If an Allomancer were to go to a different planet and burn the metals on that planet from that planet, it still works?
Still works.
Same way, no differences?
No differences. The metal is more of a key to draw the magic out than it is providing any power itself.
Is Hoid the only one of his kind that we've met in the Cosmere books?
What do you mean by his kind?
Is he the only one from the planet he's originally from that we've met?
No. Because Ati and Leras, the Ruin and Preservation, were both from that same planet.
[...]
All of the Shards of Adonalsium were from that planet.
I have to post the Pattern deleted scene some time because, whenever I see someone dress up as Pattern, which doesn't happen that often, I wanna quote that scene but it's not in the book anymore, where Pattern talks about how famous he is. Yeah, so, I need to post that scene.
I was wondering if an aluminum Feruchemist, if he stores up Spiritual Identity, could he survive a hit from a Shardblade?
I'll RAFO that. Identity is not the right place to go for that. Exact mechanics are RAFO, but that's kinda along the wrong path.
If someone was a good enough writer, would you ever consider letting someone else write in the Cosmere?
It is a possibility. I'd be very wary of doing it, but right now, Isaac, who's my illustrator, wants to do it, and he's been a friend for many years. So I've said, "If you really want to you can." So I'm open to the idea. You probably want to be a professional writer first, and have your own things published.
Do you relate more to Kaladin or to Dalinar?
Dalinar.
So why does Rand bow to the Empress when the actual prophecy was that she was supposed to bend to him, it was changed by one of the...
So that was actually in Robert Jordan's notes, that this is what he was supposed to do. It was to fulfill that prophecy, and so I don't have an explanation to that other than he made sure to include "this needs to happen", so I did it.
Even though the prophecy was not supposed to be that way?
Yeah. That one was very clear in the notes; needs to happen.
If you could choose to cast someone for Vin who would you pick?
Ellen Page from 10 years ago. Is that ok?
*laughs* Yes.
I think she would've been very good.
So, in Oathbringer, you said that Hoid still has a god worshipping him. Can you give some back story to that?
I cannot, I mean I can, but I'm not going to.
It will be revealed later?
Maybe. I plan to get all of this stuff eventually into his memoir when he writes it. Or when I write his memoir for him.
It sounds like Adolin's sword Maya might be able to be resurrected?
*presumably nods yes*
Is it possible that other swords could be resurrected as well?
Hmmmm, the coveted RAFO card.
The letters in [Oathbringer]. Are they all three from Shards?
...Yes.
Is the first one, is that one we know? Is that one we've seen yet?
They are all ones you have seen.
They are all ones we have seen.
Yes. Or at least you know.
Have seen or know of.
Yeah.
How do you make good characters, good heroes, and good villains. How?
That's a big question. Best thing I can tell you is, try to look for the nobility in every person, even if you may not agree with them yourself. Listen to the character. Every person is a hero in their own story.
I was curious about how you see your writing and your job in context of your discipleship.
I think that making good on talents you're given is a very important thing. I think art is good for art's sake, and it is an innate and inherent good. Expressing who you are in fiction and exploring who other people are brings us together, makes us closer, makes us understand people when you read fiction written about people very different from yourself. I think pure religion will try to understand other people's viewpoints and listen. So I think that that is all very important, and I think that fiction is comfort in a lot of people's lives
I don't sit down to write a book and say, "My job is to convert anybody, or to preach." I try to present the world as it is through lots of different people's eyes, and I think that is an innate good. This is the big argument that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien had, though. They were on different sides of that argument. What is the nature of allegory in fiction. I err a little more on Tolkien's side.
I've started a lot of little things of literature, but I've never been able to finish, 'cause I start on one thing with all these ideas, and then I get all these ideas about something else, and I don't see the two worlds fitting. So I start on something else. So, how do I...?
So, this is Professor Sanderson saying, "You need to make yourself do it." You won't learn how to finish stories until you start doing it. And doing that, learning to keep on a story, even when it starts to get hard, and you're more excited about something else, and this one's not turning out the way you like, or things like that. Learning to finish it anyway is the only way you'll learn how to do that, and make it good. So, you have to finish stories. Don't stress too much about them turning out right. Books that you write are all practice. Even for me, right now. Practice at getting better. You want to be a better writer. Rather than a person who wrote a book, you want to be a writer who can write great books. So, practice like you're practicing piano, or whatever it is. Just tell yourself, you've just gotta finish.
Do you agree with, "You should know the ending?"
It depends on... everybody's different. Some writers are better if they don't. Some writers are better if they write toward an ending, get there, and then revise so that ending matches. You'll have to do that. Some writers are better if they have a strong outline. Go watch my university lectures, on YouTube. In the early lectures, I talk a lot about discovery writing versus outline writing, the advantages and disadvantages.
How do you build all your characters?
Characters are the hardest for me to explain. The answer I can give you is, I usually try writing and just experiment with the viewpoint and voice, and see if that works. And if it does, then I start working them into the book. But often, I'll do freewrites. I'm looking for conflict, looking for an interesting perspective of seeing the world. I'm just looking for something different about them.
So, like, in Mistborn, do you create your characters individually, and then you add them to the story?
A lot of times. Like, Kelsier was created before I started writing Mistborn. Vin was also, but Vin changed a whole bunch, to the point that, really, I started writing the book, experimented with different voices, and found the one I wanted for her.
How were you able to diversify the amount of characters you have? Like, Shallan, she had such a dark past. How do you get that so accurately?
I've had some help on Shallan. I've got some friends who have dealt with similar issues that I interview, I get notes from, and I have read the books and tell me where am I going wrong, where am I going right. That's really handy. Listening to people, interviewing people, using primary sources. Invaluable when doing characters. Even the newest book I'm working on, Skyward... Like, in that one, it's nothing about a deep, dark past, but the main character's a fighter pilot. And I got a ton of stuff wrong. But fortunately, I found some fighter pilots to read the book and tell me where I was going wrong. So it got right.
I'm curious, how did you get the inspiration for putting lights in spheres that give people powers?
So, I bet, if you track back where the origin of this is, a lot of the ideas like this goes back to Dune, where magic as part of the economy was really fascinating to me when I read it as a teenager. And so, I've always looked for economic components to my magic. And I loved the idea of coinage being useful for something. So, the idea that you have these spheres that act as light was really fun for my worldbuilding and things like that. It means people just don't use fire as often, and you have an economy that can go late at night without burning candle wax to go late at night. You're just using a side effect of your money that you already have. And this led some really cool worldbuilding directions. I would say the origin probably goes back to Dune.
Where did it come from as Stormlight? Partially, it's just, the way I built the Cosmere, I wanted commodifiable magic that you could use in an economy and trade, because of the way the Cosmere worked and the greater, larger where I was going for the future books, that just made it a lot more interesting to me.
Do you think you would ever teach a class at the Storymakers conference?
I do, every once in a while, teach at Storymakers, yeah. I really like that conference. I think it is probably the best writing conference in the region. I can't make it every year, though. But every three or four years, I go in and I teach one.
I wanna know how many series you're working on right now.
If you really wanna know, go Google "State of the Sanderson.' Every December, I go through all the series that I'm working on. I say where they are, and what I'm planning to do with them, and which ones are done and which ones aren't. So just Google that.
Another question on that is, how do you keep your characters straight in the different books that you write?
Keeping characters straight isn't tough. Keeping events, which things I've said and which things I haven't... and in that case, it's a matter of having a good continuity editor. Or rereading the books before you write the next one. Once in a while, I will have changed my mind in the middle of writing a book, and I forget. So, I go trying to write the sequel, and my continuity editor's like, "You explained this already. You have this whole thing." And I still, like... Mistborn, I changed silver to tin, and I still have just never been able to remember that. My fingers want to type "silver."
I have to say, I find more gospel conversations after going through The Stormlight Archive with people than any other fictional book I've ever read. Does that intentionally bleed in, or is that just part of who you are?
It's a little of both. I don't preach in my books. What I am determines part of what I find heroic. But I'm very fascinated by religion. So I like to have lots of different people in the books who have lots of different viewpoints on religion that talk about it, like we kind of do in real life. So, you know, you have someone like Dalinar, who is kind of very... almost revolutionarily faithful. And you have Kaladin who's just straight-up agnostic, "Don't know, don't care." You have Jasnah, who's an atheist. You have someone more like Navani, who's a classic conservative faithful. I just like having all of these different people interacting.
When you kill characters, how do you make them dramatic?
There are lots of different philosophies on this. Certain authors do it certain ways. It depends on the emotion you're going for. Usually, it depends on if it's a tragedy or not. A tragedy is, they don't fulfill the character arc that they're promised. They make wrong decisions at the wrong moment. And you, the reader, are left disappointed in them. And the opposite, like a heroic story, they make the decision. It might have consequences, so you're left sad, but also thrilled. And it depends on which emotion you want. And some writers prefer a method where they want you to never know who's safe and who isn't. And those writers will often kill a character in the middle of a plot arc, out of nowhere. And those are three different ways. I am way more likely to use the first two. A character who makes the wrong decision, and then dies because of it, as a tragedy. Or a character who makes a hard decision, fulfills their character arc, and may not make it anyway, still can feel very uplifting despite the loss.
Are you planning on doing a sixth Alcatraz?
Yes, from Bastille's viewpoint. She is currently writing it. We are just waiting for her to finish. That shouldn't be too long.
And things aren't as bad as Alcatraz made them seem. He's a little melodramatic, if you can't tell.
Where would you suggest a beginning writer start writing? Like, novellas? With short stories?
I'd recommend you start with the format you read the most. Once upon a time, short stories was the way to begin. But that's because a lot of the readership read short stories, got used to reading them, and magazine subscriptions were a big deal. Once the novel became the dominant form... I don't feel like you should write something you don't read. We use, in writing, a phrase: "Write what you know." This doesn't necessarily mean you can't write about someone very different from yourself. But your experience is part of what's gonna make your story unique. And so, putting part of yourself into every book is important. And also, writing in genres that you are familiar with, that you know the tropes of so you can use them in new ways. So, start on novels if you read novels.
Have you ever wanted to write an alternate ending to a book or a series?
I actually did that with Words of Radiance. There's some small tweaks that I made. The end result was too much confusion among fans, which one's the canon, even though they were just minor things, that I feel like that was an experiment that I just don't ever wanna go back on.
Like Mistborn One, there are things I don't like about the ending of that. It's a little too deus ex machina. A little too unforeshadowed, some of the things that happen. But that's just my lack of skill as a writer during that era. And you just learn and grow. You learn how to do things right by doing them poorly on occasion.
Have you ever regretted killing off a character, or not killing off a character, in your book series?
Yes. In the middle of Words of Radiance, there is a character who dies, but comes back. And in my original draft, it was very clear. (Wink wink, reader; this character's coming back.) And I think that was actually the version I wanted. Because I felt like, when I did the original draft, and I sent it to beta readers, they're like, "Oh, well this character's obviously gonna come back." And I'm like, "They figured me out!" And I made it hardcore, so they had real worry the character wasn't coming back. But that was not a major moment in the series, it was removing a character so another character could shine. So, I should have just been okay with them knowing that character was coming back, because there are... I feel like I faked out the readers for no big gain. There wasn't really reason to try so hard to fake out readers on that thing. Where there are some legitimate characters where, you know, either, really they're dead and I want people to mourn their deaths. Or there are other characters where their return, I want to be very dramatic. And I feel like you've only got a certain amount of that energy from readers that you can play with them that way. And I shouldn't use it for things where I just want a character out of the way for a while.
What's the book that you've enjoyed writing the most?
Probably Bands of Mourning. I basically, for Bands of Mourning, just kind of took the "I am just gonna have fun with this" route, and it turns out it worked really well for those characters.
Who's been your favorite illustrator?
Probably Michael Whelan. When I grew up, I just loved Michael Whelan's art. So, getting him to do a cover for me was a lifelong dream.
What would you say is one of the books you're most proud of writing?
Probably the final Wheel of Time book. That was the hardest book for me to write. Someone else's world, someone else's characters, keeping it all straight. Doing a good job of releasing something for so many people that they'd been waiting for for so long, the pressure was just really high.
So, question about the Reckoners. In the beginning of Steelheart, Deathpoint kind of lazily points his finger at Steelheart. So, it didn't seem like he feared him very much at all. So, my question is, if he didn't fear him, then how come Steelheart wasn't affected by it?
So, he didn't. He was trying to act cool. But that fear was there. At least, that's my explanation to myself. And it's part of why Steelheart makes the entrance in the way he does.
I was taking (and this is honestly true) a linguistics class when I wrote [Elantris]. And I was like, "So far, all the worlds I've come up with have had really normal pronunciation. What if I actually used my linguistics knowledge?" And then, of course, that's the first book that gets published, and one of the big reviews was like, "Sanderson's terrible at names. You can't pronounce these." I'm like, "Uhhh..."
My take is, apparently nobody read the pronunciation guide.
No, no one really did. But I pronounced it all wrong, too. I pronounced everybody's names wrong. I'm American, I can pronounce these like Americans.
Are we gonna get leatherbounds of everything?
The theory is yes. Some of them will be combined. Like, I'll probably do the Wax and Wayne Mistborn books as two in one book and two in one book, so there's two volumes. But I think the plan is eventually to do them all.
Just all the Cosmere? Or, like, every single one?
We should do everything. It depends on what interest is, for people. We will definitely do every Cosmere book. That, you don't have to worry about.
Was there a character where you just had a really hard time doing a bad thing to?
No, that doesn't really happen to me. I've got it all planned out ahead of time, so I'm well prepared for it.
Y'all are makin' movies, right?
I don't really have control over that. I can nudge it along, but Hollywood is a weird place. And it is very hard to get movies made. I like the people who have the rights, I think they're doing right by us, but I don't know when and if they'll ever be able to make it happen.
Something I've noticed, 'cause I've been watching your videos, which I'm super grateful for. What I was wondering is, something I've noticed is that you're very good at asking the right questions. Like, when you're teaching your class, then you ask questions that garner great ideas. So, this is probably a really hard question, but how do you get your questions?
Instinct, I think. Looking for the questions that are not yes-or-no questions, that's certainly part of it. Practicing deconstructing stories, so that you start to learn, like the whole chef versus cook thing. It's very cook question to say "Why does this tastes good?" It's a chef question to ask "What does putting this spice in do."
Like, "Why does this work?"
"Why does this work?" I think that really leads you on the route to the right questions. A lot of instinct, a lot of practice. Practice makes instincts. The hardest thing about teaching my class is acknowledging that a lot of what I do, I do by instinct, and breaking it down may not be that helpful, even though it sounds really smart, if that makes sense?
And something that you said is that a lot of it is just sinking into your unconscious, because you do it so many times?
Putting things into your unconscious so that you can consciously think about new things until you're familiar enough with those that they sink into your unconscious, and you can focus on something else.
Is it still the plan to write Dragonsteel last?
Next-to-last. Mistborn final Era will be... yeah, Mistborn 4 will be last.
Is there any way to get the novel version of White Sand, or is all just graphic?
If you want a novel version of White Sand, if you sign up for my mailing list, we send you the ebook. And you are welcome to print your own copy (as long as you don't distribute it) that you make for yourself. That's the best way to get White Sand. I don't have any plans to print them right now. It's possible that someday I will. So if you wanna be patient, maybe we'll do some Dragonsteel Edition, or something like that.
Is there any way I can get a physical copy of the Infinity Blades?
We are planning to do (we have for a long time) a nice little kind of Collector's Edition that has the stories and the scripts and the concept art for the video games. So, eventually, yes. Right now, we don't have any more copies, I don't think. You can email Kara, or the Brandon Sanderson store, and see if she has one lying around. If she does, then we can get you that one. I mean, there were only, like, a hundred of each of those printed.
What do you do? Any other hobbies you do outside of writing?
I play... Magic: The Gathering is my nerd hobby. I like traveling quite a bit, which is good, because my job has me traveling.
Is there any news on the movie for Mistborn?
There is no news, I'm afraid.
Do we have a date when the Lost Metal will come out?
We do not have a date. I have to write the book first. Lost Metal shouldn't be too far off. Dropping Apocalypse Guard and doing something else instead put me behind a little bit.
Where did you get your ideas for most of these books from? What inspired you?
You know, it's different for every book. Could you pick maybe one of them, and I can tell you where that one came from?
Let's go Way of Kings.
Way of Kings, the original concept, the very first, was probably Dalinar. Where I wanted to tell a story about someone who was the brother of the king, and the king dies, and the son takes over, and the son's a bad king. And what do you do if you're put in that position? The conflict of duty to versus your family versus duty to the kingdom. That was probably my very first idea for Stormlight. From there, the storms were another big early idea. A world wracked by these storms, how would it develop?
When I'm writing, I noticed that all my characters, they start out different, but they just become the same.
They blend together? That's okay, that happens. That's one of the easier things to fix in revisions, is to do a revision just focused on making sure their voices... The big thing you don't want to have happen, particularly in the first draft, is that you lose their motivations. If their voices start to blend together, you can fix that. But if their motivations start to become muddled, it's a lot harder to fix in post. So, make sure you're laying down their motivations and getting their plots right, make sure that what they do is motivated by who they are. You can tweak voice. Voice is really easy to rewrite a sentence, so it feels like it's in voice. But you do wanna do that in revision. You do wanna practice and learn how to do that. I wouldn't stress it too much. I have the same sort of problem.
How do you get good motivation for a character? Because I feel like that ends up, really, kind of terrible in...
Motivation is the easiest place to go wrong with a character. And if it's strong, readers will forgive a whole host of other ills. And it's not as hard as it sounds. Make sure what the characters are doing comes from who they are, not from what the plot wants them to do. Make sure it comes from a place, like... And sometimes, that may mean revising the plot. Or sometimes it means you just have to establish it more clearly. And I can't tell you which problem is without reading the book. But that is my suggestion. Make sure the choices they're making come from who they are, rather than what the plot wants them to do.
If you were to write a Magic [The Gathering] story, which member of the Gatewatch would you be most excited to write for?
*long pause* I don't know. Mmm... I think my favorite of the Gatewatch is Teferi. (He counts now, right? He has an oath?) So, probably Teferi, I would say. I've always liked Teferi.
How long do we have to wait until the next [Stormlight Archive]?
So, I divide my time about half-and-half, Stormlight and non-Stormlight. I finished Stormlight [Three] last year in June. And so, I'm taking eighteen months and writing the Skyward trilogy, and then I'm gonna write the next Stormlight. They usually take about eighteen months.
Who's the next one gonna be about?
Next one, flashbacks should be Eshonai. The last flashback sequence should be Szeth. Of this group. Then, there'll be five more books, but those will take place about ten years later.
I'm sure you have an outline over Stormlight Archive. How do you go about making an outline for each book? Is that just something you go at when you write the book?
When I write the next book, I dig into that in detail. Stormlight books are particularly hard, because I kind of outline them each as a trilogy each that I write as one book. It's the only way that I can conceive these enormous novels. And usually, what I'm looking for, that I don't always have until I work on the outline, is some sort of through-line story to make sure that the book feels like a cohesive whole, even though there's lots of different viewpoints and things.
I just earlier finished Bands of Mourning, and I didn't know about Mistborn: Secret History until I finished it. Are you planning on releasing more like Mistborn: Secret History in the future?
If I can, I would like to. It was really hard to find time for Secret History. I started working on it right when I finished Hero of Ages. And it took me all this time to finally get it done. So, because they're little side projects, I have to find the right place to squeeze them in.
Obviously, there's more to the story, with the ending of Bands of Mourning...
Yes. Yeah. I mean, Mistborn was originally conceived as three trilogies. It's actually four series now, four Eras, but who knows if I'll add another one. But we will be going to a modern-day Mistborn series next. And, really, the stuff that I have in Bands of Mourning is more to deal with the modern-day series than it is the Wax and Wayne series.
What would you say to someone who's considering writing, but just isn't sure.
Go for it. It's good for you. You don't have to become a professional writer for writing to be good for you, any more than you have to go for the NBA to have basketball, playing one night a week, be good for you. It will be good for your brain, you will enjoy it. I say, just set aside a little time every week and write. And maybe it'll turn out that you have a real passion for it, and that you're really talented at it, and it will end up becoming a career. But even if it doesn't, writing a book just for you and for your friends... like, my first books, nobody but my friends read. And that's okay. Jane Austen's first books, she wrote them for her sisters. So, it's totally all right, just go for it. If you need any help on how to start, watch my university lectures. Or go to Writing Excuses, my podcast, Season 10. We kind of step you through writing a book. Go for it.
How do you write and teach? Don't you teach at BYU?
Yeah, but I teach one class, once a year, an evening class. It's just for fun.
Writing's full-time?
Writing's full-time, yeah. I've been full-time writing since... I taught for, like, two years at BYU, and then went full-time writing.
The class I teach, I just have a blast with. I just have one class, and it is a lot of fun.
Do you have any tips for anyone writing a narrative?
Yeah, I do. So, remember that you become a great writer by practicing, the same way you become a great pianist or anything else. And those early stories, your focus should just be on getting them done. Experimenting, learning how you work as a writer. Don't stress them too much. Just practice. Set goals and accomplish them. Say "I want to write this much a week." Usually set an hour goal, be like, "I'm gonna write two hours a week." And then try to dedicate yourself to that. And you will get better. Nothing will teach you more about writing than just doing it.
Who's your most frustrating character to write?
Mmm... gonna be some of the Wheel of Time characters. I was never a huge Cadsuane fan. But I ended up enjoying writing her viewpoint more than I thought I would. I would say Mat from The Wheel of Time was the hardest for me to get right, so probably him. Otherwise, most frustrating... I don't know. Like, when I'm writing a character, they have to be my favorite while I'm writing them. Otherwise, something's wrong, if that makes sense.
What about the funnest?
The funnest would probably be Wayne, probably, from the Mistborn books. He is a blast to write.
Are you working on a sequel to the Rithmatist?
Yes, but slowly. Rithmatist has some specific issues with the setting, and things like that, that are a challenge to overcome. Part of that is also psychological on my part. I wrote the Rithmatist, it was the last book I finished before The Wheel of Time happened. And The Wheel of Time really diverted my career a large amount. And so, finding the place where I was when I wrote Rithmatist again in my brain, has been a little bit hard. I took a stab at it once, and didn't like where it was going. But, I will eventually be doing another one.
