Why does Awakening need to drain color, and what determines the amount of color that's drained?
I'm going to RAFO Awakening because I'm going to write another book and I-- Mostly it's a RAFO because I don't want to canonize things until I've got the book in hand.
At one point Syl turns into a hammer when Kaladin fights Szeth. Are there any actual advantages to a Shardhammer over a Shardblade or knife?
Very minimal. It has mostly to do with a-- How much thrust or swing or things you can get to it. The impact of blade or weapon against armor is not going to be-- The hammer could in some ways get more leverage. But it's not that the impact is going to do--
So it didn't help against Szeth.
Yeah.
It was like the flow of the fight was-- Syl turned--
Yes.
So time bubbles... How much control does a bubbler have over the bubble before and after it's cast? Can they just grow and shrink it or...
Not very much.
So Wayne could flare his metals make time go faster--
Yes.
But if he'd stopped flaring--
Yeah, but-- they have a bit of control over the speed of it, but once it's up moving it or anything like that, not much. The flaring of it and things like that, yes they can-- it's mostly set when they start.
But they have some discretion when they start it.
They do have some discretion, yes.
Back in, I think, Words of Radiance I asked you-- Somebody asked the question that had to do with the number 10 on Roshar and I didn't get the question on the recording--which was horrible--but your answer talked about Honor's purposes. Is what you said, and you mentioned 10 of them and that is why the number 10 is so sacred. Could you say something so I have something on the record? So we know what you said about that?
Honor's purposes...
Or Shard's purposes... Like what is that all about?
That will become-- I said it vaguely on purpose.
Is there-- Can you explain the relationship between Spiritual DNA, Spiritual aspects, and the spiritweb, or are they all just terms for the same thing?
They are all similar terms for the similar stuff, yeah.
Okay. So it's not like the core is Spiritual DNA then things as you spread out is all Spiritual aspect?
No.
I know at the end of Words of Radiance Syl shows she can turn into different forms, not just a sword. Why do they not... Or why do none of the other past Radiants really show that they have done that. Because normally in the flashbacks they are shown just being swords.
So the Shardblades came from spren seeing the Honorblades, which were created for mankind, and being like "I can do that". That is what they were imitating.
So that's what they wanted...
No, that's how they see themselves and how they are seen. They can change into other things...
They just never...
But when you let go of one it's going to become a sword again.
Oh, I just meant in all the visions they were always portrayed as swords. Was that just for...
That's cultural, like this is... One thing that is interesting is you are going to see that the new Radiants don't have... I mean the Radiants you have seen almost all of them are after thousands of years of Radiants and Orders and you have certain things that you do.
So the writing reason was I didn't want to give away...
That's what I was going to ask.
There is a writing reason behind it. I didn't want to do that and give too much away. I already worried that having Syl shift shapes as often as she did through the first book was going to be a big clue to people and I wanted to hold off on giving away too much.
So the first one is Kaladin's backstory, the second is Shallan's backstory, who's next?
I actually haven't been able to decide yet. It's going to be one of the five for the first five books are Kaladin and Shallan and then Dalinar, Szeth, and Eshonai and I can't decide which one matches the next book best. And I'm going to have to write it...
What's the current list for the back five?
Current list for the back five... Jasnah, Lift, Ash, Renarin, and Taln.
In your talk earlier about character arcs do you have a character who surprised you the most in how they ended up developing?
Spook from the Mistborn books, he was not in the original outline having the role he did in the third book. But when I finished the second book I was like "Ennnh he's grown into something that needs more exploration".
And are there parts-- Are the cosmere novels chronological so far? So when you eventually go back to Warbreaker the effects of Vasher being on Roshar...
Oh, no, they are not all going to be chronological. Most of them have been chronological so far, but we are getting to the point where they're stopping to be because like Way of Kings was before Alloy but now we've gone back and done Words of Radiance which is a jump backward and then we are going to be jumping to the next Alloy which is a jump forward. I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.
Was Androl, from Wheel of Time, your own creation?
Yes. When I went into the trilogy I actually asked them "Is there a character I can have to just do whatever I want with?" and they looked through for one Robert Jordan had left no notes on and they gave me Androl. I went crazy.
I love his use of Gateways.
He was a little bit of a pressure valve, for me, being able to do the things I like to do in a novel, in The Wheel of Time, so I didn't then take over other characters too much. A bunch of me creeped into Perrin too but...
Are Shardblades made out of atium?
Shardblades are not but it is the same thing but from a different planet... It's made out of the god's body.
Oh.
See, you thought I was saying something really cool there but I wasn't.
In that world are we going to get more of her [Jasnah's] backstory?
Yeah, you'll get a lot more from her.
Are there differences in pronunciation between the different worlds in the cosmere?
Yes.
Do you have any record of that?
So, it depends on the culture and things like that, what it's going to be like. You can kind of bet in Mistborn it's going to be French, if it's from the Central Dominance. So they'll say "Kelsi-ay" and "De-MOH" but where Elend's from is a lot more Germanic so "EE-lend" "STRAHFF" and stuff like that. The other worlds are all going to have their different things. In Roshar you are going to get some of the "YAS-nah kHo-LIN" it's going to be a little more Semitic in its language family.
Since Chicago came up, will Atlanta have a special name as well?
Atlanta will have a special name, it's now a theme of the books.
Because Peter said "Hotlanta" and people think he's joking, like he usually does.
I'm not going to ruin one of Peter's jokes if it indeed is a joke. But I haven't written the book yet so he hasn't read-- I mean I've written parts of it but he hasn't read anything of the book.
Why didn't you have Vin talk to Hoid? She sort of saw him and then just ran off.
I have not answered that question yet. But that means you can have one of these [RAFO cards].
That doesn't come up very often but we got it twice.
Yeah, it's not that big of a thing.
You should take the hint.
You are going to have to wait a while to get that answer.
Now the Wit, does he have a spren, is he a Herald, is he one of the older people?
So, Wit is an immortal who travels between worlds. Who-- His magic is not from Roshar. He is in all the other books, if you look for him. So he's in Warbreaker, he's in all three Mistborn books, he's in-- yeah...
*points to Argent and Kurkistan* These guys can point you to everything, they're from the fansite and they've found out about all kinds of things about him. But he is popping up everywhere.
You have like tons of spren, right? And the the ones like rotspren, and you have your characters and some point will be able to harness those spren and be completely evil with them?
And be completely evil with them? *pause* There are-- There is an order of Knights Radiant that has to do with the breaking down of matter into smaller pieces.
What can you tell us about what magic was like in the cosmere before Adonalsium was Shattered?
Magic was...
Was it very different or...
It was-- I mean-- It was similar, different in some fundamental ways but the things that were done you’ll be able to see other-- You'll be able to see the pieces.
Do you have any sort of set pattern for when you are getting ready to do a rewrite on a novel?
Yes, I grit my teeth, bang my head against the wall, and try to do anything else except the rewrite.
Yeah it's...
You must be like me then, I hate revising but deadlines are what make me do it. Setting them on my own, you just have to learn to do it. The number one thing I think held me back as a writer is my dislike of revision. And it wasn't until I learned to do it...
And just get it done...
...and just get it done that I started writing books that would be publishable.
What you do with religions in your world, in your stories more generally. *audio obscured* Tokien, he says his books are fundamentally Catholic works, but he never mentions religion explicitly. It kind of just breathes religious air, is the way I describe it. So like you address religion in your books with the characters, sometimes positively sometimes negatively. How do you deal with that in your world and in your books, like with the air that they breathe kind of, to steal the metaphor?
Yeah I just-- The characters are everything to the books. What they are passionate about becomes what the book is about. For me my job in writing is to explore different sides of issues through the eyes of different people. That said, who I am shapes what I am interested in and what ends up in the books. I think at the end of the day I think you could call my books fundamentally Mormon books, in the way that Tolkien's were fundamentally Catholic, because I can't separate myself from my religion. I am trying to explore the world through the eyes of people who see the world differently from the way I see it.
So you would say you're-- Through your characters-- It comes out through how different people would approach it.
That's my goal.
So how then, does Mormonism affect, like you said-- In what way would you say your books are fundamentally Mormon?
Well if the philosopher in me steps aside, and the writer in me just wrote what the writer is passionate about. If the trained English major says-- One of the biggest fundamental tenets of Mormonism is deification of normal people, right? Mormonism believes that we are gods in embryo and we are here to learn and have experience so we will be better in the afterlife, and growing and we'll eventually-- Joseph Smith taught "What Man is God once Was, and what God is Man may Become" maybe not "will be" but "may become" That's what he said. And so if you look at my books there's a whole bunch of deification going on, right? That's like fundamental to the cosmere is "What do people do with the power of the gods when they're given it?" And I would say that's totally my upbringing that made me fascinated about that. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I never thought about that. Fantasy really lends itself to that.
Yes, it does. But I mean deification of a normal person is a very Christian tenet also, it's just one person did it, and it was a person who was God before, but it is still part of that whole thing which is part of why I think Christianity and Fantasy ended up kind of hand in hand.
Why can Rock see Syl?
*pause* Okay time to pause the record-- This doesn't go online, okay? *Audio paused*
Thank you sir.
Maybe you already knew that.
Do you ever get annoyed with us?
No. I thought I talked about the--
Sparkflickers?
Yeah the-- So I mentioned both of them?
Do you have a plan for the entire concept of the cosmere?
Yes I do.
Do you have an Allomancy dude fighting a Surgebinding dude?
Oh yeah it's going to be cool. It's going to be super awesome. The Allomantic space battles are really great. It's going to be like 15 years, sorry. But they are really cool.
The thing that struck me is the concept of Stormlight *audio obscured* stand up *audio obscured* more powerful *audio obscured* stand up to it.
If you stand up to it?
*audio obscured*
There is definitely a [view?] with the Parshendi, you need to go in and stand up to get what happens, yes.
Can spren die?
Spren can die but they are energy which cannot be destroyed. So dying means something different to them than it means to us.
Why do you do interludes? What possessed you to go that direction instead of just including it as another chapter?
I felt that one of the foibles of the large series epic fantasy genre is the tendency of authors to go afield down paths of side characters. It happened to Robert Jordan, it happened to George R.R. Martin. And so reading theirs I hoped to learn from them and say "I'm going to do this thing that gives me a pressure valve to tell these stories that are outside the main line but I'm not going to give myself enough room that I can just turn this into a full character, yet." That allows me to do goofy stuff around the world but have a form for it built into the book.
I was wondering when you first thought to put Nightblood in Words of Radiance?
Nightblood in Words of Radiance happened because... So I wrote the original draft of Way of Kings in 2002 and Vasher was Kaladin's swordmaster and I thought "This guy has a really interesting past, he's not natively from Roshar". So I went and wrote his backstory and that became the book Warbreaker. So he predates-- And then I came back and I re-wrote Way of Kings and I cut him out of it to save him for the later books. So when did I first think of it? Well 2003 probably? Was where that was happening.
Nightblood was our apartment's collective favorite character.
I have some other quote-unquote cons going on the fans so to speak that are going to be very cool when they happen.
What was the hardest part of finishing The Wheel of Time?
The hardest part, I would say, was the battle logistics.
So A Memory of Light took a while?
Yeah, A Memory of Light is all battle logistics, it was really hard. And the second half was really tough to get that all right. And just to work with the assistants and things like that.
I noticed in a lot of your cosmere books, like for example Elantris or Mistborn, they have something to do with some sort of subject matter or school or something. For example the Steelpush and Ironpulling in Mistborn is based on physics.
Yes.
If you push too hard it's based on...
Vector physics, yes.
And then like Warbreaker is just like math, adding Breaths together. Did you intend that?
Not necessarily. I read a lot and I like science and I like philosophy and I like and things like this. And those spark most of my ideas. So yes in a term but I'm not like "Let's do this subject".
I would say Warbreaker, the big part of Warbreaker is the idea of sympathetic magic. Which is the idea that like affects like, which is a very common type of magic throughout all cultures on the planet, on our planet. When people believe in magic they believe in sympathetic magic. A voodoo doll is sympathetic magic. And that's where the idea came from.
So in Elantris, which is different and then--
Yeah that's basically fantasy programming, is where that one came from.
And then there is The Stormlight Archive, which basically violates all the laws of physics by just saying everything comes from spren.
Well no they still have arguments on that, are spren attracted to these things or do they cause them.
Yeah that's kind of weird...
Stormlight Archive was based on the fundamental forces, if you want go read on physics google fundamental forces.
I heard earlier, through people I know, that Syl will eventually develop her memories from before the Recreance. Does that mean any spren that are alive currently have been alive for that long as well? Or are they--
Not necessarily. Some spren-- The thing about spren is that when does the energy become conscious? So yes they will have all existed before but at what point is consciousness attained. That's kind of their birth. It happens much more rarely than it does on the other-- on the Physical Realm, like regular people and things like that. But there can totally have been spren who have been born since then. And they would count most of the spren that you see as not being alive, well not being born. Not conscious. What's the word for the difference between humans and animals, it's not just sentience, there's another word. Starts with a C. Sapient, you're right it starts with an S.
How has the fantasy publishing industry changed with the global popularity of things like Game of Thrones?
It has changed, but really what we're seeing is what happened in the States in the seventies, the States and the UK following Tolkien, is now happening in a lot of countries that it hadn't happened in before. Which is cool. But it's not just Game of Thrones, it's the Lord of the Rings movies, it's Harry Potter. The last ten years are wakening fantasy. See the thing about fantasy is we don't find fantasy doing well in developing countries. It's kind of the thing where if you are going to be reading about knights and wizards, you are not going to be somebody who's struggling for your bread each day. You know what I mean?
People in developing countries like more aspirational--
Yeah. So you see for instance as countries transition out of that you see a lot of fantasy and things. For instance it happened in Japan in the seventies. It happened in the US even earlier. It's happening now in Brazil and Taiwan. Those are two of the places where it is just appearing. India, it's just starting in India. Mainland China hasn't quite caught on yet but there's hints that it is going to happen. But it has been in Europe for quite a while.
So do you have translations of your books in Portuguese?
Yeah, I'm in 26 languages, or something like that. But you can kind of use that as a map for the places that read -- you know. Like the only South American country is Brazil, I don't have any other distribution in South America. Not a single country in Africa, I don't believe, except South Africa, the UK editions. None of those. Japan, China, Korea? Yes. Europe? Almost everybody in Europe.
Szeth says in the first Stormlight book that he can't heal from a Shardblade--
He can't.
So when he got cut he couldn't heal that...
No. Not with his powers.
Not from an Honorblade.
Not from an Honorblade.
Is Cultivation alive?
RAFO.
How was Dalinar able to bond Taln's Shardblade -- Honorblade?
It's not Taln's Honorblade.
Is the sword given to Szeth at the end of the book [Words of Radiance] related to Nightblood from Warbreaker?
It's the same sword.
It is?
Mmhmm.
Is Hoid from Elantris, the same Hoid from The Stormlight Archive?
Yes.
When Syl says in The Way of Kings that she had been with other men who have killed. Is she-- Why is she able to say that?
Syl's memories, the longer she's bonded the more access to them she has, from times before. She knows some of these things. She'll never get it all back.
From the time before Kaladin.
From before Kaladin, from before the Recreance, yes.
I love Writing Excuses and I'm actually going on the Retreat this year. I think the cruise is a good idea.
See Mary did the Steampunk cruise, and she just kind of asked "Wait a minute, what are people paying for this?" and it was less than we had to charge them for the retreat at her house, because of all the food and stuff we had to do. We were like "Wait a minute, you can do this for the same price or less? Why are we doing this at her house?"
Cruises are a blast.
I've been on several and I've enjoyed everyone of them.
The Alaska cruise has been one of the best experiences of my life. So it's going to be good for writing and inspiration.
My cruise story is the Taravangian interlude [in Words of Radiance] was written on a cruise with my family. I sat on the little balcony to our room typing while everyone else went off and did stuff where there were people. And I was by myself and it was great.
I am very convinced that Adolin, with the events that happen with the last book. You're sending him down a like a dark path. Is he possibly going to be a-- *questioningly* Antagonist? Protagonist?-- A bad, eventually? Or is he--
I'm going to say this, the things that Adolin did do not contradict some of the moralities on Roshar, in fact they follow them directly. Some of the moralities on our planet would say what he did is the right thing to do. I think treating it as a "dark path" is too reductionist to say. There are people who would seriously argue, and they would have a good argument, that what Dalinar was doing by leaving Sadeas around was a good idea. And then there are other people who would say "You know what Sadeas did was a challenge and it was rightly then responded to" and then there are people who would say it was absolutely immoral. So, it depends on your philosophy.
What would Honor say? Well, Honor's dead, so-- *lots of laughter* You know Honor would not have been behind that action, but Honor's dead.
My question has to do with the color of Shallan's eyes currently, because we've noticed over the books that Kaladin's eyes, as he's continued to use his Surge, changed to lighter and lighter blue. Whereas one could argue that Shallan is farther in her Ideals than Kaladin is, yet her eyes have not changed at all.
Right, 'cause they were already light.
'Cause they were already light? So it only affects lightness or darkness in the eyes, not necessarily any other color?
It's not like it is-- It's not like it's saying "Light minus 50%".
It's not like Honor is blue and--
No. It is not. It is just kind of the way that the changes the Stormlight is making the body and certain people are already descended from people who had repeated, over time, changes by the body which stopped physically... That's not to say that all lighteyes that's where they came from. There are some that are natural mutations.
Speaking of interfering, if you shot an aluminum bullet through a time bubble, what would happen?
Ooooh, that's a good question. I'm gonna RAFO that one. It's an excellent question.
Speaking of time bubbles, can iron and steel and emotional Allomancy go beyond the boundaries of time bubbles; like if I'm inside a time bubble can I just like super Steelpush outside?
Oh, time bubbles interfere with almost all forms of Investiture.
So is that the same thing with Commands, are there like ideals that are Commands?
This is more of a-- For you to interface with the magic, you need to be able to comprehend it. And so forming a Command-- The same thing happens in Elantris, you know they don't accidentally draw runes, right? The intention is part of interfacing with the magic. So it's like your mind reaching into the Spiritual Realm and you have to like conceive something.
So, could you give us some examples of how the ideals that spren represent work in other magic systems, like we have Forging where you get plausibility, or Returned how they're beautiful or any other systems?
Okay, one more time on that.
Okay, so you know the ideals the spren are manifestations--
Yes.
How-- Do those have impacts on other magic systems?
Yes, yes, in the same way the Returned- that's the exact same system at work there.
Is it the same reason why the Lord Ruler has to die of old age, and why you can't heal yourself into being an octopus or something?
Um... Yes, that is all connected in the exact same way.
Okay, so it's all like these highfalutin Spiritual ideals?
Yes.
And are there like, median Cognitive ideals that gradually kind of influence these, or--
Yeah, they transcend between the three. I mean the original concept for the Three Realms is Platonic philosophy.
So it goes up *makes absurd reverse-waterfall hand gesture*
Yeah, it goes up and it comes back down. A lot of the Cognitive is-- So like, the Cognitive has a bigger effect on how you can heal and things like that. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
But the power to heal is a actually a Spiritual thing.
So it's like the Spiritual says "I want to be like this" and the Cognitive is like "Okay I'll try really hard to be like that, but I have a limit."
Right. Right. Filtered through how you see yourself, yeah.
When you finish a book how do you celebrate?
I usually, unless I have a really tight deadline, I pick a video game and I play the video game. Usually once a year I'll do that and I'll take like two weeks off and just play through a game.
I like that idea. I'm trying to finish up my master's thesis and deciding what I can do when I've finished it.
Oh okay, I don't know if you can take two weeks off. I can.
Well I've already told my boss I'm going to take three weeks off. But I'll probably go somewhere.
See traveling, I travel so much for work that I don't really want to go anywhere. I just want to stay home where I don't have to do anything. I played Skyrim, I broke it out over the holidays. I hadn't ever played that one. That's my latest.
So are the rumors true are you [and Pat Rothfuss] going to write a book together?
No, but every time we are on a panel we are like "AH we should write a book together." It's highly unlikely, that we would ever do anything together. Just because our writing styles are so different. Pat's writing process-- It's not so much style it's the writing process-- is so different. But you can hold out hope. Perhaps some day I will have a pitch for Pat or something like that. But I would hate to inconvenience his fans by distracting him with something else.
Can I generally ask what the plot is somewhat like for Wayne and Wax [in Shadows of Self]?
Yeah, so there is a murderer in town who is not human.
So I'm in the middle of Hero of Ages, and I'm noticing there are constant parallels between Vin and the Hero of Ages and Elend and the Lord Ruler?
That's done intentionally.
Is it going to hurt?
Is the ending going to hurt? The ending is the right ending. It's going to be satisfying, but it also might hurt.
Did I read that they were going to make a movie out of Mistborn?
The question is-- Somebody bought the rights. The question is whether they are actually going to use them for anything, and that I can't say. I really like the people who have them.
Would you be involved in it if--
Yes. I would be involved.
How much?
The contracts say I have to be able to go to the set at any time.
You wouldn't be helping writing the screenplay?
Oh I don't write screenplays, it's a different skill. I think you do an expert do what an expert does. But so far they have sent me all of the stuff they've done and I've given feedback and they've taken it. It's a good sign.
In your opinion what percent--
How close?
--that they are going to start it.
15?
That small?
That's high. I think that's very high for this business. My agent says one out of 30 gets made.
So what's the criteria they would--
Investors, if there are people who are willing to give us a 100 million dollars... So if you happen to know anyone willing to sink a 100 million dollars into a film we could do it tomorrow.
I'm 66 in a couple months and I want to make sure I live long enough to read the whole Stormlight--
Alright.
Am I going to?
You'll definitely make it through the first five. The thing about it is I'll break in the middle, but the first five come to a natural climax, and then there's an in-world break of 15 years. Not 15 years away for us but an in-world break. And then I'll do another trilogy. I think you'll make it through them all. I think you'll easily make it, you look very hale and healthy.
