Recent entries

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    ElephantEarwax

    Would tapping Feruchemical speed cause you to burn metals faster as your whole body speeds up?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. I think it probably would. I don't know if we've gotten to that interaction yet, but it probably would. Good question. If it's speeding up... Yeah, I think it would. Good question. If you're in a speed bubble and doing it, it's totally going to do it, and there's some analogies there.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    This is a line in Way of Kings where it kind of sounds like my homeboy Nephi. Was that on purpose?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm not sure if that one's on purpose. You'd have to tell me which quote it is.

    Questioner

    Taravangian who's like "better for one man to sin than a whole nation perish?"

    Brandon Sanderson

    That is probably unintentional. I don't know if that was intentional or not.

    Questioner

    Are there intentional ones in there?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. The Nohadon Way of Kings is directly influenced by king Benjamin's speech and Mosiah. That one is intentional. Most others will probably be unintentional though, of course, what I read a lot and what is important to me ends up in the books one way or another.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Do you plan on writing Stormlight Archive where you have to be Cosmere aware?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I intend Stormlight to always be its own story. The Cosmere will start influencing a little more here and there, but I never intend you to have to know anything about the Cosmere. Who knows how I'll be at the later books if I'll change my mind, but I intend it to be no more than it's really been now.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Hemalurgy. If I stab someone with an icicle but it had iron traces in it, would that still work?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That iron would not hold much of a charge, so it's probably not going to work. You're probably just not going to be able to get enough iron there to really charge it.

    But it's plausible that you could make it work. Like, you could get enough iron in there theoretically. I'm going to say most of the time, no. Plus, the structure of it's going to disintegrate so fast that you're just not going to be able to make any use of it.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    In the Cosmere, are we going to get any more worlds or is like what we have enough?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No. If I can get myself to do it, I have some other worlds that we'll show. They'll be short story stuff though. They are not major players in the actual Cosmere other than Yolen which you haven't seen yet but that's where Hoid's from and that's where the Shattering happened. That's a major one but yeah.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    If you had to guess, which gender would be Doomslug?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Spensa thinks Doomslug's a she, and so I would go with that.

    Questioner

    The way she looks kind of looks like a boy but the way she talks kind of just sounds like a girl so it gets confusing.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Telling gender on the slugs is not terribly easy.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    What was your inspiration for making Doomslug? It's a very fun character.

    Brandon Sanderson

    You know, it was basically me wanting to have a pet sea slug and it just not being something you can do in real life. And I knew I wanted a creature that had some import to the worldbuilding and I settled on something that I thought would look cute.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    TearablePuns

    How do Lashings affect fluids like water or air?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Hard to Lash a fluid. It works poorly. How about that?

    You can make it work best with the Reverse Lashing which would make sense I assume, but you can't Full Lash onto air or really a liquid. And a Gravitational Lashing, you could maybe do it on a liquid but it would disrupt real fast.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    aneonfoxtribute

    Have many magic systems does Sel have?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It depends on how you define it. I would say over a dozen if you're dividing AonDor versus Forging as different magic systems. They have over a dozen. It depends on what you kind of circumscribe in the same style of magic system with just different ways to access it. It just depends on your definition.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    I'm sensing a subtle metaphor between all of the Radiants, where it seems like their lives have caused them to be pressurized gems and now they get the cut from their Oaths. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Nice job. Yeah.

    Questioner

    They're holding Stormlight better when they do that, right?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They are indeed.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner 1

    My friend and I always argue. He's like, "Amaram and Jasnah are the same age." Are they really?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Amaram is a little older, I believe, but they are around the same age.

    Questioner 2

    Like 24ish?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh, no. Jasnah's like in her mid to late thirties. Mid thirties. I get it mixed up which one's Earth age and which one's Rosharan age. Whatever I say in there, it's about 10 percent more for our age. But yeah, Jasnah's not...

    Questioner 2

    She's not a spring chicken.

    Brandon Sanderson

    She's not a spring chicken. 

    Questioner 2

    But Amaram's older?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. I think Amaram's like a year or two older, but they're around the same age.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    I was just going to ask if we're going to hear any more from First of the Sun.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I actually started writing a sequel story but it gives a lot away about Era 4 of Mistborn. I'm like, "I don't know if I can do this."

    Questioner

    So we'll just wait a little bit.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. We'll see if Peter thinks I'm giving away too many things. Like I don't want to give away endings of like the Stormlight Archive in the short story and so I have to be careful about those things.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    If Nightblood was to attack one [a Shard] and decided it was evil, could he destroy enough of that Shard to seriously weaken it compared to other Shards or not really?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I mean it would be such a drop in the bucket. To actually weaken the Shard. Like, there is so much out there. This would be hard to do. I won't completely nix it, but let's just say there's a lot that Nightblood would have to...

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    A while back I asked about, have you developed your equivalency system for Breath to... 

    Brandon Sanderson

    No. We're still working on that. I actually have some people. I just got some physicists and mathematicians and said, "I'm gonna have you guys do this, and then you'll keep me honest." That's where we are right now.

    And they're like, "It is such a big job." And I'm like, "I know. That's why I'm paying you to do this, so that I don't have to do it. So do your best, it's okay."

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    What was the name of a Shard that you choose not to use? Like the Shardic intent you decided not to use?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I can't confirm those because I still might use them. Mostly, the things I've discarded are names that are too simple, or too on the nose. 

    Maybe I'm not not... People are like "oh they're just synonyms, hatred and odium are synonyms" but I see more nuance to Odium. So like it feels more deep. 

    Questioner

    Yeah. If it's got a different history as a word.

    Brandon Sanderson

    But I haven't 100 percent eliminated any of them. Like, some of them are similar enough that at the end of the day, I might be like "you know what, this is better as this name instead of this name" and that would change the intents.

    Questioner

    So you have...

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have a list of all 16 but I haven't settled on the actual name for each of them.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh! I decided not to do the Shard Levity. I did move away from that completely.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Your languages in Stormlight, do you have a way you do names and such?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Usually there's two different ways that I approach it. If I'm going to spend a lot of time in the linguistics, I'll look for linguistic themes like in Stormlight it's names that are symmetrical or things like that. If I need to shortcut, I'm going to look for an Earth culture and I'm going to use the language kind of based on more themes from that culture and the sounds they have and try to replicate that but not using the actual words from that culture.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Are you still planning on Death by Pizza after...

    Brandon Sanderson

    So Death by Pizza is now called Death without Pizza. It's actually called Songs of the Dead. I've been working on that with Peter Orullian who's a singer in a metal band. Some parts of it are really working, some parts aren't, so we're doing another draft. Basically, I did the outline and the world, he's writing the book. The first revision, there were some things that needed to be done in the first draft. So, we'll see how it goes. It's an experiment for both of us. Neither of us have co-written a book before.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Was Adolin and Shallan always the endgame, or did you ever shift to Kaladin?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I did shift, back and forth. So, what I do with a lot of my relationships is, I don't usually plan them out. A lot of characterization, I have to leave the characters kind of their own volition. So I write my way into relationships and I write my way into the character elements. I plot my world, my setting, and my plot out ahead of time but I let the characters go where they're going to go. I know some people would rather she made a different decision, but that is the decision that felt right to me going forward.

    I've just validated all the Shallarin people on the internet saying, "Aw, he changed his mind!"

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Is "Trell" Odium?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That's a RAFO. I'm sorry. The cheeky thing for me to respond would be, "Which Trell," but the answer is just it's a RAFO.

    Questioner

    Which Trell, huh?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. The name Trell has shown up multiple times in the Cosmere.  But the Trell specifically you're asking about is the one who is invading Scadrial during the second Era.

    Questioner

    Is that the same one in Era 1?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So that's a RAFO also but there's also a Trell mentioned on Taldain so the name has shown up multiple times.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    If you take a coppermind that has stores and you take a zincmind that has stores and you melt them together to form brass, what happens?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's mostly going to destroy your ability to recover any of it, unfortunately. 

    Questioner

    Are you going to be able to store any more?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You're probably going to end up, if it was already full, with it being full but you not being able to access it. So it would not be very handy to do. Not be very useful for you.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Are all the planets on the same timeline? Is the time the same on all of them? Like a thousand years on Roshar is a thousand years on Scadrial?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They aren't. The years on Roshar are longer. They're different. So the way they count them is different. Basically, if you took a clock that was set, the time would pass at the same speed on most of them, but the time that it is a year on different ones are different.

    Questioner

    I was just curious if like Anno Domini was the same for all of them like year 1 is year 1 on...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Nope. They are not. The calendars are all different. And Roshar for instance, if I say someone is 20 in the Stormlight books, they'd be 22 in Earth years and Scadrial uses a very-close-to-Earth year so they'd be 22 in Scadrian years. I keep them mostly very similar just for the reasons of trying not to be super confusing. 

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Does gender play a role in how a spren chooses a Radiant?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It does but it is not a strict... It's just spren are going to have preferences like people have preferences and that does play into it but there's not really any sort of strict...

    If you want to know narratively, behind the scenes, it tends to work to pair opposite genders together, because it just makes for better conversations and things like that. And it makes the cast fill out a little bit better with a little more variety. So that's why you see the writer side of me doing it, but in-world my kind of explanation is they have preferences.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    I have a question about Shadesmar. What inspired the beads where everything in the actual reality is a bead in Shadesmar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    If I were being truthful, it probably goes all the way back to a Michael Whelan painting I saw when I was a teenager. But at the end of the day, I thought it was a really interesting image and a good reflection. I want things to reflect the real world—the Physical Realm—but in a different sort of way. So I like the kind of crystalline nature of it and things like that.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Is "Doomslug" Doomslug's real name?

    Brandon Sanderson

    "Doomslug" is not Doomslug's real name but Doomslug will accept that name from Spensa. Doomslug would have a name in Doomslug language.

    Questioner

    Are you going to try and pronounce that for us?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    In your underground lair, will you have a secret room that has another secret?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *Laughs* We should. We will have a secret door so we should have a secret door that has a secret in it. Good suggestion. If we do that, then you can say you inspired it.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Arlin

    You have a Twinborn. It doesn't matter what Allomancer he'd be. The aluminum Ferring. They've stored up a lot of aluminum before all this happens. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, aluminum was really hard to come by.

    Arlin

    I know. Theoretically, and they've filled it up and then they become a savant.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Hard to do without being a [Compounder].

    Arlin

    I'm saying Twinborn in the other metal they become a savant. Then they tapped the aluminum.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. I could see that having some very weird effects.

    Arlin

    Basically my thought is, is it a toggle switch?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So I'm going to RAFO that for now. You're theorizing around really cool lines, but I'm not going to answer it yet because I have plans for what I'm going to want to do and I don't want reveal it yet.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    I was reading Starsight and then I remembered you wrote the novelette Defending Elysium a while ago.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I did.

    Questioner

    So when you wrote that, were you expecting to make a series based off it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I had plans for where it would go with the series. It did not involve Spensa in them. It involved some of the evolutions that ended up in this book. Particularly early in my career, everything I wrote, I planned, if it was the thing that took off, where I would go with it if I were doing sequels. So I had a whole bunch of ideas but it's been 15, almost 20 years since I wrote that. So when I sat down to do Starsight, there were something that were from those original plans and some things that weren't.

    Questioner

    With Jason, he was blind and stuff?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah.

    Questioner

    Is Spensa going to develop those powers?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So what I've been kind of doing is, I'm kind of taking a lot of the different powers that Jason had and I'm kind of moving them into specialties that different people could have. So you could theorize that someone could learn them all but more likely you're going to see people specializing.

    Questioner

    So, like her grandmother has like the sensing power.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Mhm. Just read the new book and see what happens there.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    You describe the mistcloak as being a hundred tassels from the shoulder down and yet there are pockets.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah.  You could put a pockets right up in there and plus different people have different designs on their mistcloaks. It's not modern era. They're not mass produced. You go and you get yours made how you want it to be. A lot of people put there's down here when they're actually making them and trying them on. They find it works better.

    Footnote: Mistcloaks are traditionally dozens of thick ribbons rather than a hundred small ones.
    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    So on the cover for Alloy of Law, is it Wayne standing next to Wax?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes and Wayne has a gun. So, we saw that. We didn't think it was worth changing. We recognize that that's the way it is but it's mostly just because the covers aren't meant to be an illustration of the book; they're meant to be evoking the feeling of the book and we liked the feeling of the book. We didn't want to have to go back to do reshoots because that's an actually photography shoot. All of those books, he has actors dress up and do the shoots and then Photoshops it.

    It wasn't bad enough to make us say, "Ooh you have to go reshoot this whole thing." But Wayne has just not realized he's holding a gun yet and dropped it. Someone handed it to him and he's like, "What? Oh!" but they got the shot right before.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    What if you had a Twinborn who had atium for both and he burned atium that was stored?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, I'll RAFO that. I believe I've RAFO'd that in the past so I'll RAFO it again. 

    Footnote: It was revealed in Era 1 that Feruchemical atium stores youth. Compounding atium was what gave The Lord Ruler his longevity.
    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    What philosophies do you feel like inspired you the most? Philosophies, or mysticisms, religions?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I like a lot of different things. You'll see a lot of things in Way of Kings of Pantheism. You see all the old Greek dudes. You'll see some Cartesian stuff. It's kind of everything. You'll see a lot of Shinto. Yeah, probably the most has been Shinto or actually more of the kind of Buddhist and Jainism sort of idea. 

    Questioner

    You know, Taravangian I feel like is embodiment of compassion versus seeing the world for what it really is. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. Right. And then there's the whole Utilitarianism versus altruism and I just find all of that stuff fascinating. I don't know if there's any one. Shinto, that idea of animism, the idea of everything having a soul, is probably... Yeah.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Do you have the endings of all of your books already pre-planned or does that kind of evolve as you go along?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have the ending of Stormlight 10. I have the ending of the Mistborn series. But I don't have all the endings of all books.

    The main core line of the Cosmere, I do have, but those are subject to change as I go. I don't necessarily have the ending of the Threnody book. Like, that I would have to outline and sit down.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    Phenax, which Shard do you think he is most like?

    Brandon Sanderson

    God of Deception. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I'm not 100% sure. It might be one I haven't revealed yet which...

    Questioner

    Obviously that's the whole RAFO deal.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. Phenax is an interesting character in the lore. I like all of their gods of the underworld that they do.

    Starsight Release Party ()
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    Questioner

    So the Parshendi Rhythms. They talk a lot about them as like music. So do you imagine them as rhythms where they talk like this or is their a melodic quality to it? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    That is what they're doing. There's not very much melodic quality to it. They set songs to the Rhythms. The way I have it in the books, in my mind, and the canon, is there is Connection between them and the songs of Roshar. That they can pick up a Rhythm when there's actually not enough of it, even in a sentence, because of the intent of the Rhythm and what the other person's hearing. So they can hear a Rhythm even if it's only a couple words being said, that you couldn't learn, if you were just a human listening. No matter how good you were. Some you wouldn't be able to pick up because there is not enough information there. 

    Questioner

    So they're just like kind of complex rhythmic things that you could write out musically.

    Brandon Sanderson

    You could. You definitely could write them out.