Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Interview with Brandon Sanderson - A Dribble of Ink (Verbatim)

Recently, you detailed all the different series and novels you have in the pipeline, including White Sand, The Liar of Partinel, The King's Necromancer, at least nine more volumes in The Stormlight Archive and Nightblood, a sequel to Warbreaker, just to name a few. How do you keep them all straight in your head? And, when one project is finished, how do you choose which one to work on next?

Choosing the next project is a balance between the promises I've made to readers and the best way to channel my creativity. I stay fresh by jumping between projects; it's the way I've (for better or worse) trained myself. And so I always have a lot of ideas, and there are a lot of things I've worked on.

One thing to keep in mind with me is that, because of the way I work, some of these things just don't end up turning out. They aren't good enough for publication, at least in their current state, so I shelve them. Imagine it like the B-sides of an album. The band may do a lot of playing, jamming, and recording—and then they pick the very best to present to their listeners.

In the case of the books mentioned above, Liar turned out poorly enough on the first go-around that it's shelved indefinitely. I'm not sure how I stand on The King's Necromancer yet, and White Sand is unlikely to be in good shape for many years. Scribbler (one you didn't mention) turned out great, and you'll probably see it in the near future.

As for sequels to books that are half-promised, we'll see. Something like Nightblood (where there is a potential sequel, but the story of the book was wrapped up and told strongly, I feel) is less urgent than something like the rest of the Stormlight Archive (which is a single story, told across many books.) In the case of Stormlight, I've made a stronger promise to readers, one I feel the need to fulfill.

Of course, the question you asked is how I keep them all straight. Lots of notes mixed with quirks of the way my brain works.

Scribbler has since been renamed, "The Rithmatist".

future books, brandon on writing, nightblood, white sand, liar of partinel, rithmatist, stormlight archive, king's necromancer,