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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Is the Moon Scepter an object of Investiture?
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The Moon Scepter is an item that is important to Hoid, but I won't say why yet.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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So, I started reading Mistborn not longer after finishing [Wheel of Time]... Why does it seem so intentional that they're a parallel? That Mistborn is set in a 4th age a cycle in either direction from Randland? Well, more the close of the 4th, beginning of the 5th, as the influence of the Dragon/HoA is ending. The Deepness is basically exactly the Dark One, what the Hero of Ages had to go through reminds me very much of Rand's tribulations, hell, his diary could have been written by Rand himself. And what did Rashek do after killing off The Hero of Ages? He became Nae'blis and quickly established unquestioned rule over the world as God-Emperor. Even how the Deepness attacked the Hero, trying to convince him he was insane, filling him with doubt that he could possibly succeed, or rule, it totally fits how the Dark One tries to break his foes rather than simply destroy them outright.
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Mistborn was inspired by my love of the classic fantasy stories from my youth, Wheel of Time at their forefront. The original idea was for a Shannara-esque fantasy epic where the heroes lost at the end, but I decided (for many reasons) this wouldn't be fun to read or write. The idea simmered for a year or two until I realized it would an awesome backstory for the heist story/epic fantasy mashup I'd been developing. And so, I worked to make Rashek's story as resonate with classic fantasy epics as I could. I wanted that resonance so that I could play with the tropes of epic fantasy. Remember, Wheel of Time was a huge influence upon me as a youth and a writer. I knew I couldn't just write ANOTHER farmboy saves the world story, as I felt those had been done (and done well.) I wanted something that had one foot in this, however, and one foot in a more contemporary style of plotting and worldbuilding. So everything you're noticing is indeed intentional. Mistborn is my vision of a world where Rand gave in. (Or where Frodo kept the ring, etc.) I wrote the trilogy primarily in 2004-2006, ending one year before I was chosen to finish the Wheel of Time, which makes the parallels even more interesting.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Odium locked the Selish Shards in the Cognitive Realm to keep them from achieving sentience or someone Ascending.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Do powerful magnets affect metalminds or metal reserves in metalborn?
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Yes. But... that has an "*" on it.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Could Sazed take down Rayse since he has two shards?
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Rayse is VERY scared of Sazed. However, given Sazed is a composite of two diametrically opposed shards, he finds it very difficult to act.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Newcago was a HUGE surprise for me. I expected to see Chicago, but roughed up in a dystopian way. Instead you took a major city we all know, and made it completely new and interactive. The catacombs, in particular were really interesting to me. Did you base Newcago's catacombs off of a "real" place?
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Newcago's catacombs were actually based more off of mid-eighties cyberpunk stories where you've often got this sort of techie underground, and I love that visual. I intentionally didn't want to take Steelheart in a dystopian direction, even though it technically is a dystopia. I just feel that the whole "wasted world" dystopia has been done so well by so many writers that I wanted to have something that felt new and different. When I gave Steelheart this sort of Midas power to turn Chicago into metal, I thought it would be cool to have these catacombs dug underneath it because the visual was so different and cool. The catacombs I've visited in various cities are, of course, awesome, but really I'm looking back at those cyberpunk books.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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You’re very talented at taking seemingly mundane or unusual things and creating magic systems around them, like color in Warbreaker , metals in Mistborn , and light in The Way of Kings . Can you explain how you decide what to use for a magical system in a book, and your process for building a coherent system once the initial concept has been decided?
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First of all, I’m looking for something that fits the book that I’m writing. So for instance, in Mistborn , I was looking for powers that would enhance what thieves could do. I was also looking for something that had one foot in alchemy, in that kind of “coming-of-age magic into science” way. Alchemy is a great example because it’s a blend of science and magic… well, really, a blend of science and superstition, because the magic part doesn’t work. So something resonates there. I’m also looking for interesting ways to ground [the magic] in our world, and using something mundane is a great way to do that. Magic is naturally fantastical, and so if I can instead use something normal, and then make it fantastical, it immediately creates a sort of… ease of understanding. Burning metals sounds so weird, but it was chosen for that same reason, because we gain a lot of our energy through metabolism. We eat something, we turn the sugars into energy, boom. So that’s actually a very natural feeling. When I started writing out some sample things, it felt surprisingly natural, that people eat metal and gain powers, even though it sounds so weird. It’s because of this kind of natural biology. So I’m looking for that. Once I have a magic system, I look for really great limitations. Limitations really make a magic system work better. Wheel of Time is a great example. Having a magic system where you can weave all these threads is awesome. Having a magic system where you do that, and then it drives you mad, is even better. It creates plot hooks, it creates drama, it creates challenge. [That limitation] is brilliant, I think it is one of the most brilliant ever made, especially because it also changes your characters. It has a deep influence on your character arcs, so you can tie it into character. Beyond that (and this is kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit), there is no specific defined place where someone goes mad, so you can actually stretch it out and use it when you need it. It doesn’t constrain you too much. Like if your magic system’s limitation is, “When you use this magic, you have to use the head of one of your grandparents.” (laughs) You can use that magic four times! It’s limited, but also very constrained. Going mad is not as constrained. There’s a spectrum there - you can use it when you need it. So I’m looking for cool limitations that will work that way, in ways that I can use to force the characters to be creative. A good limitation will force you to be creative, and your characters to be creative. Pushing and pulling metals is basically telekinesis, right? But by making it center of mass, you can only pull directly towards yourself or push directly away from yourself... Number one: it’s vector science. It has one foot in sciences. Number two: it feels very natural to us because this is how we manipulate force ourselves. Number three: it limits things so much that it forces creativity upon the characters. There’s that sweet spot, where they can be creative and do cool things, where it doesn’t become too limited, but it also keeps you from having too much power in the hands of the characters, so they are still being challenged. I’m looking for all that, and on top of that I want to have good sensory ways to use magic. I don’t want to have two wizards staring at each other, and then be like “and they stared at each other very deeply! And then they stared harder!” I don’t want it all to be internal, which is where the lines for the metals came from. You see something, you push it forward. The pulses that some of the allomancers use, they’ll hear. I wanted sensory applications.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Will we see Kaladin face Amaram?
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I wouldn't put such a strong conflict as that without a purpose.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Sja-anat tries to convince Shallan she is not her enemy and tells her, "Ask my son." Is the son that she's referring to, is that Pattern? Is it Glys?
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No. Sja-anat is referring to--I'll try not to give too many spoilers on this--if you look through the books for a spren that does not seem to belong to Honor or Cultivation, but is bonding a Radiant, that is where you want to look for Sja-anat's influence. RAFO!
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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When an Allomancer tries to burn a bad alloy, it can make them sick, or even kill them. Are there similar consequences for Feruchemy and Hemalurgy, such as being less efficient when storing and leaking power more quickly, or would such metals just be unusable?
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Yes! Bad metals in Feruchemy/Hemalurgy would work poorly.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Is the Dor the same as the power of creation that powers Allomancy?
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He said that the Dor is similar to that which powers allomancy but not 100% the same.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Would Leras recognize Vax or is it just like some Ati backstory??
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Yeah, he would recognize Vax.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Could you create a fabrial capable of showing past events using a Radiant spren and a gold cage?
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RAFO. Theorize further along those lines, but RAFO.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What does RAFO mean?
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...Okay. RAFO. RAFO-- Jason do you want to explain what RAFO is? Actually I asked for it. Yeah, I felt really bad saying RAFO to people, right? Like I am a-- I have the attitude that I very much want people to be happy and I don't want to tell them "No I won't answer". So instead I had them print the cards so I could at least give them something? And now fans trophy hunt for those.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What are keys to balance family, writing career?
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Good question. I had to make certain hours of the day "off limits" for writing, so that I didn't feel I was missing out on writing time. I could ALWAYS be working, but that's not good emotionally or for the family. Otherwise, I try to make my writing time as effective as possible, so I don't feel that sense of "I didn't get anything done." That one makes me unbalanced, as I feel anxious if I haven't gotten some good work done in a day.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Will we ever get a Renarin viewpoint? Yeah! Like an interlude or...
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Yes. Renarin is one of the ten characters.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What happens when non-Nalthians come to Nalthis. So anyone could start Awakening once they received Breaths?
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They cannot use their own soul to Awaken but could do so with obtained Breath. You would probably have to jump through some hoops to Awaken (talks about systems needing rigged up to work on different planets), but anyone can benefit from a Breath. Essentially said "it's not that easy!"
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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...[Skyward] is teen, 'cause it's in my Reckoners line, and it's a story I've been playing with for some four years now, and I built an outline, and it's kind of like a cross between How to Train your Dragon and Top Gun , with starfighters. A girl finds an old broken-down starship with a really screwy AI that she thinks she can get up and running. In the meantime, she gets into starfighter school and is learning to be a pilot, and there's all kinds of mysteries and things about the nature of really what's happening with the planet why they're being attacked, and things like that. It's a whole lot of fun.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I just finished The Way of Kings and have been told it will be a 10 book series which makes me worry when it's done I'll feel like I do about AMoL right now.
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If it helps, it's two five book arcs. The first five will draw to a natural conclusion. (Kind of how Mistborn one comes to its own conclusion, then two and three are in another arc.)
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I’ve noticed in a lot of the books—Mistborn, Warbreaker, even Elantris—that the characters are working so hard towards a goal, and then once they did it or when they get close, all the sudden they realize that it’s doing the complete opposite of what they were expecting, or just was kind of a distraction for them or whatever, and so my question is: Is that just a good way to kind of throw in a plot twist that’s unexpected, or is that a reflection of kind of how you see our lives and what we’re doing, or something else?
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I would say it’s both of those things, certainly. I was going to say as you were saying that “that’s just how life is,” but, plot wise, plot twists are tough, because—okay, how should I say it—bad plot twists are easy, right, you can just do anything, you can be like “alright, and then ninja’s attack.” (Aside: this is a regency romance, I don’t know where those ninjas came from…(That’s actually a story, if you’ve read that)). Bad plot twists are easy. Good plot twists, I use a phrase that they use in Hollywood, which is “surprising, yet inevitable.” This is an age-old term in Hollywood where you want it, when it happens everyone to be surprised, and yet, as it happens, then they say “oooh, I should have seen that coming.” Those are the best plot twists. You can’t always pull those off—they’re really hard—but when you can they’re great, and that’s what I’m shooting for. I don’t necessarily twist my plot just to twist my plot; I try to find a story that is engaging and interesting and then the further we go along in it, the more you learn about the characters and the world and what’s actually going on and hopefully that reveals a hidden depth. It’s like life. Everyone that you meet, you’re going to make a snap judgment on them. The longer you know them, the more depth you will see to this person. I want you to have that feeling about a book. You’ll make a snap judgment, “okay, this is an action-adventure story.” You’ll read it more and hopefully you’ll see those levels, of world-building, the hidden depth of the characters, the things you can’t get across in one page; that’s why I like writing big epic fantasies because it gives me a lot of time to explore all that depth. And I do the same thing with the plot. Everything is about more than one thing, and I think that that just makes for interesting stories that I like to read.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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In Mistborn, Allomancy tends to get a little addictive, is that something that's going to happen with Stormlight—holding it just because it feels good?
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You are noticing a similarity. That is intentional.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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When are you going to tell us about your Secret Project?
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Well, I have an NDA that I have signed, which says I will not tell people what it is. So, because of that, I'm staying just far away from it. I have said before, I'm letting them announce it when they want to announce it. It will be announced probably, and released, before the end of the year, is my expectation. I can't say anything else. Even if you guessed right what it was, I would have to say, "I don't know." Or "That sounds like it would be fun." But I will have to imply that I don't have any idea what you're talking about, even if you guess right.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Will we see more of Vasher and Vivenna in a certain upcoming book?
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Yes, you will see at least one of them in a book coming out this November. You'll at least have a reference to the other. You may see one of them in two chapters as Tor is releasing them.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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(Until the second five books, where our primary characters will shuffle. So you Renarin fans will have to be patient.) Do you worry that assuring us that a character will likely survive the first arc of the series removes some of the tension in their scenes? (While you've discussed the idea that a main character can have a book about them while they are dead when Dalinar was expected to be central to book 5, this seems different)
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I have said many times before that Renarin and Lift are main characters for the next five, but--as you point out--I've also said that I have no problem having a main character who is actually dead, and their story told through flashbacks and the stories of the other characters. Renarin is not safe, but you will see a lot more from him in the future, even if he does die. To say more would be to give too many spoilers about the nature of the back five books.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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(something along the lines of how exactly is what you see when you burn gold determined)
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He said that each time you burn gold, you see a different image, so it changes depending on your current situation.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Why did Rashek leave two beads at the Well?
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RAFO
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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How much pre-writing do you do for each book?
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He wrote 50k words backstory for Mistborn, and 200k words backstory for The Way of Kings . It takes about 8 months to write a novel. Though it only took a month to write Alcatraz , which was a parody of conspiracies, and included bad super-powers, an anti-epic fantasy (and that a possible movie from Dreamworks was in the works at the time).
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Do highstorms get weaker as they move west because of normal meteorological reasons the same way a hurricane gets weaker over land or is it because they slowly drain investiture as they infuse spheres over the whole continent?
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Both. He said that anything like that will be affected by both normal science as well as the magic, but then he added that the highstorms are a natural occurring phenomenon that were on the planet before stuff started going down.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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How can you control the ramping of power levels from human to godlike?
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Knowing how long your series is gonna be, or at least how long you would like it to be at the start, is definitely going to be a help here. Also, understanding how to make character conflicts that both fall into the character's skill wheelhouse and those that don't, meaning finding a challenge for a character... I often talk to my boss about the idea that stories happen around the things that the character or the magic can't do, generally. This is just kind of storytelling basics. If you've got a character that is an excellent, excellent boxer, then you tell a story about either someone who is a stronger boxer than them that they have to face, or you tell a story about boxing being a side story to the rest of the character's story. And this is just so that there's tension and conflict. And getting good at balancing those is going to be very helpful for you. Because you don't want to just have things happen that the character's skill means nothing to. If your character's a boxer, you need boxing matches to be happening in your story in almost all varieties of stories you're going to be writing. And if your boxer's the best boxer in the world, you still are going to be expected to have boxing matches, you're going to have to find a way to make it still tense. But you can do this in a lot of different ways. It can be someone is better than them. It can be that they get injured. It can be they get older, and their skill isn't what it once was. Or they can be at the height of their skill, but there's some sort of marathon they have to go through, where they're going to have to defeat a bunch of opponents in a row. Just understanding how you can ramp up those kinds of conflicts and then how you can balance them with character conflicts, internal conflicts, and conflicts about what the character cannot do, and you will find that it works. Superman still works as a character -- I know that there are a lot of stories that don't work with him, but there are a lot of stories that still do, and he's near deific in power. Rand al'Thor in the Wheel of Time is basically a demigod by the time I took over the books, and he was a blast to write. I never felt worried about power level concerns in the three books I was writing, because I was able to balance these sorts of things because Robert Jordan had left me the seeds or the half-done story threads to be able to do this. So, practice those things.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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If a kandra were a Parshendi, would he be able to take the forms?
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The Forms? The actual-- To an extent, yes. To an extent, yes, but part of that is the spren bond. You're not gonna get everything. You could look like one, but there'll be certain things you won't be able to do, even with the Form. You couldn't take a form of power... You could pass.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Updates on Main Projects Stormlight It's time to take a little breather. I've begun working on the outline for book four, which is kind of a mess right now because of things I've been moving around between books as I write. My goal this year for Stormlight will be to have rock-solid outlines for books four and five done by December 2018. My current projection is that I'll spend half of my time writing Stormlight, and half of it doing other things. (I spoke last year about just how big an undertaking a Stormlight book is–and why I can't write them back to back.) I realize that many of you would prefer to have only Stormlight, but that would drive me insane–and drive the series into the ground. I think this is a realistic schedule. So, I'm giving myself 2018 to work on Skyward (hopefully a trilogy) and other projects. Then on January 1st, 2019, I go back to Stormlight refreshed and excited to be back in Roshar, and I write on book four until it's done. (With a 2020 or 2021 release, depending on how the writing goes.) I do hope to find time for a novella, like Edgedancer , that we can put out between books. This one is tentatively called Wandersail . For those who don't know, The Stormlight Archive is a ten-book series composed of two five-book arcs. Status: Writing outline for book four.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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So how's Waxillium doing? It'll be out next year, then? 2019?
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Slow but sure. I'm pretty sure I will be finishing it up soon here. Maybe. Maybe. I can't promise yet. It depends on how the writing goes the last half of this year. January 1st, I have to start on Stormlight Four. And so I'm trying to squeeze the last Wax & Wayne in after I finish Skyward 2.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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why does Marsh have a Feruchemical atium spike?
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You'll have to figure that out! RAFO.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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So, I started reading Mistborn not longer after finishing [Wheel of Time]... Why does it seem so intentional that they're a parallel? That Mistborn is set in a 4th age a cycle in either direction from Randland? Well, more the close of the 4th, beginning of the 5th, as the influence of the Dragon/HoA is ending. The Deepness is basically exactly the Dark One, what the Hero of Ages had to go through reminds me very much of Rand's tribulations, hell, his diary could have been written by Rand himself. And what did Rashek do after killing off The Hero of Ages? He became Nae'blis and quickly established unquestioned rule over the world as God-Emperor. Even how the Deepness attacked the Hero, trying to convince him he was insane, filling him with doubt that he could possibly succeed, or rule, it totally fits how the Dark One tries to break his foes rather than simply destroy them outright.
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Mistborn was inspired by my love of the classic fantasy stories from my youth, Wheel of Time at their forefront. The original idea was for a Shannara-esque fantasy epic where the heroes lost at the end, but I decided (for many reasons) this wouldn't be fun to read or write. The idea simmered for a year or two until I realized it would an awesome backstory for the heist story/epic fantasy mashup I'd been developing. And so, I worked to make Rashek's story as resonate with classic fantasy epics as I could. I wanted that resonance so that I could play with the tropes of epic fantasy. Remember, Wheel of Time was a huge influence upon me as a youth and a writer. I knew I couldn't just write ANOTHER farmboy saves the world story, as I felt those had been done (and done well.) I wanted something that had one foot in this, however, and one foot in a more contemporary style of plotting and worldbuilding. So everything you're noticing is indeed intentional. Mistborn is my vision of a world where Rand gave in. (Or where Frodo kept the ring, etc.) I wrote the trilogy primarily in 2004-2006, ending one year before I was chosen to finish the Wheel of Time, which makes the parallels even more interesting.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What are the odds of making a Stormlight RPG?
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If the Mistborn RPG goes well, maybe in the future.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Does Allomancy have Cognitive and Spiritual manifestations as well as the Physical?
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Yes... Yes, it does, but*. A little asterisk.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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During July, I took time off from major projects to have a breather. If you aren’t aware, I prefer to do smaller projects between big epics as a means of helping me stay fresh. This month’s “breather” stories include a novelette (9k words) piece set in the Steelheart world, which should be published as an e-original around Christmastime. I also did some work in the Infinity Blade world. (More on that later. If you aren’t aware, this is a video game that friends of mine make. I’ve enjoyed being involved to practice my video-game writing chops, with an eye toward doing Mistborn video game writing.) My next major writing project will be the sequel to Steelheart , which is called Firefight . (And if you haven’t seen the trailer , Prologue , or teaser chapters for Steelheart , please go give them a look! We’re hoping for big things from this novel.) As you might be aware, I will often be preparing for/writing one piece while I do revisions on another. I generally can only do new prose on one piece at a time, but I like to be revising and writing on two different things at once. So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be writing Firefight and revising Words of Radiance .
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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You kinda talked about where you got the idea for <highstorms>, but in the Firefight -- The Reckoners series, was there a particular character you gave them their powers because you thought that power was [cool]?
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So the question is: In The Reckoners , was there a particular power that I gave to someone because I just thought that power was cool. And yeah, the tensors. They can turn things to dust. For years I'd been walking around looking at our society where we have all this metal and this wood around, and things like that. I just loved the idea of just being able to turn it to dust. Maybe it's like a "reducing things to their more primal state" or whatever-- but anyway it was one of those magics that was in my head for a while. And really superheroes are magic. I don't pretend that they're science fiction, they're magic. So I just designed these magics that feel cool to me.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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The Dedication I've always intended to dedicate my first published book to my mother. I poke a little fun at her here, since I can't resist. However, I really do owe a lot of who I am–and what I've accomplished–to her. When I was in elementary school, I had mediocre grades–and my test scores placed me as "below average" on several occasions. Well, she was bound and determined to prove that I was "gifted" despite those scores. She worked hard to get me to improve in school, and she was a prime motivator behind my reading habits. Now, my mother is a very practical person. She believes strongly in practical professions that pay well and are stable. Writing is neither one of these. I think she realized early on that despite her hopes, she wasn't going to have a doctor or a business man–or even a scientist–for a son. She did convince me to major in biological chemistry as a freshman–though she said this was simply to put me in a better position for getting a scholarship (which I did get, by the way). However, I've always assumed that a little piece of her hoped that the bio-chem influence would persuade me to go to med school, or to at least become an engineer. That, obviously, did not happen. The big bad English monster took me in my sophomore year. However, my mother has always been supportive, and it was her sense of dedication, excellence, and assiduousness that forged my determined personality. Without that sense of self-determination, I would never have lasted in this field long enough to publish. So, thank you mother. Thanks for being proud of me.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What has been the craziest, most off-the-wall, unexpected kind of feedback you've ever gotten-- ...you know kind of how it sent you in the right direction.
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Ooh. *crowd laughs* Wow, craziest off-the-wall feedback I've ever gotten and what direction did it send me. I have so much trouble with these things. Some people ask me the line "what's the weirdest thing a fan has had you write in a book". And I know, if I took the time, I could think of it, but off the top of my head it's kind of hard. I'm not sure what the craziest, most off-the-wall sort of feedback I've gotten. I've given a lot of crazy, off-the-wall feedback. Legion ... came about because I was trying to convince my friend Dan Wells to write this book. *crowd laughs* "Oh, you could do this thing, and it could be like schizophrenia but not really, it could be a superpower," and he's like, "Brandon, that's not a Dan Wells book. That is a Sanderson book". And so I ended up writing the book, but that has happened. I've given weird feedback. I'd have to think about that one a little more.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I was thinking about some assumptions I have made. Are you going to write Hoid's series in first person?
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I have tried it both ways in test scenes, and am undecided, but leaning toward first person.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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...On the subject of change, the Tenth Name of the Almighty, Elithanathile, He Who Transforms. Is this related to the fact that Akinah is divided into ten parts, and the things you find there?
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Uh, yes... Are these things all related to the concept of change and why things are divided into ten parts in The Stormlight Archive , and the answer was "Yes, these are all very much interconnected."
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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When you write your stories, do you plot them by outline, or do you start with the first thing--
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Good question. Do I plot with an outline or not? I am an outliner. I like start with a really good outline, though I outline backward. I start with the climax and what I want to have happen, and then I work forward, working out what's gonna work to lay the groundwork for the ending that I want to have happen. But then I write forward, I start with the first page and go.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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A question that's been on my mind for a while. If Returned can't have children, how are Siri and Vivenna descended from one?
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Excellent question. One I have to RAFO. When I was writing WRBRKR, I was planning on two books. I seeded two questions to be answered in the next book. One was the origin of the royal family.. The second was how Vasher was able to survive while hiding his divine Breath. I will answer these questions. Eventually. (It has to do with restoring Breath and life to the child while still in the womb.).
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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You've said that Splintering a Shard is essentially the same thing as the Shattering of Adonalsium, repeated on a smaller scale. And a while ago, someone asked you if Splintering was permanent or reversible, and you said that it can be reversed. And Shardholders [Vessels] tend to take the name of the Shard they hold. So you've got Sazed, who goes by "Harmony" now, after taking up Ruin and Preservation. That makes me wonder, does he hold two Shards... or one?
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Yeah. Yeah. You could really answer that either way. The distinction is a really subjective one, and you could say that he's holding both Shards, or that he holds one single Harmony.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What is the weirdest, strangest, most odd and possibly ridiculous magic system idea you've ever had?
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I had a really ridiculous world idea, less a magic system, that's just maybe too weird. The really weird worldbuilding idea I had was: people who live on an enormous boulder being pulled by a giant around a very large, very hot surface. And all the light comes up around. And you have to be constantly moving; the population is migratory, otherwise they'll fall off, things like that. It's not big enough to have its own gravity, but it's big enough that... Basically, you would send people ahead who plant crops. There's people planting crops, and the crops grow as you are migrating. And then you harvest them and send crops up to the people at the front, so a group of people is, like, three clans. This whole society built around which of the three you're part of, and they're always following each other. This thing, like, mulches into the surface below and brings up fresh soil that will grow plants relatively quickly, but you've got to be constantly moving. Like, it rotates ever couple of days, basically. If you sat still for two days, you would be crushed under it. That felt really cool, and also maybe just too weird for being weirdness's sake. I never ended up writing that story. But I had some interesting ideas for that. Those are the weird... really weird settings often occur to me more frequently than weird magic systems. A lot of the magic systems that don't make it into the books aren't that they're too weird; they just are dumb. Or they just never click. I haven't been able to find a sound-based, purely sound-based magic system that I like. It just doesn't write well on the page. You can do it; Pat has really great writing about music in his books, and I can write about it kind of from a scientific, technical standpoint like I do in Rhythm of War. But every time I've tried a purely sound-based magic systems, it's one of those things that sounds better (pun intended) in concept than it does work on the page. And it just ends up being one of those things that the reader can't experience, they just have to listen to characters try to explain experiencing it. Where I prefer magic systems that the reader, in a way, feels like they're experiencing. When gravity works differently for Kaladin, you could imagine how that feels, and you can put yourself there and walk on the wall and things like that. And all the music ones have been too much more abstract than that. That might be because my music theory background is wanting. I played trumpet all through high school, I took a lot of music classes and things, but I wouldn't consider myself enough of an expert to really talk about it the way that a true musician does.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Do the Heralds know about Aons? I am asking specifically about Shalash. Shao, Ale, Ashe. Transformation, Beauty, Illumination.
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Let's say that some of them do and some of them don't. The question is "do the Heralds know about Aons?" How cosmere-aware are the Heralds? It depends on the Herald.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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How much of your own books were you consciously looking at books like Jordan and saying, "I like that kind of world," and trying to create that kind of world in your own stuff?
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I spent most of my early career, as I kind of implied earlier, reacting against books that I had really liked. The main purpose for this being that I felt that Robert Jordan and various other authors really covered that type of story and that type of world really well. And so I said, "Well, what other room is there to explore?" And so you see me reacting against. For instance, Mistborn is a direct reaction to the Wheel of Time . Mistborn began as the question, "What if Rand were to fail?" That's what spun me into creating that entire book series: what if the prophesied hero were not able to accomplish what they were supposed to accomplish? And that became the foundation of that book series. So you can see where I was going and things like that. A lot of times I will read something, and if it's done very well I'll react against it, and if it’s done very poorly then I’ll say, "Oh, I want to try and do this the right way". And both of those are kind of an interesting style of reaction to storytelling. So I would say I was deeply influenced, but it's more in the realm of, "Hey what have they done? What have they covered really well, and where can I go to explore new ground?"
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I haven't read Way of Kings yet, but I've read Warbreaker and Mistborn, and the thing I like most about them is the Magic systems. Will Way of Kings have multiple magic systems?
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Depending on how you count it, Stormlight Archive will have 3 or 30 different magic systems.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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As we said, we're not gonna do Kickstarters for most of our leatherbounds. But we will probably do one for Words of Radiance .
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I actually am having a meeting on Monday with my publisher saying "We need to get more books to India," because that is the number one complaint I get... The number one country that emails me of people saying "We can't get your books" is India. So hopefully we'll do something about that.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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So something that I'd love to hear your thoughts on are if you think as your career progresses that you can get away with things—story things—that you couldn't when you were less well known? Obviously, as we grow in our storytelling skills and experience with the industry, we can try harder challenges and succeed where we wouldn't have before. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm more curious about if you think we train our readers (and book store buyers). I think—pure speculation because I haven't yet dug in to my copy of The Way of Kings —that if a 400,000 word tome hit my desk from someone I'd never heard of and when I began reading, I found it didn't follow any epic fantasy structure I knew, I'd be much more likely to assume it was just an amateur mess—but because it says "Brandon Sanderson, #1 NYT Bestselling Author" on the front, I trust that you're Doing Something Big. I think I read it differently. Do you agree? I run into the same sort of thing: I've got a decent reputation for deep characters now, so when a character does something contradictory (dumb jock says something brilliant or whatever), my readers think, "Oh, there's more going on here under the surface, can't wait to see what." Rather than, "This character is inconsistent. Bad writing." And I would contend that precisely because you're a magic system guy, that if you don't explain the magic in TWOK, people are NOT going to say, "Good book, but magic system doesn't make sense." They're going to say, "Obviously brilliant stuff going on with the magic, can't wait until book 12 to see what!" (That's hyperbole with a wink, not snark.) Do you believe you can get away with storytelling stunts, elisions, or tricks now that Brandon Sanderson the debut author couldn't have? If so, what's the good part of that—and is there a bad side?
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Yes, there are things I can get away with now that I couldn't before—or ones I didn't try to get away with before. One big one is flashbacks. In my early years as a writer, published and unpublished, I stayed far away from flashbacks. Partially because I'd been told to do so, and partially because I'd seen them done poorly from a large number of other new writers. There are good reasons to stay away from them, and the advice is good. If you do flashbacks the wrong way, you'll break the flow of your narrative, risk undermining the tension of your story, confuse the reader, and basically make a big old mess. Then Pat Rothfuss comes along and does a narrative-within-a-narrative where the entire book is basically flashback, and it works really well. I do know, however, that Pat had a lot of trouble selling that book of his to start. (Though admittedly, I'm not sure if that was the flashbacks or not. I seem to remember he added the frame story later in the process, and that the huge length of the book was what was scaring people away at first.) I guess this brings us back to the first rule of writing: you can do whatever you want, if you do it well. Regardless, I decided—after some deliberation—that I'd use flashbacks as an extensive device in The Way of Kings and the rest of the series. None of these were in earlier drafts of the novel, however, because I knew that many readers (and editors) have a knee-jerk reaction against flashbacks because of how likely they are to screw things up. Now that I'm established, however, I feel that people will trust me when they see them. (One thing I'm leaving out is that I think I'm a better writer now than I was before, and if I'd tried these flashbacks during earlier days, I'd likely have flubbed them.)
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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With Soulcasting, we know what can be Soulcast based on the color of the gem. Does-- When Awakening, say you have emerald, green, Pulp. If you were Awakening straw or some other form of plant matter, if you used a source of green for the color, would it be, say, more efficient than using red?
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So I haven't built that into the magic system yet. Part of me feels like I should have. But I did not. I want color to be relevant to each of the cosmere magics. It's kind of an essential part of it, and it's part of where we stray more into the magical sense. Like, in my books we treat magic scientifically but they're still magic. And it was a thing when I was building Stormlight, I'm like, "So the difference between these two gemstones is a matter of a slight impurity and chemically they are 99% the same thing. Am I actually going to have them do different things or not?" And my judgement call was yes, because I want color to be relevant in the cosmere. But by that point, when I was really getting that magic system to work, I had already written Warbreaker . And I had known that I wanted color to start being a big part. I'd already written Mistborn where I worked in color in different ways But I didn't work that into the Warbreaker magic. I felt like it already had enough restrictions. I would say my worry about the Warbreaker magic is the color feels tacked on. Like, the magic could work without it, narratively, so why is it there? And that's the question I asked myself while I was building; that's the question I continue to ask myself when I continue to work on-- for that magic system, to make sure it works for me. But my instincts say adding restrictions like that, particularly when they weren't covered in the first book, feels like the wrong way to go. It'd be like retconning the magic. It's something I considered.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Consequences of the cut Cutting the last scene was not without costs to the story. For the longest time, after removing this scene, something about what remained bothered me. I had trouble placing what was wrong. The story went through editorial revisions and beta reads, none of which revealed what was bothering me. This process did convince me to add two scenes. The first was scene with the “paintball” fight in the noir city, which was intended to mix some action and worldbuilding in while revealing more of Kai’s personality. The second was the flashback scene where Kai and Melhi meet on the “neutral zone” battlefield, intended to introduce Melhi as more of a present threat in the story. Something was still bothering me, even after these additions. It took me time to figure out exactly what it was, and I was able to pinpoint it in the weeks leading up to the story’s publication. (Which was good, as it allowed me to make some last-minute changes. I’m still not sure if they fixed the problem, but we were satisfied with them.) The problem is this: removing the final scene hugely undermined Sophie as a character. The deleted scene provides for us two complete characters. We have Kai, who wants to retreat into his fantasy world and live there without ever being forced to think about the falsehood he’s living. He wants just enough artificial challenge to sate him, but doesn’t want to explore life outside of the perfect world prepared for him. As a contrast, we have Sophie, who refuses to live in the perfect world provided for her—and is so upset by it that she insists on trying to open the eyes of others in a violently destructive way. She tries to ruin their States, forcing them to confront the flaws in the system. Neither is an ideal character. Sophie is bold, but reckless. Determined, but cruel. Kai is heroic, but hides deep insecurities. He is kindly, but also willfully ignorant. Even obstinately so. Each of their admirable attributes brings out the flaws in the other. This works until the ending, with its reversal, which yanks the rug out from underneath the reader. Sophie’s death and the revelation that Kai has been played works narratively because it accomplishes what I like to term the “two-fold heist.” These are scenes that not only trick the character, but also trick the reader into feeling exactly what the character does. Not just through sympathy, but through personal experience. Let’s see if I can explain it directly. The goal of this scene is to show Kai acting heroically, then undermine that by showing that his heroism was manipulated. Hopefully (and not every scene works on every reader) at the same time, the reader feels cheated in having enjoyed a thrilling action sequence, only to find out that it was without merit or consequences. Usually, by the way, making readers feel things like this is kind of a bad idea. I feel it works in this sequence, however, and am actually rather proud of how it all plays out—character emotions, action, and theme all working together to reinforce a central concept. Unfortunately, this twist also does something troubling. With the twist, instead of being a self-motivated person bent on changing the mind of someone trapped by the establishment, Sophie becomes a pawn without agency, a robot used only to further Kai’s development. Realizing this left me with a difficult conundrum in the story. If we have an inkling that Sophie is Melhi too early, then the entire second half of the plot doesn’t work. But if we never know her as Melhi, then we’re left with an empty shell of a character, a direct contradiction to the person I’d planned for her to be. Now, superficially, I suppose it didn’t matter if Melhi/Sophi was a real character. As I said in the first annotation, the core of the story is about Kai being manipulated by forces outside his control. However, when a twist undermines character, I feel I’m in dangerous territory—straying into gimmicks instead of doing what I think makes lasting, powerful stories. The ultimate goal of this story is not in the twist, but in leading the reader on a more complex emotional journey. One of showing Kai being willing to accept change and look outward. His transformation is earned by his interaction with someone wildly different from himself, but also complex and fascinating. Making her shallow undermines the story deeply, as it then undermines his final journey. There’s also the sexism problem. Now, talking about sexism in storytelling opens a huge can of worms, but I think we have to dig into it here. You see, a certain sexism dominates Kai’s world. Sophie herself points it out on several occasions. Life has taught him that everyone, particularly women, only exist to further his own goals. He’s a kind man, don’t get me wrong. But he’s also deeply rooted in a system that has taught him to think about things in a very sexist way. If the story reinforces this by leaving Sophie as a robot—with less inherent will than even the Machineborn programs that surround Kai—then we’ve got a story that is not only insulting, it fails even as it seems to be successful. Maybe I’m overthinking this. I do have a tendency to do that. Either way, hopefully you now understand what I viewed as the problem with the story—and I probably described this at too great a length. As it stands, the annotation is probably going to be two-thirds talking about the problem, with only a fraction of that spent on the fix. I will say that I debated long on what that fix should be. Did I put the epilogue back in, despite having determined that it broke the narrative flow? Was there another way to hint to the reader that there was more going on with Melhi than they assumed? I dove into trying to give foreshadowing that “Melhi” was hiding something. I reworked the dialogue in the scene where Kai and Melhi meet in person, and I overemphasized that Melhi was hiding her true nature from him by meeting via a puppet. (Also foreshadowing that future puppets we meet might actually be Melhi herself.) I dropped several hints that Melhi was female, then changed the ending to have Wode outright say it. In the end, I was forced to confront the challenge that this story might not be able to go both ways. I could choose one of two things. I could either have the ending be telegraphed and ruined, while Sophie was left as a visibly strong character. Or I could have the ending work, while leaving Sophie as more of a mystery, hopefully picked up on by readers as they finished or thought about the story. The version we went with has Sophie being hinted as deeper, while preserving the ending. Even still, I’m not sure if Perfect State works better with or without the deleted scene. To be perfectly honest, I think the best way for it to work is actually for people to read the story first, think about it, then discover the deleted scene after they want to know more about what was going on. Even as I was releasing the story, I became confident that this was the proper “fix.” To offer the story, then to give the coda in the form of Sophie’s viewpoint later on. It’s the sort of thing that is much more viable in the era of ebooks and the internet. Either way, feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think. Does it work better with or without the deleted scene? Do you like having read the story, then discovered this later? Am I way overthinking what is (to most of you) just a lighthearted post-cyberpunk story with giant robots? Regardless, as always, thanks for reading.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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If Rysn's Dawnshard is about Change or Remaking or something like, how do we refer to it? The Dawnshard of Change? The Change Dawnshard? I am asking purely from a semantic standpoint.
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I haven't honestly decided yet, Argent. I am playing with several themes for the Dawnshards even still. RAFO, I'm afraid. As I said somewhere else, this was written as it was deliberately--but also somewhat vague on purpose.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Acknowledgements There's not a whole lot to say here. A lot of people are returning time and time again as alpha readers. They should get awards or something. I decided to expand a bit and give some different kinds of acknowledgments this time around. The more I learn about the book industry, the more I realize how many people it takes in order to create the product you now hold. People like Yoder, Dot Lin, and the bookstore sales forces are all part of the "Brandon Sanderson" name, in a way. It's kind of like Brandon Sanderson is, in part, a pen name for the hundreds of people who collectively create a novel.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I know that in Dragonsteel there's a lot about Hoid. Do you have any guess when you will revision(?) Dragonsteel?
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Yes. Yeah... My plan is right now to finish Stormlight, then do Dragonsteel, then do the last Mistborns. So it's kind of far away.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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You know Hoid's Letter, that's in The Way of Kings ? It's given to a dragon, right? Is he immortal? And he's a he, not a she?
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He calls him an old reptile. Functionally, meaning he doesn't age, but he could be killed. It is a he.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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How do they handle, like, trash and bathrooms in the Purelake? How does that work?
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Fortunately, you have a couple of things going on here. You fortunately have low population. You have highstorms and driving and-- so, the waste is broken down really easily. The trash is a problem. But it's a pre-industrial society, so the trash is not stuff that doesn't ever biodegrade, and things like this, and you do have traders going through, and things like this. So, it all kind of works out. It's the low population that's really helping with a lot of this. It's not as bad, a big a deal as you would think it is... All of Roshar has a slight issue in that you just can't bury things, but you do have the crem that comes down and hardens around things and creates a layer of stone, and things like this. In my opinion, the way I've worked it out, it all just kind of works out just fine... It's no bigger a deal in the Purelake, in other words, than these other places. In fact it's kind of a smaller deal. Like, you might ask, like, traveling out on the greatshells in the Reshi Sea, they would have a harder problem in some ways, 'cause they have a tight population density on top of something that they also can't bury anything, and stuff like that. I just had to work out the ecology of the system to work.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Is there an exact date when the final book of the Alcatraz series is coming out?
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Not an exact date. It's about, at this point, about three quarters done. I wrote about half of it. And I'm cowriting the other half with a friend of mine to get the voice right. And she's up to the ending that I outlined. So we'll see how we both feel about that ending. And then maybe we'll release it this year? Maybe next year? It's pretty close, though.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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With Dawnshard, what was going on [with revisions], there was some big things that I needed to do, and some of them I was aware of. And because the book... basically, it was written in July, and we did the beta read in August, and I'm doing the revisions in September/October; it has a really accelerated timeline. Which means that the beta read wasn't as clean as I normally like a beta read to do. I really like a beta read to have seen a book after I've done revisions that the alpha read has caught all the big problems. Or that I've had time to layer things in. Like, there is a whole aspect of this book that I knew needed to be in the book, but I just didn't have the time, the brain focus, in the first two drafts to put in. So they all had to read and complain about this thing that I knew I was going to put into the book, but they thought I'd just completely missed. In that case, I had this thing to add in; but, still, giving their feedback helped me decide how to add it in. In other cases, there were characters that just needed some expanded screentime and stuff. I can talk about it better during the spoiler stream. But also, I had multiple people who are themselves paraplegic read the book that I had written primarily from the viewpoint of a paraplegic woman. And they had just a ton of really great information on how to be more authentic to the life experience of someone like themselves, and also some of the pitfalls that authors often fall into that I hadn't known about. Really handy stuff. And we will be releasing, with the Kickstarter (because we hit the stretch goal), all the different drafts of Dawnshard, along with the beta reader document, that you'll be able to just read what everyone said and see what I took from that. You can go read, like, the 3.0 and be like, "All right, I read the 2.0; I read the beta read document. Now I can read the 3.0 and see how Brandon changed things based on what the beta readers said." And I do have a little document of the main things I'm changing and why that will go along with it. Hopefully, that sort of thing will be very helpful to you because this is the sort of thing that's really hard to explain because it's an instinct you pick up as a writer over time.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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As I understand it, Nightblood is most comparable to a Shardblade. However, unlike a Shardblade, Nightblood requires constant input of Investiture in order to realize his full destructive potential. Why is this?
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Vasher kind of hacked in order to imitate another magic system. Shardblades are organic parts of the world they are on, but Nightblood is a bunch of souls stuffed into something. Nightblood is like a Frankenstein.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Would Leras recognize Vax or is it just like some Ati backstory??
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Yeah, he would recognize Vax.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I wonder whether Jasnah has been to the Cognitive Realm of planets other than Roshar?
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She has not, she is not horribly cosmere-aware as of the end of Oathbringer , she is starting to get an inkling. Give her some time and you might be impressed with how quickly she can come up to speed.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Was the Almighty still alive when the Heralds packed it in, and did the Radiants pack it in in direct response to what the Heralds did?
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The Radiants did NOT abandon their post as a response to the Heralds. The Radiants abandoned it for some other reason which will become evident eventually. The Almighty was still around when the Heralds did their thing.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I also referenced the recent Q&A and this post , and speculated that the reason why the original poster thought Wax's sister was a duralumin ferring was because of Wax's comment that he did not feel any strong emotions as a result of her death. I told Brandon that the poster must have thought that she was deliberately suppressing her Connection with Wax by using Feruchemy. I said that I didn't need a yes or no answer from him.
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He replied that he would neither confirm nor deny my statement and would only agree that it was very interesting.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Is it a Dawnshard?
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The knife used by Moash is "something similar to hemalurgy." Good question but no.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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When an Allomancer tries to burn a bad alloy, it can make them sick, or even kill them. Are there similar consequences for Feruchemy and Hemalurgy, such as being less efficient when storing and leaking power more quickly, or would such metals just be unusable?
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Yes! Bad metals in Feruchemy/Hemalurgy would work poorly.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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If the Lord Ruler was able to enter the Well of Ascension a second time, what would he have done with its power?
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He probably would have tried to fix and tweak a few of the problems that were happening, but he had learned not to do too much. So I would say: minor tweaks, and perhaps some power solidification things, and stuff like that. He would not, probably, have been able to fix things as well as he wanted to. It probably would have gone more poorly than he implies that it would have gone.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Could Hemalurgy be performed anywhere in the Cosmere So Hemalurgy is unique because not only can the power of Ruin be accessed anywhere (not just on Scadrial), but also by anyone (not just someone who's invested)?
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Yes. It is weird that way.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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When are you going to tell us about your Secret Project?
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Well, I have an NDA that I have signed, which says I will not tell people what it is. So, because of that, I'm staying just far away from it. I have said before, I'm letting them announce it when they want to announce it. It will be announced probably, and released, before the end of the year, is my expectation. I can't say anything else. Even if you guessed right what it was, I would have to say, "I don't know." Or "That sounds like it would be fun." But I will have to imply that I don't have any idea what you're talking about, even if you guess right.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What are the names of the Aons for West, North, and South? I'm assuming that these are also the names of the other cities around Elantris besides Kae ("East"). Is that right?
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Yes. Peter pointed out to me that we really needed these, so they should be in the Elantris 10th anniversary edition.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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So what happens if you have a Bendalloy bubble, and then another Bendalloy bubble inside of it?
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It will compound and double, and it will multiply. Bendalloy is one of the metals from Alloy of Law if you haven’t read it, as this person obviously has, or has read the Ars Arcanum, you’ll find out what it does.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Specifically, which mistakes you made as a beginning novelist that stand out the most as ones you've corrected as you've learned the craft better. Do you think that maybe not having a writing group to back you up contributed to your lack of revisions?
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That's an excellent question, I would say that my biggest mistake as a new writer was not being willing to revise. I'm a classic, what we call a one-drafter this is a type of author who likes to just imagine it, get it ready, plan a lot and then get in on the page and be done with it and that was a mistake, I've become a big believer in learning to take a book that's a good book and make it an excellent book and doing a lot of strong revisions and early on I wasn't willing to do that and I think it held me back quite a bit. Maybe... I actually did have a writing group, and what I would do is I would get the feedback from my writing group and my opinion was, "Oh, I did all these mistakes. I made all these mistakes." Instead of fixing them, early on I would say, "Well, I won't make those mistakes again for my next book," cause I was always so excited an eager to write the next book and I didn't slow down enough and really focus in on making books great. And that was a mistake that was very particular to me, I don't think... as a writer there are so many different ways to do this and so many different types of writers. Part of learning to be a writer is about learning what things hold you back and what mistakes you make and they can be very different. Depending on who you are and what type of problem you have.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What do you think you were able to bring to the story of Infinity Blade?
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I'm a writer. This is what I do. One thing I've noticed—and I'm a big gamer, I enjoy video games—is that a lot of video game people have great ideas. They have excellent storytelling instincts. What they don't have, often, is a lot of practice doing it—you get better at telling stories by telling stories. A lot of the video games out there will have this core of awesomeness but a little bit of roughness around the edges when it comes to dialogue, making sure that the worldbuilding is rigorous, making sure that the characterizations are smooth and have nice arcs. I think that's something I can bring expertise to. One of the nice things about video games is that it's a big collaborative effort. There are certain things that a writer like myself should not be involved in. I don't have any practice coming up with fun ways to play games. I know some writers who assume that because they know how to tell stories, they'll be able to make a game that's interesting, but that's certainly not the case. The developers at ChAIR are experts at making really fun, awesome games. But I can help them with their worldbuilding, making sure it's consistent; with their dialogue, making sure that it's both evocative and interesting without being cliched and overdone. I think that the more people with skill in various areas you have working on a project like this, the better the outcome will be.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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A lot of your work deals with stereotypes. Can you tell us more about that?
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It’s true, but I always make sure that it isn’t just about the stereotype. It’s a fun thing to challenge some of the classic fantasy models, but that shouldn’t take over the writing as that can really undermine a writer. Piers Anthony was an example where the puns were fun but eventually came to undermine the series. I like having non-stereotypical professions and I enjoyed challenging age perceptions in Way of Kings . Having a romance between a man in his 50s and a woman in her late 40s is unusual in fantasy, where it’s all about the young man falling in love.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Could you create a fabrial capable of showing past events using a Radiant spren and a gold cage?
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RAFO. Theorize further along those lines, but RAFO.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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You’re very talented at taking seemingly mundane or unusual things and creating magic systems around them, like color in Warbreaker , metals in Mistborn , and light in The Way of Kings . Can you explain how you decide what to use for a magical system in a book, and your process for building a coherent system once the initial concept has been decided?
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First of all, I’m looking for something that fits the book that I’m writing. So for instance, in Mistborn , I was looking for powers that would enhance what thieves could do. I was also looking for something that had one foot in alchemy, in that kind of “coming-of-age magic into science” way. Alchemy is a great example because it’s a blend of science and magic… well, really, a blend of science and superstition, because the magic part doesn’t work. So something resonates there. I’m also looking for interesting ways to ground [the magic] in our world, and using something mundane is a great way to do that. Magic is naturally fantastical, and so if I can instead use something normal, and then make it fantastical, it immediately creates a sort of… ease of understanding. Burning metals sounds so weird, but it was chosen for that same reason, because we gain a lot of our energy through metabolism. We eat something, we turn the sugars into energy, boom. So that’s actually a very natural feeling. When I started writing out some sample things, it felt surprisingly natural, that people eat metal and gain powers, even though it sounds so weird. It’s because of this kind of natural biology. So I’m looking for that. Once I have a magic system, I look for really great limitations. Limitations really make a magic system work better. Wheel of Time is a great example. Having a magic system where you can weave all these threads is awesome. Having a magic system where you do that, and then it drives you mad, is even better. It creates plot hooks, it creates drama, it creates challenge. [That limitation] is brilliant, I think it is one of the most brilliant ever made, especially because it also changes your characters. It has a deep influence on your character arcs, so you can tie it into character. Beyond that (and this is kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit), there is no specific defined place where someone goes mad, so you can actually stretch it out and use it when you need it. It doesn’t constrain you too much. Like if your magic system’s limitation is, “When you use this magic, you have to use the head of one of your grandparents.” (laughs) You can use that magic four times! It’s limited, but also very constrained. Going mad is not as constrained. There’s a spectrum there - you can use it when you need it. So I’m looking for cool limitations that will work that way, in ways that I can use to force the characters to be creative. A good limitation will force you to be creative, and your characters to be creative. Pushing and pulling metals is basically telekinesis, right? But by making it center of mass, you can only pull directly towards yourself or push directly away from yourself... Number one: it’s vector science. It has one foot in sciences. Number two: it feels very natural to us because this is how we manipulate force ourselves. Number three: it limits things so much that it forces creativity upon the characters. There’s that sweet spot, where they can be creative and do cool things, where it doesn’t become too limited, but it also keeps you from having too much power in the hands of the characters, so they are still being challenged. I’m looking for all that, and on top of that I want to have good sensory ways to use magic. I don’t want to have two wizards staring at each other, and then be like “and they stared at each other very deeply! And then they stared harder!” I don’t want it all to be internal, which is where the lines for the metals came from. You see something, you push it forward. The pulses that some of the allomancers use, they’ll hear. I wanted sensory applications.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Alcatraz?
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Alcatraz 5. When am I going to write Alcatraz 5? I have a few things on my plate but I do want to finish it. I have re-releases of the series coming out next year probably. We sold the series to Tor, I bought it back from Scholastic. We are repackaging them with new covers and we are hiring an illustrator to illustrate them, to have cool illustrations all through the book. It looks like we'll do 25-30, little half-pagers and things like that through the book. We're doing a map, Isaac is commissioning a very nice map. And then we are going to re-release them and so I will try to have Book 5 come out when we have that going.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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You've mentioned that The Stormlight Archive is broken down into two sets of five books. Is the story arc of the second set of books going to be completely different than the story in the first 5 books?
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It will focus mostly on different characters, with some appearances by characters from the first five. I wouldn't call it a different story, more a sequel.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I want to know what process you follow through building your vocabulary. Also, do you use a thesaurus?
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What process do I use for developing my vocabulary, and do I use a thesaurus. My vocabulary development comes through reading other people's books and seeing the cool words they use and writing them down. And I can often pinpoint who I learned which word from. Like miasma I learned from Anne McCaffrey. Things like this-- Just seeing the words they use and looking them up when I don't know them. That's my favorite way. Do I use a thesaurus? I do use a thesaurus but only to come up with a word I know I should be using. There's two times I use it. One, when I come to a word I know there's a word there but I don't know what it is yet. The other time I use a thesaurus, which is really useful, is when I'm naming something. Like when I was naming the Reckoners, I need a cool word for this team. One that Marvel or DC hasn't used yet *laughter* They used everything. So I may use a thesaurus, but using a thesaurus is dangerous. It's a good tool but it's a dangerous tool for a writer. Because you don't want to use a word because it sounds cool, usually you want to use the right word. That can be difficult to balance.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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In the third Mistborn novel, Marsh's view was shown briefly but what I want to see is a story were one is a main character. This could show many cool stories like, Marsh's training to become an inquisitor (bit like scary hogwarts) or others.
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I'm sure I'll do some more Marsh viewpoints eventually, but I have my hands full getting things ready for the collection. (Plus, it has multiple stories from Scadrial already. It's Roshar we're missing.)
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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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?
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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.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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So if a Shard is Splintered can it be put back together, and if so; if all the Shards are put back together will Adonalsium come back? Or will someone else have to become Adonalsium?
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That is a big ol' RAFO!
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Why did Rashek leave two beads at the Well?
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RAFO
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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During July, I took time off from major projects to have a breather. If you aren’t aware, I prefer to do smaller projects between big epics as a means of helping me stay fresh. This month’s “breather” stories include a novelette (9k words) piece set in the Steelheart world, which should be published as an e-original around Christmastime. I also did some work in the Infinity Blade world. (More on that later. If you aren’t aware, this is a video game that friends of mine make. I’ve enjoyed being involved to practice my video-game writing chops, with an eye toward doing Mistborn video game writing.) My next major writing project will be the sequel to Steelheart , which is called Firefight . (And if you haven’t seen the trailer , Prologue , or teaser chapters for Steelheart , please go give them a look! We’re hoping for big things from this novel.) As you might be aware, I will often be preparing for/writing one piece while I do revisions on another. I generally can only do new prose on one piece at a time, but I like to be revising and writing on two different things at once. So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be writing Firefight and revising Words of Radiance .
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Words of Radiance Tweak Moving on to Words of Radiance , as we were entering typo fixes for the paperback of this book, I made changes to a few lines near the end. This isn't anywhere near as extensive as the changes in Elantris , but once again I figure I should be up-front about what I did and why I did it. This part is going to have some spoilers for the book, so if you haven't read it, please stop right here. I'll put a number of blank lines here to prevent accidental spoilers. Scroll down if you've finished the book. So, in Words of Radiance , I think the scene I worked on the longest both in my head and on the page was the final confrontation between Kaladin and Szeth. There was something I wanted to do, and took a stab at it in the text, then backed off because I couldn't make it work. It was important to me that Kaladin refuse to kill Szeth at the end. Kaladin is about protection, not vengeance, and once he realized that Szeth really just wanted to be killed, I wanted Kaladin to hesitate. It didn't end up working, and I moved on to a new version and submitted it. But this itched at me, and by the time the book was released, I felt I'd made the wrong choice for that scene. So I've taken this chance to roll it back to the previous idea, and written it in a new way, which I like much better. The events are the same, except for that moment. Szeth is now killed by the storm instead of by Kaladin, which I think is more thematically appropriate. The question this raises is about Szeth being stabbed by a Shardblade, then being resuscitated. I'm sad to lose this sequence, as it's an important plot point for the series that dead Shardblades cannot heal the soul, while living ones can. I'm going to have to work this into a later book, though I think it's something we can sacrifice here for the stronger scene of character for Kaladin and Szeth.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Would a Full Lashing work in a vacuum? If not, is that because it works by creating a vacuum between the lashed objects?
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First, good question. The way Lashings work, it does have to do with pressure. But I can't go into it. I'm going to have to RAFO that one. Again, good question.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What I spent 2014 doing January–March 2014: Firefight Though I had hoped to have Firefight (The Reckoners 2) done long before January, the touring last year made that impossible. It snuck over into 2014, which is why you’re getting the book in January 2015 instead of the originally scheduled fall of this year. In March, I also did the Words of Radiance tour, which really cut into my writing time. April 2014: Legion: Skin Deep In April, once all the chaos was done, I took the time to finish up Legion: Skin Deep (sequel to Legion from a few years back), which I’d been working on during plane flights the year before. If you haven’t checked these two novellas out, you might want to consider it! They’re very fun, though the second book is not yet out in the UK and associated territories such as Australia and New Zealand. (Note that in those territories, Legion 1 and The Emperor’s Soul were released together in a very handsome paperback.) We will eventually have regular hardcover copies of Legion 2 available. That will probably come sometime in the first half of next year. Our contract with Subterranean Press, who produced the very attractive limited edition hardcovers of Legion 2 , says that we’ll wait until their edition sells out before we release a competing one. May 2014: The Aztlanian (Rithmatist 2) Next, I dove into research for a sequel to The Rithmatist . This is going to be a tough book to write, as it takes place in a fantastical version of Central and South America, and deals with things from Aztec (Mexica) mythology. (In The Rithmatist , a lot of the geography is shifted around in bizarre ways.) Dealing with another group’s culture in this way is rife with opportunities for stuffing my foot in my mouth, and so I wanted to be very careful and respectful. This meant spending time devoted exclusively to doing extensive research. I didn’t actually get any writing on the book done, though I read some very excellent history books. (As an aside, if anyone out there is an expert in the Aztec/Mexica culture—particularly if you yourself are a Native American—I’d love to have your help on this book.) At the end of the month, I decided I needed to do way more research than a month afforded, so I put the book off for now. I still intend to write it, but I need more time to do it right. June 2014: Alcatraz Having spent a month with no writing, I wanted to jump into something fun and quick to refresh me before moving on to my next book. So, I dug out my outline for the Alcatraz series and at long last did a rough draft of the fifth book. These are fast, fast books to write—as I improvise them—but they are very slow to edit. I finished the book, and am pleased with it, but I have no firm date yet for when I’ll be publishing it. Tor is rereleasing the series starting next year with new covers and extensive interior art. I believe these launch starting about a year from now. (If you want them before then, your best bet for getting them is the UK omnibus of the first four.) I’ll want to release the fifth one once the series has been rereleased, so maybe summer 2016. If you’ve never read these, they are very different from my other work. They’re bizarre and sarcastic comedies that are self-referential and offer commentary on fantasy as a genre along the way. Those who love them absolutely love them. Those who don’t tend to find them insulting. That dichotomy alone is part of what endears them to me. July–December 2014: Mistborn The last half of the year was dedicated to Shadows of Self , the new Mistborn novel. And I have a confession to make. I also wrote the sequel. Now, before you start wagging your finger at me for being a robot, there was a really good reason I did what I did. You see, I was having real trouble getting back into Shadows of Self . I had written the first third of it in 2012 between revisions of A Memory of Light . (I was feeling Wheel of Time overload.) However, it can be very hard for me to get back into a book or series after a long time away from it. (This is another issue with the Rithmatist sequel.) So, jumping into Shadows of Self was slow going, and I found it much easier to go write the sequel to refresh myself on the world and characters. That done, I was able to move back to Shadows of Self and finish it up. So a week or two back, I turned in two new Wax and Wayne Mistborn novels. They’re titled Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning , and Tor decided to publish them in quick succession: the first in October 2015, the second in January 2016. So, if you have read the original trilogy but haven’t tried The Alloy of Law yet, you might want to give it a look! From the beginning, I’ve planned Mistborn to be a continuum series, showing off Allomancy in different time periods. I think you’ll find the Wax and Wayne books to be fun, quick reads—and they introduce some very, very big things coming in the Mistborn world. There will be one more Wax and Wayne (early 1900s-era) Mistborn book. Back after I finished The Alloy of Law , I sat down and plotted out a trilogy with the same characters. The Alloy of Law was more of a happy, improvised accident. The follow-up trilogy is meant to be more intentional. So in the end, we’ll have four total. (The final one is tentatively called The Lost Metal .) From there, I might jump to the second “big” trilogy, which is 1980s tech. Or I might dally a little more in something 1940s-era instead. We’ll see. Amusingly, doing these two Mistborn books together totaled only about half as much writing as a Stormlight book. Perhaps you can see why it takes even me quite a long time to finish Stormlight novels. (And it’s why you might want to lay off Pat Rothfuss a little. I believe The Wise Man’s Fear was even longer than Words of Radiance .) Tor did their announcement about these books earlier today. You may now commence wisecracks about me secretly writing extra novels when nobody is looking.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Is the Fleet story indicative of future events/ending of SA?
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Yes. Hoid is telling Kaladin things he needs to know. But Hoid's knowledge of the future doesn't extend that far... [or something like that].
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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I just finished The Way of Kings and have been told it will be a 10 book series which makes me worry when it's done I'll feel like I do about AMoL right now.
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If it helps, it's two five book arcs. The first five will draw to a natural conclusion. (Kind of how Mistborn one comes to its own conclusion, then two and three are in another arc.)
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Before his departure in [ The Way of Kings ] and his return in a future book, does he stay on Roshar only?
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Good question. RAFO.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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My Year 2015 was a bit slower than last year was, as I spent a lot of time editing. January–May: Calamity The bulk of my writing time this year was spent on Calamity, which I'd been putting off last year in order to write the two new Mistborn novels. Looking back at my records, I finished the last chapters in early May. This was interrupted, on occasion, for revisions of various books—and for the Firefight tour, along with a trip to Sharjah in the UAE. Busy times. So busy, in fact, that it's taken me all the rest of the year to give full feedback to the writers who took my class. I managed to grade their papers in May, somehow, but promised them each a personalized look at their final story submissions, which I'm only now finishing up. June–August: Stormlight Three I did squeeze in some writing time for Stormlight in here, though not a whole ton of it got done. I had to stop for revisions, touring, and travel through most of September and October. September–October: Revisions and a Secret Project Traveling so much made it difficult to do Stormlight 3 writing, which requires a lot of time investment. So between revisions, I managed to finish a project I've been working on for about a decade now. (Yes, a decade.) You'll see this soon. It's a novella. November–December: Stormlight Three Again I plan to keep on this one until I finish it, as I'll talk about below. However, if you want to read a little about my writing time in November, you can read this other blog post .
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Will we see more of Vasher and Vivenna in a certain upcoming book?
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Yes, you will see at least one of them in a book coming out this November. You'll at least have a reference to the other. You may see one of them in two chapters as Tor is releasing them.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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You kinda talked about where you got the idea for <highstorms>, but in the Firefight -- The Reckoners series, was there a particular character you gave them their powers because you thought that power was [cool]?
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So the question is: In The Reckoners , was there a particular power that I gave to someone because I just thought that power was cool. And yeah, the tensors. They can turn things to dust. For years I'd been walking around looking at our society where we have all this metal and this wood around, and things like that. I just loved the idea of just being able to turn it to dust. Maybe it's like a "reducing things to their more primal state" or whatever-- but anyway it was one of those magics that was in my head for a while. And really superheroes are magic. I don't pretend that they're science fiction, they're magic. So I just designed these magics that feel cool to me.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Does Allomancy have Cognitive and Spiritual manifestations as well as the Physical?
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Yes... Yes, it does, but*. A little asterisk.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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How can you control the ramping of power levels from human to godlike?
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Knowing how long your series is gonna be, or at least how long you would like it to be at the start, is definitely going to be a help here. Also, understanding how to make character conflicts that both fall into the character's skill wheelhouse and those that don't, meaning finding a challenge for a character... I often talk to my boss about the idea that stories happen around the things that the character or the magic can't do, generally. This is just kind of storytelling basics. If you've got a character that is an excellent, excellent boxer, then you tell a story about either someone who is a stronger boxer than them that they have to face, or you tell a story about boxing being a side story to the rest of the character's story. And this is just so that there's tension and conflict. And getting good at balancing those is going to be very helpful for you. Because you don't want to just have things happen that the character's skill means nothing to. If your character's a boxer, you need boxing matches to be happening in your story in almost all varieties of stories you're going to be writing. And if your boxer's the best boxer in the world, you still are going to be expected to have boxing matches, you're going to have to find a way to make it still tense. But you can do this in a lot of different ways. It can be someone is better than them. It can be that they get injured. It can be they get older, and their skill isn't what it once was. Or they can be at the height of their skill, but there's some sort of marathon they have to go through, where they're going to have to defeat a bunch of opponents in a row. Just understanding how you can ramp up those kinds of conflicts and then how you can balance them with character conflicts, internal conflicts, and conflicts about what the character cannot do, and you will find that it works. Superman still works as a character -- I know that there are a lot of stories that don't work with him, but there are a lot of stories that still do, and he's near deific in power. Rand al'Thor in the Wheel of Time is basically a demigod by the time I took over the books, and he was a blast to write. I never felt worried about power level concerns in the three books I was writing, because I was able to balance these sorts of things because Robert Jordan had left me the seeds or the half-done story threads to be able to do this. So, practice those things.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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What got you reading and then later on writing? And also how do you get a child to love to read? *inaudible*
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Okay, so what got me reading and what *inaudible* me fall in love with reading and-- initially-- and I'll do the second question in a minute. So originally I became a reader because of an eighth grade English teacher who handed me the book Dragonsbane . <Any> eighth grade English teachers here? Middle grade English teachers? You guys are awesome. They-- she's actually an *inaudible* professor. I'm still in touch with her. She made a reader out of me by refusing to let me not, you know? I was of age to be reading these books, but I was reading stuff I'd loved in second grade. And she just lovingly got me reading other things. How do you do that? Well for me it worked giving me the right book. I'm working on this with my seven year old right now. Who i want to be reading Harry Potter with, but he wants to be reading Fly Guy , which is about a boy with a pet fly. *crowd laughs* And so we read what he wants. And I figure if I can get excited about what he loves, and read it with them, that that will work rather than trying to get him to love what I love. Yeah, it's hard. I dunno. Ask-- don't ask me. Ask literature people, because I had to have it done to me. So I'm not even sure what happened. But it was like, I read that Dragonsbane , and I came back to my teacher, I'm like, "I can't believe people write books like that." And she's like, "There's a whole genre." *crowd laughs*
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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Do you find it harder to write from a male or female's point of view?
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It is harder to write-- The more different someone is from me, the more difficult they are to write. Gender is only one part of that, however, and so some characters who are very like me, but maybe-- maybe a woman, would be easier to write than someone who is very different from me but is a guy. But that's all kind of part of it. Early in my career, before I got published, I was actually really bad at this; but the main thing I learned from that era of my writing was that I was writing people to a role in the story. It wasn't that I was bad at writing women, it was that I was writing all women as the love interest. Which resulted in bad storytelling and flat characters. And if you start to be able to learn: treat each character they are the protagonist of their own story, treat each character like they see themselves, not as a bit part, but as the story themselves; and start to explore who they are rather than putting them in a role in the story, your characters will get better all around.
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Answer the following question the ebst you can about Brandon Sanderson's works and the Cosmere
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In Mistborn , why is it that an Allomancer either has just one metal, or is Mistborn and has all ? Why aren't there any that have just two, or three?
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Originally he had planned so that people would only have one metal, period. No Mistborns. And then as he went along with the writing he liked this idea, but he really wanted to make some more powerful Allomancers, which is why he created the Mistborn. He did say though that if you are playing the RPG, you are more than welcome to have an Allomancer that can burn two metals without Hemalurgy.
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