Recent entries

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5302 Copy

    coltonx9

    Will we be seeing more of Axies the Collector?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, but briefly. Axies probably won't get another-- Maybe there'll be another interlude from Axies' viewpoint. Maybe. He's just around to have fun.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5303 Copy

    Questioner

    In your magic systems, they all require the character to go over a great stress before they obtain that-- Do you use the concept of the price that comes with magic in a plausible magic system when you came up with that idea, or was it more about the idea of flawed characters are awesome?

    Brandon Sanderson

    In the cosmere magics, a lot of times in order to get the magic, there needs to be-- the internal logic argument is: Souls, once they have gaps in them, those gaps can be filled with other things, which often give you access to magical powers. Great trauma or stress--this is an age old fantasy idea, goes back many many years in the genre--will let you attain some of these powers, kind of as a balancing thing and mostly this is for narrative reasons.

    Flawed characters are just way more interesting to write, and I gravitated to it pretty naturally as I was building the magic of the cosmere. And I would say it was mostly narrative reasons, as opposed to, when I was building the magic, some rule that felt like it needed to be there. But it's also a little of a balancing factor. It's trying to build into--whoever asked the question about the god--having god-like powers, but their flaws making it hard for them to use it.

    It's a check on giving the powers to my characters, if I make sure to establish, this character has some holes in their-- some gaps and flaws in who they are, that might make them use their powers wrong once they get them, and that is in some way a narrative check on that, if that makes sense.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5304 Copy

    Questioner

    How do you do the Bridge Four Salute?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's very similar to the Wakanda salute. When they did that movie I'm like, "Oh no!" If we ever do get a live action thing, they'll probably have to do it differently. But I've always done it out in front. *Does the salute*

    Like that.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5305 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    The fandom found out about The Way of Kings pretty early on. I don't know how this happened, but Amazon put up a listing for it in like, 2006. The book was eventually published four years later. I hadn't written it in 2006. I'd written a version of it that I sent to my editor at Tor when he wanted to buy Elantris. I said, "Here's the other thing I'm working on."

    And he read Way of Kings and he called me back, terrified. Because it's 400,000 words long. Well, the print version is 300,000 words. And they say, you should shoot for maybe 120,000 for your first novel. So it's big, and I had all these notes for this art I wanted to put into it. So it was going to be really expensive to print, really expensive to edit. And he called and he was like, "Uhhh can we cut this? This is enormous!"

    And I'm like, "No we can't cut it but it's not right yet." So we did a contract for Elantris and Mistborn. We never had a contract for Way of Kings. I don't know how anyone found out about it, but Amazon put up a listing for it anyway...

    So the fandom started putting up fake reviews for this book. And they also devised fake pictures of it. Amazon has this Show Your Version. So they printed off fake covers and put them around books and took pictures and sent them in. So eventually, Amazon just put one of their covers up as the cover. And it had a picture of Elvis on the front. It was called The Way of Kings. And it had a quote from Terry Goodkind that said "A hunka hunka burning good book!"

    This is what happens when you give fans a blank space on the internet and say "Fill this!" I didn't ask them to do this by the way. They just did this. I just started looking and people were like, "This book cured my dog's cancer!" Stuff like that! You know how they are.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5306 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm Brandon Sanderson, I write epic fantasy and young adult books of various stripes. Justin told me to tell you why I go to cons. My story goes back to actually I was in high school. I was in my English class, my high school English course, and the teacher walked by and put a flyer on my desk, and he said, "I think this is for you." It had just come through his things, it was "Local Science Fiction Convention, with a student writing competition." And I had never shared my writing with anyone at that point. Never shown it to anyone. In fact, I would type stories and hide them behind the painting in my room so my mom wouldn't find them. Other high school boys are hiding other things, and I'm hiding my writing. Because I'm too embarrassed that my mom would find it.

    But my teacher's like, "You should try this." "This is for you," is exactly what he said. So I submitted, and I went to my first science fiction convention. Downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. And I entered their writing convention, which I won, the student writing competition. Even though I stapled my story backward when I handed it in. Yeah, they said, "First, we thought you were trying to do some sort of avant-garde literary thing, then we realized you just stapled it backwards." Because it came out of the printer that way. But I won the student competition.

    And beyond that, there-- I'd always been a nerdy kid, kind of felt alone. And I went to the con, and I found a whole bunch of my people. I came home to that con. And I've been going to cons ever since. And I think they're an important part of the science fiction community. I like how much we participate in these. My editor said, "Now that you're a big author, don't get a big head. You need to go to these things, because we can't let the comic cons be the only cons. Comic cons are fine, but at comic cons you're an observer, and at a sci-fi con you're a participant." And that is what it's about, it's about building a community. So I am here because I believe that cons build a very important community, not just for young writers, but for young nerds everywhere.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5308 Copy

    Glamdring804

    How advanced is astronomy on Roshar? Because it's something you haven't really talked about, and I'm thinking--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Depends on the region. Some people, the astronomy's getting moderately well.

    Glamdring804

    Surely they've seen Ashyn and Braize in the sky, and I'm wondering how long it will be before they start detecting signs of civilization on Ashyn.

    Brandon Sanderson

    That would depend on a couple of things, such as, the easiest way to detect civilization is with radio waves, so-- You need some good telescopes. I don't think that would be, even if they spotted it, as revolutionary as you might think it would be, because we thought there were people on all of our planets for most of the history of mankind, and it didn't really affect how we viewed cosmology. I think if you went to Roshar and asked them, they'd be like "Yeah, totally, people live on those planets. Obviously." Just like if you went back and said "Do people live on the moon?" in the 1700s, people would be like, "Yeah probably, seems like they must."

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5309 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    We do have my cameos. They're not contractually written in, but it's understood, that in each movie, I get killed. *laughter* If these things ever get made, my cameo is they have to put me in a crowd scene or have me die on-screen in an interesting way in every film... I don't necessarily have to have lines, but they have to work me in somewhere... Yeah, Wilhelm Scream, they've gotta Wilhelm Scream me. Maybe I'll work up to getting, like, how Peter Jackson died in Lord of the Rings. If you guys know, Peter Jackson gets killed in the third movie. He's one of the people from the north, or whatever. They're on the boats, and there's a bunch of arrows, and he's like *yelling sounds* and *dying sounds*. It's really cool; he's got a great death scene.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5310 Copy

    Questioner

    Are you worried if DC goes into a more gritty antihero sort of thing, it will edge out the place for Steelheart?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Nah. I'm not even sure Steelheart has a place. Superheroes are so played out. I don't think I would fund a Steelheart movie right now. It was really fun to write because of my superhero background; doing a superhero deconstruction like that was a lot of fun. But, I mean, I don't know if I would go see it if someone else had made it as a movie. There's so much superhero fatigue right now.

    I'm not worried about that. I would rather them just make great movies. I don't need my movies to get made. I'll be excited if we ever do get some made. I mean, I'm doing my thing. I'm really having fun doing my thing, right? I don't need my thing to necessarily get to the big or small screen for it to--

    In my dream of dreams, I get to be Stan Lee. I get to make something that people really love and that comes together in a really cool way later on... I don't necessarily want to wait as long as Stan Lee had to wait.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5311 Copy

    Questioner

    Any of those people that you learned with, did you relate any of them with characters in some of your stories?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, actually. But most of the times, I take one aspect of somebody. Like, I had a good friend named Annie who was a six-foot-one woman. And I had never thought about the problems being six foot one in our society as a woman could cause. And she talked about it a lot, it's not all who she was, but it was something that was a conflict that I had never seen. So when I wrote Elantris, I'm like, "I'm gonna use this, because it feels real, it's really interesting, it's something I'd never heard about from someone else. Plus I have a reader who can read it and tell me if I get it right." So it's not like Sarene is based on Annie. But Sarene has that one aspect of Annie that I used. And that's usually how you normally see me using people in books.

    Bridge Four are all my friends, though. All of the non-main Bridge Four members who keep surviving and not getting killed, those are just my friends. Skar and Drehy and Leyten, and Peet is Peter my assistant. All my friends ended up in Bridge Four, except for Ben, who's still in my writing group, who said "No, you can't put me in."

    Because that actually happened during Mistborn. I said, "Hey, Micah," who was my roommate at the time, "Your last name is DeMoux, that's a cool French-sounding name. Can I use it in a book?" He's like, "Sure. But I have to get a girl. And I have to not die. It doesn't have to be the girl. I have to be successful in my romantic inclinations." And I'm like, "Alright." So Captain Demoux got put in. Meanwhile, Ben was walking by, who was my roommate at the time, and he's like, "Put me in, but kill me in a really, really terrible way." So I did. I put him in Mistborn and killed him in a terrible way. Then he read the book, and he's like, "No, you can't use me like that." It's okay, it became a guy who dumped my sister-in-law. *laughter* But there's a very gruesome death in Mistborn 2 that happens in a very-- shall we say, someone who does not do well for themselves, let's just say that. And that was Ben. But he made me take him out. And then I was putting people in Stormlight, I'm like, "You don't want to be in?" He's like, "No, don't use me." I finally got away with slipping him into the Wax and Wayne books under his online name Rick Stranger.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5312 Copy

    Questioner

    Warbreaker. When it talks about the God King, the way he sees the world, and he talks about even a little blemish on someone's skin is so beautiful. To me, it sounds like, if you think about the love of God for Christ, that is how they would see us. Is that kind of what you were going for?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Sure, absolutely. I mean, I don't think I was thinking that when I was writing it, but certainly my Christian upbringing is going to make those things pop out in my fiction, so I would say "Yes, that's a valid interpretation." But you kind of have to look at that as reader response interpretation. Rather than "This is what the author intending," it's "This is what the author was unintentionally drawing upon." Reader response is the wrong term. Whatever the correct literary-- I would have known it in college... Because reader response is that author intent does not matter. If you respond to it a certain way, that's a valid interpretation. And there's a certain thing that's like, the author's upbringing informing how they write their text. Like, it's not deconstructionalism. Historicism.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5315 Copy

    Questioner

    Who's your favorite planeswalker?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Probably Elspeth. When Elspeth is dressed in armor appropriate for her personality. I have a thing about that. But I really like-- I mean, it's me. I like the questing knight searching for answers who thought she found them and then they turned-- the moral axis was upended. That was a really cool story, to me.

    Questioner

    Would you ever write any planeswalker stories?

    Brandon Sanderson

    If I were asked by Wizards of the Coast to write a story, I would probably say yes... I've told them this, as well, that if they asked me to write a story, I would probably say yes.

    Questioner

    So that's not Secret Project, either.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I didn't say that.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5316 Copy

    Questioner

    Do you ever feel like it can be bad if you have too many characters that have really politically or socially unhealthy perspectives?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That is dangerous, yeah. Particularly in the hands of an inexperienced writer. It's not a reason to not do it, but I'm reminded of Save the Pearls. So, this is a well-meaning young woman who is obviously writing from a position of privilege who wrote a book about reverse racism where the black people are racist against white people. And the black people are called Coals, and the white people are called Pearls. And it is really heavy-handed and poorly done, and really... is bad for the whole discussion. It is horribly, horribly racist in the way it treats black people in the book that's supposed to be about how bad racism is. And her intent was good, it's like, "Hey, let's let white people experience how it would be to be racist against people," but it just-- in her hands, it's just terrible. It is dangerous to not be part of the conversation and try to say something about the conversation. To not do your leg work, and things like that.

    But at the same time, as an artist, I don't feel like you should not try to have things to say. But you should maybe research a little more, things like that. What if you want to write a book where main characters are racist? They hold unpopular and unhelpful opinions, they are dead-out wrong. How can you write this without contributing to the problem? And people have different answers to this. I would go research online and see what people have said about it. I mean, Stormlight is about a bunch of racist people who don't know they're racist. They just don't know. And this is me tackling that really dangerous problem, and it is a place you can get burned by doing.

    But again, I think you should do it. I think we should be having these discussions, but make sure to read first. And there are ways to go about it where you indicate, "Hey, this is part of life. And it sucks." But it is part of life, so if we pretend it's not there, then it's also doing a disservice to the discussion. So, yeah, it is something to worry about. It's definitely something to think about. It's definitely something that should inform the way you approach your writing. But be careful.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5317 Copy

    Questioner

    What do you feel about the role of allegory? The whole debate between Lewis and Tolkien. But connected to that, the other side of it, how do you feel about the duty of fiction to say something good, or send a message...

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, where I fall on that is, I fall on Tolkien's side. In my own fiction, I do not want my fiction to be an allegory of anything other than "Here is how some people see the world." And I think that that is a powerful thing that fiction does, is it shows different perspectives on the same issues. I stole a quote that I swear was from Robert Jordan. I hope someone finds it one day, where said he wrote his stories to give people interesting questions. He didn't write his stories to give them answers. And I put that as a quote from one of my characters in one of my books. I haven't been able to find where Robert Jordan said that, but I swear he said it at some point. That the idea is, that I think fiction is about questions and not answers. But that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy reading Phillip Pullman, who's like, "This is an allegory for my life experience." I enjoy reading C.S. Lewis. I don't enjoy certain authors, we won't extrapolate further along that path. But there are lots of authors that have written books as allegory that I think are great books. A Christmas Carol is an allegory. It's a great allegory, it's fun, but that's not how I generally write. I generally write by saying, "Who is this person? What are they passionate about?" I will look for theme in what the characters are struggling with and bring that theme out as a manifestation of the characters, but I won't go in saying "I'm gonna teach people about the nature of honor." But maybe one of the characters is really interested in the nature of honor, and so they'll talk about it.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5318 Copy

    Questioner

    This isn't so much a question as just something I noticed... When I first read a summary of the Deadpool movie... to trigger his powers, they basically tortured him. And as soon as I read that, I was like, "They Snapped him!"

    Brandon Sanderson

    Now, I can't claim ownership of this. I think you will find the idea of "anguish brings powers" reaching back to the early days of the Golden Age superhero comics. And to a lot of the early 70s and 80s fantasy that I was reading and absorbing during those formative years. So, I can't take credit for that. I think it's a very common trope. And so I would not suggest that the writers of Deadpool have anything to do with it... I wouldn't think that they had read-- Just because it's part of the general understanding. I mean, I bet there's a TVTropes page for it, right? ...They'll probably have some pithy name for it or something, "Traumatic Power Inception" or something like that, they'll have some page for it. And you can go find all the places where it came from.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5319 Copy

    Questioner

    On Sel, in the dialogue from Khriss, the Arcanum Unbounded, she mentions that the Cognitive Realm is especially dangerous because Devotion and Dominion were killed there. Why is it dangerous? Are there bad spren?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well it's called the Expanse of the Densities in Roshar for a very good reason.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5321 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, the Patji stuff [from the OB London signing]. I mean, I maybe didn't word it the right way, but it was all right. Like, people flipped out about the wording a little too much, I think.

    Chaos

    I'm just surprised you offered it up.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, that's a good time to get me, because I will just start talking. But it might not be continuity... The Patji stuff-- I mean, the thing is, the chances that I get to write more Sixth of the Dusk are just so slim.

    Chaos

    I thought you were gonna do a sequel?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I mean, I've got a sequel plotted, but I've got a sequel plotted to everything, right?

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5322 Copy

    Questioner

    Do you ever find yourself writing so much of your own work that you actually go back and look and realize you've forgotten pieces?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh, I have to reread, particularly in Stormlight. Yeah, absolutely. It's hardest when I get hit with questions like this, there are sometimes I get hit with a question, I'm just like, "What?" I usually just RAFO it. But it is particularly bad-- If you wanna read bad answers by me, go get any of the ones where I first start answering questions in London after an 8-hour time jump. Like, I get off a plane, they set me in front of a crowd, they say "Go." Imagine signing and writing things in books while people ask you questions about complicated fiscal policy. And you have to keep writing and answer them. And those questions just-- Every time I'm in London, I get back and people are like, "You said this!" I'm like, "What?" Any time I'm in Europe. The first signing, particularly, in Europe, you can find delightful questions... It took me a few hours, the last one. I did get, eventually, into the zone, and start answering questions. But that was a miserable signing all around because it was the winter in London, and it was a particularly cold winter, and they decided to put the line outside. And they'd never done this to me before at this bookstore, but the line was so big that they're like, "We're gonna run them around the block." It was a very long line, but I'm sitting here trying to answer these questions, while at the same time I'm worried, I'm like, "These fans are outside in the cold. This is not right!" And so I was stressed and jet-lagged, so some of my questions were just off the walls.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5323 Copy

    Glamdring804

    In Way of Kings, Jasnah recommends to Shallan the Devotary of Sincerity. Their motto is "There is always something more to discover." That sounds very similar to our favorite Mistborn psychopath's saying; is Kelsier connected to that at all?

    Brandon Sanderson

    RAFO.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5324 Copy

    Brainless

    Is the Cognitive Realm on other planets called Shadesmar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    For simplicity's sake in translation, for the most part, we are going to use the word Shadesmar, acknowledging that in some of the languages it may be a different word. But the cosmere standard used in Silverlight and things is Shadesmar. That's just for ease of talking about it but the scholars in Silverlight they use the actual word Shadesmar. I'm going to force Eric to do some heavy lifting for me on some other things like this.

    Chaos

    <Expresses that not everyone will be pleased about this WoB>

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah I suspect that as I move into Era 4, Cognitive Realm might start replacing it, the more scientific term, but Shadesmar is the colloquial term. 

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5325 Copy

    Brainless

    If you had a chance to go back for Elantris and the early Mistborn books and stuff like that, would you potentially consider adding more crossover characters, because you did put Hoid in all of those, but would you potentially put other smaller things from other planets, like other worldhoppers, in it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, the cheeky answer to this is, I've read The Monkey's Paw, and I've read enough science fiction stories to know that if someone says "Do you want to change this thing about your past?" that you say "No." Because depending on the writer you are either going to end up in a horror story, or you are going to have to learn some lesson about how important you are, or your family is, and then it will all be a dream, so no, I wouldn't.

    But really the answer is no, I wouldn't change. I like the fact that the cosmere has a very light touch on those early books. I like it in part because I feel like people who are just getting into my fiction, I don't want them to feel like they have to follow everything to enjoy one book. And yeah, I'm adding little bits more into Stormlight, but that's inevitable because so much will take place in Shadesmar, which by it's nature is far more cosmere-aware, and so we're going to have to do more things the further Stormlight gets and the further Mistborn gets, because it will become inevitable. And that's fine, I'm embracing that. The further we go in the cosmere, the more you're going to have to be on board for the idea of the crossovers working. But I don't want the initial books that you get into to have to be like that. I was very intentional with my light touch on those early cosmere books and I wouldn't go back and add more. Even Way of Kings, right? Has what has Hoid and Felt in it, and that's just about it.

    Chaos

    Felt's in Words of Radiance.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh, is he in Words of Radiance? He's not even in Way of Kings.

    Several Questioners

    *talking over each other*

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, you saw Galladon, you saw the Seventeenth Shard. So there's like one scene in the whole book, maybe two, depending, but Hoid isn't even very Hoid-like in that first one. It's the second one where he mentions Adonalsium and stuff—

    Several Questioners

    *correct the previous statement*

    Brandon Sanderson

    Is it the first one? It's the first one. It's that party at the thing with Dalinar. So there's two scenes in Way of Kings, and that's very intentional. By the time we get to the second stage Stormlight books, and the fourth stage Mistborn books, you'll just have to be on-board. But by then you're entrenched. If you're reading Stormlight seven, then the Stormlight series is already longer than everything else, so you might as well just've read everything else.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5326 Copy

    Questioner

    Speaking of the cosmere, because it's this multiverse that's the setting for all these different epic fantasy series, do you ever feel restricted by the cosmere in a sense of sort of wanting to do with a plot or the magic or wanting something really epic to happen but be like, "Wait that's not legal in the system I've created?" 

    Brandon Sanderson

    It doesn't happen very often because, most of the times in my outlining process, I notice these things and I move something out of the cosmere. If it's just not going to work with the cosmere magic, it just doesn't have to be cosmere. And I'm really glad I gave myself that freedom because I think that you can get too locked in, right? If I'm like, "Everything has to be cosmere!" then either I'm going to break it, which is going to decrease the value of the continuity, or I'm just not going to be able to write some books that I'm excited about. And I don't like either of those options.

    And so being able to say, "You know what? This magic that I'm working on for FTL does not match any of the ways that the cosmere FTL could work. I'm going to move this out of the cosmere." That's what happened to Skyward. Skyward was in the cosmere for a little while, but then I moved it out. I'm like, "No this matches other stuff better. I'm going to go with this FTL, that is not a cosmere FTL." That frees me like--

    Skyward is a science fiction space opera, starship pilots and things like that. And if I would have done this in the cosmere, I would have just had to avoid talking about things that would be spoilers for other cosmere books, which would have been terrible, right? So either you have the Skyward books that have their hands bound so that I can't give spoilers, or Skyward gives all the spoilers, and then cool things happening in the future of the cosmere are just like, "whatever". I take option number three, which is I'm just not going to do this as a cosmere book because obviously it doesn't fit.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5327 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    After I finished Elantris, I went back, and I wrote a book called Dragonsteel. Which was to start off the Cosmere. That was kind of it's goal, I'm like, "I'm gonna start something off." Dragonsteel is really interesting, it's a Bronze Age epic fantasy, which is fun. And it was supposed to kind of be the starting point for something. But then I couldn't sell that, I tried for years.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5328 Copy

    Chaos

    Have you seen the boombox?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The boombox?

    Chaos

    In White Sand volume 1, when Kenton wakes up, there's definitely a boombox in the background, it's really funny. In the middle of the desert. I'll find it for you.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Really?

    Chaos

    There's also a ceiling fan and horse in volume 2.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Huh. Really? Why is there a boombox?

    Chaos

    ...Isaac talked about it at JordanCon... He approved the line work, but the colorist thought it looked like a boombox, and the didn't have enough time to--

    Brandon Sanderson

    *upon seeing the panel in question* Wow, it does look like a-- not a radio, it looks more like a sound deck... It makes me wanna-- See, I don't think anyone during White Sand continuity would be far enough along, otherwise that could be a cool cosmere thing, yeah.

    Well, there you are. There's a boombox. That's not canon.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5329 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    The closest we ever got [to a movie] was Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians, which was at Dreamworks Animation. And they had a really good screenplay, and they had not greenlit it, but they'd done a lot of storyboarding, they'd gotten a lot of good talent attached. And then, they decided to make The Croods instead. So, The Croods was not a bad film, I enjoyed that film, but if it could have been Alcatraz--

    You can find the Alcatraz art and stuff in the Dreamworks anthology they put out, the coffee table book. There's a page on a never-materialized Brandon Sanderson movie in there.

    MisCon 2018 ()
    #5330 Copy

    Questioner

    Any updates on movies?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So... Hollywood is Hollywood, right? We've sold Mistborn three times now to three different groups. We've sold Legion twice.

    So here's how we stand right now: the Steelheart books are still owned by Fox. Sean Levy's company, he did the Night at the Museum films, but their option lapses in July, on July 1st. They've renewed the option multiple times, to the fact that this is their last option month, and we haven't seen a screenplay. Which is not a good sign. So, I would not hold my breath that, in a month, they're going to greenlight a movie. They had a screenplay, they discarded a screenplay, they have not commissioned another screenplay. They have one month left. They could just come out and be like, "Here's a bunch of money, Brandon!" They're not gonna do that. It'll lapse in a month, most likely.

    Legion has been recently purchased a couple of weeks ago. Couple months ago, actually, but by a place called Cineflix, in Canada. Legion was really hot for a while. Then Marvel made a TV show called Legion, and all the interest dried up. And then the Marvel show just kind of went away; I don't think they're doing it any more. And now suddenly everyone wants to buy Legion again... If they make a TV show, they would change the name. The Legion collection is coming out in the fall, and we still have Legion on the title, but it's called The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds as a subtitle.

    Snapshot, my novella, came out last year, it's optioned by MGM. They have put a screenwriter on it who is doing a really good job. I'm very impressed with the work the screenwriter's doing. I'm very optimistic about that project. It's looking really good.

    The Cosmere is optioned by a group called DMG. They are a primarily Chinese company who-- What they do is, they finance American movies in exchange for getting the Chinese rights. So, they did this on Iron Man 3, and a couple of other films. And they have the rights until next spring. I really like DMG, it's why I sold them the Cosmere. They have been going through some changes lately, the studio exec that was on it has left the company and started a new company. And that's always a little bit of a setback. They have a screenplay for Stormlight. It came out at 250 pages, which is a 3-hour movie. Which they're like "Eh, this is too long." And it still cut out a ton, so they're now looking at television. They wanted to try the thing first, but the fact that everyone's gobbling up the television rights for fantasy properties now makes them say "Ooh, maybe we should actually do a television show on this." So, really, it's gonna depend on, how does the Wheel of Time show go? How does the Witcher show go? How does the new Lord of the Rings show go? And things like that will have a big influence. Amazon's doing a prequel Lord of the Rings series about Aragorn as a ranger. The Witcher is on Netflix. It's been greenlit for about a year, so it's actually moving. And then the Wheel of Time show, just got announced, didn't it? Who has that? I don't know if I can tell you, I don't know if it's been announced. The television show has been announced, I don't know if they've announced who's doing it yet. But somebody is doing a Wheel of Time television show. It's not been greenlit, but it's had a lot of good rumblings. It looks good. I can't say who it is, unless it's been announced, but I've done calls with their showrunner, who I like. They seem to be treating the property with respect. I think there's a decent chance you'll get a good Wheel of Time show now. Decent-- in Hollywood, decent's still a 10% chance, right? But that's higher of a chance than any of my things look like right now, except potentially Snapshot, which I wouldn't give as high percentage, even, because it's not as far along. But I'm very impressed by how it's going.

    So, there you go...

    MisCon 2018 ()
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    Questioner

    So, when you were plotting out Mistborn, did you do the whole trilogy, kind of thing?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I did nine books when I did the plot for Mistborn. Normally how I approach plotting is: first book, I do with minimal outlining for the rest of the series. So there's-- I'll do a pretty good outline for the first book. And then I will write that first book (and of course everything changes from the outline as you're writing it) and then I sit down and I outline the series, whatever the series is going to be, with about a page on each book. And then when it's time to write that one, I sit down and I kind of attack that outline. Usually, I'm looking for about-- roughly, outline is 10,000 words for every 100,000 words of book. So, a lot of my YA outlines are 10,000 to 20,000. 15,000 words, something like that. For something big like Stormlight, we're looking at a lot more.

    With Mistborn, I finished the first book, and I went to my outline and I created the spine of the three eras. (Which became four! Because I'm an epic fantasy writer.) And then I called my editor, I'm like, "Hey, this is what I want to do." And he's like, "Wow, you're ambitious."

    Questioner

    Are you going to complete 'em eventually?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, I will. We're getting really close to doing the next era. So, Mistborn, if you haven't read them, there's an era of epic fantasy, there's an era of urban fantasy. (It's more like steampunk, there's a steampunk era). Then we're gonna go to a true urban fantasy, kind of 1980s level of technology. Which is gonna be really fun.

    The fun thing (have I told people this before)? In the second era books, we did these newspapers, these broadsheets that we put in as art. And I always like to have some art in my books. It's gotten more and more over the years, as I've had the resources to do more and more. What I want to do for Era 3, as our art things, are comics of Wax and Wayne from the-- *crowd laughs* Like, they've become characters-- So, you might wanna do a Golden Age (you comic book fans will love this), a Silver Age, and then a new dark gritty reboot. You'll have, like, a Golden Age classic-Superman sort of thing. And you'll have Silver Age, where it's just bizarre. The giant monkeys attack the city. Silver Age comics, they liked monkeys for some reason, they always put them on the covers. Then we'll do this, like, Frank Miller sort of, "Here's the reboot of the Wax and Wayne comics that happened." It's gonna be a blast, 'cause it'll be three books.

    Questioner

    Sure it won't be four books?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I don't know...

    MisCon 2018 ()
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    Jess

    The black glass beads in Shadesmar on Roshar. If you could somehow get that material into the Physical Realm, would it hold stormlight?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, that's a RAFO. Because getting stuff out of the Cognitive Realm into the Physical Realm is a different matter from taking stuff from the Physical Realm to the Cognitive.

    Jess

    Well, you don't have to weigh in on whether they could get it to the Physical Realm.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Still a RAFO!

    MisCon 2018 ()
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    Glamdring804

    With Adhesion you can use it to either create negative pressure and stick two things together, or you can manipulate to create pressure bubbles around you, like Kal did facing down the storm. Or say with Gravitation, you can either do a Basic Lashing and change the direction gravity is acting on something, or you can do a Reverse Lashing and change the-- and have something with its own gravity field. So I was wondering then, if that is possibly caused by Pushing and Pulling on Surges?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, that is a legitimate interpretation.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    huriel19

    Maybe it's something that you cannot answer or confirm, but do you consider that the Raven man or the Chain veil are some kind of Entity?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I came up with the Entities on my own, but I was aware of some of the similarities between this story and Liliana's story when writing it. I toyed with using some more direct connections, then decided to back out of them for various reasons.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    Ankylosaurian

    I'm not sure how familiar you are with superhero comics, but if Marvel/DC offered you a similar opportunity, are there any characters that you would want to write for?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Marvel did actually offer me this chance, and at the end of the day, I decided I didn't have the time at that point. I'm not closing the door entirely on doing something with them, but this project was different for several reasons.

    First, I could create my own characters and situation--but know they were going to be important and relevant in the future of the narrative done by others.

    Second, I could write it as a novella, to fit better into the time I had to give it.

    Third, I could have it released for free, as a present to the fans.

    I'm quite a big fan of what Marvel has been doing with its stories, but I didn't feel like it was the right time for me to become involved.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    AutonomousJoy

    As somebody who has little to no knowledge about Magic: The Gathering beyond the fact that it is a card game, could somebody explain how novellas like this fit into everything?

    Question for Branderson: How does writing for an already established IP feel compared to writing in your own universes? Do you feel limited?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's a good kind of limitation--it helps me think with restrictions, and is good for me in making certain my own pieces remain consistent and rigid in their magical approach. So yes, it's limiting--but so far, with all three tie-ins I've done, I've been given enough freedom that it's been a good kind of limitation.

    As for your first question, since nobody else is answering, Magic story these days is told via novellas like this. The creative team works closely with the game team to design the setting and story for a given set, then the creative team commissions or writes stories to post on the website for the fans who want to follow the story as they play the game. (The cards themselves evoke story nicely, but their focus isn't on the narrative, but on the mechanics of the game.)

    My novella is a little odd in that I designed it working from worldbuilding materials sent to me, but without requiring it to follow a specific storyline for a set.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    BusinessCress

    Speaking of writing process, how does it feel to work with your own series and with already existing (Magic, WoT)? Is there some differences?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's actually a lot of fun to take established rules and see how I can play with them. It makes working on something like MTG different in an interesting way for me. I don't have absolute control of everything, and have to work within certain narrative restraints--which gives me a chance to do something new and different.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    Mithre

    If the characters were cards, what abilities would you like them to have?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'd like Davriel to steal cards out of people's hands and then play them. I don't know about Tacenda, though. I've been drawing a blank so far.

    Aaronator17

    What of Davriel had a unique mechanic that read something like; When an opponent casts an instant or sorcery spell, -X loyalty where X is the spell's CMC and exile it with a theft counter (activate any time you could cast an instant), and another that was +2 and return a card exiled with a theft counter to its owner's [hand/graveyard], you may cast a copy of that spell using any coloured mana?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That would be cool, and I would like to see planeswalker cards with odd mechanics. But I think it would be a lot of complicated wording to do something that would, in essence, be very similar to:

    Minus loyalty: Look at target player's hand an exile a non-land card from it.

    Zero Loyalty: You may play cards exiled with Davriel, and may use black mana as mana of any color to cast those cards.

    Mithre

    Maybe Tacenda would have a tap target creatures effect?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That's a pretty good idea.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    huriel19

    It's clear that Davriel is a Dimir aligned character but I find Tacenda a little bit harder to read (my closest assumption it's Boros). If she would be printed in a future which color combinations would she have?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'd make Tacenda G-W-R. Green for her belief in fate, and for the power of the Entity. Red for her passion and music. White for her belief in, and protection of, her community.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    chaoticdust75

    I have a couple questions about when Tacenda sang and played her song for the demons while Davriel Slept.

    From the description it seemed like she was evoking her own story of loss and in so doing the demons saw visions. Miss Highwater was flying while Crunchgnar seemed to be seeing the fires of his home go out.

    What was the magical song doing to the characters?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Part of Tacenda's power is to use music to enhance people's experiences, memories, and emotions. This song was exploring that power--and looking specifically at things they had lost.

    chaoticdust75

    Why did Miss Highwater see herself flying? Did she used to be able to or envy angels?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm afraid I'll RAFO this for now. But you are asking the right sorts of questions.

    chaoticdust75

    What did Davriel see?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Another RAFO. He was very disturbed by it, though.

    chaoticdust75

    I'm also just curious about the soul of the Nameless Angel. Do you have an in universe explanation for why Tacenda could see it yet no one else could? Or is it just a powerful moment that had something to do with the Bog being afraid of faith?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You're theorizing along the right lines, but I wanted to leave this one ambiguous. Suffice it to say that odd things were happening.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    Gadmond

    Since you knew you were writing for Magic the Gathering, did you ever think about what kind of abilities a hypothetical Davriel planeswalker card (Spoilers: or Tacenda planeswalker card) would have?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Davriel would, I hope, have the ability to exile a card from a player's hand, then at some point in the future play that card using black mana.

    Tacenda would be tougher. Emotional manipulation is hard to capture in MTG, other than as threaten effects. But I'd want something that could mimic this.

    Children of the Nameless Reddit AMA ()
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    EndlessKng

    I know you were instructed to not be as concerned with replicating game mechanics, but were there any particular cards or concepts that inspired you as you worked?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Rage Thrower shows up in a quite obvious moment, and I imagine the dismissal spell that Davriel uses to be Silent Departure. (My interpretation of a blue unsummon effect, as opposed to an actual creature destroying spell.) There are a few other things, like the "summon equipment" spell he learns.