Recent entries

    Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A ()
    #14903 Copy

    Kritika

    I'm blown away by all the different types of people you portray in The Stormlight Archive (different cultures, social classes, genders, varying levels of...morality). What kinds of things help you create such diverse casts of characters? I'm imagining that you have a secret encyclopedia somewhere that helps you keep all your cultures and customs straight!

    Brandon Sanderson

    I do, actually, have a secret encyclopedia. It's a wiki on my computer, filled with information. That helps me keep things straight. However, specific inspirations are often in the people I meet. I do spend a fair amount of time looking through the internet for blogs/forums populated by people who think very differently from myself. This helps me create realistic portrayals.

    Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A ()
    #14904 Copy

    Sharade

    The fantasy universe is very fond of antiheroes lately, so I was surprised when I read your books with charismatic and inspiring lead characters, who, almost single-handedly, give faith to people and make them claim back their dignity. What is so compelling about creating characters such as Kaladin or Kelsier?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I find that the antihero angle is very well covered by other authors. I am fascinated by people who are trying to do what is right because most everyone I know is actually a good person--and a good person needing being forced to make unpleasant decisions is more interesting to me. The great books I read as a youth inspired me; I'd rather dwell on that kind of story than the opposite. (That said, it's great that the genre is big enough for both types of stories.)

    It IS interesting to me that over the last twenty years, what I do has become the distinctive one.

    Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A ()
    #14908 Copy

    Matteo

    Why do you so often include some sort of religious government in so many of your worlds? Is it something that comes from looking at how history developed on Earth, or do you think your religious faith influences the way you write/worldbuild?

    Brandon Sanderson

    There are a lot of reasons. One is because it happened that way so often in our world. Another is my fascination with religion, and wanting to explore what people do with it. The biggest one, however, is related to how I worldbuild. I like things to be very interconnected, as I think that's how real life is. So, when I build a religion, I ask myself what its political ties are, as well as its relationship with things like the magic, economics, and gender roles of the culture.

    Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A ()
    #14910 Copy

    Hanna

    What advice would you give to someone who is trying to write an epic fantasy novel for the first time?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Turn off the internal editor. Write with passion, and don't spend a lot of time on revision. You will grow so quickly as a writer during your first book that you want to power through it, learn a lot about the process, THEN do your revisions. Otherwise, you might end up stuck in an endless loop of revising the first few chapters.

    Also, don't spend so long planning that you don't get around to writing. The goal is to train yourself to learn how to write—and you only do that by actually writing.

    Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A ()
    #14912 Copy

    Jerry Dol

    Do you think that there will ever be a movie trilogy or tv series of The Stormlight Archive like they have done with Game of Thrones and Harry Potter?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Boy, I'd love it if there were. I will work to make it happen, though with Stormlight I probably won't be optioning the books for film until a few more are out. I don't have a lot of power over what Hollywood decides to do, though.

    Goodreads: Ask the Author Q&A ()
    #14913 Copy

    M.M. Schill

    I always wondered. You say you produce clean drafts, and you apparently produce stories quickly (relatively to a lot of people I've met.), how do you keep cranking it away? What is the motivation to keep creating? (I think this might be the key to why some many people start and never finish projects. ??)

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm not actually a fast writer, hour by hour, but I am very consistent. I enjoy writing, but I will admit, some days it is hard. What keeps me going? This has changed over the years. At first, it was a desire to prove myself, and to make a living doing this thing I love. Eventually, it has transitioned into a feeling of obligation to the readers mixed with a desire to see these stories in my head told.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14914 Copy

    Wetlander (paraphrased)

    One question I did ask Brandon, though, was whether Ym was an Edgedancer.

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    We both acknowledged that with the healing thing, he had to be either an Edgedancer or a Truthwatcher, of course. He pointed out that Ym's spren doesn't look at all like Wyndle.

    Wetlander (paraphrased)

    Which I countered by saying that I thought the Ym's spren manifested the way Wyndle would if you couldn't see the Cognitive Realm.

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    He just smiled... and said something like, "I'm going to RAFO that. You're very wise, and I put the description in for a reason, but I'm going to RAFO for now."

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14915 Copy

    Questioner

    The entire time I was reading through The Rithmatist I couldn't help but think it was inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist and Tor recently posted something on Facebook comparing a lot of your works to Final Fantasy, so I was just wondering how much video games and anime you *audio obscured*

    Brandon Sanderson

    Good question, I've played all of the Final Fantasies, I have never watched Fullmetal Alchemist *crowd goes woah* ...I know... *crowd laughs* Peter, he worked for TokyoPop, he was a manga editor and so he is very proficient in his anime and manga and he's told me Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is my must-watch sort of thing. I've never seen it, but it sounds like they are doing the sort of stuff I like, so I need to make sure I do that. But I have played all the Final Fantasies. I mean, I've been a gamer for forever. My fun story about this, and we might have to end here is, when I was 11 my dad sent me out on an airplane to visit my uncle for the first time I've been away from my family on my own, I was so excited. He handed me two hundred dollars, like "Pay for your food, don't let them pay for anything. This is so you can pay for your keep." And so then every time we went out for food or something my uncle insisted on paying for everything, he wouldn't take my money. I'm a little eleven-year-old I can't get him to take the money. So at the end I'm like "My dad is going to kill me. What do I do with this two hundred dollars?" He took me to the mall and said, "Alright! Find something to do with your two hundred dollars." *laughter* That's where I got my Nintendo. *more laughter* This was, what '86? Or something like that. I got my original Nintendo Entertainment System which when I-- No, I sold that and bought a Super Nintendo, my brother sold that and bought himself a Playstation. We sold each system to pay for the next one, so in my brother's PS4 there's a little bit of my original Nintendo.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14916 Copy

    Questioner

    At the end of Steelheart, when they're fighting Nightwielder. His weakness was supposedly UV rays and he had Newcago in perpetual darkness. Except the sun produces UV rays.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah when I was building the magic system for this one of the things I realized is large-scale applications of Epic powers could not be subject to their weaknesses otherwise their weakness would become easily manifest. You can see this when Steelheart turns the city to steel, if his fear was manifest far from him every person who-- I'm not going to tell you what his weakness is in case you read the book, it's the big secret-- but anyone who manifested his weakness would have a pocket around them. It would take you about ten minutes to find out what his weakness was. And every large-scale application of power that I was imagining had that big same problem. So what I decided, if it's not immediate to you, if it's not you seeing it and being right there-- That it's your actual-- Something about you that causes the weakness that causes it then it was not going to be manifest. Does that make sense? And in the third book, because enough people asked about this I had David go into a little explanation, he's very technical. But really the reason for coming up with this rule in the first place was because I thought "There's no way you can have this work the way I want to unless there is a loophole there. Unless there's an exception here." So the reason is he's distant from it, large-scale applications it doesn't happen.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14917 Copy

    Questioner

    For The Reckoners series, it's my understanding that the Epics appear after they've had some sort of life threatening experience to gain their powers is that correct?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, not always.

    Questioner

    That's what I thought after Firefight.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Not necessarily.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14918 Copy

    Megalodon

    So are you planning to do anything like the Rysn interlude where you record and post videos again?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, I would like to do that. For those who haven't seen them, I did record myself typing one of the interludes and then I posted it on Youtube. And I will try to do another one of those. I think it's fun. I sometimes get jealous of Dan-- err Howard I mean, who can sit and draw while he's talking with people and do a demonstration. A demonstration of writing is *pantomimes writing/crowd laughs* But this can be put on and sped up, so you can watch it in speed and with cool music in the background and stuff. I'll try to do another one of those.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14919 Copy

    Questioner

    Have you ever thought of teaching at Clarion West?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Have I ever thought of teaching at Clarion. The reason I teach the class I do is because I can drive to it and it's one night a week for three hours. *laughter* They work very much around my schedule. The other thing I like about it is they put it in a lecture hall so I mentor 15 students, I read their writing and things like that, but then any student who wants to take one credit-hour of "you get a free 'A' for listening" can come sit-- So I can have like a hundred people in my class while still mentoring 15. The university really bends over backwards to make it work for me. So I might consider doing Clarion or something but man it takes a bunch of time out-- Peter what did you--

    Peter Ahlstrom

    There is the cruise.

    Brandon Sanderson

    There is the cruise. We do a Writing Excuses cruise which is Clarion-like a little less workshop focused than Clarion, Clarion is very workshop focused. But yeah we do the Writing Excuses cruise. So if you sign up for that when I'm going on the cruise, which I can't promise I'll do every year, but I'm doing this year, then you get the opportunity to come hear the lectures and things like that.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14920 Copy

    Questioner

    How did you get started with Writing Excuses?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So Writing Excuses. My dopey brother, who barely reads any fantasy or science fiction or anything-- he's a computer programmer, I love him, but he is not a big reader. Who now has a Hugo award *laughter* He came and said "You know I'm taking a podcasting class, these are getting really popular. You should do one of these. You and Dan should get together and do an old-school radio drama and I'll record it." And I was not interested because "This is just like writing my books. I'm not interested." But I thought about that for several months and thought "You know--" I started listening to a lot of podcasts and thought "You know there isn't a really good writing podcast" I couldn't find one. Now since then I've found others who are good. But I wasn't able to find one, particularly one that had the quick and efficient style that I wanted. A lot of podcasts, I love them but they ramble. They just go on. You just listen for hours and hours and they sometimes get to the point. I wanted something focused. So I called up Jordan and I said "What about a writing podcast? People ask me for writing advice a lot. I have this degree, I've been trained as a teacher but I don't teach very much. What can I do to help people with writing?" And so I pitched it to Dan, got Jordan to do all of the editing and producing, and then went and grabbed Howard, who we didn't know that well at that time but I had seen him speak and knew he was clever and fun and I'm more of the dry professorly type. So I could play straight man and having Howard kind of be-- he calls it "I'm the bonehead I don't know anything" but he does know what's going on, he's just good at playing that role. And then we added Mary after we realized we were three white, Mormon dudes *laughter* with kind of the same view on life. Now granted Howard and Dan are insane so that's different *laughter* So we brought in Mary, who we fly in, or we fly to her, we don't like the Skyping podcasting thing so we do them in person. Just to make sure we were adding more variety to the podcast. Plus she had been the best guest we had had on, her puppeteering episode was great. So that's kind of the evolution of it.

    This year is the year we decided to give it a different sort of structure. "Okay we've done this now for nine seasons, let's try something new with each subsequent season."

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14921 Copy

    Questioner

    So I know you talk a lot about the length of the Stormlight books before and how Tor has had some interesting worries there.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh yeah. They were more worried about it-- They would like me to write shorter, but they were much more worried before they became the explosive smash hit that they are. *laughter* Now they're just like-- They've learned. "Do what you want Brandon" *laughter*

    Questioner

    How do you balance, you know, wanting to extend a scene or wanting to do more flashbacks, or do more characters, while still making sure you get the plot and turn out an incredible book?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Right, right. So epic fantasy does have this issue of spending so much time dallying with side stories that you lose, sometimes, focus of the main plot. So I've tried to do this thing with the Stormlight books where I consciously made two decisions. One was I would do a flashback sequence in each book that kind of focused on one character that hopefully gave a kind of soul to that book that allowed you to remember "Oh whose flashbacks was that book. Oh that was this one." and that one lead you to understanding the theme of that entire book. Hopefully that will help keep that. The other is that I try to confine my time to the side characters to the interludes, which are slice-of-life glimpses of Roshar. And if I can confine myself to little stories there, then I have a set amount of room-- It's like giving yourself this ground to play in that is bounded, so you finish when you're done with that. I get three interludes between each part, so I can write a bunch of little short stories to explore side characters. But I have to be very careful, you know, "I don't want to do this character yet because I've got this new character" I've got to balance that. And those two things together, hopefully, will help me. Now the issue is most books that-- the series that have had trouble with this in the past don't have it until books 3 or 4, so we won't know if I'll be successful until we get through books 3 or 4, where it starts to appear. So watch me for the next couple years and we'll see if it manifests.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14922 Copy

    Questioner

    I hear... that you teach... If you could, in 2 minutes or less, teach us. *laughter*

    Brandon Sanderson

    One of the requirements for teaching the class that I do at Brigham Young was that they let me record the lectures and put them online. So the entire 2 years so far of my course How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy is online. I also have Writing Excuses, my podcast which is writing focused. If you haven't ever listened to it, it's Hugo award winning, and I would recommend starting January this year. We started kind of a master class of writing a story. And we'll record that live tomorrow morning, 11 am, so you'll be able to hear us doing that.

    The number one thing I can tell to the aspiring writer is-- This is something I've started talking about a lot recently--remember that you are the product of your writing, not the book, or the story. Now it's a weird thing to wrap your mind around. But it was very important for me, starting out as a writer, that when I wrote a book, I was turning myself into someone that could write better books. So that book was not the product; the book, in some ways, was the side effect, of changing myself into someone who was better at writing books. Each time you do that, you will get better, and the side effect, the side product that you produce will be better. The idea is to keep in mind, "What's going to make me a better writer. What practice is going to help me." Always look at your writing as something you're practicing to make yourself get better, no matter what it is.

    I mean, I wrote 13 novels before I sold one, perhaps that's why I have that perspective. But I think that a lot of the very successful writers are people who practice a lot, and treat all of their writing as practice.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14923 Copy

    Questioner

    How do you go about designing new magic systems? Because that's one of the most amazing things you do.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I've written several essays about this, so if you go to brandonsanderson.com/writing-advice, you'll find my essays on magic systems. Basically, I'm trying to look for something that I can explore in a way I haven't seen people do before. It doesn't have to be a new power, it just has to be a new take on a power that I can explore, that I can have fun with, that I can find some sort of scientific rigor. I like to have this sort of have one foot in science and one foot in superstition. That's what is fun for me in worldbuilding, this idea that-- I often say a lot of the old scientists, like Isaac Newton, believed in alchemy. Like "If only we could figure out..." and they started applying the scientific method to alchemy. Which is so cool! It's like "If we keep trying, we'll eventually figure out how this works." But it doesn't work.

    I like this idea of applying the scientific rigor to something superstitious, and finding that it does work, and then what do you do with that. So that's what I'm really looking for, particularly in my epic fantasies. It's also got to be the gee-whiz, the wow, "This is really exciting. This is really interesting."

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14924 Copy

    Questioner

    Which of the roles Hoid has played is your favorite? And will we be seeing him in Dalinar's flashbacks?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So which of the roles played by Hoid is my favorite. I would probably say Dust from Warbreaker. I just like-- That's the most true storyteller he's been, kind of based on oral storytelling tradition and things like that.

    I can't tell you.  You'll have to read and find out whether you'll find him in Dalinar's flashbacks or not.

    Sasquan 2015 ()
    #14925 Copy

    Questioner

    And the Steelheart film?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Steelheart film is owned by Fox, different company, Shawn Levy's company, 21 Laps at Fox, they are the ones who did Real Steel if you ever saw that, the Richard Matheson story, and I thought their adaptation of that was really good. They also did the Night of the Museum films, and so when they came to me asking for Steelheart, I said yes, but I only signed on that in June, so I don't know- it's only been a couple months. I wouldn't expect an update for another couple months.

    We signed on Emperor's Soul in November, October of last year, so I've been able to see the progress on that one come along.

    Firefight Portland signing ()
    #14930 Copy

    TheKingOfCarrotFlowers (paraphrased)

    The sphere which Gavilar found that Szeth now has--I've been lead to believe that it either is or was heavily invested...

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    Yes.

    TheKingOfCarrotFlowers (paraphrased)

    Is it still heavily invested?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    Yes.

    TheKingOfCarrotFlowers (paraphrased)

    So, it hasn't, like, gone dun or anything?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    No, it has not.

    TheKingOfCarrotFlowers (paraphrased)

    And I'm going to take that to mean it wasn't invested with Stormlight--was it invested by Odium?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    Something like that.

    Salt Lake City Comic-Con FanX 2015 ()
    #14941 Copy

    Sirce Luckwielder (paraphrased)

    When Kelsier is teaching Vin about the basic eight Allomantic Metals, he talks about not flaring metals, especially tin and pewter, as it does strange things to people. Does this imply that there were other savants before Spook?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    His answer was that there were other savants before Spook.

    Salt Lake City Comic-Con FanX 2015 ()
    #14942 Copy

    Sirce Luckwielder (paraphrased)

    So each anti-investiture is like its world's investiture, but can't be effected by it. So aluminum can't be affected and destroys Allomancy, ralkalest can't be Soulstamped, Shardblades are blunted by that one thing. Is the black filled sphere that Galivar gives to Szeth the anti-investiture to Stormlight?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    When I asked this, he became much more tight-lipped and said that was an interesting theory and that I would learn more in book three.

    Salt Lake City Comic-Con FanX 2015 ()
    #14946 Copy

    Sirce Luckwielder (paraphrased)

    In the flashback [of Words of Radiance] with Shallan meeting Hoid, Hoid pours something from a pouch into his cup and drinks it. Are these Allomantic metal shavings?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    His answer was that there was something indeed significant about what Hoid placed in the cup, but that it was not necessarily Allomantic shavings. He wouldn't tell me what it specifically was and gave me a R.A.F.O. card.

    San Diego Comic-Con 2015 ()
    #14949 Copy

    Cognizantastic

    As I understand it, Nightblood is most comparable to a Shardblade. However, unlike a Shardblade, Nightblood requires constant input of Investiture in order to realize his full destructive potential. Why is this?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Vasher kind of hacked in order to imitate another magic system. Shardblades are organic parts of the world they are on, but Nightblood is a bunch of souls stuffed into something. Nightblood is like a Frankenstein.