Recent entries

Questioner

I know you write multiple books at a time. Do have advice for, like, balancing those?

Brandon Sanderson

Balancing multiple books at a time. So, one of the things that I do is, I generally will work on an outline for one, while I'm writing another, and then doing revision on a third. And it feels like those three things take different parts of my brain. And so it actually can be, like, nice exercises, like when you're at the gym, you don't work the same muscle group all the time. You move between them. But what I don't generally do is write new fiction on multiple things at a time. I find that I need to keep focused on that story. So, while I work on multiple things at a time, I'm not necessarily writing on more than one thing at a time.

Brandon Sanderson

What's my biggest challenge in writing books?

There's a couple. One of the big ones I have nowadays is not repeating myself. It's a much bigger danger if you write in a lot of different series, like I do. Like, if you just write in one series, the tone and themes of that series are very similar, it's okay book-to-book, because that's what you want for a book. But if you're jumping a lot, and then every series starts to feel like it has the same tone and theme, then you start to repeat yourself. And so, the longer I go as a writer, that's one of the big challenges.

The other kind of big challenge is making sure that I'm juggling my main projects, like Stormlight and Mistborn, and the side projects that I want to do. The way my writing psychology works is, if I spend too long on one thing, I get burned out. But because of that, it's very easy for me to, instead of working on one good series that's gonna make my name, it'd be easy for me to write fifteen smaller books that all just go completely wacky directions. So I want a balance between that. I want things like The Stormlight Archive, and I want things like the novellas that I do.

Brandon Sanderson

What do I like to do besides write? Excellent question.

My nerd hobby is Magic: The Gathering. So, I go to extreme lengths to foil out my cube, and things like that. I used to have a lot more time for things like this than I do now. And that's mostly having a family, right? As you grow up and put on your big-boy pants, you're like: I have three children, I'm gonna spend discretionary time on things that they enjoy. Which means I end up playing Roblox way more than I end up playing Dark Souls these days. But as they get older, I'm hoping they will enjoy some of the things I like, as I spend time doing the things that they like, as well. I actually have a pretty healthy work/life balance. I'm fortunate in that my job, I can do anywhere, at any time of the day. What I usually do is, I get up at noon. (Because I'm a writer. I'm not an insurance salesman, I'm a writer. This is just one perk to the job.) I get up at noon. I work from about noon until five. Then I shower, get ready for the day, hang out with my family from about 5:30 until 8:30, 9:00. And then I'll usually go back to work at about 10:00, somewhere around there, and I'll work from about 10:00 until 2:00.

I found that, for my writing... Writers are all very different, right? I like two four-hour blocks. By the end of about four hours of work, I'm brain dead. The words are just not flowing as well anymore. And if I take a break and go to a second block later on, I'm way more effective as a writer. I have the benefit of having no commute. So I can do things like this. All through college, what I would do is, I actually worked a graveyard shift at a hotel in Provo. And I would go to work at 11:00. And it's Provo, so nobody's there after 11:00. You're a really sketchy person in Provo if you're staying up 'til 10:30. So from about midnight until 5:00 or 6:00, I could write every night. And that's how I put myself through school, was working there. But these days, you know, I try to make time. I used to work Saturdays, and I don't anymore unless there's something like [a convention]. I take Saturdays off. I have a pretty decent balance. The only time where it gets a little unbalanced is if I have a big tour. And those can be pretty grueling. I would much rather have this problem than not, right? My first signings, you can find pictures of me with my grandma here at the Iona Falls Barnes & Noble, where I was sitting in the front, and there were five people there who were all related to me, and that was our book signing! And now I will go to... often, book signings start at 6:00 PM, and get done at 2:00 AM if I'm in Portland, or Seattle, or one of the big cities like that. So, you do that six days a week, in a different city every day, and it can get a little exhausted. So I don't love that part of it. I like the signings. I just don't like the twentieth signing, if that makes sense.

Let me give a little bit of advice here. If there are those of you who are writers out here, there are two things that maybe to keep your life in balance I would recommend. The number one cause of breakups and divorce among my writer friends is that their spouse feels like the writer's ignoring them. It's very easy to do. As a writer, it's very easy to... it's one of these jobs, there are a lot of them like this. Being a schoolteacher is like this. You don't leave your job behind. Your job is always there with you; there's always a little bit more you can do. And because of that, it tends to consume everything if you let it. And you can be out to dinner with your spouse, but you're thinking about your book. You can be driving somewhere and giving only noncommittal responses, because you're thinking about the book. On the other side, if you happen to be the spouse of a writer, the number one thing you can do is jealously guard their writing time. For a lot of writers, a small interruption can mean... To you, it's like, "Oh, I need to ask this question for thirty seconds." But if that breaks the writer's concentration for twenty minutes, because they're spun in to the work, they're really into it, they get interrupted at just the wrong time, it can be a big interruption. So, the balance I suggest is to make a deal. Writer, when you're there with your spouse and your family, be there with your spouse and family. And then make the deal that, when the writing happens, they're gonna try to guard that door and protect you from being interrupted.

Questioner

Are you familiar with TVTropes?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm familiar with TVTropes, yes.

Questioner

What is your favorite tropes to use?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow. Favorite tropes to use? The trick is... As everyone knows, TVTropes is really dangerous because you can spend a lot of time on there. And for writers, it can also be very dangerous because, while everything is a trope, you don't want to be told too often that the thing that you thought was really original has been done five hundred times. At least, not until you've already done it, and put your own spin on it. Like, obviously I would say my favorite trope is probably Thief with a Heart of Gold. I don't know what they actually call it on TVTropes. You end up seeing that sort of thing all the time in my books.

My actually favorite one to read about on TVTropes is Worf-ing people. Where [Star Trek] Next Generation would do this thing, in order to show how cool the new villain was, in the opening scenes they would beat up Worf. And then they listed all the times that Worf would come on in the beginning, and something would beat up Worf. And that was to tell you, "Oh wait, this alien's serious business." It beats up Riker, not a big deal, but if it beats up Worf, we're in trouble. But the fact that they did that so often, if you actually watch the shows, means Worf actually is kind of a wuss, because Worf basically exists to get beat up by aliens to show how tough they are. It's one of those things where, when you overuse a concept that is really effective a couple of times, particularly in a serialized story, it ends up proving the opposite point to you.

Questioner

The Dawnshards. Have we seen any evidence of them on Roshar yet?

Brandon Sanderson

Technically, yes.

Questioner

Is there a the relationship between them and say, like, the perfect gems like the King's Drop?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that. Good question.

Questioner

Are we gonna see the old love that Kaladin had, in Book 4?

Brandon Sanderson

She is still alive. Whether or not you'll see her again is a RAFO.

Questioner

So, is the way that Vasher and...

Brandon Sanderson

Vivenna.

Questioner

How they crossed worlds. Is that related to the worlds that Pattern, and...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Shadesmar. They went through Shadesmar.

Questioner

Is Vivenna hunting Zahel?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Then why won't she tell him that she's looking?

Brandon Sanderson

She is hunting him. There's more to it, but yes.

Questioner

I was asking about the diets of the Shin, Stone Shamanism, because Szeth in one of the interludes talks about the stone walkers, being able to eat food on any day of the week, so I was wondering what that actually referred to.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so the question is: How do you draw the line between deciding to be realistic, and to fudge it in the name of drama, essentially. Pointed out, like, at the end someone gets shot in a way that would normally lay them out but you need the story to keep going. You have a number of options here, and sub-genre and tone is going to have a lot to do with it. The fact that Star Wars is not in any way realistic in its physics does not prevent it from being enjoyed by even a lot of us who understand how bad the physics is, right? Because Star Wars does not present itself as a story where they need to get the physics right. Whereas a hard science fiction movie that we're watching then make an enormous error-- I love The Martian, but this is why Andy Weir gets so much flack. It was way better than 99.9 percent of all science fiction stories; he gets one thing wrong and people will notice it because it's a hard science fiction story.

So, you're going to have to decide on the tone of your story, that's a large part of it. And the other thing is, you build up, in some ways, credibility, like I said, often with the small details. And then you use those small details. We often call it the pyramid of abstraction. You lay the foundation with concrete details, building the scene so the reader is on board for what you're doing. And then, when you need to fudge it and strain plausibility, even in a very realistic story, the reader generally gets on board and goes with it, and doesn't let it break immersion for them. In your example, if all the way through this story you had dealt with these things very realistically, at the end you even dealt with it realistically, but had the character kind of overcome it for a little while and push through. I am totally on board to buy that, right? I am there with you. I'm like, "This is the climatic moment. Yeah, he should have dropped, but instead, he manages to stand up and push the fire alarm or something like that." This sort of thing, readers will be on board. You just need to make sure to keep them on board and to sell them on the idea of the tone of your story. 

Panelist

As Sidney and Jen pointed out earlier, the wound that is ultimately fatal, often is not immediately fatal. That's one of the other Hollywood tropes that I sometimes hate is: sometimes he gets shot and immediately falls down. No, doesn't happen. A headshot maybe, but that's about it. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I was interviewing some people for a story I was writing, and I interviewed someone who had been shot. And he said "It felt like someone had tapped me on the back, just like that, and I didn't know I had been shot." The bullet went all the way through him, but he still was up and doing things for another couple of minutes.

Brandon Sanderson

This is where the writers can exploit this a little bit, and it's always a balance, right, as a novelist. The original question was: Alexander the Great survived, famously, a punctured lung. And so, the fact that it does happen means you can get away with it in your fiction, you can get away with a lot of things. But as it was brought up earlier on the panel, one of the things we try to do in fantasy, and I would say the hallmark of an epic fantasy is the sense of immersion. That's why we are writing epic fantasy, we want to draw people in, and while you are reading this book you want to feel like this is a real place and these are real events that happened.

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things I read regarding blunt trauma that Hollywood and authors like to ignore is-- I've been told by several experts, the old "Hit 'em on the back of the head and knock them out thing" is just not a thing. If you hit them on the back of the head hard enough to knock them out, chances are you have done serious damage to them. This [is] just not a thing.

Brandon Sanderson

I will say that one thing that I did after doing a lot of this research was I just decided early on I needed some natural antibiotics. I just did. Because I'm telling a story about a bunch of people who are slaves in a warfare situation whose lives are not cared for, and there's one guy with some medical training who ends up among them, and he considers it his job to keep these guys alive. And I learned very [early] on I needed some natural antibiotics. I just needed-- And that's the thing you can do in an epic fantasy, is you can decide, "You know what? I'm going to make this call, I'm going to build into my setting this way around it," because there were certain stories I wanted to tell, and if he couldn't save anybody, then this story doesn't work. 

Questioner

If an Elantrian were aroused when he was taken by the Shaod, what would happen, and what would happen if a pregnant woman was taken by the Shaod.

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that the baby would enter the same suspended transformation. As for the first question, why don't we RANFO.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Which map holds the Easter Egg?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The main map of Roshar.

Questioner (paraphrased)

From which book?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Either book, it's the main one that will go in each copy. It's VERY hard and it won't change a whole lot.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Does it have anything to do with the compass?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Not the compass.

Questioner

I was curious, what is your favorite metaphor in the Steelheart series?

Brandon Sanderson

Definitely the potato in a minefield, just because it comes at the right moment. It's not the best of the metaphors, but it's the most...the most 'David' of the metaphors.

Brandon Sanderson

Hufflepuff, eh?

Questioner

My husband's a Hufflepuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Do you know what I am? Can you guess?

Questioner

I would say...a little bit of Slytherin, I've seen your evil faces when you give out RAFO cards.

Brandon Sanderson

*Talks over* Slytherin, I'm Slytherin.

I figure if you sort yourself in Slytherin, it's the house that...if you think you are, you probably are.

Questioner

For a writer like yourself and Robert Jordan who both have very expansive and articulate universes, how much of the planning process do you do up front and how much do you let it develop organically as you write?

Brandon Sanderson

I am more naturally a planner, but both methods are valid. Robert Jordan was a little bit more of what we call a pantser. But every book changes as you're writing it. Like, I don't know if you've read Stormlight, but one of the main characters in Stormlight wasn't meant to be a main character until I finished the book and there was something wrong and I went through revisions, and added a character's viewpoint in to fix those problems, and then that sends a ripple through my whole outline, and you know, so stuff like that.

Brandon Sanderson

That's actually a really good point because often times you can also get away with things in fiction by making main characters who don't know what they are doing. Obviously, I couldn't do this when my character was a trauma surgeon. But, for instance, I'm pretty bad with horses. If you haven't read my books, I've ridden horses a couple of times, enough to know that people who really like horses really like you to get your horse stuff right.

And so, when I was approaching this series, I'm like, my character is the proverbial cabbagehead when it come to horses. He gets things wrong; he doesn't know what he's doing, and a lot of times if you do that, you not only give yourself a reason for your early readers, your beta readers, who know something about it to point out, "Oh here, here is a great way, here's what I see someone who doesn't know about horses do wrong." It's really fun, put it in the book; but it also gives you a sort of plausible deniability, where you're like, "Yes, that was from Kaladin's viewpoint, he has no idea about horses, he's describing it wrong. He's scared of the things."

Questioner

Do you visit schools?

Brandon Sanderson

Once in a while, but not as much as I used to because it is really demanding on my time.

Questioner

*Inaudible, presumably about inspiration for Allomancy.*

Brandon Sanderson

For Mistborn, more alchemy. I am fascinated by the fact that Isaac Newton believed in it. Just the transition period between superstition and science is a fascinating period.

Questioner

What is your favorite color?

Brandon Sanderson

Usually, I say maroon.

Questioner

Does it ever overwhelm you to know that your books are huge now?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it's a little weird, but...I mean I'll take it. It's better than the alternative, right? You know those days when I was just a little dufus sitting in my basement writing books, have turned into me being a big dufus having to do these big lines and stuff. It is a little weird.

Questioner

Will Kaladin ever get a lover?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a Read and Find Out. People get those cards from me when I don't want to answer the question, because it'll be a spoiler.

Questioner

I feel bad for him sometimes.

Brandon Sanderson

You know, you're allowed to feel bad for Kaladin.

Questioner

Does he want to find someone to love?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, he does. But, you know. Kaladin is also his own worst enemy sometimes.

Questioner

I can't remember--is there anymore Mistborn books coming?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there's one more Wax and Wayne book, then I'm going jump another Era to 1980's-level technology.

Questioner

Is each Shard associated with a certain color in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

We'll go ahead, I'll RAFO that. There are some of these questions that the answers are starting to seep out anyway. So, we'll go ahead and RAFO that.

Questioner

What are we going to do when you retire?

Brandon Sanderson

Retire? RETIRE?! I would never! I will stop writing when they find me dead in my office and my face is on the keyboard and I type the word "k" seven thousand times.

Questioner

I was wondering if the Oathpact was limited just to the 10 original Heralds, or if someone could possibly take their place?

Brandon Sanderson

*Presumably hands RAFO card* 

Questioner

So, in the beginning of Alloy of Law, Bloody Tan says that he has met God, Death, and the Survivor. We know that Lessie was working with Harmony the entire time. Was Bloody Tan also under the influence of Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

So, "under the influence of" is perhaps a...so I would say "No," but, he is not lying at that point.

Questioner

Oh, that is awesome.

Brandon Sanderson

So, "under the influence" is extreme, but...Harmony is also not 100% guiltless. Let's put it that way.

Questioner

You know, that feels like a good answer. That way I can at least have Harmony not my most hated Shard, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Harmony does not deserve to be hated, but Harmony is having troubles figuring out how to make things work.

Questioner

Have you ever thought of stepping out of fantasy, and doing a different kind of drama, like "Let me do a romantic comedy and see how that goes"?

Brandon Sanderson

Umm yeah. I mean Legion is a detective story, which is one of my departures, and I do some science fiction. I've never really been interested in doing something that didn't have a sci-fi/fantasy element, 'cause it's part of what fascinates me, but i would be most likely if I were to step out of that, to do something...probably a straight up mystery, would be where I would go. You might also be able to see me writing a historical novel.

Questioner

Like if you tried to do a romantic comedy...but somehow it got some sci-fi--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, every time I try to do something like that, some sort of fantasy element pops into it somehow.

Questioner

My friends and I had this debate when we were playing the Mistborn Adventure Game. So when a kandra imitates a human, do they replicate the organs perfectly?

Brandon Sanderson

Usually, yes. But there are kandra that do not, by intention, do that.

Questioner

Does that include the reproductive organs?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So theoretically if a kandra were to copulate with a human while pretending to be a human, would it create another human?

Brandon Sanderson

It would. And I think I've been consistent on that. So, I have to do things like this because I didn't want a blood test to be able to determine who was a kandra and who wasn't, because that's your go-to way to find a shapeshifter. So I think I had to imitate entirely. But boy, would it imitate the genetic code... *sounds of thought and frustration*

Questioner

That's the question we have.

Brandon Sanderson

You know, I don't know that they would...so they were human...I'm going to go ahead and back pedal and RAFO on that. I haven't decided 100% yet...I know you can't tell with a bloodtest, but if you look at the DNA, would you be able to tell it's a kandra? And I'm kinda thinking you probably would be able to. 

Questioner

So then, following that they wouldn't be able to reproduce.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they wouldn't be able to reproduce in that case. I'm gonna go--jury's out. And I have to really make a call on this. I'm going to say, "Yes," right now, that they are doing this down to the cellular level, a copy, but I may have to backpedal on that when I get to future Mistborn books, when I really look at it, what it would take, to do that. It's an unofficial yes, with a RAFO attached to it.

Questioner

Who has been your favorite character to write so far?

Brandon Sanderson

It's hard to say, they're all like my children. I often default to Wayne, because he's a blast.

Questioner

When is Wax coming back?

Brandon Sanderson

Wax is coming back...Wax will be the next...well...it will happen before too much longer. I was gonna write it next but I don't know, it would kinda feel nice to finish the whole Skyward trilogy, turn it in, and be done, and not have to come back to it, but then when do I do Wax 4? So we'll see. It shouldn't be too much longer.

Questioner

Are we gonna get more Cosmere or are you done with that? 

Brandon Sanderson

You'll get a lot more Cosmere. A lot more.

Questioner

*Talking about Mistborn and Feruchemists.* Personally, which one would you rather be?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably a Mistborn. Because I want to be able to fly. Even kind-of/halfway/maybe/sort-of fly.

Questioner

What was the black gemstone that Gavilar gave to Szeth before he died? Was it Unmade, and what did Szeth do with it?

Brandon Sanderson

So Szeth has put it in a safe place, and, "Is it an Unmade or is it not?" is a RAFO.

Questioner

How connected is Stormlight to the Warbreaker books?

Brandon Sanderson

Pretty connected. Yeah, a lot of them...so, when I wrote Warbreaker, I actually had already written the first book Way of Kings, in Stormlight, and I was writing Warbreaker as kind of a prequel to it, but then they came out in reverse order. But they are very...they are the most connected of the Cosmere books right now.

Questioner

Why aren't there any dragons in your books?

Brandon Sanderson

There are dragons in my books, they're just hiding.

Questioner

So, I don't know which one it's in, but when Nazh was analyzing Bridge Four--

Brandon Sanderson

Nazh was analyzing Bridge Four, yes.

Questioner

Why?

Brandon Sanderson

Why was Nazh analyzing Bridge Four? Well, you will find clues to that in the pieces of art in The Stormlight Archive, that he was trying to obtain...they are very interested...certain elements of the Cosmere are very interested in the progress of the Nahel bond as the Knights Radiant are making them.

Questioner

In The Stormlight Archive there are characters with names that are different from characters they are in the other Cosmere books, and I'm wondering if there is either a place that has a "this is this person" or if there are like clues that we could watch for.

Brandon Sanderson

People have different names, they're using aliases in various parts of the Cosmere and things like this. The only thing I can point you toward are the fan wikis and fan forums which you probably already know about, the 17th Shard being the biggest of those. I am not revealing who the people are, but theories are on those websites and I have confirmed a few of them.

Questioner

When do you expect your next Stormlight Archive book to be released?

Brandon Sanderson

They take about three years to do, is what I found, so we're about one year into that so about two more years.

Questioner

I read on your FAQ that your in-world language was going to play a bigger part in some of the later books. Is that still something you're planning on?

Brandon Sanderson

Still something I'm planning, but we will see. The numerology aspect of The Stormlight Archive is a bigger part of the world than I usually emphasize, because if you emphasize stuff like that people will assume it is actually magical.  They are a bit more superstitious with their numerology than I sometimes imply—

Questioner

Is that why there's lots of things in tens? 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, well even more than that, it's based on the whole idea that in the Hebrew, a number and a letter are the same thing, so people would translate words to numbers and numbers to words. They do a LOT of that. 

Questioner

The other Surgebinder in Amaram's army. Was it Tien?

Brandon Sanderson

Tien was a Surgebinder and was in Amaram's army. So yes. <pause> And [he] was a Lightweaver.

SwiftxJustice

Quick question to help me settle a debate. Could Allomancy affect a Shardplate/blade?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Investiture interferes with most magics.

eridius

Wait, are Mistborn and Stormlight Archive somehow connected?

Brandon Sanderson

Multiple people from Mistborn appeared in The Way of Kings.

Iceblade44

So White Sand [then Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Khriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flippin' immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dilation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal? :D

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The Sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of Cognitive Shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

Oversleep (paraphrased)

Back in Mistborn Marsh said that there is a pattern for higher metals. So that would mean that atium and gold would share a pattern but they're not really part of the same quadrant...

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Humans see patterns everywhere, that's it.

TheFulgid

...I know that a lot of [Dragonsteel] is not canon anymore? How much of it, like, percentage-wise, I don't need specifics. 

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that all... I consider almost all the worldbuilding to be canon, but the characters to not be.

TheFulgid

So, anything about Topaz, does that not stand?

Brandon Sanderson

Doesn't really stand. The whole thing with the gods, and stuff like that, is really in flux.

TheFulgid

Are we gonna find out more about spiritwebs, like, how they work?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's a little ways off, though.

TheFulgid

Is it possible to make a perpendicularity large enough that you can move large groups of people through?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner 2

Or a spaceship?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

TheFulgid

Could you Invest... Could you use a nicrosil metalmind to Invest the sort of Investiture enough that you could open a Perpendicularity up to the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll just say it this way. Enough concentrated Investiture in one point is going to pierce the Realms, no matter what form it takes. 

TheFulgid

...So, it doesn't have to be a nicrosil metalmind.

Brandon Sanderson

No. 

TheFulgid

Okay... But it could be?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That is theoretically possible.