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Brandon Sanderson

My plan was for Renarin to be gay when I wrote Way of Kings Prime in 2002. 

WaitUntilTheHighway

I feel like Rock was one of the best characters in Kaladin's world, and it seems like he was 'sent off' for literally no plot-relevant reason. It's like it's a TV show and the actor died so they had to get rid of the character. I'm bummed because I'm almost done with RoW now and there's just no more fun camaraderie among bridge four, largely thanks to Rock being gone. He was one of my faves.

Brandon Sanderson

As others have said, Rock will get his own novella--but that's not why I sent him off. Even if there had been no time for a novella, or no plot-relevant things for him to do, he would have left.

I need Bridge Four to be alive. Their time together, as a cohesive unit, was a powerful moment in time--and you can always reread the first few books to experience it again. However, in life, nothing remains the same, and time draws people apart. Rock has a family, a people, and responsibilities. He has to be about those, now that he's free from Alethi slavery.

Bridge Four, as it stood in books one and two, had to eventually evolve, and some members had to go their own way. That's life. For all Kaladin wanted to grasp for it, hold it together by force, he couldn't--just as we can't keep rigidly hold of the friends and family we love. Time inevitably divides us.

Each book of the Stormlight Archive must be something new. New tone, new feeling, evolved from the previous volume. They are too big, too weighty, to be allowed to repeat the same plot cycles, same emotional beats, or to allow the characters to stagnate into repetitive playacting of the people they were in the first few volumes. As readers travel through the series, I intend for them to realize this, though it may take a while for it to really click.

grandpa_fathom

As I’ve read Brandon’s books, I smile every time I come across allusions, borrowings, and references to real-world influences. I’m hoping the community can help me flush out this list (speculation welcome).

• Kelsier as a Christ figure resurrected & starting a religion
• Dalinar as Genghis Kahn
• Shards as the Greek (or insert your favorite) pantheon
• Wit as a Shakespearean fool
• Chana & Shallan as Abraham & Isaac
• Nohadon as King Benjamin
• translation lenses (Alcatraz) as urim & thummim
• Iriali exodus as the Mosaic exodus

Brandon Sanderson

• Kelsier as a Christ figure resurrected & starting a religion (More that he is trying deliberately to ape off of similar stories from Sazeds myths. Then ended up living, kind of, and now has to work with what he did.)

• Dalinar as Genghis Kahn (More Subutai in military strategy and position. But I did intentionally include one Genghis myth for the history lovers in Dalinar's backstory. This is because one inspiration for the Alethi is the Yuan Dynasty, where the Mongols had to learn to rule China.)

• Shards as the Greek (or insert your favorite) pantheon (Kind of, kind of not. More uplifted humans in over their heads. I wasnt looking at panthons here as they don’t really involve one another.)

• Wit as a Shakespearean fool (Yup. See Lear and 12th night)

• Chana & Shallan as Abraham & Isaac (Not intentional, but I can see it might be unconscious.)

• Nohadon as King Benjamin (I doubt he was as silly, but this is an influence and a concious one.)

• translation lenses (Alcatraz) as urim & thummim (Also not intentional. When I think about powers, I just wish I could speak and read all languages. But maybe there is something unconscious here? For all this looks like a slam dunk, I really think it was just me thinking of powers I wanted, and relating them to wearing glasses.)

• Iriali exodus as the Mosaic exodus (Also not deliberately done...but you probably have something here. This is almost certain part of the inspiration.)

Brandon Sanderson

Lisa started awake. In bed. Her bed. Alone. Had it been a dream? Hand to her head, she sat up, then glanced through gossamer drapes at the rising sun. Clock on the nightstand said 6:37. Three minutes before her alarm was set to go off. She flipped off the alarm and meandered toward the bathroom, memories of one last investigation with Dane before he got a job in another city. Gunshots, a white light? The device is on a timer.

(aside to audience) That was a quote by the way.

(back to reading) She waited for it to fade as dreams always did. She'd fallen asleep in her clothing though, because of the long night spent working to make up for ditching the others? But if so, how had she gotten home? She didn't remember, but in her morning daze that didn't bother her very much.

She showered and got ready. By the sounds of the plates thumping below, <Nova?> was already up and making breakfast. That was odd, as Nova was not a morning person, but maybe that was changing now she was 14 and heading to high school. She'd gotten up on her own a few days ago too.

Lisa walked down the steps, feeling an ethereal sense of displacement. That dream hadn't faded. She remembered it, as if it were real. She emerged in the kitchen where Nova was scrambling eggs at the stove, dressed in her plaid school uniform. The girl wore her black hair straight and long, like her mother. She had a ready dimpled grin for Lisa, though she turned too quickly to show off. Her eggs, still in their pan. Her elbow knocked a box of cereal off the counter, just like she had a few days ago. Puff cereal scattered across the floor and some rolled up to Lisa's feet. She stared at it, dumbfounded, remembering --

"Oh, shi -- I mean, shoot. Sorry, mom." (aside to audience) That's in quotes, or italics.

"Oh, shi --" Nova said, "I mean shoot. Sorry, mom." She put down the pan and scrambled for the broom. 

This had happened already. On Monday. 

"Nova," Lisa said, "is this some kind of prank?"

"No, didn't mean to, I'm nervous about practice, sorry, sorry." She moved to clean but Lisa took her by the shoulders, looking her in the eyes. The girl tugged against the grip. Eyes to the side, fingers twitching, as if trying to go through sweeping motions.

"Nova?" Lisa asked, feeling legitimate horror. That look on her daughter's face was so unnatural. It was as if she didn't even see Lisa. "Nova!"

Nova focused on her just for a second. Then her body started jerking again, and her head turned. As soon as Lisa released her, the girl jumped to clean up in a flurry before gobbling up the eggs.

"Sorry mom," Nova said, "I left you some though. Early morning practice for the recital, remember?" Nova beamed, back to her normal self, then took Lisa's hands. "You're going to come, right? Even if work is busy?"

"Coming? I already went." It was distinct in her mind, the sounds, scents, smells of the auditorium. Jazz piano echoing through the hall fading to applause. Could she have dreamed that?

"Not just the practice," Nova said. "The actual recital."

"Which is..."

"On Wednesday!"

"And today is..."

"Monday!" Nova rolled her eyes. "As if you don't have every minute of your life scheduled."

"You... flub the ending of Amazing Blue."

"I won't flub anything!" Nova said, letting goand grabbing her backpack. Then she paused before digging in her pocket and pulling out a red coral bracelet. Lisa's hand went to her wrist, and the identical one she was already wearing.

"Here," Nova said, giving her the new one. "I made this for you." Then she bit her lip, getting out a second. "I made one for Dane too. Will you give it to him, to help him think about us?" Nova glanced down, holding them both out.

"Nova," Lisa said, holding up her hand with the bracelet she was already wearing. "Nova."

"I know, mom," the girl said with a sigh. "I know that you two... but please just give it to him. It's important that I try."

"Nova, look at my arm." She tapped the bracelet, and Nova looked at it for a moment, cocked her head, then shook herself like from a dream.

"I know," the girl said, with the exact same sign and following intonation, "I know, mom. I know that you two... but please just give it to him. It's important that I try." Then she withdrew her hand, dropping the bracelets, letting them drop on the floor. "Thanks!" She said, as if Lisa had taken them. "You don't think Dad will come this year, will he?" Lisa stood, feeling stunned. "That's good," Nova said after a moment. "Bye!" She scampered out.

Lisa sank into her chair, feet disturbing cereal puffs that Nova hadn't fully cleaned up. How... how had Lisa gotten home last night? With a frown she called Dane, but it went immediately to voicemail because of his stupid smartphone with its anorexic battery. She started a text but as she did, one came from Noah's father. I suppose it said, "I'll live with that." She frowned until she remembered texting him a few days ago, promising to record the recital for him, but suggesting it would be a bad idea for him to come in person. She scrolled up and found the exact text he'd just sent, dated 5:52, Monday. Just like this one was. Same date, same time. 

Heart beginning to beat more rapidly, she ran upstairs and checked the bed and then the floor next to it. There, Dane's gun on the floor, the one he'd given her out of the back of his car. She'd been holding it during the explosion. Shaking, she scrambled downstairs and made a furious drive to headquarters, arriving around 7:30, having beaten most of the traffic. She burst in, hurrying to her office, rushing up to <Rona> who was early. Something she never did on Tuesdays or Thursdays, when she dropped off carpool for her kids.

If she was there... "Rona?" Lisa said. Rona kept typing. "Rona!" Lisa said, feeling something in her start to crack. "Please!" The woman shook, then glanced at Lisa, and started.

"Director! You should know better than to sneak up on an armed woman like that." She said it with a smile, but Lisa's nerves were fraying, and Rona frowned soon after. "Director? The... <Goffrey> case. We're close," Rona said. "Just need one of the Kim brothers to take the plea. I'll have a testimony on your desk the moment it happens. You'll have to talk to the DA though. Good luck with that, Director."

Lisa stood up, feeling a cold down her bones. Nearby, none of the officers passing were even looking at her. It was as if she were invisible. Even Rona went back to her typing absently and started again when she turned and saw Lisa there, as if she'd forgotten. Davis walked in with coffee for his team. Monday was his day. Whiteboard had a perfect replica of Lisa's notes from Saturday, the one she'd raced on Tuesday night to outline their battle plan for the actual arrest. She glanced at her office. Glass was cracked in the door. They'd replaced that on Monday.

Oh, heck. "Dane," she whispered. She put a hand on Rona's shoulder, who was startled again. 

"Director, you still worried about the case?"

"Dane. Is he in?"

"Director, it's before noon. What do you think?" 

Lisa began walking out faster with each step until something even more unnerving happened. People started turning toward her and, noticing her, smiling and waving, suddenly saying, "Good morning!" because... because it was 7:48. That was around when she normally arrived at the office. Probably the exact time she'd arrived on Monday, the... other Monday. Now that she was supposed to be here, people suddenly began interacting with her, like normal. But this was anything but normal. She fled.

Back to her car. She drove to Dane's apartment, which wasn't too far, but there was more traffic on the road now and people kept almost hitting her. It happened five times. After the fifth car swerved away and honked, Lisa parked and walked the rest of the way. She had to try twice to get Tim, the bean pole of a doorman, to notice her.

"Ah, Ms. Lisa," he eventually said.

"Dane," she said, sweating, "has he come out today?"

"Nope, Ms. Lisa," Tim said, "after all, it's before noon."

"Yes, I know." She rushed past the broken elevator -- the thing had been out of service for years -- and rushed up the steps to the second floor. Breathing deeply, she there forced herself to adopt a semblance of calm. Something had happened to that house with the device. Something incredible. Something mind-breakingly strange. Either that, or she was going insane. It it had happened to Dane too, would Tim have even noticed him leaving? She used the spare key -- she kept meaning to give it back -- to get in. The place smelled of a distinct scent. Call it l'eau de bachelor. Mingling orders of leftover chinese, beer cans in the recycling, and dirty clothing piled in the tiny laundry room. Dane wasn't slovenly. In her beat days, she'd seen slovenly and beyond. He was average, at least for people who lived on their own and didn't often have visitors.

She pushed open the bedroom door, and... he wasn't there. Bed was messy, but that didn't mean much. His phone, however, was on the stand. He'd forgotten to plug it in, and she got a dead battery sign when she tried to turn it on. She couldn't imagine him going out and forgetting it, but maybe... if he was confused, like she'd been when first waking? Only his sidearm, sidearm precinct deputy weapon FN-509, hung in a holster from a peg by his bed. He only locked it away when someone was staying over, and he'd never leave without it.

Feeling confused, exhausted, and overwhelmed, Lisa sat down quietly on the corner of his bed. Somehow, impossibly, that white light had sent her 3 days in the past, but where or when had it sent Dane?

Mybrainisnotworking_

I remember Sanderson saying to ask him what he wrote on a specific date, because that was a segment that he was particularly proud of. Unfortunately I don't remember the exact date he mentioned, but what do you all think he might be referring to?

-Ninety-

According to u/PeterAhlstrom it was chapter 143.

Peter Ahlstrom

The Dalinar section of chapter 143. But he ended the day writing the Taravangian section of chapter 145. Anyway it was the end of the Dalinar sequence, starting as early as the Dalinar section of chapter 137 but possibly a couple chapters after that.

Adam Horne

Phillip Denny from the chat says, "What was the storytelling purpose for not allowing the protagonist to regain his armor by the end of the book?"

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. Excellent question. You might guess that as I started working on it, I'm like, "Oh yeah, this is just a thing that will happen. He'll get his armor back." And the more I wrote, particularly as I did heavy revisions on the character, the more I realized that the whole armor, the platings thing was a huge crutch for him, because who he was is this person who kept trying these things and never giving them his all and relying on the trappings of a job. Like, "I want to be a cop because being a cop is like my friend does and that's cool." But then getting into it and not really giving it his all. And I realized by the end of this book he needs to give it his all, and he can't be relying on basically anything. Not even the crutch that is in most Sanderson book [where] you would have this moment where he gets his armor back and goes all awesome. And I love scenes like that, don't get me wrong, but it felt really wrong for this book, because it just didn't match it.

I don't want to fall in a rut of doing things the way that I do them just because they're the way I do them. One of the last revisions I made of the book was cutting [him] getting any of his armor back at all, really. The original intention [was] a bit [for] him to get it, and I cut that. I did a big revision to make that work, and I love that revision. Leaving him without -- leaving him just completely exposed and having him go forward anyway, was the thing he needed as a character to really fulfill his character arc.

It's one of the last tweaks I made, and the tweak and revision that I'm most pleased with.

Adam Horne

And last question from jamcdonald120. "How does travelling up the dimension stream give the Wights actual magic? Shouldn't they be less powerful than they were in the original dimension, not more powerful?"

Brandon Sanderson

This just depends on a lot of factors that I'm going to RAFO for now. We'll end with a nice good ol' fashioned RAFO. I hinted earlier, but we'll give this one a full straight-on RAFO. If we do Titanic 2: Sink Harder, we will try to explore some of this some more.

Adam Horne

This one is from heavyraines17. "What history meta-joke was your favorite to write, and why was it 'What is a zero?'"

Brandon Sanderson

It was "what is a zero?" I've always been fascinated by-- how could people not have a concept of zero? I can get negative numbers not really making sense, but having no concept of zero as a mathematical concept was really interesting to me. That joke was a lot of fun. Otherwise, it's less -- the jokes I had the most fun with were the 'marketingspeak' jokes in the Interludes. The stuff historically that I had the most fun with were was bringing out some of the things I'd gotten through my research that have been there, present, in the back of my head for a long time.

The fact that people in olden days did not have mouths full of teeth rotting out, which a lot of people assume they did. They wouldn't have straight teeth, but generally our archeological record shows that you might lose a few teeth, but maybe not, because you're not eating a lot of foods that destroy your teeth. Colors and dyes and paints being really vibrant is another things that we often get wrong, particularly when you see a depiction. If you go watch a depiction of any Anglo-Saxon or Viking sort of era thing, what are you gonna see? You're gonna see dark, gritty. You're gonna see lots of browns. You're not gonna see orange. You're not gonna see some of these things that they legit had, and you're not gonna see really good hygiene. A lot of the Vikings in particular had really great hygiene and were not these -- not like we depict them. They were brutal, you did not want to be where a Viking ship can get to you, but there's all these sorts of things that over time, you pick up reading historians' accounts and things like that.

It was really fun to bring some of this into the story.

Adam Horne

This next one is from Fakjbf. "In Frugal Wizard, which magic system did you enjoy developing more: the wights', the gods', or the augmentations?"

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that it was the Wights for me, because I was able to dig in some actual Anglo-Saxon kind of mythology and play with that. The Gods are kind of barely there in the rune system, but the rune system's the Wights. Just reading up and really enjoying that time period and seeing what they believed. One of my favorite things to do with fantasy is be like, "Okay. What if mythology or lore or folk magic really did work, and worked in a way that works with my storytelling sensitivities?" This is where the Warbreaker magic came from, and that's where this magic came from. And I had a lot of fun looking at the historical record, reading what landswights [Land Wights] were like. Looking at mythology and trying to build something out of it. That was probably my favorite part of the book, doing that. Big surprise, the magic system was my favorite part of the book.

Questioner

So, can I -- any problem with me selling spheres?

Brandon Sanderson

You can sell spheres without a license, as long as you don't actually reference us or use our art. [If] they're just fantasy spheres --

Questioner

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

-- with gemstones that glow inside, I don't own a trademark on that or anything like that. For anything that says, "licensed spheres from the Stormlight Archive or Brandon Sanderson", you would need a license which would have to go through my licensing team and all of these things, which is a super big hassle. You really don't want to have to do that. So as long as they're your own thing, then you're fine. We have a fan art thing on my FAQ which explains how this works. We are happy for people to create things and sell them, and things like that. But you can't use our art and you can't imply a relationship between yourself and me.

Questioner

Okay. 

Brandon Sanderson

Does that make sense?

Questioner

Yeah.

Questioner 2

So you go to faq.brandonsanderson.com

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you just got the word of mouth version. [The FAQ's] version is what our lawyer drew up.

ado-will-rem-our-plight-ev

In the Frugal Wizard preview you released last year, Runian was a fish-hater. Now he's a fish seizer, why the drastic rise in his fish affinity?

Brandon Sanderson

[A] couple reasons: One of the reasons was that early feedback I got when I did beta reads and things like that is I wanted to make sure that the tone promise at the start of Frugal Wizard was correct. And it was a difficult needle to thread because it is a humorous book but not a comedy. And I was getting feedback that made it feel like the opening chapters were just a little too ridiculous, and that was giving a wrong sense of the tone of the entire book. So I looked at those first few chapters and said: "Alright. Can I pull back on non-sequiturs, just ease back on them? Can I focus a little less on things that are just, you know, silly is the wrong term, but things that were non-sequiturs", and as I re-read those opening l go way to much on this fish idea—it's not relevant to the book, it's just giving the wrong promise—and so that was a tweak I made to try and ease that back a little bit, and the hating fish was a casualty of that. Anyway, I feel like I got that tone better. I'm not sure if I 100% nailed it, but yeah.

Adam Horne

The next one is from LewsTherinTelescope.

Brandon Sanderson

Hey! Our old friend.

Adam Horne

"Is there a sequel planned to Frugal Wizard? The main character's stories seem wrapped up, but that epilogue."

Brandon Sanderson

If there is a sequel to Frugal Wizard, it will almost assuredly be Titanic 2: Sink Harder, as we've talked about on the podcast, and we would find a way to work in some nods to what's happening in the Greater Universe there. Seeing as how Frugal Wizard is in the same universe as A Night of Blacker Darkness by Dan Wells, and in the same world as Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians -- the same universe -- by me, all connected by Cecil [G. Bagsworth the Third] who's in all three of them. Dan and I have that shared character that we've both been using for decades. It would probably be Titanic 2: Sink Harder. I love that title. That title just cracks me up. It's probably too much of a joke, right? Like, do you go into the bookstore and see a book that says Titanic 2: Sink Harder, and think that that's a real book that you want to buy and read? But, anyway. 

Adam Horne

This next question is from our good friend Katie Payne.

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh! Yes.

Adam Horne

She says, "I really want to ask Brandon about John's low self-esteem. What was [Brandon] thinking about for the source of that?"

Brandon Sanderson

It was a character attribute that I hadn't delved into, that I found matched him really well. It made him feel distinctive. He, again, is not your standard Sanderson protagonist, and I like how that worked. It gives a different feel and tone to who he is and to his voice and to the storytelling. But, Katie, [for] almost all of my characters, it's a natural outgrowth of as I'm writing and exploring who they are, I lean into certain things. Sometimes I pull those back and revise them out, and other times that leaning into works. And this is one I leaned into that ended up really working for him.

Steve Argyle

And that's a question for Brandon. Do the runestones do anything? Do they have power in themselves, or are they just markers, or... [fade to black]

Brandon Sanderson

So Steve, runestones. This is a real thing, a thing we have in the historical record. We think they were mostly used for trade and things like that. Maybe they're historical markers, also, but they're a real thing. I of course wanted to incorporate them into the magic system, so yes, in the book these have legitimate magical power. They're basically making the land's wights a little more pliable, so to speak. This is what makes them more willing to work with people. It soothes them. Consider it the magical version of the stuff that my wife plugs in that's supposed to smell good to cats and make them not want to fight with each other.

Katie Payne

I did have a question for Brandon, and it was when I was reading the book, I remembered in the preface that Brandon, you said that you had your friend Dr. Michael Livingston. Because he's an expert on medieval history, and he had you read a book. And as I'm reading this book, there were so many moments where I stop and I google something like, "What is an Earl?", "What is Woden?" Oh, it's Odin. You know? And then I read it, and it's actually historical. These are historical things and like Brandon said in the book, you might think these people don't have teeth, but they do. And that's probably something he learned in this book and I want to know what the book was that he read.

Brandon Sanderson

So, one of the main reasons I picked this time period as opposed to the Titanic or something else, which I was considering, is I'm pretty familiar with this here period already. I wouldn't call myself an Anglo-Saxon scholar, but it is an area of armchair interest to me that I've read on and studied for many many years. I'm not sure if I can point to one book. I mean, if you want to read something that's from this period, The Saxon Tales are quite excellent. But more it's that whenever an article comes up, whenever I see something interesting, I kind of focus in on this and file it away.

I needed this book to be the thing that kept my momentum in writing these secret projects, so I needed something that I already knew. That doesn't mean, like I said, that I am a 100% expert in this. I am not. But, because I knew I potentially had some help from Michael Livingston in my back pocket, I wrote the book and then I went to Dr. Livingston and said, "Help fix this. What did I get wrong?" And I didn't get that much wrong. I was quite pleased. He had a couple comments per chapter about things I could do better. But none of it was major structural stuff. It was just little hints here and there, so I was quite pleased that I was able to get that mostly right on my own!

Matt Hatch

Is this one of our questions for Brandon? When are we getting the Handbook. Is that something we need to ask? Everyone out there is watching. Do you want the Handbook? We need to send Brandon a note.

Brandon Sanderson

[fade to black] So, I hope this does not become the new version of, "When are we getting the in-world book [The] Way of Kings, written by Nohadon, which I get asked all the time. Or, "When are we going to get the full writings of Alendi from Mistborn?" You are never going to get the actual Frugal Wizard's Handbook written by Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third. That is not a thing I'm going to spend a lot of time doing. I am very, very sorry Matt.

Katie Payne

But Brandon spent so much time structuring his magic systems for his Cosmere books that that's part of why this book was refreshing. Because it had a little bit of -- well, I wonder if Brandon would debate that. (imitating Brandon) "No it's not!" [Wren laughs] But it felt a tiny dash of Harry Potter magic, where I didn't have to fully [understand], it didn't have to fully, fully, fully make sense.

Joshua Bilmes

Maybe that's a question for Brandon. (laughs)

Katie Payne

Yeah. Is it Harry Potter magic, a little bit, or no? (laughs)

Brandon Sanderson

[Fade to black] So Katie, I wouldn't consider this a Harry Potter-style soft magic system. The trick about this is this is a magic system, as some of mine are, but more so than others, that depends on the volition of entities involved. The wights have choice in this matter, and because of that it's going to be naturally softer than some harder magic [systems] because you might end up with a wight that is really pliable and willing to work with you, or one's that's really hostile or things like that. So the magic system I wouldn't consider a soft magic system, but it is viewed softly by the people in the world, if that makes sense. They can't account for everything that might or might not happen because they don't have as much control as people generally have in some of my other settings like in Mistborn or something like that. It's a hard magic system that is presented softly.

Matt Hatch

Because I love these chapter headers. The runestones.

Steve Argyle

And people deciphered, people in the audience, have you deciphered what all of those are?

Matt Hatch

Ooh, good question.

Steve Argyle

Because each one is relevant to the question.

Joshua Bilmes

If I had had more time, I know I could -- [panel laughs]

Katie Payne

I looked at them really closely, and I know that they correlate to the story. But, do the shapes correlate to the story, like the rock shapes?

Steve Argyle

Mhm.

Katie Payne

Oh, they do?

Matt Hatch

What don't we know that we should know, Steve?

Katie Payne

Tell me why did they correlate?

Steve Argyle

Some of them are more obvious than others.

Katie Payne

Because I figured out [based on] how this number system was created, that you had a visual language system that you were creating, like this one means 'person', this one means 'lightning', <indecipherable sidetalk from Wren> I don't know what that means, but what do the shapes mean?

Steve Argyle

Some of them are obvious, like you've got one where -- do I not?

Wren Weichman

You're talking about the chapter headers, right?

Steve Argyle

Yes.

Katie Payne

[Gestures to book] These things. Yeah.

Steve Argyle

So I think this is the one where the -- it's too late for it to be the boats -- like here's the Vikings. Now, the boat's pretty obvious, right? But there are three boats, and so there are three stones. That one's simple. But they all have some connection, like when he's healing Ealstan, there's a large strong rock, and one that's leaning against, crumbling. And then the line work connects the two, so it's him transferring his healing nanites. 

Katie Payne

With the rock shapes?

Steve Argyle

With the rock shapes.

Katie Payne

Okay, I gotta see this.

Matt Hatch

Gotcha. Oh my gosh.

Steve Argyle

There's one where it's just a tall square and an oval, and they're leaning together. That's the happily ever after for John and Sefawynn. So some of them are more obvious than others, and some of them might have just been, "This is a cool shape and I'll try and figure what it -- how it relates later."

Katie Payne

What it can mean, yeah.

Matt Hatch

This is probably gonna hurt people watching right now, because they're gonna say, "Yes! Steve could probably tell you exactly what all these mean." All the people that are really curious about those.

Brandon Sanderson

So I can't quite finish that chapter. But very soon after, Dane finds out it's only been three days in his timeline as well. So what is the premise of this story? One gets sent back three days. One gets sent forward three days. And they have to figure out what happened and try to stop it. And that was the idea that really made me want to write this. Three days back, three days forward. Why is his three days in the future and it feels like a post apocalypse? What is happening to her, and why can't anybody notice her? And how can they solve what happened in those chapters, that unfortunately you didn't see, which have the mystery of what's going on? And then kind of try to make it a nice puzzle story, approaching it from two directions. So that's Moment Zero, moment zero being the moment where the explosion happened. 

Brandon Sanderson

Alright? So I'm going to give you a quick primer of what happened and then after the reading I'll kind of explain what the premise was that made me want to write this story. So, [the] story's about two cops. Right? Cop 1, the guy named Dane is kind of annoyed that his partner is moving into a desk job, and they don't ever go out on the street anymore. His partner Lisa is like, "I want to be a desk jockey. It's a much better job. I have political aspirations. But that doesn't mean I've lost my edge." And they're kind of arguing about this stuff. He's like, "For old time's sake, let's go out on this -- I got this call." She's like, "We're not beat cops anymore. Why are we doing this?" He's like, "Well, we're detectives. We can still go do this." So they go out on this call, and shenanigans happen, and there is a giant explosion that neither of them are expecting. And then this happens next. Alright? 

Adam Horne

This next question is from <LotusTheBlooming>. "Any tidbits you can give us on what the future Janci Skyward novels will be about?"

Janci Patterson

You have to take that.

Brandon Sanderson

I think that we should not say.

Janci Patterson

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Because the plan is three books with one "kind of" continuing viewpoint character and then sharing a viewpoint with a different character each time. That's the plan, right?

Janci Patterson

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

But how we're gonna do other things -- it's like a dual narrative, where all three [books] have character A, and then book one has character B as secondary story, book two has character C, and book two has character D. But what those characters are, and where, how we'll go about that, is still --

Janci Patterson

I feel like we could probably say they're characters you're familiar with.

Brandon Sanderson

They're characters you're familiar with.

Janci Patterson

You know these people.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, definitely. But that's the structure we're looking at right now. I don't want to hype people up -- 

Janci Patterson

And then something needs to change.

Brandon Sanderson

-- and then something needs to change.

Billy

Hi, I'm Billy.

Brandon Sanderson

Hey!

Billy

Newer fan, but plan to be a forever fan, so thank you for doing this for us. My question kind of comes down to "How do you write such strong female characters? How do you stop yourself from falling into these bad tropes that so many TV shows get wrong. I'm thinking of Syl, I'm thinking of Jasnah, and how they're totally different, but they rely on such an inner courage that is unique to the female gender as it is in your books."

Brandon Sanderson

So there's a couple of tips I can give you here. Being able to get into the head of someone that is not like yourself and write them in an authentic way is kind of relating to that thing that I talked about before. In many ways, [it's] the hardest and most important skill for a storyteller to learn. And because of the way our society is set up, it tends to be much harder for men to write women than it is for women to write men, generally. This is just kind of an aspect of our culture. It's not going to be one-to-one. You will find plenty of people -- you will find plenty of women who are bad at writing men. You'll find plenty of men who are good at writing women, but it is something that is hard.

Indeed, originally, my first books -- if we ever release White Sand Prime -- you'll see that I was not very good at it when I started out. This is one of the things I often say, and it's kind of a glib way to say it, and there's a lot more nuance to it than the way I say it. But the tweak in my brain that happened was when I stopped writing people to roles and started writing them to, started asking "Who are they? What do they want? Why can't they have it? Why don't they fit into society the way that society says they should? How do they fit into society the way that society says they should?" All of those sorts of things, also the whole listening, iterating. It started to get better at this once I started to write, give it to readers and have readers say, "You know, this isn't feeling right." And then trying and giving it back and having to say [to me], "Okay, this felt closer." Or, "No, this felt worse."

But it's really that idea [that] every person is the hero of their own story, or at least the protagonist of their own story. And every person -- nobody is just one role. Everyone is lot of roles mixing in really messy ways, so digging into motivations and digging into passions rather than saying, "What is their job in the story," is just super helpful to me. I don't know if I can give you more than that because the nuanced part of it is this took me 10 years and I'm still not even sure, right? That's the dirty secret of every writer. We're not exactly 100% sure. We know that it works and that over time we've gotten better at it, but what did we do that made it that way? That's what I think I did.

Billy

Well I'm glad it does, so thank you very much.

Adam Horne

And they had a follow-up question to both, but mostly directed to Brandon. "In the State of the Sanderson 2021, you, Brandon, called Defiant the end of the first sequence and promised that more is coming."

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Adam Horne

"Does this 'more' mean more full-length Skyward novels that are marketed as such, despite the novellas being novel length, or does it mean more novellas or something else? Or is that all part of the stuff you're working out with Janci."

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. The plan is right now to do a trilogy of novels co-authored with Janci really taking the lead on those to follow up Defiant, to keep doing more stuff in the Cytoverse. We're both very excited with it, and the reaction to Janci's novellas has been spectacular --

Janci Patterson

Thank you everyone.

Brandon Sanderson

So that's where we're sitting right now. Create a trilogy. I have to get Defiant finished, and I am behind on a lot of things. Writing the Secret Projects didn't put me behind, but last month's Kickstarter did, because I was doing a lot of publicity and a lot of goofy videos and lot of various things, so I'm a little behind on everyhing right now. So we'll see when I get Defiant revised. 

Janci Patterson

I'm really excited to do novels because there were -- I mean, these ones are novels, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Janci Patterson

But they're much shorter than the other Skyward novels, and there were a lot of things that readers would say, "Oh I would have loved to have seen this, I would have loved to have seen that." And I was like, "Me too! I would have loved to have written that. Where was I gonna put it?" (laughs) Because they were already twice as long as they were supposed to be. So having a bit more space to breathe and get to do all those fun things, I'm really excited.

Brandon Sanderson

And doing them as straight up novels in the sequence, we have found the fans kind of want novels and we kind of want to write novels. So the novella --

Janci Patterson

We kind of do write novels, even if we're not supposed to. (Laughs)

Brandon Sanderson

-- was a fun experiment, but we'll just do some novels. That's the plan at least.

Adam Horne

And the follow-up question was, in the reading of the Apocalypse Guard in 2020, there was a mention of an archipelago world. Is that the world of The Rithmatist? Are we seeing the beginnings of a YA shared universe?

Brandon Sanderson

Mmm, kind of --

Janci Patterson

I've been asked this a lot. Is Skyward the same as The Reckoners? And my answer is always, "If it is, I was not informed about it!" (laughs)

Brandon Sanderson

So, Reckoners has multiverse, right? There is an issue, and I learned by writing Reckoners that I never am going to do another multiverse. (Janci laughs) Because it leads to all sorts of fun things but it also kills too much conflict. You end up doing what has been in done in Marvel, and in almost every multiverse story I've ever read, which is, alternate dimension clones and things like that. It's very fun to play with this idea but it is also is a very big tension killer. So I finished that and moved on to Apocalypse Guard which is in the Reckoners universe. And then I'm like, "Well, I don't want to get into another multiverse book." And that's part of the problem with it, is this idea. Because unless you put some really strict rules on your multiverse, it's just going to -- it's like time travel. It's one of those where once the genie is out of the bottle. So, like I've said, rules for the Cosmere are no time travel into the past, no multiverse. [Those] are my two super hard fast rules. 

A lot of people add the rule of no resurrections but I started book one of the Cosmere with someone waking up from the dead. There's a lot of resurrections in the Cosmere, but I at least let people know when dead is dead, at least trying to let them know. 

Anyway, so this is one of the issues. Is that a reference, potentially, to The Rithmatist? Yeah, it kind of was a mention of it, but it wasn't meant to be too much of one, because it's a multiverse. Everything can exist in a multiverse.

Janci Patterson

So it's more of an easter egg kind of a thing than an actual continuity thing.

Brandon Sanderson

It's more of an easter egg. And it's part of why I backed off on that. So Cytoverse, the concept of the Cytoverse, it could be, because Reckoners is a multiverse, but I don't plan Reckoners or Cytoverse to cross over with anything other than Defending Elysium, which is in the same continuity.

Adam Horne

This next question is from CylonSloth [u/CylonSloth], they say, "As far as the miniatures and feature adaptations go, can we assume that these miniatures and Isaac's art will be the basis of how characters will be represented if Stormlight were to receive a cinematic adaptation in the future, or will casting change depend on the art director, casting director, of said future adaptation?"

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, this is gonna be a dance between the two. Having our own concept art that is this rigorous, it increases the chances that our visions for the characters will end up on the screen, right? That's just, absolutely the case. But at the same time, art directors put their own stamp on things. It depends on who the art director is, what our involvement as a company is, whether it's television or feature film, 'cause feature film has to adapt more and the visual language also tends to change a little bit more because of that, than television necessarily has to. Some television adapts more than others, so I would say that it's up in the air but this certainly helps. 

I can't say too much, but when we were taking some meetings, this concept art was shared with people who are interested in some of our properties, saying, "This is how we imagine it." and things like that. It's tricky when you get to fantasy properties, and fantastical ethnicities, right? And we've had conversations about this. Like, there's a decent chance that we will cast all of, or a large chunk of Alethi as Asian-American. Which means the skin tone might be a little lighter on a lot of people than they would be in the concept art. Because, depending on various things like that. We ask the fans to be understanding of things like that, and we might -- there's certain things where we're like, "We will allow some of the characters, like you know, like we've talked about on the borders, to blend ethnicities a little bit more to get us a little bit more variety in our casting decisions. That shouldn't be interpreted as me saying, "We are going to cast Kaladin as a white dude." We will not. No -- anyone that we've worked with, that we've even entered into discussions, knows that I have been very strict with Kaladin, Jasnah, Dalinar. They have to be either Asian-American, or, as long as they're all the same, we might go Indian. We might go Middle Eastern, but I want them all to be the same [in] our world ethnicity, in order to represent that this is a culture on Roshar. It's really hard to define those things without having partners yet that we're doing them yet. And it's possible I have to eat my words at some point, or things like that. We're going to do our best to make sure that we get people like this. 

Here's an example that isn't even delving into the racial issues, and things like that. I think Hugh Jackman did an amazing Wolverine. I loved his Wolverine. Wolverine is like three feet tall, right? [Other guest laughs] I'm exaggerating, but what is he, like 5' 6" in the comics? And Hugh Jackman is 6' 2" or something. I might be exaggerating those differences but I know when he was cast a lot of people were like, "He's too tall to be Wolverine." And I don't have that problem where I'm like, "Look. Get the person who matches acting the character really well, and then go with that." And we're going to be doing that, right? So, is it going to be? I don't know, we will try to make it like, Kaladin is taller than Szeth. But if we get to the end and we find two actors we really like and Szeth is taller, oh well. That's the sort of thing that we're going to be doing.

I don't think that's 100% your question. I think you're probably talking about costume design and things like that. I would say that us having concept art helps a ton in that area in specific. And I think we're much more likely to get costuming like we want it by having this.

Isaac Stewart

I imagine a process will be, and this is part of the reason we wanted to push to do this so we had this in our pocket for when we need it. I imagine that if we, depending on how much control we have, these designs would be given to an art department and a production designer. As a basis, they would have it. They would look at it, and it would become a sort of basis for concept art that then they would start riffing off of. And they would come up with things that they think about the world and they think about something we hadn't thought of before, and add that in. And we're going to be okay with that as long as it makes sense.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. We will be as respectful to the source material as we can, while knowing that we're creating something in a new genre. That requires some adaptation.

Isaac Stewart

I mean, for example if Adolin's armor was green, and we had to use green screens, they're gonna say, "You know what? You need to change his armor color." And that might have repercussions later. Just, different things show better in movie shots than they might in a comic book or something like this.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. For the same reason that Iron Man's armor evokes the iron armor from the comics, but if you compare them side-by-side they don't actually look all that much alike. We're gonna be making changes like that. I'd be absolutely sure. But, having this concept art will help. And it certainly has helped. Like I said, any time we've done a Stormlight conversation, 'cause we continually have lots of them. People come in, we say, "Here are our canon interpretations of what the characters look like. Your job will be to match actors to these, at least in this same sort of genre and style." And they're like, "Okay, we get it." And that's just been super helpful.

 

Questioner

Brandon and Dan. So, I just read Dan's book.

Dan Wells

Thank you.

Questioner

Night of Blacker Darkness.

Dan Wells

Oh yeah!

Brandon Sanderson

Oh! Night of Blacker Darkness. Yep. If you want to know how weird Dan can get, A Night of Blacker Darkness is your, yeah.

Questioner

So the life of Frederick Withers is edited by Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third?

Dan Wells

Mhm.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it is!

Questioner

Well I was wondering about Bagsworth's bibliography.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes!

Questioner

Now that the tales of Alcatraz Smedry are gone, will we see Planet of the Rising Sun, or The Travels of Abraham as told by Abraham Lincoln? 

Brandon Sanderson

So the question here's a really deep Brandon-and-Dan lore question, right? Not our books lore question, Brandon and Dan. So, Alcatraz, my children's series, has an editor whose name is Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third, who was also the editor of A Night of Blacker Darkness and indeed is referenced in Secret Project 2 quite heavily, when you get to read that next year. *Dan Wells laughs* And Cecil is an interdimensional time-travelling adventurer/editor. Based on -- 

Dan Wells

Yeah, as all editors are.

Brandon Sanderson

-- my brother. Yes, based on my brother Jordo [Jordan Sanderson]. So this is a joke we had back when we were on a magazine back together in college.

Dan Wells

Yeah, and I can't even remember where it started.

Brandon Sanderson

We were in the slush pile, reading slush pile for some reason.

Dan Wells

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

And we started joking about --

Dan Wells

We came up with this character we thought was hilarious, and then we both started putting him into stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. We came up with Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third and <Stet Canister>. 

Dan Wells

<Stet Canister>!

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, the intergalactic --

Dan Wells

He's Buck Rogers, basically.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Dan Wells

So the goal originally, 20 years ago, is that anytime we did a collaboration of any kind, Cecil would be involved. Now that I am part of the company and writing Cosmere books, I don't know if that will continue. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, we can't -- we cannot put Cecil into the Cosmere.

Dan Wells

'Cuz he's not part of the Cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

But he can be part of everything else.

Dan Wells

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. 

Dan Wells

Oh, we need to put him in Dark One, then.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah, yeah, he could make an appearance in Dark One.

Dan Wells

That'd be great.

Brandon Sanderson

So, yes, you will be seeing more of Cecil. In fact, there may be an illustration of Cecil in Secret Project 2. *audience cheers* If you're really into your Brandon-and-Dan lore, you will love getting an illustration of Cecil.

My brother shows up to my wedding, right? He shows up to my wedding in cosplay as Cecil. This is 20, mmm, 17 years ago?

Dan Wells

Full top hat? Monocle?

Brandon Sanderson

Full top hat, monocle, and sword, right? *audience laughs* Full, like, he was in black tie with a top hat and a monocle. And my brother with a monocle looks so smug. *Dan laughs*

Brandon Sanderson

Thank you for the compliments. Children of the Nameless. We are still slowly working on a charity edition of that. It's just never been a huge priority for the various parties involved. We all like it. It's just, there's always something, you know, huge to work on, and so, but it is working.

Emily Sanderson

Will there be a seventh book in the series? *laughs*

Brandon Sanderson

No promises. I have no plans currently to do a seventh book in the series.

Emily Sanderson

But you never know when inspiration will strike.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. You never know but don't hold your breath.

Emily Sanderson

Yeah.

Dan Wells

Cuz there was a graphic novel.

Brandon Sanderson

It's a graphic novel. And this is because my agent, who is great, was like, "Look, you're not getting a television show made -- your script here feels like it might work well but if we took [it] and gave it to a graphic novel team, and they adapted it for graphic novel." And I'm like, "Sure?"

Dan Wells

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

I mean, it's just sitting there doing nothing, I think it's a really great pitch. And they kind of went off on their own direction more -- less so in the first one, but by the end it was kind of going their own direction. I like what they came up with but it's not as different from mine as Joe's was. But it still doesn't feel like the story I wanted to tell.

Dan Wells

Yeah.

Emily Sanderson

Here's a fun question from Etta, who asks, "What powers or gifts would Alcatraz's possible children have?"

Brandon Sanderson

What powers or gifts?

Emily Sanderson

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

That we would just have to RAFO. I would have to give it some thought. So, there's a whole variety of them that could be the case.

Emily Sanderson

I'd be curious what people put in the comments, when they have a chance to think about it. Alcatraz's kids. We don't really know how Smedry talents, how they work genetically, you know?

Brandon Sanderson

We don't, and they're not even genetic, because when you marry into a Smedry, you become a Smedry.

Emily Sanderson

That's true. You get a talent. So whatever it is, for the reason that they get them.

Dan Wells

So, I want to ask first, at what point did this fake podcast get attached in your head to the Dark One property?

Brandon Sanderson

The Dark One? So it started as -- I tried it as its own thing, but it was this weird project that I wrote some stuff from, got some -- a group together. It's basically the first thing we ever tried with Mainframe.

Dan Wells

Yeah?

Brandon Sanderson

And it didn't work. We were too new to making things back then. I actually was trying to get Earl who really wanted to do a podcast with me. And I tried to do it with my friend Earl who was roommates with me and Ken in college. He's a good friend of Ken.

Dan Wells

Yeah, we've talked about Earl. 

Brandon Sanderson

And Earl, you know, amateur screenplay writer, who's written some decent stuff. But the whole package just was all of us were too new to this, and it just didn't work. It wasn't set in any specific universe back then. So I just filed the idea in the back of my head, but then Dark One started to gain traction and I'm like, "Actually, where I should be doing this -" Cuz I already have all the lore built out, and part of the problem -- the other one broke apart is -- part of the reason it did is we just didn't have any lore. Like, I hadn't done all the worldbuilding I needed, and I'm like, "Wow, I have this whole thing. This is what I should be doing, it should be part of Dark One." And so that was soon after the other project fell apart. 

Dan Wells

Mmkay.

Questioner

Why wouldn't Alcatraz write the real last book?

Brandon Sanderson

Why wouldn't Alcatraz write the real last book? Alcatraz has trouble just believing in himself. Despite a lot of his arrogance and sarcasm as a cover for how insecure he feels, how much he feels he's failed, and he felt like he deserved the bad ending and that's why he wouldn't write the good one.

Questioner

Not to age you at all, but as my wife and I were growing up in middle school/high school, we were reading the first era of Mistborn, and she just really appreciated and adored the first era because of Vin and because of that character that she was, this very powerful female that she didn't see a lot of other places, so I guess the wider question is: you as a single person as an author, how do you bring all these different types of people together in a way that so many people feel that they can relate to? 

Brandon Sanderson

That is an excellent question. I would say that I consider this the most important skill for an author to learn, and it took a long time. This is the thing, if you go back to my early books, if you go read, like, the original White Sand, White Sand Prime that I wrote when I was 19, you'll see that I can put together a plot a little bit. You can see that I can put together a scene just fine. My prose isn't terrible, it's not great, but it's not terrible either, but building that connection to characters, making the characters feel real rather than just like cardboard cutouts like we have of B-Money running around here. That took 10 years of practice, and it involves, I would say the most important skill is listening, but it's not just listening, it's listening, trying, and iterating, right. You listen, you try writing it out, you give it to somebody and say, "did I capture this," and then listen to what they say you did wrong, and then iterate, right. That's the really, like, the gut punch of being a writer, is thinking you got it right and hearing you got it wrong, and that is just really hard to hear, and it takes time to build that up. It takes time to be able to be, like, aware enough of your writing to understand that even if it's flawed, it still has value to you, and that's okay. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to be panicked about your baby being flawed, and being willing to iterate.

Questioner

Thank you.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

Questioner

Hello. Since you have Dan now on your staff,

Brandon Sanderson

Yes!

Questioner

I am wondering if you'll ever be able to get back to Rithmatist?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, wow, okay. So here's the thing about Rithmatist, though. I really feel that if I was going to, and I would like to get a coauthor, if I was going to get a coauthor of Rithmatist, I really feel like they would need to be someone who's really steeped in Mexican culture, because I want to do things with the Aztec as I'm writing that sequel, and so, I mean, it's called, in my head it's called the Aztlánian. Which if you know anything about Aztec mythology is the mythological homeland of the Aztec people, and so I would really be looking for someone who is an expert in Aztec mythology, maybe even someone who speaks a little Nahuatl, something like that, which Dan does, but not to the extent that I would want. So, we would be looking for a different coauthor for that if I were going to coauthor it, either I'd do it myself, or I'd find someone who can lend kind of a more authentic voice to help me and maybe write half.

Questioner

In Firefight, when Mizzy and David were talking, [which] Great Falls did the special Surgeon move from?

Brandon Sanderson

Great falls, Idaho, I believe. Oh, no, it's Great Falls Virginia, because Ryan my friend's from Great Falls Virginia, so most likely it was from Great Falls Virginia.

SquattingDog99

Also, what did he write on July 18th? I just finished reading the other day and I’m trying to find an answer.

TheTenthLawyer

Peter’s guess is that it was the first reveal of the Champion. Brandon couldn’t remember when the Betas asked him; he said he’d have to check his notes.

Peter Ahlstrom

That's not what I said. But specifically, it was chapter 143. 

Axies the Collector's Deck of Radiant Spren

- Windrunners: honorspren (Radiant spren), windspren (armor spren)

- Skybreakers: highspren (Radiant spren), gravitationspren (armor spren)

- Dustbringers: ashspren (Radiant spren), flamespren (armor spren)

- Edgedancers: cultivationspren (Radiant spren), lifespren (armor spren)

- Truthwatchers: mistspren (Radiant spren), concentrationspren (armor spren)

- Lightweavers: Cryptic (Radiant spren), creationspren (armor spren)

- Elsecallers: inkspren (Radiant spren), logicspren (armor spren)

- Willshapers: Reacher (Radiant spren), joyspren (armor spren)

- Stonewards: peakspren (Radiant spren), bindspren (armor spren)

- Bondsmiths: Stormfather, Nightwatcher, the Sibling (Radiant spren), gloryspren (only included based on vibes; not necessarily armor spren)

Priscellie

The Plate spren for A and 3-9 are canonical, and the deck can be cited in the Coppermind as confirmation for those orders. 

The Skybreaker Plate spren are canonically confirmed to be mandras/luckspren. While I was working on the deck I was under the impression that gravitationspren were the same thing, but I art directed these cards over a year ago at this point, and don't recall where I got that impression. Continuity was totally slammed with WaT at the time, and the explanatory card did not go through their department. In the absence of confirmation from a more definitive source, you can cite mandras/luckspren as the Skybreaker plate spren and treat the 2 card art as an example of an official depiction of mandras/luckspren, but do NOT make any assumptions about whether or not gravitationspren are the same thing based on the explanatory card.

As for the question of whether Bondsmiths can have Radiant Plate, which came up previously, I am not privy to any more information than you guys. Gloryspren were included so that we could have something on the 10 card, and chosen solely because of their significance in the Oathbringer sanderlanche and [WaT] the scene where Dalinar opens the perpendicularity to the Spiritual Realm.  No conclusions about the question of Bondsmith Plate should be drawn based on their inclusion here. No canon, just vibes.

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.

Questioner

As the cosmere enters the space age, will spaceship travel become the preferred method due to the Cognitive Realm lengthening as knowledge of the cosmos improves?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The Cognitive Realm will enlarge as understanding improves, but here's the thing. Human beings are really, really, really, really bad at conceptualizing large numbers, spaces, and things like that. So, even as they imagine how big the space between planets is, it's going to actually be a fraction of the actual distance. So, traveling through the Cognitive Realm will remain the preferred method and remain much faster, unless you can get true FTL, which is still very expensive and difficult. I think it's still gonna be the preferred method. But you're right; Shadesmar will lengthen, the distances will lengthen between planets as people's conceptions of them more accurately represent real life.

Brandon Sanderson

Started working on Stormlight Archive 2001; eventually had Way of Kings Prime. And Book Five here has the ending of what I had imagined when I started working on Stormlight Archive. This was the end of the series in the very, very early outlines. Which is why I talk about this being two five-book arcs. As I came back to it later, it was not the actual ending, and as I've plotted the ten books... You'll see why. This is a midpoint.

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.

Peter Ahlstrom

In the alpha draft of Words of Radiance, at the end Eshonai survived—there was a scene much like the one in Oathbringer where Venli goes to find her body, except it was Thude and Bila who found her, and she was alive. Brandon deleted that scene before it went to the beta read. (One reason was that the end of Words of Radiance already had a character who the audience thought was dead and who turned up alive, in Jasnah. In fact, that scene immediately followed Eshonai's.)

(Rereading the scene just now, it had a great line at the end: “This is what they planned all along, Thude. Our gods. We thought ourselves so brave, so bold. We thought ourselves hidden.“We never were. We were just...just yeast...boxed away to someday leaven the next batch of horrors...”)

In Wind and Truth, nothing like that happened in the drafting. Brandon rewrote scenes in the revisions, but the fate of every character was essentially the same.

Peter Ahlstrom

Molly Weiss [winner of a contest] was tuckerized as Weiss, one of Sigzil's squires. Molli the sheep is not related.

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.

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.

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.

Brandon Sanderson

Part Nine: Projected Schedule

Earlier this year, I sat down and (using my spreadsheet) planned out the next few years, and I’ll share that in a sec. First, let’s see what I said last year about my schedule. 

• December 2024: Wind and Truth

• Spring 2025: Skyward Legacy One(?)

• December 2025: White Sand Novel/Dark One(?)

• Spring 2026: Skyward Legacy Two(?)

• December 2026: Skyward Legacy Three(?)

• December 2026: Horneater(?)

• December 2027: TBD

• December 2028: Ghostbloods 1

• Summer 2029: Elantris 2

• December 2029: Ghostbloods 2

• Summer 2030: Elantris 3

• December 2030: Ghostbloods 3

So, Wind and Truth happened, but I believe both the White Sand Novel and Dark One are pushed back—with Tailored Realities being the book for 2025, along with Isles of the Emberdark (which I sprang on my team for the Words of Radiance leatherbound crowdfunding campaign) being also a 2025/26 release.

Janci also wants a little more time with the Skyward sequel series, which I believe she’s got a better name for than Skyward Legacy. I’ve scheduled a rough draft turn-in of Ghostbloods One for July 2025, and a Book Two turn in (rough draft) for early February 2026. I have two months scheduled for the first draft of Horneater, followed by Ghostbloods 3 to be turned in at the end of the year. (Also with time to do revisions on Horneater.)

This will put me with all three books’ ROUGH DRAFT in hand in January 2027. Now, these books are projected at 200k in length, or double the length of a Wax and Wayne book (and around the same length as the original trilogy volumes). So the turn-in for these will be influenced by how long they actually end up being—they could always go longer or be shorter. 

Assuming we have them all in hand, I’ll probably want a break to write Elantris 2 the first half of 2027, then spend the rest of 2027 getting Ghostbloods one into shape for Nexus 2028. I’ll then spend 2028 getting Elantris 2 revised and Elantris 3 written.  2029 will be a heavy revision year, getting all of those books ready, and is when I’ll probably also dive into Stormlight 6. I therefore think that the above schedule is a pretty good one, still, for when I release these books.

Looking at that, I hope you can understand why it will take me a little time to get back to Stormlight, which I should spend 2030 and 2031 on, for a late 2031 release. (I’ve seen 2033 bandied about online, which I don’t think is likely. Remember, while books are coming out 2029-2030, I’ll be writing on Stormlight.)

So we’re looking at a 7-year gap, instead of a 3-year gap this time, assuming that plan above works as I think it will.   

• Fall 2025: Isles of the Emberdark (Crowdfunding fulfillment)

• December 2025: Tailored Realities

• Early 2026: Isles of the Emberdark (Tor release)

• Spring/Summer 2026: Skyward Legacy One (?)

• December 2026: Dark One or Isaac’s Cosmere Novel

• Sometime 2027: Dark One or Isaac’s Cosmere Novel

• December 2028: Ghostbloods 1

• Summer 2029: Elantris 2

• December 2029: Ghostbloods 2

• Summer 2030: Elantris 3

• December 2030: Ghostbloods 3

• December 2031: Stormlight 6

Brandon Sanderson

Part Seven: News from my Company

All right! On to the part where the Officers of my company step forward to talk to you about their year, and anything they want to make you aware of! 

Dan Wells

Hi! This is Dan, and Brandon has already covered most of what I have to say. This year we worked on a ton of book projects already detailed in the “My Year” section, but the big triumph for me was finally being able to debut Story Deck: the trading card stories that appeared at Dragonsteel Nexus. This was a massive project that took two years of work, and every department in the company played a huge part in getting it created and published and out into the world. It was also a massive success, and we look forward to doing it again several years down the road. If you weren’t at Nexus I promise that these stories will be published in other forms, though we are allowing them to be Story Deck-exclusive for at least a year.

What’s coming next? Brandon has already covered most of that, as well, so I’ll just step in to say that Dark One continues to trudge along, and we have a handful of secret things which, like Story Deck, I will say nothing about until they are much farther along. But since there are a few questions I know you’re asking, I’ll provide a handful of lightning-round answers. Yes, I am working on a new series set in the Cosmere. No, it isn’t about Threnody. Yes, I will inevitably write something about the Night Brigade. No, I can’t tell you when any of this comes out. Yes, we are also working on non-Cosmere projects. No, I won’t tell you about any of those either. Yes, they are awesome.

Isaac Stewart

Book of Nails

One of the questions I often get asked is how my Cosmere book is progressing. For those who haven’t heard of it, Book of Nails is set on Scadrial and follows the adventures of Nicelle Sauvage, aka Nicki Savage from the Era 2 broadsheets--though the novel presents events as they actually happened rather than in a sensational serialized story written by Nicki.

With the addition of a few art directors to the creative team, I’m starting to reclaim a little time to work on the story. This year I received amazing feedback from a beta read we held for the first part of the book. Additionally, I’ve been running chapters through members of the department and Brandon’s writing group. There’s a list of changes to make, but I’m confident in the story’s direction and can’t wait for you to see it. I’ll be working through feedback and making revisions over the next several months.

Brandon Sanderson

Part Six: Hollywood and Video Games

An Explanation

To make conversations around film/television a little easier for you, I’m going to give a kind of rough list of steps it takes to get something made in Hollywood. It’s my intention to use this explanation in future years, so you can gauge movement on various properties—without expecting too much. If I say “this property is in Phase One,” you’ll know what I mean.

Often you’ll hear in the news “Such and such property is being developed for film!” You’ll get excited, then hear no news for years. That is because, despite what the news cycle (generating clicks with hype) would have you think, “Being developed for film” is one of the EARLY steps, not one of the later ones. Here is a rough list of events. This is simplified, and does not include many corner cases that experts could explain to you in better detail. This is also from the perspective of a rights holder, not a screenwriter, producer, or director—for whom the early steps are often different.

Phase One: Initial Option

Step One: Pitching

Many properties skip this step. It’s what it sounds like: you go to Hollywood with a property, and pitch it around. This can also happen later, if you put together more of a package yourself, with people attached. (See below.) 

Step Two: Interest  

This is where someone (usually a production company) in Hollywood comes to you and wants to explore picking up the rights. The reason step one is often skipped is because if a book series is doing well, you don’t often have to go pitch it. Sometimes, this interest is in the author, rather than the property. I’ve had tons of meetings where they just want to feel me out as a creator.

Step Three: Option

This is where the announcement often happens in the press that gets people excited, though it’s still very early on—and in the “easier” steps. That said, it can take months or years to go from interest to option, as a lot of people investigate, then decide not to make an offer. 

An option is like “renting” film/tv rights from an author. The studio pays money every year or so to keep the rights from being sold to someone else, with a big payout to come if they actually make the thing. The author gets some stable income off of their property, with a promise of more. The production company gets to know nobody else is going to snipe the property out from underneath them while they go through the very difficult next steps.

The option contract is usually a very long document spelling out just how the production company can proceed to get the full rights (buy them) at any time during the option period, which is often around five years. These are often independent producers looking to build a package out of a property, then sell it to one of the big players (a studio or streamer) with the producers remaining in an important decision-making position through the course of the production, where they will make their option money (and then some) back on their salaries and fees as producers on the property.

Once in a while, a studio or streamer themselves makes the option—and this is usually called a “studio deal.” This can skip some steps below, but not always, as these days studios often develop properties just as if they were independent producers, then shop them both to other arms of the studio and to places outside the studio. Sometimes there can be multiple phases of optioning, buying, and studio involvement.

(An example of this is the Wheel of Time. Originally optioned by Red Eagle, an independent pair of producers. Then eventually set up at Sony, who developed for a while before selling it to (or maybe partnering with? I don’t have all the details) Amazon, who eventually bankrolled and released the show.)

Phase Two: Development

Though I’m going to list a typical order for this next phase, know that everything in this list can happen really in any order, and I’ve seen it go in all sorts of ways. 

Step Four: Script

Often, at this point, the script is commissioned for films. Once in a while it is done earlier (for example, if an author is trying to act more like a producer, they might write or commission a script and take it to pitches). However, usually this only happens once the rights are locked up. 

For a television show, this is where you bring on your “showrunner” who is part screenwriter, part manager of a group of screenwriters. They’ll be the one to hire, and help the directors, for each episode, run the writer’s room, and generally be the head of production for a show. For a film, landing a director is usually a later step, and right now just a screenplay is commissioned. 

The hunt for the right screenwriter can take a long time—months and months—and the writing of the first draft of the script can take a long while as well. Once it’s in, there are often revision phases, where the script is worked on, or rewriters are brought in. In my experience, this is one of the big moments where development dies—a script comes in, and it isn’t liked enough by either the production company or the author.  Or the revisions go nowhere. Or whatever. I’ve had optioned books sit in the script stage for years.

Television works similarly, except they’re looking for a treatment (in this case, a kind of story bible for the series, with a breakdown of episodes) and maybe a script for the pilot.

Step Five: Attachment

Once a script is done (sometimes before on big properties), the producers will try to get some kind of big name attached. A lead star or two, or an interested director with enough of a name to get people at studios/streamers to pay attention. A project can at this point also pick up much larger names who are producers, people who see the potential and help elevate the property to a higher level of meetings and pitches. This is, yes, why you often see so many production company names at the start of films.  (Another is that the directors/actors sometimes have their own production companies who get involved.)

Step Six: Studio Signs On

Sometimes before the actor/director is involved, sometimes after, you will finally land the attention of a studio or streamer. They have the big pockets, and most production companies do not have the money (let alone the platform) to create a full-blown film or television show. In our current environment, for big-budget things, as my films or shows would have to be, you need a studio or a streaming platform. 

With the right package, script, and pitch you can get the studio to jump in and start bankrolling the thing. That said, once they get involved, they often start changing things structurally. (See the next part.) 

Step Seven: Studio Development

If you’re lucky, you’ll land a production deal after all this work—that means the studio will begin providing funding and a greenlight will happen quickly. Usually that doesn’t happen, and you do further development.

If you don’t have a production deal, what’s going to happen is the studio is going to review the script and ask for rewrites—or toss it out and commission a new one. If you’re so lucky as to have an actor or director attached, they’ll probably stay attached, but there will be work to get the missing pieces filled in. (There will still be many of those even if you have a big name attached.) This is the studio development phase.  During this phase, for television, a pilot might be ordered and filmed—though sometimes these don’t use the final cast.   

You can see that there are still some big hurdles ahead, which is why you shouldn’t hold your breath on any announcements.

Phase Three: Production

Step Eight: Final Approvals

You might think we’re there, but we aren’t. Because there are a few hoops to jump through. First, at this point (if not before—these days, it’s often before) the studio or producer “exercise their option” to buy the property, and pay that big lump sum contained in the original contract, meaning they get to own the property for film and television. Usually this is for a five-year period—during which, if they put out a film or show, the five-year period resets. This allows them to keep the rights in perpetuity, so long as they are making things with those rights.

Then you show it all to the people at the top. They’ll watch the pilot for a show or review the script and the attached people for a film. You all hold your breath and hope for final approval. This is usually called a “greenlight,” and for a television show involves a “series order” of a certain number of episodes. A budget is signed off on, and everything is a go.

I’ve never had one of my properties get past this stage, unless you count the Wheel of Time. I’ve had a few get very close, but nothing has been able to overcome this hurdle—and it seems that the vast majority of things that even get to this stage die right here. 

Step Nine: Greenlight

You are a go. You make the thing and spend the budget. This is obviously a very hard step, but I’m not going to write much about it here because at this point, what you know about the process is largely true. A lot of featurettes and bonus behind-the-scenes looks talk about this process. 

Usually, when you hear this step has happened, you can start celebrating and expecting to be able to see a property turn up on the screen. If I were you, this is where I’d let myself get excited, and not before. As we’ve seen in several high-profile cases recently, though, even this isn’t a guarantee the show or film will be released.  Sometimes, it turns out poorly enough that they shelve it rather than release it.  

Step Ten: Release

If this all goes well, then you finally have something released. 

So, for future years, this is our list, with the acknowledgment that some of these steps can happen out of order.

• Step One: Pitch

• Step Two: Interest

• Step Three: Option

• Step Four: Script

• Step Five: Attachments

• Step Six: Studio Signs On

• Step Seven: Studio Development

• Step Eight: Final Approvals

• Step Nine: Production

• Step Ten: Release

My Properties Right Now

Snapshot: Is in Studio Development for television, so actually quite far along. (In Step Seven.)

Skyward: Has been optioned for television, and is looking for a showrunner. (In Step Four.) 

Tress of the Emerald Sea: After going and doing pitches all this year, we are in the later interest stage for an animated television show, with maybe an offer of an option coming soon. (So in Step Two.)

Mistborn: Is at Step Zero right now, though recently it got as close as Step Six/Seven as a live-action film. (It’s tricky to point to where it got because this project did a lot more internal development than is usual—so it had basically done all of Step Seven before going out to pitch to studios. It got offers of development deals from studios, but no production deal, and the partners I had did not want to go back to script after all the work they did. 

As the studio didn’t want to do it the way the producers did, it died at the end of Step Six. If it had gone as we wanted, we would have skipped Step Seven and Eight entirely, as the production deal would have included a greenlight. We then would have gone straight to Step Nine—which was why I was so hopeful I could do an announcement for you. Alas, it did not happen. (Yes, this means stars were attached. No, Henry C. was not one of them. Yes, you’d recognize some of the names.  No, I can’t tell them to you.)

That’s everything, I’m afraid. I’ve said no to several offers on Cosmere properties over the last five years, as I was all-in on getting the Mistborn film made. Now that that has fallen through, I’m back to square one, basically, on the Cosmere. 

I do hold the rights currently for everything except Skyward and Snapshot. I hope to be able to announce the creative teams involved with those two for you soon enough—but I’ve learned that building hype before we have too much progress is counterproductive, so let’s keep our expectations tempered for now.  

Brandon Sanderson

Part Five: Crowdfunding

As before, I’m going to pass this over to the relevant parties to give you updates, but first I wanted to let you know that we’re not planning a crowdfunding campaign for next year.

While we’d like to eventually get to doing one of these regularly every year, we also want to avoid starting new ones when we haven’t finished fulfillment on the last one.  While the Words of Radiance leatherbound is going out, Isles of the Emberdark won’t ship until fall of next year—and, we still have the RPG doing its fulfillment as well.

We sincerely appreciate all the attention, love, and support you’ve given us with these, and we want to make sure we’re always doing our best on the CURRENT project, rather than letting ourselves get distracted by what’s next. That’s always a balance, because planning for the future is in my nature, and part of what has made me successful. And there are always cool things I want to do.

At the same time, I want to be cautious. The moment we did our big Kickstarter campaign, a lot (and I mean a LOT) of people turned their eyes toward us in an effort to get to you. You’d probably be unsurprised to learn that I’ve had to take a baseball bat to fend off the people who would love to have me dupe you all with some crypto or NFT scam. But also, a lot of really great people have wanted to partner with us to do other things far more reputable via crowdfunding, and I’ve so far said no to them all. 

I feel like between Dragonsteel, and our gaming partner Brotherwise, we can do almost everything we’d want to do ourselves. I won’t completely discount the possibility of doing a big crowdfunding campaign for something like a film or a graphic novel line—but for now, we feel the best way to make good on the trust you’ve given us is to just fulfill what we’ve already promised, and make it incredible. 

Do expect the Hoid Storybook Collection to be a crowdfunding campaign in 2026. And likely, when we do the big “guys, this is the complicated one” board game with Brotherwise, that will be a crowdfunding campaign. Note that the Wheel of Time leatherbounds will NOT be done via crowdfunding.