Recent entries

kdt05b

Can Megan manifest a Cosmere reality? The Reckoners is not part of the Cosmere, but one of they main character's power is reaching into alternate dimensions. I want to see some epics on Roshar!

Brandon Sanderson

I wanted to avoid multi-verse theory type things in the Cosmere, in part because the Wheel of Time delved into these concepts, and even before working on the WoT was looking for ways to keep the Cosmere distinctive from it.

Beyond that, multiverses (along with time travel) really play havoc with continuity. I felt the cosmere was stronger if I kept to the three Realms--that's complex enough. Assume that in the cosmere, while different possible futures/pasts do branch (and can be seen) things like Allomantic gold are NOT looking at other realities--and there is only one reality, once events actually occur.

This does mean that time travel into the past is not going to be a factor in the cosmere.

This separation does let me divide these concepts off and play with them in other realms (like the Reckoners) where they're 'quarantined' so to speak.

Kyrroti

If I were burning iron, where would the line point to on a steel hula-hoop?

Brandon Sanderson

For something like that, it would depend on the Steelpusher's power. For some, it would just be pointing generally toward the center of the hoop--but for skilled Steelpushers, they'd be able to see softer lines pointing in all directions around the hoop.

Kyrroti

What's your process for writing Rosharan Myths such as Fleet's race? They are always my favorite parts of the Stormlight novels.

Brandon Sanderson

I love folklore, and spend a lot of time looking into the folk myths and stories for various cultures. I try to make the various myths, particularly those shared by Wit, have a different "Voice" from my normal narrative voice, as I want them to feel like legitimate ephemera from the world.

mbue

Do people on Threnody get really old or something? I can't work out the timeline of the events leading up to Shadows for Silence. She says her grandparents were among the first to reach the Forests of Hell, but also that the waystop has been safe for over a hundred years. Given Silence's age, her grandparents couldn't really have founded the waystop over a hundred years ago if life expectancy on Threnody is similar to other planets.

Brandon Sanderson

I'd have to look at the timeline myself. That might just be me not looking at continuity closely. I wasn't trying to imply people living very long.

FireyWoodedHill

Is Shardplate made of the same material as Shardblades? Is there a difference in material between a "dead" Shardblade and a living one?

Brandon Sanderson

You can generally look at all three as being the same material.

valmeister

Though question on Skyward, you recently said it was going to be 4 books instead of 3, and also said you have sent the second novel to your editor. Also you said next you will be doing Stormlight Archive 4. Do you think you will hop back in to Skyward after, or will it be much later? I just normally hate starting series that are underway, and Skyward sounds like a refreshing change of pace, so curious roughly how long the wait to see the end would be.

Brandon Sanderson

My hope is to keep the Skyward books at one a year. Their shorter nature, and the extensive outlines I've done, should let me hop over to keep myself fresh while working on Stormlight.

If there's a break, it will be 2020 when Stormlight four (hopefully) will come out. But as I already have 2018 and 2019's books done, I'm confident that at the very least, we'll have Skyward 3 and 4 in 2020 and 2021.

Questioner

Is Spensa mechanically savvy enough to repair the starfighter alone?

Brandon Sanderson

Nope, she's not. That's going to prove some problems for her...

Questioner

Where were you when you looked up at the sky and were just amazed?

Brandon Sanderson

Every time I fly in an airplane! I was traveling a lot when writing this book, and I think that must have had an influence.

Questioner

Are Spensa's purple eyes important?

Brandon Sanderson

Only in that it's distinctive. I chose purple for her as a theme and the artist ran with that.

Questioner

Was there a scene that you had in your head from the beginning?

Brandon Sanderson

There were two. One is where Spensa sees the ship for the first time - you can read that in the excerpt. The other is a spoiler!

Questioner

Do we get more Captain Cobb background?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, we do. Quite a bit!

Questioner

What is your favorite thing about writing new characters?

Brandon Sanderson

I love seeing the world through the eyes of a new character, particularly when they describe something common in a very different way.

Questioner

Is Skyward going to be part of the cosmere at all?

Brandon Sanderson

It is unrelated to the cosmere - since Earth is part of its history, and because certain elements of space travel are done differently.

Questioner

What is your process?

Brandon Sanderson

I am a slow and steady writer, not a particularly fast one. I write a little each day, with a goal of around 2000 words.

Peter Ahlstrom

The original character from Final Empire Prime that the Lord Ruler was based on was a man who was haunted by grief over the suicide of his love a thousand before (or was it just hundreds?). I don't know if Rashek ever had any kind of love life, though.

Arabas

The question is about the Lord Ruler's death.  He is basically killed because Vin was able to remove his Feruchemy storage bracelets thus depriving him of his stored youth and strength correct?  Once he didn't have access to these she could simply kill him like a normal man.Now on page 627 about the 3rd paragraph down the Lord Ruler states " I've survived burning and beheadings.  I've been stabbed and sliced, crushed and dismembered." (I also think this is also reference somewhere else in the book that I could not locate)If all it took to drain the Lord Ruler of his power was to remove access to his Feruchemy items wouldn't he have died if he was dismembered?  Remove the storage devices from the trunk of the body and he would die?

Peter Ahlstrom

I asked Brandon about this once, and I'm pretty sure he said the beheading survival part was a lie/exaggeration. I'd have to go back and check my notes.

The Lord Ruler would have reason to want people to believe he had survived beheadings and being burned to ash.

MsFish

I am glad Dragonsteel will not be on the front of the book, because Tage tells me there aren't really any dragons. If I picked up a book called Dragonsteel and then realized there weren't really any dragons (in the classical sense) I would feel extremely cheated and never read it just because of my anger.

Peter Ahlstrom

There was one dragon in the original book, of whom Brandon added more appearances in the later drafts. He was almost completely exciseable from the plot of that book (at least, in a simple, non-spoiler explanation), though he was clearly important to the universe as a whole and the series' overall arc.

Peter Ahlstrom

Okay, just for my amusement, here's an analysis of your books so far (the ones I have):

White Sand I 1.0 - 0.49 pptt (pause per ten thousand words)

Star's End 1.0 - 0.34 pptt

Lord Mastrel 1.0 - 0.83 pptt

Knight Life 3.0 - 0.40 pptt

The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora 1.0 - 1.48 pptt

Elantris 6.0 - 3.51 ppttElantris 8.6 - 4.16 pptt

Dragonsteel 7.0 - 5.70 pptt

White Sand II 2.7 - 6.11 pptt

Mythwalker 0.6 - 10.2 pptt

Mistborn Prime 4.0 - 9.63 pptt

Aether of Night 3.0 - 11.99 pptt

Final Empire Prime 1.0 - 9.65 pptt

Way of Kings 2.1 - 8.1 pptt

Mistborn Final Empire 2.0 - 10.97 pptt

Mistborn Final Empire 3.1 - 11.56 pptt

Mistborn Well of Ascension 3.0 - 13.25 pptt

Alcatraz Initiated 4.0 - 8.71 pptt

Mistborn Hero of Ages 3.0 - 9.68 pptt

Warbreaker Parts 1-2 1.2/1.0 - 11.5 pptt

Star's End and Knight Life only have 3 pauses each! Anyway, there's an upward trend, and then it more or less levels off. :) It took reading the book out loud for me to notice it. I have no idea how this compares with other writers. Well, the book I just rewrote has 2.47 pptt.Make of that what you will.

Mason Wheeler

I was re-reading the original Mistborn trilogy, and I was struck by how devoutly Demoux believes in the divine nature of Kelsier.  And I just had to wonder, what must it have been like for him when he later became a Worldhopper and got a peek behind the curtain?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's a very interesting aspect of his character, for specifically that reason, and I am going to write about it and explore it more deeply at a later point.

Questioner

What's the most RAFOd question that you're asked?

Brandon Sanderson

These days, it's about probably the sphere that Gavilar gave Szeth. That's probably the most commonly RAFOd one. But I'm not 100% sure. No, no, it's names of Shards that I haven't named yet. That's gotta be it.

Questioner

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Technically, Marsh shows up onscreen. I guess he's not technically... I guess you would have to argue whether or not he counts.

OrangeJedi

Will you ever consider writing more in the Legion world?

Brandon Sanderson

So, if I do any more Legion, they will be television scripts or audio originals. This is it for the books. But it's a springboard.

Questioner

Back closer to the release of Rithmatist, you were talking about it being two to three books. Is it pretty much two books now?

Brandon Sanderson

It's still three books in the outline. But if I can make that second book have a satisfying ending, so that it doesn't have a cliffhanger like the first one, I will be very much more happy. Even though the outline's still for three books. But, I just have to... getting Legion cleared off my list is a big step forward. Getting Alcatraz off my list would be another big step forward. Rithmatist is the most popular of those three. But it's also the one that I had the most trouble getting the sequel done with. But things are looking better and better as I clear other things off my list.

Shadow Guardian

If you had to pick three topics to learn and you have an aspect like Stephen?

Brandon Sanderson

Great question. I would love to have an interpreter with me who can interpret all languages. Maybe... because there's no one aspect who does all of that. It might be too big of an aspect. But I would love to be able to go on tour and be able to do that. So that would be definitely number one. Probably a writer, to look over my shoulder and improve my books. Speed up the editing process, and things like that. And then I would pick something probably like physics or chemistry. Something I know a little bit about, enough to know that I really don't know what I'm doing. Because I have to rely sometimes on Peter and people on physics questions and things like that, and it would be nice to just have it.

Questioner

Do you have [Stormlight] Four and Five <plotted out> already?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, but the outlines are such a mess. I mean, you could do it, you could take those outlines. But by February, they'll be in really good shape. Because now at this point, what's happened is, as I've written the books, I've moved things. And so, the outlines got to be bigger and bigger messes as I moved things around. But after I outline Four, Five by nature kind of reorganizes itself, because all the pieces that get left over, I have to make sure fit before I can write Four. So our outline should be in really good shape come February. Right now, they're a mess.

Questioner

Does it get harder, or does it get easier, to write the Stormlight Archive books?

Brandon Sanderson

Stormlight Archives get progressively harder. The more to keep track of, the more difficult. Each one's been a little harder than the one before.

Questioner

Is the concept of the King's Wit inspired by Shakespear's Twelfth Night?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a lot of Shakespear's fools. But the fool in Twelfth Night, and the fool (for a different reason) in King Lear, both are inspirations. And I think you would find that as a blanket truth for a lot of us writers. I haven't asked Robin Hobb this, but I'm willing to bet that there's some Shakespear's fool characters in that. Twelfth Night is my favorite of his fools. In fact, in the very first versions that I wrote of him, he was way more jester-like than he ended up being in the published version of the Cosmere. But if anyone reads Dragonsteel, the one at BYU, he'll feel even more like a jester.

Questioner

Would you have someone do what you did for Robert Jordan?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I would be one of the biggest hypocrites in the universe if I didn't, I think. And earlier in my career, I said the books just weren't... there hadn't been enough of them. But I'm getting to the point where I think that they could be. There's still so many to write. But I would at least have someone finish four and five of Stormlight if I got hit by a car, and four of the Wax and Wayne books. Whether it would be reasonable to have someone finish the entire Cosmere, I don't know. But at least the ones I haven't finished of main sequences, yes.

Kyrroti

Have we seen Adolin at his prime yet, at his best?

Brandon Sanderson

I would guess... that depends on your point of view.

Questioner

Do you think you'd have more creativity with ironpulling?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you do. I really want to do something with ironpulling as a main character to show all the creativity, and stuff. But, I just feel like it'd be easier. There's so much metal around, bouncing off of stuff would be so much fun.

Questioner

How do you decide what perspective you put it in? First person, third person?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of it depends on the number of viewpoints I'm gonna have for a book. It's a pretty easy thing, but if I'm gonna have one viewpoint, I'll put it almost always in first. Not always, but almost always, because I can use the tools. Genre influences it also. First person's more prevalent in YA than it is in adult. And kind of, like, what tone do I want for it? Like, the first person book I'll do in the Cosmere, I probably won't do one until I do Hoid's book. Because he's the storyteller telling you the story. And the other ones, I want to be trustworthy, like the narration of which, even if a specific viewpoint is untrustworthy, the narration is trustworthy.

Questioner

The natural sarcasm in Wit, is that just purely natural? Or do you have inspiration for all of those sarcastic comments?

Brandon Sanderson

I often, if I have to write a lot of the character, will look for a similar humor style, and see if I can channel it. If I'm writing Wit, for instance, I'll go to somebody more biting. Some modern comedians, or occasionally Oscar Wilde. If I'm writing Shallan, I'll try to look for something softer and more wordplay-ish, like Jane Austen. And just kind of read a bunch of it, and try to get the feel. It just depends. If I'm writing Lopen, I will try to look for the kind of uplifting humor, self-effacing style. Like, I just kind of have a different style for each type, and I try to find a person or writing in the real world that has that type of humor and try to use it.

Questioner

In Secret History, Fuzz mentions having buried something. That's the atium, right?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Questioner

So, I was just thinking, if it's something of greater import, I'll just leave it to that it's not the atium. But it's something else, I think. But, I was just thinking, if he wanted to hide something, he could build a planet around it? Because he built a planet. I'm guessing, if I asked a question about that...

Brandon Sanderson

You would get RAFOd. Excellent question.

Questioner

Do you think when the Alcatraz series is done, you can make a short story where they have a Smedry family reunion?

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh, what a great idea. I'll have to think about that. I like that idea a lot. If I write it, you can take credit for it, if I forget to credit you.

Questioner

What is your favorite kind of Lens?

Brandon Sanderson

I would like to be able to speak all languages. So the Lens of Rashid, I would say, because that would be really cool.

Questioner

I was wondering, where did you get the idea for <crystals>?

Brandon Sanderson

It came from the crystal sword, and just grew out of that. Most of the things in the Alcatraz books, I start with an idea, and then I grow it outward. Which is the reverse process of how I normally write books, where it's where I outline and then build according to the outline. The Alcatraz books are me practicing the other style of writing, which we call discovery writing. Because I think writers need to know how to do both.

Questioner

If his name wasn't Stephen Leeds, what would it be? Did you have an alternate name?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I didn't have an alternate name. If I were naming it now, I would think of something that works really well as a one-word title, because Legion is just too fraught with too many other different properties. And the name Leeds works okay, but not great. It's not as good, and so I would need a name like that, that works as a last name, but also works as a title. Like, when they did Castle. That works really well as both a title and as a name. And so it needs something along those lines. Monk was another good one. Like, this genre tends to do that. And so I wasn't thinking of Leeds. I was thinking of Leeds as a small internal pun, because he's the middle management of his own brain. But I don't think it works as well as its own in a  title. So it would still probably be Stephen, but I would find another word there.

Ankylosaurian

I wondered how silver would differ from aluminum when it comes to interacting with Shades?

Brandon Sanderson

That one's a RAFO for now.

Brandon Sanderson

And finally, media properties.

1. Mistborn: Birthright. (Video Game for consoles and maybe PC, cross platform.) We’re looking at 2015 for this right now. (Sorry.) The new console generation made us push it back. I’m still planning to write it, and development is still moving. It’s far from dead.
2. Mistborn film. Option runs out in January. I’ve had a very good experience with the producers, but so far, we do not have funding for the film. We’ll have to see where we are in another six months.
3. Legion television show. Lionsgate still has this under option!
4. Steelheart Film. I had lunch with the producer at Comic-Con. It’s still early in the process, but they’re very engaged and very excited.

Brandon Sanderson

As for non-sequel, original projects, here’s what might be coming in the future, as they stand now.

1. “Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell.” Cosmere novella set on a new world. Find it in GRRM and Gardner Dozois’s anthology called Dangerous Women, which I believe is coming out Christmastime. Read an excerpt on Tor.com.
2. “Sixth of the Dusk.” Cosmere novella set on a new world. Written following a Writing Excuses brainstorm. Still needs a revision, but should be released later this year.
3. The Silence Divine. Standalone Cosmere Novel. Modestly far off, but maybe not too far. I don’t want to be stuck writing only sequels. Though, since I did release two new books this year (Rithmatist and Steelheart) in new worlds, starting new series, I will probably wait on this one until those series are done.
4. The Liar of Partinel. Cosmere Novel, set on the original planet of Yolen and dealing with Hoid’s origin story. Very far off right now.
5. Skyward. (Working title.) Young Adult cosmere novel. In the early stages of development. Probably a few years off.
6. Dark One. Non-cosmere YA novel. Still haven’t been able to get this one off the ground. I had a chance, but The Rithmatist worked better, and I wrote that instead. Don’t hold your breath on this one, though someday I might post the sample chapters that I wrote a few years back.
7. Death By Pizza. (Urban Fantasy.) This book was fun, but not remotely good enough to publish. We’ll see if I ever get the bug to go back and fix it.
8. White Sand. Cosmere trilogy. Some fun things are happening here, but I can’t really talk about them right now.

Brandon Sanderson

What does this mean for future projects? Well, let me go down the list of sequels in order of current urgency.

1. Rithmatist Sequel. I will hop on writing the next one very soon.
2. Shadows of Self. (The next Wax and Wayne Mistborn novel.) I’ve finished some sample chapters of this and have a fairly solid outline. Expect to see me writing on this sometime early next year.
3. Book Three of Stormlight. I don’t want to let this series languish with three year gaps between books, as I was forced to do between books one and two. Because of this, I’ll try to be doing them at 18 month or 24 month intervals at the most. Do note that the books, at around a thousand pages each, are HUGE undertakings. The way I write, I have to space out projects like this. They’ll be regular, I promise, but part of the reason I’m so productive is because I allow myself freedom to work on different projects, instead of being beholden to one series.
4. Calamity (Book Three of Steelheart.) This will be the final of that trilogy.
5. Elantris Sequel. (This is getting close. Should be doing this in the relatively near future.)
6. Legion Sequel. I have sample chapters of this done, but as it’s a side project, it can’t command prime writing time. I will probably slip it in between some of the books above somewhere, but I can’t promise when.
7. Final Rithmatist book. (I’m not 100% sure this will be a trilogy. It might just be two books.)
8. Nightblood. (Warbreaker sequel.) This one is still fairly far off.
9. Alcatraz 5. Still planning to write this. We have to find a home for the series, however, as I bought the rights back to it from Scholastic earlier this year. Within the next couple of months, my US readers will be able to buy my British publisher’s omnibus edition of the first four books.

Brandon Sanderson

During July, I took time off from major projects to have a breather. If you aren’t aware, I prefer to do smaller projects between big epics as a means of helping me stay fresh. This month’s “breather” stories include a novelette (9k words) piece set in the Steelheart world, which should be published as an e-original around Christmastime. I also did some work in the Infinity Blade world. (More on that later. If you aren’t aware, this is a video game that friends of mine make. I’ve enjoyed being involved to practice my video-game writing chops, with an eye toward doing Mistborn video game writing.)

My next major writing project will be the sequel to Steelheart, which is called Firefight. (And if you haven’t seen the trailer, Prologue, or teaser chapters for Steelheart, please go give them a look! We’re hoping for big things from this novel.) As you might be aware, I will often be preparing for/writing one piece while I do revisions on another. I generally can only do new prose on one piece at a time, but I like to be revising and writing on two different things at once. So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be writing Firefight and revising Words of Radiance.

Brandon Sanderson

First off, of course, is Words of Radiance. If you weren’t watching, I finished the rough draft of this book (the second book of the Stormlight Archive, and sequel to The Way of Kings) late June. I sent it off to my agent and editor for commentary and advice. I got back my editor’s notes last week, my agent’s notes today, and Peter just finished assembling everything together and doing a tight, continuity-focused copyedit of the entire manuscript. At 360k words, it’s roughly the length of A Memory of Light.

Obviously, there’s a lot left to do here. Tor keeps talking about January as a publication month, and I’d like to meet that, if at all possible. That’s going to require me to do several drafts of the novel over the next two months. More updates as we progress, but I’m pleased with the book. It has only a few large flaws, and I think they can be fixed fairly quickly.

Genesis

Can someone using a medallion store Feruchemical traits in a separate metalmind (e.g. not the medallion itself)?

Can Inquisitors store Feruchemical traits in separate metalminds (excluding their spikes)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and yes.

Joe ST

is Idashwy really [pronounced] 'I dash wee!"?

Peter Ahlstrom

yes...

Straw

What are the Deepest Ones? ...The quote is "God Beyond protect them if the fighting had drawn one of the Deepest Ones" from Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell.

Brandon Sanderson

You will find out if I ever write the next book... the next book set on Threnody.

OverlordJebus

Where is Hoid's Cryptic during Era 2? Did he have to leave it behind?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO

Mestiv

What do you think about Arcanum (the website)?

Brandon Sanderson

Very cool! I am happy to see this sort of thing happening, and different directions going, it can be a little intimidating.

Mestiv

Cosmere is a dwarf galaxy. Does Investiture exist in other galaxies? Do those galaxies have their own Adonalsiums?

Brandon Sanderson

That is beyond the scope... that's a RAFO, but not a RAFO I'm going to answer, that is a RAFO that we are concerned only with the cosmere.

Extesian

Can you give away a Divine Breath to another human? If so would they have the same powers as a Returned or would they just 'store' it like an inanimate object that Breath is stored in when not Awakened? Does a human require a 'crack' in their spirit web to receive a divine Breath?

Brandon Sanderson

So, a Divine Breath-- you're kind of going along the wrong direction on that line of reasoning. Divine Breaths cannot be transferred. When they are used they immediately become kinetic Investiture and are activated. This manifests normally as healing the person, both body, mind, and soul, but you can't give it up, transfer it in the same way you can regular Breaths.