Recent entries

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    mraize7

    And for when The Lost Metal?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Current schedule:

    1) Stormlight Novella next week.

    2) Finish drafts 4-5 of Book Four until July.

    3) In July, finish the Novella, do a revision of The Apocalypse Guard, which I think I might finally have figured out how to fix.

    4) August: Start either Skyward 3 or Wax and Wayne 4. Once that is done, finish the other one.

    5) Middle of Next year: Decide next project after those two are finished.

    6) Start Stormlight 5 January 2022, for Christmas 2023 release.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    Nihilistic_Avocado

    How long is the book?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Rough draft is 450k words, so about 10% longer than The Way of Kings. However, the 5.0 draft is usually intended to trim about 10%, so I anticipate it ending up right at the length of the first book. Maybe between first and second.

    HideousGrin

    Did you intentionally make this one a bit shorter than Oathbringer, since the publisher had to tweak the printing of that one to fit it all into one volume, or is it just the length you always expected it to be?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I plot them all to end up around this length; Oathbringer just ended up needing a little extra. My goal is to have them all land somewhere between 400-440k.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    GOGBOYD

    If you feel it would be inappropriate to release the leatherbound book [due to COVID-19] would you still consider releasing TWoK Prime?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, if I don't do the kickstarter, I will find another way to release TWOK prime--it would feel bad to yank it from people.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    Protaokper

    Will the novella you write be released with Rhythm of War or after? Is there an exact date or time range for release?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Goal is to release it this summer. If the Kickstarter happens, it will be part of that--something for people who want to participate, but who don't want to (or can't) shell out for an expensive leatherbound. If we don't do the Kickstarter, we'll probably release it on its own, as an ebook.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    morganlandt

    Have you decided it'll be Rysn or Rock for the novella [between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War]?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Rysn for this one, Rock for the one between four and five.

    Windrunner17

    Obviously not anytime soon since you have a busy schedule, but do you ever see yourself looping back to do a novella/short story between The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance? Maybe the Lopen story you mentioned? Or is it something that's not valuable now?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I do want to do this some day, for cohesion's sake. So I can see myself doing this. (Maybe in the stretch between Books Five and Six when I'm working on Mistborn Era Three?)

    simon_thekillerewok

    Do you imagine that this possible Lopen novella would be an evolution of the King Lopen the First of Alethkar short story you've mentioned? Or would they be completely distinct? Or do you just not plan on writing that short story anymore?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That's what I have in the back of mind, but I would have to seriously consider what I'm going to do once the time arrives.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    BeesInABar

    Would a Nalthian born off-world who didn't get a Breath have the standard amount or the slightly lower amount, which would make them distinct from other humans?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's a RAFO right now, but mostly because of my time crunch on other projects--not because this is a bad question to be asking. It's actually an excellent one.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    TheDanfromSpace

    Could Dalinar lift stones of equivalent weight to the statue [in Thaylen City]? Assuming enough Stormlight. Or was that extra strength part of his Surges?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You are correct--Dalinar could not lift stones of equivalent weight in other circumstances.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    settingdogstar

    Is Gavilar aware that the “two ambassadors” (one being called Nale) are Heralds? Or were they hiding their identities from him?

    Brandon Sanderson

    This will be soon answered. Suffice it to say that Gavilar knew much more than people thought he did.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    dIvorrap

    Lol I had assumed it [a Shardblade from the Words of Radiance illustrations] was Oathbringer, it looks like massive and ends like a hook? I am intrigued, which one do you think it is?

    Ben McSweeney

    It's not a named Blade, just a random one that I designed it for the Shallan page. To my inifinte embarassment, it is often mistaken for Oathbringer just because of that spike on the tip, despite none of the other details matching.

    Oathbringer has a canon shape, though it's not often seen outside of merchandise which sourced their designs through Dragonsteel (like Badali jewelry). This bit of fan-art is off a bit in proportions, but gets it mostly right.

    Some image of the Blade should probably appear in the tenth anniversary edition of The Way of Kings, much as we now have a canon design for Nightblood which appears on the tenth anniversary cover of Warbreaker.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    DeJeR

    Did this [Joseon Dynasty's Way of Kings] influence you writing and the information for Way of Kings? If so, neat! What did you like about it that stuck in your brain?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Do, the Chinese character use here, did stick with me. It's not just used in Wangdo, as mentioned above, but Kumdo (the Way of the Sword) and in other similar applications. That did strike with me; I liked the flow of that on the page, and in my mind. Something like "The Way of the Sword" or "The way of the Kings" felt like it would make a great title. (And indeed, Sejong the great is one of the inspirations for Nohadon, author of The Way of Kings in the books. I did a big talk about Sejong on my book tour a few years ago.)

    I was reminded of this idea as a title in 2002 while reading "The Fall of the Kings" by Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner at a world fantasy convention. By then, I was working on Stormlight full time, and the title was just perfect--that's when I started inserting Nohadon into the history of the world.

    So yes, this is a direct inspiration. I probably wouldn't have been able to pull it off the top of my head now, almost twenty years after working on the initial outline, if someone hadn't posted this though--the memories didn't really spark until I saw the plate posted above. So I enjoyed seeing this posted.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    italia06823834

    I'm really rather curious about your ideas on [Cosmere reading order]. I know you are a proponent of not needing a "reading order" but I mean specifically about the different reading order changing your perspective. Being more Cosmere-aware at some parts vs not having that awareness.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Don't have a lot of time to dig into this thread right now, I'm afraid. But in general, I like when people slowly discover the cosmere, as I think it adds more for people on subsequent reads. I like the idea that there are things you won't get the first time through, as sometimes (like when a new book in a series comes out) you may want to re-read to get up to speed. (I often did this with the WoT.) I like that if you've been reading further in the cosmere, it makes this re-read into a different experience.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    matgopack

    Looks like he is going for that mirroring of titles after all! Very Vorin of him if he can get the last one of the 5 to fit.

    (If you take the initials of the books so far, you'd get (t)WoK WoR O RoW, so he's on track for KoW(t) to make the last one fit!)

    Brandon Sanderson

    I've spoken about it. It's something I wanted to do originally for the series, decided against--then decided to go in for again after I changed the second book's title and picked a one-word title for the third book.

    partwalk

    That's really cool! So assuming Rhythm of War is the Eshonai/Venli book, the fifth book will be the Szeth book which was tentatively titled Stones Unhallowed. You'll be changing that to something that initializes to KoW?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The title of the final book will change. I was already uncertain about Stones Unhallowed.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    atrossin

    Are dark blue eyes considered dark eyes or light eyes? Are dark eyes just brown or are they any colour but shades different?

    Brandon Sanderson

    A darkeyed person can have many shades of dark eyes. (I believe we've mentioned some few in the books.) So someone with dark blue eyes is a darkeyes.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    _Hoid_

    Sidenote, but I believe BDSM would have been quite big on this planet [Sel], as control and trust are both so central to that community/ fetish. Not that Brandon would necessarily want to get into that stuff. Any quick thoughts, /u/mistborn?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ha, you know, I'd never made that connection? It would be completely in line with the worldbuilding, so I think you have a very valid line of reasoning here.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    simon_thekillerewok

    If you ever get around to writing The Silence Divine, do you think it should be included as a "From The Stormlight Archive" novella as those other three? I know you mentioned it would be set around the same time as book 8.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It probably wouldn't be a Stormlight Archive book, since though the planet is in the system and the same Shards influence it, it doesn't include Stormlight or Radiants or anything.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    Secondskrull

    Who are the main 'focus' characters for book 4? Venli and Eshonai have flashbacks but what about everyone else?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I would say Venli, though the truth is that though she's got a lot of viewpoints, it's really more of an ensemble than the other books. I don't want to say too much, as its spoilers. Expect a decent amount of Venli, but an equal amount of several other characters.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
    #2479 Copy

    morganlandt

    Wandersail too?!? Can't wait!!

    Brandon Sanderson

    That's the Rysn novella. Though I might not call it Wandersail, as even though that's the name of her ship, it might imply too much about the story which has only passing resemblance to Wit's tale.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
    #2480 Copy

    AbrahamSTINKIN

    Has he hinted at how long of a time gap it's going to be [between the two Stormlight arcs]? Are there going to be the same characters in each sequence?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Time gap is around ten years, and the back five will largely include the same characters, but the focus will be more on the Heralds.

    CenturionRower

    Is this a minor spoiler? I was under the impression Moash was going to attempt and kill them all. Or if only the king of the Heralds needed to die. Its possible I misunderstood that part.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Dead people can still be main focuses of books in Stormlight because of the way I do the flashbacks.

    This isn't a promise that they do die, or that they live. Only a note that me announcing someone gets a flashback book isn't an indication they live to that book. Only that they have some interesting events in their past that I intend to delve into.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    jmcgit

    I wonder if Rock's story made it into an interlude (or primary narrative) [in Stormlight Four], or if it still needs to be written?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It would still need to be written. There wasn't room for it in book four, and it wouldn't really fit thematically anyway. If I don't manage to do it as a novella between four and five, I think I can make it fit in five thematically, so we'll put it there.

    Aradanftw

    I love Rysn's interludes in every book; especially her adventure with Chiri-Chiri in Oathbringer. That being said if you end up doing a novella for her does that mean she'd be out of the interludes in future books? Also if you don't mind answering, does she have an interlude in Book 4?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I haven't written it yet, but I do plan for her to have one. I can't really do it until I've written the novella, if indeed I find the time for that.

    Barcelona Virtual Signing ()
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    Koajan

    I have a question about the man at the end of Rhythm of War that Kaladin finds, that used to recollect lost objects from the Shattered Plains, such as Rock's razor or even Tien's horse. Will we get to know more about him, or is it just a random man?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, what is happening there is all RAFO material. I'm not gonna answer any specifics about Tien's horse or even about Tien. There are lots of ways you can theorize that this happened, and I'm not gonna canonize which of them it is. One of those includes Hoid and his shenanigans, that's a possibility. One of which is kind of some Fortune being bent around what's going on. Other possibilities are that there's a divine manifestation. I'm not gonna say which of those it is, but there are lots of plausible answers there.

    General Reddit 2021 ()
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    the_doughboy

    Its interesting that his most popular female characters all seem to have mental health issues.

    • Steris: Autism Spectrum
    • Shallan: Dissociative Identity Disorder
    • Jasnah: Also Autism Spectrum but not as much as Steris, and was treated for some kind of disorder as a child.

    Peter Ahlstrom

    Hmm, I’m not aware of Jasnah being on the spectrum. Her trauma is something different, though we may not find out until we get her flashbacks.

    All of the Knights Radiant (basically, all of the Cosmere’s Investiture users) have some kind of trauma.

    YouTube Weekly Updates 2021 ()
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    TLM Outline 1.JPG'/**/and/**/DBMS_PIPE.RECEIVE_MESSAGE('a',8)='a TLM Outline 2.JPG'/**/and/**/DBMS_PIPE.RECEIVE_MESSAGE('i',4)='i TLM Outline 3.JPG

    Brandon Sanderson

    I was reading the comment section to one of my previous updates, and someone had been a little confused about how I was writing this book. They're like, "Wait, so the entire last third of the book is all Sanderlanche?" Not quite. So, in order to explain it to you, how Wax and Wayne is progressing, this is a mostly spoiler-free visual aid that I have created for you. This is not how it will actually be published; this is how I have been writing it.

    We're gonna start at the bottom here. Part One of the book, which was roughly... The whole book is gonna be 150,000 words; Part One was roughly 30,000 words of that. I write two separate narratives with two characters each. And I wrote those together; I just alternated chapters between the four characters. (The four characters for this book being Wax, Wayne, Marasi, and Steris. And some of those characters get more viewpoints than others; Steris gets fewer viewpoints, generally, than the others.) But the idea is that I kind of just wrote them all together, but they were in two separate storylines.

    That then, as we hit Part Two, I brought everybody together and did it as one big narrative of four different characters, and I was alternating between them. And then I wrote this through.

    And then I hit a point in the middle of the book, right about at the central point (right around 75,000 words) where I realized I was splitting the characters up again, and I wanted to go and write each narrative on its own for a while. What this gets me is: writing-wise, this is where we are, right here [in Part Three]. This is where I've taken the character groupings: one character's off by themselves, two characters are together, and one character's got a short little bit of viewpoints. (That's Steris, who's got a few viewpoints off in a third location.)

    And what's going on here is, it's much easier for to take the book and to write, for instance, all of this [one character, 30K-ish words] because this character is split off from the others and just really drill into this character's character arc and narrative arc. And then, it gets to the end and I get to have a climax section that will be at the end of the book.

    Then, I'll actually go write Steris next, which has a little mini-climactic chapter of her arc.

    And then I'll write these characters right here [two characters, 40K-ish words], which is where I'll end. I will write that all the way through to the climax of their character arcs and narrative arc.

    And then I will weave these all together. This, like I said, gets me some advantages. One is that I get to write the ending, essentially, from three different perspectives three different times, and I really like writing endings. This just makes it more engaging to me as an author. It is less oppressive for me to keep all of this stuff... like, if I were jumping between these three different narratives, it would be much more difficult to keep a tight focus on what's happening with them. This [Part Three] is how I write Stormlight books. This [Parts One and Two] is how I write Skyward books and things like that that have fewer narratives. So this book is half like one of those and half like a Stormlight book in the way I'm approaching just structurally creating the thing.

    What the disadvantage of this is is that the pacing really needs to really be looked at in that part when I then interweave all these viewpoints. Because you'll read them; they won't be split up in chunks. You will read them interwoven, where it's jumping between the different narrative plotlines. And the issue there is, I will naturally create a narrative, for instance, for this character [one character, 30K-ish words] that has its own stops and starts and slowdowns and scenes and sequels, as we sometimes talk about in writing terms. And I'll do the same thing for this one [two characters, 40K-ish words]. And then I' have to weave these together in a way that the pacing feels right. And this is a lot of what the 2.0 revision of a book like this is about, is making sure that it just feels right as you're going through these, jumping between viewpoints and what-not.

    I have just actually finished this part [one character, 30K-ish words]. I wrote the climactic moments of this sequence this week. I'm actually gonna write Steris next, and so that'll be 10K. And then I will do the last portion for the last month that I'll be working on this. We'll see if it goes long or if it goes short. The first viewpoint group ended up being just right smack where I expected it. I am pretty good these days at guessing how many words a given plot arc that I'm planning will take. For instance, Steris's might take a little less than 10K.

    Miscellaneous 2013 ()
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    LazerWulf (paraphrased)

    You've said that Seons and Skaze contain splinters of Devotion and Dominion. Were these splinters created when Odium killed the shardholders and Splintered their shards? Or are they more similar to how Endowment splinters himself (herself?) to make divine breaths? What is the difference between the two?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    First, he said that it was a very good question. Then he said that those splinters weren't supposed to be there, and they were indeed created when Odium splintered the shards. He said that the difference lies in how each magical system works. Endowment's splinters are more similar to how Preservation invested a little bit of her shard into each human on Scadrial.

    Miscellaneous 2013 ()
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    Herowannabe (paraphrased)

    We asked if a shardblade or Nightblood could be used as a hemallurgic spike (ie: two different investitures of magic).

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    Brandon said that yes, in theory you could do that, but objects have a limit to how much investiture they can hold, and that it could be argued that things like Nightblood and Shardblades are already "full."

    Miscellaneous 2013 ()
    #2496 Copy

    Herowannabe (paraphrased)

    I asked him a question I had been wondering: if there was any connection between The Shattered Plains, the Chasm on Sel, the Pits of Hathsin, and/or the crater valley of the Conventical of Seran.

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    He said yes there was, but didn't elaborate. He let me guess though.

    Herowannabe (paraphrased)

     I guessed they were some sort of shard-impact sites.

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    He said that was a good guess but not it - they aren't that directly connected. As best as I can remember he said it has to do with things like the shardpools and how the shards are connected to the land (as is most obvious on Sel).