Recent entries

Questioner

I enjoy the audiobooks. Michael Kramer is awesome.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he's great.

Questioner

Ramon De Ocampo is awesome. So I have two questions. One, when you give the books to the readers.

Brandon Sanderson

Uh-huh.

Questioner

Do you also, like, record for them the actual names so they know to speak... *inaudible*?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah, so naming-- names in the audiobooks. So I get-- I send them a recorded-- recording of all the names. It doesn't always get to them in time. Because the production-- You can imagine, like, I'm not turning the final book in to Tor for probably another month. And then they have to get that thing recorded, and produced, and out by the-- simultaneous with the book that we are recording. So, sometimes they get them wrong. But I don't really mind too much, because I figure-- this is kind of my philosophy-- there are no really right ways to say the names. The right way is how you say it in your version of the book when you are reading it. You're the director; I provide the script. I could tell you how I pronounce the names, but I pronounce names wrong. Like, I say "KEL-see-er", right? And in world they'd say something more like "Kel-see-AY". And stuff like this. Like I say "KAL-uh-din"; they would probably say "kuh-LA-din" in Alethi. And so, I mean, I'm American. We-- I say things like Americans.

Questioner

Will we see more about the Scouring of Aimia...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, Aimia-- you will learn more about the Scouring of Aimia. Unfortunately for Aimia fans, that's basically all that's in this book. But we will work-- we will find out more about what happened there.

thinformparshendi (paraphrased)

 I asked him if Wit was always gonna tell Kaladin a story in every book.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Wit will always tell someone a story, but it won't always be Kal.

Ahuri3 (paraphrased)

In which published book is Hoid the happiest?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He is the happiest when he is getting away with something. Not in the Stormlight Archive because he is nervous about Odium being there. I think he is the happiest during the Wax and Wayne series, in Bands of Mourning maybe.

Brandon Sanderson

So my method of plotting-- I've been asked about, "Do I use seven-point story structure? Do I use three act format?" I actually don't use any of these things. So they're tools that I think are good to study. For me I use just a very simple: Promise, Progress, Payoff. This is what I focus on for plot,and I subdivide my stories into subplots and things and say, "What's the promise? How do I early on promise what type of plot this is. What's the progress? What's the payoff?" And you're asking how do you make sure that the hype lives up to the promise, and that is dangerous. The longer you go between books, the more that hype almost like-- I feel part of the-- If you're looking at The Wheel of Time, there were books when we fans were waiting for them to come out, that we were super frustrated by when they came out, that when I reread them in the whole series I didn't-- were less bothered by. It felt like, when I waited three years for something, the hype of what that needed to deliver was way different than when it was book ten bridging between book nine and eleven. And so that is a consideration.

My job-- I think that if your progress is right, if you can kind of-- like if you say, "We're moving towards something here," this is the sort of emotional reaction you're going to get from it by showing-- for instance, an easy way to talk about this is a mystery, right? If you want the mystery to be really cool, then it's your progress toward the mystery that's going to indicate what kind of reveal and surprise that's going to be. If, you know, the characters discovering clues and getting more and more horrified, then the payoff at the end has to be something horrific, right? But if they're like, "Ooo! This connection and this connection together are making something really interesting. If I can just figure this out then it'll click together." Then the payoff is, instead of discovering horror, the payoff is then, "Oh, this comes together and I understand now." So you need the reader to understand that's their kind of payoff, is it clicks for them like it does for the character. And it's really-- that progress is the most important of those three in a lot of ways. If you can indicate to the reader, "This is just going to be satisfying. This character is finally going to let down this burden. That's the progress we're working toward. It's not going to be a surprise, it's just going to be satisfying. That's how you do that.

There are certain things that there's just no avoiding the hype on. In fact, the further the series gets the more I'm worried about that, because-- in part because I'm such a believer in this kind of progress and things like this-- there are very few things, like in the Stormlight for example, that you'll get to that you will be super surprised by if you've been reading the fan forums, because the clues are all there in previous books. And so you just, I think, as a writer have to be okay with, if you're going to lay the foreshadowing, people will figure it out. And I can talk more about like, the third book has some big reveals about the world that I think the casual reader's going to be like, "Woah, mind blown!" where the people who have been on forums are like, "That's it? We've know that for years Sanderson!" But, you know, if you don't-- the only way to really surprise people is to do something completely unexpected. Which is, sometimes can be really nice, but a lot of times it just makes for a twist just to twist for twist's sake, so. I don't know that I've figured this one out a hundred percent across a series, but within a given book, yeah.

Questioner

So is this [interludes] your way of kind of introducing more world details, worldbuilding--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. This is a way of me introducing more worldbuilding. Because-- See, one of the differences between myself and the previous generation of epic fantasy writers is I tend to be very-- I tend to stick with one location, alright? The generation before me-- and I love these books, but the generation before me-- the Tad Williams, the Robert Jordan, and things like this-- tended to be quest epic fantasy. You'd go one place-- It's kind of following the grand Tolkien tradition. "We gotta get over there. We're either chasing somebody or being chased by somebody." Right? And you then travel across a varied landscape, meet lots of interesting people on your way to the place. Well I don't like to do that. I think it's partially because I grew up reading those. I'm like-- Those authors covered that really well. Or maybe it's just my natural inclinations. I write a little more Anne McCaffrey style, right? She would pick a really interesting location and spend a lot of time on it. And that's what I like to do as well. So you don't get to travel as much in my books. A lot of times in my books it's like, "We're traveling!" Chapter 1: "We're going to go on this trip!" Chapter 2: "Hey, we're there!" We cut out the, you know, the boring stuff in the middle, and we go to an interesting location. And I really like to dig into this interesting location. It let's me as an author really explore various parts of the setting. But what that does is it means you don't get as much of the breadth. Like when you have to traipse with Frodo and Sam all the way across Middle-earth, you feel how big Middle-earth is. And you don't get that in Mistborn, where it's like, "We're going to stay in the city!" and things like this. And so, in Roshar, being able to say, "Here's what's happening across the world in a different culture," is really valuable to me in the interludes. But I also know that some people just don't want to read that, and I wanted to give them a clue that this is the scene that you can skip and read later if you just want to get back to the main character.

Tsidqiyah

On Sel. It costs about 50 sacrifices to become immune to Aons. Is that number essential? Or if someone with 50 Breath was sacrificed...?

Brandon Sanderson

That number is not essential. But you would have to hack the magic system. You need that much Investiture. So, 50 peoples' souls worth. But if you knew how to hack the magic, Breath could substitute there pretty easily.

Brandon Sanderson

How does Hoid travel between worlds? There is a story about how he does it in Words of Radiance. It is told as a myth, but if you read closely, you can find him. And, again, [Arcanum Unbounded], there is a very specific scene that shows what's going on.

Questioner

With Warbreaker and Stormlight Archive, Vasher and Zahel. How does that transition occur?

Brandon Sanderson

He went to Roshar because he knew ahead of time, that you could get Stormlight, and how easy it was. So he made his way there because he was tired of sucking people's souls to stay alive.

Questioner

How did he know?

Brandon Sanderson

He, as part of a group of scholars, stumbled upon the nature of worldhopping long ago.

Questioner

Could he be the same group of scholars as Jasnah?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's a group of scholars on Nalthis who were studying magic, Investiture, and stumbled upon the means by which you transition into the Cognitive Realm. So, he actually had experience with Shardblades before, and that was part of how he built... well, he was part of it, but really...

Questioner

So, is Nightblood kind of like a Shardblade? Is a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Nightblood is an attempt to make a Shardblade using a different magic. And it turned out poorly.

Questioner

Speaking of Nightblood, how did that transition from Nalthis?

Brandon Sanderson

I have not answered that yet. Eventually, you will find out how they ended up on Roshar.

Questioner

Demoux. Him, also being in the Interlude. How is that one...

Brandon Sanderson

He is part of a group called the Seventeenth Shard. [They] are cosmere-aware and travel around the planets and have a kind of pact of non-intervention. Which they aren't doing a very good job on, because they brought the common cold to Roshar.

Questioner

How did he actually find out about this?

Brandon Sanderson

I will give you [a RAFO card], because I will answer about the Seventeenth Shard eventually.

Questioner

So all these questions are actually going to be answered?

Brandon Sanderson

The Seventeenth Shard will have a big role to play in future books.

Questioner

Is Hoid part of the...?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid is not part of the Seventeenth Shard. They're trying to chase him down.

Questioner

In Stormlight, Dalinar mentioned that <if he can die, he's no longer a god>, so to speak. And throughout the cosmere, gods died *inaudible*. Is there an omniscient, omnipotent, actual God in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Is there an omniscient, omnipotent God in the cosmere? Some people believe that there is. You guys laugh about this, but I don't mean it to be a laughing thing. There are certain questions I will not answer in the cosmere, specifically because it would too much undermine some of the characters' beliefs. And I want to treat characters respectfully. So whether there is life after you pass into the Beyond, and whether there is a God of gods, an omnipotent, as we would define "monotheistic God," are questions that I don't answer, and I let the characters deal with. Because if I answer that, then the character discussions about this are meaningless. Not really, but they kind of are. So there are a couple things I won't answer about the cosmere, because the characters don't have these answers.

Questioner

<Do you know the answer>?

Brandon Sanderson

I know the answer, yes.

Questioner

Do you have any idea what the ratings on the movies are gonna be? Like, is it gonna be R, or...

Brandon Sanderson

I will push for PG-13 with the bit of power I have. I mean, they know, like... I don't have power over that. But that's part of the discussion, when I say, "We can't do Game of Thrones with this. It is not appropriate for my books and audience to have content like that in the books." So, like I said, they know. I can't guarantee

Ward

When Threnodite shades ruin silver, do they ruin it physically, like turning it into silver nitrate or silver phosphate? Or is it more of a, this is actually being transmitted into something not silver any longer?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a Read And Find Out.

Ward

At the beginning of Way of Kings, when Kaladin thinks he's being irritated by a windspren, he's like, "Oh, windspren are all like this." Are there other types of spren that have similar personality quirks, that elemental spren...?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there are, like flamespren. A lot of the elemental ones have quirks, you'll see more quirk to them than the emotional ones. And the difference between them will come up a little more obvious as the series progresses. You're more likely, for instance, to find quirk to a riverspren or a flamespren than you are to a fearspren.

Ward

When Harmony Ascends, he admits he doesn't have a good view of the Spiritual Realm. Does he develop a better one over time? And are there other Shards that already have a very good view of that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. But it is still something that is hard to grok, so to speak. In canon-- in science fiction-- hard to understand. But he has a much better understanding, and the other Shards, some of them have a very good understanding. The thing is, the difference between the Spiritual Realm and the Beyond is not something that is immediately obvious.

Ward

So, the Spiritual Realm is not the Beyond?

Brandon Sanderson

No, Spiritual Realm is not the Beyond. There are three Realms of existence. The Beyond, some would say... There are philosophers would would say, the Spiritual Realm and the Beyond are one, that the soul gets sucked into and joins the Investiture. That's the idea of the One. But, most people would say the Beyond is not...

Questioner

First of all, on the [Arcanum Unbounded] endpapers, what's the position of... Where is it from? What's the reference point?

My friend asked (and I was there with him asking my own question) Brandon and Isaac at the Provo release where the perspective on the end papers is from – Brandon confirmed that it was from Silverlight, after checking with Isaac. There was some wonkiness in the response though – Isaac said something like as it was “imagined” from Silverlight, and I tried to get clarification for what that meant (is that because Silverlight is mobile?), but stayed pretty vague (got the impression he was maybe saying there was some sort of artistic license taken?). I consider it confirmed that it is from the perspective of Silverlight, but that that there is more going on there. 

Brandon Sanderson

Reference point in this, I believe, is Silverlight. But it's not how they would exactly see them all. But it is done by someone from Silverlight. Right, Isaac? This is done by someone from Silverlight? And that's gonna be kind of our reference point, but they are imagining a place... right?

Isaac Stewart

They're imagining a place where the constellations would look like this. There iss an actual place where it looks that way. *talking over one another*

sillyslovene

Is that because Silverlight is mobile? Or is that because...

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

You say "imagine." I just wondered what "imagine" means.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm saying, I'm not sure-- *to Isaac* Did you set that from Silverlight?

Isaac Stewart

No, no. It is set from a point in the cosmere itself.

Questioner

So that they can say they can see all of them in one--

Isaac Stewart

So, that is an actual night sky somewhere in the cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, okay. Yeah. I now know what he's talking about.

*inaudible* [1:11]

Questioner 2

I've been meaning to ask you this 'cause you did the artwork for it. How can you have more than one planet habitable in the same solar system? Don't planets have - I mean I know it's *inaudible* [1:28]

Isaac Stewart

*inaudible* [2:12]

Isaac Stewart

Well there's always a belt in the solar system where *inaudible*

Questioner 2

And more than one planet can stay there? 'cause I thought that planets - I don't know the right word but it's like -

Isaac Stewart

No that's fine. There's actually - if there's a planet that's within its habitable zone - it's a zone, so if there are two planets in there, then they both get habitable.

Questioner 2

And they come - 'cause I thought that - that one of the definitions of a planet is that they move everything out of the way, like one of the reasons that they *inaudible* planets is that they move *inaudible* out of the way. Like, it doesn't have strong enough attraction to either pull things in or move *inaudible* 

Viridian

Why did Hoid give the memory coin to Wax? What was his intention?

Brandon Sanderson

He thought that certain information was being kept, and certain lies were being perpetuated. And Hoid was a fan of that information being out.

Viridian

I'm still suspicious.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you should be suspicious of Hoid's motive. He and Kelsier do not get along. Let's just say... Kelsier did not want that information to get out.

Eizweir

Was anyone pre-Lord-Ruler on Scadrial cosmere-aware?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Including Leras and Ati. Yes, there were others.

Questioner

Can emotional Allomancy or Feruchemy affect animals, or not-humans? Is it only if they're spiked?

Brandon Sanderson

So, emotional Allomancy requries a certain level of <Investiturance>. So, the closer to being sapient something is, the more that emotional Allomancy could have an effect on it.

Sunbird

Alcatraz, the Dark Talent. How far ahead did you decide that specific ending? I know you always knew it was gonna end up at the altar, but at what point did you decide Attica's fate?

Brandon Sanderson

That was right at the beginning. I was using some mythology, and things like this, and that was the big part. So, if you go back and look, I knew Alcatraz, when I wrote the first book, before I outlined the rest of them, something terrible happened. Something actually terrible happened, which is why he refuses to accept... 'cause he failed in some major way. It had to be a real and kind of awful thing in order to justify the way he is. Because otherwise, you're just like, "You're an idiot." And this turns him into something that had really traumatic, and so you could understand it. And I was worried about that being in a kids book, but I'm like, "It says what it has to be." I knew it was infiltrate the <library>, altar, Attica. But I didn't know all the details, just like I usually don't for the Alcatraz books. Those are supposed to be improv.

CarolaDavar's brother

[My cousin] thinks the Parshendi were made by someone so that spren could have a physical form. And he would like some critique on that.

Brandon Sanderson

Parshmen were created to be an essential part of the Rosharan ecosystem.

CarolaDavar

Can spren be affected by emotional Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

Ecthelion III

How do you pronounce the names of the three main characters in elantris.

Brandon Sanderson

RAY-O-DEN, SA-REE-NEE, hRAY-THEN. Barely vocalize that "h."

Ecthelion III

If a Shard dies, what happens to the perpendicularity? Does it lose lose power, or fade <away>?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how the Shard died. A lot of them... if the power is still there, just without a consciousness, the perpendicularity will stay as it was. But there are ways that a perpendicularity could vanish.

Lightning

*written* How will the everstorm affect Vasher?

Brandon Sanderson

*written* "Vasher will probably just hide, but it signals something bad for him...

Brandon Sanderson

That'll probably make sense to you in a long time.

Lightning

One of the swears that they have is "Rust and Ruin." My thought is, maybe that could mean two different beings.

Brandon Sanderson

It could... It doesn't. Good question.

Lightning

If you have a metalmind, you have, like, weight stored in it, and you want to transfer it to a different metalmind, can you just transfer it directly? Or does it pass into you, and then you lose some of the power, and then it goes...

Brandon Sanderson

You don't have to draw it completely out. You are gonna lose a little in the transfer. But it's not as much as you probably think. You can kind of do a little hack thing where it goes through.

Questioner

Have we seen Hemalurgy on any planet besides Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

I believe that you have, yes. I don't think you guys will find it, it's not something that is meant to be obvious.

Questioner

Will time travel ever be part of the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Time travel is already part of the cosmere. Wayne... You mean, will people be able to travel backward in time? Nobody in the cosmere has yet figured out how to go backward in time. So, I will leave it at that.

AllomancerSam

Were Vasher and Nightblood separated before going to Roshar, or after?

Brandon Sanderson

After.

AllomancerSam

Can you tell my anything about Elend's mother?

Brandon Sanderson

He shares much more with her than he does with his dad.

AllomancerSam

Did she have much of an influence on him, growing up?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

AllomancerSam

Can spren be affected by emotional Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

luckat

What is something that you would have put in the Nalthian essay if you had one in there?

Brandon Sanderson

I probably would have talked about how close some of these scholars are on Nalthis to understanding all of this. They're probably the closest to understanding the nature of the cosmere of anyone outside of the people who are actually worldhoppers. I probably also would have given some hints where the pool is.

Djarskublar

So, say you have a gold/gold Twinborn and they worldhop to Roshar and they study the magic and do the whole Khriss and Nazh thing for a while so they know a lot about the magic, but they've also left themselves a lot of options with what they can do. So then they manage to pull up a gold shadow of them having actually become a Surgebinder and then kind of meld themselves with that shadow a bunch, could they change their Cognitive Identity enough so that they could, like, tap a lot of gold and grow the spren and actually be a Surgebinder?

Brandon Sanderson

Unfortunately, no. It's a good question, but no. That won't work for a couple of reasons. One of which is, simply creating Investiture is not something that can happen, right?

Djarskublar

They are a gold Twinborn, so they can tap a lot of gold...

Brandon Sanderson

They can tap a whole bunch, that's true, they can do that, but simply having it is not gonna create a spren because the spren is from a different god, right, a different Shard.

Djarskublar

So if they had Regrowth cast on them, would that do it?

Brandon Sanderson

*hems and haws for a second*

Djarskublar

A really, really big Regrowth, like in the middle of a Highstorm.

Brandon Sanderson

Hmmm, this, you are getting to the realm of plausibility at that point. I still don't think gold is the way to do it. I think you just get all that Investiture. It would become sapient by you sticking a whole bunch of Investiture in, and then you can bond to that. But it's not like people gain what you would have done. Does that make sense? That's just what's going to happen, is you're gonna, you can create a, potentially create a spren that way, but you are more likely to end up with something like Nightblood. But you could potentially create a spren, but I mean you're just gonna end up...

Djarskublar

So there are other, more optimal ways to do that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, go bond a spren. (evil grin of course)

Djarskublar

But you can't easily bond multiple, and if you did this you could maybe get multiple.

Brandon Sanderson

Nyeaaahhh... The spren still has to choose. If you want to be a Surgebinder, the choice is being made. You can't fake your way into it. Decision and Honor are too much a part of Surgebinding for you to be able to fake your way into that. Other magics you might be able to do that. Other magics that don't require, like... Surgebinding works because a piece of Honor or Cultivation or a mix has chosen you specifically. There is will from the actual Investiture involved in it in Roshar. So it's not something you can cheat your way into, right. But cheating your way into Breath might be easier.

Djarskublar

*inaudible* [I asked if it would be possible to recall Breaths from an object that you had not placed there if the Awakener who did place them there had no Identity at the time.]

Brandon Sanderson

So, this is a very detailed, specific question, if you didn't hear it. It's dealing with the idea of Investiture and Identity, and things like this. If you can unkey the magic with Identity, for almost any case, it's going to make it much easier for other people to use. That's gonna be a blanket statement through the cosmere. If you can blank your Identity, it's at least gonna be able to be used by someone else with a blank Identity. Sometimes it's keyed, so the blank will not work with somebody who is themselves keyed. But if you can blank and they can blank, you can almost always guarantee the magic will be able to be used.

Windrunner Savant

Could you write in there what Hoid would think of Khriss.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, Hoid knows Khriss, so.

Brandon Sanderson

*written in book* Hoid thinks well of Khriss.

Windrunner Savant

So, [Hoid] can't hurt anyone, he physically can't hurt anyone in Dragonsteel. Yet, in Secret History...

Brandon Sanderson

He has a quip when he says that. Yeah, if you look at Secret History, there's kind of a "Huh. Since you're already dead, I can do this." And he goes a little crazy. There's a bit of built-up aggravation.

Windrunner Savant

How old does Wit appear to be?

Brandon Sanderson

Wit can appear to be different ages in different books, but he is...

Windrunner Savant

Specifically Wit.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, Wit. When he's being Wit. Wit's gonna look old 30's.

Windrunner Savant

Would Hoid describe, not his cause, but himself, as being a good person.

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Brandon Sanderson

For instance, Lopen did become king of Alethkar. For a short time. Because he and his family hid King Elhokar and, at least in his perception, convinced the king to abdicate for a short time so they could not lie when they said "We don't have King Elhokar with us." This is canon, okay. And, so, Lopen became... In his mind, at least, they got the king to agree for a fifteen-minute "Lopen is king of Alethkar" abdication, so that they wouldn't have to lie (because it was very important to them), so they could get him out of danger when some people were looking for him. That story, some day I might write it, I don't know if I'll ever be able to. But when he says (I think he references that at some point in one of the later books) "I was king," he really was!

Questioner

Broadsheets of Bands of Mourning. The story that Allomancer Jak's sidekick... in it, there's this <part>, "After disembarking the the lift, I walked to the location where my foe would have hit the ground. I found no trace of him, and though no one witnessed his fall, a young white-haired man was there and offered to tell me a story. I declined." Is that Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson

So, there's a reference to a young white-haired man offering to tell a story. Whenever those words combine together, chances are very, very good that Hoid is involved. Yes, that is Hoid, but one thing I have to tell you is, not everything in that story... you are getting a story which was written by somebody, and then turned into a thing for a broadsheet. So, there have been some inaccuracies perpetuated in the broadsheets. So, yes, that's where that came from.

Slowswift (paraphrased)

Brandon's favorite flavor of gelato is lemon. 

Slowswift

When you take a memory out of a coppermind it starts <degrade away>.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Slowswift

Would that happen with someone who has an eidetic memory?

Brandon Sanderson

Well... no. With the exception of, a photographic memory is disputed by science. In the cosmere they exist, magically enhanced. But there is science in our world that says these aren't real things. So, I'm not sure. You'd have to go to the science and see if they're actually real.

Slowswift

But if it is real, then it would...?

Brandon Sanderson

Then it would not degrade. It's the brain's own failings that are causing this.

Slowswift

Are we ever actually gonna see a picture of the Ghostblood symbol?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. We had a prototype. We decided it didn't match well enough what I said in the book, so we're back to the drawing board. There is one floating around online that is pretty good.

Brandon Sanderson

I'll be reading to you from one of the interludes, which are interesting things to write.

So if you haven't read Stormlight-- Epic fantasy has this sort of problem, right? I love epic fantasy. I grew up reading epic fantasy. It's my first love of genres. And I have an advantage over some of the people writing epic fantasy in that, like you know, [George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordan], in that I've read [George Martin and Robert Jordan], and they don't have that advantage... Robert Jordan couldn't read Robert Jordan and necessarily had to write the stories, and I feel like at-- when I sat down to approach Stormlight Archive, which I kind of want to be my big epic, right? Hopefully I don't do anything bigger than this... *laughter* 520,000 words long. The writers in the crowd-- Yeah, 520 is pretty long. It's a quarter longer than Words of Radiance was. I am trimming it in my fifth revision. That's where I normally trim. So maybe we'll get it down to like 470 or 450 or something. But at 540... *inaudible* wants to go up. So I looked at these epic fantasy books that had come out before it-- series-- and I said, "What can I learn from them? How can I prevent myself from following in some of the same problems?" And I noticed that a lot of these big epic fantasies have this issue, kind of mid-series, where the side characters kind of take over the story, and the story deviates from its focus on to a side character focus for a while. It seems to happen very commonly. And as a writer my instincts said what's happening is the writer is wanting to show the expansiveness of the world, which is one of the big things we try to do in epic fantasy, right? They're trying to show the breadth of it, and they do this by adding characters from lots of different walks of life and different parts of the world. Which is a good instinct, right? It's gonna give you that sense of size and scale to the epic fantasy. But what happens is you kind of promise them these side stories will have their resolutions, and as you're pushing kind of towards the ending of your series you realize, "I need to tie in all these side characters." And so you end up with these books that are really focused on side characters, wrapping up their stories, and it feels like it creates a speed bump in the series. And so I said, "Well what can I do with like the format of my books that will mitigate this? Is there something I can do?" So I was kind of-- I'm a big fan of...

My thought was, I would write the books and I would find natural breakpoints inside of each book where it wouldn't feel like as much of a speed bump to kind of go off to somewhere else. Like, one of the problems with like some of these side stories would be like you're really into one of the main characters' stories and then it's like, "And then here's viewpoint from random person that you don't care about," right? Which you do care about! Some of the side characters in Wheel of Time were some of my favorite. But it's just that momentum you've got on the main characters, and then it feels like it's a break, we don't see them forever. So I try to find natural break points, that I would then insert completely random things from around the world, but I would only give myself, like, two of those per break and then I have to be done. And you know-- this forcing myself in this format with the interludes I felt like allowed-- would allow the reader to be able to know what's coming, so that, you know, if you can anticipate-- if you're like, "Alright, we have our break now. We can go to the side characters. Really enjoy them. Get to see the breadth of the world," And then we can come back to the main story and know that it's coming back very quickly. And also know that these side characters aren't going to take over the story. That there's only going to be this space for them. And you also kind of know-- for those -- I do know some people who read an entire Stormlight Archive book and then go back and read the interludes, as if they-- They're basically a short story collection in the world of Roshar. Now, skipping them is dangerous because I usually use the interludes for one important character. And each interlude has one really relevant character for each book. So in the first one, Szeth has interludes, right? And he's a very relevant character. And in this one-- well you'll see who it is in this one.

But I also like doing readings from the interludes because reading the interludes don't spoil the book nearly as much for those who haven't read the first ones, or things like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Somebody asked me if there's any Lovecraftian influences in my books, because I do enjoy Lovecraft. And so I thought, "Well this would be a good interlude to read," for that reason.

Questioner

[...] Do you find in writing that your faith informs some aspects?

Brandon Sanderson

It’s a good question. The things I am fascinated by end up in books. I am not a CS Lewis or a Phillip Pullman. I don’t sit down with a message I want to get across. I explore who a character is and try to figure out what message they would want to get across, then try to make it work. But you can find all kinds of things. My upbringing is going to be deeply influential on what is in the books. So yes and no. I leave that more to people who want to analyze and find things. I think that’s legit--I got an English degree. It’s totally fine to take it and be like, “This is the unconscious influence.” I more just write the books. Tolkien insisted to the end of his days that Lord of the Rings was not a metaphor for WWI, and you read that book and if you know anything about WWI you think, “This really feels like a metaphor for WWI.” It’s that sort of thing. You write the book and explore themes that are important to certain characters, and theoretically some of that does come out to the readers and they can connect it and put it together.  That’s basically how I approach it. I am very fascinated by religion, as you can tell. So I try to have characters--Stormlight is a good example. I wanted to have characters who are on all different types of spectrums. You’ve got Kaladin who’s agnostic. It’s basically the classic “I don’t know if there’s a god. If there is, I’m angry at him.” You’ve got Dalinar, who’s a reformist. He’s a Martin Luther, he’s a Mohammed, he’s a Joseph Smith. You know, “Religion is not doing what it needs to right now, we need to expand this.” You’ve got someone like Navani who’s a traditionalist, who wants the old religion to really work, who is trying to reconcile this. You’ve got Jasnah who is straight-up atheist. And then you’ve got someone more like Taravangian who would claim to be an atheist, but what he’s done is taken something nonreligious and ascribed religion to it, sort of like Confucianism, where something that was a philosophy is turning into a religion. And I try to get people on all sides of this thing. And also the religions. You’ve got the Alethi, you’ve got the Passions, you’ve got different ways to approach it, because I think that makes for a more interesting story when you like all these people and then they all disagree.

yulerule

Do you have a list of the adjectives you use for Peter in the acknowledgments?

Brandon Sanderson

I do have a list, so I don’t repeat myself.

yulerule

In the annotations for Elantris, you were talking about the shardpool. I know that it was the earliest one of three, and the cosmere wasn’t fully developed.

Brandon Sanderson

I have expanded it since.

yulerule

So that annotation felt a little odd.

Brandon Sanderson

I’ll have to go back and look at it. I knew that they were going into the cognitive realm when I wrote it, but I had changed… Roshar for instance, did not have the spren when I wrote that. And Mistborn was only in the outline stages. No, when I wrote Elantris I hadn’t even written Mistborn. I also, you have to remember, early in my career I was being very vague about all of this. Because I was worried that people would get distracted by this and it would hurt my career. So you notice in the early appearances of Hoid, I used pseudonyms for him. Even in unpublished books where it’s obvious it’s him, he’s got a pseudonym and you never know. Because I didn’t want people to get this and be like, “He’s trying too much.” So I was really coy about a lot of things. But other things I didn’t figure out until later on, when I’m like “How exactly is this going to work?” It really helped once I had Peter to help me work out the physics of it and I could bounce ideas off of someone who knew enough about realmatic theory and stuff like that.

Questioner

[For Mistborn Era 2-3, with taking technology forward]. Were there specific concerns you had, or concerns you have going forward, about how they will integrate?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I think I’m going to be fine on that. I mean there are things that will pop up, and I’m just used to the fact that I’m just going to have to say, “This is how this works, because we didn’t think of this ahead of time.” I’ll just deal with that. That’s the biggest thing that will probably happen. But, you know, I’m very confident that I can make it work. I’ve done it enough, and I’ve been working on Mistborn long enough. My biggest concern is not that, my biggest concern is that there are a certain segment of fantasy readers who just don’t like guns in their fantasy, and will never get to experience the later era Mistborn books because of that. And that’s just, well, you just have to deal with that.