of our revenue with them. Funding for future titles was immediately canceled, and it nearly bankrupted the company. We barely survived.

In the end, I am deeply saddened we couldn't get this made, but rather than continue to hold onto the rights, I'd like to see someone else make the amazing Mistborn game we would all love to play.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely, Matthew Scott CEO

Brandon Sanderson

Are you just getting these questions off of the 17th Shard?

Blightsong

No, these are mine.

Brandon Sanderson

These are actually yours? OK, i'll keep going then. If these are actually yours you can have as many as you want, yeah. Some people just go to the list of all the questions to ask Brandon and then they come and like "i'm just going to ask all of these" and i'm like "no, you can have three or four", but if they're your own questions you can have as many as you want.

Questioner

Have you ever considered doing graphic novels?

Brandon Sanderson

I have! Good question... So, yes I have. We're working on one of my unpublished novels, that is one of those thirteen. I think it is a good book, but not good enough to publish. But I think if we can rewrite it as a graphic novel I can cut out stuff that was bad. Because what was bad about it was like 100 thousand words of plot smashed across 200 thousand words of story. I think condensing is going to work really well. So we are going to do that. We actually got pages from that and things, and it's looking very nice. So we should have a graphic novel, and it is cosmere. It is part of the main continuity. So hopefully people will enjoy that.

Questioner

Do you feel there's anything different when writing for a video game?

Brandon Sanderson

Writing for a video game? You know I haven't truly written for a video game yet. What I've done is I've written novellas that bridge between video games, and that's kind of the single thing that I've done. So I can't really say yet. You'll have to track down some people who have actually written for video games.

I expect that it's lots of dialogue, and you have to understand that people might skip part of the story so you have to have a lot of refreshing on plot.

Questioner

Do you have any other [video game] favorites right now?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, favorite video games. The Dark Souls series, I started on Demon Souls when it was actually hard, *laughter* but I like them all. I like the level design, I like that they're not coddling you, things like that. I've always loved the Civilization games, I play those quite extensively. In fact when I was in college I spent many a long night in my friend's room, because I didn't have a computer, playing Civilization, until he was like "Go to bed". Let's see, what else have I liked. I just played Skyrim, I tend to wait on those Bethesda games until they've been out a few years so I can get mods and things like l like. I thought Skyrim was the best of the Elder Scrolls games, I've played them all since Daggerfall-- Never played Arena, I played Daggerfall all the way through, and they fixed a lot of the problems like the leveling was always bad and some of the dungeon designs were so repetitive.  This one they fixed all that and I had a blast with Skyrim.

Questioner

Did you like to write as a child?

Brandon Sanderson

Did I like to write as a child? Actually no, I did not like to write when I was a child. I'm one of the few people that's a writer that was not a kid writer. I didn't like books when I was young. It was a teacher who taught me to like books when I was in eighth grade, Ms. Reader, that's her real name. *laughter* She just emailed me a few weeks back, I'm still in touch with her. Ms. Reader, she's now a professor taught me to love fantasy books, she gave me the book Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly and I became a reader

Questioner

Do you care if all we read is audiobooks? Do you mind if people are like [???]

Brandon Sanderson

No I don't mind. Whatever format you want to read in. I would love for them to-- Whatever you like to read in is the best. People sometimes say to me "Well do you make money if I do this or this?" And the true answer is "Both" but-- *laughter* The honest answer is I don't mind. Check them out from the library, buy a copy here, borrow it from a friend. If you read my fiction, more people will be talking about it, and more people will be interested in it. And that is going to generate momentum for me. So pick your favorite format and your favorite place to get it, whether it is Cousin Billy or whether it is buying it from UBooks, and read the books. I'm just glad people are reading my fiction.

I mean I spent-- I wrote thirteen books before I sold one guys. That's how much I like doing this. I wrote over a dozen of them when no one was paying me to do it, right? And now that people actually are, it's just like so cool to be able to have things like the cosmere come together and everybody really be in on this thing. If you don't know a lot of my books are connected. There are characters from different books showing up in each other's books and fiddling with things and stuff.

Questioner

Can you talk a little about your editing process? After you get through the first draft-- You go through it, you look at the acknowledgements in a lot of your books, and other books, there's this huge team of people that have been pouring over this thing.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, so editing for me. Here's my drafting process. First draft I just write-- I write it straight through. I don't stop, I try not to let myself stop. If there is something major I need to change I just change it in the chapter and keep going forward. And then I can change it back later, like two chapters later if I think "No that was the wrong thing". So there will be a new character sometimes in my book that will just pop up for three chapters and everyone acts like they've always been there and then they vanish and no one talks about them not being there anymore. That's just so I can keep momentum and see what works. Draft number 2 I fix all of those things.  Draft number 3, polishing draft. Line by line trying to cut 10%, get rid of the passive voice, make descriptions more active, and make sure that I'm finding the right words and things like that. Really Draft 4 is where it turns into true drafting, and by that point I've given it to my editor and my alpha readers which are basically my assistants, my good friends, my wife, people like that. They read it, they come back with comments for me and I've been thinking about the book, working in my writing group with it and I make a goal-based document, where it's like "Here are the major issues. Here are the medium level issues.  Here are the little things I need to fix." And I start on page one, read through with this open on the screen next to the book when I'm working on it and I try to like-- It's almost like a bug report for programming, I'm trying to clear things off the list. Major things I have to re-write the whole way through so I can't clear them off until the end. Medium issues are things I can put in two or three times to fix through a couple of chapters where they are wrong and then clear it. Little things are just fix this one little thing and it's easy to clear off the list. I do that, I don't get to everything. I move around things on this list, like I maybe [???] I move it down the list.

Then I send the book out to beta readers, who are gathered by my assistant, he handles this, Peter Ahlstrom. Then they do a thing with us on a Google Doc, where it's chapter by chapter there is a document for each chapter and they all put their comments and interact with each other. It's like having a very large focus group, with like 15 people who are all reading the book at the same time and working on it. Once that is done and I've heard back from my editor on the new draft I will then make another draft.  I will do this as many times as necessary to make the book good. Last draft is proofreading and those people are also drawn from fandom, usually, my assistant picks them off forums and things like that and people we've used before. And they are just looking for-- At that point we can't change anything really bigger than a line or two. They are looking for continuity and things like that. But my process is that goal-based "I want to fix this let's see if I can do a draft where I fix this." And I'll do a couple more polishing drafts as I go along.

Questioner

Probably a question you are not going to want to answer but how old is Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson

How old is Hoid? ...Hoid is older than the Shattering of Adonalsium. Hey there is an answer for you! He is very old.