Recent entries

Nimrod Rappaport (paraphrased)

Have you read 1984?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, I have.

Nimrod Rappaport (paraphrased)

In your lecture you talked about the three P's: premise, progress and payoff. I wanted to ask you about 1984 because I read the book and was engaged by it and I don't see how the three P's appear in the book, why is it so interesting?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The thing is that George Orwell is very good with setting, he can make very interesting worlds. The progress in 1984 is that of a person losing its mind, the payoff is in how broken he is the end and how his conscience has been shattered.

Questioner

Is there a certain book that you've read and you said "my God I wanted to write this book!"

Brandon Sanderson

So, I usually answer Jurassic Park to this one. I really love how Jurassic Park came together and how its use of science and things work kind of as a quote end quote magic system. That's one of my favorites that I kind of wish I had come up with that. Otherwise, the thing that I envy most usually aren't other books. Though I love other books, most of the time the books I love are so distinctively of that author that I don't wish I'd written it because then it would be... it would have to change, right. Like it wouldn't be mine. Like I love Name of the Wind and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms because those are distinct products of those author's visions for what fantasy should be and I can't write their vision. Though one thing I do envy a little bit is—and I answered this in the QA last night—I really envy sometimes the way that video game writers can tell stories. The one I often mention is Undertale. <applause>. A few people are Undertale fans. If you haven't played Undertale, it's great.

Questioner

Great graphics by the way.

Brandon Sanderson

It's able to do narrative in a way that my form can't do. Which is really cool! And I play a game like Undertale and I'm like "wow you tell stories!" I played Dark Souls. I love those games and the way they can do story is not the way I do story. The way they approach lore and story is so cool and so different from my form that I kind of envy their ability to tell stories in different ways.

Questioner

If you could change one thing in a book that already happened, what it would be?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I would probably... So one of the... There's a couple things I feel like I've done wrong. One thing is, in Mistborn, I wanted to tell a story about a really strong female character. But I was so focused -- and this happens to a lot of writers -- on making Vin really great, that there's no other women in the whole book. This happens a ton. You notice that you overcompensate in one area, so I wish more of the crew had been women.

In Words of Radiance, I didn't get the ending right, it's still not quite right. I tried to change it for the paperback, and then that just didn't work out. So, I didn't do any more changes, but the Kaladin-Szeth conflict is just something a little bit off about it, even still, that I'd like to take sort of another pass on that and get it right. I'm not sure what it would be.

Questioner

Yesterday, you talked about other writers that came before you, and talked fantasy today. And although you're writing and selling quite novel, and this is part of the magic, I wanted to ask if you had to choose one author who is an inspiration for you, who would it be?

Brandon Sanderson

There's a bunch. So, I love how Guy Gavriel Kay is able to tell epic fantasy stories in one volume that are really compelling, that's one of his things. I like how Nora Jemisin is able to use literary trappings to tell really powerful stories. Like, if you guys haven't read The Fifth [Season], it's in second person, it's just crazy, but it works.

I actually envy a lot of the videogame writers, because they can do things that I can't do and it's a lot of fun. Like, the guy who wrote Undertale, Toby Fox, right? Like, that story is the type of story that I can't tell because it only works in that medium. I think it's really cool and so I envy their ability to tell stories the way that they tell them. So, that's just a couple [of inspirations].

Questioner

If there would be, like, a movie about the... I hope for a movie, I really hope for a movie. *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

So, I always promise people [that we'll] try to have open casting calls, but I do not have power over that. So, I tried like... Wheel of Time... I said, "Can you tell me when the castings start happening?" and they already did it. So, they don't necessarily involve the author all that much.

Questioner

No, I wanted to be, like... a concept artist.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, concept artists? Well, the best way to do that would to be working for the people who are doing things like... basically, the concept artists would be hired by the team. For instance, we... if Netflix were to buy one of my books to make an animated thing, it would be the team that they work with in-house. I don't know how a concept artist gets a job for there, but being a concept artist who's worked with Dreamworks or with Netflix, or with some of these people who've done a lot of this sort of thing, improves your chances.

I'm certainly not opposed to it, we've looked into it, and the right team has to come together. I really wanna see how the new generation of animated stuff on Netflix happened, how it works and things like that, before we jump into it. But it is something I'm investigating.

Questioner

What's one of the major pitfalls that you, like, know yourself. Like, "People, don't do that", but still you see so many times that first time writers really should be careful about?

Brandon Sanderson

Ooooh, the one you really need to be careful about is making your opening too full of info dumps. You want your opening of your story, in particular, to evoke a character's voice and to have things happen in it. It doesn't even have to be a fight, doesn't mean you have to start with action, but it does mean there's gotta be motion, a character wanting something and a clear sense of story - not a big info dump about the world. And that's the number one pitfall, stay away from that.

Brandon Sanderson

One time, at GenCon, they were doing the Mistborn RPG and they had me play. So I <drew up> my character as a very mysterious individual and so... I played as Hoid in the RPG.

Brandon Sanderson

The linguistics there, with the... for the Aonic... so, I had a couple of inspirations there. By the time I was writing this book, I was looking to do a little bit more interesting linguistics, I was looking to explore linguistics, and I like that one of the ideas I had is... I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Letter-day Saints - Mormon - and I served a two year mission in Korea. While I was in Korea, I fell in love with the relationship between the Korean language and the Chinese language.

If you're not familiar with how that is, in a lot of Asia, Chinese was the writing system for years. For centuries, people wrote in Chinese, even if they didn't speak Chinese, because Chinese is a logographic language, it's not phonetic. When you write the character, the <Hànzì>, you can pronounce it in any language. It can be written... read in any language - we can read them in English, you can read them in Hebrew. They just mean a concept, it's like hieroglyphics, right?

But what this means is, it's really hard to learn to write, because you just have to memorize every symbol and they're very complex, very intricate. So, around... I think it's 1400, someone will have to look that up to make sure, but... the king Sejong of the Korean people, who is remembered as their favorite king, he came in and said "My people are illiterate because Chinese is just too hard to learn. We aren't Chinese, we don't speak Chinese, we're trying to use their writing system for our language. Let's develop an alphabet."

They got a bunch of scholars together and they built an alphabet by which you can write Chinese in Korean, in an alphabet that's a Korean alphabet. It's really fascinating linguistically, because they create Chinese characters that are phonetic to take the place of Chinese characters in their language and then surround them with grammar only in Korean. So, you have like "Chinese character, Chinese character, Korean grammar... Chinese character, Chinese character, Korean grammar..." and you could replace those characters with Korean ones if you want, or you could just leave the Chinese - really cool.

I wanted to develop a language that had these symbols that would also have... that were from an old language... that would then have grammar around them in another language. It was really interesting to me and that's where the Aons came from, this kind of language that predates their culture, predates their linguistics in Arelon. And that they have developed alongside and that they use in their writing system... and if you were to read Aonic, you would see these big Aons and then little Aonic text between them that is bridging all these ideas together with actual linguistics.

So, the Aons I wanted to stand out, I wanted to... when you read them in English to be able to say... and I experimented with making them all caps and it just looked really weird, but that that would be the way that... then you would have to have "RAO" and "den", "RAO" would always be in caps and "den" and readers had real troubles with that. It just read... it looks like you're screaming, right? So, people would read the name *loud* RAO- *speaking normally again* den, *laughter from audience* which is not what I wanted to say.

So I went back, but I still wanted these... So, I used the two long vowels sounds. Whenever you hit a name, they're all gonna have two long vowel sounds in them that are stressed and then an unstressed Aonic portion pushed onto it. So it's /ˈɹeɪ.ˈʊ.dɛn/ [Raoden], where you've got a-o, and you've got /iːniː/ [Ene], /sɑː.ˈɹiː.ˌniː/ [Sarene], and things like that. And even Elantris... I say /e.ˈlɑːn.tɹɪs/ [Elantris], they would say /ˈiː.leɪn.tɹɪs/ [Elantris], and things like that.

I built this just, like, have... I love it, when in fantasy, the form and the function meld together, so that what you're putting on the page actually enhances in all ways the culture and the magic together, but it did make for a difficult reading experience. My first review I ever got for Elantris [...] My first review that ever came in was "This book is great, but the names are terrible. Brandon Sanderson can't name anything. Keep him away from naming things, because the first book he published might be the most linguistically challenging, let's just say."

Questioner

I am an editor.

Brandon Sanderson

Good for you. It's a terrible, terrible job. *audience laughs*

Questioner

What was your process for finding an editor that you liked and now work with?

Brandon Sanderson

So... I work with a couple of editors. My main editor is Moshe [Feder], at Tor, and I found Moshe by going to conventions and I would ask editors which new authors' books they were working on. Then I would go read those books when they came out and I was looking for the editors that were buying books that I liked.

And that's good advice for any of you who are writers: Find out what the editors are publishing, read their books and then if you go, you'll find out what the editor's taste is. If you go to the editor and say "What are you looking for?", the editor's response almost always is "Something good." They're gonna tell you, because they don't want you to limit yourself, but if you read what they're putting out, you can find out. Plus, you'll have to something to talk about with the editor. You go to the editor and say "I love this book." and they're like "You know that I edited it?", because editors are kind of unsung heroes who don't get enough attention. Then you'll have something to talk with an editor about and can make a connection.

This is what I did, I was looking for people who were writing books that I liked... editing books that I liked. The other thing is, I was looking for people who gave me good feedback. When I got rejections, did the rejections make good suggestions? Theses sorts of things... Once I got successful, I was looking more at the first, people whose books I admired, editors who worked on books... So, my team book editor I found because she was just putting out a bunch of books that I thought were really good. She had a good eye, so I went to her and said "Would you like to publish Steelheart?" and by then I was not Brandon Sanderson, I was Brandon Sanderson, and so she said "Yes, please!" So... it's a pretty different process.

Questioner

What are the chances - I actually really like the Mistborn Adventure Game. What are the chances of more roleplaying games set in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

I've asked them if they'll do a Stormlight one and they're interested in doing it.

Questioner

Aha, I'm interested in doing it and I'm a really good designer. *clamor from audience* <How would I go about doing that?>

Brandon Sanderson

If you want to get one of my licenses, the best advice we can give you... the way that Crafty was, is, they made a really good game that wasn't themed. They came to me and said "I've done this, I know how to...". Like our base fear in choosing your people is that they won't be able to finish the product for people waiting for it and know how to distribute it. So, if you have done other games, if you have done that, then your chances go up. If you haven't, my recommendation is go and make your own, prove that you can distribute a game and manufacture a game and things like that - and then come to us. Because, we don't care how big or small you are, as long as you're able to fulfil on your promises and as long as you make quality stuff that people enjoy, right? That's... that's our thing. So, that's your path to getting one of the licenses, okay?

Brandon Sanderson

So, what's going on here is that when I was writing Elantris... number one, Elantris is my only book that I wrote not knowing if it would get published. For those who don't know, Elantris is my sixth novel and I wrote thirteen before I sold it. And so, I was finishing my thirteenth unpublished novel when Elantris finally sold and so Mistborn is number fourteen. I didn't publish any of those other ones.

So, Elantris was the only book that I wrote without a professional team behind me. And even those early Mistborn books, I did have assistants and things... For instance, I now have a team of fifteen people that work for me, of which nine are full-time. The Brandon Sanderson business is... we take this very seriously and I have two full-time editors who work on my staff in addition to my editors at the publishers.

When I wrote Elantris, I didn't have that whole team backing me, it was just me. So, when we did the tenth anniversary edition, I said, "Let's look and see if people can actually walk in the time I say to the places I say. Let's make sure you can actually see the things they say you should be able to see". And lo and behold, they're like "You say he looks out of his window and sees Elantris, but you put his house over here and there's stuff in the way" and things like this. This is the sort of stuff that, as a writer, it's just really hard to do without a team specifically looking to ask "Can a person walk to... this distance?" and things like that.

Now that I have those resources, I was able to just update it. All the changes to Elantris, none of them change the story, but all of them were meant for these reasons: People can't actually walk this distance or it takes them too long. Like, it would take fifteen minutes, you say it takes an hour... what happened? It's just easier to say "No, it took fifteen minutes", right, and stuff like that. So, those are what the updates were mostly.

With me adding the scene - I don't know if you guys put in the bonus scene - *affirmative from the interviewer* the bonus Hoid scene in the back, which... the story of Hoid, if you don't know, is... he's the character that connects all the Cosmere. When I first started writing, Elantris was the first book ever I put him in and then he appeared in Dragonsteel, which is an unpublished novel, and in White Sand and in Aether of Night, but just little, tiny cameos.

My feeling was - early on - that people wouldn't put up with this <false> behind the scenes continuity. I thought it would scare people off of the series and things like that. I don't want someone to pick up Elantris and be like "Oh, to understand Elantris, I have to read all of that". I just wanted them to be able to enjoy Elantris, but I found out very quickly: fans, number one, loved it. They weren't intimidated by it. Plus, the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe] has done way more of that, right? *laughter from audience* When I started, the MCU wasn't out yet. People were not used to, you know, dealing with continuity between different series and things like that on the level they're willing to now. But I found that, even with the early books, there were at least people like "No, you can trust us more, you can give us more of this. It won't turn us off to the books if we know that Hoid is around" and so, I've started... like, you know, I wrote into Elantris a little bit more Hoid for a bonus scene at the end, stuff like that.

Nimrod Rappaport

In Arcanum Unbounded you mentioned that Sel is one of the biggest planets. You also mentioned that there are three empires on that planet. In Elantris 2 two will we get... You also mentioned that they are largely ignorant of each other, will we get a book in which those empires interact? Maybe in Elantris 2? 

Also, can you please specify on their nature and maybe some inspirations you got when writing and thinking about them?

Brandon Sanderson

So, sure. Sel wears its inspirations quite blatantly on its sleeve, right? It's not that obvious for instance in Stormlight that the Alethi are based off of Mongolians, because there's so much more in the mix there, that it's not quite as obvious. But in Sel, it's a little more obvious. You know, basically the idea came to me that what if the vikings had united behind a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and we had Catholic vikings, conquering the world. What would the world look like and that is where the entire religion came from.

Actually the truth is it's like, there was this priest, right, and one group became Buddhist and the other became Catholic vikings and, you know, Buddhist Renaissance... Italians is kind of where we got there and of course, the Rose Empire the inspirations are a little bit more Eastern and Middle Eastern. For instance, the Grands are based on Babylonian influences and I'm kind of looking at a lot of Babylonian, a little bit of Syrian. But of course Shai is very very clearly based on East Asian cultures and specifically China.

So, the empires and things like that... for there you might have noticed that we've got a Europe centered one, and an Asia/Eastern centered one, so you might be able to theorize where the third empire's inspirations might be or at least a list of possible candidates.

Questioner

So, I wanted to ask. It wasn't translated to Hebrew yet, but one of your stories has a loosely based magic system based on Shabbos.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Very loose! It started stricter, it got very loose.

Questioner

Very loose!

Brandon Sanderson

*explaining to audience* Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell.

Questioner

I was wondering, on the same planet, are there more magic systems or is this magic system going to be expanded upon and built, to keep it in the religious theme?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There is more and it is... all the magics that I'll do there, they are takes on sort of religious concepts. We'll do more. Threnody is really messed up, I'm just gonna warn you. *audience laughs* You haven't even seen how messed up it is.

Commenter

*in humor* Half of the place is called HELL, how worse can it get?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it's worse outside of Hell. Hell is nice. *audience laughs*

So, yeah, that's my theme...

Questioner

Will it keep the Jewish motif?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it will keep some more Jewish motifs, and things like that, because I find them fascinating, so, you will find a things like that, yeah.

Questioner

So, we know in Mistborn there is this running... you can say, motif about Ruin being associated with the color black and Preservation with the color white, we see a lot of very subtle and a lot of very unsubtle...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yes.

Questioner

Is such a motif present in any other books? I think I see it in Stormlight.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, in Stormlight you can see it. So, Ruin is a red-gold... not Ruin, Odium. Odium is a red-gold. Honor is a blue-white and Cultivation is green, obviously. So, those motifs stay, when you... when you see a red or a gold, it's a reddish gold sort of thing, either of those colors, it's going to be Odium.

Questioner

Even when we something we might suspect to be outside influence in other worlds?

Brandon Sanderson

Not necessarily, because red can also mean corrupted Investiture in the Cosmere. So, I would call Odium's real color gold, because you're going to see red when Odium is corrupting other things, so...

Questioner

It's not necessarily on Roshar.

Brandon Sanderson

It's not necessarily Odium. So, you're asking for the invading force on Mistborn, it doesn't necessarily mean Odium because it's red. So red just kind of means corruption. I've talked about that before, so. Not necessarily, not definitive, yeah.

Oversleep

Does Nazh want his knife back, the one he gave to Kelsier?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he would want it back but it's not like the flute. It's not something that was super super important to the person who gave it away. So he would like his knife back eventually,  but you know, nothing important.

Isaac Stewart

We're going through and trying to fix all of those things for a later version that Dynamite will put out, just small inconsistencies. We will get rid of the boombox, we will get rid of the second IV because we got it in the first one. I don't how we missed it in the closeups. For all I know we told them to erase it, and that one they just didn't get to, so that's funny.

Brandon Sanderson

I do not know if they have IV technology, on Dayside in particular. You could maybe, probably not, but you could maybe argue it on Darkside.

Paleo

In Allomancy, bad alloys can be detrimental to you, can make you sick and stuff like that. Does it also apply in Feruchemy or generally impurities, do they apply?

Brandon Sanderson

Not as strongly.

Paleo

How would they apply? Is it more like a smaller charge or?

Brandon Sanderson

It would just take less of a charge. It wouldn't make you sick.

Paleo

When we have an unkeyed metalmind and then we also store a keyed charge in it, which one would get tapped first?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that.

Paleo

When you store multiple memories in a coppermind is it still technically one large coppermind or could you say it's more like a ton of "virtual" metalminds, because you're technically tapping individual ones?

Brandon Sanderson

More like the second. I would say that's accurate. I mean I'm not sure that really aligns one to one but it is another good model, though.

Paleo

Somebody also theorized along the lines that a nicrosilmind is a lot like an Honorblade in that you just have, or they said, do you only have to touch it in order for it to work, or do you actually have to tap it?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh... I'll RAFO that.

Paleo

Then we also talked about, theorized about unkeyed metalminds - that is Identity-less ones that anybody can that has the power can tap.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Paleo

We also were wondering is it like, we compared it to cryptography and encryption, stuff like that. Is it just that like, your Identity is sort of this unique encryption key.

Brandon Sanderson

And you need a key to you getting it. That's a valid line of theorizing. It is not exactly but it's close enough to be a good model.

Paleo

And would an unkeyed metalmind theoretically be capable of storing a little more than a keyed one.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, because of yeah.

Paleo

Because it has to... Is it inherent to the Investiture or is it like an extra bit?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that, mostly because I haven't considered that yet.

Paleo

All right, regarding the 'Wisdom Shard' again. We have one quote where Hoid... I'll just cite it: "Some men, as they age, grow wiser. I am not one of those, for wisdom and I have always been at cross-purposes." Is he referring to that Shard there... or the Vessel?

Brandon Sanderson

*thumbs up, grins* ... Yes.

Paleo

We tried to develop a theory of what a metalmind actually is, and we know that splitting a metalmind can halve the charge effectively or divide the charge.

Brandon Sanderson

It can divide the charge although it makes it much harder to, yeah.

Paleo

But is it actually physical... is the charge concentrated physically at one point or is it more like a gas so it diffuses?

Brandon Sanderson

It diffuses.

Paleo

Do you actually store something related to...do you store the actual attribute or do you only store like an Investiture representation of an amount...

Brandon Sanderson

You store the Investiture representation.

Paleo

So the metal is just the focus that says this will turn into this.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Paleo

Then I was wondering about the Dysian Aimians or the Sleepless. Do they reproduce at all, and if so how does it work? Like is it that one... is it asexual if they do?

Brandon Sanderson

So they reproduce, yes. But reproduction for them has a variety of terms. They can breed specific cremlings for specific purposes over time if they want to. They can also exchange cremlings if they need to, in order to improve their genetic diversity. Creating a new one is a different experience but yes. In fact, they... I've written sections, not for the books yet but where I talk about them developing and over evolving one of their cremlings to do something new.

Paleo

Okay. If they do reproduce does it require two of them or is it more like they breed enough and then they split one off.

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO for now, but the individual's consciousness is an interesting thing for them.

Paleo

Does aluminum actually store Identity or is it more like a sink so you just dump it in and it poofs away.

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that for now. Sorry, I want to get into that eventually.

Paleo

You also said... somebody asked whether there are points in Shadesmar where you could instantly travel across diametrically opposed points on a planet.

Brandon Sanderson

Right, there has to be.

Paleo

Of course, I heard topology last year in university and it's all about mappings and stuff like that and so I was wondering just how continuous - if you know math term - the mapping from like the Physical Realm to the Cognitive Realm is.

Brandon Sanderson

It's not very. You'll notice already elevation is not mapped, you can find points in the books already where someone appears closer to the sea level and things so it's not very... there's a lot of bending going on and it gets worse or more obvious the further the series goes. Not a one to one correlation, not even close.

Paleo

So it's not just that it's very compressed it actually doesn't match some things.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, no. Imagine that things in the Physical Realm are mapping to places in the Cognitive Realm but not, they're not alternate dimensions of one another that are overlapping one to one.

Paleo

On the Discord also they tried to... because the moon is always like on the horizon and they did the math and technically it's possible but it would have to change its inclination I think through one hundred degrees every turn. Is it natural or is it also maintained by...

Brandon Sanderson

It is also maintained by the system. We ran the math on that one too. It, like, the Rosharans also are not in a stable orbit but this one's even less in a stable orbit, let's just say that.

Paleo

Somebody did like the universe simulator thing and somebody ran it to Roshar and they said it crashed into each other.

Brandon Sanderson

I mean they would, we find we got like ten, no like a hundred thousand years before it happens but yeah, the moons are very not stable on Roshar, let's just say that. I'm not convinced that the continent is stable either. On geological terms I don't think... if Roshar were as old as Earth is, you would not have a continent, is what I think. Even with the crem and stuff.

Paleo

The crem isn't enough... you said before that it shifts east?

Brandon Sanderson

That's what I think, I haven't done the math but that's what my instinct says that it wouldn't be enough. But we'll leave that for people who actually run the math until they... because I do not have time to get a degree in ecological science.

Paleo

We also know that Taldain is not natural, the placement, tidally locked. It can happen naturally but it is not natural for it. You also said it was done by somebody, was it Autonomy or was it Adonalsium?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Paleo

In May, in Germany, you told me that... or I asked whether Wisdom was a Shard, and you said it was or something like it, and that wisdom was close to an intent of a Shard, and you also told me that it has realized that survival isn't necessarily the most important thing for it. I wanted to ask whether it has realized that over time or was it from the get go?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time.

Paleo

Okay, so then naturally, my next question: Is it the survival Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Paleo

And then somebody actually came up with another good probable name. Is Prudence close?

Brandon Sanderson

Prudence sounds an awful lot like a Shard name. That's some excellent theorizing there.

Paleo

So we know that aluminum resists Investiture or blocks Investiture in some cases. Does it act like radiation protection like lead or something that actually gets deteriorated while it's resisting something or is it like, does it just interfere?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, good question.

Questioner

I read Mistborn: Secret History and you put some stuff from Elantris and I love it. In second Elantris will we see some?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, we will.

Questioner

Do you need to love writing to be a writer?

Brandon Sanderson

I think a lot of writers hate writing so I don't think it's required. I know a lot of writers who hate writing but love to have written if that makes sense. A lot of writers do love writing but a lot of writers love to have written.

Questioner

Do you think, at the end of Calamity, did Nighthawk ever get his wife back?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, he did. There's just a little bit more to that story than that answer, though.

Questioner

Is trellium, the metal that Paalm uses, an alloy of atium or any other god metal.

Brandon Sanderson

Is the metal that is being used a god metal? It is at least a god metal hybrid. There is a god metal component to it.

Questioner

Can any Allomancer burn atium?

Brandon Sanderson

Can any Allomancer burn atium? Atium, no. Asterisk but no. There is a reason why. But no, they cannot.

Questioner

Is Hoid real, or is he just a fantasy form.

Brandon Sanderson

Is Hoid real? Hoid is real in the books.

Questioner

In the books, yes. So the characters are not hallucinating him.

Brandon Sanderson

They're not hallucinating him. We're not pulling a Fight Club or anything on you.

Questioner

I was interested if, the Wax character, if he was inspired a little by Sams Vimes by Terry Pratchett.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, absolutely. Vimes had a deep effect on me as a writer so any time I'm writing a copper you'll end up with some Vimes but I'd say Wax has a little extra Vimes, so does Dalinar, Dalinar's got a bit of Vimes in him to.

Snoxcatko

Roshar--it's obviously, it is or it seems to be in the Southern Hemisphere. Is there something else in the world?

Brandon Sanderson

There are no other continents. It's not completely--it is Southern Hemisphere--but I think we inch up above the equator, don't we?

Isaac Stewart

Just a bit, just the islands. They kinda curve over the equator.

Brandon Sanderson

There are no other continents but there might be other smaller landmasses.

Oversleep

Why do Fused accelerate slower than the Surgebinders?

Brandon Sanderson

Fused accelerate [slower than] Surgebinder's because they're expending less energy.

Oversleep

It doesn't have to do with the Braize gravity?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it does not have to do with Braize's gravity, that's a good question. That's actually a really clever way to ask.

Oversleep

Yeah, cause I thought the planet was smaller so.

Brandon Sanderson

Clever, very clever but no, it is not to do with that. You'll find other explanations but they can expend less energy, they can afford to spend less energy. They can only afford to expend a little bit of energy so that's the way to say it.

Oversleep

Okay now I have one about Shard avatars, like Autonomy's. Is it possible for one to form without the Shard's Vessel directly making it, so independent...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it is. They would be aware of it, however. They couldn't not be aware of it, but it could arise without their direct and conscious decision to do so.

Oversleep

And the one on First of the Sun, is it by Autonomy's direct...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is directly created.

Questioner

Before the Shattering, were people already able to worldhop from Yolen to the other planets like Roshar, and so on?

Brandon Sanderson

It was possible, it did not happen nearly on the extent that it happens now. It's possible. I would say that, I don't know if there, yeah very very very few instances.

Questioner

Lightweaving on Roshar, is it more of a Physical thing or Cognitive Realm thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Lightweaving? I would say it's a hybrid between the two.

Questioner

So there's a Physical effect, but also a Cognitive component to that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, and then even a little bit of a Spiritual component. Lightweaving tends to involve, I'd say it's mostly Physical. Mostly you're not changing what someone's mind is, but you're actually changing light. Mostly Physical, but Lightweaving in particular has a lot like- you'll see weird things happening with Lightweaving on occasion, that are kind of a little bit of Cognitive and Spiritual influence that's happening. So keep your eyes on that. Yeah, I would say, if you're asking is light actually being changed yes, it is.

Questioner

Are the Shards ever going to be bonded like the spren?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, here's your RAFO card.

Questioner

So after Nightblood was used pretty obviously in Thaylen City does Zahel [or Vasher] know?

Brandon Sanderson

Where Nightblood is? Zahel is pretty sure where Nightblood is; Vivenna does not know. She's on the look out let's say.

Questioner

I guess it's hard to get back from Shadesmar.

Brandon Sanderson

It is. She had some plans and that didn't work out.

Questioner

I have a question for the world of Steelheart. How do the electric sockets work if everything is steel?

Brandon Sanderson

How do the electric sockets work? They needed to be rebuilt for the electric sockets to work, but you can also get down far enough where the builders, the machines, have rebuilt everything and so that wouldn't all have been turned to steel. Some of that has been dug out and reworked and rebuilt. There are some pretty crazy things that happened. 

Questioner

Another friend, she wanted to know about if you ever heard about Warhammer-esque game based on your books, like the Shadow Titan for example at Quality Games?

Brandon Sanderson

I have indeed. I have considered and thought about it. Whether it will happen or not we're not sure, but I think that a Shattered Plains war game is likely at some point.

Questioner

So I wanted to know if the asteroid belts around some planets are because of Splintering of a Shard there?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, one more time. If the what?

Questioner

Asteroids belts around some planets.

Brandon Sanderson

Are caused by the Splintering of Shards? So the Splintering of Shards has had cosmological effects; you should not assume that most asteroid belts are caused by the Splintering of a Shard.

Questioner

Yeah, you know most of the planets, I think all of the planets where the Shards were Splintered have asteroid belts. So is it like the physical manifestation of the Splintering?

Brandon Sanderson

You should not assume that all planets that have that are the result of a Splintering of a Shard but the Splintering of a Shard can have such an effect.

Questioner

So, the establishing of the Knights Radiant followed up the Surgebinders. So I had a question about Renarin - Is he closer to the modern day Radiants power-wise, or the pre-Knights Radiant Surgebinders?

Brandon Sanderson

Renarin?

Questioner

Because he's weird right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he is weird. Is he closer to pre-Knights Radiant Surgebinders or to modern Knights Radiant? I'd say closer to modern Knights Radiant, is what I would say... but it's a tough call.