Miscellaneous 2024

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Name Miscellaneous 2024
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Date Jan. 1, 2024
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#2 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

I wonder sometimes if I should do a full-on rewrite of Alloy. It would also be my vote for weakest Cosmere novel. (I think it's probably my weakest novel overall.) The big problem came from it being a short story, that became a novella, that became a fun little novel not meant to do any heavy lifting. But the series went from there to get some of my strongest books, as I fell in love with world and characters, and became a full-blown era rather than a pit stop between tow large eras.

So you have something weaker, meant as a kind of "Secret History" novella, to a load-bearing pillar of the Mistborn series. And it's the place where already (coming off the main trilogy) where people were the most likely to abandon Mistborn as a larger mega-series. So I have my weakest cosmere book in a pivotal place in the sequence.

The solution could be to just take it and give it a ground-up rewrite with more depth of characterization and narrative rigor. But then, we have the problem of their being two significantly different versions of a book, which causes other logistical problems.

#3 Copy

catprat

[From Dan Wells' section of State of the Sanderson]

"A very cool [REDACTED] is planned for 2024."

Was this our secret project hint?

Peter Ahlstrom

No.

popegonzo

Have we learned what the redacted thing is at this point?

Peter Ahlstrom

No. But Dan is very much involved.

#4 Copy

Dan Wells

I have finished the frustratingly secret projects that I rudely refuse to tell you about, and am now working full steam on the Dark One novel. Plus a lot of detours into the worldbuilding of my Cosmere series, which really should wait until I'm done with Dark One but it's too exciting and I can't help myself :)

#5 Copy

Unnecessary_Eagle

So... is the original SotD going to be not entirely canon now? Because I would not be okay with that.

Peter Ahlstrom

almost entirely canon. Basically a couple details will be added to set up things later in the book.

#8 Copy

wingardiumlevi-no-sa

Dragonsteel Prime - is the released version much changed from the original?

Peter Ahlstrom

There was a tiny bit of typo fixing, but the biggest substantive change was probably fixing when a character name changed twice in a four-page interlude. This was pointed out by Kate Reading, haha.

#9 Copy

Ben McSweeney

Only the domestic chull has a smooth, shaved shell. The wild chull's shell naturally grows in clusters of fibonacci spirals like a Romanesco cauliflower, which provides both superior protection and fertile ground for rockbuds which the chull groom off of each other.

(your only canon clue to this is a single thumbnail sketch on one of Shallan's pages)

#10 Copy

Ben McSweeney

[The Pattern running sketch] was originally a joke doodle that was meant to be replaced, but Brandon had me keep it. They did make me lose the bit of silly poetry in there, because I was riffing on Gelett Burgess and the purple cow...

I've never seen a Cryptic running,And I hope to never see one,For if I saw a Cryptic running,I would dearly fear the reason.

#11 Copy

Dan Wells

What's Dan Writing? Today I am just finishing the post-formatting revisions for a cool secret project for Dragonsteel Nexus (the new name for the annual Dragonsteel convention). We still have some final proofing to do, but it is mostly out of my hands and with my amazing editor, Kristy Gilbert. Once that's done, I am back to my standard answer of "I'm working on the Dark One novel." That's what I say on every month, I know, but writing novels takes a long time.

#12 Copy

Polygon

When Brandon Sanderson began working with Brotherwise Games on the first adventure for The Stormlight Roleplaying Game, he considered how it could help him fix holes in the narrative of his bestselling fantasy series. He settled on a mystery from the first Stormlight Archive book, The Way of Kings, that will have big implications for the fifth book in the series, Wind and Truth, which will be released in December.

The Stormlight Archive is set on the planet Roshar, where 10 heroes known as Heralds spent millenia protecting humanity with the help of highly magical swords dubbed Honorblades. All of them abandoned their duties except Taln, the Herald of the Common Man. Despite Taln’s best efforts, the forces of the vengeful god Odium have returned. Taln was left maddened by his ordeal and soon after he first appears in the books, his Honorblade goes missing. Its whereabouts remain unknown.

“The adventure is answering that question,” Sanderson told Polygon. “What happened? Where did it go? What’s going on? And you get to be part of the story. We were looking for an adventure you could do that would intersect with the canon of the books in an interesting way, and allow you to fill in a hole yourself.”

The Kickstarter for the d20-based game goes live on Aug. 6 along with a beta preview of the rules and a first level adventure meant to walk players and game masters through the setting and core mechanics. The hardcover Stonewalkers Adventure, where players encounter Taln and learn what happened to his honorblade, will be released in 2025 along with the Stormlight Roleplaying Game Handbook and World Guide.

...

The PCs can meet major antagonists from the books, including the twisted Herald of Justice Nale and the traitorous General Meridas Amaram, and learn how the talking sword Nightblood first featured in Sanderson’s 2009 book Warbreaker wound up on Roshar.

#13 Copy

Dan Wells

Still plugging away on Dark One, though I've also been doing a lot of worldbuilding for my new Cosmere series. I want to dip into a bit of conlang (constructed language) for it--not at the level of Klingon or Quenya, but something fun and nerdy that we haven't really seen in the Cosmere before.

#15 Copy

Peter Ahlstrom

Tor gave us a page count. I estimated a word count and chapter count based on the number of illustrations and average number of words per chapter, which was 489k words and 160 chapters. Brandon brought it in at 491k and very close to 160 chapters, if not right on. When we put it into the book it actually was 1364 pages, but we managed to squeeze it to 1344 by moving some illustrations around and squeezing chapters that had only a small number of lines on their last page.

Brandon didn’t cut any interludes he had already written, but he didn’t write a few he had been considering putting in.

rogueOptimist

Are there any plans to present them in a future book or even outside the book as bonus content?

Peter Ahlstrom

Brandon would have to decide to write them. Right now he has other things to write.

#16 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Foreshadowing happens in three general ways for me. There are the obvious planned scenes, like the death rattles or the clues to what was happening with Elhokar in book one. Those are put in at the actual outlining process, when I'm planning my work to make sure that the flow is correct and the pieces fit together.

The second type of foreshadowing is during revisions, as I turn up or down the dial on certain elements depending on what alpha/beta figure out and when--whether they find it satisfying or not, whether they are confused. This can generally only be done for what is coming to fruition for the given book, so for multi-book foreshadowing, I have to rely on the first and final type.

That final type, like this post's line, is me writing along and realizing off-the-cuff there's a place to insert a nugget that will improve re-reads. This is probably the largest batch of foreshadowing pieces, and it's not hard to insert them if you know where you are going in the series. HOWEVER, the challenge to them is REMEMBERING they're there. Because I put them in off-the-cuff, I don't often track these well. That can be a problem because I could very well forget and put the same kind of foreshadowing in several places, to the point that people will be like, "Okay, we get it. Something is going to happen with the roof and Kaladin and his dad."

I think these are what lead to some problems for long series, as you do this often enough with these little inserts, and readers pick up and start to assume "Well, this has been mentioned so much, it's too obvious, so it can't happen." I've tried to watch that closely with the Stormlight Archive as I watched how it influenced the progress of the Wheel of Time. 

#17 Copy

NoFan2168

PLS PLS somone explain what brandon sanderson meant when he said these covers are dialouge with one another

Brandon Sanderson

It's nothing hugely profound; mostly that I asked Michael if he could make the last and first covers compliment one another, then pushed for that direction. The first is blue on red; the last red on blue. The first has Dalinar in armor pointing left, the last has Dalinar having abandoned his armor turning right. Highstorm in the first, Everstorm in the last. Dalinar in red, as a symbol of blood from his past in the left, Dalinar in blue as a symbol of his kingship on the right.

Another commenter said that they thought it wasn't Dalinar on the first book, though Michael did tell me once he imagined it was, and to this day he wishes he'd made the cloak blue instead of red, but I like the symbolism this implies, even if it wasn't intentional on the first cover, the "dialogue" with it on the last cover is to provide deliberate contrast. 

#18 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

I have a fun story here. Early in my career, someone optioned the rights to make one of my stories (the Emperor's Soul) into a film. I was ecstatic, as it's not a story that at the time had gotten a lot of attention from Hollywood. I met with the writer, who had a good pedigree, and who seemed extremely excited about the project; turned out, he'd been the one to persuade the production company to go for the option. All seemed really promising.

A year or so later, I read his script and it was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. The character names were, largely, the same, though nothing that happened to them was remotely similar to the story. Emperor's Soul is a small-scale character drama that takes place largely in one room, with discussions of the nature of art between two characters who approach the idea differently.

The screenplay detailed an expansive fantasy epic with a new love interest for the main character (a pirate captain.) They globe-trotted, they fought monsters, they explored a world largely unrelated to mine, save for a few words here and there. It was then that I realized what was going on.

Hollywood doesn't buy spec scripts (original ideas) from screenwriters very often, and they NEVER buy spec scripts that are epic fantasy. Those are too big, too expensive, and too daunting: they are the sorts of stories where the producers and executives need the proof of an established book series to justify the production.

So this writer never had a chance to tell his own epic fantasy story, though he wanted to. Instead, he found a popularish story that nobody had snatched up, and used it as a means to tell the story he'd always wanted to tell, because he'd never otherwise have a chance of getting it made.

I'm convinced this is part of the issue with some of these adaptations; screenwriters and directors are creative, and want to tell their own stories, but it's almost impossible to get those made in things like the fantasy genre unless you're a huge established name like Cameron. I'm not saying they all do this deliberately, as that screenwriter did for my work, but I think it's an unconscious influence. They want to tell their stories, and this is the allowed method, so when given the chance at freedom they go off the rails, and the execs don't know the genre or property well enough to understand why this can lead to disaster. 

#21 Copy

khazroar

It's too soon for an official typo thread, but am I wrong in thinking that Shallan's comment about Thaylen City qualifies? She mentions that Veil and Radiant felt more solid than they should have, but if I remember right the real physical her was actually Radiant at that point, no? I remember Jasnah reaching for her hand and being surprised that the real human was Radiant, not Shallan.

Is there enough switching around in perspectives that she could at one point have been in Shallan's place, but moved/switched by the time Jasnah touches her?

Peter Ahlstrom

All that scene shows is that Radiant was the real physical Shallan at the moment Jasnah touched her.

#22 Copy

pickpocket293

Sanderson is writing a new non-cosmere novella to accompany a printing of a collection of his other non-cosmere books... Perhaps this/these will be in that?

Peter Ahlstrom

They won't be.

Striker_EZ

Any reason why not?

Peter Ahlstrom

Rights issues like other people are saying.

#25 Copy

Leyvis

In the postscript [for Yumi and the Nightmare Painter], Sanderson talks about inspirations for this book. He said there is one about a love story in space that he cannot remember the name of. Anyone know what this book is?

BooksAndAnimals1

The story may be Space Affair by Peter Viney.

Peter Ahlstrom

I sent him another link yesterday and he has now confirmed that this is the correct story. Now it would be nice to track down exactly which anthology he saw the story in, but Peter Viney is not listed in the ISFDB.

#26 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Wind and Truth Prologue

Some cool comments here, and some great theories. It's fun that, in this case, you can compare an early draft to a finished one--which has come following many rounds of beta reader interaction, along with general shaping of the book.

Here's some thoughts for you, partially in response to what some of you have said in the thread. I decided to mention Vasher by name because of the "Gorilla in a Phone Booth" principle. (Named such by a friend of mine from grad school.) You can hear me talk about it more in my lectures, but here's the idea. Mentioning a phantom, unknown scholar helping Gavilar raises questions that can be distracting. Wait. Who is this? What's going on?

Saying who it is raises questions too, of course, maybe more of them. However, because you have a little context, it helps a lot of readers file the information away to think about later and move on. Sometimes, too much of a mystery can interrupt a scene, and distract from the words on the page--where the right explanations can both leave a mystery, but also leave the reader comfortable moving on for now. I feel this scene benefits from this reveal, rather than leaving it hanging, as there's really no reason to do so--and it both reads better, is more interesting, AND will help readers to have the context to file it away for later consideration.

As for Gavilar himself, one of the things I came across again and again while researching for this book all those years ago was how many of the "Great Men" from history (the conquerors, like Genghis Khan, and Caesar--and even more respected figures like Kamehameha the First and Alexander the Great) had a great deal of blood on their hands. This is obvious, of course, but we often talk about them in such revered terms during history classes--we quote them, and admire them for their accomplishments. But the more you learn about a lot of them, the less you like them, even if your awareness of their prowess increases.

I wanted to simulate this experience in the books. You began, in book one, with a more Kamehameha or Alexander view on Gavilar, but the more you learned about him and the conquest he initiated the more Caesar, then Genghis, then Ivan the Terrible I wanted him to become in your mind. Until, here, that giant reputation had shrunken and withered, and feels wrongly attached to the petty, mistaken man you find here.

He's both of them. He did have grand vision, and managed to do some legitimately great things--but there was more accident involved with his success than people realize, and in the end, I feel that most men who spent their lives struggling and striving only for power were more like he is. Mistaken, petty, and missing much of what they could have had--because they lost their better sight. If they ever had it in the first place.

#27 Copy

Jofwu

When this came out 2 years ago you noted that you had found a continuity error in the Rhythm of War prologue while working on this one. Any chance you remember what that was, or whether it was retroactively fixed?

Someone did a really cool job stitching all of the prologues together in order and that came to mind... 

Brandon Sanderson

It has to do with the very detailed timing of things. Nale, Gavilar, Eshonai, and making certain all the meetings happen in the order that they need to--with time to get between them and to do the things happening off-screen. Karen worked her magic, and did manage to make it all fit without changing any previous books, but it required some additional lines and tweaks to the prologue here in order to give the right indications to the readers who like to track such movements. You SHOULD be able to piece it all together now, if you really want to, but it didn't work in my first stab.

#28 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Re: Cyberpunk Mistborn for /u/GalvusGalvoid. I think this is more likely than not, but I don't want to absolutely promise it until we get further along.

Re: White sand for /u/Wubdor, /u/snoogle20, and others. Also very likely in the next few years, as I'm confident after my review that I can make it work as a solid cosmere book of current quality. However, I did have trouble forcing myself to revise it at speed after such a long, demanding revision process on Stormlight. So I'm not committing to a date yet. I perhaps should have said that.

Re: Brandon needs to be edited more. (/u/mattykingkillah92 mentioned this with a very helpfully constructive tone, and it's an idea I see popping up elsewhere.) I assure you, I'm edited more now than I ever have been--so I don't believe editing isn't the issue some people are having. Tress and Sunlit, for example, were written not long ago, and are both quite tight as a narrative. Both were edited less than Stormlight 5. Writing speed isn't the problem either, as the fastest I've ever been required to write was during the Gathering Storm / Way of Kings era, and those are books that are generally (by comparison) not talked about the same way as (say) Rhythm of War.

The issue is story scope expansion--Stormlight in particular has a LOT going on. I can see some people wishing for the tighter narratives of the first two books, but there are things I can do with this kind of story I couldn't do with those. I like a variety, and this IS the story I want to tell here, despite being capable of doing it other ways. Every scene was one I wanted in the book, and sometimes I like to do different things, for different readers. I got the same complaints about the way I did the Bridge Four individual viewpoints in Oathbringer, for example. There were lots of suggestions I cut them during editorial and early reads, and I refused not because there is no validity to these ideas, but because this was the story I legitimately wanted to tell.

That said, we DID lose Moshe as an editor, largely, and he WAS excellent at line editing in particular. I see a complaint about Wind and Truth having more than average "Show then Tell" moments (which is my term for when you repeat the idea too many times, not for reinforcement, but to write your way into a concept--and do it weakly as you're discovering it, so your subconscious has you do it again a few paragraphs or pages later and do it well, then you forget to cut the first one) and this is something I'll have to look at. Plus, I feel that we have been rushed as a team ever SINCE Gathering Storm. That's a long time to be in semi-crisis mode in getting books ready the last few months before publication. We largely, as a company, do a good job of avoiding crunch time for everyone except a little during the year, depending on the department. (The convention, for example, is going to be stressful for the events time, while Christmas for the shipping team, and I don't know that Peter or I could ever not stress and overwork a little at the lead-up to a book turn in.) However, part of the reason I wanted to slow things down a little is to give everyone a little more time--and hopefully less stress--so I can't completely discount all of these comments out-of-hand, and I do appreciate the conversation.

Re: Someone else buying Mistborn film rights and all materials, as /u/TalnOnBraize suggested, then putting it back into production. This is not impossible, and is one thing I do intend to explore, but it's a long shot. One of the issues with Hollywood tends to be that whenever someone takes over on a project, they throw away everything that came before, because they want to do it their way. This is understandable, to an extent, but it causes HUGE budget inflation. So for this to work, you'd need an executive team AND director who both want to keep the material AS IS and not start over. Tough to find in Hollywood, though it is something I would like to do, if the right partner were willing. I think a lot of the work we did was excellent...though our Vin (still not telling you) is now in her mid 20's, not her late teens, as we spent five years in development. So...yeah, tough, but not impossible, to make work.

Re: Isles of the Emberdark shipping next fall by /u/Regula96. While this was explained during the campaign, let me explain a little further. Normally, from finishing editing to a book being out on shelves, publishing likes to have two years. That's what they did during the early parts of my career for me, but as soon as publishing a Sanderson book made the bottom line go BING, they took every project of mine in the line and pushed it out as soon as they could.

This moved us from two years+ to prepare, to often the final draft being turned in mere months before publication. (Reference earlier in this reply, where I talked about this.) Shadows of Self and Bands were an example of this mentality--I wrote one by surprise, and turned them both in, thinking my team would get a break by me getting ahead for them. Then, Tor published them three months apart, instead of waiting a year between.

Peter, Isaac, and I (who mostly work on this kind of production) have been all together trying to resist this the last...well, decade or so, and are finally making headway. Isles of the Emberdark, for example, has given the editorial team a non-stressful deadline. Still challenging, but workable without a single bit of overtime. That meant that me turning it in this July has it ready early next year sometime to be sent out for printing, which these days can take as long as eight months.

So...we'll see how long it takes to get back to us, and ship as soon as we have them. There could be an argument for an earlier ebook release, but I'd personally rather wait until we have print books soon, so that people who prefer to read in print aren't in danger of being spoiled--and also, so we can manage release schedules better.

Re: Horneater. I didn't mention a publication date in my list at the end of the article, but I'm tentatively guessing summer 2027. My schedule has third draft late 2026, and six months should be plenty to get it ready after that. With that, as a novella, we'd be more likely to push out an ebook and audiobook first, with a print version to follow for those who want it. But it could also end up in one of our crowdfunding campaigns.

fishy512

I’m going to write the rest of my question knowing you understandably can’t directly respond (if at all) given NDA’s (and you have way more experience and inside baseball knowledge than me and most of us on here about the greenlight process)—but given the current state of the movie side of the entertainment industry and how new unadapted IP is actively being stalled and slashed, would an episodic television adaptation of Mistborn be more favorable/realistic to you (and producers) at this point? The large ensemble cast, scope of world building, multiple important story set pieces, etc I just cannot shake the feeling that a 3 hour movie run time would be rushing from point to point trying to cover as much ground as possible while trimming away important story and character moments/development that made Mistborn—well, Mistborn.

Brandon Sanderson

I can tell you that it would be much easier to get a Mistborn television show off the ground than a film. But here's my problem: what television properties, especially on premium cable, have made lasting impact on popular culture? Take a popular and well made show like Shadow and Bone, and compare it to an okay film series like, say, Maze Runner. Do a google trends search on that right now, if you want.

The audience of streamers is so fragmented, and people double-screen so often, that things just don't get traction very often. You can even take something fantastic like arcane, and ask if your grandparents/parents would watch it. My mother would never be interested--but she went to the Lord of the Rings films because they were EVENTS.

Beyond that, budgets there are getting slashed in streaming too. Do we really want to make a Mistborn series on a budget, to just be held up beside other shows getting five times the budget?

It's a tough position. Plus, I think Mistborn is the only one of my my mainline books that could be adapted to a feature.

But this could change for me at any moment. I've given serious thought to it over the years. I will say our plan for what we were doing was hybrid: a giant, big budget, first film followed by a season of television covering the year between books one and two which would include all the cut content from film one that is in the books. Movie two would follow book two, then a season between.

Key actors were signed for both film and television season. But alas, we just could not get the greenlight. We picked the absolutely wrong time to be pitching a big, new, expensive IP to Hollywood. Hopefully, with things looking up this year, it will go better moving forward.

#29 Copy

Worldhopper1990

Hm… I don’t understand why Lift’s Aviar is missing and she suspects it’s been taken when she was put in a cage and it was hurt and scared and needed help, when in RoW in chapter 116, Dalinar tells Kaladin that Lift has started carrying a red chicken around.

So.. either Dalinar was wrong? Lift… forgot magically? The Ghostbloods could have found it later, but then Lift is wrong about the timing, somehow. It could be hiding like Kokerlii can (except it shouldn’t be the same way) and evade detection by the Sibling, but Lift would still be wrong about the timing. Or there’s a continuity error here? Any obvious or potential explanation I’m missing?

Peter Ahlstrom

Yeah, we try to avoid retcons whenever possible, but this one was unavoidable. It's the only line we had to go back to Rhythm of War and change after Wind and Truth was written.

#30 Copy

FriendlyNeighborhoodOrca

Did anyone notice we didn't get a Tarah Interlude? I remember Brandon saying he intended to have one of her. Maybe it got cut.

Peter Ahlstrom

Brandon did plan one but never started writing it. There wasn't room.

#32 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

For Wind and Truth, I've spent some 20 years working on the ending of this book. And I did something kind of unusual. I have a lot of early readers--test audiences--with my books. Alpha readers, beta readers, gamma readers. This time, we had multiple beta reader groups, as well as alpha reader groups. And I had three different endings to one of the storylines that I gave to different groups to gauge reactions. And I didn't end up using any of them.

#33 Copy

R'Shara

Hey Brandon, sorry, slightly unrelated question? It says that Isles of the Emberdark and the illustrated Wax and Wayne books will be released before the convention in July, in Spain. Does that mean Isles will be released there before backers get it?

Brandon Sanderson

We require English language publishers to not release the books before backers get it--but we don't put that clause in the contracts for books in translation, because there's just too many to try to enforce on that, and because it feels like a different audience and market. So...it's entirely possible it will start appearing overseas before we get ours out. We try to keep it from being too much ahead, but if this becomes an issue for people, let me know and we'll see if we should release our ebook earlier than planned.

As a note, there's real hope around our team that we'll be able to fulfill in summer, instead of fall--but we've learned to account for possible delays in our expectations.

Event details
Name
Name Miscellaneous 2024
Date
Date Jan. 1, 2024
Entries
Entries 33
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