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2012-04-30: I had the great pleasure of speaking with Harriet McDougal Rigney about her life. She's an amazing talent and person and it will take you less than an hour to agree.
2012-04-24: Some thoughts I had during JordanCon4 and the upcoming conclusion of "The Wheel of Time."
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Nov 6th, 2012
Verbatim
Salt Lake City, UT
The Emperor's Soul
Weller Book Works
Josh & Mi'ch
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How is Stormlight 2 going? It's going pretty well. This whole being trapped in a hotel during the storm thing was not actually as conducive as you might think. Cause I sat down and I worked on it for a bit but being away from home, being, you know, annoyed that I'm trapped in a hotel and things like that I actually ended up writing a short story I owed somebody instead, just to kind of further clear the plate.
I owe Charlaine Harris a story. Charlaine's a friend and she's been a dear to me and she keeps trying to get me into one of her anthologies. And I'm like "Charlaine, this isn't really my thing," but she keeps asking so I finally said yes to one of them because the concept sounds fun, it was called Games Dead People Play. So I wrote her a story for her Games Dead People Play anthology. So we'll see about that.
It was actually four thousand words; you can be impressed now. I don't write things very short very often, if you can't tell. My short stories are as long as the book you're holding in your hand usually. So that's how that tends to go. So four thousand words is really short for me; it's only like 20 pages or something, it's tiny. Anyway, Stormlight 2 is coming along well. Hopefully next Christmas-time is when it should be coming out. I'm supposed to be turning in a new title this week and a cover concept by the end of the month, so that Michael Whelan can paint one. So we will see if I'm able to keep these deadlines.
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Ah, Stephen Leeds. So this is the main character from Legion. Legion is- actually kind of got some cool stories behind it. Legion, you know, is one of these quirky ideas I came up with. And actually since it was mainstream and things I said, "Hey Dan," talking to Dan Wells, my friend, "You should write this story, let me tell you about it." And he was not nearly as excited about it as I was. I'm like, "Dan, you need to write this story, you need to write this story." And finally I realized, "Oh, I should write this story cause I came up with the idea, rather than telling Dan to. It's okay, Brandon. You can write something mainstream".
So, I kicked it around for a while. For me, I viewed it as being a television show, a pitch for a television show particularly. So I wrote a pitch on it, and I wrote that story to be kind of a pilot pitch. Which then sold the television rights on it, which was always kind of the goal for me was to get that because I view it as being a really awesome television show. So we sold the rights to Lionsgate and I went ahead and released the story that I wrote
I would like to do more things like that. I have so much on my plate, who knows? My little notebook that I carry around places where I expect to be bored, it has scribblings, you know, of maybe a quarter of another Stephen Leeds story. I ran into a hangup with some of the science and so I fired off a furious email to Peter, my assistant, and he was like, "I don't know". And usually that doesn't happen with Peter on the science, so maybe it is a real quandry. So, answer is, yes there should be more. Hopefully we can get the television show off the ground and that would be a lot of fun.
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Who was the first Feruchemist? I don't have their name written down. [Laughter] It's fairly ancient of date.
Were they born or were they created?
The first Feruchemist, were they born or created? Both. [Laughter] I don't see those two as mutually exclusive. See how good I am at dodging questions, now? I've been dealing with the Wheel of Time fans long enough. They've really whipped me into shape for dodging questions. Anything else? I promise not to dodge all of them
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I did not like how they were treated by the publisher. And this has got a lot of different arguments and reasons for it. I lost my editor after the first book and I didn't feel like the new editor really got the books. And the second cover was awful and the sales on the series after the first book were mediocre. Anyway I bought the books back from my publisher, from Scholastic.
They got a sell-off period and I actually found out that it isn't until January 1st that their sell-off period ends, or I guess December 31st. So as of January 1st, I own the rights again. The UK is releasing an omnibus edition of all four together. And then I will eventually write the fifth book, at some future date, maybe this year after I finish with Stormlight 2. I really got to keep my eye on Stormlight 2 for a while. So, the answer is, kind of- stuff might happen. I mean, we will probably will, at least, release ebooks of them in the early part of next year, so they can be found. And there's also the omnibus edition, which I told the UK they could sell over here if they wanted to, so you can order it and things like that.
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He is not in all of my shorter stories. In fact, he is not in any book that references Earth. So if there's a reference to Earth- most of my science fiction has referential stuff to Earth, Alcatraz is like this. He's not in anything like that. He's not in the Wheel of Time. It would not have been appropriate for me to seed something like that into a Wheel of Time book. So he's not in Steelheart or the other children works that I've done. But he is in all my epic fantasies.
Now my main question actually, which magic systems, if any, does he have access to?
That's an excellent question. He is familiar with very many of them, and lots that you haven't seen yet.
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Yeah, where did I get the inspiration for that? There's a couple of places, and I don't want to go off on this too long, if you go look on the Q&A database that these guys have on the 17th Shard you can find more.
But there were really two things that made me do it. First off is reading how Asimov did it and really being impressed with what he did and also noticing that he had to like do some patches in order to make everything work. Asimov connected his Robot series and his Foundations series after the fact many years later. It turned out really well; the two series, as it turns out, blend together in a really cool way but it felt to me it felt after the fact . And I wanted to do something from the get-go and say, "Well, if I've got something like this as a model." Stephen King did it also, but he did it after the fact. But I've got writers like this as a model to show how cool this can be, so my question to myself is, "How much cooler can it be if I do it from book one?" And you know, it's the sort of advantages you get as a writer by standing on the shoulders of authors like that, who have done these awesome things in the past. It allows us to kind of see what they did and say, "Okay, how can I expand on this? How can I do something new, rather than just doing what Asimov did?" And one of the approaches was to try it from book one.
And the other reasoning was that I like big epics but I also want to be writing a lot of stand-alones. And early in my career in particular, it was important for me to be writing stand-alones. And so the hidden epic behind the scenes allowed me to embed some of this depth of foreshadowing and connection in a way that would not be intimidating to readers because they could just read the story and enjoy the stand-alone. And then if it's something- if they're the type that really gets into this and really wants to dig deep, they can find the other level and be like, "Wow, there's an epic on here and Mistborn is a sequel to Elantris. I didn't know that," and things like that. Or they can be read completely independently and you never have to worry about that. So I like that versatility.
I will eventually write some stories connecting all of these things in a more obvious way, but I don't want it to come to the forefront of any series that that's not already the focus. For instance, I don't want Way of Kings to be about that, because I've already promised you what Way of Kings is about. And I don't want then to trick you into, "Oh, now it's this other thing." I have books planned that will be that, but they're a little ways off.
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Yes.
Okay, and second, Mistborn, the broadsheet hints that there's a continent or whatever on the other side of the Mistborn planet.
Yes.
Would that also be connected to Allomancy and Feruchemy and all that?
Yes, it will be.
So, I gave you a lot of answers. [laughter] To expand upon that, the magic systems for Elantris- the pitch to myself designing the world and magic system was this kind of procedural-based, almost programing-based magic. Where in Elantris, you use these characters to programout a sequence of events that tells the power flowing through what to do.
What Shai is doing in this book is she carves a little seal. And the seal is very much like a little program, and she stamps it on something and uses that stamp to rewrite the history of the object. As long as the seal is there, the object thinks it has this other history. The example you see in the book is you know- an old dirty table that's not been cared for, she can write a seal for its history, she has to figure out what its history was first. And she can write out a seal that basically reprograms that past, so when she stamps it, it thinks it's been cared for all along and suddenly it gains this lacquer, it's beautiful, it's been well-cared for, because in that fake Forgery of the history, that's what happened to it. And that's what her magic does, which is why she's been hired to Forge a copy of the emperor's soul.
[Ooooh] Yeah, I know I'm evil.
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Rithmatist and Steelheart? Both of these are coming out next year. The Rithmatist is the last book I wrote before being offered the Wheel of Time. It was the book I was working on and finishing. And it is a book about a boy who gets to go to a magic school, but he has no magical talents himself, he's the son of the cleaning lady so he gets free tuition. And so he gets to go to this high-class school and get this high-class education that also trains wizards but he can't do the magic, he just doesn't have the genetics for it. And it's a really fun book about a chalk-based magic where you basically play like a magical version of a tower defense game by drawing a circle around yourself in chalk and creating little beasties to go attack your opponent's chalk circle. The loser is the first one that gets their chalk circle breached. It's really fun and like I said, it's kind of a mashup between those two ideas; the idea of the Muggle at Hogwarts mixed with these chalk magics. So that's coming out next summer.
And sometime next fall or the following year is Steelheart, which is a book I've been working on for a long time that I also developed as a Hollywood pitch. And it's about a world where people start gaining superpowers, but only evil people get them. And a big apocalypse basically happens because they just start taking over. And it's about a young man whose father was killed by one of these creatures called Epics, evil superheroes basically. And he joins a team, or seeks to join a team, that all they do is hunt down Epics, figure out what their weakness is, and assassinate them. And he wants them to assassinate Steelheart, the Emperor of Chicago, cause he thinks he might know what Steelheart's weakness is. So it's one of these wacky things that pops out of my brain occasionally and so that'll be coming out sometime eventually then. So thank you for giving me that wonderful marketing opportunity.
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Yes, I did sell Mistborn movie rights.
How is that coming along?
I have had no major updates, I'm afraid. You know, I really like the script. They're pitching it in Hollywood. They're good guys, the producers are. The script is really awesome and is pretty faithful. It's adapted in the ways that adaptations need to happen. Like it's really cool, like the beginning they did this thing where they said, "You know, we really need to focus the movie on Vin, so the opening needs to be on Vin instead of Kelsier." Which is a really good move for a movie like that that's got such a shorter length of time. So, you know, they start with Vin and Reen, actually. And you know, Vin being part of a heist that goes wrong, with her brother, and things like this. And you know, there's changes like that that thematically, you know, are the same concept as the book but then work really much better in the only two hour block that you have. Then Kelsier is a mysterious figure who invites her in and recruits her into the team, which works much better in that format. So there's changes like that.
There's this really cool prologue where they start the prologue with the march up the mountain toward the Well of Ascension, a thousand years ago and an interaction there that changes into a stained glass window and then you see stained glass windows of the interim periods until you hit the Final Empire. So there's some really awesome stuff.
So, we'll see if this actually ends up working or not. Again, if your father is the owner of Warner Brothers, go and put in a good word for me. We're kind of long shots because all we are is an author and several producers who have no major credits to their name. And I sold it to them specifically because- you know, I sold Alcatraz to Dreamworks for a lot of money and then I just had to like say goodbye to the project and I like what they did with it but it was basically they took the project. And I, for Mistborn, wanted to have more control which also means my chances of actually getting it made go down quite dramatically. Ask Orson Scott Card how long it took to get made Ender's Game made and you will see the same sort of thing, but then he's getting it made his way, eventually. So that's what I'd like to do with Mistborn if I have that option.
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After them.
Like how long after?
I haven't answered that yet.
[Laughter]
A lot of people keep asking. But after them, but not so far after them that the technology level has shifted, which I allow, in my worlds, to happen. And also not so far after that the Emperor's Soul- if you keep your eyes open you will see a Derethi priest in full armor. And so, not so far after that the kingdoms we are familiar with no longer exist. They do exist and the tech level has not shifted dramatically so you can use that to kind of ballpark for yourself, a range. It's certainly not thousands of years later, in other words.
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No, I don't mind at all.
The group that I'm a part of on Facebook has a list going of things we want to ask you.
Ooooh, okay!
So I'm trying to ask one that's not gonna get a Read And Find Out.
Okay.
Do the women in Randland shave?
[Laughter] Wow, I've never been asked that. Oh wow, I don't know. I honestly don't know.
It's been bothering me since I started the series.
Wow. That's an excellent question. Ask Maria, she might actually know. That's the sort of thing that's probably buried in the notes somewhere. You can ask another one since I didn't know. You can go down a few and if I have to RAFO, then I will but is there another one you can ask that might get an answer?
Maybe, you're going to have to forgive me if I mispronounce...
That's all right.
What did Moridin mean by the Fisher King being a dim remnant of a memory of Rand al'Thor?
There are lots of ways to interpret that I will give you one interpretation. And that is that it is a memory from the last time that Rand al'Thor did what he did. And that those stories were passed on and passed on and so now he is following legends about himself. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
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Right, that’s one of the most contentious name decisions that I’ve chosen. Before I tell you the answer, I will preface it by saying I don’t say the names right, in a lot of times. For instance I say “E-lawn-tris” like everyone else, but in world they say “Elayn-tris” because of the system of language that’s been built. I say “Kel-seer” and they say “Kel-see-ay,” in-world. And so I’m American and I use my pronunciations I say “Say-zed”.
However, that may not be the way they actually say it. And beyond that, every reader of a book has the ability to rewrite the book as they wish. A book doesn’t exist until you’ve read it. I write a script, I write- I get you hopefully seventy five percent of the way there but the last twenty-five percent is you, it’s participatory. And as you write, you create the images of them in your own imagination and that becomes the right interpretation for you. And you have line [inaudible] veto.
When I read Anne McCaffrey’s books the dragons are these unpronounceable things in my head that I could never actually because it’s just something a dragon can say. And it has very little relationship to the letters that are there on the page. I have a friend, who when he reads the Wheel of Time- the first time when Thom Merrilin shows up in the books, on screen, it says he has these big drooping moustaches. My friend said, “No he doesn’t.” And he cannot imagine Thom Merrilin with a moustache. To me, the moustache is an integral part of who Thom Merrilin is. It’s like him, he’s the moustached guy! Well, theres a couple other moustached guys but Thom’s the first moustached guy in the Wheel of Time! And so, you have the right to say it however you want.
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They do, good guess! Excellent question.
Do they eat?
Do they eat? Yes.
So, they eat like grains and stuff like that?
You will find out, but they do eat.
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When you were talking about the Rithmatist, you said that he wasn’t genetically capable of doing magic and I was wondering if you actually had like a genetic system for how...
Yeah, this one actually isn’t genetic. I said genetic, but it’s not. But I don’t want to give away what it is that makes someone use the magic in that world. I did actually develop a genetic magic system that was very interesting that is in a book that didn’t get published.
Is it going to get published?
Probably not, but I might recycle the magic eventually.
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Do you have any advice for approaching agents?
Have you listened to my podcast or watched my-?
I’m familiar with it, Writing Excuses?
We have a couple agents on, you can go look for those agent podcasts and we interview them about what should new authors do, that can be helpful. I have an entire university lecture on agents at writeaboutdragons, and it’s like an hour of me talking about approaching agents and what they do and things like that. The only piece I can give you right now is try and find a way that you can make a personal connection with them. Try and go to a con that they’re at, follow their blog, read books by their authors, have some sort of personal connection so you can know who they are rather than just submitting blind.
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In the prologue it sounds like Lews Therin balefires himself, and then is reborn as Rand al’Thor.
He does not balefire himself, so I can answer that. He does not.
So it’s just something that sounds a lot like balefire?
Yes- well there’s various interpretations of what happens there. He um- yeah there’s various interpretations of what actually killed him. If you go look and read closely, what actually killed him may be- could be subject to some debate.
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I would like to know how you met Patrick Rothfuss, how did you guys become friends?
The first time we met was actually on the forums for a webcomic.
Which webcomic?
Penny Arcade. Because I occasionally go to- Penny Arcade had a writing forum and I would occasionally go to the writing forums. I wouldn’t hang out on most other forums, but any place that had an active writing forum I hung out on, I like to chat with people about writing and things like that. And Pat got on and gave somebody feedback. Somebody else trashed him for his feedback. And I wrote back to Pat and said, “Don’t listen to him, your feedback was awesome and also if you’re who I think you are, your book’s really good.” And that was back when it was only out in hardcover, he didn’t take off until his book came out in paperback. That’s when he got really popular. So, it was before he was popular. But he’d made waves already in the publishing community. And so he wrote back and said, “Wow, who are you?” And we just started chatting and then we started hanging out at cons after that.
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The question is, can you read it (the Alethi alphabet)?
I can’t read it, Isaac can.
Isaac can’t read it.
Can’t he?
No.
He came up with it!
I told you where it came from, the writing system, right? That I told Isaac, “I want it to look like waveforms,” and he developed it to look like waveforms on the little thing when you speak voice- and things like that, and that was my goal for the [writing] system was something that was a line with waveforms across it. And he developed it then.
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I do not have permission or inclination. Mostly because I don’t think that Robert Jordan would have wanted it to continue. If Harriet decides she wants to do more I would probably say yes, if she asked me, to the prequels, because we at least know he wanted to do those. But my instinct says we should just let it be done.
We might see them as video games. I really would love to see them done as videogames. Because that’s not canon, but you can still experience the story. Anyway, something like that.
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Shardplate, does it have to be fitted by a smith or does it just kind of magically...?
It magically fits to you.
I’d like to see it fit to someone three foot tall.
If it’s within reason, it can fit.
But they do weld stuff to it to it?
They weld stuff to it to ornament it.
But that doesn’t really stick?
It won’t stay, it can get cut off and things like that. Yeah, and they paint them and things.
So the actual color is gray, right?
Dalinar’s color is the actual color.
He doesn’t have it painted, yeah. It’s kind of stone, right?
It’s not really stone, it’s more like a deep metallic, like an unbuffed steel sort of metallic. A dark charcoal metallic.
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I think I remember hearing you say before that Mistborn was going to be three trilogies?
It'll be three trilogies, yes.
With the technology advancing and going faster than light...?
Yes, the FTL is built into the magic systems and so there will be something where they figure out how to do that with the magic and spaceships will be propelled using that.
Okay, awesome, just wanted to double check that.
Expanding bubbles around the engines and around the ships?
You will see, you will see.
Someone on the site actually has-
Actually figured it out?
Has a very convincing theory.
They're missing a very big important piece of the puzzle that you won't get for a few more books.
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