Recent entries

zas678

TenSoon wonders, and I wonder too- How can kandra think and be sentient without brains? Doesn't the body need a physical coordinator to relay between the Physical and Cognitive realm? Or do the spikes do a good enough job with that?

Brandon Sanderson

I imagine kandra having a non-centralized nervous system, with brain power spread through their bodies. Well, non-centralized is probably the wrong way to say it. They have lobes of thought and memory attached to muscles here and there, and don't have a single 'brain.' They certainly have brain-like material, though.

zas678

Does the general population know about nicrosil and chromium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, though they are like this world's version of advanced physics in our world. They've heard of them, but many an average person might be hard-pressed to say exactly what they do.

zas678

Is it significant that Miles said that the "men of gold and red" would come and rule. Is there a connection between this and the "gold and red" cigar box that Miles keeps The Suit's comings and goings on?

Brandon Sanderson

This is all very significant.

corwin01

Are those men of red and gold of any relation to the priests in the red and gold robes in Warbreaker?

Brandon Sanderson

I really have to RAFO this one. (Sorry.)

zas678

Why on earth does Marsh have a Feruchemical atium spike? You've said that Ironeyes is in fact Marsh. Did Ruin spike someone for him? Or did Sazed grant him the power?

Brandon Sanderson

Dead Inquisitors Vin killed. Some were granted the spike for reasons I haven't spoken of yet.

Ace_of_Face

Not really a question, but the one thing that disappointed me was that you didn't come up with new slang names for Allomancers! After three hundred years, do you really think they would still be calling steel Mistings "Coinshots"?

Brandon Sanderson

I toyed with this one, but decided that I would keep them the same for a few reasons. First off, I felt that certain things in-world would hamper some linguistic diversity. (Having the books Sazed left behind as a guide to Allomanc and history, everyone living in a small geographic area, the semi-religious nature of Allomancy making people look at it in traditional ways.) So, while I advanced the slang of the world, some of the terms I decided to leave the same.

Another reason for this came when I was writing the book. At first, I experimented with greater linguistic diversity--I even tried a vowel shift, as I figured three hundred years might be enough for that. In the end, I pulled back. I was already worried that this book not feel "Mistborn" enough, and so I wanted some direct ties back to the original series. Fiddling too much with the language while changing the setting and characters so drastically felt like a mistake to me.

Ace_of_Face

How was Sazed/Harmony able to communicate with Waxillium near the end of the book? During the original trilogy, Ruin could occasionally implant thoughts into people's minds, but he couldn't just listen in whenever he felt like it. Is Harmony just way more powerful?

Brandon Sanderson

There is interesting discussion about this one below, which I like to see. I thought this might spark some discussion. Remember that human beings were given more of Preservation than Ruin during their creation, which led to Preservation eventually being overwhelmed by Ruin. That was the bargain; people would be of Preservation at their core, but in turn Ruin got to claim the world once Preservation wound down.

Another factor to consider here is that Wax was given a special earring designed for communication with a being that he actually worships.

Shocksrage

The Alloy of Law left me wanting more books in the universe right away. Any hints as to when we might get to see the next trilogy?

Brandon Sanderson

My current plan is to hold out on the second trilogy until I've reached a breaking point in The Stormlight Archive. (So after book five.) My reasoning is that the second trilogy is very involved, and I'm not certain if I want two thick-booked series going at once. There is a good chance I'll return and do another shorter book, like this one, in the world before then. Either about Wax, or perhaps a quick glimpse of the southern continent.

BlackYeti (paraphrased)

There's some similarity in the effect of Hemalurgy and the Dakhor magics. What would happen if you were to try combining the two?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You would have some pretty evil dude, I would expect.

Questioner

What's your favorite book to get inspiration from?

Brandon Sanderson

What's my favorite book to get inspiration from. Probably Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo.

Questioner

Was there any one character that-- I know you said all of your characters are your favorite, but was there ever one you were really excited to kill?

Brandon Sanderson

Any character that I was really excited to kill. Masema, from The Wheel of Time. Spoiler. I was so happy to kill that dude. He was hanging on forever, annoying me.

Questioner

Anyone from the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Anyone from the cosmere? I'm never eager to kill anyone specifically. I don't even really regard it as killing characters off. I build the outline, I let the character grow into who they are and let them kind of guide-- take the chances that I feel that character would take, and then deal with consequences of it. Does that make sense? So in a lot of ways, it's interesting to me-- Like I already generally know what's going to happen in my books before I write them. I'm an outliner. And so I'm very comfortable, if not happy, with the idea that certain characters aren't going to make it. Meaning, I'm usually sad that they aren't, but I know that they aren't from the beginning so I'm very well prepared for it. Unlike you guys.

Questioner

In the first three Mistborn books, and Elantris and Warbreaker, you focus a lot on sort of gods and religion, is there a particular reason for that?

Brandon Sanderson

Why do I focus on gods and religion in my books. Well there's a couple of reasons. The main one is the kind of overarching story of the cosmere, which all my books are connected, there is some divine force named Adonalsium that was broken apart long ago and the scions of that-- people who have that power are showing up and causing problems and things on planets. So that's kind of the hidden epic behind the scenes, and so because of that religion is a very big part of what happens there.

I'm also a religious person. For those who don't know, I'm Mormon, I'm LDS. And so religion is important to me and whatever I'm fascinated by works it's way into my books. Now I'm generally the type of writer who doesn't feel like I should go into a book with a theme, I should explore what the characters are passionate and let the theme manifest naturally. And so I do that a lot, I don't go in saying "Oh I'm going to teach people this" I say "Who is this character, what are they passionate about" But the things I'm interested in you see. That's why you end up with stories about a god who doesn't believe in his own religion, from Warbreaker. Or you end up with these different things, with Kelsier founding a religion to use it, or having people with different types of faith. And I really think that part of the point of fiction is to, for me, to explore different ideas from different angles and try to just tackle them. And so you'll see me coming back to some of the same concepts again and again, because I want to try them from a new angle, see how this person thinks, see how this character deals with it. Because that's just really interesting to me.

Questioner

I watched all of your Youtube videos of your university lectures, that you put up. Found them really useful specifically because they are more focused on sci-fi/fantasy than other tutorials in writing. My question is, do you have any plans to write a book, in-between your hundred other books, a book on the craft of writing?

Brandon Sanderson

So the question is, am I ever going to write a book on the craft of writing. He notes that I did-- my university lectures I do post online, for those who are curious you can just go to Youtube and look for Brandon Sanderson lectures, but if you want them all in order you go to brandonsanderson.com/writing-advice and I think we have a link to the whole playlist and things in there. So yeah, if you are a writer and looking for some writing advice that's one of the resources I have, and those are pretty in-depth. It's How to Write Science-Fiction and Fantasy university course. I also do a podcast called Writing Excuses, which I would recommend unto you. It is fifteen minutes of writing advice every week. If you haven't ever done a podcast you can just go to the website writingexcuses.com and punch play or you can go to itunes, or however you do podcasts. And that one, if you do it, I would recommend starting with January of this year [2015], the later episodes are better than the earlier episodes.

I do not have any immediate plans to write a manual on writing. I just have so many other things to do and the Writing Excuses and the lecture, these are excuses for me to go interact, right? To get out of the house. To not be sitting in front of a keyboard typing. And so I use them to keep myself a little bit grounded, so I'm not just always alone. Which kind of defeats the purpose if I just go in and write a book about it. Plus there are some pretty good writing manuals out there yet, I don't think I have it figured out yet. Maybe in another 20 years I'll have this writing thing figured out and maybe feel like I should write a book on it.

Questioner

Have you ever been busted by security while signing your books in airports?

Brandon Sanderson

So for those who don't know, in the States, I have to fly on tour. It's actually a lot nicer here, you have very good trains. I don't know if you guys complain about them, but compared to what we got? These trains are great. And I really like sitting and writing on the train, it's a great thing. I wrote on the train today, here. In the States, though, you've gotta fly. And that involves going through American security, which is annoying. But I do get to visit bookstores in the airports. Most airports have a bookstore, and I can go in and find my books and sign them. When I do, I post little, "Hey, I signed my books here!" And, if the bookstore employees aren't paying attention, I just kind of sign my books and sneak out. *laughter* I ninja sign. These days, the problem is, I fly into the same airports so often, the people-- like, I walk in, and they say, "Oh, Mr. Sanderson!" and go get my books. It really confuses them when I sneak in, sign the books, and sneak out, and then go post on Facebook, "Hey, there's signed books here." Like, people flock to the bookstore. They're like, "What happened? Where was he?" So, have I been busted? I have never actually been busted. I've had one person ask me for my ID, where I turned the book open to the last page and said, "Here I am." The thing is that signing in airports happens frequently enough, most authors don't do it, but enough authors do, that if they see someone signing books like that, they just assume you're an author. It's that whole, "pretend you're in charge and people assume." So, I can go in there and I can sign all of Joe Abercrombie's books and fake an accent, I guess. But I have never actually been busted, I have only been said "Oh, are you the author? Can I see ID?" Something like that. That happened only once.

Questioner

In terms of character development, I've noticed you you tend to be concentrated on Twinborns and Mistings, in your new series. Are you going to be exploring the full Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Am I going to be exploring full Mistborn in other books. That's kind of a RAFO, which means Read And Find Out. I will-- I am very interested in telling these intimate stories in the Mistborn world right now and Mistborn have kind of fallen out of the world. There aren't many, if any, of them left, but who knows what will happen in the future. So that's what we call a RAFO.

Questioner

So you've obviously done these talks before, what is your favorite question you've ever had and what was its answer?

Brandon Sanderson

What is my favorite question? See people ask me this one, so I have a glib response. My favorite question is "How can I buy more of your books?" *laughter* And my answer is "Talk to the wonderful booksellers." But no I always have trouble with those questions because I get, y'know, I don’t know if I have favorite questions? People also always ask what should I be asking you? and I'm like "I don’t know, that's your job. I wrote the books, come on. Give me a break."

Questioner

What was your favorite book to write so far?

Brandon Sanderson

The question is what's my favorite book to write, I actually don't have one. They're all my favorites and all of my characters are my favorites, just like all of my children are my favorites.

Questioner

As someone who's taught people to write and studied creative writing, and obviously you're a writer, very much into writing, do you read *inaudible*?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh do I read science fiction and fantasy journals. I do not spend a lot of time in the journals, I spend a lot of time reading fiction and nonfiction. My reading time is so, so hard to come by these days that I feel like I need to be focusing on what my peers are doing, and on good nonfiction books to give me ideas. A lot of my ideas come from nonfiction. I do get a bit of reading done, and people ask me for recommendations…

Questioner

Do you find it difficult when you have to jump between the worlds when you write about like Mistborn and Stormlight do you find it difficult to transition like that?

Brandon Sanderson

Is it hard to transition? Is it hard to transition, the question is, between the different worlds that I write in. A little bit yes, but mostly no. The reason I jump so much is my writing style kind of requires me to do something new after I finish a big project. That's why I--  People ask me a lot how do I-- how am I so productive.  It is actually because that I found out if I jump to something new-- Like a lot of time a writer finishes a book it just wears them out for six months, right? Or if you're certain writers you're worn out before you finish it somehow. Naming no names. But really it happens, you get worn out after finishing a book. I found that if I jump into something very different I immediately get excited about that and get going on it. And it is a big part-- That is why you see those little novellas like Emperor's Soul and Legion and things like that, because I finished a project and jumped into something new. And it makes me really, like I said, excited. So yes it is a little hard to switch gears, but more so it is exciting to switch gears and it just keeps me excited and enthralled through this whole process. Which is why you see me jumping around so much. I tell people "Oh can't you just write on my favorite series", I tell them if I did that they actually wouldn't come out any faster, because I would hit that kind of lull that happens after a book where it's hard to write and you get slowed down by any little thing and if I switch to something else you just kind of get books squished in-between.

Questioner

If you were to die tomorrow, who would continue your series?

Brandon Sanderson

If I were to die tomorrow-- The issue is, being only two books into the Stormlight, then I'm not sure it would be right to finish it? I would probably just have the outlines get released. Because having someone finish eight books for you is a little bit different. But let's assume I get a little further in it, I do think the best choice right now would be either Brent Weeks or Brian McClellan, they write very similarly to me and Brian I trained... I would probably pick Brent, if Brent were willing to do it. We're friends, his books are very similar to mine, he's a great writer. So yeah, but let's hope I get a lot more books done. I hope I get through all of them, but it is wise to plan because I have had in my own life something akin to this.

Questioner

Which one of your characters do you think is most like you?

Brandon Sanderson

Which character's most like me. You know I always have trouble answering this because I put a little of me in every character and every character is different from me. And so it's really hard to say who is most like me. Sometimes I think it's someone-- I don't know, the hard part is like who do I want to be or who am I actually? I think I'm a little more Kelsier and I would like to be a little more Sazed.

Brandon Sanderson

To forestall the other inevitable questions. Movies have been sold for: Mistborn, Emperor's Soul, and Steelheart. They are all in development, none have started filming. Be skeptical of any film deal until someone starts shooting a camera, okay? Right? Just be aware of that, when something starts filming, you can get excited. Until then, just know that people are paying me lots of money to not make movies from my books. *laughter* Which is very nice.

The video game's kind of just in limbo. The guys who are working on it--there's a Mistborn video game--they're great, but they had setback after setback. So I would, if I were you, not hold my breath on that one. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. If it does it's a happy surprise.

BlackYeti

With regards to the Dor, whereabouts is it located exactly, with regards to the Realms.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you're the first to ask this one. It is in the Cognitive Realm... I think you might be the first one to crack that one. So, that's something that I've been dancing around for a while, waiting 'til people started to figure that one out. Now, that's not where most of them are.

BlackYeti

You've said before that the Horneaters are hybrids, half-human--

Brandon Sanderson

Not really half any more, but yeah.

BlackYeti

Are there any other hybrid creatures, would you consider the koloss to be this? Koloss-blooded.

Brandon Sanderson

Not really, I don't consider them, but the Herdazians also have a bit of Parshendi in them.

BlackYeti

With most magic systems, you've said that you need some sort of gap in your soul for the Investiture to get in. On Nalthis, there's obviously a bit of it that they can give away. Is this how Vasher is able to get Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, is this-- Yeah.

BlackYeti

In The Final Empire, Kelsier says that it will take 300 years before atium grows back in the Pits of Hathsin. How does he know this?

Brandon Sanderson

I think it is mentioned somewhere else how long it takes a crystal to regrow, and he's just basing it off of, in the past, when a crystal is damaged, how long it takes one to come back... I'm pretty sure that that is even mentioned somewhere, but if not, that's just how he knows.

BlackYeti

Regarding Vasher... what was his name before he Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO, but just a minor one... Vasher's past is a factor in Nightblood the book, and so I'm staying away from all answers about that.

relient23 (paraphrased)

Are the lines that an Allomancer sees when burning iron or steel are in the Physical Realm, the Spiritual Realm, or the Cognitive Realm.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It is more Spiritual Realm than anything.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

We've seen someone with a Hemalurgic spike communicate or under the control of Ruin or Harmony... Can other Shards communicate or control those individuals?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. Good Question. Yes...  They can certainly communicate...

Cadmium (paraphrased)

To what extent?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Not to the extent that Ruin did. The others could communicate but it'd be vague or faint, not as direct as Ruin was. He connects to us, well, them through the little bit of Preservation that he had or could touch. Because the spike pierces the soul.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

What about on other planets than Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It'd work the same way. but again probably vaguer or fainter. Might go unnoticed.

Questioner

Are there any actors that you would love to see in an adaptation of your work?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, excellent. Are there any actors I would love to see in an adaptation of my work? Wow, you know, you toy with this in your head, but I usually only do it after I've written the book because-- and then it's kind of hard because I'm like this character is the person in my head, not a specific actor. But we've had to start doing it, where people come when they're making the films and they're like "Who do you see in this role", or something like this. And so I have come up with some of these things. For instance, the guys who have Mistborn keep talking about Sazed, and they kind of want to go Asian with Sazed, which I think would work just fine for the Terris, and they keep using Chow Yun Fat as someone they would look at. Which would be pretty cool. 

Legion I wrote with a few actors in mind, one of the few books I've done that, so if you've read that I actually cast Ivy, JC, and Tobias as three actors I like. You should read it and see if you can figure out who those three are, because I've said online and you can read that and say "I wonder", and then you just google it and they'll all be there. One of them is from Firefly, so-- I'll give you a hint, this character's initials have been the same in like five or six different movies, and they're the same initials I use for the character and the fact that he's playing a character with the same initials, and so I use those initials. But for the most part I don't really think on this too much, because you spend a lot of time thinking about it, like when someone first bought Mistborn I was like "Ooh who do we get to play Vin"? And now all those actors, they're all like ten years older than being able to play Vin now, so it's like what was the point in doing all that. So I'm just going to let something actually get to casting, and then hopefully they'll invite me in and I can give my feedback.

Questioner

I have a question on when you use terminology because you use a lot of regular terms. If you've read Warbreaker, Breath specifically. So as a working writer, before ever reading Brandon Sanderson's novel, I might have come up with the Breath myself. So the question being, have you ever had that, where you work working on something and then read another book and found out they were using either a similar term or something--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah it's happened a bunch. Have I been writing a book when someone came up with a similar term? Janny Wurts wrote a book about someone called the mistwraith. There is a book called, like, The Curse of the Darkeyes, or something like that. It's hard to do something where someone hasn't used any of the terms before. Like trying to do the Steelheart books, which use superhero mythology, try and find a name for any superhero that DC or Marvel haven't had, it's like basically impossible. So I had to be like alright, ones that no one has heard of, that only appeared in one issue, if I come up with a cool name and they've used it once in like one issue, I can still use it. You just have to not let that get to you. Make the story your own through good writing and good storytelling, and no one's going to look at it and be like "Ohh this is a rip-off". And if your beta readers all say "Oh this is a rip-off", then maybe you change it, but they probably won't. That's my advice to you. Don't stress that one too much. Work on making your story great and don't worry too much if it is what someone else has done. 

Questioner

In The Stormlight Archive, Damnation is a physical planet, or place, to my understanding. The Tranquiline Halls seems a little less tangible, is it a physical place and will we see it?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Damnation and the Tranquiline Halls, are they physical places? In Rosharan mythology they are places, much like heaven and hell are places. Tranquiline Halls is-- and so they believe that they do exist, but they're not sure if they exist on this plane or the next plane, or things like that. And that's all I'm going to say about it.

Questioner

Why did it take you so long to write the fifth Alcatraz book?

Brandon Sanderson

Why did it take me so long to write the fifth Alcatraz book... So, the Alcatraz books, the problem was I had this weird relationship with Scholastic, who was publishing them, where they didn't want to keep publishing them, but they didn't want to sell them back to me either. And it was really weird, because I was like "If you don't want to keep publishing them, why not like let us take them back and sell them to someone else?", and they were like "ehhh", so we had to convince them to sell them back to me, and I actually had to pay them a bunch of money to get the rights back, to bring them to another publisher, and that deal required that we couldn't sell any Alcatraz books until January of this upcoming year [2016]. And so the reason I couldn't do that fifth book is because of that contract. I let them sell off the remaining books that they had so that we're rereleasing them starting in January, the first four again, and then the fifth one. We didn't want to do the fifth one until the first four could come out, so people could buy them. So that's the reason!

Questioner

The fight scenes in the Mistborn novels are incredibly visual. How do you write that, do you have to diagram it out?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, how do I write the visual fight scenes from something like Mistborn? Actually, you do a lot of research by watching Jackie Chan films, *laughter* but really what you're doing is actually, at least the way I approach it, you can do whatever works for you, but the way I do it is I actually approach what I want the emotional and mental beats to be in the scene and I build the scene around that. What is someone going to realize? What is someone going to feel? What is someone going to connect? How are they going to bring these things together? And then I use those to construct the scene so that even if someone is not following it, or is not as interested in the action, they'll get the emotional parts, and have these focuses for themselves. And I just construct the action around that. And often in the first draft, it's actually pretty rough. One of the biggest things I have to do in second drafts and third drafts is fix blocking for these battle sequences, which is where everyone's moving, because I'm working on the emotional beats first. And I feel like that's the way to go for me. I can construct a really awesome looking fight scene but the problem is you can't do a Jackie Chan thing in a book, like he punched him, he punched him really fast, this other person punched her twice as fast but then she kicked him twice. It's just boring right, and even the blow by blows, when they get exciting, kind of feel boring sometimes. But if you've got those emotional and mental things connecting, and pulling the reader through the story, then it's going to work better.

Questioner

So there's a popular theory on the internet--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh no--

Questioner

--that Brandon Sanderson is actually a robot, or a collection of robots. So they've never actually heard you dispute this. 

Brandon Sanderson

Right right right, well, the thing is-- the way we were programmed doesn't let us lie. So this is a problem for disputing it. So I'll just say "No comment".

Questioner

Any more information on like the efforts to go to the movies--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh the movies stuff--

Questioner

--or television or even maybe animated?

Brandon Sanderson

Television or things like this. So for those who don't know, what we do with Hollywood is they come and they option our books. This is where they give us some money not to sell the books to anyone else while they try to get things together to make a film, and most of the time it doesn't pan out. Sometimes it does, but making a film takes a lot of effort, takes a lot of time, so they want to make sure that they've got the rights looked-up while they do that. So it's basically like renting the rights, but it's a rent-to-own, because eventually they have a buy-out price they have to pay, but all the rental payments kind of apply to that. And I have had things for option since 2006 I think, and nothing's ever gotten made, and right now I have under option Mistborn, I have Emperor's Soul, I have Stormlight, I have Steelheart, and Legion just lapsed, so if somebody wants that, let me know. And all of those are in various stages of production, I've chosen production companies that I feel good about, and so I feel good about all of them, but I don't know what the chances are, right.

The most recent one was Steelheart, with Shawn Levy's company, he did Real Steel, that's what convinced me, it's a Richard Matheson story that he adapted. He also did the Night at the Museum films. And they've been really cool, they invited me in, I got to tour Fox Studios, and they're working on a screenplay, I'm hoping that will turn out well but I have really no power to make Hollywood do stuff. Nobody really does, even the people there, I think they're all kind of confused by how it sometimes works out. So I would do animated if the right project came along, and someone offered me, and I thought it looked good. I'm not opposed to that. I'm not opposed to TV. We just have to see who comes to me.

Questioner

After reading your entire bookology--

Brandon Sanderson

Bookology, I like that.

Questioner

It got to the point where I was running out of books so I went on your website and found your recommended reads and after talking to some other authors I found some other connections to you, David Farland, Brian McClellan. Is there anyone else you would recommend down the same track?

Brandon Sanderson

Ok, authors I would recommend-- I'm going to go in a couple of different directions because not everyone might like the same sorts of things. I'm going to tell you what I've been reading lately. Brian McClellan's very good, and Brian McClellan was one of my students but I can't really take credit for Brian because he was really good when he came to class in the first place. Brian's books, if you haven't read them, Promise of Blood is the start. They are flintlock fantasies and they kind of combine a little bit of hard fantasy magic, like I do, and a little bit of the kind of grimdark grittiness and kind of combine them together into this cool mix. So the magic isn't quite as hard as the magic I do, meaning quite as rule-based, but the grimdark isn't quite as grim as the grimdark tends to go. The mix works really well.

I read Naomi Novik's new book, Uprooted, which is really good if you haven't read it. It's kind of like a dark fairytale YA but really twisted, so it's not intended for a teen audience because it is pretty twisted, but it's like how the fairytales really were, it's that sort of thing, it's really cool, it's very well written. Let's see-- I'm currently reading Dan's new book, that's not out yet. But I Am Not a Serial Killer. If you haven't read Dan's books they are great and they are creepy. It's about a teenage sociopath who hunts demons, to get that whole "I'm a sociopath and kind of want to kill people". Not that all sociopaths want to, but he does. And getting it out of his system is going and killing demons. 

Let's see, what else have I really loved. I like Robin Hobb's books a lot, if you haven't read Robin Hobb. Brent Weeks, a very similar writer to me. Brent Weeks, The Black Prism. It seems like Brent and I must have read the same books, a lot of the, growing up, and have the same-- because we both kind of independently started doing this kind of epic fantasy rule-based wacky magic kind of thing right about the same time. I really really like NK Jemisin, Nora Jemisin, her books are very literary so if you're not on the literary side of fantasy-- but the new one is fantasic, it's written in the second person, at least one of the viewpoints is. It's like the only book I've ever read in second person that works. And some of my classic favorites are A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge, it's very Dune-like, in that it's a science fiction that blends the best parts of epic fantasy together with it, and if you haven't read that and you like Dune, you'll probably like A Fire Upon the Deep. There we go.

Questioner

How many scripts did you write and submit before you got Elantris picked up?

Brandon Sanderson

How many scripts did I write and send out before I got Elantris picked up? So novel-length things, Elantris was my sixth. It sold while I was writing my thirteenth, which was The Way of Kings. You shouldn't have to do that, I was really bad when I started. The other thing is I was not good at revising, and I sometimes wouldn't even send books out, because I was like "I can learn do that better, I'll just write another book", which was the wrong attitude to have but it ended up working out for me so I don't know that I'd change anything! I did collect rejections but really-- My first five books were very experimental. Someone told me your first five books are usually terrible, which is not necessarily true but it was the right advice for me. I sat down and I wrote five.

My first one was an epic fantasy, because I was pretty sure that's what I love. My second one was a space opera. My third one was a sequel to that epic fantasy. Then my fourth one was a comedy, like a Bob Asprin-style fantasy farce. And then there was a cyberpunk. And then there was Elantris. I wrote those five, and after I sat down and wrote those five and said, "ok, epic fantasy's what I love, I'm gonna go with that." That's when the idea of the Cosmere started going for me, and I sat down and I wrote Elantris, a book called Dragonsteel which is kind of Hoid's origin story, and a book called White Sand which we're currently making into a graphic novel. Those three books I got the best feedback on when I was submitting them and that's when I really started to push it, in getting it published. So you can imagine that what I did is I practiced for a while, I wrote a book that I thought was pretty good and during the three years it took to sell that, I ended up writing some more, because I do that. 

Questioner

Do you ever plan on writing something akin to Silmarillion for the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I every plan to write something like the Silmarillion for the cosmere? Hehe. No I have no specific plans right now. I've read the Silmarillion-- Wow, he was a genius, but that's where you get to the mad genius stuff, right. Yeah, I have no plans right now to do that. Maybe you'll get me when I'm 70 and I'm like "Ennnhhhh... I must write my own Isaiah, I will do it". 

Questioner

When you're writing a book, and you're writing a character that's better at something than you are, like Shallan is very good at drawing, or Wayne is very good at imitating voices, how do you write that?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a good question. You get this old adage in writing classes where people are like "write what you know". And you're like, buuuuuut...writing about English professors gets a little old, unless you're writing literary fiction and that's like half of it. What do you do when you want to write someone that's better at something than you are? Excellent question. A couple of things. You can construct the perfect situation to show off what you want to show off, which is not how life normally goes. So I'm not nearly as clever as some of my characters, but I can construct the situation and then take like two hours thinking "Alright, what's the perfect comeback" Go get a burger and it's like "Ahh the perfect comeback". Like you might do when you're like "Ahh if only I'd thought of that. You can make that happen.

The other thing you can do is good research, and for a lot of things where it's a skill I don't have, what I try and do is I try to do enough research to get myself like seventy percent of the way there as an expert. And you can do that pretty fast, you take a couple of months, read a couple of books, and you can get yourself to the point that you don't sound embarrassing. Then you write the scenes and you find someone that is an expert, because that last thirty percent is what takes like nine years extra. And you give it to them and you say "Where am I wrong?". And since you've kind of done enough work that you're not just like completely out of left field, they can fix it usually, and they're like "Oh yeah, this is not something that a doctor would say", "This is not something you do, you fix it right here, but you got these parts all right, the context is correct". And that's what you want to do, if you can. Forums are very useful, in the internet age you can go and hang out, learn around people talking about all kinds of things. You can be like "How do these people think? How do people who think this way think?", and you can go there and get from their own mouths and their own voices, a lot of how they're talking and thinking, what their passionate about and things like that. And then you try to represent that the way they would represent it if they were writing the book.

Questioner

You were saying that you had, somewhere in the Middle East, was it  English or were they reading it in...

Brandon Sanderson

Oh good question, were they reading it in English or Arabic? They were reading in English, they were reading the UK editions. So I don't know that I have-- Well, I know I have my books in Turkish but I don't think there are any actually in Arabic. There's some sister languages, but not Arabic.

Questioner

Do you find yourself impatient having to wait to reveal some of these things?

Brandon Sanderson

Do I find myself impatient having to wait to reveal some of these things? Yeah, yeah yeah, it's--

Questioner

Start changing your mind and working on that idea more--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I do. There are ideas that I'm like "this book is gonna be so cool, I'm going to work on that", and then I have to be like "alright, you can work on that while you're excited about it, but do you realize it's like ten years away?" So these outlines, I'm very excited-- But you know what, I'm used to it. I started writing Dalinar's story when I was fifteen and people didn't get to read Dalinar's story til I was like 35-- 37-- something like that. It was 35 I think. So I waited 20 years for Dalinar. So I can wait a little bit longer on some of these other things.

Questioner

I've got a question about Hoid. Now that he is a [worldhopper], he's been in quite a few books, do you have any plans or is it possible that he may windup jumping realities into a universe that, as you write more books that are outside the cosmere, or do you just kind of plan of having him--

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. So the question is am I going to have Hoid, who has appeared in many of my books, jump between universes as I write more outside the cosmere. The answer is actually no. I have a distinct story that I'm telling in the cosmere and it's less about the fun of connecting all my works, which is fun, but it's less about that and more about the actual story. Part of the reason I'm actually doing this thing with Hoid is I like the idea-- playing with the idea, of what is an epic. An epic that spans many many years is really cool to me, so I have hidden that amongst my books, and it'll eventually come out in a much more direct way. I actually had to make this choice pretty early in my career, when I was writing The Rithmatist was the first one. You know, the Alcatraz books are just goofy and zany, so I didn't have to think about it as much with those, but with The Rithmatist I was like "what am I going to do with this?". Because it had originally been planned as a cosmere book, and then I decided I wanted to set it on Earth and I didn't want to do a lot of these sort of political things on Earth in the cosmere, I wanted it to be a far-off and distant place. And that's when I made the break, I said "no I'm not going to put him in this". And that made it easy when people were like "hey, you going to sneak him into The Wheel of Time?". Nah nah let's move along there. A lot of people were expecting me to sneak him in.

Questioner

When writing, how do you work out space versus time?

Brandon Sanderson

Space versus time, what do you mean?

Questioner

So I guess distance versus time. So like, you have your math and you're writing, is it more just kind of feel how the story goes, or is it "I know this amount of space is going to take the characters four months--"

Brandon Sanderson

Oh I see what you're saying. Ok, so how do you work with, when you've got traveling characters, working out how much time things are going to take, traveling and things like this in the book, it actually really depends on the plot archetype of the book. If the book is what we call a travelogue, which is about traveling places, exploring new locations, it's kind of got that adventuresome, exploration feel to it, then the destinations you go to are the main part of the plot. For most of the books I'm writing, I don't do travelogues very often. I've done a few but not very often. So for me, that stuff in the middle is the boring stuff, and I skip it. You'll see in my books, they start in one chapter and they're like "well, we've gotta get here", and the next chapter they're like "wow, that was a ride" and then were there, and that's because the plot archetype I'm working on is usually different than that. So you've gotta kind of understand what you're writing.

One of the big things to figure out about your story, either discovering it as you write or planning it, however you do it, is why are people turning the pages, what are the promises I'm fulfilling, what is the thing that they're going to read that book to get. It can be multiple things, but if that exploration's part of it, they don't want to miss that journey. I remember reading a book once, and this is kind of an example of why this is so important, and I'm not going to name who it is because he's a very good writer. But there's one of his books where he stops, takes a break, comes back to the characters a few years later, like in the middle of the story, and you've missed the main character falling in love and getting married and this stuff. And I was like "No!", because the book is a coming-of-age book, and so the coming-of-age book skipping falling in love really felt like a betrayal of my trust as the reader. There are other books I've read where you can skip that, and it's okay, does that makes sense? Because the book is not about that, it can be about something else. So make sure you're not skipping the stuff that people want to read. Make sure you skip the other stuff though.

Questioner

[...] For the picture of all the Radiants and their surges, in the background there’s two dragons. Are those just--

Brandon Sanderson

Those are not dragons. Those are little beasties from the world. You’ve seen them before.

Argent

Larkin?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. But you can call them "dragon bugs" if you want, that’s what Isaac called them when I described them.

Questioner

So are they just from the world, or do they have any over-reaching signif--

Brandon Sanderson

Well they have a certain ability that you may have seen in-world, which is pretty distinctive and different, and so they have a lot of mythological import. They are not widely known by most cultures right now.

Wetlander

Speaking of the other Prologues… I have a looney theory that the assassin Liss is actually the Herald Chana in disguise. :D

Peter Ahlstrom

Chanaranach has definitely been seen onscreen by at least one character at least one time in the first two books.

Argent

Are all the constellations symbolic in nature? If so, can you fill in any gaps in my understanding of them (or expand on them, point out cool things I may have missed, etc)? I've got:

• Roshar - Shardbearer (or maybe Herald). Pretty obvious, considering how dominant those are.
• Nalthis - someone exhaling or giving Breath. Again, straightforward.
• Threnody - a grieving woman? Because Threnody, like the other inner planets in the Threnodite system, all bear names related to grieving, mourning, that kind of stuff.

Isaac Stewart

All correct so far.

Argent

Taldain - a tree? Because of the importance of water on the world?

Isaac Stewart

A one tree. This is a symbolic reference to the Shard that resides on that world. The Coppermind says this: "Khriss writes that Bavadin supports a policy of strict isolationism for Taldain."

Argent

First of the Sun - a sailor? Because of how the natives live, traveling between the isles?

Isaac Stewart

A fisherman, actually. He's throwing his net out among the stars.

Argent

Sel - the lamp makes a lot more sense now, thanks! I don't think anyone had pointed out that Sel is inside the flame, not the lamp - but the lamp is so much dominant in the image, it was easy to focus on it :)

Isaac Stewart

Just repeating what I mentioned before in case I ever make this into a blog post. Sel's constellation is symbolic (as is the constellation Threnody is found in). As for the lamp, notice that Sel is not exactly part of the lamp. It's part of the flame. How does Aon Dor work? An Elantrian creates an opening for it to pour through and affect the world. Think of the flame as a symbol for the Dor. Does that make sense?

Argent

Scadrial - why is it absent? And is it really absent, or there but just not labeled (for whatever reason)?

Isaac Stewart

Scadrial's there. It's just part of the constellation I've been calling the Giver. Some worlds are closer together than others, so there wasn't room to give each world its own constellation.

RippleGylf

In The Rithmatist, in that world, do they ever use Rithmatics for practical purposes? I can easily see using Lines of Forbiddance for children to just draw a line on the wall, and like--

Brandon Sanderson

They should do it more than they do. But there are people using it, chalklings included.

RippleGylf

So, the chalk circles in Rithmatist. Are they, like, related to the chalk circle quote that you get with the BYU honor code?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's not an inspiration I'm aware that. It could have been in the back of my head, but it was not a specific inspiration.

Questioner

I've got a list of various Cosmere bits of metal and I was wondering if you would rank them from like one to ten or just easy to difficult on how hard it would be to steelpush on them. So with one being just a regular coin, ten being like when the Lord Ruler was moving bits of glass on the floor, so like metal inside a person's body.

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how strong the Investiture in them is.

Questioner

Is that gonna be the answer for all of these?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably!

Questioner

How about a spike charged with Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

A spike charged with Hemalurgy... that depends on...

Questioner

Not in a person.

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on how strong, yeah, a spike is moderately, (in the realm of these kinds of things) moderately easy to push on because a spike does not rip off very much Investiture. Only enough to short circuit the soul, and less it over time. I would put that at the bottom, with the top being very hard, to be one of the easier things.

Questioner

How about a metalmind that is full?

Brandon Sanderson

That is full? That is going to be middle of the realm of the, yeah. Generally easier than, for instance, a Shardblade which is going to be very hard.

Questioner #2

A Shardblade is [inaudible] actually metal? [metal]-ish?

Brandon Sanderson

Ish. Is Lerasium a metal? Yeah.

Questioner

So that'd be the same for Shardplate too?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardplate and Blade are very hard. Blade is probably gonna be a little harder.

Questioner

A Half-shard?

Brandon Sanderson

A Half-shard shield? That's gonna be moderate.

Questioner

Nightblood? I imagine that being hard.

Brandon Sanderson

Hard, of all the things you've listed, that is going to be the hardest. Far beyond even a Sharblade.

Questioner

Far beyond metal inside a person? 

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, yes. Depending on how invested the person is.

Questioner

If somebody was invested as much as Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, for instance the God King, right. At the end with all those Breaths. Pushing something inside of him, getting through all of that? Gonna be real hard. Average person on Scadrial? You've seen how hard that is. A drab? Much easier.

Questioner

That was my next one, or no, sorry not a drab. A lifeless?

Brandon Sanderson

A Lifeless, yeah. Even... yeah. Lifeless are kind of weird because they've had their soul leave but then they've had a replacement stuck in in the form of Breath which leaves them in a very weird position compared to a drab which has had part of their Investiture ripped away but a majority remains, so, anyways. I'm going to give you one more. Pick your favorite.

Questioner

A soulstamped piece of metal?

Brandon Sanderson

A soulstamped piece of metal is going to be on the lower, easier side. Not a lot of Investiture going on in a soulstamp.

Questioner

What would happen to a Kandra if you bisected down the middle with half of its blessing ending up on either half?

Brandon Sanderson

That would, like ripping off any other piece of it, it would be very disturbing for the Kandra but they could reabsorb and come back together. They would not be able to function half and half. That would eventually kill them. Basically, they cant like send pieces and do things. They can be ripped apart and heal, but if you ripped them in half that would be killing them.