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Difference between revisions of "Cosmere"
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== Development ==
{{sidequote
| During my unpublished days I wrote thirteen books, only one of which was a sequel.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.
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When Brandon was beginning writing and trying to get published, he loved gigantic epic fantasy series. He knew, however, that starting with a big series might not be the best idea. If he wrote four books in a series, and the first one didn't get published, he couldn't submit his sequels.{{
He still loved the idea of a huge epic series, so he decided to create a "hidden" epic to link his novels together. His ideas for this connected universe--the cosmere--came about when he wrote [[Elantris (book)|Elantris]], [[
Some ideas that came into the worldbuilding of the cosmere came from Plato's theory of forms, which contributed to the idea of [[Realmatic Theory]], and the idea of the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms. In this, the distinction of what is perceived as "ideal" and what is the true ideal is important: true ideals have much to do with the Spiritual Realm, while people's perception of ideals deals with the Cognitive Realm. Another influences is Spinoza, with the idea that God is in everything.{{wob ref|4051}} Brandon also incorporated the idea of a "unifying theory of everything" from physics to the magic in the cosmere. All magics have underlying rules, and are derived from a single unified theory of magic.{{wob ref|9007}}
Hoid, a character who appears in each cosmere novel, is one such easter egg. It is not random where he is; Brandon has said that if Hoid appears in a place, that place is about to be very dangerous.{{wob ref|4778}} Hoid is doing things behind the scenes, and at some point, we might have Hoid short stories explaining what is doing and why.{{wob ref|4502}}{{wob ref|4039}} There are also other people who cross between worlds that eventually Brandon thinks will be much clearer later, once we see those characters more.{{wob ref|10546}} But for now, they are easter eggs.
Brandon does not feel that the cosmere is restrictive to his writing.{{wob ref|6496}} Though cosmere novels are intensive, as they require more planning and specific rules{{wob ref|7655}} (Brandon has continuity editors, like [[Peter Ahlstrom|Peter]] and Karen Ahlstrom, on his internal wiki to keep it straight{{wob ref|9758}}), he feels that if he needs to take a break, he can just write a non-cosmere novel. Those "breather" novels are used to keep Brandon creatively engaged, and are almost always non-cosmere.{{wob ref|9015}} If there is a concept he really wants to write but doesn't fit in the limitations of the cosmere, he moves it into a non-cosmere book.{{
[[The Rithmatist]] used to be a cosmere novel, and its magics take many elements from cosmere magics,{{wob ref|9827}} but Brandon decided that Earth is not in the cosmere, nor any alternate Earths.{{wob ref|7879}}
{{17s ref|topic|2622|The things that they do in those books, couldn't have been done pre-splintering|date=Nov 29th, 2012}}
{{tweet ref|607208955069100032|How is cosmere supposed to be capitalised?|date=June 6th, 2015}}
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