Recent entries

    YouTube Livestream 4 ()
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    Brandon Sanderson

    Recently, I have been working on Stormlight, and video game time is much smaller than it was last year, because I just need to be sure that I am getting that book done by July 1st. The fifth draft needs to be done by July 1st. So, pretty tight scheduling, making this happen. Particularly if I want to have time to do the Wandersail novella that I would really like to do and have out before Book Four is, because there are certain things in Book Four that reference stuff in the Wandersail novella that isn't written yet.

    YouTube Livestream 2 ()
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    Sapoy

    Is there anyone in the cosmere capable of winning a fight against Lan Mandragoran without Investiture?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No. I would not say that there is. Lan is the best swordsman I have ever written. Adolin, of the people I have written about, would be the closest, but Lan would win.

    YouTube Livestream 2 ()
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    CH Braun

    Can you lock a Shardbearer in a suspended cage, so they can't break out?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You would have to do one of several things. 1) Put them in a material that cannot be cut by their Shardblade. So that is going to come down to highly Invested materials, most of the time, or aluminum. So, put them in there. Or, you can... it depends on of they've got a living Blade or not. If they don't have a living Blade, you can theoretically (actually, it wouldn't be too hard) bind them in such a way that they just can't move the sword. If you can tie them against the wall, and you make the ceiling really high, so if they summon their Shardblade, what can they do? They can't get it around. You'd have to get it so the chain wouldn't be swipable up above, somehow. I can imagine that you could get them. I mean, classic ways to deal with Shardbearers is just to tie them up in a net and put them in a place where if they summon their Blade, it just is not leveragable to get them out. That would work.

    Those are your two best bets, other than taking the Blade away and unbonding it from them, which is not too hard to do, depending on the situation.

    YouTube Livestream 2 ()
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    Zin the Poet

    Will we ever see Sixth as a main character again?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have written the opening to a sequel to Sixth of the Dusk (which I will not call Seventh of the Dusk, though people like to joke about that). The problem is, Sixth of the Dusk takes place far enough forward in the future of the cosmere that writing stories about him is really tough without giving major spoilers to other cosmere series. In fact, I wrote this opening, and it has huge spoilers for other cosmere series. And so the question for myself is: do I try to write around the spoilers? Or do I release it with the spoilers? Or do I just wait until it's no longer spoilers to release it? I really like the story, the outline for it is sharp. I know where Sixth fits into all of this, even though he was a discovery-written character.

    So yes, most likely you will, but I can't say when exactly.

    YouTube Livestream 2 ()
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    Ethan

    Is Lift a translation of a Rosharan word for lift, or is "Lift" the actual sound people make when they say her name?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is in translation. Most of the time you will be able to assume that a name like that is in translation. Wax and Wayne probably isn't, it's probably just their names. That one's the hard one to decide on, because I like the pun, but they don't have a moon on Scadrial so waxing and waning is not part of the conversation as much. But I always imagine that the languages on Scadrial kind of sound Earth-y, even though they have no relation to Earth whatsoever, because that's just how I built Scadrial, as kind of an Earth analogue. But most of the time, if you run into a name like Lift, it is in translation.

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner

    Calamity from the Reckoners series–is there any connection between him and the delvers from Starsight?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. Very, very loose connection, but there is a connection. 

    Questioner

    Okay, because I was like, "They both come from the dark nowhere, quiet, they hate people and everything. There is a connection."

    Brandon Sanderson

    There is a connection. And Apocalypse Guard was kind of supposed to bridge between these things, but it didn't end up coming out, and it may not even be a bridge when we finally revise it because we have to make the book good, rather than worrying about that. But it was supposed to kind of do that. It's gonna work well if I can fix the ending. I've just gotta fix the ending.

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner

    I loved Warbreaker so much. It was one of my favorites. The only problem I had was the end was a little abrupt, with Siri and Susebron. Do you know, will we have a novella, or understand more what happens after that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So when I write the sequel, I will make sure that I include some stuff. The sequel isn't about them. It's about Vivenna, but I will at least indicate what's going on with them. The whole ending was just a little bit abrupt on that one. It was more of a discovery-written book than my others. But yeah, that is one of its kind of drawbacks is that ending.

    Questioner

    Will we see them for like a little scene at all?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You might get a letter from them, is what I'm planning. It's possible I'll sneak into an interlude or something like that with them, but we'll have to see when I actually write it.

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner

    Are we ever going to know what happened to Kaladin's flute that he lost in [Stormlight] book <two>?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, I just did a reading that mentions the flute.

    Questioner

    I know. I heard that and I was wondering, "Is that?..."

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah that is the flute.

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner

    Is there a specific Shard that most of the spren come from?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Most of the spren are going to be related to a combination of Honor and Cultivation, weighted certain directions for certain types of spren. But the spren are mostly both of them. 

    Questioner

    Are they considered Splinters?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, you could call spren Splinters if you wanted to. They work in the same way as a Splinter, so yeah.

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner

    On the reading–just yes or no–is the flute that Lift has related to Hoid's flute?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. I wouldn't mention the flute without it being relevant.

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner

    In the first book, when does Kaladin actually say the first ideal?

    Brandon Sanderson

    This is not supposed to be sneaky. But I'd have to look at the book and point at it. There shouldn't be anything sneaky there.

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner 1

    Does aluminum actually make the metals disappear, like, be metabolized? Or does it just cut the Spiritual connection?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So... I haven't actually canonized that... I've gone back and forth. For a while, I said it got rid of them. And there may even be... But the more I thought about that, the more it doesn't make much sense.

    Questioner 1

    It doesn't. Especially the way that duralumin works, it doesn't really make sense.

    Brandon Sanderson

    And so, I've been kind of pushing the other way. Since I haven't said it in-world, it's not truly canon, but I believe I've answered other fans saying that it burns them all away in a flash, and we might need it to do that, for future things. So, I'm undecided.

    Questioner 2

    It needs to get rid of them, but a path to sever the connection at the same time.

    Brandon Sanderson

    One of the big problems is, if it only severs the connection and leaves the metals, than you have heavy metal poisoning from some of the metals.

    Questioner 1

    But if it makes them burn away, that doesn't work the same way as duralumin. Duralumin only burns the ones you're burning.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. I kinda have to err back on the side of "it gets rid of them," just we don't have to deal with metal poisoning, but I've kind of been wavering a little bit, thinking, "Is there a better way to explain this."

    LTUE 2020 ()
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    Questioner

    Did whoever wrote the The Way of Kings, have access or exposure to BioChromatic Breath? There was a scene in Chapter 26, it could just be speaking of candles and breath. But the way you wrote it made me think that there was some connection.

    Brandon Sanderson

    There has been longstanding travel between those two planets.

    YouTube Livestream 2 ()
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    Coachdorax

    Did you write Amaram as an opposite of Dalinar or was he simply a bad guy meant to spur Kaladin?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I meant Amaram to be the representation of the corrupt side of the Alethi. Meaning they are all talk and very little heart. Very little of what they say, to the worst of the Alethi, gets to who they really are. They would rather be known as someone honorable than be actually honorable. And this I consider a major problem with their society, and I needed somebody to represent this. Part of it is, to represent a contrast to Kaladin’s ideals. This belief that lighteyes were these paragons of virtue. But I also needed somebody, you may say an opposite to Dalinar. In a way, he is an opposite to Dalinar, but more he just represents Alethi society. And I did want it to be that he wasn’t just all the way corrupt. When he makes his decision in Book One in the flashbacks, he is making a decision. There is a moment where he is considering. By the time you are seeing him in later books, that decision has taken him down a path that leaves him very far from any sort of redemption. But it was a choice. And he wasn’t just corrupt from the get go. But yeah, he represents what I feel would be bad about Alethi society. A kind of honor society that is more about looking honorable than being.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    _Hoid_

    Sidenote, but I believe BDSM would have been quite big on this planet [Sel], as control and trust are both so central to that community/ fetish. Not that Brandon would necessarily want to get into that stuff. Any quick thoughts, /u/mistborn?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ha, you know, I'd never made that connection? It would be completely in line with the worldbuilding, so I think you have a very valid line of reasoning here.

    YouTube Livestream 3 ()
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    Brandon Sanderson

    If you guys don't know who Nazh is, Nazh is the person who annotates all the maps and pieces of art in the Stormlight books. The affectation is that the Ars Arcanum for the books and a lot of the illustrations are things that have been collected or put together by Khriss and [Nazh]. You describe Nazh as "grumpy James Bond," who is sent into the world to grab artifacts for Khriss when she's putting together kind of her guide to a world in the cosmere.

    Isaac Stewart

    I've discovered a lot more about Nazh in the last year, just because we're getting closer to including him in more things. Right now, his personality is "grumpy James Bond" because he goes on missions, he's kind of a grump... but he kinda likes that sort of thing - he likes going off on his own, figuring out ways to do things. He has a specific skill set that works really well for this sort of thing.

    Brandon Sanderson

    But things kinda go poorly for him most of the time.

    Isaac Stewart

    Yeah. I wouldn't say he's a Mr. Bean type character, but if you imagine the situations that he gets into, they're those sorts of things - but usually not funny, though he may tell them in a grumpy, funny way later on.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Basically, as Hoid is to me, Nazh is to Isaac. This is very fun because he can write all these annotations on the artwork, and you'll see Nazh popping up in the books now and then, just as cameo references to this guy. The affectation is the text of the book like The Way of Kings is not something that they have in-world, but all of the art in the Ars Arcanum they do, and those are produced by Khriss and Nazh.

    YouTube Livestream 3 ()
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    Star Share Gaming

    Would you ever consider writing a cyberpunk Era 4 for Mistborn? Or are you gonna be doing just the four Eras?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I would consider, and I've talked about before liking that idea. Once I did the Wax and Wayne novels, it became a natural thing to ask if there is a step between the 1980s and the science fiction era. And a cyberpunk-type era would make a lot of sense. The caveat to that is I have a lot on my plate in finishing the Cosmere already, and so I can't make any promises. But it does seem like it would be a natural fit to do.

    Original Mistborn series was each between 200,000 and 250,000 words. For a frame of reference, Way of Kings books tend to be between 400,000 and 450,000. And the Wax and Wayne books tend to be between 100,000 and 110,000. So, having another 100,000 to 110,000 word, faster-paced shorter series (shorter in total word count) would make a lot of sense. Because Era 3, the 1980s era, is going to go back to the 250,000 to 250,000 word sized books.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    simon_thekillerewok

    If you ever get around to writing The Silence Divine, do you think it should be included as a "From The Stormlight Archive" novella as those other three? I know you mentioned it would be set around the same time as book 8.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It probably wouldn't be a Stormlight Archive book, since though the planet is in the system and the same Shards influence it, it doesn't include Stormlight or Radiants or anything.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    Secondskrull

    Who are the main 'focus' characters for book 4? Venli and Eshonai have flashbacks but what about everyone else?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I would say Venli, though the truth is that though she's got a lot of viewpoints, it's really more of an ensemble than the other books. I don't want to say too much, as its spoilers. Expect a decent amount of Venli, but an equal amount of several other characters.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    morganlandt

    Wandersail too?!? Can't wait!!

    Brandon Sanderson

    That's the Rysn novella. Though I might not call it Wandersail, as even though that's the name of her ship, it might imply too much about the story which has only passing resemblance to Wit's tale.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    AbrahamSTINKIN

    Has he hinted at how long of a time gap it's going to be [between the two Stormlight arcs]? Are there going to be the same characters in each sequence?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Time gap is around ten years, and the back five will largely include the same characters, but the focus will be more on the Heralds.

    CenturionRower

    Is this a minor spoiler? I was under the impression Moash was going to attempt and kill them all. Or if only the king of the Heralds needed to die. Its possible I misunderstood that part.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Dead people can still be main focuses of books in Stormlight because of the way I do the flashbacks.

    This isn't a promise that they do die, or that they live. Only a note that me announcing someone gets a flashback book isn't an indication they live to that book. Only that they have some interesting events in their past that I intend to delve into.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    jmcgit

    I wonder if Rock's story made it into an interlude (or primary narrative) [in Stormlight Four], or if it still needs to be written?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It would still need to be written. There wasn't room for it in book four, and it wouldn't really fit thematically anyway. If I don't manage to do it as a novella between four and five, I think I can make it fit in five thematically, so we'll put it there.

    Aradanftw

    I love Rysn's interludes in every book; especially her adventure with Chiri-Chiri in Oathbringer. That being said if you end up doing a novella for her does that mean she'd be out of the interludes in future books? Also if you don't mind answering, does she have an interlude in Book 4?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I haven't written it yet, but I do plan for her to have one. I can't really do it until I've written the novella, if indeed I find the time for that.

    YouTube Livestream 2 ()
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    Pagerunner

    Let's use a time machine and change the past. Let's say you aren't asked to finish the Wheel of Time, and instead fix Liar of Partinel. How do you think the Cosmere fan experience would have been different if mysteries like Hoid and the Shattering had been explored earlier?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Boy, this is an excellent question, and it's hypothetical enough that I can ignore my cheeky answer to time machine questions, [which] is always, "Don't go back in the past. I've seen that story too much."

    In this case... Liar of Partinel. Liar of Partinel did not work. I had already abandoned it and started working on The Rithmatist. So, if I had not been asked to finish The Wheel of Time, most likely I would have thrown myself into The Rithmatist more. And then, the question becomes, would have I decided to do Way of Kings? Or would I have gone and taken another stab at Liar of Partinel? And for your hypothesis, I will say that I did that. I don't think I actually would have. I think that I was disappointed enough in Liar of Partinel and realizing that this wasn't the right time, that I would have gone a different direction.

    But, for the hypothetical, let's say I did. What would it have changed? Certainly, I don't know that I would have gotten all the way through the Hoid series before starting Way of Kings. More likely, I would have done Liar of Partinel as a standalone, then done something else, and eventually released Book Two of that. Because, remember, back then, I had envisioned this as a seven-book series. I was looking for a big epic to do, and I thought, "Let's do the Dragonsteel series. And I'll do several books about Hoid. And then I'll do the full story of Bridge Four," which was then on Yolen, not on Roshar. So, you would have gotten that story on Yolen instead, and then, who knows where that would have gone. When I release Dragonsteel itself (which won't be too much longer), you guys will be able to read the earliest version of Bridge Four, back before Kaladin was involved, and it was on Yolen. So, I think, at that point, we would have learned more about Hoid, but we probably wouldn't have pushed all the way to the Shattering, I don't think.

    But, hypothetically, let's say I do. I don't know how much of a change that makes, honestly, over Stormlight. Knowing the personalities of the three Shards involved and a little bit more on Hoid certainly would change your perspective on them, but Stormlight, assuming... I mean, it's so hard to go into these hypotheticals, because if I write Dragonsteel with Bridge Four, then Bridge Four isn't in Stormlight. It's very hard to imagine where Stormlight goes. It's possible that I make it completely Taln's story, and Stormlight becomes a five-book series, which focuses on what's going to be the back five. That would be my best guess of where that would go. So, instead of ten books, you get five books, and we focus on Taln as a main character. And Kaladin just vanishes. We don't have Kaladin as a character. He's replaced by whoever takes the lead in Dragonsteel. But, of course, the flip-flopping, what actually happened is, Dragonsteel shrunk to three books that focus on Hoid, 'cause I realized I was doing in Stormlight all the things that I intended to do in Dragonsteel, and they were working better in Stormlight, and I no longer needed that Bridge Four sequence in Dragonsteel because it worked so well in Stormlight.

    So, it is hard to say what exactly would go on. You would know the personalities of the Shards, how about that? You would definitely know who they are. You would know a lot more about Hoid.

    General Twitter 2012 ()
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    Jennifer Graham

    I was re-reading Alloy of Law and wondering...was naming them Wax and Wayne by accident, or is there a higher purpose?

    Peter Ahlstrom

    It was an accident, and Brandon almost changed their names when he realized it, but they were too solid in his head by then.

    YouTube Livestream 1 ()
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    JazzyKandra

    I've been wondering about Cosmere holidays and feast days, specifically for Mistborn. I'm wondering, does Era 2 Scadrial have a Christmas-like or Easter-like holiday, and is it called Maremas?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, this is something I think about and then don't have as much time ever to work in as I want to. They have quite a few holidays and feast days in Era 2 Mistborn, partially because Era 2 Mistborn was founded by a bunch of people who didn't get a lot of holidays during their life and then suffered through quite a bit in their lives, and then found themselves in a situation where, perhaps, hard manual labor, while important, was not as necessary as it might be in some other situations. So yeah, there are quite a bit; they are good at taking time off. Probably the best of all of the cultures depicted in the book... I don't know. They're gonna have a lot of feast days on Nalthis also.

    Yes, but I would have to go to my notes. I'll try to do a better job of getting more of those in the books. 'Cause it's a place that I feel like I don't do enough. I don't talk enough about sports, I don't talk enough about feast days. Everything is about the plots of the stories, and sometimes I wonder if this just presents an inaccurate representation of the society. But of course, when our viewpoint character is someone like Wax, who looks askance at holidays, then I get a little bit more leeway on that.

    YouTube Livestream 1 ()
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    Hossmobile

    If you could have a beer with one of your characters, which would it be?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, since I don't drink, I would have a root beer. I would like to go hang out with Sazed. That would be my choice. I think Sazed is more wise than I was able to write him being and would have lots of good advice for me.

    YouTube Livestream 1 ()
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    Questioner

    Is there a character based off of Emily [Sanderson]?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Not really... she asked me not to put her in the books as a cameo sort of thing. Some of my friends are in the books as cameos, and some are in the books as more than cameos, like Skar [from Bridge Four] is based on my friend Skar.

    Emily Sanderson

    And in that case, he looks like him, he acts like him.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Because Skar is one of the few people I know who is in the military, so I'm like, "I'm gonna use you as a character, because you act like a military person, and I think that's a good thing." He's like, "Yeah, I'm totally on board with that." Most of them are just cameos and things like that.

    Emily Sanderson

    In most cases, when Brandon puts someone in a book, it's not the whole person. It's a character trait, or a physical trait, or a personality trait, or something like that. Sometimes I'll see characters who say things that I've said.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Syl says "I'm intelligent and articulate"... that came from when you were... three?

    Emily Sanderson

    That's a quote from when I was three, and my dad taught me to say... no, I was younger than that, I was like eighteen months old, and I could speak really clearly, and he taught me to say "I am intelligent and articulate". Brandon heard that story from my dad and put that in.

    Brandon Sanderson

    The character that I would say owes the most to Emily - even though it's not based on Emily - is Navani, because being able to have a wonderful wife has helped me to write a wonderful wife. They're very different people, but there's definitely some...

    Emily Sanderson

    I can relate with Navani in a lot of ways, in certain roles that she has.

    Brandon Sanderson

    The prologue to this new book [Stormlight Four] is Navani, and it owes some very specific things to Emily.

    YouTube Livestream 1 ()
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    Tristan Gilmore

    This is perhaps more of a Writing Excuses question, but at what point in the story do you intentionally finish "building up" and transition to reveals and answering the intrigue you've established? Or do these need to be intertwined to keep the novel from being a constant uphill/downhill of interest?

    Brandon Sanderson

    In answer to your second question first: yes, it is good to stagger these a bit. This is something I didn't understand as well when I was brand new into writing, in some of my early - particularly unpublished - books. The "Brandon avalanche" which people talk about that comes at the end of a book where all the threads are finally coming together and stuff, was just way too much in these early books, and what happened is you couldn't follow all the threads or give them time to actually have impact, because always another one was happening. And it ended up having kind of boring situations leading to too much excitement that you couldn't actually take time to reflect on anything that was happening. So staggering your reveals is a really good thing to practice. Even if you want to have an avalanche at the end like I have, staggering some of that, having some character climaxes happen at different parts, in different points in the story, just a really good idea.

    But where do you start doing it? That's kind of the definition for me... like that transition... that moment act 2 into act 3, the moment right after where things have just turned south, is the moment where I start trying to have those reveals in most books. But again, I'm trying to stagger them, I'm trying to have mini-reveals. Particularly in a big epic fantasy, you want lots of ups and downs.

    YouTube Livestream 1 ()
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    Blake Bouza

    Do you ever need a reminder of what your own magic systems can do, or is it all laid out pretty perfectly in your mind?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, I need reminders on the kind of subtle things. Mostly terminology and what decisions I made, because in a book sometimes you'll make decisions on the fly where you're like, "I think this isn't working, I'm gonna change it to this," or things like that. Like, I still forget that I swapped tin for silver. And I still forget exactly what terminology I came up for Szeth using the Lashings, and some stuff like that. And sometimes I need a, "Hey, does this feel like it works for the magic system?" Because the further we get in the Cosmere, the less simple the rules are, and the more complicated and - like real world physics, where you're building things that work like complicated engineering devices, right? Like, building some of the ways that magic is working on Scadrial with the mechanical elements, and the medallions, and stuff like that is getting really complicated, and I had to write it out and I had to go back and reference that. Because yes, I can remember what metal does what and what the rules are here, but the actual how-they-all-interact-and-come-together gets kinda complicated! So yeah, definitely need reminders on my own magic systems.

    YouTube Livestream 1 ()
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    Grant Willis

    Are there any clues or easter eggs in Roshar/the cosmere that have not been discovered yet?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, but they're not ones that you should be able to discover. They'll just be things that you'll able to look back at. We embed some things here and there in the art, like the lastclap that was in foreshadowed in the margins of one of the art pieces in the first book, with someone catching a Shardblade. For instance, a lot of the little circles for characters at the start of the stories represent things that will happen much later in the series, but most of them are intentionally zoomed in of what the shot would be so that you can't tell right now, because these are not things that you're supposed to be able to figure out. Most things that I intended for you to figure out, you did, and some that I didn't intend you to figure out, you also did. So people can feel very proud of that. Yes, there are a bunch of easter eggs, there are a ton of them, but there is no way you can figure out what they are.

    YouTube Livestream 1 ()
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    Kim Jenson

    Does Hoid have any rules, self-imposed or otherwise, about how much he can interfere with what is going on on whatever planet he is currently on? And why does he take such an active part on Roshar, compared to the other planets he has visited?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Hoid has a few rules of thumb, but he does not have the same rules that the Shards have to follow, which is basically one of the big points that makes Hoid do what he does. He has to watch out, because drawing their attention at the wrong time can be very dangerous. But that's not necessarily a rule, it's more of a "be careful." He's defined by the fact that he doesn't have to follow the rules. And he's also defined by the fact that he intervenes when a lot of others think that one should not intervene, as made evident by the chastisement he receives from Frost. So, I would say, no and yes. There are some weird limitations on him related to things in his past that you will find out about eventually, but those are not really about intervening.

    Why Roshar more than others? There are a couple of reasons for this. One is: the way he is intervening on Roshar is something that is directly involving the main characters of the book I'm writing. He actually has done a lot on other planets as well, you just haven't seen it because he hasn't been as involved with the main characters. Why is he involved with the main characters? Well, he is trying to get to be a Knight Radiant, and he wants to be involved with the people who are becoming Knights Radiant, because he wants to figure out how that magic works and specifically how you can get off-world with it, which is the real trick on Roshar. So he, in this specific instance, is really involved with those characters because of that reason. A lot of the other places he will go, the magic is already extant, and it's not like Roshar, where the magic has not been around for a while. So he is kind of by necessity more involved in the plot.

    Stormlight Book Four Updates ()
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    Brandon Sanderson

    Brandon here, with another progress update on your book. Previous update can be read here. You might have heard about my marathon write to push to the finish last week--but if you didn't, you can glance through my facebook page to see the hourly updates. Short version: the book is done! (Kind of.)

    So where do we go from here? Well, I generally do five drafts of a book these days. The rough draft, which I finished last week, is only the first of these five--and each one takes roughly a month to do. So I've still got five months of work ahead of me, plus a little time between edits to do something else, before we're finished with this behemoth of a book.

    I'll be doing the second draft starting next week. Fortunately, I've already done a 2.0 on several of the early parts--squeezing those in early so my editorial team could start working on them. This should make the 2.0 take less time than a normal revisions, perhaps two weeks instead of four or five. You can follow along, as always, on my website.

    A 2.0 draft is me going through and fixing all the things I know are broken (and there are always a lot of those) while doing the initial polish of the language. Once done, I'll need to roll straight in to work on the 3.0 (the draft where I put in my editor/agent/writing group comments.) We've been workshopping this book in writing group since early last year, so I've got a lot of feedback already.

    After the 3.0 draft, we'll start sending the book to beta readers and I'll (hopefully) take a short break to write a novella. (Rysn, potentially, involving the history and current lore of Aimia, the Sleepless, and some intriguing things like that.)

    4.0 is the draft I'll do incorporating beta reader comments, along with any other editorial comments from the team at Tor. 5.0 will be my final polish, and 10% trim, where I try to make the book read better.

    Goal is to turn that in July 1st. After that, it's into the hands of the copyeditors and proofreaders for several months.

    The book is looking really good, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. That's relieving because at the end of Oathbringer, I had real concerns about Book Four. By this point in the process of a series, I've often reworked the outlines so many times that the last books are in a messy state--but the outlining work I did whipped this one into shape, and also organized Book Five in a lot of exciting ways.

    Everything is looking great for the final book in this sequence 2023. Thanks as always for your patience. I'll drop by for another update in a few months or so to let you know how the novella went (if it got written) and how editing is progressing.

    General Reddit 2019 ()
    #2800 Copy

    HungryAntman

    Assuming I don’t add anything else, like a Mistborn cyberpunk between eras three and four

    I didn't know how much I needed this in my life until you mentioned it. Even if it was just a small one off. This would be peak awesome.

    Brandon Sanderson

    We'll have to see. I would like to do something here, but it's going to depend on a lot of different factors.

    Stay_Beautiful_

    Even just a short story or novella to provide a little window into that era to bridge the gap before Era 4 would make me unbelievably happy

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm sure we will need something. A novella at the least makes sense.