Brandonology

The Coppermind has spoilers for all of Brandon's published works, now including The Sunlit Man. Information about books that have not yet been released, like Stormlight 5, is allowed only on meta-pages for the books themselves. For more details, see our spoiler policy. To view an earlier version of the wiki without spoilers for a book, go to the Time Machine!

This is the Brandonothology. It is a collection of interviews and answers that have been gathered, and in the ultimate source in Brandon Sanderson unique information. After looking at the mess that was the old Brandonothology, I decided it was time for some changes. Now the pages are seperated by series. If you just want to read about the cosmere, you’re welcome to do so. If you really need to read about why he wrote the Way of Kings, you can find it without looking through the entire thing.

I am zas678, and am most often found at 17thshard.com, the Official Brandon Sanderson Fansite, and the perfect place to discuss the cosmere with fellow fans of Brandon Sanderson’s works. If you find any discrepancies, tell me there.

If you don’t want to miss a single detail, read it here on the Brandonothology.

The Annotation files that I have are linked to the individual book pages. If you are worried about Spoilers, follow the publication guide below. Brandon doesn't spoil his books before hand, so if you only read up to where you've read, you'll be fine.

HoA Thread

http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=6655.0

October 2008

Quote from: Kirrin on October 14, 2008, 10:18:21 PM Just wanted to say, great work on the book. It kept me completely occupied from around 11 am to 8 pm and i have got to say that it had the most well thought out ending ever put into a book.

Also, do you have any plans for more mistborn books? or is this the end? And what happened to Marsh? The book doesnt mention him after he fights with Elend.

also, you should tell us what the last two metals are Okay, I was expecting these. Let's get to them first.

1) More Mistborn Books My plans right now are to do a second trilogy of Mistborn books set several hundred years after the events of the first series. That means that technology would have progressed, and there's a good chance I'll decide to do the books as kind of an urban fantasy. (But set in a completely different world from our own, so not quite like other urban fantasies.) Guns, skyscrapers, cars--and Allomancy.

Now, I'm not 100% decided on that. I know that adding modern technology ruins the fantasy flavor of a book for many people, so I'll have to think about it. But I think the imagery would be compelling, and I would love to deal with a 'modern' world where the events of this trilogy form the foundation for the religions, history, and society of the book. It would be a really challenge, since I'd have to decide how technology and society developed following this book.

2) Marsh is alive. I changed this from when I talked to Ookla. I realized some things about his use of Allomancy that would allow him to survive. Actually, he is immortal. He can pull off the same Allomancy/Feruchemy trick that the Lord Ruler did. (And he knows it too, since he was there when Sazed explained how it was done in Book One.) He's actually the only living person who actually knows this trick for certain. (Though there's a chance that Spook, Ham and Breeze heard about it from Vin and the others.) So yes, if there were another series, Marsh would make an appearance.

The last two metals are Chromium and Nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a Nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

Quote from: Agate on October 15, 2008, 04:16:29 AM I can guess 2 possible ptions for the kandra. 1. God Sazed endowed the gift of presence on the now mistwraiths. 2. Some of the Kandra survived in the cave with the Terrisman and people of the city, along with the small mistwraiths, these are re-born with the spikes they pulled out during the resolution. I can imagine too that some kandra on assignment may have hidden in the shelters with the rest of humanity. The Kandra.

Yes, they live. The people were smart enough, eventually, to replace their spikes. (And there were a couple who were on assignment who made it to storage caches.)

However, there will likely never be any more of them, since Hemalurgy is required to make them. They are now some of the few people who can communicate directly with Sazed, who--like Ruin--can whisper to people most easily when they are connected to him via spikes. With some speculation, you can probably guess what kind of roles the Kandra will end up playing in future books.

Quote from: kaimipono on October 15, 2008, 05:55:55 AM -On a broader level, is hemalurgy officially dead, then? Or is it still extant in some Ruin-free (but still messy) form? (If it's gone, is there any imbalance since Preservation's magic power is kept and Ruin's isn't?)

-Also, are koloss just naturally bad-tempered, even without Ruin's influence? Cause the koloss are still taking swipes at Sazed immediately after the merger.

-(And, does Sazed zap all the koloss? Did they all get toasted by the sun? But what about Human and his friends underground? Are there still koloss around? Just wonderin'.)

1) Is Hemalurgy dead? No, not at all. It, like the other two powers, was not created by Ruin or Preservation, but by the natural state of the world and its interaction with the gods who created it. It still requires the same method of creation, but very few people are aware of how it works.

2) Koloss were bad tempered before Ruin's influence, though he certainly made them worse. They were designed by the Lord Ruler to be aggressive, so aggressive that they would destroy themselves if they got loose and away from him. (This was intentional. Note that he didn't give the spark of humanity in them enough credit, and they managed to overcome this and 'evolve' in a way to keep their species going, even after he died.)

There ARE still koloss around, though many of them were vaporized. Human is alive. Sazed took pity on them, however, and they have been transformed. They are now a race that breeds true, like the Kandra, and have different thought processes from what they once had. You'll see more of them in the sequel series.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 15, 2008, 06:28:50 AM 1. The metal chunk that Elend ate is intended to be something of a mystery. Much like atium, actually. Suffice it to say that Atium isn't, and never was, what people thought it was. I intended Allomancy to be much like a real science. People investigate and put things into boxes, trying to describe and understand the world around them. That doesn't mean they always get things right, however.

Let me say this, as I don't want to spoil too much. If that metal Elend ate were fused into specific alloys with certain metals, it could have instead created Mistings of each of the different Allomantic powers. Atium's abilities are not entirely explored yet either.

2. Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy all work as they once did. However, now they are more directly affected by the presence or absence of the mists, which will slowly return to the world but not be of the extent they once were. (The mists are now an extent of Sazed's power, and where they roam, he is better able to influence things. There will also be two kinds of mists.) Note that in the future, Feruchemy powers will start to fracture and split, creating Feruchemical "Mistings."

Yes, this means that in the future series, it will be possible for a person to have one Allomantic power and one Feruchemical power. It will create for some very interesting mixing of powers.

3. The Terris prophesies were created by Preservation before he attempted his imprisonment. He knew that he wouldn't be able to do much for the world after he did what he did, and he foresaw a LOT of what was to come.

4. Way before Alendi's time. Hence the need for the prophesies. But Ruin managed to corrupt them.

Quote from: Vaelith on October 15, 2008, 10:21:36 AM I would like to echo a question that someone beat me to. The way you ended it seemed to leave the door wide open for other books with characters such as Spook and Breeze playing much larger rolls. My question is was the ending planned as just an open-ended ending to make people wonder about what might happen, or was that with the intent of writing more books in mind?

I like it when my characters live on in people's minds. I have no plans right now to write any more books about Spook or Breeze, though what they do in the next period of time will create the history for the next series. However, there's a chance I'll change my mind on this. However, this ending was not set up for another book specifically. I just wanted to tell the best ending I could, and this is how it turned out.

Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 15, 2008, 11:53:39 AM I know.

The real story is that Brandon was writing (or revising?) Way of Kings when Tor offered to buy Elantris. Brandon signed a two-book contract for Elantris and Way of Kings. Then Brandon realized he wasn't in the point in his career yet where he could write Way of Kings the way he wanted to, so while he was supposed to be revising Way of Kings he secretly wrote the first Mistborn book instead, which he then sold to Tor as a trilogy, replacing Way of Kings in the original contract.

But for some reason Amazon already had a listing for Way of Kings, with a release date. Thence the fake reviews.

I've read an early draft of the first book, and it aims to be very epic. (No, Elvis is not involved.) I do wonder, though, whether when it actually comes out, the fake reviews will get attached to its Amazon listing.

This is all true. Note that the book would not be name The Way of Kings. Most likely, I'm going to make that the series name. So I guess the book "The Way of Kings" must be some kind of parallel novel or prequel or something...

Quote from: zchance on October 15, 2008, 02:28:45 PM I'm surprised no one else has asked but does this new world have atium? If atium was the body of Ruin then it would seem when Sazed took up Ruins power he would have reabsorbed all of the atium. New atium then would be bits of Sazed's new powers and weaken him with each newly formed bead. It would seem then that if atium exists it would be much rarer, and mean that Sazed would not be able to control this process.

I guess I am trying to understand why he would want to allow any Atium to make its way into the hands of people or rather out of his control?

It's theoretically possible for Atium to appear in the future, but right now Sazed has no plans to release any of it to the people. It is, effectively, now something of myth and legend.

Quote from: happyman on October 15, 2008, 02:31:47 PM Quote 3) The last two metals are Chromium and Nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a Nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.

The simplest idea is that they do to another person what Aluminum and Duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them. If this is true, then Chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while Nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash. This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.

Nicely done.

Ookla is right, the others don't have 1/1 correlations. But I liked this concept far too much not to use it.

In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings--however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a Nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Misthings.

Quote from: Dalenthas on October 15, 2008, 04:45:24 PM Hi, new here, registered just so I could ask some questions:

1) Will we get a map of what the new world? Or do we have to wait for the next trilogy, whenever that may be?

2) When the Mists come back, will they continue Snapping people?

3) Was Reen named that specifically because its so close sounding to Ruin, or is that a coincidence?

4) Did the Lord Ruler have any Hemalurgic spikes in him? It would seem he'd need to for Ruin to influence him, but it wasn't mentioned. Or did his bracers work as spikes?

5) Was TenSoon more susceptable to Ruin's powers than the other Kandra because he took OreSeur's Blessings?

6) Did Sazed leave information about how his new religion should be run for Spook and the others to find? His note to Spook implies that there is an afterlife...

7) With all the talk about action and reaction and whatnot, will some force form to counter Sazed's new Ruin/Preservation mix? It seems to me like the whole nature of the world can't stand to have one person unnopposed.

Does the Well of Ascension still exsit in the new world? Or is it no longer necessary? I assumed that Preservation collected there like Ruin collects in the Pits of Hathsin, so if Atium keeps forming then the well should keep filling...

9) Was Kelsier under Ruin's influence as well? It seems to me that destroying the Pits of Hathsin (and thus preventing Ruin's power from leaking) is something that Ruin would want to happen...

Ok, that's enough questions for now...

1) You'll have to wait, I'm afraid. The future series is still far off. I can't dedicate resources to getting a map drawn up until I begin work on the series officially.

2) No. The mists will revert back to their more neutral state.

3) Coincidence.

4) His arm bracers, which pierced his skin, were his spikes.

5) Yes, he was. However, the Blessing of Presence actually enhanced his mind to make him more resistant, so they balanced out.

6) Sazed didn't immediately leave this, as he was too focused on other things. The next period of time will be difficult for Sazed, as he essentially sees himself as an avatar of deity--the force of Preservation--and not God with an upper case letter. He's still not sure what Truth is 100%. And there is an afterlife, but it's probably not what you're thinking. In other words, Sazed has not touched Heaven or Hell, and actually doesn't yet know what the final beyond contains. He has, however, run into some people who have been sticking around something of a middle place. It's related to the larger cosmology, and I'm afraid that I'll need to RAFO anything further.

7) Ruin and Preservation were not the only Shards of Adonalsium, though they are the only ones on Scadrial at the moment. Sazed's ability to be both at once is actually something I drew from Eastern mythology, where it is believed that the ability to contain two opposing forces at the same time represents ultimate harmony. The Buddha, for instance, was said to have performed the miracle of producing both fair and ice from his hands at the same time.

8 ) The Well (and the small wells in the Pits) is no more. For now at least.

There is a short story forthcoming which will deal with Kelsier, the days after he Snapped, his training, and what influence (if any) Ruin had on him. Most likely, this will appear in the Mistborn RPG coming out next year. So I'm afraid that's a RAFO.

Quote from: Sylos on October 15, 2008, 05:11:50 PM Question about Atium and Duralumin

I was happy when Elend finally burned Duralumin with Atium. I was holding my breath hoping that someone would eventually do it. However we didn't really get any info as to what Elend experienced. Does a Duralumin enchanced atium burn allow a person to see significantly farther into the future. If so, being that Elend's army was dying all around him did he get to see into the afterlife . Also if you could tell us what he saw that would be awesome. Did something he saw make him not want to avoid Marshes strike.

On a similar note if someone bured electrum with duralumin would they get to see significantly into thier own future.

There is much here that I can't say, but I'll give as much as I can. Elend saw Preservation's ultimate plan, and Elend's own part in it. What he saw made him realize he didn't want to kill Marsh, and that his own death would actually help save the world. Like a master chess player, he suddenly saw and understand every possible move his enemy could make. He saw that Ruin was check-mated, because there was one thing that Ruin was not willing to do. Something that both Elend and Vin could do, if needed. And it's what they did.

So, in answer to your question, Elend stayed his hand. This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind and decided that Marsh had to live through the end of the book. Elend spared him; I needed to too.

Quote from: kaimipono on October 15, 2008, 05:13:52 PM Another minor question --

What was Zane's hemalurgical power? (Or was he just spiked for control?)

Extra power with Pushing on metals. It lent him extremely great precision.

Quote from: AhoyMatey on October 15, 2008, 09:22:43 PM Just finished the series. It was awesome. As is everything I've ever read of Brandon's. Can't wait for AMoL and other stories. I've read two versions of Warbreaker (including the latest) and will buy the hardcover when it's released. It'll be money well spent. And Somebody should have a long career ahead of them....

Brandon, I just wanted to confirm that you did have a couple of cameos as Slowswift? Or was that mean to be someone else?

Thank you very much for the kind words!

Slowswift is an homage to Grandpa Tolkien. A study of his personality will reveal why that name was chosen for him.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 15, 2008, 09:29:39 PM I'm pretty sure Slowswift is Hoid. The Ars Arcanum says he "bears a striking resemblance to a storyteller", which I take to mean Hoid.

Hoid appears in that same chapter, but Vin doesn't meet him. Something he does spooks her. She's just too darn observant for her own good.

Quote from: lostknight on October 15, 2008, 10:55:03 PM I am curious if any changes were made to the story after you got AMoL or after the Name of the Wind was published? The style hasn't changed, but the story seemed to flow much better this time around.

Actually, no. This one was finished off back before I knew anything of AMoL or before I'd read Name of the Wind. Hopefully, the smoothing is a result of me trying to work out kinks in my storytelling ability. I'm learning to distance out my climax chapters, for instance. (I think I've I'd have written this book years ago, I'd have tried to overlay Spook's climactic sequence with the ending ones, for instance, which would have been a mistake.)

Also, of the three books, I worked the hardest on this one. Choosing that ending--even though I'd planned it for some time--was very difficult. I knew that it would anger some readers. I also knew that it was the right ending for the series.

I'm glad it worked for you.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 16, 2008, 12:35:00 AM Very interesting about the Nicrosil.

So, if there is no more atium, then that would mean in any future trilogy, there would only be 14 metals, right? Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but maybe that is because it irks me that one quartet to be left incomplete with the absence of atium.

Would it be possible for Sazed to create a replacement metal, by chance, or will the temporal quartet remain inherently empty? It doesn't seem like it's too far of a stretch for Sazed to make more metals: after all, the metal Elend ate was a fragment of Preservation, and now Sazed holds Preservation.

Quote 7) Ruin and Preservation were not the only Shards of Adonalsium, though they are the only ones on Scadrial at the moment.

Is "Scadrial" the proper name to refer to the Mistborn world?

On a replacement metal: That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

Scadrial is indeed the name of the planet.

Quote from: TyranAmiros on October 16, 2008, 12:43:59 AM Thanks for answering our questions! I'm looking forward to meeting you in a couple weeks at the San Diego signing!

1) How/why did you decide to go with Sazed as the epigraph author? I'll admit I was absolutely positive it was going to be Rashek, if only because of the parallelism (ancient story in epigraphs/modern story in text). 2) What happened to Kwaan? I was half expecting to see him amongst the kandra First Generation. 3) How technologically advanced was the society before the Final Empire? You reference gunpowder, and certainly the current day seems to have technologies like canning and clocks, so how much did Rashek destroy? 4) Do any structures/cities still exist after Sazed's ascention? Or do the survivors need to start from scratch?

1) I chose Sazed because I felt that Rashek would have just been too obvious. I wanted this book to look toward the future, particularly with the ending. The epigraphs have been a fun and unique part of these books, and I wanted to make sure the ones in the third book were as good as the ones in the first two books. Also, there's a theme--there's always a secret in the epigraphs. In the first one, it's that Rashek was really the Lord Ruler. In the second book, it was the textual changes hinting that Ruin was manipulating the prophesies. In the third book, I wanted to have an equally surprising reveal to the epigraphs, and knew that it had to be something different from the other two. Hence Sazed. (Plus, I really wanted to dig into answering some world questions that I felt couldn't be answered by anyone other than Sazed.)

2) Kwaan went into hiding, and he was eventually discovered and executed by Rashek. He wasn't among the First Generation, though he would have been if he hadn't turned against Rashek. Rashek kept the plate, however, just as he kept Alendi's logbook. Partially because even then, Rashek was going a little mad, but partially because of the reminders about his old life they contained.

3) They had steam technology, and were just about to hit the railroad era. Something near early 1800s in our world.

Start from scratch! Good thing there is building materials in some of the storage caches....

Quote from: VegasDev on October 16, 2008, 01:12:53 AM Alendi's "Piercings of the Hero"?

The other lake in Alendi's bumps?

Spook gets repaired, does Cett get his legs?

Was there ever anything to Reen's obsidian?

1) This is part of the manipulation Ruin did during the classical era on Scadrial, before the coming of the Lord Ruler. Piercings, and Hemalurgy, were part of the world before the coming of Allomancy in its modern form. Then, they were seen as a means of communicating with deity--which, indeed, they were. Ruin manipulated this to make sure any Hero of Ages who came would be under his influence. The reference is included mostly to indicate that yes, Alendi was under Ruin's influence. He ignored Rashek, though. (At least, right up to the moment when everything went 'wrong' for Ruin, when Rashek killed his chosen Hero of Ages.)

2) A manifestation of Ruin's gathered consciousness, much like the dark mists in book two. The lake was still around in Vin's era, but had been moved under ground. (Note that the Well is a very similar manifestation. You've also seen one other manifestation like this....)

3) To give humankind the best shot at survival, Sazed repaired all genetic defects and physical ailments in the people who were in the storage caches. So yes, Cett can walk. He was so shocked by this that he spent the entire epilogue walking around in the cavern, marveling.

Reen's obsidian was a memento from his father, the parent he didn't share with Vin. I carried a small piece of obsidian like this for many years. It has no story function other than being important to Vin as a keepsake.

Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 16, 2008, 01:24:13 AM Quote If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work... Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like Malatium and Electrum works like Atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

Quote from: Qarlin on October 16, 2008, 02:10:23 AM 1) Who were Ruin and Preservation? I mean, when they died, they had bodies, like Vin. And you went as far as to describe their hair color (Red and Black, respectively). Preservation even had a prominent nose. Why describe their dead bodies, if they weren't at one time mortals themselves? They created humans, but were at one time human themselves?

2) I'm sad Ten Soon never got to talk to Vin again, since it was apparent they both missed each other.

3) Lemme guess, the "Mistborn" following Vin was actually Ruin, since Elend never actually saw him, and he disappeared every time Vin got close? 4) Why did Ruin give off Allomantic Pulses? Because Preservation did and they're two sides of the same coin? Allomancy is of Preservation, so I figured that's why he did...

5) A modern world update for a future mistborn trilogy prolly wouldn't involve as much metal, unless mistings were rare, which apparently will not be the case. I'm thinking more like plastics, ceramics, fiberglass, and silicon. I mean for cars and guns and all that.

Numbers added above by me.

1) RAFO. (Sorry.) 2) Remember that TenSoon, with spikes, can communicate more easily with those on the other side.... 3) Yes. 4) Manifestation of the awesome power he held, mixed with Vin's increased ability to sense these things. Allomantic pulses are like a ripple of sound in the fabric of creation itself--the power of creation being used, creating a drum beat to those attuned to it. Ruin created a similar beat when his conciousness was near.

Yes and no. For the rich, this would be an option. But much like using metal weapons in the Mistborn world, it isn't always an option for everyone. You will see both.

Quote from: darxbane on October 16, 2008, 06:53:45 AM Regarding Hemalurgy:

1) In an annotation from book 1, it is mentioned that The Lord Ruler needed all 3 magic systems in order to do what he did. I always assumed that it meant his Hemalurgy enhanced his Allomancy. Did Marsh get a double power, or is the Feruchemy-Allomancy combo enough? ( a sidebar to this question is whether or not stacking abilities is possible through Hemalurgy).

2) Did Vin's mother actually have a spike, or was she so crazy that one wasn't necessary for Ruin to influence her?

3) When the Kandra get their spikes back, do they remember who they were, or have they been "rebooted"?

1) He used Hemalurgy to pull off his most dramatic effects. Marsh didn't need them, but it makes things much easier.

2) She was crazy enough on her own.

They remember, though some things are vague or foggy in their minds. Depends on the individual.

Quote from: flinn on October 16, 2008, 07:31:22 AM i would like to ask you one thing to consider when writing endings. fantasy is an escape, please dont ruin it with such depressing endings. when you have had the opportunity to look upon your dead wife in her coffin, reading about others dying isnt fun at all. it is absolutely terrible. happily ever after.

I understand your anger. I wrote the ending that felt most appropriate to me for this book and series. I didn't find it depressing at all, personally. But people have reacted this way about every ending I've written.

I won't always do it, I promise. But I have to trust my instincts and write the stories the way they feel right to me. I didn't 'kill off' Vin and Elend in my mind. I simply let them take risks and make the sacrifices they needed to. It wasn't done to avoid cliché or to be part of a cliché, or to be shocking or surprising, or to be interesting or poetic--it was done because that was the story as I saw it.

I will keep this in mind, though. I know it's not what a lot of people want to read. Know that I didn't do it to try to shock you or prove anything. And because of that, if a more traditionally happy ending is something that a story requires, I'll do that--even if it means the people on the other side of the fence from you will point fingers at me for being clichéd in that regard as well.

If it helps, realize that one of the reasons I added the lines in Sazed's note was to let the characters live on for those who wanted them to live on. I ALMOST didn't have Spook even discover the bodies, leaving it more ambiguous.

Quote from: happyman on October 16, 2008, 02:40:40 PM Here's another question:

In one of the bumps, Sazed mentions a discussion between Vin and Ruin in which Vin asks Ruin why she was chosen to release him from the Well. Did this discussion occur in the in-between afterlife where Vin, Elend, Kelsier, etc., were, or did it occur off-screen while Vin and Ruin were busy stopping each other from affecting the world?

Yes, as has been pointed out, that's in the text--unless I cut it during editing for pacing issues. If I did, the conversation still happened, but it just didn't get shown on screen.

Quote from: Dalenthas on October 16, 2008, 03:34:19 PM Another question came to mind: Were the epigraphs meant to be in order? If so, reading them all straight through it seems Sazed keeps going off on tangents, seems more stream of conciousness than we're used to seeing from Saze...

They are in order, but there are large gaps of text left out. So you're not getting the whole thing, just the 'good parts' versions. That's why it feels jumpy.

Quote from: kaimipono on October 16, 2008, 07:44:36 PM A few more questions, mostly minor, one major:

1. What was Vin _supposed_ to do at the end of WoA? How exactly did not-using the power, end up releasing Ruin? I still don't get how that all worked. Can you explain it?

Minor q's:

2. If Sazed is the HoA, then who is the Announcer?

3. Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium -- it's fueled by _both_ gods' bodies?

4. Why exactly do some spike removals kill (dual eye, or central spike) but most don't?

5. Did Zane get spiked intentionally? Did someone else (Straff?) know about hemalurgy?

6. Very minor question -- was Reen a misting or mistborn, and if so, did he end up as a spike in an inquisitor somewhere?

1. What was she supposed to do? Well, this is difficult to answer, since the prophesies have been changed and shifted so much. Originally, the prophesies intended for a person to go take the power every thousand years and become a protector of mankind for a period of time. Someone to keep an eye on Ruin in Preservation's absence and watch over the world as he would have done. Imagine an avatar who arrives every thousand years and lives for their lifetime blessing the people with the power of Preservation, renewing Ruin's prison, and generally being a force for protection. (Note that Ruin wouldn't have gotten out if the prison wasn't renewed, he'd simply have been able to touch the world a little bit more.) Obviously, it changed a LOT during the years that Ruin was playing with things.

What should she have done? Well, Ruin's release was inevitable. Even if she hadn't let him go, the world would have 'wound down' eventually. The ashfalls would have grown worse over the centuries, and the next buildup of the Well might not have come in time for them to do anything. Or, perhaps, mankind would have found a way to adapt. But Ruin was going to get himself out eventually, so the choice Vin made was all right. There weren't really any good choices at this point. She could have decided to take the power and become a 'good' Lord Ruler, trying to keep the world from falling apart. Of course, she would have had to make herself immortal with Hemalurgy to make that work right. And since she was already tainted, chances are good she wouldn't have ended up any better than the Lord Ruler himself.

2. The Announcer was a fabrication of Ruin intended to reinforce the person HE wanted to be the Hero.

3. The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak--though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that--using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself--to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

4. For the same reason that a bullet through one part of the body will kill you, but getting shot somewhere else won't. The physical form of a person who has undergone a Hemalurgic transformation is no longer what we think of it. The direct connection to Preservation starts keeping them alive. (Imagine stapling someone's soul to another person's soul, their life essence, then stapling that to the power of creation itself, giving you a conduit directly to power, letting you leech it and steal it.) That power keeps you alive, despite the wounds. Some of the time, the other staples are enough to keep you alive, even if one is pulled out. Others are too important.

5. Zane spiked himself. It was...a very twisted and messy process. Note that Ruin tries to get Spook to do something similar. It's much easier for him to work with someone to get them to spike themselves than it is to arrange the exact circumstances where someone gets spiked.

Reen had no Allomantic powers, I'm afraid. His father was skaa. (He was Vin's half-brother, if you recall.) And yes, he is dead.

Quote from: douglas on October 17, 2008, 11:33:16 AM Quote from: EUOL on October 15, 2008, 01:10:49 PM 2) Marsh is alive. I changed this from when I talked to Ookla. I realized some things about his use of Allomancy that would allow him to survive. Actually, he is immortal. He can pull off the same Allomancy/Feruchemy trick that the Lord Ruler did. (And he knows it too, since he was there when Sazed explained how it was done in Book One.) He's actually the only living person who actually knows this trick for certain. (Though there's a chance that Spook, Ham and Breeze heard about it from Vin and the others.) So yes, if there were another series, Marsh would make an appearance.

I thought that trick required atium and involved burning the atium. With all the atium gone and Sazed not making any more, it would therefore not be possible even for a full mistborn/feruchemist. Am I wrong, is Sazed providing atium specifically for Marsh to allow a friend and valuable servant to survive, or what?

Quote from: EUOL on October 16, 2008, 12:07:58 AM In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings--however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a Nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Misthings.

I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?

1. Marsh has the bag of Atium that KanPaar sent to be sold, as well as several nuggets in his stomach. So, I guess 'immortal' is the wrong phrase. He's got the only remaining atium in the world and can keep himself around for a long, long while--but he WILL eventually run out. Unless Sazed does something.

Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.

Quote from: VegasDev on October 17, 2008, 01:07:02 PM Quote from: EUOL on October 17, 2008, 01:02:03 PM 2) Kwaan went into hiding, and he was eventually discovered and executed by Rashek. He wasn't among the First Generation, though he would have been if he hadn't turned against Rashek.

I'm assuming you meant Alendi hunted him down because he turned against Alendi. Or did Kwaan also turn against Rashek?

No, I meant that he turned against Rashek. Remember, the members of the First Generation were offered immortality in exchange for their Hemalurgy . They had to make this choice for all of the world's Feruchemists. Because his uncle had been the one who gave Rashek the chance to become the Lord Ruler in the first place, Rashek blessed him and included him in the decision. (Speaking directly into his mind along with the others during Rashek's moment of ascension.)

Rashek was the only one who turned down this offer, calling it a betrayal of who they were as a people. Rashek could have just made him one anyway, but in a moment of anger, he tried to destroy Kwaan--which he couldn't do, not with Preservation's power. As the other Feruchemists changed, Kwaan remained the same. Rashek eventually hunted him down and killed him.

Quote from: Xandeis on October 16, 2008, 10:59:56 PM First off, WHAT A GREAT STORY!!! Though I am both sadden and disappointed that it has , alas, come to a completion...or has it??? I think it may be pointless to do a spin-off, but who else could pull off such a masterful storyline than Brandon?? Of course, it is HIS story...but I hope that we get to see the New Empire, and who knows maybe we, the fans, can convince him, Brandon, to bring back the gang! I for one would love to see Kel and El go at it!!! Second, I am a bit confused as to why Vin and El had to die. I could careless about the other characters, but it seems to me that the more dynamic the character, the more likely his or her life will be in jeopardy! And Saze, though it fits the stereotypical conclusion, he actually was the best person to become god! I just don't see why he didn't get the full understanding about the prophesy until the end! Third, is there anyone out there other than me that would pay to see this in theaters?? Xan'deis

Well, I'd sure pay to see it in theaters!

To be more serious, I think this series--particularly the first book--is quite cinematic. I'd love to sell movie rights on it, assuming I can find the right people to work with. So if you have any contacts, let me know.

Quote from: firstRainbowRose on October 17, 2008, 12:46:04 AM I also really loved that there's an "cameo" for Kel at the end... that made me really happy to see.

Glad you liked the book, Rainbow!

You may want to note that the moment Preservation dropped out and let the last of his consciousness die, someone was waiting in the Cognitive Realm to seize the power and hold on for a short period until Vin could take it up more fully. You'll find him using it to whisper in moments of great stress in the book, to one person in specific in two places. (I'll bet someone on here has already found them.)

He never could just let things well enough alone....

Quote from: GreedyAlgorithm on October 17, 2008, 11:59:10 AM Brandon, I'd like to see a timeline of when you fleshed out the parts of the cosmology we know about. I'd imagine Allomancy came before you fit it into the bigger picture, right? What was your method, come up with a cool image of hammering spikes through a living being, figure out how to integrate that into a larger picture, and then think about the implications of your new cosmology? Or what?

Boy, this is a hard one to ask because it's been such a LONG process. There were bits of all of this popping around in my head almost twenty years ago, so it's going to be hard to define where what fit into place when.

Allomancy and Feruchemy were originally planned separately. I linked them together into this book when I realized that the 'focus' items that could store attributes could be metal, and therefore work wonderfully with the Mistborn book I was planning.

Hemalurgy came from the image of Inquisitors first, then developed as a need to integrate it in with the other two in a way that evoked the power of "Ruin" rather than the power of Preservation. I figured that Ruin would steal, and it was a great way to add a third magic without having to overload people with a whole new set of powers. The process of writing this series, since I did all three books together, was an interesting one, and I made a lot of connections as I went. Some of the latest things on the timeline were figuring out how to fit atium and the Preservation nuggets into the already built framework. But I don't know if I can give you an exact list. Partially because there would just be too many spoilers in it.

Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 17, 2008, 01:39:09 PM Quote You've also seen one other manifestation like this.... Such as...this? Quote The "lake" was barely ten feet deep—more like a pool. Its water was a crystalline blue, and Raoden could see no inlets or outlets. If that's what you're hinting at...I never thought of the connection before! I just kept thinking of Aether of Night, and never thought of this pool at all.

Both are accurate, but the first is what I meant, as most people here don't have access to Aether.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 17, 2008, 01:44:12 PM Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 17, 2008, 01:39:09 PM Quote You've also seen one other manifestation like this.... Such as...this? Quote The "lake" was barely ten feet deep—more like a pool. Its water was a crystalline blue, and Raoden could see no inlets or outlets. If that's what you're hinting at...I never thought of the connection before! I just kept thinking of Aether of Night, and never thought of this pool at all.

I'm also thinking that the Dor in Elantris is another Shard of Adonasium. Certainly in the Elantris world, where the Dor came from is rather ambiguous, which I expected it would be. Of course, if other Shards of Adonasium do exist, the Dor could have come from that source.

I will RAFO from here on the other Shards of Adonalsium, as it would be better for me not to give spoilers. Please feel free to speculate. Readers have met four shards other than Ruin and Preservation.

Quote from: Czanos on October 17, 2008, 02:01:58 PM Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 17, 2008, 01:44:12 PM Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 17, 2008, 01:39:09 PM Quote You've also seen one other manifestation like this.... Such as...this? Quote The "lake" was barely ten feet deep—more like a pool. Its water was a crystalline blue, and Raoden could see no inlets or outlets. If that's what you're hinting at...I never thought of the connection before! I just kept thinking of Aether of Night, and never thought of this pool at all.

I'm also thinking that the Dor in Elantris is another Shard of Adonasium. Certainly in the Elantris world, where the Dor came from is rather ambiguous, which I expected it would be. Of course, if other Shards of Adonasium do exist, the Dor could have come from that source.

If that's the case, what's the counter-Dor Shard?

Here's my questions from the book:

1. Preservation can fuel Allomancy, (Minus Atium.) but can Ruin fuel Hemalurgy? (Or Atium?) And could Sazed fuel all three Metallic Arts?

2. Are Atium and the External Temporal Pulling metal really the same?

3. Are there any Allomantic metals we have not seen yet, besides Chromium and Nicrosil?

4. Does every metal have a Feruchemical and Hemalurgic property? If not, are there metals which have Feruchemical or Hemalurgic properties which do not have Allomantic ones?

5. When Vin is feeling out The Lord Ruler's final message plate, she finds a circle with a dot at the center. What does that mean?

I think that's all for now. I'm sure I'll have more soon though.

1. Both gods could, if they wanted, fuel all of the metallic arts. Preservation is stronger at fueling Allomancy, Ruin stronger at fueling Allomancy or Feruchemy when it has been given via a spike. Both are balanced when it comes to Feruchemy. But this rarely comes up in the books, as it required expending power in a way that the gods were hesitant to do.

2. You are on to something.

3. RAFO. (Sorry.) Let's just say that when Sazed said there are two metals you haven't found, he MIGHT not have been referring to a metal and its alloy, but two base metals. Who knows. Gods can be frustratingly ambiguous in times like that.

4. Every metal has a Feruchemical, an Allomantic, and a Hemalurgic property. The godly metals each also do something else. There are several interesting Feruchemical powers yet to be discovered and revealed in the next series. Feruchemy is less widely understood because there were so few practitioners in the modern era, and a lot of the time they were too afraid of capture to really study and use their powers.

No big reveal here. That was to mean the center of the empire, which allowed one to place the map (which was very abstract) in reference to the empire.

Quote from: darxbane on October 17, 2008, 02:24:38 PM This is fun.

The note to Spook states that Sazed hasn't yet figured out how to put souls back into bodies. Is he going to learn that skill eventually (I'm expecting a RAFO here, but I figured I'd ask anyway)?

Does Sazed get to see Tindwyl again now that he is a deity?

Did we already find out what metal is combined with Atium to make Malatium?

1. RAFO. (Sorry, but this is plot sensitive for a future series.) 2. Sazed has yet to learn how to touch the distant other side, where all souls go. He is able to see into the Spiritual and Cognitive Realms, and any spirits or souls who remain there, rather than passing on. Generally, you have to be tied to the Physical Realm in specific ways to not pass on. As for where Tindwyl is, I will have to leave this up to you to imagine for now.

I might have said somewhere in the series. I can't remember. It's gold.

Quote from: VegasDev on October 17, 2008, 02:34:09 PM How many moons circle Scadrial, ie. when the planet was moved were the moons moved as well?

Was there anything on the other side of the planet or did the entire population live on one side?

Pushing/Pulling use magnetics? Would a compass work on Scadrial?

Did Gemmel survive into the series or did he perish before MB1?

Would Hemalurgy work on animals?

1. Scadrial has no moons. I think I let slip the phrase "he's mooning over her" somewhere in the third book, but that is just a translation quirk to English. These people have no concept of a moon. There is a very bright star patch, however, covering much of the sky--much brighter than on Earth.

2. There is life on the other pole. I will RAFO any other questions about it, though.

3. A compass would work, but remember that the Final Empire is set at the north pole of Scadrial, but not necessarily at the magnetic north pole. These things are complicated, but just assume that it works the same way it would here on Earth.

4. This will be answered in the short story in the Mistborn RPG, if all goes as planned.

5. Yes, it would.

And I want to note that I'm flying to LA tonight after my signing for an appearance at a trade show, so this weekend probably won't see any more answers here. I'll try to do a few on Monday before I leave for Vegas.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 17, 2008, 03:29:21 PM Brandon, I believe in one of Sazed's epigraphs, he actually called it "Adonasium" rather than what you are referring to here, which is "Adonalsium". I'm thinking that's just a typo, right?

I don't suppose you could tell us which book series of yours will tell us more about Adonalsium, would you? You know, just so us theorizers on the forum know when to properly theorize about these things...

Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 17, 2008, 03:25:58 PM And people were asking what we'd have to do in this forum when there weren't any other wild theories to discuss. Now you tell us we've barely scratched the surface.

I knew you had Hoid popping up everywhere, but only realized that after reading Warbreaker and the first few Liar of Partinel chapters. I had no idea you had so many other connections between these series. Now I'm guessing that ALL your adult fantasy novels exist in the same universe (though...I'm not sure about Way of Kings...I need to check it later...). (I'm guessing Alcatraz and Scribbler are not connected.)

You can count on me to make an overly complex theory of everything that has little basis in reality. I'm good at that.

Another question, Brandon. Would the Three Metallic Arts operate in other worlds, or are they direct results of Ruin and Preservation and thus only operate in Scadriel? Well, I guess this means that the proofreaders did not add the "L" when I marked the error on the manuscript. (sigh). Yes, the correct spelling is adonalsium. I will try to get this fixed for the paperback, but I've been trying to get that blasted steel/iron error in the back of book one fixed for two years now. . .

If it helps, Sazed would probably under-pronounce the "L" as that letter, like in Tindwyl's name, is said very softly in terris.

As for your other question, you will have to wait and see. Now, you could search my old books for clues, but I would caution against this. While there are hints in these, they are not yet cannon. Just as I changed how things were presented in the mistborn books during editing, I would have fixed a lot in these books during revision. Beyond that, reading them would give big spoilers for books yet to be released. White sand, dragonsteel, and way of kings in particular are going to be published some day for almost certain. (though in very different forms). Aether of night should be safe, as should final empire prime and mistborn prime, though of those three, only aether is worth reading, and then only barely. (it is still pretty bad).

I will post more later. They are calling my flight. (I'm at LAX)

This would be the new list:

1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel) 2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.) 3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime) 4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.) 5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors) 6) Elantris (First Published) 7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic, other than the not-very-good Final Empire prime.) 8 ) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt, turned out much better.) 9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.) 10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.) 11) Mistborn Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.) 12) Final Empire Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.) 13) The Way of Kings Prime (Fantasy War epic.) 14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Came out 2006) 15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Came out 2007) 16) Alcatraz Verus the Evil Librarians. (Came out 2007) 17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages (Came out 2008) 18) Alcatraz Versus the Scrivner's Bones (Came out 2008) 19) Warbreaker (Comes out June 2009) 20) Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia (November 2009ish) 21) A Memory of Light (November 2009ish. Working on it now. Might be split into two.) 22) The Way of Kings Book One (2010ish. Not started yet.) 23) Alcatraz Four (2010. Not started yet)

I plan for The Way of Kings to be ten books, and will release periodic stand alone novels in other worlds while working on it. I'd say one every other year, if I can manage it. They'll probably come from the list below. Alcatraz is five books long, so there will be one of those in 2011 as well.

Other Projects Scribbler (Completed YA steampunk. Really needs a revision....) Dark One (Unfinished. YA fantasy) Untitled Aether Project (Two chapters only. Never went anywhere with this.) The Liar of Partinel (Finished stand alone in the Dragonsteel world. Uncertain when I'll release it. Really needs a LOT of edits) Nightblood (Warbreaker sequel. Title may change. Unwritten.) The Silence Divine (Working title. Stand alone Epic Fantasy. Unwritten.) Steelheart (YA Science Fiction. Unwritten) I Hate Dragons (Middle Grade fantasy. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.) Zeek Harbinger, Destroyer of Worlds (Middle Grade Sf. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.) There's also probably a White Sand rewrite, a Dragonsteel Rewrite, and some Elantris sequels somewhere in the future.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 17, 2008, 03:29:21 PM Another question, Brandon. Would the Three Metallic Arts operate in other worlds, or are they direct results of Ruin and Preservation and thus only operate in Scadriel?

Okay, back to answering spoilers. (Or, in the case of this post, half-answering them.)

To use Feruchemy or Allomancy in almost every case, one must have the right spiritual and genetic codes, imprinted upon people during the creation of Scadrial by Ati and Leras. To use Hemalurgy, one must first have someone with these right spiritual and genetic codse, then take the power from them. Other people on other worlds are not going to simply discover the Three Metallic Arts by accident.

Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 17, 2008, 04:00:43 PM Quote Readers have met four shards other than Ruin and Preservation. Have we met these four by name, or just by influence? I can't think of a name that would go with the one that the Elantris lake is a manifestation of.

Hoid could be one? I know nothing his purpose other than that he shows up in lots of different books, sometimes begging and sometimes telling stories. Since most of these series happen on different planets (though two of them may happen on the same planet as each other), I'm assuming he has mad planet-hopping skills.

...Nightblood...

Ookla, I'm going to be tight lipped on this, as I don't want to give things away for future books. But I'll tell you this:

You've interacted with two directly. One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power. The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence.

Quote from: firstRainbowRose on October 17, 2008, 09:15:44 PM I have a rather simple question. What was Spook's real name? He gives a easternese slang term that becomes his name, then he goes by his Kel given nick. So, what was his birth name? (Yes, I wonder about random things like that.)

Jedal. After his father.

Which is the reason why Spook didn't like using it.

Quote from: Qarlin on October 17, 2008, 09:37:26 PM So are all these epic novels in the same universe? Elantris, Mistborn, Dragonsteel, all that?

I'm afraid that question is best left to the rest of you, for now, to discuss.

Quote from: sporkify on October 18, 2008, 03:34:40 AM 1) How did Inquisitors find Atium mistings? 2) Before, Inquisitors had supernatural healing. How did they get the Feruchemists for the spike? Were the keepers not so hidden after all?

3) And this is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power? 4) How much control do allomancers have over pushing and pulling metals?

1) They spike the drinks at one of the nobility's balls with trace amounts of Atium, then cause a bit disturbance. (Often, the Inquisitors themselves arriving will do it) and burn bronze and watch for brief pulses. The body will burn metals instinctively if it can, which has been shown quite often in the series. This is also how they get a lot of their secret information about who is a Misting and who isn't. It's not a perfect method, since you have to watch for Copperclouds messing things up, but it is effective once in a while.

Any time an obligator who is not a Misting joins the Ministry, he is unknowingly given a larger chunk of atium and then forced into a series of rituals that will drain him physically and get the body to react and burn the metal. This was how Yomen was discovered.

2) The keepers have been hunted for years. Much like skaa Allomancers, they were often captured and taken by the Inquisitors. It didn't happen nearly as often, of course. Two things to remember, however: Not all Inquisitors had the same spikes, and spikes CAN be reused with much less effectiveness. The longer they are outside of a body, the more their power degrades.

3) It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does--but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Depends on the Allomancer. Zane and Kelsier were both unusually skilled in this area, and represent the higher end of what is possible.

Quote from: Xandeis on October 18, 2008, 08:21:47 AM Ok, I am new write and reading forums, so I'm a little slow on it, so please be kind..... 1.) What if RAFO? 2.) Who is HOID? I have read Elantris and all 3 Mistborns but don't remember the name, am I missing something? 3.) Dragonsteel, is that by Brandon or L. Yep, I am soooo confused. 4.) These Shards everyone is talking about...what are they?

I would be glad for someone to eliminate my ignorance on these matters....

As far as Kel's grabbing the power to Pres to hold for Vin, was it him that whispered to Spook, when Spook was unconscious, to get his message to Vin?

No problem! Welcome. Don't worry. Someone probably answered this already, but I've only skimmed the later pages of the thread, as I'm trying to make my way through the questions.

1) "Read and Find Out." It was one of Robert Jordan's favorite phrases, and I have inherited it. (Symbolically, actually, through his bookmark, which was given to me by his wife. It's a little string one with weights on the end which spell out RAFO.) When I say it, I don't mean it rudely at all--it is intended to mean "I'd rather not say, as this will spoil future books." It doesn't indicate how I'll answer the question, or even if I will answer it. It simply means that if I were to do so now (even to say "I'm not going to include this") I feel it would spoil the enjoyment of future books.

2) Hoid is a mystery which I cannot speak on other than what has been written in the text of the novels. However, I'm sure that others have explained it by now.

3) I just did a post on my website explaining this.

RAFO.

Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 20, 2008, 12:17:43 AM Will elements of your untitled Aether project be worked into the Dragonsteel series?

Quote The Silence Divine (Working title. Stand alone Epic Fantasy. Unwritten.) Steelheart (YA Science Fiction. Unwritten) I Hate Dragons (Middle Grade fantasy. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.) Zek Harbringer, Destroyer of Worlds (Middle Grade Sf. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.) These titles are news to me. You described two potential YA or middle-grade books to me and Karen when you came out to Book Expo, plus Dark One, but now I can't remember the plots except they were cool (and that one of them involved superheroes). Are they among this list? Also, is that really Harbringer or is it supposed to be Harbinger?

Bah! That's what I get for typing so quickly. Yes, Harbinger. It should be "Zeek" too. Short for Ezekiel.

Steelheart would be the superhero one, though that's a working title, since I'm not sure if it's trademarked or not. Haven't had much time for thinking about any of these books lately.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 18, 2008, 03:25:01 PM Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 17, 2008, 04:00:43 PM Quote Readers have met four shards other than Ruin and Preservation. Have we met these four by name, or just by influence? I can't think of a name that would go with the one that the Elantris lake is a manifestation of.

Hoid could be one? I know nothing his purpose other than that he shows up in lots of different books, sometimes begging and sometimes telling stories. Since most of these series happen on different planets (though two of them may happen on the same planet as each other), I'm assuming he has mad planet-hopping skills.

Nightblood

Thank you for giving those extra Hoid references, Ookla. I didn't remember those Elantris or MB1 references, though I distinctly remember him in Warbreaker because he was on there for a bit more than a page Hoid definitely made it in the 6.1 Warbreaker PDF (in case you haven't read anything past 4.2. 6.1 was my first Warbreaker read-through).

I thought Nightblood was explained sufficiently for my tastes in Warbreaker, so I doubt that it is a Shard, but I've been plenty wrong before. Also, I don't know if Hoid could even be a Shard. Certainly he has mean planet-hopping skills, but I don't know what purpose a celestial storyteller would have in this universe. He doesn't really have the same kind of power as Ruin or Preservation did, so normally I would rule him out right off the bat. But it is possible that these Shards come in many shapes, not just in the near-deific quantity Ruin or Preservation had. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say Hoid is a Shard... but, then again, I don't have any ideas for what those four other Shards are.

Maybe Hoid is just a traveler trying to find remnants of Adonalsium and stories about them. He doesn't need to be a shard, I suppose.

This is slightly a tangent, but here is a relevant chunk from the Warbreaker Annotations. As this won't be posted for months, I'll put it here as a sneak preview.

Chapter Thirty-Two "This whole scene came about because I wanted an interesting way to delve into the history. Siri needed to hear it, and I felt that many readers would want to know it. However, that threatened to put me into the realm of the dreaded info dump.

And so I brought in the big guns. This cameo is so obvious (or, at least, someday it will be) that I almost didn’t use the name Hoid for the character, as I felt it would be too obvious. The first draft had him using one of his other favorite pseudonyms. However, in the end, I decided that too many people would be confused (or, at least, even more confused) if I didn’t use the same name. So here it is. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about. . .well, let’s just say that there’s a lot more to this random appearance than you might think."

Quote from: Comatose on October 18, 2008, 03:49:33 PM Wow, I only noticed Hoid in Final Empire and Hero of Ages, but I can see him being in Elantris as well. My thoughts is it's just a sort of joke, like in Pheobe Gilman's childrens books she always includes items or characters from other books in her illustrations.

This Shards thing is so cool, I'd totally love to see Raoden and Kelsier fight, even though that's impossible. In Elantris I'd say there are two shards, the lake and the dor. The Dor is the power life, and the lake is the power of rest. Similar but not the same as ruin and Preservation. The way the Dor can be harnessed in a variety of ways makes me even more certain that it is a shard. I think Kelsier would beat Raoden though. Raoden could do pretty much anything, like automatically kill Kelsier with an aon, but they are too slow, Kell would have him down before he finished drawing.

I think most of my Questions have been answered, thanks Brandon! 1) One Question is this. If Gold is used to make Malatium, couldn't malatium also be gold's compliment? 2)I also wondered if you could explain that circle in the cave some more, I didn't quite get it. I was sure Vin was the hero right up until the end, even though originally before I read the book, I was sure it would be Elend or Sazed. But then the epilogue author started naming people off, so I knew it wasn't them. But it only mentions Vin as 'she,' when talking about how she got her spike. I was sure one of the epigraphs was going to be: "And that girl is me." The Sazed thing totally made sense in hindsight, I can't believe I didn't figure it out. And we were right about the "on the arms," bit being the part Brandon was referring to, good find Vintage! I'm a little sad that the lake doesn't come into it more. But the Mist spirit and the Deepness were BOTH Preservation. That was cool. 3) So here's my last question. If there ARE people on the other side of the world, did Vin kill them all by placing the sun on their side, or do they have they're own Ruin/Preservation battle going on over there as well? Do they also have allomancy feruchemy and hemalurgy?

So those three numbered points are my questions, great great book, it was simply amazing!

1. The Allomantic table poster will have more info on this. 2. I think I did a post on the circle. The short of it is, that is drawing too much attention. Just because Vin didn't quite understand it doesn't mean it's important. (Though, of course, there are other things she doesn't understand that ARE important.) Also, the lake might be involved more at a later date. See the other posts.

No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created. And since they were created by Ruin and Preservation, they have the seeds of the Three Metallic Arts in them--though without anyone among them having burned Larasium, Allomancers would have been very rare in their population and full Mistborn unheard of.

Quote from: firstRainbowRose on October 18, 2008, 05:39:15 PM I have a question (I knew there was one when I was done. I just couldn't remember it.) Is Sazed effected by the metal blindess, or can he see thing written in metal?

He is blinded by metal.

Quote from: Death Magnetic on October 19, 2008, 12:47:58 AM I'd first like to say that this series was fantastic. I was exceptionally pleased with how you tied everything together in this final book of the trilogy.

1. This series has the best world-building, magic system, and over-arching plot of any epic fantasy I have ever read. I think George R.R. Martin is still the master of creating memorable characters, developing them, and having them interact with each other. Other authors, like Hobb and Rothfuss, are better at evincing emotion. You are an amazing writer yourself.

That being said, I have a couple suggestions for you.

2. The first contradicts itself, so take it for what it is. I would suggest that you write how you feel the story should be written. Getting inspiration from someone is one thing, but changing your work because some people want a happy ending or dark ending takes away from the purity of writing. The part you added in at the end where Sazed let Spook know Vin and Elend were happy in the afterlife really stuck me like a thorn. I think it was apparent how happy they were together in life and how necessary their sacrifices were. That would have been enough for me.

3. My other suggestion is more of a plea really. Please don't extend this series just to capitalize on it. If you really feel there is more story to be told, then tell it. I, for one, thought the ending would have been perfect if allomancy, hemalurgy, and feruchemy would have faded from existence as their corresponding gods did. It would have been rather romantic to have people start over with a new "normal" world.

Congratulations again on completing a masterful work!

1. You humble me. I don't think I've NEARLY the skill for characters that Mr. Martin does, and that's not just an attempt at modesty. I hope to be there some day, however.

2. This is a tricky one. I didn't change the worldbuilding or the cosmology of the story in order to fit what people wanted, but I feel strongly about using writing groups and test readers to see if my intention in a book has been achieved. I show things to alpha readers to see what is confusing or bothersome to them, then decide if that's really something I want to be confusing or bothersome.

In my mind, the presence of a powerful being such as Sazed, mixed with some direct reaching from beyond the grave by a certain crew leader, indicated that there WAS an afterlife. However, test readers didn't get it, so I tweaked the story to make it more obvious. Perhaps I should have left it as is, but I liked both ways, and decided upon the one I liked the most in the context of reader responses.

I do plan to always tell the stories from my heart, and not change them because of how I think the reactions will be. But I do think it's important to know what those reactions are ahead of time and decide if they are what I want or not.

We are on the same page on this one. You can read other posts on the thread to see what kind of thoughts I might have for more Mistborn books, but I don't know if/when I will write them. It depends on the story and how excited I am to tell it.

Quote from: lexluthorxiv on October 19, 2008, 04:58:28 AM So I have a couple of questions....

I loved the book, it was all great UNTIL Vin and especially ELEND died. I can see why you did it, but I was crying so hard when Vin confirmed Elend was dead. I actually had an urge to burn the books right then and there and pretend it had never happened. Either way, I continued reading and then found some sliver of hope when Sazed said he hadn't figured out how to restore the souls YET, he said he would get better at it.

1)Does that mean that he might someday, maybe, hopefully (pretty please) bring them back to life? I suspect that you might not answer, but can I atleast hope? Cause if anyone deserved to live a full NORMAL life it was Vin and Elend. Besides, it would ROCK if Elend and Kelsier ever got to meet each other......

Awe man.....i'm still crying over Elend....Is it wrong I get so attatched to characters? Its just that Elend and Vin got so little time together. It's so sad. Which reminds me: You mentioned, when someone asked about sazed meeting twindyl again, that he hadn't because he hadn't reached that space where souls were and the ones that were trapped in the in between were the ones that had a connection with either the physical or the concious world. Those weren't the exact words but it was something like that that IMPLIED that Vin, Elend and Kel were somehow still connected with the earth because unlike twindyl the hadn't progressed past that in between place.

2) Am I right and maybe going somewhere, or am I talking total nonsense and simply trying to cope with the loss of Elend?

One of the reasons for that line at the end is to give you, the reader, the power and authority to bring to the characters the ending you wish. I may do more in this series, but until then, please take the future of the characters wherever you want in your own mind. (Also, you mention that they had such little time together--which is true, but also remember that there was a year between books one and two, then another year between books two and three. They spent most of this time together.)

The door is open for a return of Elend and Vin. Will I write it? It isn't likely to be soon, if I ever even do. Does that mean it won't happen? No. Not at all. If I write more Mistborn books, they will be hundreds of years in the future. During that time, Sazed could have learned to get souls into bodies, given Vin and Elend a life together somewhere away from the others, where they wouldn't have to struggle quite so much like they did through their lives, then ushered their souls on to the beyond. Or they could hang around with him, working with him as he takes his next steps to shepherd humankind on Scadrial. Or neither of the above. Imagine it how you wish, for I'm not going to set this one in stone for quite some time, if ever.

Quote from: Andrew the Great on October 19, 2008, 07:09:34 AM Awesome Book. Seriously, probably the best I've ever read.

And to think I was worried about what we'd theorize over! Now, for my "I told you so" moment:

I totally called the "future of the world on his arms" thing. Yes, Chaos, you may bow. That was my topic. Ha!

That said, that's really the only thing that I was dead on. There were others that I was close, but the rest, I was WAY off.

So, a quick question: Why can Vin fuel Elend's atium-burning, even though Atium is Ruin's Body and Vin is using Preservation? Or did I misread that and he was just burning atium and had run out of everything else?

Yes, as has been pointed out:

“A powerful peace swelled in Elend. His Allomancy flared bright, though he knew the metals inside of him should have burned away. Only atium remained, and the strange power did not--could not--give him this metal. But it didn’t matter. For a moment, he was embraced by something greater. He looked up, toward the sun.”
—Template:Bref

As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals--even the two divine ones--are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy.

The means of getting powers--Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting--are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.

Quote from: Chaos2651 on October 19, 2008, 09:34:43 AM No, Elend was burning atium and had run out of everything else. At least, that was how I read it. It wouldn't help to get rid of the atium if Elend wasn't burning it, I think.

So, Brandon, it's Sunday now. Did Hero of Ages sell enough to become a bestseller?

crosses fingers*

We'll know on Wednesday, but the distribution problems have us worried. A lot of stores didn't get the books on the shelves until Friday or Saturday, which only gave one or two days in that market to get on the list. We'll see. It's going to be close. It will depend on how many stores got the books on time, how well other authors did, and whether or not I sold copies at the RIGHT stores. (The ones which report to the NYT list.)

I will post on Wednesday when I know, though it might not be until late in the day, as I've got a lot going on during tour on Wednesday.

Quote from: jwmeep on October 19, 2008, 01:07:11 PM I'm a big fan of Brandon's work. This book is one of his best so far, and it really affected me. Some parts had me in tears, others had me pacing around at midnight.

Might as well try my questions:

1: It seemed that Kelsier was fluent in Spook's street dialect, and even conversed with Spook in the dialect at one point. So I'm assuming Kelsier knew what Lestibournes really meant, and being who Kelsier was, giving him a new name probably was more about building the boy up, rather than just the length. That said, why Spook? If he was trying to boost Spook's self confidence, why use a name like that?

2: Given that Kelsier seems be keeping an eye out for everything from the beyond, how does Kelsier feel about how every turned out? Has his opinion on Elend changed? How did he react upon learning Lord Ruler's true nature? I'm guessing this may be a RAFO situation, but I might as well ask.

3: A question about Goradel. His end was very tragic, and was one of the things that had me in tears. The thing that really twisted the knife into me, is that he died that horrible death thinking that he had failed. When everything he tried to survive failed, his final act was to try to prevent the message into falling into Ruin's hands, but even that was futile. With those who seem to be active in the great beyond, did Goradel ever find out about what his actions helped to bring about? Was he ever thanked for his actions?

1. It's an inside joke between them. "Spook" means "Sneaky" or "Clever" in the street slang. It was a compliment.

2. Yes, let's RAFO for the most part. (Let's just say that he is overall pleased.)

3. Well... I don't want to speak too much about the great beyond in the books, as in my opinion that level of cosmology is influenced by your own beliefs in the hereafter and in deity. Beyond that, I would rather not speak of what happens to the souls beyond the three Realms, as even Sazed doesn't know that.

Perhaps this will help, however. Like most of the leaders of soldiers in this series (Demoux, Wells, and Conrad included,) Goradel is based on and looks like one of my friends. In this case, it's Richard Gordon. He's read the book and cheered for his namesake's sacrifice and eventual victory. So the REAL Goradel knows.

Quote from: Pygmalion on October 19, 2008, 02:39:07 PM ......wooooooooooooooah......

I still can't stop thinking that in my head. It's all that's really coming to mind at the moment.

I made the stupid mistake of finishing the book this afternoon in a public place. Therefore I looked like a complete moron as I burst into tears when Elend died. I think it was a good ending. I'm still not totally decided on that. I'm just in shock.

It's just so amazing how the books progressed, developing into this huge cosmic epic that I never expected from just reading The Final Empire a year ago. I guess in some sense what I'm feeling is a slight sense of... awe, maybe? I want to know how he comes up with stuff. I mean seriously, talk about not just writing another fantasy series.

But I'm also shocked that no one else seemed to have figured out that Sazed was the Hero of Ages. I thought it might be him when I started the book, but it could as easily have been Vin or Elend. But at about a third of the way through, page 215 to be exact, there was this line from Sazed thinking in his head:

"I am, unforunately, in charge."

Sound familiar?

"I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages."

No one else would have used the same wording as Sazed did when he was thinking to himself. I have to assume that was intentional on Brandon's part. It was very subtle... I'm actually surprised I noticed.

I'm gratified that you noticed. The Terris dialect IS very subtle. That speech pattern is one hint, the other is the use of "I think" to soften phrases at the ending. Beyond that, Sazed speaks with compound, complex sentences using frequent hedging to indicate that he's often uncertain. (That's another Terris speech pattern, not wanting to offend with language.)

The epigraphs in this book particularly (though I did it for Kwaan too) are intended to "sound" Terris, and like Sazed in particular. I didn't think anyone would catch it. You made my day!

Quote from: notxaxlie on October 19, 2008, 04:57:27 PM I'm one of those readers tha gets swept in the stories and fails to come up with any theories whatsover.

However I did notice one... 2 years ago.

Hoid I can't believe this is being talked about. I remember making a thread about it shortly after I joined the forums (I can't even find it anymore) About how I thought it was odd to see Hoid in Mistborn as an informant, Elantris as a beggar, Warbreaker as a storyteller, and I had a strong feeling it was in the first chapter as Liar as well but was too lazy to investigate. It was before these forums got so crazy crowded and I'm pretty sure my questions on whether the use of the name was intetional were brushed off. Weird right? Ever since then I considered my speculations unimportant (much like my speculation's on Reen's obsidian, the nobility really being terris, and Vin being a feruchemist, by the way, don't ask about the second two, I'm crazy)

Anyway, just wanted to add this. I sure wish I could find my original Hoid post but I'm pretty sure it was so old, it's been deleted.

I remember when you pointed Hoid out, notxaxlie. I was curious to see if others would start talking about it then, but it just kind of faded. You were certainly one of the first to spot that point.

Quote from: Jakobus on October 19, 2008, 05:30:20 PM First of all. WOW!!!!!! I cannot express how much I enjoyed this series! I was extremely happy to finally meet you at the Provo signing, so now 2 of my top 3 authors are down (unfortunately I can't meet RJ, ) Anyhow here is my question

Will Vin and Elend fade like mistborn? or will they live on as the "father and mother" of the new world?

Thanks Jakobus!

I just answered this one, kind of, just above. I'm afraid it's rather vague. But they won't 'fade' away.

Quote from: Ookla The Mok on October 20, 2008, 12:59:41 AM Brandon, here you said Alcatraz 4 is called Alcatraz vs. The Dark Talent; is that still the working title? Also, you mentioned Dragonsteel: The Lightweaver of Rens, but now you say The Liar of Partinel is a standalone. Change of plans? (I know you can't get back to Dragonsteel for a while.)

The Alcatraz titles are in flux because I need to know if Scholastic wants the fifth one or not. (They only bought four.) Dark Talent will be one of them for certain.

The Liar of Partinel was part of a tw0-part story told hundreds of years before the Dragonsteel epic. However, since I've dropped plans to go with Liar anytime soon--AMoL has priority, followed by Way of Kings--I don't know what I'll end up doing with the second book, or if I'll ever even write it. I was planning on not calling either of these "Dragonsteel" in print, actually, and just letting people connect the two series on their own. It wouldn't be hard to do, but I didn't want the first actual book in the main storyline to be launched by Tor as "Book Three" since there would be such a large gap of time.

END OF HOA THREAD

Warbreaker

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Rinzi: or visit Albuquerque, NM! I'll work on getting cookie and magic card bribes for you... Ha. I have friends in Albuquerque who keep wanting me to come to Bubonicon. I will visit eventually.

pmrbluepat: Who is your favorite character that you have ever created in any of your books? You ask a tough question. Very tough. I’ll have to say Hoid is my favorite.

jamesgubera: where do you get your inspiration to create new worlds & characters? Inspiriation comes from all over. Often things I see. Color magic in WRBRKR came from watching b/w movies. The mist in mistborn came from driving through a foggy night at 70mph. Sazed came from a Buddhist monk I met in Korea. Sarene came from a friend, Annie, who complained that she was too tall and too smart for men to want to date. If you want more, send me an email and ask for my “Ideas” essay. @PeterAhlstrom will send it to you.

Rinzi: Are there any characters in your books who you actually DON'T like? Does Cadsuane count? (J/K. I love you Cads. Really, don’t beat me up.) I have characters that didn’t bloom like I wanted. Parlin in WRBRKR still itches at me. Could have been done better. I always wished I could give Ham more time in Mistborn. But I can’t think of anyone I don’t like. When I write as someone, as oily as they are, I see life as them.

Fiirvoen: What is your favorite book that you've written and had published? I’d pick MISTBORN 3 if I had to. But TGS and KINGS are both better than it is.

Feifner: Who is your favorite character from The Way of Kings? Favorite character is Lightsong. I had long wanted to do a character who would have fit in an Oscar Wilde play. If you want to cast Rupert Everett as Lightsong in your head, feel free. [Mistake on Brandon's part? This was the closest match I found.]

onelowerlight: You've obviously read many fantasy authors, but which SF authors have been major influences in your career? I’d say that my biggest SF influences are Asimov and Vinge. I love Asimov’s plots. I love Vinge’s worlds.

joshuapatrao: Have you thought about publishing a short story collection in the future? Would Tor do it?Don’t expect this for many years. And it might end up at a smaller specialty press.

pmrbluepat: Can we hang out sometime? I'll just sit and watch you write, maybe even bring a fruit cake over.Thoughts? Ha.Well, that would be...odd. But I go out to dinner with readers while on tour, if they get a group together.

mossjon: Loving Warbreaker! How do you write women characters so well? A mixture of helpful women friends and a lot of early failures. I’ve found the biggest problem with writing the opposite gender comes when you add them simply be a love interest. Nobody is just a love interest in their own minds. Make them a character first, a plot device second. Even Elantis had a great woman character. So you must be hiding the early failures. And that is why/how you succeed so well. Kudos! Early failures were in the books that didn’t get published. (White Sand’s female lead was cringe-worthy.)

joshuapatrao: Do you read Stephen King? Also, which fantasy tomes would you absolutely recommend reading? King is amazing. Truly a brilliant writer. If anyone hasn’t read, try The Stand or a short story collection. I suggest NAME OF THE WIND, DRAGONSBANE, or anything by Pratchett. Particualrly THE TRUTH. I like Jordan (duh) McCaffrey and Rawn a lot too. Williams’s SORROW AND THORN is great. Others: Tigana, or anything by Kay really, Sabriel by Nix, and the Golden Compass are all excellent.

padmeamanda: As a RJ fan who has never read any of your literature, which of your books should I start reading today? I’d suggest MISTBORN first. WARBREAKER wouldn’t be a bad place to start either, as it’s a stand alone. Mistborn (the first book is called The Final Empire) is a complete trilogy. RJ readers tend to like series. goldeneyes05: Do you ever take a break? seems like your always doing something. Went out to dinner with my wife for our anniversary last night. Does that count? The truth is, I love what I do. So if I have time when I’m not doing something else, I work on books.

pfchristopher: Now that you've published more, what order should people read your books in? Both Fntsy & non-fntsy readrs Non fantasy readers I’d give Elantris to first. Fantasy readers I’d give Mistborn to

starrylites: When working with new characters, how do you keep their voices straight in the early writing? It can be hard. I often have to rewrite my first chapters after the book is finished. Practice by having four very different character ride through the same town, but see very different things. starrylites: Thanks, Brandon! I think I"m going to have to do just that on my currently project; having character meshing problems.

JasonMichelsen: What music have you been listening to while writing AMoL? Daft Punk, George Winston, Will Ackerman, OC Remix, Enya, Fotheringham, and Metallica. Among others.

ren833: What is the most important part of writing that you have learned to be a successful author? 1) Persistence. 2) Revision. 3) Characters with distinct viewpoints. 4) Use of concrete detail.

goddessladyj: Will you come back to Nebraska soon, please?? Coming to Nebraska next year to be Guest of Honor at a sf convention. April, I think.

chrisoubre: what is the largest battle you ever fought with your editor? It was about Lightsong. He and I disagreed on some of the humor. Oddly, we were both right. He was claiming Lightsong wasn’t funny. What he meant was that I was allowing the humor to undermine setting. We came to a balance, and I think that Lightsong is much better for it.

mysterylover12: Where do you get your inspiration? I always have trouble finding things to write about It’s different for everyone. From me, history books help a lot. Try a favorite movie, then at a pivotal point, ask what would happen if it had gone the opposite way.

Cearafetu: Will you come to the DC area some time? I will be at the DC areas, signing at the Baily’s Crossroads Borders, this November for the WoT book release

briansturner: Warbreaker was great, do you feel it benefited from online publishing? & would you publish that way again? It struck me that online pub is a great way to start a series, the first book is free then we are hooked. I don’t know if it helped, but it certainly didn’t hurt. I’ll do it again, probably for the WRBRKR sequel.

bcpeterson: What advice do you give students in your classes about writing? Opinions on 'elements of style'? Whew. I don’t know if I can cover writing advice that extensive on a twitter Q&A. Most of my classroom advice ends up in my writing podcast, Writing Excuses. http://www.writingexcuses.com/

joshuapatrao: Would you ever, if given the chance, do screenwriting, for television or for a film? For instance, I did the initial screenplay concept treatments for ALCATRAZ VS. THE EVIL LIBRARIANS. That’s what got the book sold to Dreamworks Animation. (2013, hopefully. Fingers crossed.) I might do other film screenplays. Not really interested in Television.

nethspace: so, I've seen a scheduled event in Phoenix, AZ this November. Any chance of Flagstaff? Afraid Pheonix is the closest I’ll get to Flagstaff for now. Tor wants to see the turnout in Phoenix first before we go to other places in the state.

JasonMichelsen: What is your typical daily wordcount as far as new material goes? It varries. 10 pages is still my goal. I usually hit it, and sometimes do much more. I write faster at the end of a book than the beginning. Also, some days I write four or five hours--some days I write fourteen or sixteen. Pretty consistently, I’ve done around 300k words a year for the last few years. Last year I pushed very hard and got around 400k.

@Danbarbour: Out of everything that you have written, what would you say is your favorite and/or most proud of?

The Gathering Storm is, by far, the best--and most difficult--thing I’ve written. It’s what I’m most proud of. For what is published, though, WRBRKR has the best writing of anything I’ve done.

@cancer_moon: what's next for you after finishing Book shorthand incorrect? any new worlds in store, or going back to your other ones?

Next is getting WoT 13&14, along with the final Alcatraz book. After that, WoK 2 Then, finally, I’ll be able to do some new worlds. I’ve got two in particular I really want to visit.

@mnehring: How many new story ideas do you get in a year? How many do you act on?

About one or two of those end up as books. But each book is a combination of a dozen or more ideas.

@cancer_moon: what author inspired you the most in your writing?

Would it be cliched to say Robert Jordan? Because...well, it was Robert Jordan.

@chaunceymeade: Any advice for a wannabe writer?

Listen to Writing Excuses for more detail

@nethspace: So, what do you think of Dot's term “Brandy Sandorow” = Brandon Sanderson + Cory Doctorow?

Oh, boy. Brandy Sanderow? Sounds like a hobbit name.

@Danbarbour: I just finished warbreaker and need a new book to read.I always have trouble picking a book.Any suggestions

Gave some book suggestions below. If you haven’t read Pratchett, Guards Guards is another good place to begin. I liked SERVANT OF A DARK GOD, coming out from Tor next month, I believe. Also, Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell and A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge are great.

@DigLazarusDig86: how do you group different ideas into one solid story?

Look for conflict. Take the ideas, and try to make them intersect at points of conflict. Don’t let something happen that isn’t personal and important to at least one of the viewpoint characters.

@Meeeeech: Which magic system of yours would you be most inclined to use? (Also include channeling!)

Probably Feruchemy. The memorization potential would help me be a better writer.

@joshuapatrao: Do you think you'll ever develop a language like Tolkien did? Elantris might count, actually, I'm not sure.

Maybe. I did a lot of that in White Sand, which didn’t get published. I’ll do more for other books.

@greywanderer: Has your Mormon upbringing consciously affected the recurring religious themes of your work?

I’d say it is more subconscious. I’m fascinated by religion, all types, because of my upbringing. That’s why you see religion as an antagonist in my books. Also, my religion has shaped how I see morality--and therefore, how many of my characters do.

@pmrbluepat: Any movie deals on the horizon?... I would particularly like to see WRBRKR.

I have movies in the works for both Mistborn and Alcatraz.

@ScottTRogers: How do you set up your workday for writing and getting all of your other "work" done?

I try to break it up and do things in several hour chunks. Writing during some, email others. The honest truth is, I usually end up ignoring other stuff and just writing. This is why I need an assistant.

@RedefineBeauty: are you going to do a tour in the midwest ever? *Cough*cough* chicago *cough*cough* Hopefully! My publicist is watching this, so maybe your plea will encourage her....

@raveire: what do you think the relationship between governent and religion is?

I like separation of church and state because it protects all of us. But I like it best when religion stays out of politics directly.

@txkyle: Any chances you'll do any future book-signing tours in Texas? (Houston, please!)

I will be there 2011, as I mentioned. http://www.condfw.org/

@Ethan1072: What do you do to relax?

Also, the funny thing is, writing IS relaxing for me. (Which makes me just about the luckiest guy ever.)

@yagiz: Which one comes first? The story or the setting (world, races, magic sys, etc) or do they emerge together?

It depends on the book. For Mistborn, setting was first. For Warbreaker, characters. It’s very hard to pinpoint, though, since I don’t start writing until I’ve developed all three.

@Ryshon: what kind of avg pagecount were you able to put out daily when working as a part time writer?

I was a special case, as I intentionally picked a job where I could write at work. I shot for 2000 words a day. I suggest to new writers that 2k a week be a minimum. That gives you a book in about a year.

@mysterylover12: Are you doing any signings in SLC soon?

I’ll be in Provo the 11th and SLC sometime in August.

Barnes and Nobles

October 2009 I figure I might as well post his answers here. If you want to look at the original, here it is: http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/bn/board/message?board.id=fsf&thread.id=9649&view=by_date_ascending&page=4

First Questions: "What kind of mental "retooling" does it take for him to work on an already established world/storyline like "Wheel of Time" since this is someone else's work? Also, were there there a lot of notes or material left by Mr. Jordan to work from?"

I thought about this quite a lot during the months when I was reading the Wheel of Time again straight through, trying to figure out how I would approach writing the final book. Obviously, this project wasn't going to be like anything I'd done before. I couldn't just approach it as I did one of my solo novels. And yet, it felt like trying to match Robert Jordan's style exactly would have made me lapse into parody.

A lot of the mental 'retooling' I did focused on getting inside the characters' heads. I decided that if I could make the characters sound right, the book would FEEL right, even if some of the writing itself was different. I also decided that I would adapt my style to fit the project. I became more descriptive, for one, and wrote viewpoint with the more intimate, in-head narrative style that Mr. Jordan used. Neither of these were attempts to match how he wrote exactly, but more me trying to match my style to The Wheel of Time, if that makes any sense.

In answer to the second question, he left LOTS of notes behind. He wrote complete scenes in places, dictated other scenes, left piles of notes and materials. The prologue was almost all completed by him (that will be split half in this book, half in the next.) The ending scenes were written by him as well. In the middle, there are a lot of scene outlines as well.

That's not to say there wasn't A LOT of work to do. The actual number of completed scenes was low, and in some places, there was no direction at all what to do. But his fingerprints are all over this novel. My goal was not to write a Brandon Sanderson book, but a Wheel of Time book. I want this novel (well, these three novels, now) to be his, not mine.

Next Question: "Is it possible for someone who has not read all 11 books in The Wheel of Time series to be able to follow and enjoy reading The Gathering Storm?"

My agent did just that, actually. He said he had a lot of trouble through the first half of the book, then had a blast with the second half.

I honestly wouldn't suggest it. The Wheel of Time is meant to be an in-depth, immersive experience. There's a lot going on in these books, and they are not episodic--meaning the story is one long saga. It would be a little like tuning in to the Lord of the Rings movies and only watching the last chunk of the final movie.

If you're determined, you could read The Encyclopaedia-WoT has some excellent summaries of the books, chapter by chapter. But you'll be missing out on a lot of fun. There will not be summaries posted in the books themselves--the WoT is just too long and involved for that to work. (And Robert Jordan always resisted letting the publisher add anything like that.)

"You have created some fantastic, original and well thought out magical systems. Where did you get the inspiration for the metal-based system of the Mistborn series and the breath-based system of Warbreaker?"

Thank you! During the early days of my career--before I got published--I found myself naturally creating a new magic system for each book I wrote. I'm not sure why I did this. I just found the process too involving, too interesting, to stop.

For Mistborn, I came to the book wanting several things. I wanted a great magic system that would enhance the graceful, martial-arts style fights. This was going to be a series of sneaking thieves, assassins, and night-time exploration. And so I developed the powers with a focus on that idea. What would make the thieving crew better at what they did? I based each power around an archetype of a thieving crew. The Thug, the Sneak, the Fast-talker, etc.

At the same time, I wanted to enhance the 'industrial revolution' feel of the novels through the magic system. I wanted something that felt like an industrial-age science, something that was a good hybrid of science and magic. I found myself drawn to Alchemy and its use of metals, then extrapolated from that to a way to release power locked inside of metal. Metabolism grew out of that. It felt natural. We metabolize food for energy; letting Allomancers metabolize metal had just the right blend of science and magic.

For Warbreaker, I was looking back a little further, shooting for a more Renaissance-era feel. And so, I extrapolated from the early beliefs that similarities created bonds. In other words, you could affect an object (in this case, bring an object to life) by creating a bond between it and yourself, letting it take on a semblance of your own life.

Moving beyond that was the idea of color as life. When a person dies, their color drains from them. The same happens when plants die. Vibrant color is a sign of life itself, and so I worked with this metaphor and the concept of Breath as life to develop the magic. In this case, I wanted magical powers that would work better 'in' society, meaning things that would enhance regular daily lives. Magical servants and soldiers, animated through arcane powers, worked better for this world than something more strictly fighting-based, like in Mistborn.

How long did it take for you to complete the Mistborn Trilogy? I wrote the entire trilogy, straight through, starting in the beginning of 2003 and ending in early 2006.

How much research, if any, went into the making of the Mistborn trilogy? I did quite a bit, mostly reading about the era of the industrial revolution, alongside researching alchemy and eunuchs.

To further the above question by Nadine: How did you ever keep the unique power systems all straight and use them so well for your readers to understand?

The powers, to me, were just so fascinating, well developed, and unique on so many levels! I think with a lesser artist than yourself the powers might have been too much to take in, but I found them quite easy to follow and understand. Just amazing! You seriously are one of my favorite authors. I'll be in line for all of your books!

Thanks! It took a lot of practice. Keeping them straight for myself isn't so difficult--it's like keeping characters straight. The more I've written, the easier it's become.

What is more difficult is keeping it all straight for the readers. This can be tough. One of the challenges with fantasy is what we call the Learning Curve. It can be very daunting to pick up a book and find not only new characters, but an entirely new world, new physics, and a lot of new words and names.

I generally try to introduce this all at a gentle curve. In some books, like Warbreaker, starting with the magic system worked. But in Mistborn, I felt that it was complex enough--and the setting complex enough--that I needed to ease into the magic, and so I did it bit by bit, with Vin.

In all things, practice makes perfect. I have a whole pile of unpublished novels where I didn't do nearly as good a job of this. Even still, I think I have much to learn. In the end of Mistborn One and Warbreaker both I think I leave a little too much confusion about the capabilities of the magic.

And last but definitely not least, You seem to have left the New World of Mistborn open for a book maybe featuring Spook in the future, any thoughts?

I did leave it open. But that's partially because I feel that part of any good book is the indication that the characters continue to live, the world continues to turn. I want readers to be free to imagine futures for the characters and more stories in the world.

For Mistborn, I'm not planning--right now--to do any Spook books. I do have plans to do another trilogy set in the world, though it would take place hundreds of years later, once technology has caught up to what it should be. Essentially, think guns, cars, skyscrapers--and Allomancers.

Who or what was your inspiration to start writing Fantasy?

When I was 14, I discovered the fantasy genre through Barbara Hambly's DRAGONSBANE. After her, I read McCaffrey and Rawn. They are really the ones who inspired me to start. When Robert Jordan's books came along, I was done for.

Which of Your Books is Your Favorite ?

Tough call. Right now, Warbreaker is the best written--though The Gathering Storm is better, I think. I think that Way of Kings will be awesome too. But you didn't ask for the best, you asked for my favorite. In that case, I'd probably have to say Elantris, as it was my first.

Which of Your Characters is Your Favorite?

Tie between Lightsong and Vin.

Were books a natural part of your childhood?

Unlike a lot of writers, I wasn't a big reader when I was younger. I came to it late, when I was in eighth grade. Until then, none of the books (mostly ones about boys with pet dogs) that people had given me worked. And then I discovered fantasy. From then on, you never found me without a book. Often two or three.

And Do you have a favorite book or author?

Right now, Pratchett is my favorite living author. Jordan was my favorite for a long, long time. I'd add the original three ladies--McCaffrey, Rawn, and Hambly--to that as well, as they were the ones to get me into this genre.

In a recent (May 2009) interview you stated the following:

Q: What do you have planned after you finish Wheel of Time?

A: My next series will be The Way of Kings, which is the start of a big epic for me. I've plotted it as ten books. Fantasy writers, we get into this business because we love the big epics. We grow up reading Brooks and Jordan, and we get to the point where we say, "I want to do this myself."

This should tie you up for a good ten years after you finish The Wheel of Time. Does it mean that you are not going to write anymore one- or three- volume epic fantasy novels?

Can you give us some hints as to what The Way of Kings will be about?

I've told Tor that I want to release KINGS on a schedule of two books, followed by one book in another setting, then two more KINGS. The series of KINGS has been named The Stormlight Archive. (The Way of Kings is the name of the first volume.)

So I should be doing plenty of shorter series in between. We'll see how busy this all keeps me. I think I'd go crazy if I weren't allowed to do new worlds every now and again.

But, then, KINGS turned out very, very well. (The first book is complete as of yesterday.) What is it about? Well...I'm struggling to find words to explain it. I could easily give a one or two line pitch on my previous books, but the scope of what I'm trying with this novel is such that it defies my attempts to pin it down.

It happens in a world where hurricane-like storms crash over the land every few days. All of plant life and animal life has had to evolve to deal with this. Plants, for instance, have shells they can withdraw into before a storm. Even trees pull in their leaves and branches. There is no soil, just endless fields of rock.

According to the mythology of the world, mankind used to live in The Tranquiline Halls. Heaven. Well, a group of evil spirits known as the Voidbringers assaulted and captured heaven, casting out God and men. Men took root on Roshar, the world of storms, but the Voidbringers chased them there, trying to push them off of Roshar and into Damnation.

The voidbringers came against man a hundred by a hundred times, trying to destroy them or push them away. To help them cope, the Almighty gave men powerful suits of armor and mystical weapons, known as Shardblades. Led by ten angelic Heralds and ten orders of knights known as Radiants, men resisted the Voidbringers ten thousand times, finally winning and finding peace.

Or so the legends say. Today, the only remnants of those supposed battles are the Shardblades, the possession of which makes a man nearly invincible on the battlefield. The entire world, essentially, is at war with itself--and has been for centuries since the Radiants turned against mankind. Kings strive to win more Shardblades, each secretly wishing to be the one who will finally unite all of mankind under a single throne.

That's the backstory. Probably too much of it. (Sorry.) The book follows a young spearman forced into the army of a Shardbearer, led to war against an enemy he doesn't understand and doesn't really want to fight. It will deal with the truth of what happened deep in mankind's past. Why did the Radiants turn against mankind, and what happened to the magic they used to wield?

I've been working on this book for ten years now. Rather than making it easier to describe and explain, that has made it more daunting. I'm sure I'll get better at it as I revise and as people ask me more often.

Needless to say, this will have some major spoilers for the Mistborn series. So turn back now if you don't want to read them.

In Mistborn:

There was mention of a man named Adonasuim. We were wondering if this man may have been Preservation, whom "died" before Vin took over. Is that who he was or was he someone else?

The man who died before Vin took over was named Leras. (I've occasionally written it as Laras. I've said the names in my head for years, but I'm only now writing them down as people ask me on forums.) Leras, like Ati (aka Ruin), were NOT Adonalsium. (Sorry about the typo on that one in MB3. I wrote it down on the manuscript, and it didn't get put in quite right. We'll get it fixed.)

Adonalsium was something or someone else. You will find out more. There are clues in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings.

In Mistborn #3 Hero of Ages:

Quote It isn't mentioned where all the Steel Inquisitors, Kandra, and Koloss went in the end. Do you feel that they were removed from the world and Sazed took all the lost souls to his better place?

Marsh survived. (He'll show up in the Mistborn sequel series.) The Kandra were restored, and have taken a vow to live only in animal bodies. There will never be any more of them, but they are functionally immortal. So you'll see them again. The Koloss who were in the cavern at the time survived, and were changed to become a race that breeds true, rather than Hemalurgic monsters. More below.

Also, We just took for granted that Sazed is with Tindwyl now. Is that so?

Well, here's the thing. What Sazed is right now is something of a god in the classic Greek sense--a superpowered human being, elevated to a new stage of existence. Not GOD of all time and space. In a like manner, there are things that Sazed does not have power over. For instance, he couldn't bring Vin and Elend back.

Where Tindwyl exists is beyond space and time, in a place Sazed hasn't learned to touch yet. He might yet. If you want to add in your heads him working through that, feel free. But as it stands at the end of the book, he isn't yet with Tindwyl. (He is, however, with Kelsier--who refused to "Go toward the light" so to speak, and has been hanging around making trouble ever since he died. You can find hints of him in MB3 at the right moments.

Of the people that were sick for the 16 days in comparison to just the 1 day, it is mentioned that they would be able to burn more precious metals (atium). Could it also be possible they are/were Mistborn - with the ability to burn all 16 metals?

Well, what was going on here was a clue established and set by Leras before he died. He wanted something to indicate--should he be unable to inform mankind--that what was happening wasn't natural, but instead something intentional. He worried that men wouldn't be able to realize they were being made into Allomancers.

And so, the mist was set to do something very specific, as has to do with the interaction between the human soul, Allomancy, and the sixteen metals.

Each of the 'Shardworlds' I've written in (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, Way of Kings) exists with the same cosmology. All things exist on three realms--the spiritual, the cognitive, and the physical. What's going on here is an interaction between the three realms. I don't to bore you with my made up philosophy, but I do have a cohesive metaphysical reasoning for how my worlds and magic works. And there is a single plane of existence--called Shadesmar, the Cognative Realm--which connects them all.

You will never need to know any of this to read and enjoy my books, but there is an overarching story behind all of them, going on in the background. Adonalsium, Hoid, the origin of Ati, Leras, the Dor, and the Voice (from Warbreaker) are all tied up in this.

I'm really curious where the inspiration for Elantris came from. I really enjoyed that book. =)

As with all of my books, there wasn't one single inspiration, but a number of them. A few of them here were: Chinese and its writing system, and how it relates to Japanese and Korean. The difference between teaching others of your faith in order to help them, as opposed to teaching them in order to aggrandize yourself. What it would be like to live in a leper colony. A king made into a beggar. A woman who, like a friend of mine, felt she was too tall and too smart for men to find her attractive. Magical servants that didn't look like any I'd read about before. And the thought of telling a story about someone who was basically a good, normal person--without a deep, dark past or terrible hidden flaw--who got trust into the worst situation I could imagine.

Also just some technical questions--did you get noticed from JABberwocky from a cold-query or did you have connections?

Originally, I queried. I got turned down. I then met Joshua at the Nebula awards and he told me to query again. That time, he liked the query and read sample chapters--then rejected those, but told me to submit to him what I wrote next. That happened a number of times, each book getting a rejection--but stronger encouragement that I was getting closer.

What was the journey like when you first sought publication?

Long, frustrating, and difficult. I wrote 13 novels before I sold Elantris, which was my sixth. The big change for me happened when I managed to figure out how to revise. I always had good ideas and got better and better at storytelling. But it was the power of revision that finally got me published.

How long did it take?

About eight years of dedicated writing and being rejected.

I'd wager not long, considering how well written Elantris is. =)

You're too kind. But remember that it was my sixth book. The first ones were dreadful.

Are you comfortable working with editors and marketing people by now?

Yes, actually. I've always been very comfortable with that part of the job. I think that after working so long on my own, being ignored, I was just finally happy to HAVE editors and marketing people.

What is the best part about promoting your books? (in your opinion)

Easy. Meeting my readers and having the chance to thank them, in person, for supporting me in my writing addiction.

As a writer, what's your favorite part of the process?

The first few chapters of a new book. When the world is exciting and new, and I get to do something different and challenging.

Do you have a "drawer-full" of ideas waiting to be put to paper?

More like a brain-full, but yes. It's particularly bad now as I had to shelve a number of projects I was working on in order to do the WoT. I don't regret it at all, but those stories keep pounding on the inside of my skull, yelling and begging for me to let them out.

How do you come up with and create the maps for your novels? Is it a process of thought while creating the story itself or does it come later once you've written the story as a means to depict the places you've written about? Also do you scetch them yourself before having them drawn or is the process usually entirely done by a seperate artist?

I usually sketch myself out something vague to use as reference, then make it more and more detailed as I work through the book. At that point, I approach and artist and have them help me come up with a good visual style for the book and the map. If it's an artist I know well, I can sometimes let them do more of the work--the mistborn maps, for instance, were developed by Isaac with very little input from me beyond the text and some basic instructions.

two questions: 1. As the Gathering Storm draws near release, there are many WOT fans that have a large worry that you will not do RJ justice and ruin his series (especially after 4 years of waiting). How big of a worry is this for you, having to fill his shoes, and what are you doing to prepare yourself?

They are right to worry, and I don't blame them at all. They have no assurance whatsoever that I won't ruin their book--the past has proven, I think, that series get ruined more than they get saved when a new author steps in.

I hope, very sincerely, to be in the second category, the one who saves a series rather than kills it. But only November will offer any proof other than my word, and I fully expect people to worry right up until they've read the novel.

The only preparation a person could really have for something like this was to be a lifelong fan. I think this book is good. I think it is VERY good. I'm not worried anymore myself, though I was quite worried when I began.

What can I offer fans right now? Only the promise that the book has had Harriet and Mr. Jordan's assistants working from the beginning to make certain I didn't screw it up. Beyond that, I've made it my first priority to stay true to his wishes and notes, and not deviate unless there is a very, very good reason.

(The only times I've 'deviated' was in to offer more explanation or depth to a scene. I haven't cut anything he wanted to be in the book, save for a few places where he contradicted himself. I.E. There were some scenes where he said "I'm thinking of doing this or this" or "I'm thinking of doing this, but I don't know." In those places, I've made the final call.)

All I can ask is this. Give me a chance. Read the book. After that, we'll talk.

(The most stressful part is probably the realization that no matter what I do, I won't be able to please everyone. Robert Jordan couldn't do that himself. So I will fail some of you. But I hope to please the vast majority of you.)

2. Are you annoyed that people call you BS? After all your initials aren't the most flattering acronym.

Honestly, I've lived with it all of my life. I've been called that since grade school. Heck, I sign my books with my initials. So no, it doesn't bother me.

So first and formost, is there going to be a 2nd warbreaker?

Yes, but I can't promise when. I want to do a book that deals more with the Lifeless and Nightblood, following Vasher and Vivenna a little further. But the WoT made me shelf this project for now. We'll see. It should happen eventually.

Next i been hearing about the way of kings series u are starting. are you planning to have that as a single book or going to try and make it like a trilogy like mistborn or a large 10 or more book series.

It's going to be a big series. No promises on length right now, but I feel that it is going to be long. I have 10 books plotted right now, though some of those might get combined--essentially, there are 10 plot arcs I want to cover. But expect it to be big. The first book is done, and came in at 380,000 words before editing.

Could you tell us, if you know, whether the Prologue of TGS is going to be published early ? It was for the last three books.

I really wish I could give you something firm on this. I know it was done previously, and I've asked for it to be done again--just because so many people want to see it. But there's a big time crunch on this book, and I don't know if Tor can spare the energy for this right now. We'll see. I'll ask again.

Brandon, how do you feel your identity and upbringing as a Mormon has effected your work?

Elantris, for instance, centers around a magic system that has essentially been broken because something in the world has changed--a "new revelation" if you will. And then Mistborn has at its core a set of holy writings that have been altered by an evil force.

These things seem decidely Mormon to me, or at least informed from a Mormon perspective. Do you feel that is the case?

I don't set out to put anything specifically Mormon into my books, but who I am definitely influences what I write and how I write it. I'm always curious at the things people dig out of my writing--neither of the two points you mention above are things that I was conscious of, though they certainly do make interesting points now that you look at them.

My goal in storytelling is first and foremost to be true to the characters--their passions, beliefs, and goals. No matter what those are. I'm not trying to make a point consciously ever in my writing--though I do think that good stories should raise questions and make readers think.

Who I am as a person heavily influences what I write, and I draw from everything I can find--whether it be LDS, Buddhist, Islamic, or Atheist. It's all jumbled up there in that head of mine, and comes out in different characters who are seeking different things.

In other words, I'm not setting out to be like C.S. Lewis and write parables of belief. I'm trying more what Tolkien did (not, of course, meaning to compare myself favorably with the master) in that I tell story and setting first, and let theme and meaning take care of itself.

Fiction doesn't really exist--certainly doesn't have power--until it is read. You create the story in your head when you read it, and so your interpretations (and your pronunciations on the names) are completely valid in your telling of the story. The things you come up with may be things I noticed and did intentionally, they may be subconscious additions on my part, or they may simply be a result of your interaction with the text. But all three are valid.

On a different but related note, I really love that you honestly look at religious convictions in your books and that you don't portray such convictions in a shallow way.

Regardless of a person's beliefs, I think they would have to admit that religion and spirituality has played a large part in our development as a people. It's a very important thing to so many of us--and I also think that for most of us, our beliefs are nowhere near as simple as they seem when viewed from the outside. I appreciate your praise here, though I think I still have a lot to learn. There's a real line to walk in expressing a character's religious views without letting them sound preachy--the goal is to make the character real, but not bore the reader.

Will The Way of Kings series be based on one of the worlds and magic systems you have already created or are you inventing a totally new one for this series?

It will be new. There are going to be a lot of different types of magic in the world (I see there's a question below asking about that, so I'll answer more there.) But there will be two main magic systems for the first book. The first will deal with the manipulation of fundamental forces. (Gravity, Strong/weak atomic forces, Electromagnetic force, that sort of thing.) The second will be a transformation based magic system, whereby people can transform objects into one of the world's ten elements.

Brandon, with you being a writer specialized in cool and unique magic systems, how was it to use and write with the magic system in Wheel of Time? Hard or easy? Did you have to come up with new weaves, or did Jordan already have unmentioned weaves written down somewhere? And how did it work for you to write channeling battles?

Well, the Wheel of Time magic system was one of those that inspired me to make magic systems the way I do. I've long loved the magic in Mr. Jordan's books, and think he does a very good job of walking the line between having it feel scientific and still feel wondrous. He does tend to go a little bit further toward wonder--as opposed to science--but that has a great number of advantages for his story.

In answer, I've come up with just a few new weaves, but mostly I wanted to use his weaves in new ways. I think there's a lot of room to explore the use of Weaves and how people interact with the magic. Don't expect a LOT of this though. The focus is on the characters and the Last Battle at this point, but there were a few places where (mostly in throw-away, background moments) I was able to explore the magic a tad. I actually found it one of the easier things in the book, though I DID have to keep looking up how specific weaves were created. It gets confusing, particularly since men and women often do the weaves differently.

As for channeling battles...well, I can't really tell you if there are any of those in the book without giving anything away, now can I? So we'll have to RAFO that.

You have stated in your blog (http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/784/Another-Long-Winded-Explanation-of-Various-Things) that Mistborn had three magic systems (Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemurology) and also that the Way of Kings will have upwards of 20. For comparison, how many magic systems would you say the Wheel of Time series has? Two (One Power and the True Power)? How do you classify other abilities (not necessarily related to the One Power or True Power) such as dreamwalking, viewing the pattern, wolfbrother-hoodness, and changing 'luck' or chance? Would you classify these abilities as a magic system in and of themselves? Has your chance to see the background material Robert Jordan left changed how you view these abilities?

This kind of gets sticky, as it's all up to semantics. Really, you could say that Mistborn had a different magic system for each type of Misting. But at the same time, you could argue that something like X-Men--with huge numbers of powers--all falls under the same blanked 'magic system.' And take Hemalurgy in Mistborn 3--is it a new magic system, or just a reinterpretation of Allomancy and Feruchemy?

So what do I mean by twenty or thirty magic systems in KINGS? Hard to say, as I don't want to give spoilers. I have groupings of abilities that have to deal with a certain theme. Transformation, Travel, Pressure and Gravity, that sort of thing. By one way of counting, there are thirty of these--though by another way of grouping them together, there are closer to ten.

Anyway, I'd say that the Wheel of Time has a fair number of Magic systems. The biggest one would be the One Power/True Power, which is more of a blanket "Large" magic system kind of like Allomancy being a blanket for sixteen powers--only the WoT magic system is far larger. I'd count what Perrin/Egwene do in Tel as a different magic system. What Mat does as something else, the talents one can have with the Power something else. Though I'd group all of the Foretelling/Viewing powers into one.

Sounds like a topic for a paper, actually. Any of you academics out there feel like writing one?

Let's just say that The Wheel of Time has a smaller number of larger magic systems, and I tend to use a larger number of smaller magic systems. Confusing enough?

One common theme in magic systems across fantasy is the use of artifacts to focus, increase or do something specific with the magic. Inclusion of artifacts is something you have avoided in your magic systems (although I will say I haven't missed them). Is there a reason for this? How has your writing changed with the 'forced' introduction of artifacts (i.e. finishing the Wheel of Time)? Do you plan on using artifacts in your own works after you finish the Wheel of Time?

I've not done artifacts for the same reason I've not yet done a lot of things--not because I don't want to, but because I like to keep the focus in a given book or books. There wasn't room for yet another extrapolation in that direction when writing the Mistborn books, and the magic system didn't really allow for it.

However, I think there is a lot of room to explore magic artifacts. I've long been wanting to do something that refines magic and uses technology based on it, in kind of a magic-punk sort of way. KINGS, for instance, does use artifacts and magical items--very specific kinds, mind you, that are built into the framework of the magic system. But they're there. One of the big elements of this world will be the existence of Shardplate (magically enhanced, powered plate armor) and Shardblades (large, summonable swords designed to cut through steel and stone.)

This isn't really because of the WoT--I wrote the original draft of this book long before I was published, let alone working on the WoT--but I have always lilked the use of artifacts in the WoT world, and it has been fun to use some of them in that setting.

The Way of Kings

I found this on a blog posted July 2008. Does it have any relationship to reality?

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...No matter your race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or belief system, you will find something to love in "The Way of Kings". There were pirates, ninjas, monkeys, fireworks, grand journeys, infidels dragged through streets by dragons and a fair amount of buckles swashed. There were ladies romanced, men romanced, sheep romanced and one scene where even two mice get it on. And if you can forgive an inordinate amount of abuse aimed at Canadians, this just may be the book for you. Be forewarned, however, if you can't abide graphic depictions of sexual content that would make Laurell K. Hamilton blush and cover her naughty bits, you might want to skip this book...

...The way Brandon Sanderson breathes life into this story is inspirational. The characters, the storyline, the magic -- seemingly woven (as only Brandon can) from sheer nothingness. One of my favorite parts of the book is where the Wizard Ooflar divides one rather simple system of magic into five complex subsets, each with its own arcane history and labyrinthine steps. Who would have thought the apprentice Pemberly could put an entire village to sleep by tapping out a quadrille in her clogs? Although it would seem implausible, somehow his magical system works, especially the dance-off. I also enjoyed the ten-day feast in section two, chapter 85. I don't know if I'll ever forget the scene in which we see King Horag the Midleth eating live grunthyean orbs. (gag) I loved this book and can't wait for the sequel...

Ha. These are some of the amusing fake reviews for KINGS that readers have been posting on Amazon. For some reason, Amazon put up a page for this book years and years ago, when I got my first contract. Somehow, they heard I was working on a book called THE WAY OF KINGS, and jumped the gun in adding a page for it, even though I was still working on the book. (I've been planning, writing, and wrestling with this story for some ten years now.) Anyway, readers noticed the page and began having fun with it. None of them have read the book, but that hasn't stopped them from reviewing it. There are even pictures of it, including photoshops of me holding a fake book. Look for it on Amazon. It's rather amusing.

Your stories are so indepth and unique in the magical systems and religions. I was wondering if you have always, even through childhood, been creative with stories? Have some of the ideas in these books been something you created when young and then evolved into a story now? Have you always been interested in writing stories as you grew up? Did you have that notebook in class scribbling full of stories and ideas while sitting in class supposedly taking notes?

I've spoken before on the fact I didn't discover fantasy, and reading, until I was fourteen. (The book, if I haven't mentioned it on this forum yet, was Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.)

Before then, I was a daydreamer. I was always daydreaming--I was never in the room where I was supposed to be listening or studying. I was off somewhere else. Oddly, though, I didn't make the connection between this and writing until I was given that first fantasy novel.

When I read that book (and moved on to McCaffrey, as it was next in the card catalogue) I discovered something that blew my mind. Here were people who were taking what I did, sitting around and imagining stories, and they were making a living out of it.

I hit the ground running, so to speak. Started my first novel the next fall, began gobbling up fantasy books wherever I could find them, began writing notes and ideas in my notebooks instead of (as you guessed) the notes I was supposed to be taking.

Even after all this, though, I was persuaded that people couldn't make a living as an author. So I went to school my freshman year as a bio-chemist, on track for becoming a doctor. That lasted about one year of frustrating homework and classes spent daydreaming before I made the decision to try becoming a writer.

Is there any information about Way of Kings that you can give us at this time?

I've wanted to do a long epic for a while. I guess that's what comes from reading Jordan and the others while growing up. And so, way back in the late 90's--when I was experimenting with my style--I started working on ideas for a longer form series. I knew the real trick for me would be to do it in a way that it didn't feel stale after just a few books; there needed to be enough to the world, the magic, and the plot arcs that I (and hopefully readers) would keep interested in the series for such a long time.

What it gives me (the thing that I want in doing a longer epic) is the chance to grow characters across a larger number of books. Dig into their pasts, explore what makes them think the way they do, in ways that even a trilogy cannot. In KINGS, I don't want to do a longer 'saga' style series, with each book having a new set of characters. I want this to be one overarching story.

One of the things that has itched at me for long time in my fantasy reading is the sense of loss that so many fantasy series have. I'm not complaining, mind you--I love these books. But it seems like a theme in a large number of fantasy books is the disappearance of magic and wonder from the world. In Tolkien, the Elves are leaving. In Jordan, technology is growing and perhaps beginning an age where it will overshadow magic. It's very present in Brooks, where the fantasy world is becoming our world. Even Eddings seemed to have it, with a sense that sorcerers are less common, and with things like the only Dragons dying, the gods leaving.

I've wanted to do a series, then, where the magic isn't going away--it's coming back. Where the world is becoming a more wondrous place. Where new races aren't vanishing, they're being discovered.

Obviously, I'm not the first to approach a fantasy this way. Maybe I'm reading too much into the other books, seeing something that isn't there. But the return of magic is one of the main concepts that is driving me. Well, that and enormous swords and magical power armor.

Also, how did the experiment with Warbreaker turn out, and are you planning to do this with any other things you write?

It's so hard to tell, sales-wise, how it helped or hurt. I don't, honestly, think it hurt--and I think it could only have helped, as more and more WoT readers turned their eyes on me and were able to grab a book to read for free. I do plan to do it again in the future, most likely with the Warbreaker sequel.

Finally, do you have any advice for people that would like to write for a living?

First and foremost, don't give up. It can take a while. It takes time to master anything--whether it be writing, playing the piano, or brain surgery. People are willing to dedicate eight years or more to becoming a doctor. If you really want to be a writer, you need to be willing to dedicate the same amount of time and effort. Practice. Practice some more. Write a book, then write another, then write another. (I didn't sell my first, or my second, or my fifth. Elantris was my sixth book.) Secondly, write what you love. Don't try and guess the market. Read the type of books you want to write, pay attention to what they do, and decide what it is you want to say and how you will add to the discussion. What makes your additions to the conversation unique? Write it because you feel it inside of you, not because it's what seems to be hot right now.

Finally, if I may make a plug, hop over to writingexcuses.com and listen to me and the others on our writing podcast talk about this sort of thing.

Just one question, though I'm expecting a RAFO:

Will the White Tower, the physical structure itself, be destroyed at the end of TGS or any other point in aMoL?

Sorry, but...well, RAFO. I'm under contract not to give things like this away.

We do know that Egwene has foreseen a strike by the Seanchan on the White Tower. We don't know how this will happen, though, or even if she's interpreting things correctly.

When it comes to crazy plot twist, fascinating characters, magic systems, humor, religion, etc. What do you feel, for you, is the hardest part to get on paper or come up with?

I would say that the most difficult parts have to do with getting a character's internal conflicts (if they have them) right. Sometimes, this can take a lot of exploration. Sazed in MB3 took a LOT of work before I was satisfied.

Second hardest is getting the humor right, particularly witty style humor like in the Lightsong sections of Warbreaker. There are frequently times when I spend hours on a single line in sections like that.

By the way, all of your work is pure Awesomeness!

Thanks! I try my best to avoid watered-down awesomeness, if only because of the aftertaste.

How difficult was it to come up with new magic systems considering the wealth of fantasy out there with already established magic systems(that seems to just get re-used in different formats by various other authors)? Do you have more systems to be used in future novels? If so how do you go about envisioning them and creating the rules in the first place?

I've got a few very nifty ones reserved for the future. Don't worry; I'm not nearly out of ideas yet. And I'm constantly having new ones I don't have time to use.

There IS a lot of fantasy out there. And yet, I think there's a great deal of room left for exploration in magic. The frontiers of imagination are still rough-and-tumble, unexplored places, particularly in this genre. It seems that a lot of fantasy sticks very close to the same kinds of magic systems.

One of the things I've come to believe is that limitations are more important than powers in many cases. By not limiting themselves in what their characters can do, authors often don't have to really explore the extent of the powers they've created. If you are always handing your characters new powers, then they'll use the new and best--kind of like giving your teen a new car every year, rather than forcing them to test the limits of what that old junker will do. Often, those old cars will surprise you. Same thing for the magic. When you're constrained, as a writer, by the limits of the magic, it forces you to be more creative. And that can lead to better storytelling and a more fleshed out magic.

Now, don't take this as a condemnation of other books. As writers, we all choose different things to focus on in our stories, and we all try different things. Jordan's ability to use viewpoint, Martin's use of character, Pratchett's use of wit--these are things that far outshine anything I've been able to manage in my works so far.

But I do think that there is a great deal of unexplored ground still left to map out in some of these areas. (Specifically magic and setting.) A great magic system for me is one that has good limitations that force the characters to be creative, uses good visuals to make the scenes more engaging while written, and has ties to the culture of the world and the motivations of the viewpoint characters.

I love Mistborn! (also Elantris). I can hardly wait to begin on Warbreaker. I know many have questions on the metal based ideas. In Elantris, where did the idea for the disease come from?

Three things. First, some reading I was doing about leper colonies. I wanted to tell a story about someone locked into a similar situation, only tie it to the magic of the world and the history of the city itself.

Secondly, I had this crazy desire to do a book starring zombies that nobody would realize were zombies. It was one of those things that stuck in my head. Undead corpses, with weak bodies that slowly stop working? As heroes? Could I make it work?

Finally, the idea of pain that didn't go away. What would happen if every little wound you took continued to hurt just as badly as it had in the first moment of pain? And what if that pain never, never went away?

Are you going to write more about the mistborn? there's still those mysterious metals, and it's a brand new world out there now so many possiblities you could do with that!

I will, someday, write a follow-up trilogy to Mistborn. It will be set several hundred years after the events of the first trilogy, after technology has caught up to where it should be. Essentially, these will be urban fantasy stories set in the same world. Guns, cars, skyscrapers--and Allomancers.

That's still pretty far off, though. The other metals are being revealed on the poster I'm releasing of the Allomantic table. Should be for sale on my website sometime soon, though someone here can probably link to the image I posted of it, which has the other metals explained. (I can't remember where exactly that link is right now.)

Hero of the new trilogy would be a nicrosil Misting.

Also, was there an inspiration for Vin and if so who/what was it?

Vin has been hard for me to pin down, inspiration wise. I tried so many different variations on her character (even writing her character as a boy) that it's hard to pinpoint when I got it right. There was no one single inspiration for her. (Unlike Sarene, who was based on a friend of mine.) She's a mix of my sisters, a good writer friend of mine, and a dozen different other little bits of people.

The time when I got her character RIGHT was when I wrote the scene that became her first in Mistborn, where she's watching the ash blow in the street, and envies it for its freedom. That, mixed with Kelsier's observation that she isn't a bad person--she just thinks everyone else is--were the big points where her character took form.

Brandon, you are noted for your fairly concise epic novels. But I am curious about how the final volume of The Wheel of Time, which was envisioned by Robert Jordan as a final and single book, get to be so long? Not just a little longer but incredibly longer (possibly over 900,000 words). 1. Did Robert Jordan totally miscalculate the size his final book? Or didn't he get too far writing it and had no idea of how long it would be? 2. Is it including every note Jordan had on the subject because no one is sure what he really wanted to use? 3. Is it being turned into a self-contained trilogy because a lot of people (like me) haven't read the entire 11 book series (or by now have forgotten the story ), and it has to include some back-story?

I've wondered this myself, actually, in some form. As a long time reader of the series, when he began saying it would be one book, I was very curious how he'd pull it off. And then I saw the notes, and I was left scratching my head a little bit.

It's not option three--I was doing a little bit more of this, but Harriet requested that I scale it back. Her opinion (and it was Robert Jordan's opinion) is that the series is much too long to spend time recapping in every book. She was right, and I trimmed a lot of it.

2 might have some influence here. Robert Jordan could have chosen to cut out characters and leave out scenes he had in the notes; it doesn't feel right for me to do that.

But I think, overall, it's something that you didn't mention at all. Robert Jordan knew this was going to be a BIG book. He began promising it would be the last, but also that it would be so big that readers would need a cart to get it out of the store. I think he was planning a single, massive book at 800k words or so.

But he DID want it to be one book--partially, I suspect, because he knew his time was short. He wanted to get it done. If he hadn't been sick, however, I don't think he would have started calling this the last book.

Harriet has told me on several occasions that she didn't think he would have done it in one book, if he'd been given the freedom to approach the writing how he wanted. In the end, there is SO much to do that it was going to end up like this no matter what. Unless I crammed it all in and forgot about a lot of the characters.

Would Robert Jordan have been able to do it in one book? Really? I don't know. I think that, if he'd lived, he might have worked some magic and gotten it done in one 400 or 500k volume. But I feel the need to be very careful and not ruin this series by strangulation. It's not going to go on forever, but it does need a little room to breathe.

As an author, you have acheived moderate success. People like you and have heard of you withing the genre and you have established a relationship with your publishing company that let's you get a lot of books published.

This is the level of success I want as a writer and I am just wondering how financially viable this is. Like, can you write only or so you need a so-called day job. Are you able to support your family with your writing alone? That kind of thing.

Sorry if that is kind of a personal question. I've just always wondered how much money a writer makes once they've "made it".

I had a lot of questions like this myself during my days trying to break in. Everyone told me it wasn't possible to make a living as a writer--that, like an actor or a musician, I'd spend my life poor and obscure.

One of the big turning-points came when I met and talked to a professional writer who had had modest success. Not a huge name, but a person who had done what you hope to do. Publish a book every year, never be a household name, but well-known enough in-genre that a large portion of the readers had seen his books on the shelves, though many still had no idea who he was. (The author was David Farland, by the way.)

I wish I could give you that same experience, though it's going to be harder while not face to face. The main tone of the meeting and his encouragement was this: IT IS POSSIBLE and YOU CAN DO IT!

Not everyone can make a living at writing. But it's very within reach, and for the dedicated author willing to practice and learn, it's not as difficult to make a living as many make it out to be.

I do make a living full time at this, and have for several years now. In the early years, it wasn't what many would call a 'good' income, but it was enough for me. Now, it is an excellent income. Not "Fly to Europe every week" income, but certainly "Take your friends out to eat once in a while" income.

A standard royalty for an author would be to 10-15% on a hardcover, and around 8% on a paperback. Usually, the percentage gets better the more copies you sell.

Now, books don't sell the huge numbers that people usually think they do. If you sell 2k hardcover copies in your first week, you can get on the NYT list. (Though it's not certain--it depends on what week it is and what other books came out. 3k is a pretty sure bet, though.)

Elantris--an obscure, but successful, book--sold about 10k copies in hardcover and around 14k copies its first year in paperback. I've actually sold increasing numbers each year in paperback, as I've become more well-known. But even if you pretend that I didn't, and this is what I'd earn on every book, you can see that for the dedicated writer, this could be viable as an income. About $3 per book hardcover and about $.60 paperback gets us around 39k income off the book. Minus agent fees and self-employment tax, that starts to look rather small. (Just under 30k). But you could live on that, if you had to. (Remember you can live anywhere you want as a writer, so you can pick someplace cheap.)

I'd consider 30k a year to do what I love an extremely good trade-off. Yes, your friends in computers will be making far more. But you get to be a writer.

The only caveat here is that I did indeed get very lucky with my placement at Tor. It's the successful hardcover release that makes the above scenario work. If you only had the paperback, and everyone who bought the hardcover bought that instead, you'd have to be selling around 60k copies to make it work. That's very possible, and I know a lot of midlist writers who do it.

Anyway, numbers shouldn't be what gets you into this business. If you have to tell stories, tell them. To be a writer, I feel you need to have such a love of the process that you'd write those books even if you never sold one. It's not about the money, and really shouldn't be. (And sorry to go on so long. I just feel it important to give aspiring writers the same kinds of help that I got.)

1) Is Clod a Lifeless Arsteel?

Yes. Good eye.

2) Are/were all the Five Scholars Returned?

Yes.

3) How could Vasher become Drab, since he would have to give up his Big Breath to do so?

The Divine Breath can be hid. Essentially, you have to view yourself NOT as a god at all, using a very specific bit of mental gymnastics. As a Returned, your body changes based on how you see yourself. (This, by the way, is an indication that Lightsong was more pleased with himself than he ever let on.)

You don't lose your Divine Breath, but it does go into hiding, making you look like a normal person. But you're still Returned, and are consuming a Breath at one a week. If you give away your other Breaths, you retain this hidden one, but your body will still consume its own spirit if left to do so. So you still need a Breath a week to survive, and will die the week you don't get one.

I left this as an intentional place to explore the magic in the sequel, which I had planned to be writing (and posting on my website) by the time Warbreaker was out in stores. The WoT has diverted me, and so I feel bad, since this ends up being a confusing question that a number of readers have had. The hints toward how this is working are very difficult to find. (The biggest one is probably in the opening, where Vasher thinks about how he could reach the Fifth Heightening instantly, if he wanted to.)

4) Can you give any history on Denth? I don't know what he did as one of the Five Scholars. What was his roll during the Manywar?

Boy, you know, I'd rather leave the history of the Five and the Manywar for the sequel. Denth was there, and at first he tried to stop it, work as a peacemaker, and eventually took Vasher's side. Until the death of his sister.

5) How would a tongueless God-King give up his Breaths?

It involves the God King having a child. (Yes, it's possible.) I talk a little more about this in the annotations, but don't want to give too much away here.

Backup plan is to have a Returned heal him, like actually ended up happening.

6) If you could pick any actress to play Blushweaver in a movie based on Warbreaker, who would you pick? Monica Bulluci and Salma Hayek are top picks on your forum!

Monica Bellucci is a fantastic choice. Either her, or Angelina Jolie.

What's the earliest that we'll be seeing more of Scribbler (I'd heard a bunch about it at TWG, and so I found the sample chapters on your site and now I'm REALLY wanting more of it, so I'd like to know when I should start looking again...)?

Sigh. I really want to do something with Scribbler, but I can't justify it right now. I'm doing the fourth Alcatraz because I can't put it off any longer because of contracts, and KINGS because Tor really wants a solo Brandon book next year. But I can't justify working too much on a project that hasn't been sold and which--if published--would end up pulling me into another side trilogy. I have to leave the WoT with the space it needs and deserves. Until it is completed, I have to shelve side projects. That, unfortunately, includes Scribbler. For now.

There are some things in the works with it, and I'm very excited about the possibilities. But there's nothing tangible I can give you now. It's coming. Maybe sooner than I've made it sound, but best to be careful as nothing is set yet.

Do you know when we'll start seeing Way of Kings? Sample chapters in particular. This series sounds freaking amazing and I can't wait to see more of it. So, yeah..now that the first draft is finished (congratulations, by the way), I'm quite curious...

My plan is to start releasing sample chapters of Kings next year sometime in the spring. Not too close to draw any attention away from the release of The Gathering Storm, but far enough ahead of the Kings launch to give a good preview. February, perhaps? If you don't see them by then, I officially give you permission to send my assistant a reminder email to 'poke' me into doing it.

And lastly, do you think you're going to be able to do any readings at the Idaho Falls signing later this year, or is it going to be entirely focused on WoT? Because I (and I'm sure others) would TOTALLY love to hear some solo-Brandon stuff. (Oh, and related, do you know WHEN the I.F. signing will be?)

I'll be doing a signing during the Christmas Season, though it will be focused on the WoT. (It's going to be very close to Christmas, maybe the Friday or Saturday before.) Perhaps I'll ask the bookstore if I can come back after the WoT fans are sated to do a reading on another day, after Christmas, focused on my own work. I'll consider it. Seems like it might be a good idea.

Hey Mr.. Sanderson, I know that amol should be finished in the next couple years (at the latest.) I know that you tend to work on multiple projects. Unless you are planning to do another (totally) new project can we expect another warbreaker, elantris, or preferably mistborn book as you release the ten way of kings books?

I do like to work on multiple projects. During those early unpublished years, I was always hopping from book to book, and it became habit for me. It really helps me keep fresh, allowing me to try new things and experiment with my style. One of the hardest thinks about working on the WoT has been the number of side projects I've had to set aside because of lack of time.

And so, with the Way of Kings series (aka The Stormlight Archive) I plan to do the books on a 2-to-1 ration. Meaning two Stormlight books, followed by one random side book. Generally, you should expect three books every two years from me, as that's been my speed. So there should still be a Stormlight book every year, though we'll see.

Some will be new things, others will be in current series. My current plans are to do an Elantris sequel in 2015, for instance, and I'd like to do the second (and final) Warbreaker book eventually.

also, is there a common reality/universe throughout all of you works (WoT excluded)? The gods and magic system of your books you have mentioned as pieces of a larger source. I know I am mistaking the language a bit it was a while ago that I read this. But preservation and ruin were linked and you referenced possible deities in elantris, not to mention austre. I know your magic systems are all well thought out and the rules have practical founding. With this in mind, I assume your deities and beings of power would have universally applied links and rules as well. I figure they all exist in the same multi-verse.

I am remaining mostly closed-lipped on this topic, as I don't want to spoil the story and discovery. There is a lot of discussion about it on my website. I can confirm what I've said earlier, that there is a common character appearing in the books, and that there is a single cosmology to all of the Shardworlds and their books (Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, White Sand, Dragonsteel, The Silence Divine, etc. Those last three are unpublished, by the way.) There is also a connection between how the magic works in each book, as well as the fundamental metaphysics of the worlds.

I almost forgot, now that The Way of Kings first book, first draft is finished. When can we expect that to hit the shelves?

August or September of next year. (Huzzah!)

now my intrest is perked. Whivh charecter is in both mistborn and elantris? I must know!!

of corse if it is a secret for another book donb't tell me.

I suggest looking through my forums and talking to the people there. Also, some questions on this forum talk about the issue. I don't like to spell things out, and so I stay away from giving too much. Look around; it's not to difficult to find, now that people have begun to catch on.

Oops, I missed the Twitter Q&A, but I noticed there you're doing a signing in the DC area later this year. Thanks!

Yup. Soon after The Gathering Storm is released. Details will be on my website soon. Will also be in New York, at the B&N flagship store on Manhattan.

Is it possible that there could be more than 4 Alcatraz books, or will the story conclude there?

I pitched the series at 6 books, but only signed on for four at first. And so, while I'll be fulfilling my four book contract (happily) I don't know that I'll have time to write an Alcatraz book in 2010 (for 2011 release.) I may have to let it stop at four for now, as to not take time away from the Wheel of Time. We'll see how I feel once I've finished all three of those, and we'll see how interested readers are in the books. But there's certainly a possibility.

Laurels Thanks

Welcome and it is great to know that you live not too far from me. My question is this. I know that Orson Scott Card taught some Comparative Science Fiction class at BYU. Did you every take it and if so how much influence did it have on your wanting to write? I have enjoyed all of your books and at family gatherings that do get discussed.

I actually never got to take a class from Mr. Card, though I have enjoyed his books quite a bit. From what I hear, he has excellent advice for writers, but he wasn't teaching any classes at BYU when I was there. I did take a class from David Farland, which was extremely helpful. By then I was already a very dedicated writer (I had just finished Elantris) but didn't know much about the business at all. Mr. Farland's class taught me a lot about the nuts and bolts of getting published, and one could say that I owe my eventual publication--and a lot of my success--to what he taught and how helpful he was in how he taught it. Excellent person and writer.

When is the next Alcatraz book coming out?

Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia is in stores October 1st (though Scholastic often ships early, so you might find it as early as September 1st.) Book four--Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens--is being written now and will come out the following October.

Now my question: is Warbreaker going to be the start of a series?

I've talked about the sequel. I wouldn't call it a series, though, since I'm only intending it to be two books. I actually plotted it at one, then during drafting decided that some of the things I wanted to do would be better in a sequel, and started calling it a two-book series. Tor signed me for two, and have put the second one on infinite hiatus, allowing me to turn it in whenever I want.

About your characters, Brandon:

- Which ones are the most like yourself?

There's a piece of me in every one of them, but I'm not really like any of them. People who know me well say that Alcatraz's humor reminds them of my humor (which is different from Lightsong's humor or Kelsier's humor, which are different from mine.) Elend in the original Mistborn book represents so of how I've been known to act (bringing books to social events.) Shuden in Elantris has a lot of me in him, actually. Raoden has my optimism, Hrathen my logical and thoughtful (and dangerously devious) mind, Vin my pragmatic determination, and Sarene my utter lack of skill with painting or drawing. In the end, I don't know if I can pick one who is most like me. Perhaps you should ask my wife. She'd probably be better at seeing this than I am.

- Your favorite male and female characters you've written?

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by favorite. A lot of people ask me this question, and my response is often different. Who am I writing at the time, what I am feeling at the time? Lightsong makes me laugh, but Kelsier is conflicted in a more personal, dangerous way--and that appeals to me. Vin is best rounded, but Sazed is (perhaps) closest to my heart.

- Your favorite male/female characters of all time?

Man, I'm bad at answering questions like this. Okay, male is probably Jean Valjean. Female...urg... Moiraine, maybe? Sioned from Dragon Prince is pretty awesome too. Double urg. I don't know. Jenny from Dragonsbane has long been one of my favorites, so maybe I'd pick her.

About research: What, if any, reasearch for your novels have you done, and how did you do it?

The calling of a fiction writer, particularly a fantasy writer, is to know a little bit about a lot of things--just enough to be dangerous, so to speak. I tend to read survey books that talk about history--things that give overviews, such as the history of warfare, or the history of the sword, or navigation. That kind of thing. I would say I do a fair amount of research, but mostly it's an attempt to dump as much into my brain as possible for spawning stories and writing about things intelligently. For Mistborn, I researched canals, eunuchs, and London during the mid 1800's.

The Eternal Question: Mac or PC?

PC. Not out of any avid devotion, but because it's what I've grown up on. My wife is a Mac person, though.

Your word processor of choice?

Word. Same reason as above.

Do you have music on real loud when you write (I've heard Steve King writes like that) or is it soft in the background?

Soft in the background.

Is the Way of Kings your biggest work planned or do you have something on the shelf that's bigger?

Well...depends. Dragonsteel is plotted at seven books. And I plan two more trilogies, eventually, in the Mistborn world. But KINGS was always planned and plotted to be the big war epic, focusing on large numbers of characters across a large number of books. Mistborn will span hundreds and hundreds of years, though, so it could be 'bigger' by some definitions. Dragonsteel also is in the running, but for reasons I can't really explain without giving away things I don't want to.

Your favorite movies?

Gattica. The Fifth Element, actually, is up there too. The Prisoner of Azkaban movie. Empire Strikes Back. Sneakers. Jacky Chan's Operation Condor. (I know, I know.) The Emperor's New Groove. Star Trek: First Contact.

To be honest, that's probably not a great list. Those are the movies I watch over and over, but there are a lot of movies I love, but have only seen a few times. I'm not generally a 'watch it over again' type of guy, so it's hard to pick favorites. I come back to the genre films or things like Jacky Chan because they're quirky and rewatchable, but that doesn't actually mean they're my favorite--or that they've influenced me as much as other films. For instance, Laurence of Arabia blew my mind, and The Sting influenced how I write quite a bit. But I've only ever seen those films once. But I do keep coming back to Gattica as one of the movies I think does what storytelling should do, when done perfectly right.

Your favorite music?

Depends on the month. Right now? Daft Punk. Before that? Anything by Harry Gregson Williams. (Often, his music is better than the film it is in.) Metallica has been a long-standing favorite of mine, though I've been listening to a lot of Desprez lately.

I'd also like to thank Brandon here for being so wonderfully accessible. It's an excellent gesture Brandon, great of you. Your fans will always love you for it.

No problem! Though that list above made me work. (Wipes brow.) I'm terrible at the "What's your favorite..." type questions.

Who is Hoid in WoA? We (TWG) have found some candidates:

Wolfhound merchant Terris person that Elend meets after Vin went back to Luthadel Teur or old Jed (the two Skaa in the first Sazed chapter) Crazy canibal Skaa (I doubt it though)

We already know it isn't the man who discovered duralumin, or the skaa leader outside the dress shop, or the old skaa who waits with the Holy First Witness when the koloss attack.

I think those were all of the characters that we found as candidates.

People are really close to this one, and I noticed that later in this thread, you or someone else mentioned the footprints in the deleted scene.

Hoid's appearance in MB:WA is a little unlike the others. When the scene at the Well was moved in revision, one of Hoid’s major influences on the book had to go (For various reasons.) Left in the book is only one little hint, really. A character notices something odd about someone, but doesn't dwell on it. You can probably find the line if you look very closely.

Let me say this. Hoid got wrapped up in things he didn't expect to be involved in, and they dominated much of his time during the events of MB:WA. He spent most of the book in a different place from most of the viewpoint characters. He's only near them for a very short time, and he's deeply in disguise. I couldn't include his name, as he'd never have used the name "Hoid" for himself there, because it wouldn't have been right for the disguise. He'd have used another pseudonym. (He didn't, by the way, mention one.)

I've probably said too much already. Now, perhaps what people should asking me is this: “What Hoid has been up to in all of these books?” Or, maybe they shouldn't ask me, as I wouldn't be likely to answer. (There are clues in the novels, however.) No, he’s not just hanging out. Yes, I know what he’s been doing. Will I write his scenes some day? Maybe. We’ll see. There may be short stories posted on my website.

Now this one will probably be RAFO'd:

I know you already said that there are four shards outside of Ati and Leras in your other books. Could you tell us the numbers per book? Is just a standard two per book? Or do some have more than others?

Some world have more than others. You have seen the effects, influences, and work of four other Shards. One Shard, however, was no longer on the world by the time the story was told there.

I know that we've "interacted with two directly" (the pool in Elantris, and The Voice that called Lightsong back to life) that we've "seen it's power" (Dahkhor??) and another that we've seen their infulence (I have no idea on this one, though I think it might be whatever pointed out Aon Rao in Elantris to Raoden)

Nice guesses on most of those. You’ve got some things right. You’ve got some things wrong. The only thing I'll confirm (and I don’t think I’ve said this before) is that The Voice is, indeed, one of the Shards of Adonalsium. (Endowment is that Shard’s true name, by the way.)

My last question shouldn't be as hard to answer and that is:

Who is in charge of the Mistborn movie you mentioned at the #tweettheauthor?

Thank you so much, I love your books!

It is a small production studio, so nobody you'd recognize. The producer is a fan of the Mistborn books who has some credentials in independent films, and who has impressed me with his treatment of the books and his determination to make the film. This individual is starting a production company to focus on the film. We're in the contract stages now, and once that is done, I can be more specific.

It's not like the Alcatraz movie, which was optioned directly by a studio. Because of that, the Mistborn movie is probably a lot less likely to happen--but, the hands it is in are quite good. Anything having to do with Hollywood is a long-shot in the first place, so (after meeting with the producer) I decided that I'd rather take the slightly more unlikely chance in exchange for the opportunity to work with someone I felt understood the books.

BTW, Thank you for your Terry Pratchet recomendation. I have read almost all of them and love them.

The man's a genius. Pure and simple. It took him a little while to convert me, but now that he has, I’m a big fan.

I have a very specific question about The Wheel of Time series. One of my favorite characters has been MIA for way too long. I'm assuming Moiraine Damodred returns to the playing field I'm just wanting to know if it will be in the upcoming book or further on?

This is exactly the sort of thing I've been asked by the Jordan estate to stay quiet about, I'm afraid. (Sorry.) Some things the fans are expecting will happen in this book. But some things had to be saved for the next two volumes. And of Mr. Jordan's instructions were quite surprising, when seen in the light of what everyone expects will happen.

That's really not an answer, is it? Well, let's just call it a RAFO.

What is the x in Aon Mea? Is it one of the Shard-pools?

Afraid not. Aon Mea references the expanded region within which the "Elantris Effect" will create Elantrians. The X is fertile valley with a high density of life, a place with a lot of cognitive activity. (Cognitive as defined by Realmatic Theory includes the 'thoughts' of all things that exist, not just human beings. The more complex the life form, the stronger its presence on the Cognitive Realm.)

I'm feeling a little bewildered; I keep seeing references to "Hoid" throughout these boards and the twitter page, and I'm assuming this is a character who makes a short appearance in each book. If so, is there an actual story going on with him, or was he just someone put in as a sort of "Easter egg?"

I think I've covered this in responses I gave before getting to your question. My forums have a lot more information. (And a lot of guesses.)

1) If you were going to write a novel in a genre other than scifi/fantasy which genre do you think that you would write in?

Hmm... Perhaps a historical. Something I could really sink my teeth into. I could also see myself writing a mystery or a thriller.

The thing is, unless I'm under some kind of restriction, I know that any of those three would probably end up having fantasy or sf elements. It's just how I think.

2) Have you ever considered writing a non-fiction book based of Writing Excuses?

I have indeed considered it. We'll see. I guess it depends on how much interest there is.

3) In MB3, What happened to Kelsier's bones, and will they play any significance in any of the sequels?

The bones survived the events of the last book. We might see them again. Speaking of relic-like items, Sazed's rings survived as well. We might see those again.

Mi'chelle is wanting to know for a fanfic she's wanting to write if when you cut/break an object that has been awakened if the object then "dies", or if the pieces will try to carry out the command. Also, either way, can the breaths be recovered from it?

The object does not die, and will try to continue it's purpose. The level of damage will determine just how well it can continue. The Breaths are recoverable. (Though there could be some loss of Breaths, depending on how the item is destroyed.) There's a scene near the end where Vasher Awakens some clothing, then it gets cut down and he recovers the Breath.

She (and I) would also like to know more details of the mistborn movie. The last she heard, you'd rejected it being a tv series. So, yeah. Any more details?

Did a big post on this just above. I think that will answer the request for details.

Note that I rejected the tv series not because of the idea of doing a tv series itself, but because I wasn't confident in the production studio who was making the offer. More details will come once contracts are signed.

Peter said if we did enough begging, we could see some Nightblood replicas. Can you give us more details? And exactly HOW much more begging would be necessary (Mi'chelle says keep it below $100...I say below $50, but I suppose if you must go higher, I might be able to compensate...)?

I've had an offer from a swordsmith who was at JordanCon. These would be more expensive replicas, though, as they be hand-made by the swordsmith himself. He does very good work, but the price he mentioned was $200, I believe.

I've put Peter in charge of looking into this and seeing how viable it is. The cost might be too high for the readers to want to buy them. What we'd do is take pre-orders, and then do a limited edition run of maybe ten or twenty swords, hand-made by the swordsmith. If we had ten or so preorders, we'd be able to do it.

If the gang from WE were put in a horror film, obviously Dan would be the killer. But what order do you think everyone would die in? And how would they die? (The victim list includes: you, Howard, Jordan, Pemberly, Stacy, and Peter)

Ha! Well, let's see. If Dan were the killer, I think he'd try to take out Howard first, since Howard is obviously the most dangerous of us all. Though he sees me more often, so he might try to get to me first. I'd put it in this order:

Howard Me Jordo Peter Pemberly (he'd leave the women for last because he's a very gentlemanly killer.)

And then Stacy would take Dan down in a surprise ending. She'd edit him out of the script or something.

And lastly, Mi'chelle and I had an idea while conversing....Have you done firesides, and would you consider doing them?

It's an interesting idea. I honestly don't know. I think I could come up with something. (For those confused, it's an LDS church-group thingy.)

Is Adonalsium going to be mentioned by name in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings or is he going to be an underlining "God"(I don't know what to call him yet) idea? I am curious now, so I will have to keep my eyes open for him.

Adonalsium (Ahy-doe-Nahl-see-um) will be mentioned by name again. Ruin and Preservation were what have been called Shards of Adonalsium. (The Voice from Warbreaker is another Shard.)

Is this "character" a common link between your books for religion or magical or maybe even both?

Adonalsium has to do with the Cosmere, which is the word Realmatic philosophers use to refer to the greater universe of the Shardworlds. It's hard to separate religion, magic, science, and society in most of these worlds. So "both" is a good guess.

I was curious because he just seemed to appear and nothing further on him/it. Thank you for mentioning that he is in these 2 other books, I will have to look for hints of him.

The word Adonalsium (or, well, the miss-spelling of it) appears in only one of the books. Other clues and links between the books can be found as well. (Some people on my forums have spotted some of them. Others have gone unspotted so far.)

[This answer isn't in response to any particular question, so I'm just going to put the response down.]

I posted on my website that I'd be doing this, and I don't often have time to interact on forums. (They are a delightful way to interact with readers, but have proven a HUGE time-sink for me in the past. As you might have noticed, I tend to write--and respond--in depth when people ask questions of me.) So I only appear on forums occasionally. Hence the involvement of those from my forums looking for some answers to questions.

Some backstory might help you all. I began writing in earnest in 1997. During those years, I shared the books I wrote with a group of friends. This group worked with me on The Leading Edge, a science fiction fanzine/semiprozine at BYU. Eventually, once we graduated, we founded the Timewaster's Guide, partially as a forum where we could hang out. (Tage and Ookla from the TWG forums--aka Ben and Peter--are among them, and are still very good friends of mine. Another easter egg is to watch how Ben Olsen and Peter Ahlstrom are treated in the acknowledgements of many of my books.)

The overarching story and theme of my books, what I wanted to accomplish as a writer, and how I approached the fantasy genre, all took shape during this time. These readers read many of my most important, and influential (on me as a writer) novels while in draft form. The biggest three of these during this era were White Sand, Dragonsteel, and Elantris. (On the tail end, I wrote--but never finished--the foundations of what years later became Warbreaker.)

The next era of my unpublished writing was when I worked on the worlds, stories, and themes that eventually became Mistborn, The Way of Kings, and a book called the Aether of Night. Many of my writing group friends have read these books, including the first draft of Kings(which is very, very different from the current draft.)

Anyway, these unpublished books are NOT cannon yet. I don't canonize a novel until I publish it. But some of the hidden themes (including Hoid and Adonalsium) of my books are present in these novels. (Dragonsteel and Aether of Night are particularly connected--though of the unpublished Shardworld books, White Sand is probably the best written.) Again, none of this is cannon yet. (For instance, I've taken chunks out of Dragonsteel to use in the revision of The Way of Kings.) However, these old books do contain clues that aren't available to the average reader.

Dragonsteel can be ordered through inter-library loan through the university library system. There are only four or five copies in existence. The BYU library has one (the book was my honor's thesis.) I believe the honors department has one. My thesis chair has one. (And maybe the committee has one, I can't remember.) I've got one in my basement. And I believe Ben's sister may have sneaked a copy out of the trash when I was cleaning out old manuscripts. (That might be White Sand.)

I do have intentions of rewriting these books and publishing them eventually. They each have pieces of the story. (Though I may decide to shift certain themes from one series to another as I eventually write and publish them.) I've been known to email White Sand or Aether of Night to readers who email and ask. (Though it does make me cringe a little to do so. In many of these books, I was experimenting with magic, theme, and narrative style--some experiments were a success, some were failures.)

Dragonsteel is frozen; I don't send it out any longer, as to not spoil the parts of The Way of Kings that I decided fit better in that world. So the only way to get it now is to borrow it from BYU. I've been told that Dragonsteel is the only undergraduate BYU honor's thesis ever to have been be read so often that it needed to be rebound. (A dubious honor, I'm not sure how I feel about so many people reading a book of mine that is that mediocre.)

Fantasy has always been a "series-powered" genre but it seems that lately several authors (or publishers) just don't know when to suitably end a long-running saga... Drawing out a series for the sake of more installments, it seems.

And there seems to be fewer and fewer standalone novels like Warbreaker and Elantris. (I love standalone novels, by the way, and am hoping that that "format" makes a return!)

Any comments on this from your perspective? Thanks!

It's a good question, Paul. One I've been considering, actually, for a long time. Certainly, there's an economic piece to it.

When a stand-alone comes out, it tends to gather praise from both readers and reviewers. Then proceeds to sell far fewer copies than a series book does. The Wheel of Time didn't hit #1 on the NYT list until book eight or nine, I believe, and I don't think Sword of Truth hit #1 until book ten. Series tend to sell better. Even as readers complain about them. And so I think publishers do push for them.

But why do they sell better? Well, I think this is partially the learning curve factor. We like fantasy for the same reason that fantasy is hard to read: the learning curve. Starting a fantasy book can be tough because of how many new names, concepts, societies, religions, and laws of physics you have to learn and get used to. Epics, with their dozens upon dozens of characters, are even tougher in this regard. And so, after investing so much energy into becoming an expert in the world, we want to get a good payoff and be able to USE that expertise.

Beyond that, I think that fantasy is character driven--and when we fall in love with characters, we want to read more about them. Fantasy, particularly the epic series, allows us to follow characters across sweeping, life changing events. Fantasy (like historicals) give us lots of pages and time to know these characters. So we want more from them.

But the very thing that we love about fantasy in this regard also tends to present problems. We want lots of characters, but eventually this large cast gets overwhelms us and makes the books seem to drag. Personally, I think these complaints will be much lessened when some of these great series are done, and you don't have to wait years and years between volumes.

Anyway, Terry Brooks talks a lot about this in his biographical work Sometimes the Magic Works. (Bet you can find it here on BN.com, and I highly suggest the book as a quick, interesting, engaging read.) He mentions how, when he left Shannara to write other things, the fans begged and begged him for more. Until finally he broke down and gave them more books in the world.

A lot of authors I know tend to live in this state of perpetual wonder and amazement that, finally, people are actually enjoying and reading their works. (After all the years of failure trying to break in, I know that I feel this way a lot.) When someone comes to you and talks about how much they love one of your works, asking you to write more...well, we're storytellers. If people want a story, we want to give it to them. It's hard to say no. (Though so far I have.)

I intend to keep writing stand-alone novels. But I do so knowing that 1) they will not sell as well as series books and 2) readers will ask me for more, and so each stand alone will only increase the number of requests for future books that I can't write. I'm in the fortunate place that I can write, and publish, what I want--whether it be series or stand alone--and no longer have to worry about the money.

But, in my heart, I've got a strong desire to write a big epic. I grew up reading them. I want to see if I can do one, my way, and add something new to the genre. So maybe that's the reason. Looking through Robert Jordan's notes, reading interviews, I don't think he ever artificially inflated the length of his series because of publisher desire or money reasons. I think he loved the long-form epic, and wanted to tell the story his way, no matter how long it took. And as he added more characters, it took longer and longer.

In a way, being free from the worry of finances gives creators a chance to really explore their vision the way they want to. And...well, we’re fantasy writers, so we can get a little long winded.

Kind of like this response, eh? Thanks for the question.

My question 1: Will the material written for AMoL by Jordan remain intact in the published novel or will you rewrite it to match your on style of writing?

I am leaving it as intact as possible. In some places, a paragraph at the beginning or end of a section has to be changed to streamline it into the rest of the narrative. In others, line edits have to be done (mostly by Harriet) to fix the language. (Nothing we have from him is in more than a rough draft form.)

But where I can, I'm not changing anything. Because of this, readers who look very closely might be able to tell where I wrote and where he wrote. But I don't think it is noticeable without detailed scrutiny.

I suggest to readers that they read the book straight through the first time without trying to pick out which piece was written by which author. I'm hoping to get permission to speak more specifically about how it was all divided once the three books are all out. Then, you can know for certain. But for now, I would prefer (and I'm certain Mr. Jordan would prefer) that you see through the prose and enjoy the story.

My question 2: Hope you can answer this one. In the world of the wheel, would the soul of an animal be reborn as the same animal when that particular age comes again, like humans are?

I don't know of anything specific that Jim said about this, and I've read a lot of the FAQs and interviews. Still, it might be out there hiding somewhere. I'll put this on my things to ask his assistants about so I can know if he did. As far as I understand, the only thing we know about animals and the Wheel is that wolves go to the world of dreams when they die.

However, looking at the sources Mr. Jordan is drawing from and the overall mythology of the series and world, I'd guess that they are reborn, and as the same animal. There is no talk of a person being reborn as a slug in their next life, and the fact that wolves are proven to have spirits gives subtle indication that other animals do as well. If so, I'd guess they are bound to the wheel like everything else, and rewoven into the pattern. What I say, however, is not cannon in the same way that what Jim said was. Let me do some more digging to find an answer, if there is one, and ask me again some other time. (And if anyone knows of an interview where he talked about this, feel free to post and point me in the right direction.)

My question 3: Which is your favorite Pratchett novel and why?

The Truth is my favorite. As a writer, and one who likes to explore the nature of the truth in his works, a novel that deals with someone trying to publish a newspaper in a fantasy world mixed philosophy and laughs in the way only Pratchett can. However, Guards Guards the book where I suggest people new to Pratchett start. (I suggest avoiding the Colour of Magic as your first experience, even though it's technically the first book in the series. They are all stand alone novels, really, and Guards Guards can be seen as the beginning of the best sub-series within the series.)

In Mistborn, you say its planet is called Scadriel. In-universe, where (or when) did the name Scadriel come to be used to be describe the Mistborn planet? Did the Lord Ruler and his obligators use that as the name of the planet, or did it come later, post-MB3? Or is "Scadriel" just what you as an author use to refer to it?

It is "In Universe" so to speak, though the name itself isn't known to the people on-planet. The Lord Ruler was the only one who understood the exact nature of a planet, really, though some of the obligators and noble scholars had a general idea. Astronomy was one of the scientific areas where the Lord Ruler didn't mind people doing research, so long as it kept their interest away from chemistry or a science that could lead to advances in weaponry.

Scadrial would then have been the name that Ruin and Preservation understood for the planet, as well as certain other groups and individuals of a less directly divine nature.

Is there a rationale to how Hemalurgic powers are distributed? I tried to look for a system, but they seem rather randomly distributed. For example, the spike which steals Allomantic powers for a particular quadrant is not always in one particular spot.

That is correct, it's not always in one particular spot. None of them are. I used as my model on this magic system the concept of acupuncture and pressure points. Placing a Hemalurgic spike is a very delicate and specific art. Imagine there being a different overlay on a human body, like a new network of nerves, representing lines, points, and 'veins' of the soul's spiritual makeup.

What is happening with Hemalurgy, essentially, is that you're driving a spike through a specific point on a person's body and ripping off a piece of their soul. It sticks to the spike on the Spiritual Realm. Then, you place that spike on someone else in a specific place (not exactly the same place, but on the right spiritual pressure point) and 'hot wire' the spirit to give it Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. It's like you're fooling the spiritual DNA, creating a work-around. Or, in some cases, changing the spirit to look like something else, which has the immediate effect of distorting the body and transforming it into a new creature.

Hemalurgy is a very brutal way of making changes like this, though, so it often has monstrous effects. (Like with the koloss.) And in most cases, it leaves a kind of 'hole' in the spirit's natural defenses, which is how Ruin was able to touch the souls of Hemalurgists directly.

Can you tell us what the rest of the Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers are? Since, you know, you won't be writing in the Mistborn world for many years, and those Feruchemical and Hemalurgic Tables might not even come into existence if the Allomantic Metals one doesn't sell. Pretty please?

I will release this eventually. I'm still tweaking the powers--their names, and how they function--and so I'd rather hold off on revealing anything specific right now. We might include them in the RPG, though.

When is the Table of Allomantic Metals coming out?

Printer emailed me today for final confirmation. Should be very soon now.

Hemalurgically, atium steals Allomantic Temporal Powers. But, that seems unlikely, since atium is a god metal. It wouldn't fit in with the rest of the magic system. Did Preservation, in addition to switching Cadmium and Bendalloy for Atium and Malatium, also switch atium's Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers with Cadmium? Because it seems to me there's not a lot of atium Marsh can use to live for hundreds of years into the next Mistborn trilogy.

Preservation wanted Atium and Malatium to be of use to the people, as he recognized that it would be a very powerful tool--and that using it up could help defeat Ruin. But he also recognized that sixteen was a mythological important number, and felt it would make the best sign for his followers. So he took out the most unlikely (difficult to make and use) metals for his sign to his followers. But that doesn't have much to do with Hemalurgy's use here.

Remember that the tables--and the ars Arcanum--are 'in world' creations. (Or, at least, in-universe.) The knowledge represented in them is as people understand it, and can always have flaws. That was the case with having atium on the table in the first place, and that was the case with people (specifically the Inquisitors) trying to figure out what atium did Hemalurgically.

Their experiments (very expensive ones) are what determined that atium (which they thought was just one of the sixteen metals) granted the Allomantic Temporal powers. What they didn't realize is that atium (used correctly) could steal ANY of the powers. Think of it as a wild card. With the right knowledge, you could use it to mimic any other spike. It works far better than other spikes as well.

As for Marsh, he's got a whole bag of atium (taken off of the Kandra who was going to try to sell it.) So he's all right for quite a while. A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.

But this was a little beyond their magical understanding at the time.

Will Sazed appear at all in the Stormlight Archive?

There are no current plans for him to do so.

In the days of the Final Empire, how does one acquire a Kandra Contract? It's not like they can just walk up to their hidden Homeland and ask for their services.

Same way you would go about hiring an assassin. Secretly, using contacts who have used them before. You have to be in the know and well-connected, either with the upper-class or the underground.

Are you going to write another WoT encyclopedia?

Harriet, Maria, and Alan are working on one. Harriet promised it to Tor a few years back, and I think it's been officially announced that she's working on it. There is no firm release date. After AMOL is complete, I'd imagine.

I've just read Warbreaker twice now and really enjoyed it both times. I read that although you've planned another book in the Warbreaker world you're not certain of when you can begin writing it. As it is the only book of yours that I've read to date, I've had to skip some of your answers to other questions that contain spoilers for your other book One thing I noticed in my skimming was that the character Hoid has turned up in other books of yours.

He's very intriguing and at one point I thought he might be Vasher in disguise. Is he a Returned or is he not constrained by the magical construct?

Well, he's certainly not Vasher in disguise. Keep an eye out for him in other books of mine you read. He's constrained by magic like everyone else, but he has some extra experience, so to speak.

Also I wondered whether you will ever publish an encyclopoedia of your interlocking worlds and their relationship to each other within their cosmos?

I plan to do something like this, as things progress. It won't happen until the future, however, and will likely happen only on-line. There will eventually be short stories showing some of what is going on behind the main stories of the novels. I do have some novels planned which would deal with all of this in a more direct way, but they are decades away from being written.

Since you established that all the worlds you created in your books are linked, any chance to see in the (very) distant future a book/series that delves into this overarching story/universe/rules more directly? Possibly with a crossover of characters from your different stories, specifically characters that became "immortal" or at least achieve a "different" state: Sazed, Kelsier, Raoden. Is that something you would even be interested in doing?

Or will you stick to placing subtle hints in your different books/series about the overall system?

VERY distant future is correct. I will confirm that I do have stories planned that delve into what is going on behind the scenes. There will be short stories dealing with Hoid, most likely posted to my website.

Some of these stories are novel length, and I can't say what I'll do with them. Perhaps I'll write them out in novel form and release them in bookstores, but I have a feeling that most of my readers would be completely confused by them. So perhaps these will all just be on my website only. (If they are released that way, they'll most likely be free for download and reading.)

The subtle hints will continue until then. Mostly, I want the stories to be enjoyable and self-contained. I don't want anyone to HAVE to know any of the behind the scenes, regarding Hoid, Adonalsium, and the rest. (Yes, there is more.) Those are there for the readers who want to dig, and who want to see the greater story. But I don't want them to overshadow the stories of the books themselves. At least not yet.

Is the world of Alcatraz part of this whole system or is that completely different since targeted to different readers?

Alcatraz is NOT part of this system. The Alcatraz books (indeed, most of the YA books I've planned or written) need to be off on their own.

WOT question: Did you go through ALL the notes from RJ on the Wheel of time (if that is even humanly possible) or just those related to Memory of Light?

Mr. Jordan left behind notes for the series which, word-length wise, is in EXCESS of the length of the written novels. That was just too much for me to handle. I've used Mr. Jordan's assistants for fetching information from these reserves, and have focused most of my efforts on the notes specifically left for AMOL. The Guide has been very helpful. But mostly, if I need to know something from the notes, I send Maria and Alan searching while I work on the actual prose.

WOT question: Rereading the series right now to get ready for TGS, currently on book 4. Has RJ included details in his note about who made Callandor and who placed it in the Stone of Tear (and how).

There were notes on Callandor, and the sword will play a part in the final three books. More, I cannot say. However, I'll make a note to suggest that Harriet consider this question when creating the Encyclopedia, so anything that doesn't end up in the last books is revealed there.

WOT question: Probably RAFO, but same question about the land beyond the Aiel Waste (don't remember the name)? Has RJ done some worldbuilding on it and are we going to see it before the series ends or is it some Tolkienish "Oh yeah, forgot to mention or include it on the map but there's some other kind of lands out there, just so you know. But you ain't going to see it, besides they probably don't care about the fate of the world out there".

RAFO. (But don't hold your breath. Robert Jordan said specifically: "I have no plans to send Rand to Shara" and I know several other times where he said similar things.)

You mentioned in an earlier answer that learning to revise was one of the biggest factors in making your work publishable.

Would you give us an idea of the process you go through when you revise?

Thanks for the question, Isaac! (Isaac, by the way, is the person who introduced me to my wife and set us up on our first blind date.)

I view working on a book in the same way a sculptor might view working on a block of wood. The first draft is generally focused on getting things in place so I can work on them. In essence, I cut out the crude features of the sculpture--but when it’s done, there is still a lot of work to be done. Readers who see the book in this stage can tell what the basic arcs and characters will be, but the emotional impact is lessened by the crude edges and unfinished lines.

Here’s my process in a nutshell:

Draft one: Write the book in draft form.

Draft two: Read through the entire book, fixing the major problems. Often, I’ll change character personalities halfway through the first draft as I search to figure out how I want the character to sound. I don’t go back then and revise, as I need to try out this personality for a while before I decide to actually use it. Similarly, often I’ll drop in new characters out of the blue, pretending that they’ve been there all along. In the second draft, I settle on how I want things to really look, feel, and work.

Draft three: Language draft. Here I’m seeking to cut the book down by 10%. I write with a lot of extra words, knowing I’ll need a trim. This will make the prose more vibrant, and will make the pacing work better.

In a perfect world, this is where I writing group the piece and/or send it to my editor. (For lack of time, my writing group is getting Draft Two of THE WAY OF KINGS. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do draft three by the end of the year.)

I let readers read the book, and I take some time off of it. I begin collecting things I want to change in the book in a separate file, called “Revision notes for ***”, listing the name of the book. I organize these by character and by importance and/or pervasiveness. For instance, a need to rewrite a character’s motivations will be at the top. Fixing one specific scene so that it has proper foreshadowing will be near the bottom.

Once this is all done, and I’ve gotten feedback and had time to think, I read through the book again with my revision notes file open beside the book file itself. I actively look for places to change, kind of like a sculptor looking over the statue and seeking places to knock off jagged chunks and smooth out the sculpture’s features.

I’ll do this process several times, usually. In-between, I’ll often do line-edit drafts, like the language draft above, where I’m focused on getting rid of the passive voice and adding more concrete details.

A bit left of center question. Are you a role player? I ask because on writing excuses I think I heard you mention it.

Yes, I am a role player. Have been since I discovered the TMNT RPG back when I was a young teen, and have been doing it pretty much ever since. When I play, I’m almost always some kind of magic user (duh). When I GM, I prefer to homebrew my own system.

The question that I have for you is, now that you know the ending of Wheel of Time after the final book has been released will it be a world that you could set a game in? Or will it be like Tolkien where after the end of LOTR the world is pretty much over? I ask cos it looks to be a great place to set an RPG and I want to know if I should be looking to a time before Eye of the World or if I should run a new age?

I’m going to stick pretty close to things Mr. Jordan has said or implied regarding this. Things he has said have implied strongly that it is not going to be like Tolkien; though the Wheel will eventually turn to a point where the One Power is forgotten and the land becomes like our world, that is NOT the 4th age. I think it would still be a fantastic place to set an RPG game.

WOT questions: Will all three AMOL books feature Rand, Mat, and Perrin?

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: They will all three appear in all three books, but it will not be equally balanced. Some characters will be more of a focus in some of the books, and other will be more of a focus in others. This is particularly true of the first two volumes, where I had to juggle which characters would be a focus in one, and which will be a focus in the other.

I ask because you said the prologue Robert Jordan wrote would probably be split over two books.

Yes, it will be. I don’t know yet if the third volume will have a prologue or not. The Material Mr. Jordan wrote for the prologue is split, half in the prologue of TGS, half in the prologue of the second volume.

Does this mean story arcs are getting split as well?

I tried to keep story arcs contained in a single book. We’ll get glimpses from some of the characters in the first book, with a more complete story arc in the second book. And we’ll get story arcs in the first book from some characters, followed by glimpses in the second.

The split actually turned out really well. I think I managed to get a balance working where characters don’t vanish for entire volumes, but we still get to have complete character arcs.

Also, who was your favourite character to write? And don't say Bela.

It’s really, really hard for me to answer this, since when I’m in a character’s head, that character is the most important in the book. They’re all my favorite when I’m writing them--that’s just the way it has to be as a writer.

It is also hard to answer without giving spoilers that I’m not certain I want to give. For instance, some characters were interesting to write for different reasons. In some places, I was expanding on things Mr. Jordan left behind, in other places I was trying to piece together what I think he would have done based on the momentum of the books. In some places, I was writing based mostly on my instincts as a writer. I was doing a lot of different things with a lot of different characters, getting a balance of action, drama, and fun. Which is my favorite among all of that? It depends on what I’m feeling like that day.

If really pressed on it, I’ll probably say that going into this, my favorite thing that I anticipated would be finally (after all of this time) writing Rand’s character through the end of the series. Like many, I was initially hooked into this all by his story, and--regardless of other favorites at different points in the series--who he is as a person is vitally important for driving these last books.

Any plans to tour Warbreaker or The Gathering Storm in Toronto or other Canadian cities?

I’ll be in Montreal on Saturday the eighth! Less than a week away now. I’m hoping to get to other cities in Canada for future tours, but I’m going to start with this one visit. We’ll see. We might be able to manage a several-city Canadian Tour next year.

I'm not English and I hope you won't mind too much the grammar and spelling errors left leave here and there.

Well, I do speak English as my native language--and I’m certain I’ve got my fair share of errors here and there in my posts. So if you’ll forgive me, I’ll of course forgive you. :smileywink:

As many, I'm a huge fan of the wheel of time series, I can't say why it appeals to me so much but it just feels so epic, so detailed, so grand, I wonder how can anyone not love it.

I'm also really eager to read the end of the saga, and I must say that I'm really happy with your decision to split the book in 3 and cover all that is left to be answered.

Knowing you will finish Robert Jordan's book I was curious to read your previous works and see if I will like or love them as I do with wot.

I must say that I found them quite enjoying and yet, and I beg you not to be offended by my impressions, I could not find the epic feeling I love so much in wot.

I find your characters to be very practical which is great in a way but for me it takes away the epic feeling, the unknown, the maybe, the what if.

So finally reaching my question, if it's not too silly, do you plan to make the characters react, speak and think, as they do in your books or will you follow a more Jordan's way of doing.

I think the thing you’re talking about is something very intentional on my part, related to the fact that I wanted my books (particularly the ones I did at the beginning of my career) to be more self contained. Elantris, Warbreaker, and even Mistborn exist (in my mind) as a kind of ‘calling card’ to readers. Something that says “I want to show you that I can tell a story, so that you’ll trust me--eventually--when I do something much larger in scope, something where the pay-offs aren’t as immediate.”

I love the self-contained fantasy epic form. However, one of the things I felt that those books needed was cohesion. I had to make my magic very, very tight.

Unknowns are great, and they DO lend to the epic feel of a story. One of the things that the WoT has over my books (beyond Mr. Jordan’s fantastic storytelling ability) is the sheer power of scope. The magic is far from being understood, and it’s larger--and vaster--than the characters can understand. There’s a vast wealth of history and world--not to mention numerous machinations by dozens of different groups and secret cabals--making the characters (particularly at the beginning) feel very small compared to it all.

I think that’s the sense of what you’re talking about. It has to do with the characters, and it has to do with the magic. But it also has to do with the scope. You don’t always get an immediate pay-off in the WoT books. Some threads hang through books, finally getting revealed or resolved long after they were introduced.

I’m not trying to imitate Mr. Jordan. Instead, I’m trying to adapt myself to the Wheel of Time. (If that makes any sense at all.) In other words, I want to maintain this feel, and write these books appropriate to the Wheel of Time. I don’t want these volumes to feel like Brandon Sanderson books; I want them to feel like Wheel of Time books.

But artists in any medium learn to work with different styles and forms. Many of the things that seem like natural voice in a novel are conscious choices we make, as we work to create a certain feel for a novel. If you read and compare my Alcatraz books to my Epics, you’ll see what I mean. Even the Mistborn novels have a different feel from the stand-alones. (And Mistborn 2 and 3 have a different feel from number one.)

So, the end answer is this. Yes, I’m trying very hard to maintain what it is you love about the Wheel of Time, rather than trying to force the Wheel of Time into a different box or style.

So, Brandon. Hoid. I remember you saying at the I.F. signing last year that he was in WoA. We, your dedicated fans who like scouring books searching for obscure characters who have any possibility of being the mysterious Hoid, have yet to find him. Peter sent us on a hunt for him (Hoid, not Peter...) in the deleted scenes, and we found his boot-print.

Now, I think he broke the pottery there too--the one holding the larasium--and since there's broken pottery in the actual version, I think he may have snuck into the cavern and broken it as well. If so, is this Hoid's part in WoA? This trace of him? I commend you if it is. It is clever, making us think it was a person, when in fact it's just something he did.

You are on the right track, but wrong on one point. Hoid does appear in the book.

I had originally toyed with making his touch on the novel more obscure, but decided that I wanted to be consistent with the other novels by actually having him appear. Once I realized I’d probably cut the scene with the footprint, I decided I needed this actual appearance even more badly.

Fortunately, I knew what Hoid had been up to all this time, and had placed him in a position where several characters could run into him. In WoA, Hoid believed (as Vin did) that the Well was in the North, even though it was not. He spent much of the book pursuing this idea.

Through events, however, he discovered he was wrong. He made the realization after Vin did, but only because of a chance meeting. (This is recorded in the books. Let’s just say he was listening in when someone implied that the Well was in Luthadel.)

He hurried to Luthadel, and was in the town, skulking about in the last parts of the novel. He isn’t seen here, though he does still infiltrate the Well. (Hoid is quite proficient at manipulating Shadesmar for his own ends.)

Just a sudden question that popped into my head: Do you like Joss Whedon's work, specifically Firefly and Dr. Horrible?

I enjoyed Firefly quite a bit; I was actually among the (apparently small) group of people who watched it during its original broadcast run. I’m impressed with Joss’s writing, though I’m not an enormous fan of his on the level of many of my friends.

I missed Dr. Horrible. Been meaning to watch that, actually...

There. Just added it to my Netflix queue.

Additionally, how much time would you say that you spend researching on any given work, and what are some of the things that you research?

That one’s really too hard to judge.

Research for me is on-going for any given work, and I don’t track how much time I spend on it. Generally, I dig into specific topics when the need arises, then do more ‘cast out the net’ general reading for ideas the rest of the time. Generally, I’ll only dig in deeply if a topic is important to a specific story. (Such as--for Mistborn--researching canals or the effects of being made a eunuch at various ages.)

I hope this isn't a RAFO, but how accurate is the WoT 12 product description on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites? It implies Rand and Egwene get the spotlight in book 12.

Well, it so happens that I wrote the majority of that product description myself, and so I'd say that it is rather accurate.

Jason's review (http://www.dragonmount.com/News/?p=585) implies some things about the focus of the book as well.

You'll notice that I'm not flat out answering the question you seemed to be getting at. (Is this book mostly about Rand and Egwene?) That's because I don't want to dig into this too deeply. If I begin talking about which characters have the focus in this volume, people will start trying to pry out of me if "such and such" character appears, and if so, how often. I want to spoil as little of this book as possible.

Therefore, I refer you to the two sources above (the product description and Jason's review) and will say that they are accurate in as much as what they say, but will note that neither talks about everything that is in the book. I have said before that almost all major viewpoint characters appear in TGS (there is one absent) and that it focuses on several of the characters, while the second book focuses on others. But even the characters not being focused on have parts in each book. Some of the things you've been waiting a long time to see happen in this book. Others were reserved for the next volume.

Let's leave it at that for now.

One other question, what is the name of the planet that Elantris is on?

Elantris: Sel Warbreaker: Nalthis Mistborn: Scadrial Way of Kings: Roshar White Sand: Taldain Dragonsteel: Yolen

There are others, but I haven't talked much about those yet, so I'll leave them off for now.

Are there any useful exercises you could give to a writer who's trying to improve their technique? I've heard the one about four different people describing the same place, but I was wondering if you had any other good ones.

Try to describe an extended scene, with various things happening, four different times, once with a focus on visuals, once on scents, once using touch, once using sounds. See if you can evoke a different feel each time, using the same scene but different senses.

Practice both discovery writing and outline writing. Meaning, practice writing stories where you just go off on whatever strikes you, and practice writing a story where you spend a lot of time on an outline. Try to figure out which method works best for you when trying a specific type of story, and perhaps try some hybrids. Anything that helps you write better stories more regularly is a tool to keep practicing.

Try a dialogue scene, where you try to evoke character and setting using ONLY dialogue. No descriptions allowed. (This is best when you're focused on making the characters each distinct simply through how they talk.)

Finally, listen to Writing Excuses.

Any idea when you'll be releasing the full table of Allomantic metals and associated phonetics shown in your blog post about vinyl decals? (http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/735/Allomantic-Metal-Vinyl-Decals!)

Very, very soon. It's at the printer right now. Should happen this month, if all things go well. We will start with the limited edition prints on the nice paper with the expensive inks, signed and numbered by myself and Isaac. Poster prints will come eventually too. And, of course, we'll also release in standard desktop sizes for free, for those who can't afford a poster.

And...I think that's it! Wow. Sorry to take weeks to answer all of these. I got to the end, however, which is progress. (The last time I did this, I didn't give a cut-off date for the questions, and got swamped quickly.)

Thank you again, Paul, for inviting me. And also for those who spent time reading my books and discussing them. I'm going to make a final attempt to put in an appearance in the Warbreaker thread here in a bit.

I hope to do this again. It was fun. Beyond that, I'll probably do something like this on my own forums here in the next few months. So if you've got other questions, you can save them up for then.

Best,

Brandon

END OF BARNES AND NOBLES

Goodreads

March 2010

Original is here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/264132-q-a-with-brandon-sanderson?page=2

Apologies for my late arrival, folks. I'll try to answer a couple questions per day, and I'll answer everything that gets asked up through the end of the month, though it may take me a while!

Jeanne@2, Sandi@9, Justin@19: Your questions were similar, so I'll combine the answers.

Writing believable female heroines—I should probably back up and point out that I wasn't always good at this. In fact, in the first few books I wrote before ELANTRIS I was terrible at it. That disconcerted me because it was something I wanted to make a strength in my writing. This is partially due to the fact that so many of my favorite fantasy novels growing up, when I first discovered fantasy, were from female writers with really strong female protagonists. So there was a piece of my mind that said having strong female protagonists is a big part of fantasy. I don't know how common that viewpoint is, but because those were the people whose books I read—writers like Anne McCaffrey, Melanie Rawn, and Barbara Hambly—I wanted to be able to do that in my own fiction. Even beyond that you want every character you write to be believable, and it's been a habitual problem of men writing women and women writing men that we just can't quite get it right, so I knew it was going to be something I'd have to work hard at.

I took inspiration from women I know, starting with my mother, who graduated top of her class in accounting in an era where she was the only woman in her accounting program. She has always been a strong influence on me. I also have two younger sisters who were a lot of help, but there were several friends in particular who gave me direct assistance. Annie Gorringe (who was a good friend when I was an undergraduate—and still is) and Janci Patterson were people I sat down to interview and talk to in my quest to be able to write female characters who didn't suck. I would say specifically that Sarene from ELANTRIS has a lot of Annie in her, and Vin from MISTBORN has a lot of Janci in her. In WARBREAKER, Siri and Vivenna don't really have specific influences but are the result of so much time working at writing female characters that it's something I'm now comfortable with. (Their personalities arose out of what I wanted to do with their story, which was my take on the classic tale of sisters whose roles get reversed.) It's very gratifying to hear that readers like my female characters and that the time I spent learning to write them has paid off.

Laurel@3 wrote: "Hello Mr. Sanderson, thank you so much for visiting our group!

You seem to purposefully invent a system of magic for each book/series you create. I think that Warbreaker was one of the most unique I've ever read. Do you have a reason or story behind this habit? "

Yes—both. Back when I was trying to break in, I spent many years writing books and not getting published. I was under the impression (it's just one of my beliefs) that it would be easier for me to break in doing a lot of different standalone novels, or first books in a series, as opposed to writing all in one series and putting all my eggs in one basket. For that reason, I got a lot of practice finishing one book and starting a new one that was in a new setting in a new world.

For me, a new setting/world means a new magic system. Magic is part of what draws me to fantasy, being able to play with the ideas behind it. It's what engages me; it's what excites me. And so part of the real fun of starting a news series is developing a new magic system. In a way that's kind of like the little twinkie or whatever that I'd hang in front of myself in order to get me excited about a new series. I'd be just coming down off a writing high at the end of a book, and I'd still be excited about the old series, its characters and world. Creating a new world is a lot of work, but there's an excitement to it as well. I'd focus on that and say, "Look, I get to create a new magic system, let's see what I can play around with for this book." So because I got used to doing that, that became my modus operandi, my method of working. That still excites me. Oftentimes it's the opportunity to create a new magic system that gets me excited about writing a new book.

Laurel, thank YOU for reading my books and giving me a reason to stop by!

Elise@3 wrote: "I really loved the character Lightsong, he was my favorite and probably one of the most interesting characters I've ever read about. Did you have anyone in particular in mind when you came up with him? How did go about developing him as a character?"

Rupert Everett was sitting in the back of my mind.

Actually, in order to develop Lightsong's character well, I didn't want to imitate any one voice. That's something we always stay away from. But I had been wanting to work on writing humor in a different way from what I'd previously used. I spent a lot of time watching and analyzing the movie THE THIN MAN, the old comedy/mystery/crime film with an emphasis on very witty characters making wisecracks as they investigate a murder. If you haven't seen it, it's delightful. Along with AN IDEAL HUSBAND and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, those were my three sources of inspiration. I was trying for a blend of those two styles—and then of course added my own sense of humor.

Ashley@5 wrote: "What made you decide to release Warbreaker on your website? Was Tor at all irked by this plan? What about your agent or those who purchased international rights?

I must say that I've purchased the Mistborn trilogy and Elantris, but that I read Warbreaker on your website."

That's all right. I knew that people would do that. I would hope that those who really enjoyed the book will pick up copies, but you know, I don't mind if they just read it and don't pick up a copy—I mean, it's there for free!

I like the idea of a free sample, and for a writer I feel that a free sample needs to be an entire novel so that you can get a real feel for how that author writes and tells a story. When I listen to music, I would like to be able to listen to an entire album and say, "Okay, is this an artist that I like?" Before I pay money for it. I want people to be able to do that with my writing. And what that means is if WARBREAKER doesn't sell any copies, but it has tens of thousands of people read it who are then willing to buy and read my next books because they know they like my writing, then WARBREAKER is incredibly successful.

Was Tor irked? I wouldn't say that; I mean, I got approval from them first. I don't think it's what they would prefer for me to do, but they were certainly willing to let me do it. My agent didn't like the concept at all, and I listened to his counsel, but I'm very interested in the way the internet is acting as a medium for entertainment distribution, and I wanted to experiment with that.

I think it's been a successful experiment. I think that a lot of people who were interested in me because of THE GATHERING STORM and the Wheel of Time announcement were able to try out my books and read one of them for free and therefore somewhat know who I am as a writer. For good or for ill. If they don't end up liking my writing, I'd rather they not have paid for it—I'd rather they not have to pay for something they don't enjoy. I think I'll end up better off—at the very least they'll think, "Well, I didn't really like his book, but he gave it to me for free," and still have a good impression of me. If they do end up liking my book, I would hope that they go and read other copies of my books. And that would increase demand on the libraries or the bookstores. Either way I think I come out ahead.

Ashley@5 wrote: "Do you spend the most time on your magic systems, or do you find yourself spending equal amounts of time on other aspects of worldbuilding/plot such as religion/culture/language/geography/etc?"

It really depends on the novel. With some I spend a lot of time on areas that in others I don't spend much time on at all. With every book I spend a serious amount of time on the magic system. That's consistent—it's just something I like to do.

For a given book or series I may spend more time on a given aspect. I'd say the other big aspect that takes a lot of time is characterizing the characters the right way. That takes a lot of work, but I tend to do that during my actual writing period, whereas I spend the planning period focusing on worldbuilding and plot. It's when I actually sit down to write a chapter that I explore who a character is, and so it's really hard to pin down timewise which one I spend more time on. And that varies based on the book.

Ashley@5 wrote: "Do you ever plan to use bio-chroma again? It'd be a shame to see such an interesting and original idea left with a single book."

Collin@6 wrote: "At the end of the book you make it seem that there is going to be a sequel, or at least a chance of a sequel. Along the same lines as Ashley, do you plan to write more in the Warbreaker world?"

It is unlikely that I will use this magic system in a different book because it is distinctly tied to that particular Shard. The sequel likelihood is good. There is more to tell in this world, so there is a decent chance I will return and do a second WARBREAKER book (I've been calling it NIGHTBLOOD when I've mentioned it before). That isn't to say that there will never be magic systems that will repeat across series—in fact there's a decent chance that will happen—but I'm not going to say any more on that right now.

Logan@7 wrote: "I really enjoyed Warbreaker, especially the history of the Scholars and their relationships. Have you considered writing a prequel novel that would take place when Vasher, et al were much younger?"

Laurel@14 wrote: "Will we ever see a short story that gives us more of Vasher's back story?"

People ask me for prequels all the time. They've asked for MISTBORN prequels, ELANTRIS prequels, and now WARBREAKER prequels. My general answer to this is probably not—just because I as a reader don't like prequels. I'm one of those readers that if the ending is spoiled for me, in many ways that can ruin the book. Because of that it's hard for me to decide to write a prequel.

When I plan my books I design them to have a beginning, a middle, an end, and a past and a future. I know what happened in the past. I know what will happen in the future. I could always write that, and I won't rule it out 100% completely. But telling the story of the Five Scholars is not something I sat down to do with WARBREAKER. I had that all worked out; I knew what they did. The exciting story I wanted to tell is the one that happened in the book. There is a good chance of a sequel, but a prequel is unlikely. If I did do a prequel it would probably be in short story form posted for free on my website.

Sandi@8 wrote: "A common thread in both Warbreaker and the Mistborn Trilogy is religion. I really liked how you handled religion in both these books. Mistborn deals with religious searching and Warbreaker is more about religious tolerance. I've heard that you are a Mormon. How much does your faith influence your writing?"

This is a surprisingly common question for people to ask me, and I'm always happy to answer it because my religion makes up a big part of who I am. Because I am religious myself, I am fascinated by religion. And so I think that the misuse of religion is a great evil, and the use of religion for good reasons is a great good. In fact, being a religious person, I think that the misuse of religion becomes a much more frightening thing than it might otherwise be, which is why you sometimes see religions as villains in my books. My religion shapes who I am, and it makes me interested in certain things; it makes me fascinated by certain things; it shapes my sense of right and wrong.

But I don't actually sit down and write books wanting to advocate any particular concept. I feel that when I write books I need to advocate whatever the character believes at the time. Now, what I feel is heroic may shape the characters I create as protagonists, but I don't think that the purpose of the fiction that I write is to preach directly to the reader. I think that the purpose of the fiction I write is to explore different concepts and different types of characters and see how they react to the world around them. And that's a very different thing than sitting down and saying I'm going to preach to people. So I don't think my religion causes me to do that, but I do think it causes me to be interested in these kinds of concepts.

I'm not even sure how to define myself. In some circles I come across as very conservative; in other circles I come across as very liberal. One of my core beliefs religiously is that I honestly don't mind you believing whatever you want to believe. What I mind is how you treat people who don't believe as you believe. That's what will get me going. So I don't judge someone based on their belief; I do judge them based on how they treat people who believe differently than they do. (That's a concept, by the way, that you may see pop up in a book later on, because I'm actually quoting one of my characters in this case.)

Sandi wrote: "Also, I'd like to take a moment to thank you for writing exciting fantasy that makes sense and doesn't drag on endlessly. Keep up the good work."

Thank you very much.

Chris wrote: "I've seen in reviews of Mistborn that a criticsm that pops up from time to time is that you tend to repeat the basic principles of the magic system. I've seen that some feel hit over the head with it. Personally, I liked that fact since the magic system was new and it helped me to remember and understand.

I'm also seeing criticsm now with Warbreaker that the magic system isn't explained enough to thoroughly understand it. I've pointed out in discussions that not even Vasher understands it all.

But here's my question: Did criticsm of the magic system's explanations in Mistborn have anything to do with Warbreaker having considerably less explanation in its magic system?"

Wow, that's a very detailed and interesting question. The answer is no.

..Okay, there's more to that answer. I accepted the criticisms of the Mistborn books with the knowledge that there was really no other way around it—the way I was writing those books and the complexity of the magic system made me feel like I needed to give those hints. It's not like I'm trying to write down to the lowest denominator, but at the same time I want to make sure that the complicated magic system is a force driving the book—and is something interesting rather than something confusing. Across a three-book epic like that I wanted to make sure that I was not leaving people behind. That's always a balance in a book series. And I don't know where to set that balance. In fact, I think the balance is going to be different for every person. Any given book that you read, some people are going to find it overexplained and some people are going to find it underexplained. I'm always trying to strike the right balance, particularly for the tone of a given book, to make that work for the novel.

With WARBREAKER, as you've pointed out, the magic system is much less understood by the poeple taking part in it. In the Mistborn books the magic system is very well understood. Even though there are little pieces of it that people don't know yet, those peices are easy to grasp and understand and use once people figure out what they are. In the Mistborn books the world is in a state where people have spend 1000 years using this magic system and perfecting it and understanding it. In WARBREAKER, they haven't. They still don't know much about what's going on. It's very mysticized. People haven't sat down and spent enough time pursuing scholarly research about it, figuring it out. Beyond that there's no immortal Lord Ruler figure explaining it all to them—or if there is, it's Vasher and he's not telling anyone. And so the magic in WARBREAKER has a very different feel to it. I wanted it to be a little confusing, because it is confusing for the main characters.

I wouldn't say that the criticism of the Mistborn books is what drove me; the needs of the various plots is what drove me.

Gordon@11 wrote: "The paintings (I think there were at least two, right?) that remind Lightsong of his dreams and the Manywar etc. Is the Artist someone we know? If not, will we eventually meet him/her in a later book? Does the artist hope to affect Lightsong this way, or is it just some guy giving abstract art to his God?"

Jared @12 wrote: "Is the artist that painted those paintings Hoid?"

Hoid did not make the paintings. The goal of those paintings—and this is spoilery, by the way—the paintings are actually what the text implies that they are. They are abstract paintings which Lightsong, having a touch of the divine, is able to see and read into things that aren't necessarily there.

Beyond that, art is a magical thing in the world of WARBREAKER. When an artist creates a work of art, part of the artist's soul ends up in the artwork. Someone who has many breaths and who's Returned like Lightsong has the inherent ability to see into the art and perceive that. So Lightsong can interpret correctly an abstract piece, based on what the artist is trying to convey, in a way that a normal person couldn't.

I was not trying to make the artists anyone specifically important. In the case of those paintings, they are wonderful artists—I think they are two separate artists, if I'm thinking of the two paintings that you're indicating. As Lightsong has a splinter of divine nature inside him, he is able to interpret the paintings—to foresee, using them, and to see into the soul of the person who made them.

Gordon@11 wrote: "Also, does Endowment have some physical presence in the book similar to Ruin=Atium, etc?"

Endowment does have such a thing, but it does not appear onscreen in the novel WARBREAKER.

Robert@23 wrote: "All your novels are tied together by an overarching magic system, and we usualy see evidence of this in the form of the too still pools of water. however we did not see any such bodies of water directly in warbreaker. Is there such a pool in warbreaker? is that where the Tears of Edgli grow?"

Wow. I've got some very perceptive readers.

This is speculation that I will neither confirm nor deny.

Skyler@13 wrote: "If a returned gives away his/her breath they die right? So why doesn't Vasher die after he gives his to Denth?"

They will die the moment they run out of breath to harvest. Once a week their body needs a breath in order to survive. Each Returned has one single superpowered breath. Imagine it as one breath that propels them up through the Heightenings, but it is only a single breath. It's what we speak of in Shard world terminology as a Splinter. And when the seventh day comes, if a Returned does not have another Dorte of limbo where if they don't find more breath by the time that their feast day comes, then they will die. (Vasher did not give his Returned breath to Denth, just a number of normal breaths.)

Other Brandon@15 wrote: "i don't know if i'm remembering this right but i thought i saw somewhere that you said that all your books (yours not WOT) are connected somehow. is that right or am i going insane already?"

All of my books share a single creation myth, a single cosmology. The connection of them—the greater world, the greater universe—they call the Cosmere. There is a character who has shown up in each of my epic fantasies, and it is the same person, not just a repeated name. Currently WARBREAKER, ELANTRIS, and the Mistborn trilogy do all share a common cosmology. My children's books are not part of the Cosmere.

mji@24 wrote: "While I loved Mistborn and am excited to see you optioned the film rights already, I think that Warbreaker would translate to film even more easily/successfully <snip>

So I guess my question is, do you agree that Warbreaker will translate to film better? Did you discuss this with the Paloppa Guys? Which of your works do you think is most "marketable" as a medium-to-big-budget film?

First off, I apologize for the delay. I'm posting the rest of the answers now.

I think the magic system of WARBREAKER is certainly better suited to film than a lot of the MISTBORN magic system. However, I think the plot and storytelling of MISTBORN—because of the action/adventure style of it—would translate better to film. Story structure-wise, MISTBORN, particularly the first book, is probably the best book-to-film translation I think I've got. I think WARBREAKER would make a wonderful graphic novel, and someday I would love to sell rights to it in that medium. And certainly if we make a MISTBORN film, the metals would have to work in a very different way. They would probably be understated in the film itself.

Collin@25 wrote: "Can you explain the process that you go through to come up with your magic systems. So many fantasy books today have a "black box" type of magic system -- in that you don't know how things happen but the caster just suddenly shoots a fireball out of his arse. Yours are in-depth and set out a very distinct give and take that the reader can understand.

All of your systems are unique, so again, how do you get to the point where you have a complete magic system that you feel is ready to put into a book. Since this is a discussion about Warbreaker, how specifically did you come up with biochroma? "

I don't know if I can answer that question in the short space afforded by a discussion forum. But in general with my magic systems I'm looking for a variety of components. Most of them start with just an "Aha, there's something there!" moment in my head—either it's a plot hook or a conflict hook or a visual hook or something like that. I'm usually looking for something that does what I find exciting about magic, which is straddling the line between mysticism and science. And I'm looking for new ways to explore that. So when an interesting scientific concept occurs to me, and I can take it in the direction of "what if," that's something that I find fascinating.

For MISTBORN, for instance, telekinesis mixed with vector science was interesting to me. In WARBREAKER it was the concept of sympathetic magic—the idea that you can create something that's like something else and it will have power over that. I wanted to try and take it in a direction I hadn't seen before and blend that with the concept of animation, bringing inanimate objects to life. Those were intersting concepts because at one point people believed in both of these things as real forms of magic. They believed they could make it work. The myth of the golem goes way back, and the idea of sympathetic magic was around not too long ago—in fact there are still plenty who believe in it, in various forms of superstition.

So I look for a blend of concepts. I usually look for an interesting visual paradigm—something that will work in a way that helps the reader visualize the magic. I don't want it to all happen nebulously in the back of someone's head. (And speaking of rear-end fireballs, I do believe I read a webcomic where someone did that. It was Thog Infinitron...I guess it wasn't a fireball.) But anyway, I'm looking for something that you can see and follow the process of what the character's doing in a way that makes sense.

I find that if there's one thing to take away from this, limitations on magic are more interesting than the powers themselves. And so I'm always looking for interesting limitations, because that forces me to be creative and forces my characters to be creative with what they have.

hwolfstar@38 wrote: "I was wondering if you had any certain inspiration for Adonalsium, Hoid, and the Cosmere other than the concept of a Creation story itself. To clarify, I guess I'm asking if you had any other author you read as an aspiring author that did anything similar."

There are certainly authors who have done this sort of thing before. I generally tend to react against what inspires me instead of toward it. I've talked about this before—if I think someone does a very good job with something, I'll try to approach it from a different direction because I figure they've covered that concept. At other times, if an author does something that I thought could have been way cooler, then I will react I guess in that direction...I don't know if that's a reaction for or against.

Asimov eventually had an overarching plot/universe. Stephen King did it. Other authors have done it, but they have not planned it from the beginning. As well as Asimov did with some of the concepts, I was always disappointed in his attempts to bring all of his stories together into one world because it just wasn't meant to be that way, and it felt like that. It felt clunky—I've always preferred the early robot stories and the early Foundation books to the later ones.

So I felt that if I was going to have a supermyth, so to speak—an overarching paradigm for these books—it would have to have a number of things. One, it would have to be limited in scope, meaning I wasn't going to try to cram everything into it. That's why ALCATRAZ is not involved in any of this. Number two, I would have to plan it from the beginning, and number three, I would want it to be subtle. In other words, I don't want it to come to dominate any of the stories because I want the books, the series, to stand on their own. I want this to be something that you can find if you're searching, but that will never pull the characters of a given book away from the focus on what is important to them.

Justin@39 wrote: "This question delves into religion greatly since I spent a good portion of my free time studying theology. Besides that, being a Christian, I sighted many interesting pieces in "Warbreaker," about the pitfalls of blind faith. <snip>

I'm wondering if you are criticizing some religious sects who elevate themselves as God though use God or some other deity as a method of control. With more relevance to the Christian faith, are we seeing the consequences of humans who rely on human reasoning for their understanding of God, an often superficial explanation?"

Religious themes are interesting to me. I rarely go into a book saying, "I am going to expose this foible of religion" or "I am going to highlight this wonderful part of religion." I go into a book telling stories about characters, and the ways that they believe and the things that they believe have an effect on them. I try to present those as realistically as possible.

I do think that there is a dangerous line between faith and what goes beyond that. You call it blind faith, yet at the same time there is something to be said for trusting those who have gone before and for not having to fall in a pit yourself because other people already fell in that pit. Where that line comes is a subject of great debate between religious people and non-religious people. I do think that questions should always be allowed and should always be asked. It is important to be asking questions.

I don't really mind how people believe, or what faiths people have. I think it's a fascinating part of us, that we all have different faiths. Where we stray into danger is in how we treat people who don't agree with our faiths. That, I think, is a very dangerous and frightening thing—the ways that various people treat others who disagree with them. No matter what side you're on, whether they belittle them, discard them, or destroy them, these various things are one of the great pitfalls of any type of belief or faith. So I deal with that. But again it's not because I sit down and say, "I am now going to write a book about this, or tell a story about this." It's because that's what's important to the characters I'm writing.

That said, when I was approaching WARBREAKER, I did think distinctly to myself, "You know, religion's been the bad guy in the past two stories you've told. You probably ought to do something different." That's why the—Spoiler alert!—the religion in WARBREAKER is vindicated in the end. I think there are some very good things about their religion, and though Siri is convinced that they are the bad guys, it turns out that indeed they are not. In fact, they are quite good...though there are certain things they're doing that I wouldn't necessarily agree with.

David@41 wrote: "Do you plan to annotate Warbreaker?"

I've written annotations for WARBREAKER already. There is supposed to be a special edition WARBREAKER e-book from Tor.com coming that will include all the annotations right there with the text, but I'm not sure when it will appear. The annotations will still go up chapter-by-chapter on my website, but if you get the special edition e-book you can have them all at once. We'll see when that happens.

David@41 wrote: "I have read Elantris, the Mistborn Trilogy and Warbreaker and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. But I have to say, The portion of Chapter 33 with Hoid (or Dust) the storyteller was a painful experience and I was glad you never brought him back. What was the idea or point of him pulling things from his pocket and dropping it on the ground? I feel like I missed some theme or clues here."

That was simply a way that he tells stories—there was no particular theme other than that. He throws puffs of different-colored dust into the air as he's speaking to try and evoke the feelings of the story that he's telling. Sorry it didn't work for you; not everything is going to work for everyone, but this is how he does it.

Chris-tina@42 wrote: "My question: What exactly does the Mistborn sequel series entail?"

Several hundred years after the original trilogy—Spoiler alert!—Wait, aren't these questions supposed to be about WARBREAKER?

Anyway, the Mistborn sequel trilogy, as I've said before, takes place in a more technologically advanced version of the world, several hundred years later. They've progressed beyond steam technology to combustion engine technology, are building skyscrapers—that level of technology. It will follow the exploits of a team of Allomancers who are kind of like an Allomantic SWAT team, a group of hybrid mercenary/deputized individuals who are brought in by the police to take out Allomancer criminals. The first book will deal with when they are called in to deal with a Mistborn serial killer. That's how it starts. It will go bizarre from there, of course, but think guns, cars, skyscrapers, and Allomancers.

Morsker@43 wrote: "I'd like to ask what led to this decadence in the Iridescent Tones, what were the social causes? It started out as the Cult of the Returned, and a simple faith in caring for the Returned so they'd live long enough to fulfill their purpose. And I assume the Voice even sends them back without memories exactly to foster this faith and hope in people, so that mortals can be part of their salvation instead of just getting divine hand-outs. That sounds really nice. But by the time we reach the events in Warbreaker, a lot of corruption and cynicism has found its way in, no?"

Yes, it has. Part of it is something that Lightsong points out. Their religion encourages the best of the Returned to give up their lives for their people, and they hit a patch where a lot of the best of them have already given up their lives. The rest have their needs and wants seen to. Beyond that, remember this is a society in which they're living in a very temperate climate where there isn't very much harsh weather at all; they're very sheltered, they have an extremely rich resource, and they have a lot of leisure time. So we're mixing leisure time with a somewhat selfish batch of Returned in control, and we're mixing that with a religion that focuses on art and beauty and that sort of thing.

I think one of the dangers this society would have to be worried about would be for this decadence to creep in as has happened at various points in various cultures around the world. The society certainly isn't irredeemable at all, but it is going through a patch of these three concepts aligning in some of the worst sorts of ways. But there are some better Returned than we focus on in the book, and there have been much better Returned in the past.

Kris@44 wrote: "This has probably been asked before, I was wondering since Mistborn, WARbreaker and Elantris share the same Cosmere, is it possible we will see people with certain abilities cross over into other worlds from other series?"

I think I've said enough about that here. More than that is a RAFO.

Kathy@45 wrote: "I was talking with a couple of others in another chat room about Vivenna and Siri's personal journeys in the book, especially at the end when Vivenna decides that she isn't going to write to her father in Idris. There was much debate over whether Vivenna was being childish and running away from responsibility, or if she realized that she was so drastically different from who she was before that she knew she was going to disappoint her father and family. As the author, what is your take on this scene regarding Vivenna's growth as a person?"

I would say yes to both. Vivenna ends the book having experienced a great deal of personal growth. However, unlike some of the other characters, she is only a few rungs up the ladder. She's got a long way to go. That's why as I was plotting the book, before I even started, I decided I'd probably want to do this as a two-book cycle. Overlapping and forcing upon Vivenna the level of personal growth that it would take to get her character to completely reach an end point just couldn't happen in the book. Particularly with me doing what I did with Lightsong and the personal arc he has, and with Siri. So Vivenna certainly had a lot of growth, but I planned a separate book where I could really delve into and dig into her psychoses and her psychology.

Vasher still has a long way to go too. His personal growth is more like a zigzag pattern—a line graph with lots of peaks and valleys. He's been around and still hasn't really found himself, though he's thought he's found himself a number of times. Anyway, those two characters led me to think that there was a lot more to explore there. I didn't want to ram them through the paces it would take in this one book. I thought it would ruin the book. So I let them grow at the rate they needed to grow at, or decline at the rate they needed to decline at, and saved a second book in the series to deal more with who they are and who they become.

Zach@46 wrote: "What do the Pahn Kahl believe in? All we seem to know is that they are similar to the Iridescent Tones. Any more info?"

I was going to get into this more in the sequel, because we would have some more Pahn Kahl people. Anytime I'm saving something for a sequel, I feel like I shouldn't say too much because I don't want to lock myself in. Let's say that it's like the Iridescent Tones, but without the god-worship of the Returned. More worship in the concepts, and more of a focus on the voice itself.

One thing to remember about the Pahn Kahl is that they've kind of lost a lot of it. By letting themselves get so focused on the enemy that conquered them, they've actually ended up losing much of who they were. Not everything, of course, but substantial portions of who they were have gotten swept under the rug and consumed in their desire to get their freedom. Which is an important thing, but they've let it consume them to pretty extreme levels.

Zach@46 wrote: "Also, would the Elantrians and the Lerasium-mistings be considered Slivers? Or is just the Lord Ruler and Vin Slivers(Via the Well)? Or do you need more power to be considered a Sliver?"

Elantrians are not slivers. Mistborn trilogy spoiler warnings follow! The Lord Ruler was indeed a Sliver. So was Vin. For the rest, I would say probably not.

What defines an actual Sliver of Adonalsium is not as clear-cut as you might think. It's a term that in-universe people who study this have applied to various existences and states. Every single person on the world of Scadrial has a bit of Leras in them—a bit of the power of Preservation. Every single person has a bit of Ati in them. There's a certain threshold where these scholars would call you a Sliver of Adonalsium. But I would say that any regular Misting is probably not a Sliver. A full Lerasium Mistborn is getting closer, but people who have held one of the powers are what would probably be termed a Sliver by the definitions. If you hold all the power that makes you a Shard, but the Lord Ruler held a little bit of it and then let it go. From then on they referred to that change in him—the residue, what was left—as a Sliver. When he held it he became the Shard for a short time, and Vin was a Shard for a short time. After Vin gave up the power, what Kelsier is at the end of the trilogy—that's a Sliver of Adonalsium.

Dylanhuebner@48 wrote: "I was wondering how the animation of the lifeless statues worked, in regard to the use of susebron's Breath. If they were lifeless, then vasher wouldn't have been able to take his Breath back out of them, nor would susebron have needed such a great deal of breath to revive them - he just would have needed a password. But if they were simply Awakened, no password would have been necessary to animate the statues, just Breath and Command.

It seems like the statues could be neither lifeless nor awakened. Are they unique, because of the use of bone, or am I missing something? The only other explanation I could think of was that they were lifeless, but Susebron's breath wasn't used to activate the statues, he simply had it passed down from vasher, in addition to the statues. If that's the case(and then I've simply been confusing myself with unnecessary, convoluted logic), why was it necessary to keep the breath safe for all these years?"

Wow, there are a lot of questions in there. If you follow the drafts, I think you can see the evolution of what became of the Lifeless army. Originally I had planned for the statues to simply have been placed there so that you could Awaken them—just in my original concepts, before I started the writing—and then that became the army.

I eventually decided that didn't work for various reasons. Number one, as I developed the magic system, Awakening stone doesn't work very well. You've got to have limberness, you've got to have motion to something for it to actually be stronger. So a soldier made out of cloth would be more useful to you than a soldier made out of stone, if you were just Awakening something. At that point, as I was developing this, I went back to the drawing board and said okay, I need to leave him a whole group of really cool Lifeless as the army. But that had problems in that the ichor would not have stayed good long enough. Plus they already had a pretty big Lifeless army, so what was special about this one? Remember, I'm revising concepts like this as the book is going along. You can see where in the story I could see what needed to be there. So I went back to the drawing board again.

I think the original draft of WARBREAKER you can download off my website has them just as statues, though at the time when I was writing that I already knew it would need to change. I was just sticking to my outline because I needed to have the whole thing complete on the page before I could work with it. A lot of times that's how I do things as a writer—I get the rough draft down, and then I begin to sculpt.

I eventually developed essentially what you've just outlined in the first part, before you started worrying if you were too convoluted. I said, well, what if there's a hybrid? What happens if you Awaken bones? Can you create something? The reason that you can't draw the Breath back from a Lifeless is because the Breath clings to it. If the Lifeless were sentient enough, it could give up its own Breath, but you can't take it, just like you can't take a Breath from a person by force. You have to get them to give it up willingly. So it sticks to the Lifeless. A Lifeless is, let's say, 90% of a sentient being. The Breath doesn't manifest in them, because they aren't alive, yet they're almost there. A stone statue brought to life would be way down on the bottom rung.

Is there something in between? That's the advancement I had Vasher discover—what if we build something out of bone, but then encase it in stone to make it strong, and build it in ways that the bone is held together by the force of the Breaths? That's really what you're getting at there, that you need a lot of Breath, a lot of power, to hold all that stone together. There are seams at the joints. What the Breath is doing is clinging there like magical sinew, and it's holding all of that together.

Vasher left the Phantoms Invested with enough Breath to hold them together but not to move. You needed another big, substantial influx of Breath in order to actually make them have motion, to bring them enough strength to move and that sort of thing. So it's kind of a hybrid.

Mark@49 wrote: "It was said throughout the book that you cannot just give some of your breath, but must give all of it. Perhaps I'm simply forgetting part of the book where this changes, but wouldn't Vasher have to give his Returned breath along with his others?"

The "You must give up all of your Breath, not some" line was mostly perpetuated by Denth, who is saying it to Vivenna to stop her from giving away her Breath to all the people she passes. It is a lie. Now, it's a lie that's commonly accepted by a lot of people. But it's still a lie—as we find out midway through the book, you can stick some of your Breath in an object and bring it to life, and then recover that Breath. So it's very easy to give some of your Breath to someone if you know the logical steps to take. Invest most of it into an object, give what you have to someone else, then pull back what you Invested. So it's flat-out proven in the novel that what Denth is telling her is wrong. Now, he could dance around that lie by pretending to be the ignorant mercenary—he's just perpetuating a falsehood that many people believe. But it is a lie. In fact, a lot of the things people believe about BioChromatic Breath isn't true.

One of the things I was trying with this book was to take a few steps back from MISTBORN, where so much was understood. I feel that the approach I took in MISTBORN is right for that book, and yet people have so much superstition regarding all sorts of science. I worry sometimes that there isn't enough superstition in my books, regarding magic as science. What people believed and what people knew and what people understood was so varied and confused throughout most of history, that I worry that I lack realism in that. Vasher brings up at several points in the book that they don't know a whole lot and that people perpetuate a lot of myths and stories and lies.

Vasher has learned to suppress his Returned Breath. When it's suppressed, it's as if it doesn't exist to him. He's Invested it into a place within himself, much like you can Invest your Breaths into a shirt, and when he gives away the rest of his Breaths, he doesn't give that one away. He could split off others of his Breaths if he wanted to—he's learned to do that, so that he could give a few Breaths and not all. It's just a matter of practicing as long as he has. But even people who aren't as practiced as him do it all the time when they Invest an object with not all of their Breath but just enough to bring it to life.

Nick@51 wrote: "The question I have for you is will we ever get to know what Hoids purpose is? He shows up in each of the books, presumably looking for something or on some kind of mission. (Lerasium bead?)

Will Hoid have a short story, novel or will we have to try and piece it together?"

There will someday be Hoid short stories. I've actually written half of one and then haven't been able to have time to finish it. He will also have short viewpoints throughout the Stormlight Archive series, assuming he survives.

Mostly this is for you to piece together. As I said before, this is a story I'm telling, and if I have to explain the story outside the story, then in some ways I've done something wrong. So let the story speak for itself, and you will see. I guess that's a RAFO.

Random Quotes

1. Hoid is not a Shard. . . BUT . . . . wait for another topic I'll post in a few minutes. ;]

2. If a Mistbron burned Lerasium, their power would become doubled.

Josh’s Interview

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This Q&A was obtained in May 2010 and was never posted. Josh and Mi’chelle took good notes, but the answers are not direct quotes, rather, the paraphrasing of them. Some stuff here is very outdated (like my question about "imbue"), and so on some things I have put my notes in, to avoid misinformation.

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{{qa|Josh|Why did the Well of Ascension refill every thousand years rather than 500 or 200, etc.|It's actually every 1024 years. The Lord Ruler just befuddled the information a bit.{{

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Extra information discovered

Skaze are the evil seons, and are related to Skai. Seons are related to the AonDor and thus Aona.
WoK2 title: High Prince of War or else Shattered Plains. He's not sure if it's going to be a Shallan book or Dalinar. If it is Dal's book then it will be HPoW.

17th shard

September 2010 Our first audio interview with Brandon Sanderson has been transcribed! Many thanks to Morderkaine on the forums for providing a faithful raw transcription, and for Ryan's editing job. You can read about Morderkaine's effort here.

Enjoy! http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=7963.0

17th Shard: Hey everyone, welcome to 17th Shard's exclusive interview with Brandon Sanderson. In attendance from 17th Shard are Eric, Josh and Mi'ch. This interview is mostly spoiler free, but at the end there are some Mistborn questions that do contain spoilers. We'll warn you before we get to that point. That notwithstanding, we'll mostly ask general stuff about The Way of Kings. We're all very exited for this so lets get right to it.

17th Shard: Ok, the first question is, why did you change the main character's name to "Kaladin" in the final draft?

Brandon: Excellent question. I see you're stealing all of my annotation questions that I would ask myself. For those of you who don't know, the character's original name was Merin. The change was a very hard decision because the history of Way of Kings goes back so far. You know, I started writing about and working on Merin as a character in the year 2000, so he'd been around for almost a decade in my head as who he was.

A couple of things sparked the change. Number one, I'd never really been pleased with the name. I had been doggedly attached to it, despite the fact that all of my alpha readers on the original Way of Kings, Way of Kings Prime we'll call it now, said, "This sounds like a girl's name." I'm like, "Well…you know, sometimes in different cultures names sound like girls' names. I've recently discovered that Bilbo and Frodo's actual names are "Bilba" and "Froda". Those are their actual names; that's what they say in-world and in the appendices. Tolkien in one of his appendices said, "I english-ized them to make them sound more more masculine for the 'translation' of the Lord of the Rings books, but they would actually call themselves Bilba and Froda." So, anyway, Merin sounded a little bit feminine, but still I dug in my heels.

One of the concepts for the new Way of Kings is Kaladin's arc as a character. In Way of Kings Prime he makes a decision very early in the book, and in The Way of Kings I wanted to have him make the opposite decision. There's a big decision that comes to him and it's almost like these two books are branching paths from that moment in a lot of ways. And so it's going to be a very interesting process when I eventually let people read Way of Kings Prime, which I won't right now because it has spoilers for the rest of the series, but you can see how all the characters go in different directions from that moment and they also change slightly. It's like an alternate world version of the book you're reading.

So, point number two was that I started to feel he's changed so much as a person I can no longer think of him as the same character. Point number three was that, as I am now working on The Wheel of Time, having a character whose name sounded a lot like Perrin started to be problem to me. Particularly since in Way of Kings Prime Merin was not the main character but in this Way of Kings he is. Way of Kings Prime was much more evenly divided between the characters, but in the published book he gets essentially double the space, and so he becomes the main character. I felt I wanted the main character of this book to have a much stronger, perhaps a little more mythic name. I tried lots and lots of names before I eventually settled on "Kaladin".

17th Shard: Kaladin does sound like a much more powerful a name.

Brandon: Yeah, it's a much better name. I'm very happy we did it, but we changed it on like the last draft, so it was very surprising to my editor and to my writing group when all of a sudden he changed to a different name.

17th Shard: We know it's not your job to pick cover artists, of course, but do you have any idea if Michael Whelan will make additional Stormlight Archive covers, or will it be different artists each time?

Brandon: Another good question. This one I don't quite know the answer to. The thing is, Whelan is so busy and does so few covers that it'll come down to whether he has the time and is willing to. We would certainly like him to do more, and I've heard news around Tor that they're optimistic for him doing the rest of the series. But, like I've said, I felt like it was incredibly fortunate that we got him to do one. You'll notice that he doesn't even do whole series for some of his favorite authors anymore. For example, Tad Williams's latest in theShadowmarch series. He did the first cover in the series, and they had someone else do the other covers. I don't know the details of that but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that Michael Whelan likes to do his fine art. As a favor to people he'll do the occasional brilliant, beautiful cover but then he wants to go back and I can't blame him for that. So we'll see what happens when the second book is ready for a cover.

17th Shard: What's it feel like to finally have your baby released to the public? It's probably a very different feeling from any of your other book launches.

Brandon: Yeah.

17th Shard: Are you more nervous than usual or have the positive ARC compliments made you feel fairly confident?

Brandon: I'm more nervous than normal. It has been my baby for a long time, and I got Tor to invest so much into it, what with the cover, the interior art, the end pages, the really nice printing, and the sheer length of it. Tor would really rather not publish books of this length. The rest of the series will be shorter; I promised that to them. I do want to warn readers that the 400,000 word length is not going to be the standard for the series. They're probably going to be more like 300,000 words, which is what this one should have been, but I just couldn't get it down. It was right for the book for it to be this length.

I'm worried about it for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is a departure for me in a couple of ways. I've been planning a big massive epic for a long time but I only wanted to have one or two big massive epics. My Adonalsium mythos couldn't support multiples of something this long and so a lot of my other books are much more fast-paced and I do wonder what readers are going to think of a much larger more epic story, because it is going to have a different feel.

It's happened every time I've released a book though; Warbreaker felt very different fromMistborn, which felt very different from Elantris. Way of Kings feels very different from all of those as well so I'm worried that there are a lot of readers who are not going to like it as much. I hope that there are a lot of readers who are going to like it more, but we'll have to just see what people think of it.

17th Shard: On later Stormlight Archive novels will there always be one character we get to see flashbacks for?

Brandon: Yes, and it should rotate to different characters. I have not yet decided who gets book two yet. It's really between Dalinar and Shallan and I go back and forth on whose story I want to tell next. [Editor's Note: In this blog post, Brandon has stated that he's now leaning more towards Shallan for book two.]

17th Shard: So, does that mean there's going to be 10 different characters that would be seen?

Brandon: It's very likely there will be 10 different characters. The only caveat on that is that part of me really wants to do a second Kaladin book. And so I haven't quite decided who gets flashback books. You can probably guess from reading this book some of them who do. But there are some that don't necessarily absolutely need them, so Kaladin may get a second flashback book.

17th Shard: So, fingers crossed, fingers crosses, will Szeth get one?

Brandon: Szeth will get a book.

17th Shard: YES! (laughter) We're all cheering.

Brandon: Yes, Szeth will get a book. Shallan and Dalinar will get books.

17th Shard: Adolin?

Brandon: Um…I'm not sure on him yet. He's one that could, maybe not. I mean he's got some interesting things going on but we'll see how the series progresses first. There are characters who will get flashback books that you haven't yet met or at least not spent much time with.

17th Shard: You've told us that you took the idea of the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel into Way of Kings and reading Way of Kings it's hard to imagine the book without them. What did Roshar look like without them? Can you walk us through the process of moving that concept from that series to this one?

Brandon: Yeah, it looked pretty much like it looks in the books, but Way of Kings Prime takes place mostly in Kholinar and in a location that has not yet been talked about in the books.

Ah…it took place in another location, how about that?

One of the big things with this book is, as I was saying, that I think I started [Way of Kings Prime] in the wrong place. I moved some things back in time and some things forward in time. For instance, if you ever read Way of Kings Prime, the prologue to Way of Kings Prime is now the epilogue to The Ways of Kings. You know, the thing that happens in the epilogue with the thumping on the door and the arrival of a certain individual? That scene is now from Wit's viewpoint which it wasn't before. Pull Wit out of that scene and you'll get almost exactly [what happened] in the [original] prologue. So, the timing has been changed around a lot.

As I was playing with this book I found that, like I said, one of the big things I had a problem with was that I felt that Kaladin had taken the easy route when he needed to take the hard route. I was really looking for a good plot cycle. I needed something to pull this book together. I had characters but I didn't have a plot and I've mentioned before that sometimes things come [to me] in different orders. In this book world and character came to me, in fact character came to me first, world came second and then I was building the plot around it. I knew the plot of the entire epic and the entire series but I needed a much stronger plot for book one. Because of the various things that are happening I wanted to deal with a war.

So I was planning a war away from Alethkar, and I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do with this war. Meanwhile I have Inkthinker, Ben McSweeney, doing concept art for me to use in my pitch to Tom Doherty at Tor and he says, "Hey, I just drew up this sketch of some creature that lives at the bottom of a chasm, what do you think?" And he showed me this.

I told him that we were looking for kind of above water coral reef formations, and he sends me this brain coral, which is essentially the Shattered Plains with a big monster living at the bottom and I'm like, "Wow!" I actually did a book where this was essentially the setting. I looked at that, and that's actually what made me say, "Wait a minute, could I transpose this and would the Shattered Plains actually make more sense on Roshar than they ever did on Yolen?" I started playing with that concept and I absolutely fell in love with the idea. Unfortunately for Dragonsteel, that was the only really good plot cycle from that book.

[You can read Ben's take on this story here. That's also where we got the images, which we've used with permission. —ed]

So, I ripped it out of that book and I put it here, and that means it brought with it a few side characters who no longer live on Yolen because they now live on Roshar. Rock is one of them, though he's been changed. When he came along the Horneaters were born; they had not been in the books before. For those who have read Dragonsteel, he was Ke'Chan [a nationality, not a name. —ed] in that book. I couldn't bring that culture because that culture is extremely vital to [Dragonsteel]. I can bring a plot cycle or a little region, and there's certain things you can pull out of a book without ruining the soul of what the book is. I couldn't take the Ke'Chan out of Dragonsteel; they're just part of what that book is and so Rock had to change nationalities. I had to build him his own nationality, a new culture essentially just for him. And yeah, it worked wonderfully.

Someday I'll let you have that art, and if you remind me to ask Peter you can probably post it with the interview. As you can just see it's not the way that it ended up being because it looks different from how the Shattered Plains turned out, but it was the spark that made me say, "Let's move this over."

17th Shard: That's cool, so basically Inkthinker's responsible for the Shattered Plains?

Brandon: Inkthinker is responsible for them moving to the new book, yes.

17th Shard: That's pretty cool.

Brandon: Yeah.

17th Shard: What can you tell us about the Knights Radiant?

Brandon: Um…what can I tell you that's not in the books?

17th Shard: A little more about them.

Brandon: There were 10 orders of Knights Radiant. Each order was based on a combination of two of the "smaller" magic systems in this world, so to speak. You combine two of them together and they each had something kind of "their own". So if you look at the map in the front of the magic system and you mark circles that include one large circle and two of the smaller circles in between, you can find the 10 orders right on there. The mini circles are the powers and the big circles represent the orders and the essences and things like that. So one big circle, two little circles equals an order of Knights Radiant.

17th Shard: Please explain the arches and symbols that are seen at the beginning of each chapter and why you decided to do them.

Brandon: The arches and symbols are a series of arches and symbols at the beginnings of chapters.

17th Shard: (laughter)

Brandon: There's an explanation for you. They rotate and change for every chapter. What they mean should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer, as Robert Jordan used to say.

17th Shard: (laughter)

Brandon: I decided to use them because I wanted to have interesting things at the start of each chapter. These were done by Isaac [Editor's Note: This is the same Isaac that did the Allomantic symbols for Mistborn]. I originally sat down with Isaac and said, "I want to be able to build symbols at the beginning of my chapters. Something like in The Wheel of Time, which I really like, but I don't want to imitate them, I want to go somewhere different. I want to have different pieces that interlock together that form some stonework symbol that's at the beginning of every chapter." I also told him what I wanted the symbols to mean (among other things) and he actually transmogrified all that into an archway. I had originally been planning it to be some sort of inscribed rock stamp or something like a little relief at the beginning of each chapter, but he persuaded me that an archway with a different kind of symbol in the center [would be better]. So, they became arches through Isaac's working with the art and changing things and deciding what would look good visually.

17th Shard: The Way of Kings has a very interesting format. Why did you decide to go with that format and what prompted you to include the interludes?

Brandon: That's another excellent question. You guys are really on the ball. Uh…so, what went through my head is one worry that we have in epic fantasy. The longer the series goes, and the more characters you add, the less time you can spend with each character. This gets really frustrating. You either have the George R. R. Martin problem where he writes a book and doesn't include half of them, or you get the middle Wheel of Time problem where he will jump to each character for a brief short time and no one's plot seems to get advanced.

If you look back at Elantris, I did a lot of interesting things with form in that novel, and I wanted to try something interesting with form for this series that would in some way enhance what epic fantasy does well and de-emphasize the problems. And I thought that I could do some new things with the form of the novel that would allow me to approach that, and so I started to view the book as one main character's novel and then short novellas from other characters' viewpoints. Then I started adding these interludes because I really like when, for instance, George Martin or Tad Williams or some other authors do this. You'd jump some place and see a little character for a brief time in a cool little location, but the thing is, when most epic fantasy writers do that, that character becomes a main character and you're just adding to your list. I wanted to actually do something where I indicated to the reader that most of these are not main characters. We're showing the scope of the world without being forced to add a new plot line. And I did that is because I wanted to keep the focus on the main characters and yet I also wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted to show off the interesting aspects of the world.

When you read Way of Kings Prime someday you'll see that there are six major viewpoint characters, all in different places, with all different plots, because I wanted to show off what was happening in different parts of the world. That spiraled out of control even in that one book. Keeping track of who they were because there were such large gaps between their plot lines was really problematic. Instead I condensed and made, for instance, Kaladin's and Dalinar's plots take place in the same area as Adolin's. And so, even though you have three viewpoints there the plot lines are very similar. Or, at least they're interacting with one another.

And so the interludes were a means to jump around the world. They're essentially short stories set in the world, during the book, so when you get this book, maybe you can think of it this way: Kaladin's novel with Shallan and Dalinar each having shorter novels or novelettes or novellas, with occasional, periodic jumps to short stories around the world. And then of course Kaladin's flashbacks. As we've mentioned, every book will have flashbacks from its main character to enhance the main plotline.

I'm hoping that form will do a couple things. It'll show the scope of the world without us getting too overwhelmed by characters we have to keep track of. You know when you hit interludes that you aren't going to have to pay attention to most of them. You can read and enjoy them, but you aren't going to have to remember them. How about that? You can want to pay attention but you don't have to remember them. By the end of the book, the main characters' arcs and flashbacks should have been resolved and you should have a feel of a completer story from that main character. And then we have other characters that are doing things that are essentially just starting plotlines.

In the next book, you'll get another character with a big arc and flashbacks. The major characters from previous books will still have parts and viewpoints; Kaladin will still be important in the next book but it won't be "his book". He'll get a novella-length part instead.

(Of course, they're not really novella-length because it's a 400,000 word book. Those "novellas" are actually like 70,000- or 80,000-word novels)

17th Shard: Will the next Stormlight Archive books have interludes as well?

Brandon: Yes, all of them will have interludes.

17th Shard: Ok.

Brandon: And you will, very occasionally, revisit people in the interludes. I'll let myself have one interlude that's same between each part like we did with Szeth in this book.

Ah…Szeth's a little bit more of a main, major character, so you'll get, like, one four-parter and then you'll get what, eight just random [characters/viewpoints] around the world. And you may occasionally see those characters again, but you don't have to remember them; they're not integral to understanding the plot. They should add depth and they should be showing you some interesting things that are happening in the world while we're focused [on a few important plot lines]. I don't to travelogs in my books; my characters are not going to be sweeping across the countryside and showing you all the interesting parts of the world. I tend to set my books in a certain place and if we travel someplace, we skip the travel.

17th Shard: (laughter)

Brandon: But that means the chances of us ever visiting Gavland, um…or Bavland I think I ended up naming it…

17th Shard: Was that the place with the grass?

Brandon: Shinovar is where Szeth's from. Bavland is where Szeth is owned by the miner and things like that. I can't remember what I renamed that. Originally I called it Gavland, and then we had a Gavilar and so my editor insisted that it be changed. I think it's Bavland now.

And so the chances of us ever visiting there with a major character and a long plot are very low. But, you know, being able to show just a glimpse of Szeth there allows me to give some scope and feel to the world.

17th Shard: Makes it epic.

Brandon: Hopefully, yes.

17th Shard: Okay, next question. How is The Way of Kings related to the rest of the cosmere? What point in time is it?

Brandon: Oh, so far I have written the books/series chronologically. Though, I have skipped books…

17th Shard: (laughter)

Brandon: And so there will be jumping back eventually, but Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreakerand Way of Kings all happened chronologically.

17th Shard: Just in general, how is it related to the rest of the cosmere? Or can you say?

Brandon: I, uh…officially don't know what you're talking about.

17th Shard: (laughter)

Brandon: I mean, what do you mean by "related to"?

17th Shard: For example, the letter…

Brandon: Yes, just like the letter that I have no idea what you're talking about. I will tell you that one of the novels I skipped is actually set in the same solar system.

17th Shard: Oh…so this is the series that that book shares. [Editor's Note: Some on the 17th Shard staff have read many of Brandon's unpublished works. This editor has no idea what they're talking about.]

Brandon: Yes, this is the series that the book shares that I skipped. I was planning to do it first, but now was the time to do the Stormlight Archive. So you will eventually see a book set on a planet in the same solar system. You could just pick out in the sky of Roshar if you were watching when [something happens? —ed], and it may even get mentioned because it's a fairly close planet.

17th Shard: Is that on Divine Silence?

Brandon: Silence Divine happens there.

17th Shard: What is the name of that planet?

Brandon: Hmm…should I tell you?

17th Shard: Yes!

Brandon: Oh, Peter says no.

17th Shard: (laughter)

Brandon: You got PAFO'd.

17th Shard: (laughter continues) Go ask Peter and find out.

Brandon: No, it's like, Peter and not find out.

17th Shard: (still laughing) PANFO.

Brandon: Yeah, PANFO.

17th Shard: We've been PANFO'd.

Brandon: Yeah, PANFO'd, Peter and not find out. Good.

17th Shard: (more laughter) We just won't leave.

Brandon: Yeah, so, I will tell you the name of that planet once it is out like I've told you the rest of them.

17th Shard: Ok, fair enough. Do you have a scene you enjoyed more than the rest, and on the flip side, was their something that you did not enjoy?

Brandon: I will say that I really loved doing all the interludes because they gave me a sense, when I was writing this book, of jumping to something new, which is part of what kept me going in all of this. Are they my favorite scenes in the book? No, but they were probably my favorite to write because it's like I get to take a break and write something whacky and looney, so to speak.

Hmm…is there anything that was harder? You know, revisions are always hard. In the next to last draft I changed Dalinar's arc very substantially, and that was a hard write. And, you know, Adolin was not originally a viewpoint character, so there was a lot of hard writing there. So, poor Adolin probably gets the badge for hardest to write. Not because he as a character was hard to write but because I was having to repurpose scenes and toss out scenes and rewrite them with Adolin as the viewpoint character and so on to add just a little more dimension to Dalinar's plot arc.

17th Shard: You said it was because of your work on The Wheel of Time that you were able to do this story justice. What did you mean?

Brandon: Wheel of Time forced me to stretch as an author and it forced me to learn to juggle multiple viewpoints. I hadn't had a lot of practice writing sequels or planning sequels, and then I had to write the twelfth book in a fourteen book series. This taught me a lot about working with sequels. Also, seeing what Robert Jordan did for foreshadowing really taught me a lot about how to foreshadow across a big long epic. But I would say mostly it's just juggling the viewpoints, learning how to make sure all the characters are making appearances and we're enjoying them all and everything is balanced all without losing track.

17th Shard: You hired four artists to contribute to this book…

Brandon: Yes.

17th Shard: …and had their artwork included in the book. Why did you decide to do this?

Brandon: When I say four artists I am including Michael Whelan whom I didn't hire, the company commissioned, so we really have three interior artists and then Michael Whelan who did the beautiful cover. Again, I wanted to use the form of this novel to try and enhance what epic fantasy can do, and downplay the things that are tough about it. One of the tough things about epic fantasy is the learning curve. How much you have to learn a pay attention to, how many things there are to just know. I felt that occasional illustrations could really help with that. For instance, how Shallan's sketch book, or uses of multiples maps, could give us a visual component to the book. You know, pictures really are worth a thousand words. You can have on that page something that shows a creature much better than I can describe it. And so I felt that that would help deemphasize the problem of the learning curve, while at the same time helping to make this world real. Epic fantasy is about immersion, and I wanted to make this world real since that's one of the great things we can do with epic fantasy. We've got the space and the room to just build a completely real world, and I felt that the art would allow me to do that, which is why I decided to do "in world" art.

I didn't want to take this toward a graphic novel. I like graphic novels but it wasn't appropriate here to do illustrations of the scenes and characters from the books, because I don't want to tell you what they look like. I want that to be up to your own imagination. And so we wanted that "in world" ephemera feel to it, as though it were some piece of art that you found in the world and included.

I think it goes back to Tolkien. There's a map in The Hobbit, and that map isn't just a random map, which has become almost a cliché of fantasy books, and of epic fantasy. "Oh, of course there's a random map in the front!" Well [Tolkien] wanted you to think this map was the actual map the characters carried around and that's why he included it. He wrote his books as if he were the archivist putting them together and translating them and bringing them to you, this wonderful story from another world, and he included the map because the map was there with the notes. That's what I wanted the feel for this ephemera to be. As though whoever's been writing the Ars Arcanum for all of the books has collected this book together, done the translation and included pieces of art and maps and things that they found in the world that had been collected during these events, and that's what you're getting.

17th Shard: Wonderful. Now we're moving on to the some most likely RAFO questions. This will probably go really quick.

Brandon: Ok.

17th Shard: Now that we've seen Shadesmar can you elaborate more on it? Perhaps why you wanted a map of it included in the book?

Brandon: RAFO.

17th Shard: (laughing) If you put all the Shardblades and all the Shardplate together in one place, will you create a Voltron?

Brandon: (laughs)

17th Shard: (laughs)

Brandon: NO.

17th Shard: Is Cultivation a Shard on Roshar?

Brandon: Yes, Cultivation is. (very inquisitively) Where did you get that word?

17th Shard: It's in the book.

Brandon: Is it in the book? Okay.

17th Shard: It's mentioned once.

Brandon: Okay, one of the Shards form Roshar is Cultivation.

17th Shard: What is the name of the Shard which is the Almighty?

Brandon: Ah…RAFO!

17th Shard: What percentage of the underlying Cosmere have we uncovered? Like five percent, fifteen percent?

Brandon: The number of planets? Or…

17th Shard: No, not even that. Like how much do we know about the underlying metaphysics? Of the rules?

Brandon: Um…

17th Shard: You said that there's a lot more that we don't know.

Brandon: There is a lot you don't know.

17th Shard: I was wondering if you could put a number on it?

Brandon: I don't know if I can put a number on it. If you've read Dragonsteel you have a lot more, because there's talk of philosophy in that book about it. But I can't give a percentage because I know it all.

17th Shard: (laughter)

Brandon: And I can't remember at times. I often have to go back and research and say, okay, what did I put in, what haven't I included and so on. I would say that you know enough to be dangerous, but not the majority by far. There is an underlying theorem of magic for all of these worlds, which I don't think has been mentioned before…

17th Shard: No…

Brandon: But yeah, it's kinda one of the things that may amaze. People keep trying to look for a unifying theory of physics. You know, the great, unifying [theory that ties all things together]. I have a little science background and I wanted there to be a unifying theory of magic, which there is, in these books at least. It's not simple, it's not like one sentence, but you can map out how the magic all fits together in this kind of super theorem.

The following questions may contain spoilers for the Mistborn novels. You have been warned.

17th Shard: If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon: That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense?

17th Shard: It does.

Brandon: By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

17th Shard: Joe from the U.K. asks a terrifying question, "If an Allomancer is turned into a loloss, would they keep their powers?"

Brandon: If an Allomancer is turned into a koloss? You know…

17th Shard: We're scared of this.

Brandon: Yeah, no. That's actually something I've thought about. An Allomancer turned into a koloss would keep their powers because, as you'll recall, an Allomancer turned in to an Inquisitor retains their powers. Whether they would be able to always know how to use them remains to be seen, but you could definitely have a koloss Allomancer if you built them right.

17th Shard: Are all Inquisitors required to have an atium spike?

Brandon: No, they are not.

17th Shard: Okay. Which metal steals the power of Feruchemic gold? The Hero of Ages epigraphs say it was pewter, but it can't be pewter, since pewter steals Feruchemical Physical powers.

Brandon: Right…that's probably a typo. I will have to go back to the notes, that's more of a PAFO…

17th Shard: Is that a PAFO and actually find out? Or a PANFO…

Brandon: Yeah, no, no. Peter and find out.

17th Shard: Are there a limited amount of atium and lerasium alloys for each metal?

Brandon: Hmm, yes…I suppose there would be but there are…

17th Shard: More than sixteen?

Brandon: Yeah, way more than sixteen.

17th Shard: Oh wow. Okay. That's fascinating. More than sixteen and less than infinite.

Brandon: Yes.

17th Shard: Okay. Jordan asks, "If one were to become an atium savant could they see further into the future than normal?"

Brandon: Yes.

17th Shard: Jordan also asks, "Are there forms of birth control on Scadrial?"

Brandon: Yes, there are. Witness, Vin and Elend not getting pregnant across several years.

17th Shard: Right. It's just not really mentioned in the books.

Brandon: Yeah. I stay away from that intentionally. There are a lot of things I just didn't discuss due to the the feel of that book.

17th Shard: Cool. Very careful roleplayers have counted the numbers of Inquisitors appearing in the novels and they claim there must have been 25 if Vin and Elend killed two Inquisitors between Mistborn 2 and Mistborn 3. Could you clarify the numbers of Inquisitors there were?

Brandon: Um…

17th Shard: They've literally counted.

Brandon: They literally, yeah…No, I mean, I've got it written down somewhere. I'm now so separated from this book.

17th Shard: Yeah.

Brandon: I had always imagined there being around three dozen Inquisitors at any given time.

17th Shard: Oh, okay, so quite a bit more than 20.

Brandon: Right. Well the thing you've gotta remember is that, with the powers they're given, they're pretty much immune to disease and things like that, particularly after they've gained their healing spike.

17th Shard: Right. Is that common to all Inquisitors?

Brandon: It does not come to all. It comes to almost all. That's a pretty common one, but being an Inquisitor does not mean you get it. I think it mentions in the books that there's one spike that they all get, but I can't remember what it is.

17th Shard: I would imagine that would…well, okay, a steel spike so they could see.

Brandon: Right. Yeah, obvious, but the thing is you've gotta have a Keeper to be able give a healing spike.

17th Shard: Exactly.

Brandon: The ones alive now pretty much all have healing spikes, but there were times throughout history when he needed a new Inquisitor and he didn't have a Keeper (a Feruchemist) handy. He could make an Inquisitor without that.

17th Shard: So…

Brandon: That is not what's keeping them alive from the spikes being driven through their bodies.

17th Shard: So the linchpin spike is not always the same type of spike.

Brandon: It doesn't have to be. The linchpin spike is just, when you're putting that many spikes together into somebody it needs a spike to coordinate them all. That is part of what's holding their body together from all of this damage, and it doesn't have to be the healing spike. The nature of Feruchemy is separate from that, if that makes any sense. For instance, you could put a few spikes into an Inquisitor without a linchpin spike, and they wouldn't die.

17th Shard: Can you burn the spikes? Like, Allomantically? For example, could they burn the steel in their head spikes?

Brandon: (sighs) I considered that and I eventually decided that they could, but it would be an excruciating process that would probably knock them unconscious simply by doing it.

17th Shard: Would they be able to tap?

Brandon: Would they tap them? They can use them as metalminds, yes.

17th Shard: Sorry, that was a huge tangent.

Brandon: No, that's good, you probably needed to know that for roleplaying. They can use them as metalminds.

17th Shard: I was trying to write Hemalurgy articles and…we're assuming that gold steals Feruchemic gold just so we can use that as a goldmind…

Brandon: Right, right.

17th Shard: But we don't know. That's why I asked, so, um…

Brandon: That's a PAFO for sure.

17th Shard: He said he'll get back to us because he doesn't know.

Brandon: Yeah.

17th Shard: Tucker asks, "Will you ever write a book or series where different magic systems come into the same world?"

Brandon: Where different magic systems come into the same world. Um…I have already.

17th Shard: (confused) Published novels?

Brandon: Yes.

17th Shard: I mean like different magic systems from different worlds.

Brandon: That's what I said.

17th Shard: He's being really clever about this, Eric. (Eric says) Okay, okay, sorry.

Brandon: You're asking if I'll do it obviously.

17th Shard: (laughs)

Brandon: Where that's the focus of the novel? Someday I might. Right now I've been planning in the back of my head, but I'm not sure if I'll do it. See, here's the thing: I like all of this stuff to be behind the scenes; I don't want any reader to walk up on the shelf and pull it out and feel like they are completely lost because they have to read 27 Sanderson novels before this one makes sense. And so that would be my hesitance in ever doing that. But I already have in very subtle ways. And if were going to do a conflux book, I might just post it on my website. I don't know, I'm not sure. It depends on how popular the things are and whatnot. But, I don't think I want to do that to my casual readers.

17th Shard: Right, they wouldn't have any of the background.

Brandon: Right, they wouldn't have any of the background. Thing is, some of the magic systems do cross worlds, and have before. And that has not happened obviously; you haven't really seen it. Right now Liar of Partinel [an unpublished book —ed] and Stormlight Archives share a magic system, because with the unifying theory of magic there's a certain number of things that magic can do, and there's a lot of different ones, but when they get similar they tend to work in the same way. So Lightweaving shows up in both books. I may change that for Liar of Partinel, but it's kind of integral to that book and it's kind of integral to Stormlight Archive right now too. This is one of the reasons why I had to decide to do either Dragonsteel or Stormlight Archive as the big epic.

Some of the magic systems have been discovered on different planets, and some of them do work. A lot of them don't, but some of them do. It depends on your spiritual DNA, what people are able to do, and things like that. But, if you find a way to do illusion magic in one of my worlds it's going to work pretty much like Lightweaving, regardless of which planet you're on. If that makes sense.

17th Shard: Can you elaborate more on cadmium and bendalloy's effects? Like, if you're speeding up time, are you speeding up time for you in the bubble or what?

Brandon: Anything in the bubble.

17th Shard: Okay.

Brandon: You create a space around you of sped-up space-time, and anything that gets in there moves more slowly. Like, let's say that I shot a bullet at you and you popped it with sped-up time. That bullet would move really slowly. Everything around you would be slowed. Ah, no, but you would be the same so when the bullet entered it would go the same speed that you are going, but once it's out, it's either faster or slower. Does that make sense?

17th Shard: Yeah, it does, it does. [Editor's Note: No, it doesn't, it doesn't. This editor is very confused.] And it's the same with bendalloy, just…

Brandon: Reversed, yeah. It can have some really powerful effects, but the problem is, you can't change anything. As soon as you get close enough to change it, it's in there with you. So, if you were using it the right way you could dodge bullets, as long as you were able to get it off before the bullet got too close to you, but that's hard to do.

17th Shard: Yeah, that would be the trick.

Brandon: And, if you're the one who can slow time, you could get someone in your bubble and slow time, then let everyone else move more quickly around you, which, of course, takes a lot more practice to use. You've got to have a buddy who's outside the bubble but who you could stop, he could stop you, and we would see time move the same but everything around us would go super fast. If people were ready for that they could make use of it.

[Editor's Note: I'm sorry if these answers are poorly edited. I don't really understand what Brandon means, so I can't be sure I'm preserving that meaning when I translate from the raw transcription.]

17th Shard: That has a lot of uses…

Brandon: Yeah.

17th Shard: Okay, well I think that wraps everything up.

Brandon: Okay.

17th Shard: Thank you so much!

Goodreads 2.0

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/446239-q-a-with-brandon-sanderson-way-of-kings

December 2010

Jon wrote: "My burning question for Brandon is did I miss the explanation, world building moment or historical gem that explains why women have a safe hand and why they must keep it covered?"

No, you haven't missed it. People have asked about this. There will be more explanation in-world as it comes along, but it's for much the same reason that in some cultures in our world you don't show people the bottoms of your feet, and in other cultures showing the top of your head is offensive. It's part of what has grown out of the Vorin culture, and there are reasons for it. One of them has to do with a famous book written by an artist who claimed that true feminine pursuits and arts were those that could be performed with one hand, while masculine arts were those performed with two hands, in a way associating delicacy with women and brute force with men. Some people in Roshar disagree with this idea, but the custom has grown out of that foundational work on masculine and feminine arts. That's where that came from. One aspect of this is that women began to paint one-handed and do things one-handed in upper, higher society. You'll notice that the lower classes don't pay a lot of attention to it—they'll just wear a glove.

As a student of human nature and of anthropology, it fascinates me how some cultures create one thing as being taboo whereas in another culture, the same thing can be very much not taboo. It's just what we do as people.

There's more to it than that, but that will stand for now.

meleah wrote: "The inside cover is beautiful. Do you plan to do something similar with every book?"

We asked for colored endpages. At first Tor was hesitant; they're very expensive. We kind of begged a bit, then showed them these cool pages and talked about how great the book would be with them, and eventually Tor decided that they would go with it. One of the aspects of doing colored endpages like that is that generally you have to use the same endpages for the entire series, to offset the printing cost. So those same endpages will be in every hardcover of the series. There will be different interior art, however.

Amanda wrote: "Will Kaladin (or Shallan, or any of the other characters) be going to visit the various places Kaladin saw in his dream, and if so, for extended periods of time or just short trips? I think the interludes are wonderful ways of showing other parts of the world, if I may also comment. "

I'm glad you liked the interludes. One of the reasons to include them is to show parts of the world that I won't be getting to for a while, but this is an epic, and there will be characters traveling to various places you've seen. Maybe not all of them, but some places will be visited. Some for extended periods, some for shorter periods.

Louise wrote: "Are you already decide whether it's Shallan or Dalinar story for book 2 central plot? What about the tentative title?"

I keep going back and forth. I'll probably have to sit down and completely write out both of their backstories--their flashback sequences--and after finishing that see which one best fits the theme and the plot of the novel, the story I'm trying to tell. So it's going to take a while to decide that, and it would require enough of my focus that I really need to do A MEMORY OF LIGHT first. So we'll know more after A MEMORY OF LIGHT is finished and I begin writing out their sequences.

Louise wrote: "Which one will you focused more in the future, the Heralds or Radiants? Will you dig deeper into each of Heralds story and some of Radiants?"

I feel that I should probably RAFO this one. We are going to delve into the Radiants as orders a lot. But the Radiants as individuals? Depends on what you mean. Kaladin is well on the path toward becoming one of them, though he's not one yet, as Teft is quick to point out. So if you mean focusing on actual Knights Radiant, we'll have to see if anyone actually manages to become one.

The Heralds are integral to the entire story, which is why the Prelude focuses on them. Since someone showed up at the end of the book claiming to be one of them, I think you can obviously expect some attention to be drawn there. Who each of the Heralds are and what their natures were is important.

Louise wrote: "Is spren lost their memories and personalities because of the loss of their attached radiants? But retain a basic attraction to things associated with the radiants they bonded to previously?"

Not all types of spren bonded to Radiants. You will find out more about this in the future. However, if you're speaking specifically of spren that were bonded to Radiants, then yes, you're on the right track.

Louise wrote: "Is the remove of Shalash statue connected to the man speaked gibberish that Szeth met before he assasinated Gavilar? "

RAFO.

SeekingPlumb wrote: "Question. When writing TWoK, did you write the story lines individually & then weave them together (e.g. Place the chapters as desired.), after the fact? Or did you write the book generally in the order that we see the end result?"

I wrote the parts by viewpoint. Meaning that for Part One, I wrote Kaladin straight through and then Shallan straight through. And then I switched for Part Two and wrote Dalinar and Kaladin, and then I switched back. So I did write the storylines individually by viewpoint, but in sections by part.

Bahador wrote: "I really like the dialogs between Jasnah and Shallon, convering sometimes atheism, god, blind faith, etc.

Are you going to expand on these philosophical topics? Will it play a larger part in the plot?

I really enjoyed these moments and hope to see more of them."

I'm glad you liked them. These questions are very important to Shallan and Jasnah and to an extent other characters such as Dalinar, so you will indeed see much more of this. I wouldn't include it if it weren't very important to the characters. And what's important to the characters has a strong influence on what's important to the plot.

If what happens at the end of Part Five with Dalinar is to be believed, then there is a very interesting theological conundrum to this world. Something claiming to be God claims also that it has been killed. Which then in some ways leaves someone who is atheist right, and yet at the same time wrong. When Jasnah and Dalinar meet, you can expect some discussion of what it means to be atheist if there was a God and God is now dead. Or will she say that obviously wasn't God? Those circles of thought are very fascinating to me and to the characters.

Josep wrote: "Just a nagging question: What happened to Gaz? After some character development he just vanishes in chapter 59 without further explanation. Will he be back on the next books?"

I'm planning for you to find out what happened to Gaz. There are sufficient clues that you can guess. But it is not explicitly stated, and I'm not going to say it's as obvious as Robert Jordan implied Asmodean's killer is. I was tempted to spell it out explicitly, but there wasn't a good place for it. I will probably answer it eventually, maybe in the next book, but until then you are free to theorize.

Dustin wrote: "Your sidekick characters (Nightblood, TenSoon in WoA and Syl) are always interesting, sometimes more so than side characters. Is this planned out or does it just happen? Do you control their lines more than other characters? (I really liked Syl's personality if that wasn't clear.)"

Thank you. That is partially intentional. One of the aspects of writing characters like them is that if we're not going to get viewpoints from them, their personality has to be strong enough to manifest externally. Which tends to have an effect, if it's not done well--or sometimes even if it is done well--of making them feel one-sided. In some ways I play this up; for instance Nightblood really is one-sided because of the way his personality works, the way he was crafted. He's a construct, and he has a main focus.

So with someone like Syl, I really wanted to bring out a lot of personality in her dialogue so that we could characterize her without having any of the internal thoughts and monologue and emotions that I sometimes instill in other characters. But Syl also was meant to be a vibrant splash of color in Kaladin's sometimes dreary viewpoints. Because of that, I really needed her to just pop off the page. So it was done intentionally.

Dustin wrote: "I felt the illustrations added a lot to the book physically and to the story. Will there be more in book two and so on if you have your way or was it a one book experiment?"

I'm glad you like what the illustrations added to the book and the story. I plan future volumes to have more of them.

Dustin wrote: "Can a Herald's blade/equipment be um....adopted? I only ask because Dalinar seems to be lacking one and that Herald at the end did kick the bucket in his capital and he's gonna need more than armor when Szeth shows up."

Someone who is not himself or herself a Herald can indeed use one of the Honorblades.

Dustin wrote: "Does the scene where Shallan is counting heartbeats mean what I think it means? It just kind of strange to imagine her carrying around of of those but then again she does like secrets."

It means what you think it means.

Flip wrote: "You have quite the world you have created. I look at the map and see a lot of different locations. How many of the named locations are actually going to be used? ... Anyway, I am always curious as to how much of one's world that has been built actually gets used."

You'll have to read and see what happens. I will say this: When I build a map, I don't consider it to be a to-do list. In fact, it makes a world feel unrealistic to me when every single place on the map ends up getting visited. So it's not a to-do list, but many of those locations are very important.

Cory wrote: "Will there be flashbacks for a different character in this next book?"

Yes. Each book will explore a different character in flashbacks, though Kaladin will also end up getting another book with flashbacks of his sometime down the line.

Robert wrote: "Was Syl's appearance and behavior caused by Kaladin giving up his shardblade?"

It was a major fundamental factor in what happened between them.

Brianna wrote: "Will Hoid be a major player in all, most, or only some of these books?"

He should have as large a role in other books as he had in this one, for the most part.

T.t. wrote: "Hi!

1. Are Kaladin's parents still alive, and if so, are they actually mad at him? 2. Is Hoid a Herald, or a Shareholder, or something else entirely. 3. Was the letter posted on the top of chapters to Sazed? 4. Do dead parshmen turn into Chasmfieds? 5. What is the dark-glowing sphere? 6. What did Szeth do to become a Truthless, and is there anything else involved in being a Truthless that we haven't seen?"

1. Yes, they are still alive. RAFO.

2. Hoid is something else entirely.

3. It is written to a character who exists outside of Roshar. I won't yet say who.

4. No.

5. Major big RAFO.

6. Szeth was perceived as betraying his people in a fundamental way, and you will learn more about that when his book comes along.

T.t. wrote: "Barring the Almighty, did we seen a Shardholder (like Sazed) in this book?"

I think "Shardholder" would get confusing alongside "Shardbearer." Basically, in the Cosmere's terms, when someone holds a Shard of Adonalsium, I call that person a Shard of Adonalsium. They are imbued with the power of that Shard, but they also become the Shard. Fans can use whatever terminology they wish, but this is how I term it.

You did at least see the direct effects of two of the Shards of Adonalsium, but I won't say whether or not you actually saw a Shard of Adonalsium.

Bri wrote: "I've read somewhere (probably your blog) that the Way of Kings will be made into ten parts. My question is this: Is it ten individual books, or really just ten parts? I notice that the first book had several parts in it so I was just curious."

Ten individual books.

Gary wrote: "The Way of Kings is certainly a great first book of a series. It does, however, leave one hungry for more. What's the best guess on when for #2? And does it have a name?"

I'll try to write it so it can be published in late 2012, but it really depends on how long it takes to write A MEMORY OF LIGHT, since I won't start until after that is finished. As for the title, if it ends up being a Dalinar book it will be titled HIGHPRINCE OF WAR, but if it ends up a Shallan book it will have a different title.

Jay wrote: "Do Szeth and Kaladin both belong to the same order of knights radiant?"

Szeth isn't actually in an order of Knights Radiant. Something different is happening with Szeth that people have already begun to guess. And Kaladin isn't yet a Knight Radiant, but the powers he uses are those of the Windrunners, one of the orders of the Knights Radiant. Szeth is using the same power set. So your phrasing is accurate to that extent.

Jet wrote: "The Stormlight archive is a very big book. Do you have plans of including a glossary that's more expansive than the ars arcanum?"

If I do make a glossary, it will probably be on my website. Perhaps I'll be able to slip in a longer glossary into future books. The problem is that the first book is already so long, as you said. I just don't have the pages for it now. As the series expands, maybe.

The thing is, I've always partially liked a glossary and partially not liked them, because as series get longer and longer, you have to make decisions about what to include and what not to include. Using the glossary in the backs of the Wheel of Time books is somewhat bittersweet because it only covers around one percent of the things you'd want to be in there. So in some ways it's become irrelevant, because most of the things you'll want to look up are not going to be there. It seems like it served its purpose best in the early to middle books, but now if you really want to know you've got to go toEncyclopaedia WoT or a similar site. So maybe we'll just do an online glossary or send people to one of the fan-created wikis.

Mike wrote: "Has Kaladin's windspren Syl reached the epitome of her consciousness or will we see a smarter spren in future books?"

Syl has recovered everything of her personality. There are things she doesn't remember, and things she can still learn to do, but she has recovered her personality in full.

Sandi wrote: "I keep hearing about the great art in the book, but I listened to the audio version. Is the art available to view online?"

It's not currently online. I need to bug my assistant to put the art on my website.

Vladimir wrote: "I really want to know,Brandon how do you get these ideas about so diverser and innovative magic systems?"

It just happens. I don't know. It's a blend of who I am--my science background, what I like in fiction, mixed with the way my mind works, what stories I seek to tell. I can't say specifically where I get the ideas, because they're all different. It's just part of my makeup.

And that's everything in this thread. Thank you for your patience in waiting for my responses, and thank you for reading my books!

Tor Q&A

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/01/your-questions-for-brandon-sanderson-answered

January 2011 Regarding The Stormlight Archive Is the fact that The Way of Kings and rest of the books in the series are going to focus each one on a different character connected in any way to the fact that both TGS and ToM focused each one on a pair of characters? No, not really. Most of my plans for the Stormlight Archive go back years and years to before I was working on the Wheel of Time. I would say that the The Gathering Storm/Towers of Midnightcharacter split happened because of the book split, less than any real planning on my part. I had the character arcs and decided which ones would fit well together if I was only going to be releasing one batch of them at a time. So the answer is no, but with the caveat that with the way my mind works, it may have been working in the same way in both cases.

 Was the symbol of the Ghostbloods the same symbol that you used to move between different scenes in TWoK’s chapters (the 3 diamonds in a triangle pattern)? The Ghostbloods’ symbol has interconnected diamonds. I didn’t ask Tor for a specific scene break character; that was a design decision on their part.

 In The Way of Kings, the epigrams indicate that the year is 1174 (or thereabouts). In the Prelude, the date is indicated as 3000 years ago. What mechanism is used to delineate the epochs? Obviously in the Prelude they wouldn’t refer to their date as -2174. In other words, what are the B.C./A.D./BCE equivalents for that series?  I’m going to have to RAFO that.

 In plotting an epic like WoK, to what extent do you outline the whole story? How does that compare with the outline and notes provided by Robert Jordan for the remaining volumes of WoT?  Robert Jordan and I plot differently. In the notes he tends to talk about scenes that he’s working on at the time, whereas I tend to plot out everything, kind of in reverse order. His outlines do end up looking like my outlines in some ways, in that he talks about important moments and I tend to plot backwards, starting from those important moments and moving backward from them. He seemed to be much more of a “I work on this scene because I’m passionate about it” writer, where I am a “I build a framework for the entire book and then start writing” writer.

 Which of the 10 Knights was supposed to be in book 1? I couldn’t tell. Is this by design? or did I miss the point? I’m not sure what the question means. Do you mean the Heralds? Or the ten orders of the Knights Radiant? The symbol stamped into the front of the first hardcover represents the Windrunners because of Kaladin’s awakening as a Windrunner. Also because of Szeth, but mostly because of Kaladin.

 What’s the general time line on Stormlight Archive releases? Do you plan any major gaps in the series, or will books 2-10 likely be your main projects for the next few years?  I wrote a blog post on this back in October.

After I finish A Memory of Light, my major novel publishing schedule will be Stormlight Archive books two years in a row, followed by something else the next year. This pattern should continue until the series is finished. That doesn’t count shorter exploratory side projects like Alcatraz or The Rithmatist (formerly called Scribbler), which comes out in 2012. I’ll do one or two of those every year when I take a break after finishing a major novel, and not all of them will get polished to publication standards. Those deviations are largely to keep me from burning out.  Are any secondary WoK characters likely to become more major in the next book? Jasnah, Navani, and Taln all have expanded parts in the series to come. I won’t say specifically in which books, but all three of those characters will have larger roles. Several of the members of Bridge Four have larger roles; they will basically remain secondary characters, but may have expanded viewpoints.

Regarding Mistborn What does aluminum do in Feruchemy? What does malatium do in Hemalurgy? RAFO. We’ll be releasing a chart eventually that includes all of the powers. I don’t want to speak until I have everything nailed down exactly the way I want. 

What would an atium-electrum alloy do in Allomancy? The alloys of atium have various temporal effects. 

What happens when you burn a Hemalurgic spike? Burning a Hemalurgic spike would have the effect of splicing your spiritual DNA to that of the person’s that is in the spike, which would have some very strange consequences. 

Can you both Feruchemically charge and Hemalurgically invest in the same piece of metal?  Yes.

What would happen if you burned the Feruchemically charge and Hemalurgically invested metal?  RAFO.

What happens when you break a Hemalurgic spike or metalmind? What happens to that power? Hemalurgic power can be split among multiple spikes and reforged, but remember that the longer a spike is outside of a person, the more the power is going to decay. Things like splitting it will decay it even further. Metalminds can also be broken and still be accessed.

Regarding Alcatraz In the Alcatraz series, Alcatraz is very worried about letting down so many people. Is this semi-autobiographical and perhaps speak to your fears of letting down the WoT fans? (maybe it’s subconscious!) If it is, it’s subconscious. Remember, I wrote the first Alcatraz book in 2005, before even Mistborn was published. The only one that I wrote after the Wheel of Time decision was made was book four. The previous ones had been written already. So there probably is a subconscious fear of letting down my readers, but it wouldn’t be specifically related to the Wheel of Time in those books.

Why does Bastille say they’re speaking Melerandian in book 1 and Nalhallan from book 2 on? When I originally wrote Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians, I put that in there partially as a throwaway joke. Melerand is one of the main kingdoms in Dragonsteel, and I thought it would be amusing for them to be speaking that language somehow filtered into this world. By the end of the book I decided that Alcatraz could not be anywhere in the same continuity as Dragonsteel and that I was probably wrong for including that. Though there are other jokes in there relating to my other books—it’s much like the scene where Quentin speaks in Spook’s dialect. Those were just jokes, inside references to my other books. Remember that Alcatraz was written as a writing experiment, not as something that I was intending to publish. As the series grew more serious to me, meaning that I developed what I actually wanted to happen—which with me usually happens as I write book two of a series, when I sit down and build an arc for the entire series—I “realified” Alcatraz’s world a little bit, if that makes sense, made it its own substantial thing. So at that point it wasn’t appropriate for them to be speaking Melerandian anymore. 

Also, when is Book 5 coming out?? I want to know how Bastille comes back to life.  Book 5, I’m going to wait and see what happens with the movie deal. By the way, DreamWorks did not renew their option, so it’s back on the market. We’ll see what happens. I also want to see what happens with Scholastic. They so far have not asked for a fifth book. If there is no activity by about this time next year, I will look into writing the fifth book and either just releasing an ebook or selling it to Tor or something like that. The fifth book will come. And by the way, this is from me, Brandon, and not from Alcatraz: The fifth book is the one that includes the altar scene. I’m more trustworthy than Alcatraz is. That scene is in the fifth book.

If we ever get it, will we see the dinosaurs (or at least the peteruhdacctil) again? Heh heh heh. RAFO.  Would it be effective/efficient to make Awakened machines? That is to say, could one make a crossbow or catapult that fires itself, or a wooden cog that perpetually turns? There is a country that does that.  We are all fans of all of Brandon’s stuff in our house, but we are particularly taken with Alcatraz. And I’m very alarmed by the publisher descripton that Shattered Lens is the “fourth and final book.” Because the story isn’t over yet! End of comas? Altar of encyclopedias? Attica?? Please, PLEASE reassure us that there is indeed another book coming out. Because otherwise we might have to picket Scholastic’s offices or something!  I’d be happy if you would picket—though I say that mostly jokingly. I didn’t want them to put that on the book. It’s not the last book. But those who know what’s happened behind the scenes know that Scholastic and I have not seen eye to eye on how the Alcatraz books have been packaged and distributed.

Regarding Warbreaker and future books in that world How unique are individual Breaths? Would collecting 100 Breaths from criminals and scumbags affect your personality in any way? Or collecting 100 Breaths from generous, charitable people?  I intended them to not be terribly individual. Breaths do bring some things along with them, but for the most part I wanted them to be a step removed from that.  In Vahr’s case, did collecting Breath from other rebel-minded people strengthen his determination and resolve? It would have had an influence on him, but you would need the numbers of Breaths that he had for any effect to manifest. It’s basically a non-issue in the current book, but it could be an issue in some of the things that will happen in the next book. In Warbreaker, is Clod the Lifeless body of Arsteel? I like this idea because Arsteel would have had some breaths within him when he died, as this is how Vashir defeated him and Denth, and this could help explain why he seems to be a little more self-aware than most Lifeless. Could you respond to this idea? I confirmed in the Warbreaker annotations that Clod is Arsteel. Clod is more self-aware than most Lifeless. There is something left of Arsteel within Clod. The Breaths that Vasher gave him when he killed him do have an effect on this. Does the sand storytelling Hoid use in Warbreaker have anything to do with your future possible trilogy “Whitesand” written about in a recent blog? No, it does not. This is a storytelling method that Hoid developed on his own. It does have a relationship to The Liar of Partinel. Can Returned have children? If so, who was the first Returned to do so?  I’m going to have to RAFO that one because it’s a big RAFO question for the world. In-world, it is believed both that they cannot and that they can. Mythology speaks of it happening, yet many Returned by their own experiment have not been able to have children.

Regarding Elantris How long ago (before Elantris 1) was Elantris built? Hundreds of years if not over a thousand years.  When Dilaf is instructing the monks in how to kill the Elantrians, he mentions purification rites that need to be spoken. Do the rites have to do with the Dor? Or are they purely religious/ritualistic? They are mostly ritualistic, but a lot of what the Dakhor do is strongly influenced by the Skaze. Read into that what you will.  Was Wyrn’s drive to topple Elantris purely a typical, conquest-related motivation? Or did it arise after Fjordell gained access to the Dor? The Skaze have a large amount of influence on most politics and most working in Fjordell.  I know it’s a RAFO, but how the eff did Wyrn see into the future? That seems above even a Shardholder’s abilities! I bet that sucker’s tapping into the Shadesmar. But I digress...  Ha, wow, that is indeed a RAFO. Note that we have seen temporal abilities in the Cosmere before. Most of the time these are related directly to the pure essence of a Shard or to a Splinter.

Regarding the Dragonsteel series/mythology You’ve mentioned before that all your books so far are in chronological order (Elantris, the Mistborn trilogy, Warbreaker, Stormlight Archive). 1). Alloy of Law takes place about 200 years after The Hero of Ages. (Right?) Does this put it chronologically before or after Warbreaker? The Alloy of Law takes place around 300 years after The Hero of Ages and several hundred years before the events in The Way of Kings. That does put it around the same time as Warbreaker. When did you develop your idea to have multiple series playing out on different planets? How many separate stories do you plan to tell in said universe, and will your Dragonsteel books be the last? I started doing this early in my career before I got published, when I felt that writing sequels was not a good use of my time. Just look at the hypothetical; if I’m trying to get published and I write three books in the same, if an editor rejects book one, he or she is not going to want to see book two. But if an editor rejects book one but is optimistic about my writing, I can send them a book from another series and they can look at that. During my unpublished days I wrote thirteen books, only one of which was a sequel. So I had twelve new worlds, or at least twelve new books—some of them were reexaminations of worlds. But I wanted to be writing big epics. This is what I always wanted to do; something like the Wheel of Time. So I began plotting a large, massive series where all these books were connected, so I could kind of “stealth” have a large series without the editors knowing I was sending them books from the same series. It was mostly just a thing for me, to help me do the writing I wanted to be doing. And then when publication came I continued to do that, and told the story behind the story. I originally plotted an arc of around 36 books. The total has varied between 32 and 36; 32 would work better for the nature of the universe, but the question is whether I can fit everything into 32 books. I won’t say whether Dragonsteel will be the last or not. You’ve said you lifted the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel, what would Kaladin have been doing if not running bridges and what will happen to Dragonsteel without the Plains? Both good questions. I’ve spoken before of the big changes that happened when I wrote The Way of Kings 2.0. One of them was bringing in the Shattered Plains. The problem was that there was a big hole in Kaladin’s storyline, because in the original manuscript of The Way of Kings (major spoiler), he accepted the Shardblade. That was the prologue of the book; Kaladin—then known as Merin—saved Elhokar’s life. They tried to take the Shardblade away from him, and Dalinar insisted that he be given it. So Merin was made a Shardbearer in the very first scenes of the book. And from that point, his character never worked. So in doing the second version of the book, I decided that no, we’ve got to build more into this, we’ve got to dig deeper, and he has to make the opposite decision, which is where the entire framework of him turning down the Shardblade and then being betrayed all came from. The problem was then what was he going to do? I knew I wanted him to have therefore ended up sold into slavery and have terrible things happen to him, but I couldn’t figure out what Kaladin was going to do and was unable to write the book until I mashed in the Shattered Plains and said, “Ah, that was what he needed to be doing all along.” I really don’t know what I’ll do in Dragonsteel without that now. The problem is that it was the part of Dragonsteel that worked, but it was the part that was most at odds with the story in Dragonsteel. The story that I wanted to tell was the first half of the book, which is the more boring part. Hopefully as a better writer now I can make that part more interesting, but that was the core of what Dragonsteel was. The Shattered Plains was always just going to be a small diversion, but when I wrote it it was fascinating, and I ended up pouring tons of effort and time into it. In many ways it was a distraction, a deviation, a beautiful darling. So for a long time I’ve been thinking, “I can’t kill my darling, because that’s the most exciting part of the book.” Yet it was at odds with what the story of the book was originally intended to be. I wasn’t as good at controlling my stories back then, making them come out to have the tone I wanted. Anyway, we’ll have to approach that when I actually write Dragonsteel. Can anyone take a Shard’s power, or does it require a special makeup in a person? RAFO. Here’s a quote. “Why, the Astalsi were rather advanced—they mixed religion with science quite profoundly. They thought that different colors were indications of different kinds of fortune, and they were quite detailed in their descriptions of light and color. Why, it’s from them that we get some of our best ideas as to what things might have looked like before the Ascension. They had a scale of colors, and use it to describe the sky of the deepest blue and various plants in their shades of green.” Do the pre-Ascension religions correspond to religions from other Shardworlds, as this one seems somewhat like Nalthis? I mention this in one of the Well of Ascension annotations. After I came up with the idea and had Sazed mention it, my desire to explore it more was one of the initial motivations for Warbreaker’s setting. The answer to your question is yes and no. There are shadows.

Regarding writing, life, and everything else On your Writing Excuses podcast you mentioned a love of maps, especially maps that thematically work with the world of the book (such as the maps in your Way of Kings.) Given that. what is your all-time favorite fantasy novel map? Wow, that’s putting me on the spot. There are many different aspects I like about a lot of different maps. I love how the map in The Hobbitis the map the characters carry around. That struck me when I read that book. I really liked how David Eddings’ books had a big map and then a zoom-in for every section when the characters would go there. But I wouldn’t call either of those my favorite fantasy map. The main Wheel of Time map is certainly one of the prettiest. But the best I’ve probably seen is the one from Leviathan. That one kind of blew me away.  With your penchant for developing very different types of world and types of magic as you go from series to series are you ever tempted to allow other writers to expand your universes in the way George R. R. Martin does with the Wild Cards series? Open but controlled?  I have never been tempted by this, basically because I have so many things balanced in the Cosmere to not interfere with one another, to make the story come out the way I want. I would be worried about things breaking continuity. And if there are stories in these worlds worth telling, they’re stories I want to tell. That doesn’t mean I won’t eventually do something like that; I would consider it someday, but I haven’t considered it yet. What is your process for pre-writing work? (Worldbuilding etc). When you write something and “get stuck” or it doesn’t turn out quite as you envisioned, how do you know whether to take it and add something different to make it better, or just move to another project and let the “stuck” project be? (I was thinking of how Mistborn was a combination of two projects that didn’t turn out quite as you thought, but combined they increased in awesomeness).  Trial and error. Though for me, setting aside a project is almost always a bad thing for that project. That doesn’t mean I don’t have to do that sometimes, but if I set aside a project rather than continue to work on it until I’ve fixed the problem, I’ve found that my personal makeup means that restarting that project is very difficult. It happens, and I’ve made it work, and there are great books that I have released where I did it, but usually it can take weeks of effort to get back into that project. Because I’m a linear writer—I start at the beginning and write to the end—if I haven’t been writing from the beginning when I pick something up, it can be extremely difficult.  How do you feel about the lack of prominent gay characters within the epic fantasy as a genre and do you ever include (or will ever include) gay or lesbian characters in your own work? That’s an issue that I feel I should speak about delicately, because it’s one of those charged issues that can create a lot of division. But my basic feeling is that a character should not be any more or less sympathetic, or more or less evil, or anything like that, because of sexual orientation or because of basic beliefs or philosophy on things like religion. So there are gay characters in my books, though so far they have been side characters. I don’t make a big deal of it, because I tend not to make a big deal of the sexuality of side characters in general. For instance, in The Way of Kings, Drehy, a member of Bridge Four, is gay. He’s based on a good friend of mine who is gay. There is a lesbian character in The Allow of Law; again I don’t make a big deal of it though it’s a little more obvious. Basically, I just try to write characters and try to have different makeups of characters. I feel gay characters should be included, and I’m annoyed that sometimes there seems to be an association between including gay characters and using that as a means of making them seem like a reprehensible character. You may know what I’m talking about; I’ve seen it in books before and it bugs me. Just like it bugs me if an author makes a character religious and the tone of the book implies, “Well, obviously, religious people are all idiots, so I’m not going to make this character actively an idiot, I’m just going to represent them as being religious,” which by the tone of the book indicates that they’re an idiot. That’s not to say that there can’t be social structures like religions that will push people toward doing things that are questionable or morally reprehensible—there can, of course, and it will happen—but I’m talking about the individuals. I don’t know that I have strong feelings on the subject other than that I think people should be represented as people. I wrote a bit more about the subject in my essay on Dumbledore.  What’s the next non-sequel book you’re wanting to write or rewrite?  I really would like to get Steelheart done. That would probably be the next one I’d want to do; that or Dark One. But I don’t know when I will have time for them.

Reddit.com

March 2011 http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy_Bookclub/comments/fuq0p/qa_with_brandon_sanderson/

Way of Kings

Professor_Layton Mr Sanderson, When you tell an epic story, such as The Way of Kings, do you outline the entire series prior to starting? Or do you have a general idea how the series should flow and adjust accordingly? If you do adjust, do outside influences (such as world events) factor into adjustments or do you keep everything contained within the book? I'm very curious to how rough the story is at the beginning compared to the ending and the path it takes. Fantastic book by the way, but I'm sure you hear that quite often :) Thank you. I do outline quite extensively. Remember, however, that authors each tend to do things their own ways. There's no one perfect way to do this. George R. R. Martin described some of the extremes in terms of "Gardeners" and "Architects." Gardeners grow a story, without a firm idea of where they are going. Architects tend to build an outline as a frame and work from it. I'm (usually) an architect. I've found that the best way to get the kinds of endings I like. I have to know where I'm going before I start. That said, an outline has to be a living thing of its own. I need the flexibility to knock out entire sections of it and rebuild them; I do that frequently. I have to be able to respond to what I'm passionate about in the world, as you mention. In this book, the interludes were more reactionary, and I built them into the story to allow myself more freedom to explore the world in a "Gardener" sort of way, while the plot itself was quite well set out. The other books in the series are not currently as fleshed out as the first was, but I have outlines for each of them. EDIT: Clarification ArchAuthor- Seeing as this is a planned ten book series, do you ever fear that your writing will deteriorate along with the length of the series like Robert Jordan's (arguably) did? How long does it take to make a universe, and how in depth do you go? What are your top five novels of the past ten years (any genre)? Any tips for beginning scifi fantasy authors like myself? First question first, as it is an excellent one. Long series run into some problems, particularly if they're a single, ongoing story rather than a sequence of episodes. Robert Jordan ran into some of these problems, as has George R. R. Martin. I think much of it can be mitigated by releasing books regularly. The Wheel of Time reads much differently to me now that I know the ending, and am not waiting years between books, only to get one that doesn't feel like it progresses the story as far as I want. I feel the other big danger with the long series is the explosion of side characters. Sometimes, it seems that their narratives--and their plots--take the bulk of books, causing some bloat to the series. I can't promise my writing won't deteriorate. I haven't ever tried something of this length before. However, I have attempted to do some things specifically in the construction of my outline to try to forestall it. Specifically, I've outlined quite a lot. (See my other reply.) I know where I'm going. Tangents will be kept to a minimum; I've given myself the interludes, as I've mentioned before, to let me explore some tangents. I think this will keep me from feeling I need to tell entire books about side characters; I can give them an interlude, and hint at a greater story for them. Then I can leave them be. The other thing I'm doing has to do with the flashbacks. Each book will have a single focus character, and I will delve into their backstory. I'm hoping this will give each volume it's own cohesion; rather than just a tiny slice of a story, I hope this will help make each one feel like it is its own story. Time will tell if I succeed or not. Until then, I don't fault you for being wary. Second Question: How long does it take to make a universe, how deep do you go? It depends on the book, honestly. For a thick, multi-volume epic fantasy, I take years working on the world. Such was the case with The Way of Kings, and a few of the other massive Epics I'm planning. Mistborn had about a year of planning ahead of time. Some books, however, I write more freely. I almost always spend a few months working on the world before writing; it's the thing I feel I need best fleshed out. However, it is dangerous as well. Some writers spend all of their time worldbuilding and none of their time writing. I try to focus my energies on areas of worldbuilding important to the conflict and the characters. In Mistborn, the languages weren't important--I was going to have everyone speaking one language. In KINGS, language was more important, so I developed the linguistics. (Though that won't be manifest for a few more books.)

Aksen How long is the gestation period for one of your stories? What I am wondering is if The Way of Kings or Mistborn, for example, were stories you had in mind for a long period of time before sitting down to do the outline, or if they were fresh ideas you began to generate when beginning work on them. Absolutely amazing work, by the way. When a new Sanderson novel comes out, I get excited. When I finish it, I get panicky.

There are two different ways I write books. One is the long gestation book, the book built off of themes I've been thinking of for years. I first wrote Dalinar (by a different name back then) in a story when I was a teenager. Same for Hoid. I wasn't ready to write the story yet, as I wasn't good enough, so I backed off. Other books are almost more like performance art--you take a few ideas, you juggle them about a bit, and you then stand up on stage and do your best with them. In the hands of a skilled writer, this comes out like a solo from an improvisation expert. Flawed in places, yes, but also full of a kind of majestic life. Some things work better in the first form. (Foreshadowing being one, carrying a story across multiple books is another.) Other things work better in the second. (Humor, for example.) Mostly, they just have a different feel. The Way of Kings and Mistborn were like the first. Warbreaker and Alcatraz were like the second. gunslingers The number 10 seems to be a recurring theme in this world. Are the "ten fools" the antithesis of the ten orders of the knights radiant? Have you ever killed off a character and later regretted it? When writing a battle scene in which thousands die do those deaths affect you in any way?

First Question: Yes, ten is a number of mythological import in the world. The Ten Fools are, essentially, the opposites of the Ten Heralds--who each represented an ideal. (Those ideals were later adopted by the orders of Knights Radiant, so yes, there is a connection--but there's a step between them.)

cthulhu_zuul- More a technical question, What is your day-to-day writing process like? I've heard from a variety of authors who go by words per day or by time or something similar. What processes do you use to write such long pieces in reasonable times? I write every day, and I give myself wordcount goals. (Usually, it's 2k min, or a certain page goal if revising.) I try to keep distractions to a minimum. ...Reddit doesn't exactly help with that last part. :) JamesKY- Top of Form First off, I really enjoyed TWoK. I became more emotionally attached to the characters in this book than I did in Mistborn or Elantris. Dalinar and Kaladin are some of my favorite literary characters of all time. My question is in regards to the audio book version of TWoK. I think Michael Kramer and Kate Reading did a great job narrating the book and creating voices for each of the characters but I wanted to know what you thought about it. Do you feel like the characters were portrayed accurately based on your original ideas for them? I'm also reading WoT for the first time. I just finished A Crown of Swords and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens and how you complete the series. I just hope it doesn't delay the sequel to TWoK too much. ;) I asked for Michael and Kate specifically, since I've liked their work on the Wheel of Time. That said, it's always an odd experience to hear the book read by someone else. In fact, I find it an odder experience than getting cover art, which is arguably a larger 'interpretation' of my work than a reading is. I think with the reading, I find myself wanting to tweak and change things, so it's kind of a nerve-wracking experience. I think Michael and Kate did a great job, though sometimes, it's a strange experience to hear voices I associate with WoT characters being used for someone else. staircasewit I really enjoy your books, and I can only think of one question at the moment, perhaps I'll come back with more. I suppose my question is about how you name your characters. I've been reading WoT and notice some similarities, for example Cenn, and Sarene, and Shalon (different spelling, but they probably sound the same). Is it purely by accident that you have characters with similar names, or is it a homage to a recent master of the fantasy genre? Or is it just that with RJ's 2000+ names, it's impossible to escape some overlap? :) So I guess I'm curious about how you name your characters in general (and even places. Urithiru is an awesome name.) Thanks for your time, and your books! I ended up with a lot of unconscious similarities in KINGS as I was working on it for such an extended period of time. Cenn wasn't actually intentional. (At least, I don't think so; sometimes, it's hard to remember back to which names pop out intentionally and which do not.) The eyebrows of the Thaylens were, however, an intentional homage, as is the name of the mountains by where Szeth's people live. There is going to be some overlap. Sarene is a great example of this; I'm pretty sure that one is just coincidence, though I'd lay odds on Cenn being an unconscious influence. Some of the names in the book were constructed quite intentionally to fit linguistic paradigms of the setting. Urithiru, for example, is a palindrome--which are holy in the Alethi and Veden tongues. Some names, like Shallan, are intentionally one letter off of a holy word--as to not sound too arrogant. (Shallash would be the holy word; nobility will often change one letter to create a child's name to evoke the holy term, but not be blasphemous.) With many, I just go for the right feel. I've worked these names over for years and years at this point. Dalinar's name has been set in place for a good ten years or so, but Kaladin used to be named Merin and Szeth used to be named Jek. (The first changed because I didn't like it; the second changed because the linguistics of the Shin people changed and I needed a name that better fit.) Blackrabite My friend and I read Mistborn when we first heard you were going to take over on The Wheel of Time. We've been hooked ever since and you are definitely one of our top authors now. The friend I spoke of grew up in a Mormon household, as did my wife, and both of them say that a lot of your work seems to borrow or at least use ideas from the Mormon idea of an afterlife as building blocks. Are those just similarities or is your world building influenced heavily by those ideas? Most of what people are noticing isn't so much intentional as inevitable. Just like people see WWII influences in Tolkien (though he denied that there were such parallels) there are going to be LDS parallels in my books. I don't seek to expunge them; they are part of who I am. If I'm reaching into mythology and history for my foundations, I'm going to dip into LDS sources more often than others. So tell your friend and wife that they're seeing real things, most likely--though it's not intentional allegory. ISw3arItWasntM3 Before I ask my questions I just wanted to say I loved Mistborn and found The Gathering Storm to be my favorite WoT book after The Great Hunt. For my question I was wondering, how do you go about world building? Do you come up with a premise for a book before creating a world for it or do you like to create a world first and then come up with a story to take place in it? Got a favorite part of worldbuilding? Also, where do you feel you've improved most as a w+riter since your beginning? And if you'd like to go one further, what do you think are some common flaws which tend to be found an author's earlier works? Thanks for taking the time to do this! First Question: I jump around a lot when outlining, and so things kind of grow in one place (maybe character backgrounds) and that sparks me thinking about something in the culture, so I jump over there and work on it for a while. Then over to plot, then back to world. However, KINGS is a little different in that I specifically spent months and months doing dedicated worldbuilding for the novel. In this case, I started with the most important setting elements and explored them in a kind of encyclopedia form, then moved on from there. Phaz In your gut instinct, who would win in a fight, Marsh (no atium, limited feruchemy) or Szeth? (Or maybe we could go Zane & Szeth since I see a lot of similarities in their characters. They also happen to be my favorites from their respective series) One of the interesting things I really liked about the book was Jasnah's lack of faith. It seems like during a lot of the scenes where that is an issue, you give her the upper hand. She makes some argument or point and the other characters leave it unchallenged. For instance the line where she says something like "Religion looks for super natural explanations to natural phenomena, science looks for natural explanations to super natural phenomena." That side of her seemed incredibly well written and genuine. Was it hard to do? Where did you get her arguments/points from? I swear a lot of what she says could of been ripped from comments of /r/atheism. Lastly, I've been rereading the MB series again after reading WoK twice in a row so I could decide which I liked more. So far... it's still a tie. I'm really liking getting back into the MB world though. That has me super excited for Alloy of Law. Once it get's a bit more polished would it be possible to get an early copy? :) First question: It's always hard to answer these questions, since there are so many factors. Do the combatants start at a distance? If so, Marsh/Zane have a huge advantage; they have the ability to fling coins. Does Szeth have metal on him? Szeth's Shardblade would be mostly immune to Pushing and Pulling, as it's an Invested object. But he'd still have trouble getting to them if he had a clasp on his shoes, for example. He doesn't carry a lot of metal, but he might have some. Overall, I'd say that a full-blown Mistborn would be tougher than Szeth in most cases. Also, send me a PM with your Email, Phaz. I can't find your email in my address book. I remember that it's not something I expect it to be, so I'm having trouble looking it up. digitalpicaso- I always get the feeling that you don't particularly enjoy the process of cutting your books down or chopping them up once they go 'over-budget' in word length. What are the most annoying issues you have to deal with when publishing a book? Also, since I am kind of thinking of writing a short story in my free time, what order should I write my story so it's the least aggravating to put together when I'm done? Should I try and focus on a linear story line and write it start to finish, or just write down whatever parts I can think of and then work on connecting them together in some way? These questions don't specifically relate to the Way of Kings, (which I liked too much for my own good), but I can't pass up an opportunity to milk information from someone I idol (=

First Question: I'm not, naturally, a reviser. I like to plan a book, I like to write the book, but revision is something I drag my feet on. I'm usually okay once I get going, though the line edits are particularly tough on me. Other annoying issues: The number of things that distract me from actually doing my writing. (Things like business aspects, or travel. I like doing signings and conventions, but the travel to get there is a big hassle.) Also, I don't like negotiating contracts.

nowonmai666 Hi! Two sort-of related questions here, about the writing process: What would you do differently if you were writing the books to be released all at pretty much the same time (like Lord of The Rings) rather than as episodic updates? Would you still go into the same level of detail in describing relatively trivial events such as the affixing of contraband from the Chasms to the underside of permanent bridges? I'll probably finish up the book later today, and if/when I write the review it will be a mixture of fulsome praise and F7U12-level frustration. The latter is largely because you set up so many questions - hints about characters' backgrounds, secrets about the world, its people and its magic, riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas. After 1007 pages I feel I deserve more answers! I imagine you planting the seeds of mysteries and thinking "haha, I'll make 'em suffer 8 years before they get the answer to that one!". The question here is how do you balance (1) providing enough information to make the world and characters seem consistent, real and immersive with (2)withholding information for revelation later in the series? Do you consciously think about building up trust in the reader that the questions they have will one day be answered, or worry that the reader might think everything is so mysterious it will probably end up in a nonsensical betrayal like so many scifi films and tv series? This is a very interesting question. I actually wrote the Mistborn trilogy straight through before releasing the first, so I have some experience doing it both ways now. With KINGS, I'm much more careful with my foreshadowing. Maybe to the point of teasing. That's a contrast to Mistborn, where I may have been too blunt with my foreshadowing. (Or just not put it in.) The trilogy there was one book in my mind, so things that happened at the end of the first book that should have been better foreshadowed didn't get the foreshadowing they deserve--because I was looking at them as elements I was introducing 1/3 the way through the story, and thinking of them as being on a proper curve of information. The balance of what to provide and what to withhold has more to do with not bogging down this story with details for a future story than it does with trying to tease. In my mind, this book is three things: Kaladin's experiences as a bridgeman 2) Dalinar's decision to do what he does at the end of the book 3) Shallan's first apprenticeship. I wanted to keep the narrative focused on those things, and provide climaxes dealing with those three concepts. Other secrets and teases are more intended to begin setting up future stories. However, the "Lost" effect (making the mysteries so cool that no reveal can live up to them) is in the forefront of my mind. My feeling is that instead of dragging them eight books, I should be quick to give answers in future volumes. The things that span eight books as secrets shouldn't be the ones that you're wondering at in the first book; they should be the things that, after you begin wondering about them in the seventh book, you can look back to the first book and see the hints. Then you get your answers in the eighth.

VERICON

March 2011 forum posts

ALLOY OF LAW READING Brandon took a quick poll, and the majority wanted him to read from Alloy of Law (I voted for Steel Heart, his self-styled "superhero apocalypse book," but I wasn't too upset at the loss). Brandon took up the entire 45 minute slot reading. He read the entire prologue, summarized the events of chapter 1, and read half of chapter 2. I'm not a professional book reviewer, and I'm clearly biased, but Alloy of Law is freaking amazing. It is able to go from touching, to exciting, to hilarious, to disturbing smoothly and believably. Seriously, it's some of the best dialogue I've seen from Brandon (and that's including Lightsong inWarbreaker).

I recorded the entire session and, should we get approval to post it (I could understand if Peter would rather we didn't), I'll upload it here. Until then (or instead of that, should we get a "no") here are some details that I recalled on the ride home (no cheating, Peter. I promise!) - We deal with a bendalloy (Allomantic)/gold (Feruchemical) Twinborn in addition to Wax's steel/iron combo - The nickname for a iron Feruchemist is a "Slider" - A nickname for Sazed is "Harmony" (I think) - The events in the first trilogy have spawned 2 religions: Survivorism (der) and Pathism (followers of Sazed, unless I completely misread things) - Bendalloy has some very interesting rules/restrictions:

once a time bubble is created, it cannot be moved; I had always thought it would follow the misting around as they moved)

entering/exiting a time bubble has some interesting effects. You can't shoot out of it, because objects entering/leaving the bendalloy bubble (especially those at high velocity) have some strange kind of conservation-of-energy-like effect, where they gain some kind of spin and ricochet in a different direction. I can't help but extrapolate what this means for individuals trying to enter/leave the stationary bubble. Maybe if it's done slowly (like with a shield in Dune), it's OK. We'll have to theorize on that until the novel comes out.

- [This one might already be known, but it sounded new to me] The third Mistborn trilogy will be sci-fi, involving space travel. Crossovers, anyone? This might be the beginning of the final stage of Unity

Q&A AT SIGNING While I was thrilled to hear the excellent, excellent intro to Alloy of Law, I was a little sad that we didn't get to the Q&A part of the session. So I headed over to the Harvard Bookstore, where he would be signing and answering questions. Now, this bit was a little strange for me. I've met Brandon before (probably a dozen times or so between '06 and '09), all at varying levels of fame, I listen to writing excuses every week, and I follow his blag, so it wasn't "oh my gosh, I get to meet him" jitters. I feel like, in all the ways that I want to, I already know Brandon. The jitters were probably a combination of a couple of things: (1) I had no desire to have him sign anything, I just wanted to ask Brandon a couple of questions. I've never a big "sign things" person, especially when the signer is a person to me, and not a Figure (if that makes any sense). And (2) this was the first time that I had one-on-one interaction with Brandon while considering myself an agent for a higher group (namely, the 17th Shard). It was a bit nerve-wracking in a way that was completely new to me. Anyway, ending my indulgent self-psychoanalysis...

I figured out the way to overcome (1). Instead of having him personalize it to me, I asked him to write a clue about the Cosmere in my worn copy of Elantris (it's my first Sanderson, and is literally falling apart; the cover is scotch taped on not go to Shadesmar on this world (really, I'm not kidding)" on the title page, then said to me "You guys can chew on that for a little while." I like that. I think that I'll bring in all of my books to his next New York/Boston signing and ask him for Cosmere clues instead of signatures.

After he signed my book, I asked him a few questions and got the following nuggets (some of these were also overheard in his discussions with other people): CAMEO: There is a cameo of Josh & Michele in Alloy of Law! There's a gunfight at their wedding reception [I feel like I've heard this somewhere before, but it also sounded new to me] AONA'S SHARD 17S Does Aona = Love or Compassion? BS: "You have it, it's just a synonym there. You basically have it" NOT SKAI'S SHARD 17S Does Skai = Devotion or Order? BS: "You're not on there. But you are on on the first one [Aona]." DEFINITION OF A SLIVER 17S Is the definition of Sliver: Someone who has held a large part of the raw form of a Shard temporarily? BS: "That is it" SORT-OF DEFINITION OF A SPLINTER 17S How is a Splinter different from a Sliver? BS: "Let me see... You have met splinters in Elantris, Warbreaker, and in Way of Kings. You have not met them in Mistborn." 17S: "I feel like we know that. So, qualitatively, what's the difference?' BS: "Qualitatively, they're reverses of one another. A Sliver is a human intelligence who has held the power and released it. A Splinter has never been human." 17S: "But it derives from a Shard's power." BS: "Yes. That's not it completely, but there's at least something to think about."

Europe Tour

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/570-brandon-signing-in-norway/ June 2011 Anyway on to the questions i didn't get to ask all of them but i did get some quiet intersting answers. • Are Seons splinter of Aona? • He said that that line of theorising is very close and that we are figuring it out. • Is the Dor the same as the power of creation that powers Allomancy? • He said that dor is similar to that which powers allomancy but not the 100% the same. • Who names the planets? You've said once that "Scadrial" was the name of the planet as Ruin and Preservation knew it, but where'd they get that name? Do the Shardholders all get together and vote on it or something? • He said thay already had their names and that the all the planets existed before the shardholders got there. • How many Shardworlds are there? Only seven? (Sel, Nalthis, Scadrial, Roshar, Yolen, Taldain, and whatever planet The Silence Divine is on?) • He said he has a set number in his head but that he didn’t want to say it because he might change his mind. Essentially he doesn’t want to make the number of world’s canon yet. • Why do Shards refer to themselves by their Shard name, rather than their original name? Do they still remember their original name? • Yes they do, they do remember their original selves( didn’t get any more then that though). • How could a person from Scadrial access Shadesmar? An alloy of a god metal? • He RAFOd me on this one and said it was a plot point for future novels. • Does Bavadin hold a Shard? • Yes (and that’s about all he would say. He did however confirm that Rayse is Odium) WoT fan: I do remember some things, but the majority of the questions were about WoT. He said that all of his own books take place in the same universe, but not on the same world per se. The overall magic system was based on the principle of investing, i.e. people and things are invested by magic. So for example in Mistborn, the metals themselves aren't magical, but they become a vessel for the magic.

Also he said that the ways of magic are different. In Mistborn it's genetic (or through ingesting atium, but he didn't talk about that). In Warbreaker it has to do with gathering other people's Breath, etc.

Sorry, but he didn't elaborate about WoK either, because some people hadn't read it yet and he wanted to avoid spoilers. So I can't help you there...

He didn't talk about Shards, but he did mention that it was very likely we wouldn't find out who Hoid was even in the tenth book of the Stormlight Archive. If anything, it would be in his thesis, of which at this moment only 8 copies were printed. He said he might publish it as a book at a certain point, but not right now.

Hope that was enough for you, I can't really remember anything else right now!

Best, WoT fan http://www.theorylan...read.php?t=5584

As Isabel already reported in the convention section, yesterday we had an unscheduled meeting with Brandon in Amsterdam.

The WOT related information is in the other thread but Brandon also talked about his own books. Most of it are just bits and pieces and it's a bit chaotic. I'll try to post as much as I can remember:

About the scheduling. He plans to start writing the next Stormlight Archive book right after he turns in AMOL. He hopes to write two books for the stormlight archive in a row. The first of those might (very early estimates) be released at the end of 2012, or early 2013.

He talked about the link between his magic systems. One of the core principles is 'investing'. In l lot of his systems people are trough some mechanism invested with magic powers. In Elantris trough the Shaod, In mistborn it's genetic, in tWoK it depends on what some one has done.

Object with almost sentient behavior like nightblood in Warbreaker share important links with the Spren from tWoK. If you understand the spren you will understand a lot about the connection between the books.

Some movie company has got an option on the mistborn books.

The mistborn series was sold as three trilogies. The first trilogy (the one we know) is set in medieval/16th century technoly and is fantasy. The second trilogy will be set in the current day, or at least with the same kind of technology. This makes it urban fantasy. The last trilogy will be science-fiction set somewhere in the future. Of-course all of them have the allomancy magic system to get things interesting. The short novel 'Alloy of Law' that will be released in the fall this year is set between the first two trilogies so the tech level is around 18th/19th century with steam power. Brandon said it was about some wild west character like character getting involved in a murder investigation in a city. So Clint Eastwood meets Sherlock Holmes in London.

Ashley asked "Who is Hoid?". Brandon answered that we would have to wait and read it later. When asked in what book the answer would be, Brandon was vague. It would probably not even be revealed in Stormlight Archive book 10. In the end He gave Ashley a R.A.F.O. card and a WoT sticker.

So that was all I remember. Hopefully some of the other can add some more info for you all.

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