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Questioner

So with your Cosmere books. I started reading with Mistborn, and I got through the trilogy, all three books-- I read really fast, so I was done with all three of them in under a week. And so I went looking for some of your other books, and I think I came on The Way of Kings and I started noticing there were little bits of connections because it's not really apparent--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

--that they're connected until you start looking into it. And of course then I go online and figure out there's this whole wikipedia--

Brandon Sanderson

Then you went down the rabbit hole. *laughter*

Questioner

Then I went down the rabbit hole and then I go "Oh look, all of these worlds are interconnected. And there are these characters who are supposed to be Worldhoppers or something." I could not figure out where the origin of where you learn these people are actually from the other series.

Brandon Sanderson

So where did people learn this. So first I'm going to give the caveat, if this daunts you, don't worry it's all cameos right now. You don't have to read the books in a certain order-- Well you should read the series in order, but you don't have to read the series in a certain order. You're not missing out on something, you can read the books and if you don't see it, it's okay. It's meant to be cameos... It's supposed to be very subtle.

However, where they're getting it is Hoid is almost always mentioned by name. That was the first clue to people. Once in a while he doesn't use his name, in each series at least he's mentioned his name. And people started connecting that name. And I will usually give little tells where they Galladon in The Way of Kings because he spoke in Dula, and so they caught the same words that he used, even though he spoke another language. Some of the words were words he used in Elantris. They were like "Oh." So there's always going to be some connection there.

Watch for people who use the wrong words. For instance if someone says in The Stormlight Archive, if someone uses the word "coin", they're probably using magical means to translate and they're thinking "coin" when they mean "money" or "sphere" and they don't use coins on Roshar. And so you'll have people make mistakes like that in-world, and they'll talk about things the wrong way. And that'll be part of the way you can connect who doesn't belong there. I intend it to be very subtle however. I think in The Way of Kings Hoid is the only one who uses "coin" and things like that. If you watch out for stuff like that--

But here's the thing about it, at the same time I learned from Robert Jordan fandom that fans will theorize about everything. *laughter* And I realized-- I had to make a decision pretty early on. And this decision-- Some authors do it one way, others do it another, I decided I had to be okay if the fans guessed what I was doing. Because if I put the foreshadowing in then it's going to be a mark of respect if people figure it out. And so if you're one of these people who dig in deeply, you will figure out some of things that are going on and they won't be surprises when the book comes along. And I think that's okay for the fans that are doing that. I will warn you, I'm not going to change what's happening, just 'cause you figure it out. So if you don't want massive spoilers you shouldn't necessarily hang out to much, because they are going to get it right. I will put in the foreshadowing so that it is possible to guess what's going to be happening and things like that. Because if I don't it won't feel like the book is fulfilling, if that makes any sense.

That's just a little warning to you guys. But so far there are some things they haven't figured out yet that I think they're going to soon, but they haven't quite yet.

Questioner

I don't really read much, but-- *laughter* I listen to all of the audio books of all your books... And one thing I really respect that you do is you're very punk rock about how you approach things. Like "Three [prologues], yeah why not?" It actually reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy, like when that came onto the scene it was just "Dang, these guys are doing everything. The best, the newest, the freshest thing." And I was actually curious, have you ever actually played Final Fantasy, where you inspired by it? Especially because the swords are HUGE like in Final Fantasy.

Brandon Sanderson

I will admit, there's a bit of me saying "Man, what would it take to make giant swords realistic?" *laughter*  Like I actually-- No, this is real. Like fantasy art, and particularly Japanese fantasy art, has these oversized weapons that's completely unrealistic. But that's a challenge to me.

I actually played-- Like I have Final Fantasy cred. *laughter* I played One, on the original Nintendo, right? When it was released. And I have actually played them all. Ten is my favorite. As an aside, what I loved about Ten was-- The voice acting really helped, but I loved that-- Like Ten is what taught me that you don't have to have an angsty, depressed character. Angsty, depressed characters are awesome but sometimes you can have a hero who's not angsty and depressed and it works out alright. But I would call myself deeply influenced by that, certaintly.

Questioner

Stormlight feels very different to me on so many levels. You've got the interludes where we get to get a lot of worldbuilding, we get to see more of the planet than just one place. But there is also this sense that a lot of your books we're experiencing the aftermath of something. And in Stormlight that something is coming. How is this affecting the way that you are building your world for us?

Brandon Sanderson

So, this one's going get you a story, okay? So here's the story... So, alright, darkest time in my writing career, okay? Was when I was writing books 11 and 12 unpublished. I was getting rejection letters, and they were rejection letters for things like Elantris and Dragonsteel, which I was really confident in. Elantris, Dragonsteel, and White Sand were the good books during the era of unpublished Brandon.

White Sand by the way, is out as a graphic novel now. You can also read the prose version by emailing me through my website form, we just send it out for free, so you can compare it to the graphic novel. And by the way, Dragonsteel, you're like "Oh, Hoid's origin story", we'll do that eventually. The Shattered Plains started in Dragonsteel, and I pulled them out, and I pulled Dalinar out, and a bunch of stuff, when I built Stormlight. And so it's really a schizophrenic book now-- Schizeophrenic is the wrong term, but half of it was what became Stormlight, and half of it is Hoid's origin story. So, the half that is Hoid's origin story will eventually get a book.

Anyway, darkest point-- I'm not selling anything, everybody is telling me like "Your books are too long". This is the number one thing I'm getting from rejections, "Your books are too long, and your books are not market friendly, in that the worlds are too weird". I'm getting this-- You gotta remember this is-- I love George but  this is right after George got huge, and George introduced gritty, low magic, earth-like fantasy as kind of "the thing" that was big. And his books were large too, I don't know why people kept telling me mine were too big, but they wanted gritty and they wanted low magic and they wanted earth-like. So I was getting rejection after rejection on these things. What people were buying were things like Joe Abercrombie's stuff, which is great, Joe's a great writer. But you know, short things that gave people a similar feel to George RR Martin, but you know, but were low magic, kind of earth-like medieval societies. Basically shorter versions of George is basically what they wanted. So I actually would go to cons and they would be like "Have you read the beginning of Game of Thrones? Write something like that" and so finally against better advice, I sat down and said "alright I'll try something like that". And you guys do not want to read Brandon Sanderson trying to be George RR Martin. *laughter* It was embarrassing, and so I wrote these books, each something different.

And I like trying to do something different, I'm not sad I tried to do something different, but at the end I was like "I can't do this, these books are crap". The worst books I wrote were the two that were like books 11 and 12. Like I shouldn't be getting worse as a writer, the more books I write. And so I was in a funk and I finally just said, "You know what? Screw it, I'm gonna write the biggest, baddest, most awesome book that I can!" They say they're too [long], this is gonna be twice as long! They say that worlds are too weird, I'm gonna do the weirdest world that I've always wanted to do. I'm gonna write the type of fantasy book that nobody's writing that I wish they would write. And I'm gonna break all these rules that say 'Oh don't do flashbacks'. Screw you, I'm gonna put flashbacks in every book! They say 'Don't do prologues', screw you, I'm doing three prologues!" *laughter* It really does, because Way of Kings starts with the Heralds. Prologue. Then it goes to Szeth. Prologue. And then it goes to the viewpoint of the guy in Kaladin's squad. Also a prologue. And then it jumps like eight months and then we start the story. I did all the stuff they told me not to do because I just wanted to make the biggest, most coolest and baddest epic I could-- bad in a good term.

And I finished this book, which was basically flipping the bird to the entire publishing industry, right? And that-- Within a month of finishing that is when Moshe, who I told you is bipolar, got manic and read through his backlist of books that people had sent him, including one I'd sent him two years earlier, which was Elantris. He'd never looked at it, he read it in a night, he called me manic, and said "I wanna buy your book!". And actually what happened is, he called me and I'd moved since then, and gotten a new phone number. We used to have landlines back then, I know. I had a cellphone by the time he called me but before I had my landline number on it, and I'd actually--this is gonna date me--my first email address was AOL. I was like "Free email." And then I realized AOL-- I wont speak ill of-- Yes I will. AOL sucked. *laughter* And so I'm like "Well I need to get my own email address", so I went and got one, but that meant the email had changed. And I sent to anyone who actively had one of my books on submission like "This is my new contact info", but he'd had it for two years. I figured I was never seeing it-- If you were on the last panel, I mentioned that I sent things into Tor and they vanished, and I never got rejections-- I never got rejected from Tor, I sent them four books, they're still just sitting there somewhere I'm sure. But, so I finished this big beast of a book, right, and then I sell Elantris, and I'm like "Great, now I don't know what to do". So my editor is like "Oh what are you working on now, I want to see that too", so I sent him Way of Kings, and I still remember when he called me, he was like "Uhh... Well this isn't the sort of thing that new authors usually publish. Can we split it?" and I said "No, you split the book and it's a really bad book, 'cause you have all the buildup but none of the payoff". And he's like "Ughhh", and I said "That's alright, I've got this idea for Mistborn", I pitched him Mistborn. "I'll do Way of Kings later", there were some things I wanted to fix about it, it actually needed something, and I didn't know what that something was yet, and I didn't learn it until working on The Wheel of Time, but that's a different story.

But you're asking why is Stormlight so different. Well Stormlight is a series like of my heart. This is the book that I wrote when nothing else mattered, and I thought I might never get published and I just wanted to do what I felt that the genre needed that nobody was doing, right? And so I felt like fantasy needed to be pushed a little further in its worldbuilding, and so I did that. I felt like-- There just a lot going on. The interludes were kind of my solution to the problem Robert Jordan and George RR Martin were having, which, they're fantastic writers, I was able to learn from them. And Robert Jordan, I think one of the problems he had was that he fell in love with the side characters, and then these side characters took over the story to an extent that then it was hard to manage. I'm not bashing on Robert Jordan, he talked about this, he talked about book 10 and how being a parallel novel was a mistake. I could learn from his mistakes, it doesn't make me a better writer, what it means is I can learn from what they did. And I said "Okay, I'm going to put pressure valves in my book, I'm gonna put a short story collection in each novel where I get to write about side characters, and those who wan to skip them can skip them, and those who don't can read them", and I'll just make sure that I contain them in these short stories, these interludes, and that lets me do what I want but also lets the book keep its focus. So I'm doing a lot of things with these books that were like my love letter to the epic fantasy genre, and so I'm enthusiastic that you actually all like it and are willing to read them. *applause*

Trae

On the planet of Nalthis, the Warbreaker planet, is the method with which people are chosen as Returned an autonomous system that is not governed by intelligent entity?

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question. *laughter* I was hoping for one of those.

Questioner

One of my favorite things about your books is your characters. And I was wondering... What advice would you give to an aspiring author about developing characters? 

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh. This is the hardest one for me to talk about, because for me, it was a matter of taking what I was doing wrong and learning to do it right, which-- How do you do that? That's the story of becoming better at anything. For me with characters, the big "click" that happened in my brain was when I realized every character is the hero of their own story. Every character sees the world through the eyes-- That's the only experience they've had, and they don't exist to fill a role. We don't exist to fill roles. We fill roles! We fill lots of them. But that's not why we exist, right? We aren't "sidekick", or we aren't "spouse", we aren't-- We fill those roles, and we identify in those roles, but we are not those roles. And when I started to treat my characters each like-- I ask, what is this person's passion in life? How do they see themselves? They're okay not being at the forefront of the story, but what in their minds do they see as their life meaning? What do they want, who are they, all of these things. And when I stopped sticking people into roles-- Which is really dangerous for an outline writer, sticking people in roles. When I stopped doing that. My characters really came alive a lot more. So that's-- I don't know if that helps, but the biggest piece of advice I can give you is try to figure out a way where you can let your characters-- Pretend like, well, if this person where the hero of the story, not just the sidekick, what would they do? How would they approach it? What would they be doing if they weren't saving the world? If this plot hadn't hit them like a freight train, what would they be doing in life. They would care about things! What would they care about, what would they be doing.

Brandon Sanderson

People ask me how am I so productive. It's really a mix of two things. And I'm going on tangent, like I said. But people ask this all the time, and I'm like, "I don't know how to answer that, I just do my job, right?" I write every day, consistently. I don't write very quickly, I'm not a fast writer, but I write very consistently. I think I am lucky in that I didn't get published early and so I had to have a job and all of this stuff and go through school all while finding time to write two thousand words a day and I did that for ten years before I got published, and so I had momentum. I knew I could just do these two thousand words a day and I would always have a book that I was working on that was getting ready, and I also learned to jump projects a lot to keep myself fresh.

And so when I finished something, I immediately looked for something very different to do, which will refresh my mind, let me hit the ground running. A lot of writers have downtime between books, and that downtime is because-- I don't know if you guys get this kind of, this, like, funk after you finish a great book you've read. When you're like "Oh man." It's almost like coming down from a high. Writers get that too, when you finish a book and you're like *groans*. But if I can get excited about the next thing very quickly, and start on that immediately, then I just keep my momentum and keep going.

So it's kind of a mixture of those two things, good habits and switching projects, so that means you shouldn't be frustrated when I do a book that's not your favorite series, whatever it is, because your favorite series would not be coming any faster, most likely. In fact, what you can look at-- If you look at the time the Stormlight books have taken, and compare them to time that other big epic fantasy series have taken, I do a Stormlight book at about the same rate actually, I'm not that much faster than Pat or George or something like that, it's just that I know to fill that time between those big books with something else to keep my momentum going-- Or at least my psychology lets me do this. And I don't think the books would be any faster without that.

Questioner

One of the things that I really like about your writing is that, unlike a lot of fantasy writers, you know when to stop. There are a lot of writers who just keep going and going and going and don't seem to know when to stop. How much of pre-planning do you do for your writing, and when do you know when to kind of put the breaks on it? Like "You know I've got to finish this up, 'cause I don't want this to drag out", like so many authors have done in the past.

Brandon Sanderson

Um, so one advantage that I have-- And I've found that I'm more rare in this, I though I would be the normal but-- I am a heavy outliner, and usually what you find with outliners, as writers, is that they write good endings, but they have trouble with character. Usually what we call a discovery writers who just kinda find their way through the book as they go  have these really lively characters and then their endings just kind of whatever. And there are great discovery writers who have great endings, and there are plenty of outline writers who have great characters, you just have to learn to shore up what-- your weakness, learn your writing style.

And for me that is-- My early books, the ones that weren't published, where the weakness was those characters. And I was really worried about it, and so I spent five years being like "How do I make the characters work", and I can only do this kind of hybrid method where I took my friends that I knew write really great characters and I tried the methods they used, and so I kind of discovery-write characters and outline my plot and then if the characters grow into someone the plot wouldn't work for, I either take that character out and put a new one in and grow someone else in that place or I re-build the plot to match them. So right now I have this floating outline that changes as I'm going.

But I like good endings. And I feel like good endings are something that a lot of-- Hollywood skimps on them, and a lot of books just don't quite bring it together. And so it's something very important to me, that I don't start my book until I know what the ending I'm pointing toward is. And that also gives when I'm done, when I've got that ending and I'm pointed at it, when I finish it, I can then be done. I always feel that a piece of art that's continuous, like writing your getting a serialized work, it needs to finish at some point to actually be a piece of art. And that's why, you know, Mistborn trilogy, the publisher hates that I ended the Mistborn trilogy and said "I'm done". He said "Yes, but you've just hit the bestseller list, like hop on the bestsellers", and like "Yep. I'm done, though. That is a piece of art. It's finished." *applause* And it's not, you know--

One of the things I knew I was going to do this in my life and I think the publishers were okay with it because one of the things I did very early on in my career was, you know, start with convincing--Hopefully I've convinced you all--readers that what they're following is kind of Brandon Sanderson Book Brand rather than latching on to a series. A lot of authors have this trouble with people kind of latching on to the series and not the author, and then they feel tied to the series. And I never wanted to do that, cause like you said, I think there are plenty of series that have gone for a very long time and their authors always loved it. But I've also read series where it feels like the author feels chained to the series, and he only writes one of these when they actually need a paycheck or something like that, and I never wanted to be there. And so very early I'm like "I'm not writing the sequel to Elantris immediately, I may never--" I probably will, but I told people that it's a standalone book, it's just there, and if I write a sequel, it will be about different characters, cause that story's done. Mistborn trilogy, yes, I might come back to the world, but the story of these characters is done. And training people to, like, "Alright, I like what Brandon does, I'll trust him that the next thing will be good too" And hopefully that works, but even if it doesn't, I'm still gonna do what I do. I would rather be the person who writes a lot of different things even if that means I have a smaller audience, because I really like jumping projects, it keeps me fresh.

Questioner

I was wondering, when you started out with book six you didn't really have much of a fan base. How has it been transitioning from lack of a fanbase to this.

Brandon Sanderson

This. Um... Wow, yeah. So it's been crazy, definitely been crazy. It's weird because as a writer-- You become a writer to tell your stories, not to become famous, right? But becoming famous-- Nobody becomes famous as a writer, right? That's what you figure and you just want to tell your stories. If you would've gone to me, when, let's say, '99, 2000, when I was in the thick of writing all these books, and come to me and said, "We're gonna give you", um, just pick a normal salary, something like forty grand, "forty grand for the rest of your life and  you can write books", I'd have taken that in a heartbeat. That guarantee-- I'm there. I can publish a book a year, I will have readers to make a living on it, that is all I ever wanted. In fact, I'd told people, if I could just get there. Well-- *laughs* Now, with over ten million books out there, it's different. But at the same time, being a writer is awesome in that-- I sat next to somebody on the plane over here and they're like "Oh, what do you do", and I'm like "Well I'm a writer" and like "Oh, should I know who you are?" My response was "No actually, because I'm really, really famous with a really small and weird group of people." *laughter*

And that's probably the best kind of famous. I can-- Like if I go out, right, I'll sign maybe one or two autographs and it feels cool, right? One or two people will recognize me and they'll be like *gasps*, then I'll sign the autograph and it's great, but then I just go on with my life! And it means a ton to the people that it means something to, but to the average people it means Do you want fries with that?" Whatever, who cares. And so I basically live a normal life, right? As normal a life as one can be when, you know, you're traveling to Europe and things like that on tour. But when I'm at home it's very normal, it's just me and my kids and my wife. I write at home. It's a blast, it's a normal life. I play Minecraft with my kids. I hang out and things like that, and then I go on tour and I'm a superstar for a short time with some really cool people, and then I go home and it's just normal again. And so-- Yeah, if you're gonna be famous, be writer-famous. Don't be-- Like even movie stars very few people know, you recognize their face and they can't go anywhere, and I don't think I would want that. So this has been awesome.

And the other thing is, you always want to be able to just write whatever you love, and we talk about that, I mean I, at the end of The Wheel of Time, we paid off my house, we put enough in savings for the kids and for whatever we'd need to pay for for the rest of our lives, and then I retired. I retired like four years ago, retired for me means "I get to write extra books!", so thank you guys for that!

Questioner

Going back to The Wheel of Time for a second... One of my favorite things about A Memory of Light is you had so much-- I guess free rein with parts of it... Can you give me an example, or a couple of examples, of something that you got [???] I could be totally wrong about this situation but say like, when [???] was first creating a weave to see a whole battlefield. Was that something you did, or was that actually Robert Jordan's.

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question, I'll go through a few of these things for you, that one was me. One of the things that was awesome, but also a little bit difficult is the wrong term-- Anyway, it was awesome to be able to come into The Wheel of Time as a fan, and have read the books for twenty years and be thinking about "Wow, I wish this would happen", and then say "Wow, I'm gonna make that happen" ...But as I was doing it, I was also realizing it was dangerous, because there was a real danger for putting in fanservice type stuff, not in the traditional meaning of fanservice, but like the fanservice of "Narg showed up in the Last Battle again" or things like this. Like little fan jokes. I found that I had a lot of temptation to put those in, and so I had to ride this really careful line where I was saying "What do I as a fan want, to make the book more fulfilling not just as a joke".

One of the things that as a writer I've always wanted to see was gateways used for more than they were used in the books leading up to that point, you know, teleportation, instant travel has a lot of ramifications. One of the things I kind of put on myself was that I didn't want to create a lot of new weaves, because I knew if I did, I'd really risk taking it to far away from Robert Jordan's vision. So I said "Let's stick mostly to the weaves he's used, and see if I can use them in more innovative ways". This whole idea of taking the magic and digging deeper into it rather than going wider with it. And so a lot of the stuff with gateways is me. A lot of--

So for instance, I also went in and said to Harriet coming in, "Every book that Robert Jordan's done, almost all of them, has added a new character who's become a main character who used to be a side character. If we don't do that for these last books it's gonna feel weird to people. So I would like to take one of the Asha'man and bring them to prominence, and make them a viewpoint character and do what Robert Jordan's done" and so that's where Androl came from. And they're like "Well there's nothing in Robert Jordan's notes other than this little bit about his profession, take him and play with him, and do whatever you want." And that was almost a little pressure valve for me, to put the more "Brandon-y" sort of things, goofy magic system stuff with that, and that pressure valve allowed me to not really-- knowing my writing style, I was able to make the rest of it be a little more Robert Jordan-esque, if that makes sense.

You see that pressure valve there, you see it with Perrin in the Wolf Dream, in the world of dreams, because-- I've said before, Robert Jordan didn't leave very much on Perrin. Perrin is a big, empty-- big blank slate for these books. We knew where he ended up at the end and that was it. So Perrin was the other sort of "Do whatever you want, Brandon" sort of thing. He left a lot more on the other characters. So if you're reading a Perrin scene or if you're seeing them play with gateways, you're seeing me kinda let Brandon leak out a bit more. And this was done intentionally, I'd say part was a pressure valve, but also when I was given this, Harriet sat me down and said "You are the author now. I didn't hire a ghostwriter on purpose. I didn't want somebody who was just going to be Robert Jordan, because that would make a bad book", in her opinion. "What Jim-- Robert Jordan can't finish this, so you need to do it and yes, we want to stay true to his vision, but you are the writer now." And she was very clear on that, and I've always remembered that and how much that meant to me, being-- You know, she was the ultimate authority, but I had creative control to do whatever I felt the books needed, and the she-- her job was to rein be back if she though I went too far, and make sure the voice was consistent and things like that. So I got to do a lot with these books that I don't think a ghostwriter would have been able to do.

Questioner

So, when you were starting to write your books, did you have the idea for-- Like [???] magics tied together or did you have that from the beginning?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, excellent question. So, he's asking about the Cosmere, where all my epic fantasies are tied together. Where did that come from. I can trace a few paths back in my brain where that came from. What I can say is that it was built in from the beginning of the books you have been reading. But you remember, those weren't my first written books. I wrote thirteen novels before I sold one. Elantris was number six. Way of Kings was number thirteen. And so-- I love this idea of a big, connected universe. The first person I can remember doing it, that blew my mind, was when Asimov connected the Robots and the Foundation books, which I thought was so cool when I was a teenager.

Another path that I trace this [concept?] also, though-- I don't know how many of you guys did this, but when I'd read a book--I still do this, actually--I would insert behind the scenes a kind of character that was my own, who was doing stuff behind the scenes. Like I would insert my own story into the story, just kind of take ownership of it in a strange sort of way. I remember doing this with the Pern books. I'm like "Oh, no, they think that person is who they think they are, but nooo! This is this other person!" And so I had this kind of proto-Hoid in my head jumping between other people's books.

So when I sat down to write Elantris, I said "Well, I want to do something like this". All the people I've seen doing this before-- and they've done it very well. Michael Moorcock did it, and Stephen King did it, and things like this, I'm not the first one to connect their books together, not by a long shot. I felt like a lot of them, they kinda fell into it, and as a writer, having seen what they did, I could then do it intentionally, if that makes sense. And so I started out with this idea that I was just gonna have this character in-between who is furthering his own goals, and built out a story for him, and then I went-- After I did Elantris, I wrote a book called Dragonsteel, which isn't published, and it was his origin story, for this character. And then I wrote some more books, and so, of course-- and things like this. Eventually Elantris got published and the other ones didn't, and they weren't as good as Elantris was. And so I took them all as kind of "backstory canon", and moved forward as if they had all-- they were all there and they had happened, but nobody else knew but me. Which allowed this cool foundation for you like "wow, that stuff has happened", because I had books and books of material that I could treat as canon in this way, to let me know where thing were going. So it wasn't planned-- It was planned from the beginning, but not the beginning of my writing care. From about book six was where it started.

Jennifer Liang

How much of your-- the way you work-- interact with your fans and your process with us is a reaction to being a Wheel of Time fan, and the things that you wanted to happen from--

Brandon Sanderson

Right. I think a lot of it is, but it's a mix of being a Wheel of Time fan and just a fantasy fan in general. Wanting to know more about business, being an author, and just wanting this transparency and-- I don't think that the authors before can really be blamed, they didn't have the Internet, right? I mean, you couldn't really have a thing like I have now on my website-- Or that most authors have on websites. I mean, some authors tried newsletters, but those were huge productions, requiring, you know, actual paper, you know, that stuff they used to use, then sent through the actual mail, not email. The email's named after it, kids. *laughter* These were huge productions, and so they were-- It's not like I sat one day and said "oh, those authors!", but then you see my generation, when we broke in and were--the Internet was becoming the thing that it is--we're like "Ah, let's use this!" I remember when Kevin J. Anderson said to me "but so here's Twitter", and I'm like like, "Twitter. Why would-- They're so short", he said "No, but it's like you can create your own newsfeed from all the people you're following, and it's like a little kind of news ticker about what's going on in everyone's lives." I'm like "Oh, that's a really useful thing as an author", so I hopped on Twitter very early, I hopped on Reddit very early, I hopped on-- Ehhh, some of the other defunct places, but yeah, the idea was that--

I'm gonna go off a tangent, you'll get a lot of this. I have this view, as-- of a writer---and again, don't go say to other writers, you should feel this way--the way I feel is that I'm an artist and you are my patron. In the old days, you used to-- to be an artist, you used to have a wealthy patron, right? That's how you made art, that some rich person came and said "Here's a bunch of money to live on, now go make this art and then, you know, mention that I'm your patron". And a lot of the great art we have, in fact almost all of it came from somebody paying so the artist can actually have food and a life while they're creating this art. In the modern society that's changed to kind of the crowdsourcing, "You are my patron". The crowd in general says "Okay, we're all going to be insurance actuators so that you don't have to be one". Thank you. "You write these stories and then we'll support you". And so my philosophy is: in a lot of way, you are my boss, in more of a patronage sort of thing, you're my patron, and so I should be accountable with what I'm doing. It doesn't mean that I'm going to necessarily change what I'm doing, and it doesn't mean that I'm always going to be writing on the thing you want me to, but I will be clear about what I'm doing and when, just for that transparency, 'cause we can do it now, when we're not-- we couldn't before.

Jennifer Liang

Yeah the patronage thing is really interesting, the way that it works. I know you're past this now, you don't need to do this, but would you ever consider something like Patreon?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh Patreon. So--

Jennifer Liang

Is that something you would have done ten years ago if...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I might have-- Patreon is kind of a hard thing, because I think Patreon is much better for people who are doing something that may be not as market-friendly, but which a group thinks is very important and should be rewarded. There are certain authors I know whose work is very important to the field, like Nora Jemisin. Nora's work is really important, and it's really good, but-- And it's sold pretty well, but I think that the idea of trying to have to be market-friendly is really terrifying to Nora-- Maybe not terrifying, I don't think anything terrifies Nora. But you know, it's that she doesn't want to be beholden to that, and so her setting up a Patreon said, "Look, I'm just gonna write this stuff, I don't even then have to worry about the market", is a really good use of Patreon. We set one up for Writing Excuses, and then we use the money to pay our guests, and to fly people in and stuff like that. I don't need one because what I write naturally does very well in the market and so there's no need or worry for me to do that. If all writing shifted that direction I'd be fine with it, but for right now what's working here with me is working just fine.

Jennifer Liang

Yeah, the traditional model for publishing really serves your style...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. The traditional model works very well when you're someone like me. My plots and my stories and things just connect very well with a large segment of the population.

That's also why I don't do a lot on Kickstarter. Like I think Kickstarters-- Like we did-- We let the people making the Mistborn board game-- Which, by the way, Mistborn board game, yay, you guys kickstarted that very well.  I let them Kickstart that. They're like a small company, that makes the board game. And I said, "You can make the board game, but you have to get a really good designer, because I can't micromanage your making a board game", and so they did, and that's somebody very expensive, and then they Kickstarted, you guys supported that. I think that's a good use for Kickstarter for someone like me, but Kickstarter ain't just something of my own, I'd rather that bandwidth at Kickstarter be used for people who maybe need it a bit more, so I've stayed away from doing this thing for now.

chasmfriend's daughter

What does Glys look like?

Brandon Sanderson

I have intentionally not told you.

chasmfriend

Wow, okay.

Brandon Sanderson

*pause* It is pretty relevant, what Glys looks like.

chasmfriend's friend

How about, how many worlds has Vasher visited?

Brandon Sanderson

How many worlds has Vasher visited? He has visited fewer than half-a-dozen, so fewer than six.

chasmfriend

Who is Lady Truth?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, who do you think Lady Truth is?

chasmfriend

Tindwyl is who I hope it is. *long silence* Why is that a secret?

Brandon Sanderson

Because there are certain things I am not sure how much more I want to say in the books, or how much things-- So it's not that it needs to be a secret or something big and mysterious is happening, but it's because if I speak now I risk undermining things that I might do and I don't want to risk that even if there's a decent chance that whatever I say won't have anything to do with it. So a lot of times my RAFO's are "I know the answer to this, it's not a big secret, but I am not ready to just pin it down". Does that make sense? You've already pried a couple important things out of me so...

chasmfriend's son

Is there a finite amount of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

chasmfriend's son

So is Nightblood consuming it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Very, very slowly.

chasmfriend

*written* Why did Vasher Return? What did he want to accomplish?

Brandon Sanderson

You know what you’re going to get in this one.

chasmfriend

I have a feeling. That's okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Come on, someone I'm going to write another book about?

chasmfriend

But that's in the past though, right?

Brandon Sanderson

It is, but his past is-- It is a good question. It is an important, relevant question, relevant to who he is.

Questioner

How do world travelers travel?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, there are various different methods.  The main one that people have figured out involves pools of energy on the various planets.

Questioner

So like we saw in Elantris? Okay...

Brandon Sanderson

If you read mostly in Words of Radiance you will see--

Questioner

So we know that Nightblood was created by people who had some knowledge of Shardblades.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

Questioner

But we also know that Nightblood consumes Breaths when it's used.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Questioner

So do Shardblades require that kind of energy? It doesn't seem like they--

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

So why are they different?

Brandon Sanderson

Because they were made with different magic systems, by different people, and different styles.

Questioner

So we know that Shardblades can't cut through other Shardblades because they are Invested objects, right?

Brandon Sanderson

That is definitely-- Yes, that's part of it.

Questioner

So could a Shardblade cut through other kinds of Invested objects like--

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on how Invested it is.

Questioner

--like a Hemalurgic spike?

Brandon Sanderson

A Hemalurgic spike would resist being cut.

Questioner

Cadmium or bendalloy with duralumin or nicrosil?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

Questioner

The nature of humans on different worlds, like people from Warbreaker have a Breath, people from Scadrial, do they have a Breath as well?

Brandon Sanderson

They do not.

Questioner

That's specific to the Endowment Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup.

Questioner

I've read that Hoid does have a Breath. Was he born with a Breath or--

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid was not born on Taldain-- err Nalthis, on Nalthis. So no, he did not start with one. But the magic was much different when he started. He was before the Shattering of Adonalsium so things are weird regarding him.

Questioner

I have a question about Nightblood. I think I heard that-- Something you said in a Q&A that it is related to a Shardblade, or was a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah… So Nightblood. Vasher visited Roshar, saw Shardblades, came back and tried to make one. With what he knew of his magic. That's the short version of it. Kind of simplifies things, but yes.

zas678

When Kaladin is Invested Stormlight specifically rises from his skin. When he is Lashed to a wall, what direction does it travel? Up to him, or to the world?

Brandon Sanderson

When he is Lashed to a wall where does the Stormlight go. So when it's puffing off him, and he's Lashed to a wall it will asc-- I think it will puff-- It will escape and go up.

zas678

Typical up.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, typical up.

zas678

Did Sel's early magic users have Aona's help in building Elantris?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

zas678

If Breeze, Dalinar, Sarene, and Shallan played a game of Apples to Apples, without powers or spren, who would win? *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

Alright, alright, alright, alright. Name the people playing again.

zas678

Breeze, Dalinar, Sarene, Shallan.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, Jasnah. *laughter*

zas678

What would happen if Nightblood cut into a Shardpool?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, well I'm going to RAFO that for sure.

zas678

What would a larkin do on Scadrial around a metal?

Brandon Sanderson

A larkin on Sca-- It would have to-- *pause* I'm going to RAFO that. I mean I know what it would do, but let's let you see what larkins can do more.

zas678

Why can a human be affected by Surgebinding but metals within their bodies cannot be Pushed or Pulled?

Brandon Sanderson

They can be Pushed or Pulled, if you're strong enough.

zas678

So is it just the Innate Investiture--

Brandon Sanderson

The Innate Investiture is interfering with things. Like if you look at it this way: So you're Surgebinding someone, I am touching him and sending the power straight into him. There's difference between there's something inside of him that I'm messing with and going through?

zas678

If an Awakener went to Roshar and bled color from a gem, would this gem still hold Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If an Awakener bled-- No it would-- Oh wait yes it would because a colorless gem could still hold Stormlight. It just would not have--

zas678

Would not have the properties of the original color.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the color is integral to what's going on because molecularly some of these gems are the same except for the different coloring. The coloring is kind of what--

zas678

What defines what magic.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. It has to with fabrials and some of the effects, and that relates directly to the spren and what spren-- anyway.

zas678's sister

So it said in the book that if Marasi and Wayne had it on at the same time-- Would it cancel it out all the way, or would it just cancel out where both of the bubbles were?

Brandon Sanderson

Where both of the bubbles were.

zas678's sister

So it would be like a--

Brandon Sanderson

You could make a bubble in a bubble, yes. Third book of...[Era 2]...will have a moment where they try to do a time bubble in motion.

zas678

A bubble in a bubble.

Brandon Sanderson

Not that one, the motion one, so you'll finally get some views on what's going on. You get some rules on that.

zas678's sister

If Wayne and Breeze, like if Wayne had a time bubble up and Breeze was inside Pushing on somebody's emotions what--

Brandon Sanderson

He could still make that work.

zas678's sister

Would it affect it?

Brandon Sanderson

Not really. It wouldn't dramatically affect it. You're going to have one of these sort-of effects-- Yeah, because what he is doing is on another Realm, it's not going to affect it.

zas678's sister

Is that the same with all of the *audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

Not necessarily. See what's going on is if you are affecting things on the Cognitive Realm--

zas678

It's kind of time-independent?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah? It's not as-- Really it's the Spiritual Realm that is completely time-independent, right? All time and space are irrelevant once you reach the Spiritual. You're kind of going to go over the top a little bit, it's going to work just fine. In fact you can probably-- So he could use that to make his metals last a little bit better, probably. So that is a hack of the magic systems that you could probably do.

zas678's sister

If someone ran into a time bubble, like from the outside into it, what would--

Brandon Sanderson

The moment they touch it they would be in it.

Questioner

Does Shai become a worldhopper in The Emperor's Soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Not in the actual book The Emperor's Soul.

Questioner

But in the future?

Brandon Sanderson

*silence*

Questioner

RAFO?

Questioner

Could a Forger re-write their history to adjust the kind of metal they burn as an Allomancer?

Brandon Sanderson

They could, but it actually wouldn't do anything, because the magic would not be able to replicate the other magic.

Questioner

So they would not be able to re-write history in the necessary way?

Brandon Sanderson

They would not be able to. I mean they could, but it wouldn’t have an effect, does that make sense? It would do nothing, it would be like you can create the stamp, the stamp would look like it was working but you just wouldn't end up with Allomancy.

Questioner

Could you Awaken a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Uhhhhhh yes but it would reeeeeaaaalllllllyyyyy hard. Theoretically possible.

Questioner

Hypothetically could Nightblood Splinter a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, Splintering a Shard takes more power than Nightblood has.

Questioner

The Letter in Part 2 of The Way of Kings, is that written to the Survival Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

To the what?

Questioner

The Survival Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

The cover of, the front cover of any Way of Kings books, there's the little engraving, are those Honorblades?

They are the symbols of the various orders of Knights Radiant stylized as Honor-- as Shardblades.

Questioner

Oh, okay. That makes a lot more sense, because I've seen the symbols on the back...

Brandon Sanderson

*pointing at the book* So it's this symbol right here is the same symbol as this.

Questioner

Right, it's just a little more expanded and stuff down the blade.  Wow.

Questioner

Are you going to do another book for Perfect State? ‘Cause that sucked me in.

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of people really want more.

Questioner

It made me so mad. "Stop writing novellas! I need more information on this."

Brandon Sanderson

The big secret on that is that Sophie, the one-- is actually his nemesis. So the robot was not actually a robot, it was a VR thing that she was controlling...

Questioner

So are you going to write another?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know if I will, I don't know if I will. So you didn't actually get to see Melhi, his nemesis getting to play with him in-person and things like that. So there's layers there that are kind of complicated.

Questioner

Like even with the cosmere novella you released Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, that one I was like "Why are these so short?!"  I'm not used to this.

Brandon Sanderson

That world is important to the cosmere, so that world-- Silence herself you won't see any much more of, but that world itself is very cosmere relevant.

little wilson

Are Ruin and Preservation separate in Sazed or are they fully combined together like can he give one of them, or does he have to give both.

Brandon Sanderson

They are not fully combined. I mean that's not the way this works. He could pull off a piece of one even and make-- stuff like that. That's totally, totally viable. I mean it's basically what happened with the spren. The spren existed before even Honor was destroyed and things like that.

little wilson

So, did the-- my gosh, on Sel-- the Aons-- not the Aons-- the seons did they exist before the Splintering?

Brandon Sanderson

They did not. That's a good question. But they are not the majority of the power. They're just little pieces, they are like the sparks when something gets destroyed. The sparks are not the majority but they are the sparks that were thrown off, if that makes sense?

little wilson

Are Trellism and Trelagism the same religion?

Brandon Sanderson

Uuhheha, that's a RAFO too.

little wilson

Is it the same god in both?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say that… who Trell is and what happened is a matter of some interest in the cosmere and amusement to me.

little wilson

Which eye did Gaz lose?

Brandon Sanderson

Which eye did Gaz lose? Did I go back and forth on that?

little wilson

I have no idea.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, that's a Peter. I thought it was the left eye but if i did it wrong… It's entirely possible. I have no idea. It's in my notes.

little wilson

How did he lose it?

Brandon Sanderson

Well that is a RAFO! That is definitely a RAFO.

little wilson

Can a Shardblade-killed body be turned into a Lifeless?

Brandon Sanderson

Can a Shardblade-killed body be turned into a Lifeless.  Yeees, it can be re-Invested. Yes.

little wilson

Are there any side-effects to doing so?

Brandon Sanderson

Uhhh, there would be side-effects. I won't tell you what they are. They would be minor, minor, mostly inconsequential side-effects.

little wilson

Can a Mistborn turned into a Lifeless still use Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

*long-ish pause* Uh, no.

little wilson

So I would assume that is the same for a Feruchemist?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah if you-- taking some-- Yeah.  No they can't.

Questioner

Will we ever see anything else of Shai?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, someday-- You may not see another novella of the same style but you will at least see her in books somewhere.

Questioner

How do koloss breed with humans, because you say in Alloy of Law that one of the--

Brandon Sanderson

What happens is the koloss breed with each other and a koloss-blooded is the result, because a koloss needs the Hemalurgic spikes to make them full koloss.  So if two koloss breed you get a koloss-blooded, which is basically a human with some weird genetics in them and if they choose to go through the transformation to full koloss they will become one.

Questioner

So you initially said that you had started the first third [of Shadows of Self] and then you took a break for two years.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, mmhmm

Questioner

I kind of get the feeling that in the first third The Set was supposed to be the Big Bad villain of the second book and then you massaged it into the kandra.  Is that the case or--

Brandon Sanderson

No the kandra was always planned as the second book villain. When I sat down to do the outline of the three, that is when I decided-- So yeah it was the kandra. The big change is that Marasi wasn't working at all, that's probably one of the reasons I stopped it. I had to rebuild her from the get go in that one, and she works much better in the revision. I was pushing her in the first draft more toward lawyer/attorney stuff and it just wasn't working, it's not where she wanted to go.

Questioner

Not to bring up Rithmatist, do you think it is just going to be the two books or--

Brandon Sanderson

I plotted it at three, so it is probably going to be The Rithmatist, The Aztlanian, and then I-- The Nebraskian? But I have to find some goofy thing so it's not necessarily Nebraskan...

Questioner

So are any characters, like Vasher, going to be in any of your other books?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, Vasher is in Words of Radiance.

Questioner

Yeah, I knew he was in Words of Radiance. Is he going to show up more in that? Have more importance?

Brandon Sanderson

He is not going to have a huge role, he'll have a little one. Normally I try to confine people who are interfering in other series to their own series, if that makes sense?

Questioner 1

I just notice that in the newer Mistborns that some of the older Mistborns, on the metals, aren't there a couple metals that are missing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There are. They didn't quite understand the-- all things, just like we don't understand all science, and as the series progresses you will see that table become even more intricate as it becomes more and more scientific.

Questioner 2

So this series is a step modernized? I've only read the original.

Brandon Sanderson

This one is a step modernized, still all the magic and stuff, but it's kind of mixing gunslinging and Allomancy. There's going to be another series that's going to be 1980's level technology where you'll really see things start to modernize, and then there's a science fiction series. Eventually.