At what point did you first realize that you had fans scouring your works for hints of the Cosmere?
Right around Mistborn Three's release--while I was working on Warbreaker, I think--where people started to realize this "Hoid" thing was relevant.
I am currently fascinated by your decision to alter the ending to WoR. I understand it was especially necessary for you considering how intent and self realization are inherently tied to the surgebinding magic system. It must have been a tough decision to move forward with a mass change like this nonetheless. What are the logistical implications? Do you know the time frame or if it will be possible at all to change the audiobooks? I'd think at the earliest those wouldn't be possible until the third book comes out (since Michael Kramer and Kate Reading will already be in the booth) but I'm just guessing at this point. How will the roll out of WoR 2.0 proceed?
It was a tough decision. I think Lucas has ruined doing things like this for a lot of people, and I was certain many readers would dislike it. (Turns out, there have been fewer voices against it than I'd assumed.)
One of the things I'll be doing is making sure Book Three works with either version of the ending. I consider the changes minor. The big reason I made the swap, however, was that (I hope) these books will be read for years to come, and I wanted to get the right ending.
It shouldn't be TOO bad logistically. Remember, the changes shouldn't matter too much for the story as a whole. We will be changing the audiobooks if we can, however, but you're probably right--book three will be when it happens.
I don't plan this to be a common occurrence, but at the same time, I was increasingly certain I wanted this tweak made. So I did it for my own peace of mind, though I figured the majority of fans would rather I not.
What is in the future for the one armed Herdazian?
Greatness.
I mean, heck, he's already been King of Alethkar.
Progress on Rithmatist 2?
I haven't been on Brandon's site for a while, but I swear that I had seen a progress bar for second Rithmatist book. Now that I take a look again, it has disappeared. Does anyone know what happened to it? Did he finish writing it, or is it on hold?
I've finished an outline I'm quite satisfied with, and have done a great deal of research into indigenous South American cultures in order to write the book--but that research was extensive enough that by the time I finished, I needed to move on to get the next Mistborn book done in time. Because deadlines are coming due, I will need to do Calamity after that.
Rithmatist, like Warbreaker and some of my other fun side projects, has to take a back seat occasionally to higher profile projects. But I do plan to write it in the near future.
So, I started reading Mistborn not longer after finishing [Wheel of Time]...
Why does it seem so intentional that they're a parallel? That Mistborn is set in a 4th age a cycle in either direction from Randland? Well, more the close of the 4th, beginning of the 5th, as the influence of the Dragon/HoA is ending. The Deepness is basically exactly the Dark One, what the Hero of Ages had to go through reminds me very much of Rand's tribulations, hell, his diary could have been written by Rand himself. And what did Rashek do after killing off The Hero of Ages? He became Nae'blis and quickly established unquestioned rule over the world as God-Emperor.
Even how the Deepness attacked the Hero, trying to convince him he was insane, filling him with doubt that he could possibly succeed, or rule, it totally fits how the Dark One tries to break his foes rather than simply destroy them outright.
Mistborn was inspired by my love of the classic fantasy stories from my youth, Wheel of Time at their forefront. The original idea was for a Shannara-esque fantasy epic where the heroes lost at the end, but I decided (for many reasons) this wouldn't be fun to read or write. The idea simmered for a year or two until I realized it would an awesome backstory for the heist story/epic fantasy mashup I'd been developing.
And so, I worked to make Rashek's story as resonate with classic fantasy epics as I could. I wanted that resonance so that I could play with the tropes of epic fantasy.
Remember, Wheel of Time was a huge influence upon me as a youth and a writer. I knew I couldn't just write ANOTHER farmboy saves the world story, as I felt those had been done (and done well.) I wanted something that had one foot in this, however, and one foot in a more contemporary style of plotting and worldbuilding.
So everything you're noticing is indeed intentional. Mistborn is my vision of a world where Rand gave in. (Or where Frodo kept the ring, etc.) I wrote the trilogy primarily in 2004-2006, ending one year before I was chosen to finish the Wheel of Time, which makes the parallels even more interesting.
We post the artwork on my website under the book's individual heading, so don't worry--you can go look at it all there. The trick is that some of it is slightly spoiler-ish, the maps in particular. So you might want to be careful which pieces you look at when.
We're actually planning to release a little free app for mobile that will include all these things, along with a glossary, for audiobook people.
Are you tempted to write some content for an RPG like Patrick Rothfuss is doing for Torment? Love the books by the way.
The thing that would most tempt me would be doing Magic: The Gathering content, as that is my nerd obsession. I could foresee doing some kind of RPG content, however. Depends on the project and how behind on things I'm feeling.
Just realized what Shardblades remind me of..
In my head, they remind me a lot of Keyblades from Kingdom Hearts. The blade appearing out of nowhere when you hold out your hand seems rather similar. They're also both highly coveted in their universes and for both types each blade is different from the next (I think). Just wanted to see if anyone else noticed this or if I'm just crazy and have had way too much time to think waiting for Words of Radiance.
Shardblades aren't inspired by keyblades specifically, though there is a core inspiration that might be shared by both myself and the creators. While I did play the first kingdom hearts game when it came out, the first draft of The Way of Kings was well under way when the game was released.
However, I did play all of the final fantasy games--I had the first on original Nintendo, so get off my lawn, you kids. The origin of Shardblades relates to fantasy games and art in general, and the concept of the stylized sword which is also horribly impractical.
In a lot of my writing, I react toward or against the fantasy archetypes of my youth in the 80s and 90s. When designing the Stormlight Archive, one of the things I asked myself was, "Can I make a situation where these oversized, over-stylized blades are actually practical? Why in the world would you need a weapon like that? And how do you actually use one?"
Making the blades summonable seemed one of the only ways that carrying one around would be reasonable.
You've said that while many of your books are interconnected "behind the scenes", you didn't want to put too much in the books themselves so readers didn't feel like they're missing information (HIGHLY paraphrased). Have your opinions changed on that given the size of your fanbase? When do you expect to have more crossover between worlds (as in major characters or plot points as opposed to cameos and subtle allusions)?
I still think that keeping this to less is going to be better. However, it's going to be tougher and tougher to keep them separate, logically. As the worlds advance and more and more people begin dabbling in crossing planets, the signs will compound. I still intend to keep it from the forefront. There will be an increasing amount of this, however.
[Steelheart] sounds really cool and I look forward to reading it! One thing I wonder about tho, is how you fit this into the shard multiverse? I1ll be honest and admit I'm not totally up to speed on all your books and all the meta-lore, but as far as I knew you had a pre-set number of possible worlds, all created by some unique piece of shard from a larger whole, right?
So for this idea, did you happen to have a specific shard available that fit with the world, did you have an "undefined" shard you could use, or is this something separated entirely from the multiverse setting? Really curious about this as this whole concept as I know of it of the multiverse is really intriguing.
So far, most of my deviation novels (Alcatraz, Steelheart, the Rithmatist) have not been part of the shared universe. Part of taking a 'breather' is letting my mind run free without continuity restrictions.
Often, good restrictions can make for a more impressive story, but sometimes you have to be able to do whatever occurs to you, even if it doesn't fit the shared cosmology. So, Steelheart is not a shard novel. I HAVE set apart plenty of places that are less defined that I can tell shard stories in, but this isn't one of them.
Fun fact: Hoid, the character who has shown up in each of my cosmere books, had a brief stint as one of my high school D&D characters. He didn't start life there, but I did try to build a character for him. So I've done the same thing. (Koloss made their first appearance in a game I ran, though they were far more demonic in nature.)
Any plans you can share for the future of the Mistborn series?
I do want to get to the modern day trilogy eventually, but more and more, I've been itching to do a few southern continent books. They have a cool way of interacting with the magic.
Is this book part of the Cosmere? Since it's based in Chicago I'm wondering if that maybe isn't the case?
No, most of my "breather novels" are not Cosmere. The Cosmere requires meticulous planning and continuity. That's not usually good for what I'm looking to do when I take a break from a big project for a small one, though occasionally I can fit in a novella or such.
I just finished The Way of Kings and have been told it will be a 10 book series which makes me worry when it's done I'll feel like I do about AMoL right now.
If it helps, it's two five book arcs. The first five will draw to a natural conclusion. (Kind of how Mistborn one comes to its own conclusion, then two and three are in another arc.)
I think you may have answered this one before, but where do you come up with your names for all your characters?
It depends on the series. For Mistborn, I build a 'feel for certain regions and develop names using the linguistic rules of that region. The Central Dominance (and Elendel in this book) had a slightly French feel to the linguistics, and many of the names came from that paradigm.
However, unique to the Mistborn world was the need to give people simple nicknames in a thieving crew sort of way. Wax, Clubs, Breeze, Mr. Suit, all of these are along those lines.
In the part 2 epigraphs of Oathbringer, Michael reads Harmony's letter in Sazed's accent. Is that something you specifically told him to do, or did he figure that out on his own?
By that same token, have there been other instances of you telling Michael and Kate "Read this with a specific accent" or "Make something memorable for this momentarily-appearing side character" (Jezrien the beggar comes to mind).
In TWoK interlude 1, Michael doesn't read Demoux with the same accent as he did in Mistborn. That leads me to believe that Connection also emulates accent. When Dalinar used Connection to speak with the Azish, did he sound like an Azish speaking Azish, or an Alethi speaking Azish?
Finally, this occurred to me as I was typing the previous question: How is Taln understandable to the modern characters of SA? He's been in Damnation for the past 4500 years, and there's been dramatic changes in the writing system. I assume that means similarly dramatic shifts in the spoken language too. I mean, today we can't really understand Old English, and that wasn't even 1 millennium ago. Has the spoken word really not changed that much, or is he using Connection? If he is, do all the heralds use it?
1.) I believe we warned him.
2.) Yes, though Peter usually makes these calls (he checks with me on a few.) We do need to do this for translations sometimes too (gender an ambiguous-in-English voice, for example.)
3.) We're better at this than we used to be. He probably should have had the same voice there. However, it can vary, depending on how the magic works. For example, Hoid--who is generally using Connection, rather than using languages--sounds like a native speaker. How you use the magic, how you view yourself, and things like that do influence this.
4.) I'm on this one, and will have answers for you eventually. In original drafts of TWOK, back when it was supposed to be a mystery if Taln were a Herald or not, I believe Jasnah used this as evidence that he WASN'T one, actually. Suffice it to say that the Heralds have had to deal with this a lot, over thousands of years...
I am hesitant to commit completely [to an Alloy of Law sequel], as I don't want too many open series. That said, I did end this one with more of a cliff-hanger than I had intended. Much that is happening here has relevance to the second trilogy. However, I do think I would be leaving Fans in a bad position if I didn't do more with these characters. It is likely, therefore, that there will be another book--though the second Stormlight book has priority.
Kaladin Concept Art used in my pitch of the series to Tor in 2008. Done by the incredibly talented Inkthinker, who eventually produced all of Shallan's pieces for the final book.
My god, that is sexy. Did he ever finish it?
He did polished versions of all of the characters, though I prefer not to show them around very much. The reason for this is that I generally prefer the readers to be able to imagine the characters as they have in their own minds, which is why none of the illustrations in the books are actually of characters.
On a more specific note, for this drawing, I've always preferred the rough version to the polished version. Something about the primal energy of this one is stronger. The polished one cleaned up the face, but for this picture, I feel that actually made it worse.
He did finish this illustration, but the sketchy version looks better for some reason. There's also a Szeth concept piece, a part of which ended up in the book as Szeth's chapter icon.
Allomancy can be such an internal form of magic... how would you see it being dealt with visually, if Mistborn were ever to have a TV/movie version?
Pushes and Pulls are going to be done (if this version of the film gets made) by having metals glow blue when an Allomancer is using their powers. There will be visual or auditory cues for the other powers as well.
Allomancy is such a unique form of magic, in the fantasy realm of books. What was your inspiration in forming it?
A mix of many things inspired Allomancy. The 'feel' of a magic that was really just a new branch of physics, as I spoke about in another post. Alchemy, which is fascinating to me from the standpoint of its place on the border, is another. Real scientists believed in Alchemy, but had to sort out that it was not scientific. It was a time of great thought, and a time when science and 'magic' were mixed in what now seems like strange ways.
Dune was an inspiration (having a limited resource, though I didn't limit it nearly as much, to give an economic side to the magic.) Vector physics was a big influence, as was the fact that I wanted to write a heist story. I therefore designed powers that worked for thieves. The 'burning' of metals was chosen because it resonated with science--the basic way we gain energy is by ingesting things and breaking them down for chemical energy. I wanted something that felt like it had one foot in science, but was also very magical.
With all these complex magic systems in your books, do you have all the rules for them written down somewhere? Also, as the worlds are all in the same universe, are the magic systems related in any way to each other, or completely independent from each other?
I have them all written down. Currently, I use a wiki--find it here--to keep track of all of it.
The magic systems in cosmere books all conform to a few underlying rules. This came from my interest in physics, and its search for a 'unifying' theory. (Fascinating reading, if you haven't studied this.)
In my books, there is a unifying theory of magic, so to speak.
I've noticed some similarities between the father-son pairs of Dalinar/Adolin and Mormon/Moroni, was that intentional or did it creep in subconsciously? The M/M relationship is an incredibly powerful one for me and I'm glad to see it pop-up in unexpected places.
That's not intentional, but it could certainly be unconscious influence.
I've heard Brandon talk about these characters and he said that originally there was no Adolin. Dalinar was the only character speaking to both the belief and doubt of what he was experiencing. Brandon's Writing Group gave feedback that having one character flip-flop like that wasn't working, so Brandon developed Adolin to help express those doubts. What a great way to solve a problem, and the result is a wonderful relationship that immitates many powerful Father/Son stories.
You're ALMOST right. Adolin wasn't a viewpoint character initially, but he was in the book during the draft you're talking about. (The one where I had to fix things.) But if I go back to Dalinar, the character, back in his origin (before I wrote the way of kings the first time, back in 2002) he did not have a son. It was his relationship with his brother and nephew (needing to take over the kingdom for a beloved brother who died, and rule it for a nephew--then have concerns about giving up power, and how much he should take) that was the origin of Dalinar.
You have, undoubtedly, mastered the fantasy genre. Do you ever see yourself writing science fiction?
I ask because I remember reading two or three years ago on TWG that your plan is to make the second Mistborn trilogy set in a steampunk/industrialized world and the third and final trilogy in a more sci-fi setting. So I'm just wondering if that plan still holds.
I do plan to do SF in the future. The final Mistborn trilogy will indeed be sf, with a deep understanding of Allomancy and Feruchemy having allowed them to figure out a method of FTL travel. I also have a space opera I've been wanting to write. So far, no time.
Do soothing and rioting work on a telepathic or physiological level (or both)?
Primarily telepathic, though the body does respond physiologically. After the Soother is gone, the emotion remains for a time, so long as it was a natural emotion. Strong soothing/riotings against a person's nature can wear off quickly, and the body react (sometimes) with a strong opposite emotion in response. A very good Soother/Rioter can inspire emotions that begin telepathic only, but then have a response in the body, so the emotion gets more cemented.
Unless you are using it to describe a method of divination, X-mancy probably does not mean what you think it means. -mancy, from the Greek manteia ("divination") cannot be used to denote the magical manipulation or evocation of something. The root you are looking for is -urgy, from Greek ergon ("work").
But fantasy books get a little leeway here because it's generally understood that English is being used as a proxy for an in-world language, so Greek etymology doesn't necessarily apply.
And Brandon Sanderson's admitted that he knows what mancy means, and calling his magic system in Mistborn allomancy was simply a useful tradeoff.
Yes, I talk about this in the annotations, I believe.
Language shifts. I believe this one has shifted far enough inside the target demographic (fantasy readers) that it would not confuse. In fact, I decided it would be MORE clear to use the 'wrong' term than the right one.
I subscribe to a school of writing philosophy which believes that clarity trumps most other concerns, so I chose to do it this way. (Though this was a specific choice for the Mistborn world, where I was attempting to create resonance as an Earth analogue, so used more familiar sounding names for people and terms. Compare to Elantris, where I instead preferred in-world names and terms which might be harder to say/pronounce but added worldbuilding flavor.)
Behind the scenes: On at least five separate occasions, someone pointed out to me that I'd "forgotten" Gaz, assuming the lack of mentioning what happened to him was a mistake. It was not a mistake.
[Mistborn] would be AWESOME cinematically, except I don't know how the internal use of the metals and their powers could be conveyed on screen.
The producers have some good ideas for giving visuals on those. Iron/Steel, for example, would make all sources of metal glow faintly blue on the screen while the allomancer is burning.
I suppose my question is about how you name your characters. I've been reading WoT and notice some similarities, for example Cenn, and Sarene, and Shalon (different spelling, but they probably sound the same). Is it purely by accident that you have characters with similar names, or is it a homage to a recent master of the fantasy genre? Or is it just that with RJ's 2000+ names, it's impossible to escape some overlap? :) So I guess I'm curious about how you name your characters in general (and even places. Urithiru is an awesome name.)
I ended up with a lot of unconscious similarities in KINGS as I was working on it for such an extended period of time. Cenn wasn't actually intentional. (At least, I don't think so; sometimes, it's hard to remember back to which names pop out intentionally and which do not.) The eyebrows of the Thaylens were, however, an intentional homage, as is the name of the mountains by where Szeth's people live.
There is going to be some overlap. Sarene is a great example of this; I'm pretty sure that one is just coincidence, though I'd lay odds on Cenn being an unconscious influence.
Some of the names in the book were constructed quite intentionally to fit linguistic paradigms of the setting. Urithiru, for example, is a palindrome--which are holy in the Alethi and Veden tongues. Some names, like Shallan, are intentionally one letter off of a holy word--as to not sound too arrogant. (Shallash would be the holy word; nobility will often change one letter to create a child's name to evoke the holy term, but not be blasphemous.)
With many, I just go for the right feel. I've worked these names over for years and years at this point. Dalinar's name has been set in place for a good ten years or so, but Kaladin used to be named Merin and Szeth used to be named Jek. (The first changed because I didn't like it; the second changed because the linguistics of the Shin people changed and I needed a name that better fit.)
When Odium says, "We Killed You," who is he referring to?
*Hands RAFO card*
Are you going to write books like, Way of Kings? Not the Way of Kings you already wrote but the Way of Kings in Way of Kings?
I am not planning to. Feels like it'd just be a lot of work for very little--
What was the most outrageous things somebody has asked you to write?
A lot of times they'll have me write something insulting to their friends, just gleefully. That's pretty weird. Lots of inside jokes and things like that, that make no sense to me. You know, "From brain to sandy. Write brain to sandy! That's what we call you!" Stuff like that.
If you could go to any planet *inaudible*
Oh, they're often just terrible places, right? Maybe Wheel of Time after the end of the books. That would be a good one. Or I might pick early Age of Legends. That's it, do that. Early to mid Age of Legends, Wheel of Time.
Cephandrius is kinda like a bard. And Tanavast is almost a Paladin. And Ati we're thinking like a priest or cleric?
You're starting to stretch. You can definitely put Hoid into a bard category.
And then our final one was Preservation. Is he almost like a rogue or thief type person? Because he gives off that kind of vibe.
I'll RAFO it. You're going to have to wait on those until I write them out.
So I think you dropped like, so many cosmere bombs in Oathbringer. And I'm just low-key worried that there's not going to be much more to reveal. I hope that that's not the case and I just want a small confirmation.
There is still plenty to reveal. Remember it's two five book arcs.
So we're okay?
Yeah. I've still got a few bombs to drop.
You snake. I just finished Hero of Ages, and come to find out I'll never know the last 2 metals. Grr.
Cadmium and Bendalloy are what you're looking for. They create bubbles of warped time around the Allomancer. I will be doing more books in the world, though not with the same characters, and you'll see the other metals.
When is the second Rithmatist book coming out?
I put an update on my blog two days ago, so you can look in there. I'm having a lot of trouble writing it.
I'm curious, did you have [Sazed's] end result planned out from the beginning?
Yes and no. Mostly what I would do is I would generally write the first book as an exploration. Then I will outline the series, make sure the first book matches the series, then write the rest of the series. With Mistborn I did more of a write straight through all three. And then make sure they all fit... So where I had that, it would be very hard for me to pinpoint, because I kind of wrote the three books as a whole.
But I am an outliner, so I do know a lot of things ahead of time. You're asking me to remember back ten years, what happened while I was editing. I often say yeah I knew ahead, but the honest truth is it came in there somewhere. It might have been ahead. I would have to go look and see what my outline looked like.
*inaudible* Thom Merrilin *inaudible* what kind of story would that be?
Oh they would try to one-up each other. It would be one of these stories that kind of starts normal, and it spirals out of control and then just crazy insanity.
Is Kaladin's name influenced by Dune?
I've read Dune many times, so maybe? It's more looking at-- A lot of Dune names are Arabic inspired, and I went to that region for a lot of the names. But I think the word "Paladin" was probably more in the back of my head. I didn't even think of it until I started writing it, and I'm like, "Oh I bet that's where I got it." But it's often kind of based off of like, Khalid, or things like that? Like a lot of the Arabic names go Khalid.
I was actually just thinking that the other day how the Knights are a lot like paladins.
It wasn't like, "I'll come up with the word." But after I started writing I'm like, "Oh I bet that's why the name felt right to me". But you can't separate an author from their influences, and I've read Dune like 5 times.
Are you doing a Warbreaker sequel?
Yes. But I've determined that I can't do it until I at least have the Wax and Wayne sequence done. So it will probably not happen till after Stormlight 5. So you got a little wait on that. Because I'm going to do Wax and Wayne and then the next Stormlight. There's a chance I'll do it in between 4 and 5 but we'll see once we get there.
So Wax and Wayne aren't finished?
One more book, Wax and Wayne.
I thought they were just going to be a trilogy.
I wrote the first book as exploration. So I view the books two through four as a trilogy, with the first book kind of being like, "Do I want to do something more with this?" So there will be four.
What's your most asked question?
"When's the next of blank coming?"
So I was curious. I really enjoyed your Snapshot book. Is there any way you're going back to that?
Probably not. What I do with those novellas is I write them specifically to get an idea out of my head. I could not promise a sequel and things. But there is a film in the works. MGM.
I understand that although Shadesmar is a Rosharan term, Brandon sometimes uses it generically to refer to the Cognitive Realm. But I would not have expected Khriss to do the same (AU, Drominad system). Is that a mistake or deliberate?
As far as I know, it is not a Rosharan term.
My understanding came from several WoB, such as https://wob.coppermind.net/events/221-words-of-radiance-omaha-signing/#e7199 … and https://wob.coppermind.net/events/225-words-of-radiance-san-diego-signing/#e5814 … . While obviously not canon, can you clarify with Brandon?
Eh, well the first quote actually answers the question. Whatever word people use throughout the cosmere, Brandon translates it as Shadesmar in the books. I still think the word is widely used though.
I think that in the first quote when he says "these books" he is referring to Stormlight. Hence the reference to Wit, whose words are translated to Rosharan and Cognitive Realm is thus translated to Shadesmar. Have you found Shadesmar anywhere else in the cosmere?
Well, clearly Khriss calls it that too. :)
In Oathbringer, Dalinar thinks to himself "He couldn't write to them of course, but he could flip the reed on and off to send signals, an old generals trick for when you lacked a scribe." But I thought spanreeds were a relatively new invention? Thoughts?
"Old" is relative.
Frustrated with the editing/beta readers for not noticing Brandon leaving out a character.
The character I'm talking about is Rlain. An entire part of the book was spent with every single member of Bridge Four talking about how Rlain wasn't really a part of things, and even more so Rlain himself in his POV chapter. And then nothing! We get a conclusion to the whole buildup of Bridge Four, but Rlain is nowhere mentioned in the last half of the book. Nevermind that we've all spent an entire book (and the three years since WoR) wondering if Rlain will become a squire, and nevermind that we get an answer to whether a Parshman can become Radiant in the first place. We just get nothing! No resolution.
Everyone noticed this. I noticed it even before the beta read started. Brandon was well aware, and this was all intentional. I'll bet you can think of some reasons for it.
I think it's probably the remnants of the first agreement between the singers and humans. They were allowed to terraform Shinovar, and rule that area, but anywhere else, they were forbidden from. Eventually, it morphed into the "soil lands are for humans, everywhere else is for singers." Then, over the millennia, it became a religious teaching, "don't walk on stones."
Brandon wrote a ton of worldbuilding down before starting to write the first book, and this particular thing is definitely something he planned from the start. He does keep a lot of stuff in his head, but sometimes that shifts over time. Part of our job is to make sure what's in his head now doesn't conflict with what has previously been published.
If the outline doesn't work for something, Brandon will change it while writing. As long as it doesn't conflict with published canon, it's always more awesome than his earlier plans.
Eshonai is flashback character [for Stormlight Four], but she is dead in the present. So...who will be main protagonists in the main timeline? Hope for Dalinar, Shallan and Kaladin will be as important as they were in first three books)
Eshonai will still be the flashback character, and Venli will take a larger role to provide counterpart past/present. But, as always, you will find a focus on all five protagonists from this sequence. (I view them as Dalinar, Kaladin, Shallan, Eshonai/Venli, Szeth.)
I heard it would be one year time gap (in world) between books 3 and 4, which make me think about structure of the book. Does it mean, something important could happen during this year, and then it will be explained in some form(maybe another set of flashbacks)? If so, it's hard for me to visualize the book structure: main timeline, Eshonai's flashbacks and another set of flashbacks for past year? Seems like a mess. Or it will be like Mistborn era 1 time gaps between each book? Main narrative just continues without getting stuck with one-year break, and nothing important happens off-screen. It will be nice to get some qualification from you, if possible. Cause now I'm a bit confused.
Right now, I've got it like Mistborn--we're checking back in a year, as I need to give some things time to progress in world. We'll see when I actually write it, though.
Thanks! But please, don't do things like Alien 3-movie, if you know what I mean. It's when they did a time gap between two movies and at the beginning of the new movie they told you that your favorite character died during the time gap, deal with it. This is the worst thing ever and a reason I'm always a bit skeptical about time gaps in fiction. Just hate when things like that happen off-screen. Just don't do it with your books, please. At least can you promise you wouldn't? And what do you think about this trope in general?
I actually want to write an essay about that very trope (I call it the Newt Principle.) You might see it on my website at some point.
Things will happen during the gap, I'm afraid. You might like it, you might not, but I do plan some of the flashbacks in the second half to help cover this time--so you'll see it eventually. If it helps, I'm pretty sure I understand the dangers of the Newt Principle, and how to not fall into that trap.
During a meeting [in Oathbringer] Janala acts as Teshav's assistant, but according to Words of Radiance, Teshav has an unnamed ward (during battle of Narak), is this Janala or someone else?
Someone else.
Early in [The Well of Ascension], Vin calls duralumin the 14th metal. But at the end of [The Final Empire] only 12 are known to them, aluminum being the 12th.
Did they find out about electrum as the 13th (since it's in the Ars Arcanum), but didn't tell the reader? Is it intentional that duralumin is the 14th to them or was there a specific reason that electrum was never mentioned?
Electrum was found between book 2 and 3. But they said 14th because of pairing.
Did we see the Fourth Ideal of the Windrunners anywhere in Oathbringer?
(I.E. did Teft speak the Fourth Ideal before he went through the Oathgate?)
No.
