Search the most comprehensive database of interviews and book signings from Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson and the rest of Team Jordan.
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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Depends on how much metal Vin has, how many Breaths Vasher has, and if Lan can get the jump on them. Probably Vin, though Rand would blow her out of the water.
P.S. Vin would lure Rand to Far Madding and take him down.
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New Annotations!
WELL OF ASCENSION: Chapter Twenty
WELL OF ASCENSION: Chapter Twenty-One
So, I'm not sure I GET social networking websites. I have a Myspace, and I started updating it and keeping my blog, but eventually the number of spam add requests I got—mixed with how frustrating it was to log in all the time and deal with all of those in-your-face-ads—was too annoying for me. The page has languished without being touched in months and months.
LiveJournal I get, and I rather like. It's a place for people to host blogs, and all of their friend tools make it really easy to read what is happening in people's lives. I think they have a great product, and they make it very easy to post remotely—which I do.
Facebook . . . I don't know what to make of Facebook. I like that I'm not blasted with advertisements, and the friend requests have all been legitimate. They allow me to remotely post my blog there by giving me tools that mirror my LJ. All in all, it seems a good product. The problem, then, is that I'm not sure I GET Facebook. (Like I said above.)
Do people go there to read blogs? Does anyone actually see my blog posts there? They come as imported notes. Facebook fans, help me out. How can I make certain that when a blog post of mine is imported, a message appears on the home page of those who have friended me. Also, how can I indicate on my profile that the main way I update my Facebook is through those imported notes? I've had a lot of friend request lately, and I'd like people to know what's up with stuff.
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(For you trivia buffs, the longest book I've ever written was 306k long. It was The Way of Kings, which was the book I wrote right before Mistborn. The first draft of Well of Ascension was second, topping out at 258k in first draft form, though we cut it to about 245k before it went to press. So yes, A Memory of Light is going to be the longest book I've ever worked on. Though, since Mr. Jordan left large chunks of writing for the book—including much of the beginning and ending—I don't know that this will technically be the longest book I've written, assuming you count only words I myself wrote.)
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First, I'll be teaching at BYU's Writers for Young Readers conference this summer. They suggested I post a link, and I thought it would be a good idea. I think my session is filled up, but there might be other authors you can work with. Conferences like this one are expensive, but can really give you a leg up if you're wanting to break into publishing.
Secondly, Amazon has put up the cover art for Mistborn 3, which is nifty. It's still odd that the promotional Mistborn 1 and Mistborn 2 paperbacks still have no cover art posted, but whatever.
Finally, here is an amusing Librarian reaction to Alcatraz. If you haven't read the book, then you might want to know that this is tongue in cheek. All part of the joke. Which reminds me, I really need to get around to posting some of the Alcatraz concept art I commissioned from the talented Shawn Boyles. I keep intending to use these things on EvilLibrarians.com, which I own, but I never can find the time. Here's one he did of Alcatraz. alcatraz_color
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And, since this is an email-related blog post, let me actually do a reader mail.
Steve from Sacramento writes,
Hi Brandon,
Besides being an avid reader (and fan of your writing), I'm also a computer gamer . . . I think your Mistborn world would make an excellent setting for a game. I'd love to play a game with allomantic and feruchemical powers. Is this something you've considered pursuing?
Thanks for the question, Steve! I'm a gamer myself—a big fan of RPGs and FPSs. (And I've put off playing Halo Three, which I really want to play, until I get A Memory of Light written. It's been kind of hard.)
I HAVE considered doing a Mistborn game. In fact, I was in talks with a company at one point to licence the game to them. I even wrote up a proposal for the game. (I imagined it being a nice hybrid between an RPG and a platformer, perhaps something along the lines of the metroid/castlevania vein with a physics engine. Or, for something more big budget, I'd love to see a Morrowind style Mistborn RPG.)
That deal fell through, however, and I don't blame the company for going another direction. Still, I'm openly pursing this option. If any of you out there work for a video game company and might be interested in a Mistborn game, feel free to fire me off an email! I'll respond faster than six weeks on something like that. ;)
And while it's something kind of different, we've still got the Mistborn Pen and Paper RPG coming out, which has me VERY excited. If I had to chose between a video game and a pen and paper like this, I'd go with the pen and paper first. I think it offers a more complete and immersive experience, and the chance to work with Crafty has me psyched.
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First off, I've posted a new Well of Ascension annotation: Chapter Forty-Four
Secondly, there's another website that is sponsoring a giveaway of my books, this one by the FantasyBookCritic blog. They're giving away an entire Mistborn trilogy set.
Thirdly, we've sold about 75 of the 100 copies of Mistborn Two I have up for sale. These probably won't last another week, so hurry up if you want one.
Fourthly, I received a nice email from some folks who have started up a Mistborn Fansite—the first one I know of. It's call Mistborn Empire. Thanks, guys! You flatter me.
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First off, here are two new Mistborn: The Well of Ascension Annotations
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
These are two of the most dynamic chapters in the book, so I'm glad to finally have annotations for them. Sorry to take so long.
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What else is there to talk about . . . oh, the Poster Contest. My business manager (aka my lovely wife) should soon be sending out confirmation emails to those who have entered. I'll continue on more slowly through my inbox to give you personal responses, in case you included other questions or comments. And if you haven't entered the contest yet, you've still got plenty of time. I have to say, these Mistborn Two posters look quite stunning. A lot of people think that it has the best cover in the hardcover trilogy.
Now, don't forget the release party for Mistborn Three on the 14th of October! I will be posting more news on that soon, including an explanation on how those of you who live out of state can get a signed/numbered copy mailed to you.
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Mistborn Two: New Annotation Chapter Forty Eight
Warbreaker: Copyedit is done and turned in. I actually got this done earlier in the week, but was bouncing around too much doing other things to get the percentage bar updated.
Mistborn Three: Finding the book is still spotty, since the bestseller list spiked another round of sales. Right now, my agent says that Borders stores are slightly more likely to have copies than B&N. However, the best place to find copies are places that I've visited recently on my tour. I think Sam Weller's may even have a few numbered copies left, though those may be gone by now. (Call them first, I'd suggest, to see if there are any still there.)
Note that I'll be signing in San Diego this evening, and Mysterious Galaxy is well known for its willingness to get books to people. (They have a webstore which sells signed first editions across the world.) I'll bet if you call them today before 2pm Pacific, they'd be willing to get you a copy personalized and then ship it to you. Heck, if you call between 2 and 4, I'll bet that Dave and I are there signing still and you can tell me personally what you want me to write in your book.
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
Suite #302
San Diego, CA 92111
Tel: 858.268.4747
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I've already gotten some emails from people who have seen the book [Mistborn: The Hero of Ages] on bookstore shelves! (Bookstores aren't always that good at paying attention to when a book is supposed to be out, and will often put it on shelves when it arrives. That's just fine; I can't imagine how difficult it would be to keep track of when each and every book's specific on-sale date is.) From today on, all sales count toward the 'first week' sales of the novel, so if you can find a copy early, go for it! (The 'first week' ends on Saturday. So there's only officially five days in the release week to pick up a copy.)
I just sent out an email announcement to anyone who's emailed me through my website, so you might be getting one of those soon in your inbox. ;) In case you don't get one, the text is simple. Book Three is out on Tuesday! (Though the email is a lot more long winded.)
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Anyway, for you Wheel of Time readers waiting for me to turn full attention back to A Memory of Light, this copyedit is the last big thing that I had on my plate. I still have to do an Alcatraz 3 copyedit in February or so, but it will be very short. I'm polishing off the last few bits of the Warbreaker copy edit now. The only question now—and it IS a big question—is how much I'll be able to work on A Memory of Light during book tour. I'm hoping to get back to 10k a week by writing in the car during Dave's turns driving or during points when I'm in the hotel waiting for a signing later in the night. We shall see! I'm going to give it my best shot.
As always, folks, thanks for reading! And please consider picking up a copy of Hero of Ages this week. ;)
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I did know it was going to be a series. When I was writing Mistborn, it came because—well, I had sold Elantris, and my editor came to me and said, "What do you want to do next? Do you want to do an Elantris sequel?" And I said, well, I really like Elantris being a stand-alone. But I had this unique opportunity where the next book didn't have to be in for about two years. Sold Elantris in 2003; it was coming out in 2005. That meant my next book had to be turned in in 2005. Two years' time, I thought if I write really hard, I can finish an entire trilogy before the first one has to be turned in, which would let me write a whole series, and have it all work together and be internally consistent and all of these things. And so I did know it was a series from the beginning.
The ideas are varied, they came from all over the place. One of the ideas was the desire to tell a story about a world where the dark lord had won. I love the classic fantasy stories, but I think that it's been done really well, and doesn't need to be done any more. I think Robert Jordan nailed it. I think, even if you look—you've got Tad Williams, you've got Raymond Feist, you've got David Eddings, you've got Terry Brooks—all doing this hero's archetype journey. It's been done, it's been covered, what else can I do? And so, the story where the hero went on a quest, and then failed and the dark lord took over, that was a fascinating idea.
Another idea was my love of the heist genre, where you get a gang of specialists who each have a different power. I had never seen a fantasy book do that in the way I wanted to. There are some that do it, and do it well. But you know, where everyone had a different magic system, every person a different magic power, got together and did something. One of my favorite movies is the movie Sneakers—something like that, but with magic.
And those two ideas rammed together with an idea for a magic system that I'd been working on, and an idea for a character I'm working on, Vin's character. Those were all developed independently. All started to ram together. I explained, ideas are sometimes like atoms and when they ram into each other, you get a chemical reaction and they form molecules. Cool different things happen when ideas ram into each other, and that's where those came from.
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I'll be doing a signing tonight at 7:30 at the Barnes and Noble at the Jordan Commons (EDIT: I mean JORDAN LANDING There's no bookstore at the Commons) in West Jordan Utah. If you live in the area, drop by! I'll happily sign books and chat.
Also, it looks like Mistborn book one is finally up on audible. You should be able to find the audio edition other locations as well. Huzzah! Now just one more to go and the entire trilogy will be on audio.
Here are two pieces of fanart from readers. The second one being the scene that I mentioned in annotations I'd like to see. We really need to get my fanart section up and running. I'll go poke Sprig (aka Jordo, aka my webmaster) on that one.
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Some of you have noticed that Mistborn jewelry is for sale in my store. I'd suggest waiting for a few days before picking up any pieces, however, as we're checking with Badali on some items. I haven't finished writing copy for these either, so there aren't any descriptions, just pictures and prices. (And some of those prices may go down, specifically some of the shipping prices.) I'll start doing write-ups soon.
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I'm afraid I don't know when the Mistborn 2 audiobook will be out. A lot of people have been emailing me about this. I'd guess April (judging by the space between the book three release and the book one release.)
I did want to give another mention to the Hugo Awards. I believe this is the last week for nominations, so if you have the inclination and are eligible (I.E. you went to Worldcon last year or have a membership to go this year) keep me in mind for Hero of Ages.
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If you didn't see the Mistborn Two deleted scenes, you might find them curious. Go drop by my forums to discuss.
And, in parting, random comic strip.
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First off, a very talented a reader and graphic designer just whipped up an awesome Mistborn wallpaper for any who are interested.
I love how it looks. Thanks so much, John! That is very well done.
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Now, how about some Reader Mail:
I read your post about splitting A Memory of Light and thought your reasoning was very sound. It seems obvious that you care very much about putting out something of quality. I'm concerned though, that you won't end up changing what you write based on reader's reactions to the first book. How do you make sure the book/volumes you end up writing at 800k a year or so from now isn't different from the book you would have written if you had just done the whole thing in one big chunk?
Excellent question. The answer is simple, yet may not be very satisfying. Honestly, I don't know if the book will turn out differently.
It's rarely fruitful to second-guess decisions based on what might happen in the future. Every novel I read, every review that comes out, every day spent pondering . . . these things all influence my writing. Each day we make hundreds of decisions that nudge us in this direction or that. Scenes are influenced directly by events that occur in my life.
Would Mistborn Three have been a different book if I hadn't stopped and written something else between it and Mistborn Two? Probably. Would it have been better or worse? I don't know. Will A Memory of Light Three be different because A Memory of Light One will be released before it comes out? Perhaps. Will it be better or worse? I don't know.
I can say this. The second chunk should be done before the first comes out. And the third chunk saw a lot of work by Mr. Jordan before he passed away. So the structure isn't going to change, regardless. An author also has to learn not to let reviews or reader reactions influence him/her TOO much. Writing is a very solitary art, and the writer learns to trust their instincts. One of the early lessons to learn in writing is that feedback is good, but must be held at arm's length.
If anything, knowing that there is one part out for readers to enjoy will take some of the pressure off of me and, hopefully, allow me to work more smoothly on the next two sections. Thanks for the question!
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And, in all the fervor, I forgot to mention that Mistborn: The Hero of Ages is coming out in paperback at the end of this month. I thought the date was May, but it looks like Amazon has it for April 28th. They've been known to be wrong before—rather frequently, actually—but I have no reason to doubt this number. So look for it in stores then.
Actually, we look like we're finally getting the support in B&N for my books. Their orders on Warbreaker are very large . . . intimidatingly so. As I've mentioned before, I'm paranoid about this book. Stand alone novels, no matter how good, have a larger chance of getting orphaned in the fantasy genre. Beyond that, we have yet to see what kind of impact giving the book away for free will have on the sales numbers. Anyway, it's coming early June. I'll be doing a release party and numbered copies, like on Hero of Ages. In fact, I think I've got the process far more streamlined, so there will be far less waiting in line this year. We're also hoping Sam Weller's will be able to do the mail-order numbered copies like they did before.
I'll have more news on this in the coming weeks, once I have a chance to take a few deep breaths after getting A Memory of Light One turned in for good.
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Well, it honestly depends on the book. It's not just a matter of length, it's also a matter of complexity. The more viewpoints I'm trying to balance, and the deeper the setting, the longer the book will take. Also, it depends on what you call 'writing' a book—do you include all drafts, or just the rough? What about the planning? Here are a few estimates based on some of my books, drafting and planning time included.
Alcatraz Vs. The Evil Librarians (50k words, one viewpoint.) 2-3 months.
Elantris (200k words, three main viewpoints.) 6-8 months.
Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (250k words, 5 main viewpoints.) 8-10 months.
The Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm (300k words. 21 viewpoints. Chunks outlined and written by Mr. Jordan already.) 16 months, pulling extra hours.
So . . . imagine if I HADN'T had outlines and materials left by Mr. Jordan. It would probably have taken around 2 years to write a book that length. (Which, actually, was about how long it took Mr. Jordan to write a lot of his books.)
Every author is different, however. Some write in bursts, some write slow and steady, a little each day. It's hard to judge exactly how long it will take you to write a book. There's no 'right' way to do it.
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A few quick items. Hero of Ages has won the Romantic Times editor's choice award. Huzzah! I wasn't certain if I could announce this, but it looks like the magazine has shipped, so I think I can say it now. I'm deeply honored. The Romantic Times has done a very good job reaching across genre lines and honoring books they think deserve praise, regardless of their genre.
In similar news, I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but Hero has also been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award. This is an honor for two reasons—first, because Mr. Gemmell himself was such a fantastic author. But also because this is a reader-voted award, which means that you all took the time to stop by and give me a nominating vote. That means a lot to me. Thank you so much! I believe that the final winner is also chosen by a vote from readers, so if you feel so inclined, you can vote for Hero to win. You don't even have to register to do so.
Finally, I have a small stock of copies of the Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians hardcover on hand, and that is getting hard to find in stores, so I thought I'd offer them for sale and personalization. I'll probably do another post on this later, going more in-depth, but if you haven't tried Alcatraz, this would be the perfect chance.
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PROJECT SIX: WARBREAKER, ELANTRIS, MISTBORN SEQUELS
Maybe someday. Time isn't right for any of them, I'm afraid. You'll see some of them in the future, though, and will probably get some Mistborn short stories sometime this year.
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I love epic fantasy, but I’m of the generation who grew up reading Robert Jordan and Tad Williams and are now trying to say, what else can we do with the genre? I want to write books that feel like the great epic fantasies of the past that you’ve read, but don’t use the same, familiar stories. In Mistborn, for example, the idea was to turn the standard fantasy story on its head–what if the prophesied hero failed and the Dark Lord took over and has ruled the known world for the last thousand years? My books are also known for their spectacular, interesting magic systems that are very rule based and almost a science unto themselves. But of course none of that matters without characters whose motivations you can understand and who you can care about as a reader. In Elantris I have three very different main viewpoint characters, and readers are fairly evenly divided on who’s their favorite–in writing as in anything else, it’s impossible to please everyone all the time, but I’m happy that my books have shown so many different people a character they can relate to and root for.
Between writing Mistborn 2 and Mistborn 3, I wanted to try something new, and my series of humorous middle-grade novels beginning with Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians was the result. I love epic fantasy, and don’t intend to ever stop writing it. However, sometimes we all need a diversion toward something more lighthearted. If you want to get a taste of what my writing is like, because Alcatraz is so different from my other books I recommend that unless you’re between the ages of ten and thirteen you start with the first Mistborn book—or Elantris or Warbreaker. Mistborn is a good entry point for people who like trilogies and series (and the writing is better in Mistborn than in Elantris; I can see how much I have improved over the years). The other two are good entry points for people who prefer standalones–and Warbreaker is available for free on my website (as well as coming out in hardcover in North America from Tor next month), so it may be the most convenient starting point of all.
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Yeah, there's spirituality, but not religion.
And how did you, as a writer that usually writes in that, you know… How did that make a difference for you? How did you have to approach it; did you have to make changes in the way that you write because of that?
You know, that's not one specific thing that I felt I had to change a lot about. The truth is, for any given fantasy work you're working on, there are certain things that draw a lot of your attention, that you focus on, and certain things you don't. When I wrote my kids' series, there's no religion in those. That just wasn't important for the world-building and the setting for those books. And I've written other books where religion is very important. Religion fascinates me. I'm a religious person. And because of that, I feel that the misuse of religion can be one of the greatest evils in the world. And so, you see me delving into that sort of thing and just the different approaches on religion. You know, I love to deal with different types of religion and all that sort of stuff. But I think Robert Jordan's approach is very interesting. And I've always liked his approach to it. Like I said, there's a spirituality without a religion. And...the Wheel of Time, that's not an area that's focused on a lot. And so, it was a very easy transition for me. Different books, you spend your efforts on in different places.
On Elantris, I spent a long time on the languages. On Mistborn, I didn't. Because in Mistborn, it wasn't... The world just didn't revolve around the way that languages work. We had an all-oppressive dictator God King who had forced everyone to kind of adopt the same language. Beyond that, the books were taking place at the center capital of the world where everyone spoke the same language. So there weren't even... You know, there were little dialects here and there, but I didn't focus on language there. Whereas I did in Elantris. The same thing with different books, so...
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Thank you! During the early days of my career—before I got published—I found myself naturally creating a new magic system for each book I wrote. I'm not sure why I did this. I just found the process too involving, too interesting, to stop.
For Mistborn, I came to the book wanting several things. I wanted a great magic system that would enhance the graceful, martial-arts style fights. This was going to be a series of sneaking thieves, assassins, and night-time exploration. And so I developed the powers with a focus on that idea. What would make the thieving crew better at what they did? I based each power around an archetype of a thieving crew. The Thug, the Sneak, the Fast-talker, etc.
At the same time, I wanted to enhance the 'industrial revolution' feel of the novels through the magic system. I wanted something that felt like an industrial-age science, something that was a good hybrid of science and magic. I found myself drawn to Alchemy and its use of metals, then extrapolated from that to a way to release power locked inside of metal. Metabolism grew out of that. It felt natural. We metabolize food for energy; letting Allomancers metabolize metal had just the right blend of science and magic.
For Warbreaker, I was looking back a little further, shooting for a more Renaissance-era feel. And so, I extrapolated from the early beliefs that similarities created bonds. In other words, you could affect an object (in this case, bring an object to life) by creating a bond between it and yourself, letting it take on a semblance of your own life.
Moving beyond that was the idea of color as life. When a person dies, their color drains from them. The same happens when plants die. Vibrant color is a sign of life itself, and so I worked with this metaphor and the concept of Breath as life to develop the magic. In this case, I wanted magical powers that would work better 'in' society, meaning things that would enhance regular daily lives. Magical servants and soldiers, animated through arcane powers, worked better for this world than something more strictly fighting-based, like in Mistborn.
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To further the above question by Nadine: How did you ever keep the unique power systems all straight and use them so well for your readers to understand?
The powers, to me, were just so fascinating, well developed, and unique on so many levels! I think with a lesser artist than yourself the powers might have been too much to take in, but I found them quite easy to follow and understand. Just amazing! You seriously are one of my favorite authors. I'll be in line for all of your books!
Thanks! It took a lot of practice. Keeping them straight for myself isn't so difficult—it's like keeping characters straight. The more I've written, the easier it's become.
What is more difficult is keeping it all straight for the readers. This can be tough. One of the challenges with fantasy is what we call the Learning Curve. It can be very daunting to pick up a book and find not only new characters, but an entirely new world, new physics, and a lot of new words and names.
I generally try to introduce this all at a gentle curve. In some books, like Warbreaker, starting with the magic system worked. But in Mistborn, I felt that it was complex enough—and the setting complex enough—that I needed to ease into the magic, and so I did it bit by bit, with Vin.
In all things, practice makes perfect. I have a whole pile of unpublished novels where I didn't do nearly as good a job of this. Even still, I think I have much to learn. In the end of Mistborn One and Warbreaker both I think I leave a little too much confusion about the capabilities of the magic.
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I did leave it open. But that's partially because I feel that part of any good book is the indication that the characters continue to live, the world continues to turn. I want readers to be free to imagine futures for the characters and more stories in the world.
For Mistborn, I'm not planning—right now—to do any Spook books. I do have plans to do another trilogy set in the world, though it would take place hundreds of years later, once technology has caught up to what it should be. Essentially, think guns, cars, skyscrapers—and Allomancers.
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The man who died before Vin took over was named Leras. (I've occasionally written it as Laras. I've said the names in my head for years, but I'm only now writing them down as people ask me on forums.) Leras, like Ati (aka Ruin), were NOT Adonalsium. (Sorry about the typo on that one in Mistborn 3. I wrote it down on the manuscript, and it didn't get put in quite right. We'll get it fixed.)
Adonalsium was something or someone else. You will find out more. There are clues in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings.
Well, here's the thing. What Sazed is right now is something of a god in the classic Greek sense—a superpowered human being, elevated to a new stage of existence. Not GOD of all time and space. In a like manner, there are things that Sazed does not have power over. For instance, he couldn't bring Vin and Elend back.
Where Tindwyl exists is beyond space and time, in a place Sazed hasn't learned to touch yet. He might yet. If you want to add in your heads him working through that, feel free. But as it stands at the end of the book, he isn't yet with Tindwyl. (He is, however, with Kelsier—who refused to "Go toward the light" so to speak, and has been hanging around making trouble ever since he died. You can find hints of him in Mistborn 3 at the right moments.
Well, what was going on here was a clue established and set by Leras before he died. He wanted something to indicate—should he be unable to inform mankind—that what was happening wasn't natural, but instead something intentional. He worried that men wouldn't be able to realize they were being made into Allomancers.
And so, the mist was set to do something very specific, as has to do with the interaction between the human soul, Allomancy, and the sixteen metals.
Each of the 'Shardworlds' I've written in (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, Way of Kings) exists with the same cosmology. All things exist on three realms—the spiritual, the cognitive, and the physical. What's going on here is an interaction between the three realms. I don't want to bore you with my made up philosophy, but I do have a cohesive metaphysical reasoning for how my worlds and magic works. And there is a single plane of existence—called Shadesmar, the Cognative Realm—which connects them all.
You will never need to know any of this to read and enjoy my books, but there is an overarching story behind all of them, going on in the background. Adonalsium, Hoid, the origin of Ati, Leras, the Dor, and the Voice (from Warbreaker) are all tied up in this.
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Paul recently wrote an article about loving maps in stories and it inspired these questions from me.
How do you come up with and create the maps for your novels? Is it a process of thought while creating the story itself or does it come later once you've written the story as a means to depict the places you've written about? Also do you scetch them yourself before having them drawn or is the process usually entirely done by a separate artist?
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Hey, all, there are several things I want to talk about, so I'm just going to attack them in order. (And if you work at Adobe, or know someone who does, make sure you read the last thing on my list.)
I doubt you need a reminder, but the launch of Warbreaker is only about a week away! Barnes and Noble has kindly decided to put it into one of their big summer promotions, and has ordered a LOT of copies. This is fantastic, since—if you've been reading the blog for a few years—you know that we've consistently had troubles with distribution at Barnes and Noble. Well, they've thrown themselves behind this book a great deal. Finally. So, of course, my natural panic rises that now we won't sell any copies, will prove them right for not supporting the Mistborn books to the extent we wanted, and go back to the old model of never having enough copies out. (Sigh. Sorry, it's hard to not worry about these things.)
Anyway, if you want a numbered/personalized edition, I'm happy to comply—so long as supplies last. But know that if you want to buy the book at your local B&N, Borders, or independent bookseller, I'm going to be touring a great deal over the next two years—so the chances are good I'll be able to get that copy of yours signed.
There WILL be audio editions; I suspect they'll be out a few weeks after the hardcover. There WILL be an official ebook edition to buy, if you want one—and in order to sweeten that deal, we're probably going to be selling the ebook directly through Tor.com with ALL of the annotations included months, even years, before I get them posted on my website. There should be a special deal of some sort for those who bought the hardcover to get the ebook (with annotations) for a fraction of the regular price, but I'm not sure what it will be. You might have to order both through Tor.com, or maybe there will be a rebate. So if you're thinking of getting both editions to grab the annotations and bonus content, then save your receipt on the hardcover just in case. No promises, but maybe there will be something Tor does to promote.
The edition in stores does have new scenes that aren't in the edition posted to my website. I will eventually post the pdf to my website of the final edition, though I'm not sure when I'll do that, as I don't want to undercut all of the special effort Tor.com has put into coming up with really nice ebook edition with bonus content. We'll see.
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The folks over at Garden Ninja studio wrote to let me know that a BSCreview.com is doing a contest where they're giving away some minis. This week, it's a contest for a set of Goblin Quest minis (from the book series.) They'll have Mistborn minis for give away next week, but I thought you might want to head over this week to get in on the Goblin Quest ones as well.
Also, a kindly reader sent me some fanart of Vin. Thought you guys might like to see it.
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Now, the big news. At about 6:00 am this morning, I finished The Way of Kings rewrite. It ended up at 380k words, which is almost double the length of Mistborn [The Final Empire]. (It's almost as long as The Shadow Rising, by Robert Jordan.) Now, before you get TOO excited about that size, know that I tend to write too much on a first draft intentionally, and now plan to trim it down by at least 10%. The final book should be between 300k and 350k. Either way, though, it's going to be a meaty book. (Not long for long's sake, mind you. That's just what it took to tell the story the right way.)
How did it turn out? Well, to be honest, it's FANTASTIC. This is a monstrous, beastly, awesome epic of a book. And so I'm going to give Tor the official thumbs up so they can put it on the schedule for release next year. The series title, if you haven't heard, is going to be called THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE.
The book does everything I wanted it to, and then some. It was a lot more work to revise it than I'd anticipated. I essentially ended up writing the thing all over again, not keeping any of what had been written before. But knowing the characters already helped a great deal. (And if you guys ever see my wife at a convention, make sure to give her a thanks and a hug for deal with a husband who has been essentially working two full time jobs for much of this year—one on Kings, one on THE WHEEL OF TIME.)
Like any time I finish a book, there's still that itching, authorial paranoia that nobody is going to like what I've done. I have chosen a career path where, instead of releasing all of my books in one series, I jump around. I've done this partially because I want the freedom to reinvent myself. Some of my favorite authors growing up seemed unable to give new life to a series when they started it, and ended up repeating the very same story and tone over and over. I wanted to train myself to be doing new things, and wanted the freedom to write different books in different ways.
I know I'm not as wildly different in my variation as some other authors, but at the same time, there's a different feel to each book/series I've done. Hopefully, all will have great characters, a fun setting, and a compelling plot. But there will always be those who prefer Elantris's thoughtful contemplativeness to Mistborn's action or Warbreaker's reversals and humor. Each time I've released a new book, I've worried. Will my audience follow me in this (slightly) new direction? What will they think of what I've done?
Kings is no different. In fact, it's got me even more worried. My goal for this book was to give it SCOPE. The setting is the most distinctive I've written, with the largest world and the largest number of cultures and peoples. The book (though mostly linear) involves flashbacks to character pasts, and sometimes firsthand looks at the deep past of the world. At the same time, because of the enormity of what I'm trying, I found that the book couldn't telegraph as easily what it was about.
What does this mean? Well, Mistborn and Elantris both did excellent jobs of telegraphing to the reader—right off—what the story was going to be about. After the first few chapters of Mistborn, you pretty much knew that it would be a book about Kelsier's attempt to overthrow the Lord Ruler, mixed with Vin's training as a Mistborn. Elantris was about Raoden trying to restore Elantris, Sarene investigating his disappearance, and Hrathen's attempts to convert the people. Because of the scope of these books, I was able to get across very easily what they would be about and what the central conflict would be.
Kings . . . well, I have trouble describing what the heck Kings is about. While there are a number of plots bouncing around in those 380k words—and many of them do get resolved—the larger storylines are only just beginning. The book isn't about one or two things, like Mistborn was. It's about dozens. And yet, the main character's plotline is simple: survival. He's in a terrible, brutal situation, and he just wants to live.
Anyway, the book needs a lot more revision, but it's in a state where I think we'll make it. So send a little good will my way as I dig into it over the next eight months. Maybe I'll be able to come up with a way to describe this beast.
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Well, now that The Way of Kings rewrite is finished, I've moved on to the next thing on my plate: Alcatraz Book Four. (And if you're wondering why the heck I'm working on this instead of on WoT 13, I did a blog post warning about all this earlier in the summer.)
I was planning on putting off Alcatraz until September/October, but over the summer I realized that I needed to do it in July. It's time for a break. I've been working on the WoT straight since January 2008. Eighteen months is the longest I've ever spent on the same project, and I'm feeling that I need to step back from it for a short time and let my mind recharge. So I won't be doing any new WoT material for the next month or so. (Though I will be working on outlines and plans for the next sections.)
You can track the progress on Alcatraz via the progress bars. My goal right now is to be done with Alcatraz by the time I'm back from Worldcon, and be through with the new outlines for WoT 13 by September 1st. The book is almost 2/3 done, so things still look good for getting it in by January.
It's kind of interesting, sometimes, to step back and look at the process of how this writing thing all works for me. I think that my early years of writing have had a lot to do with how I now write. People talk about my productivity sometimes. I think a lot of it has to do with how I jump from project to project to stay fresh. The first Alcatraz book came from me needing to do something new between books two and three of Mistborn, and over the last few years, they've been wonderful opportunities to renew myself.
Perhaps I've got writing ADD. (Of course, I don't know if you can call it that, since I generally stick to a project for six or eight months before hopping to a new one.) But I think this all goes back to the fact that I wrote thirteen different books (most of them in different worlds) during my unpublished days. I always hopped to something new every few months, and that kept me excited about writing.
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In this week's Writing Excuses podcast, debut author John Brown (whose book Servant of a Dark God comes out from Tor two weeks before The Gathering Storm—need an epic fantasy to tide you over?) joins us to discuss how to avoid making your characters sound just like you. We also put up an acceptance speech for the Parsec Award we won at Dragon*Con, but it's probably better to pretend I didn't just link it. . . .
Finally, in the most recent Mistborn 3 annotation, I discuss Clubs' backstory. Give it a look.
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I haven't really mentioned it on the blog here, but I am going to be the toastmaster at MileHiCon in Denver next weekend, October 23rd through 25th. I'll post a specific schedule next week of where you'll find me at the con. I'll also be doing a signing on the 22nd at the Koelbel Library in Centennial that's open to all (convention registration not required). This is all before the release of The Gathering Storm, though, so Denver residents should also keep in mind that I'll be back in town on November 1st during the book tour. For details please see my Events page.
I'm going to be signing and personalizing Sam Weller's Bookstore's copies of The Gathering Storm on October 19th starting at 5:00 p.m. Mountain Time, so if you want to order a copy from them, that is the last moment you can request a personalization. They'll still accept orders after that for the remainder of the signed stock, but you'll be limited to a signature and a number unless you call them before 5:00 on the 19th. For details please see Item #4 on the Release Events page.
The limited-edition Mistborn Table of Allomantic Metals art prints have been delivered here to Dragonsteel Entertainment headquarters, and artist Isaac Stewart and I will be signing them tonight. We'll start taking orders probably tomorrow; expect a big announcement here on the blog.
In this week's Writing Excuses podcast, Dan, Howard, and I talk with Larry Correia, author of Monster Hunter International, about plot-driven vs. character-driven fiction. Go check it out!
The most recentMistborn 3 annotations involve the trilogy's first ball scene in quite a while. Chapter 30 was a lot of fun for me to write; I hope it gave many readers fond memories of Mistborn 1. Part 1, Part 2.
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You have stated in your blog that Mistborn had three magic systems (Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemurology) and also that The Way of Kings will have upwards of 20. For comparison, how many magic systems would you say the Wheel of Time series has? Two (One Power and the True Power)? How do you classify other abilities (not necessarily related to the One Power or True Power) such as Dreamwalking, viewing the Pattern, Wolfbrother-hoodness, and changing 'luck' or chance? Would you classify these abilities as a magic system in and of themselves? Has your chance to see the background material Robert Jordan left changed how you view these abilities?
This kind of gets sticky, as it's all up to semantics. Really, you could say that Mistborn had a different magic system for each type of Misting. But at the same time, you could argue that something like X-Men—with huge numbers of powers—all falls under the same blanked 'magic system.' And take Hemalurgy in Mistborn 3—is it a new magic system, or just a reinterpretation of Allomancy and Feruchemy?
So what do I mean by twenty or thirty magic systems in Kings? Hard to say, as I don't want to give spoilers. I have groupings of abilities that have to deal with a certain theme. Transformation, Travel, Pressure and Gravity, that sort of thing. By one way of counting, there are thirty of these—though by another way of grouping them together, there are closer to ten.
Anyway, I'd say that the Wheel of Time has a fair number of Magic systems. The biggest one would be the One Power/True Power, which is more of a blanket "Large" magic system kind of like Allomancy being a blanket for sixteen powers—only the WoT magic system is far larger. I'd count what Perrin/Egwene do in Tel'aran'rhiod as a different magic system. What Mat does as something else, the Talents one can have with the Power something else. Though I'd group all of the Foretelling/Viewing powers into one.
Sounds like a topic for a paper, actually. Any of you academics out there feel like writing one?
Let's just say that The Wheel of Time has a smaller number of larger magic systems, and I tend to use a larger number of smaller magic systems. Confusing enough? ;)
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Are you going to write more about the Mistborn? There's still those mysterious metals, and it's a brand new world out there now so many possibilities you could do with that!
I will, someday, write a follow-up trilogy to Mistborn. It will be set several hundred years after the events of the first trilogy, after technology has caught up to where it should be. Essentially, these will be urban fantasy stories set in the same world. Guns, cars, skyscrapers—and Allomancers.
That's still pretty far off, though. The other metals are being revealed on the poster I'm releasing of the Allomantic table. Should be for sale on my website sometime soon, though someone here can probably link to the image I posted of it, which has the other metals explained. (I can't remember where exactly that link is right now.)
Hero of the new trilogy would be a nicrosil Misting.
Vin has been hard for me to pin down, inspiration wise. I tried so many different variations on her character (even writing her character as a boy) that it's hard to pinpoint when I got it right. There was no one single inspiration for her. (Unlike Sarene, who was based on a friend of mine.) She's a mix of my sisters, a good writer friend of mine, and a dozen different other little bits of people.
The time when I got her character RIGHT was when I wrote the scene that became her first in Mistborn, where she's watching the ash blow in the street, and envies it for its freedom. That, mixed with Kelsier's observation that she isn't a bad person—she just thinks everyone else is—were the big points where her character took form.
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Now my interest is perked. Which character is in both Mistborn and Elantris? I must know!! Of course, if it is a secret for another book don't tell me.
I suggest looking through my forums and talking to the people there. Also, some questions on this forum talk about the issue. I don't like to spell things out, and so I stay away from giving too much. Look around; it's not to difficult to find, now that people have begun to catch on.
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I have some more in-depth questions that might be RAFO'd. For fans who want to know what I'm talking about, go here. Here they are:
Who is Hoid in Well of Ascension? We (TWG) have found some candidates:
Wolfhound merchant
Terris person that Elend meets after Vin went back to Luthadel
Teur or old Jed (the two Skaa in the first Sazed chapter)
Crazy cannibal Skaa (I doubt it though)
We already know it isn't the man who discovered duralumin, or the Skaa leader outside the dress shop, or the old Skaa who waits with the Holy First Witness when the Koloss attack.
I think those were all of the characters that we found as candidates.
People are really close to this one, and I noticed that later in this thread, you or someone else mentioned the footprints in the deleted scene.
Hoid's appearance in Mistborn: Well of Ascension is a little unlike the others. When the scene at the Well was moved in revision, one of Hoid's major influences on the book had to go (for various reasons). Left in the book is only one little hint, really. A character notices something odd about someone, but doesn't dwell on it. You can probably find the line if you look very closely.
Let me say this. Hoid got wrapped up in things he didn't expect to be involved in, and they dominated much of his time during the events of Mistborn: Well of Ascension. He spent most of the book in a different place from most of the viewpoint characters. He's only near them for a very short time, and he's deeply in disguise. I couldn't include his name, as he'd never have used the name "Hoid" for himself there, because it wouldn't have been right for the disguise. He'd have used another pseudonym. (He didn't, by the way, mention one.)
I've probably said too much already. Now, perhaps what people should asking me is this: "What has Hoid been up to in all of these books?" Or, maybe they shouldn't ask me, as I wouldn't be likely to answer. (There are clues in the novels, however.) No, he's not just hanging out. Yes, I know what he's been doing. Will I write his scenes some day? Maybe. We'll see. There may be short stories posted on my website.
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My last question shouldn't be as hard to answer and that is: Who is in charge of the Mistborn movie you mentioned at the #tweettheauthor?
Thank you so much, I love your books!
It is a small production studio, so nobody you'd recognize. The producer is a fan of the Mistborn books who has some credentials in independent films, and who has impressed me with his treatment of the books and his determination to make the film. This individual is starting a production company to focus on the film. We're in the contract stages now, and once that is done, I can be more specific.
It's not like the Alcatraz movie, which was optioned directly by a studio. Because of that, the Mistborn movie is probably a lot less likely to happen—but, the hands it is in are quite good. Anything having to do with Hollywood is a long-shot in the first place, so (after meeting with the producer) I decided that I'd rather take the slightly more unlikely chance in exchange for the opportunity to work with someone I felt understood the books.
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In Mistborn 3, What happened to Kelsier's bones, and will they play any significance in any of the sequels?
The bones survived the events of the last book. We might see them again. Speaking of relic-like items, Sazed's rings survived as well. We might see those again.
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Is Adonalsium going to be mentioned by name in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings or is he going to be an underlining "God"(I don't know what to call him yet) idea? I am curious now, so I will have to keep my eyes open for him.
Adonalsium (Ahy-doe-Nahl-see-um) will be mentioned by name again. Ruin and Preservation were what have been called Shards of Adonalsium. (The Voice from Warbreaker is another Shard.)
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She (and I) would also like to know more details of the Mistborn movie. The last she heard, you'd rejected it being a TV series. So, yeah. Any more details?
Did a big post on this just above. I think that will answer the request for details.
Note that I rejected the tv series not because of the idea of doing a tv series itself, but because I wasn't confident in the production studio who was making the offer. More details will come once contracts are signed.
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You also may have noticed that I've put up a new item in the store—a holiday bundle of all three Mistborn hardbacks (signed) at a special price with the popular Steel Alphabet Medallion thrown in. And a note on shipping for the holiday season: to make sure a package arrives by December 24th, December 7th is the last day my assistant Becky can take orders with standard shipping. Orders upgraded to Priority shipping can be made as late as December 12th (the Mistborn bundle gets a free upgrade).
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Did you know that he wrote 13 books before getting one of them published? Elantris was number six in that list, but he never gave up on his dream of being a writer. We also heard about how Harriet read Brandon’s eulogy for RJ and subsequent read of Mistborn. After two chapters, she was hooked and knew that he was the man to finish her husband’s series.
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Brandon is hesitant to do so. He has considered it though. He [Brandon] "loves epic fantasy" and the "hero's journey, like Rand's journey at the beginning of the Wheel of Time". When writing the Mistborn books, he knew Robert Jordan had done epic fantasy the best it could be done, so thought to himself, 'what hasn’t been done?' The answer he came to was 'what if the hero [e.g.] Rand/Harry Potter/Frodo lost?' The idea was a good one, but that would make a "downer of a book".
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Speaking of Writing Excuses, in this week's episode comics writer Jake Black fills in for Brandon to talk with Dan and Howard about writing comics. Check it out.
Finally, in the most recent Mistborn 3 annotations, Brandon mentions talking scenes and the number sixteen, the loss of half the sieging Koloss, and everyone's favorite Koloss, Human.
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This week's Writing Excuses podcast covers the business of writing comics, again with Jake Black filling in for Brandon (whose we-don't-ever-discuss-it stint writing the webcomic "American Bachelors with Mecha(s)" is not nearly as relevant as Jake Black's professional experience in the industry).
In the most recent Mistborn 3 annotations, Brandon talks about Preservation's power and the working mechanism of Hemalurgy. He specifically does not say anything about Adonalsium. Writers can be so cruel.
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This week's episode of Writing Excuses . . . wait, now that I think about it, Writing Excuses should also be eligible for a Best Related Work Hugo nomination. Huh . . . that would be an even more unlikely coup than our Parsec Award win last year. Well anyway, this week's podcast episode discusses collaboration.
In the most recent Mistborn 3 annotations, I talk about Lord Fedre and some spoilers as well as Vin's attempt to defeat the sedative.
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Then there's my own podcast. Though they did a fine job without me during the tour (such as in last week's episode about NaNoWriMo—by the way, how many of my fans won this year?), Howard Tayler and Dan Wells were happy to have me back for this week's Writing Excuses episode where we discussed mixing humor with drama and horror. Check it out.
I've gotten a bit behind in mentioning the Mistborn 3 annotations. The most recent additions mention the creation of Inquisitors and how to defeat Ruin, Spook as the Survivor of the Flames, Marsh *spoiler*ing Penrod, and Yomen's backstory.
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I've got the Photoshop contest winners below, but first the weekly updates. In the most recent Mistborn 3 annotations I discuss TenSoon's visit to Urteau and Vin attacking without using Allomancy.
This past weekend was BYU's science fiction/fantasy symposium, Life, the Universe & Everything. This was my first convention as Guest of Honor (as well as my first con after the release of The Gathering Storm), and there was a huge crowd—including our largest crowd ever for an episode of Writing Excuses, several of which we recorded at the con. Up first—airing as this week's episode—James Dashner joined Dan, Howard, and me to discuss pacing. Check it out. I also did a couple of interviews during the convention; one with Provo's Daily Herald resulted in a video that they've put up on YouTube.
My assistant also sent out a newsletter to everyone on my mailing list for the first time in almost four years. I've posted a copy here. Baby pictures included! The newsletter is mostly for the benefit of people who don't come to my site very often, but if you tell me what city you're in, I also send out reminders when I'm signing nearby. Consider putting your name on the list; anyone who sends me an email gets added.
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I'm working on the final draft of The Way of Kings in order to meet its April 8th deadline, and over the past few days I've posted on Twitter and Facebook breakdowns of how many words I'm cutting from each chapter. This has confused some readers who have asked me not to cut anything out or to save them for an eventual "writer's cut" edition. Trust me on this one—the book you'll get on the shelf is the writer's cut, and you wouldn't like the writing as much if I didn't go through and do the trimming on this draft. Sort of like a director shoots a lot of film and then edits it into a coherent narrative later, I tend to overwrite on my first drafts—the language is more wordy than it needs to be, sometimes a character will come to the same realization multiple times as I'm working out where best to fit it in, that sort of thing. In my final draft I go in and trim out all the fat. We talked about this in an episode of Writing Excuses last year; if you're curious about the process, give it a listen.
So the words I'm cutting in this draft aren't anything you're going to miss as a reader. Now, sometimes I will cut an entire scene or heavily rework a section, but that usually happens in earlier drafts than this. I do save the cut scenes in case they contain something I want to use somewhere else or just for posterity. In the Library section of the website I've included some deleted scenes from Elantris, Mistborn 1, and Mistborn 2—check those out if you want to understand why it's a good reason those scenes are gone. Long after The Way of Kings is out, some of its cut scenes or early draft sections may end up on that page. We'll see.
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Speaking of audiobooks, over at Fantasy Literature they've posted reviews of both audio versions of Warbreaker. There are also reviews of my other titles on that page, and many other reviews throughout the site.
In the most recent podcast episode of Writing Excuses, Dan, Howard, and I brainstorm story concepts using ideas from science. We started out by using a New Scientist article called "13 More Things We Don't Understand". Check it out.
In the most recent Mistborn 3 annotations I talk about the beginning of Vin's climax and her fight with the Inquisitors, Marsh and the earring, and cinematic writing. We're getting close to the end . . . I guess I should start putting up the Warbreaker annotations soon.
Finally, my good friend Janci Patterson just got her first fiction sale: her YA novel Skipped was bought by Christy Ottaviano at Henry Holt. I couldn't be more pleased for her; I gave her some comments on the book (I basically thought it was brilliant). Janci also gave me some comments on The Way of Kings that proved invaluable in writing the final draft; if you're following me on Twitter or Facebook you heard a little more about that. You may also recognize Janci from the Mistborn 3 chapter 30 annotations. Anyway, I assume Janci's book will be out in 2011 or 2012, after which you can all buy it and find out for yourself how great it is.
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Brandon's assistant Peter here. He's hard at work on Towers of Midnight, which you know if you've been following on Twitter or Facebook. And I've been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work for The Way of Kings release (the book is being composited as we speak and is due back from proofreading on Friday). So we're a bit behind on updates.
The most recent Mistborn 3 annotations cover Allomantic secrets including atium Mistings and the kandra coup and Sazed's decision. I've got the next four annotations queued, which should tide you over until we've got the KINGS proofs approved and I can line up the rest.
There are three new episodes of the writing advice podcast Brandon does with Howard Tayler and Dan Wells that haven't been mentioned on the blog. First up is a talk with Isaac Stewart, interior artist for the Mistborn books and one of the artists for The Way of Kings, about the visual elements of storytelling. Next up is breaking the fourth wall, again with Isaac (who is also half of the team behind the webcomic Rocket Road Trip with Warbreaker map artist Shawn Boyles). And finally is Living with the Artist which features Sandra Tayler, Dawn Wells, and Kenny Pike talking about what roles they play in their spouses' careers, among other things. (Kenny is a former student of Brandon's whose wife Aprilynne's book Wings hit #1 on the New York Times list. Who Sandra and Dawn are should be obvious.)
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Brandon then went on to talk about his upcoming novel, The Way of Kings, which is book one of a projected ten in the Stormlight Archive. Brandon explained that, as one would expect, any writer that is developing while reading Jordan would have a grand epic of some sort in the back of his head. The Way of Kings is his. He wrote a first draft of it a while ago. It was a behemoth of a book, and he had initially tried to get it published right after Elantris. His editor was not so sure that would be something he could do, especially as it was a super-ambitious project. So they shelved it and he moved on to Mistborn. But it was still there, waiting.
After The Gathering Storm was finished, two things happened. The first being that Brandon found he needed a break from The Wheel of Time to rejuvenate. The second was that Tom Doherty (the big boss of Tor) called him and said that they did not have a book from just Brandon Sanderson coming out this year and that he would like one. Brandon tried to protest, but Tom was persistent and said the six words one should probably never tell an author: "You can do whatever you want." So, Brandon rewrote The Way of Kings entirely, using his since-refined skills to tighten it up (some, it is still nearly a thousand pages), and even managed to get Tom to call in an old favor with Michael Whelan to do the cover art.
Something to be warned of, though. Book Two of the Stormlight Archive is going to be a long time coming. Brandon is going to finish The Wheel of Time first before he goes back to that. He then intends to do two more Stormlight books, then some other single project, then two more, then a single, et cetera and so forth. So be ready for at least a small wait for a sequel to that.
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I'm going to reverse-engineer your question. When I wrote Elantris and Mistborn, I intentionally kept the world more sparse. The goal particularly of Mistborn was, "I'm going to take an epic fantasy story and condense it into three novels." The focus for me in those novels was plot. Of course I wanted to have great characters and great magic, but there was more of a plot focus, and I didn't want the world to distract. It was a conscious decision in Mistborn.
When I sat down and wrote The Way of Kings, the plan from the start to do ten books influenced how I approached the world. But really, the world of Roshar is such a big part of the story, and of the history and the mysteries of the series, that I wanted it to be full and immersive. Immersion was one of my main driving forces. With Mistborn, one of my main driving forces was to keep it moving. I hope The Way of Kings still feels fast-paced, but it's a thousand pages long, twice as long as Mistborn. A lot of that extra space is dedicated to fleshing out the world and making it feel like a real place, because that's very important for the series. When I write a book, I look at what the book needs and what is required by the story I'm trying to achieve. Another valid element is that when I wrote Mistborn, I was a newer writer. Writing The Way of Kings, I'm more experienced. I think I'm better at making this sort of decision now, and I felt I could tackle in this book the sorts of things that I couldn't achieve in Mistborn.
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Yes, it was. That's a very astute question. I've written a blog post that I'm not satisfied with, but that I'll probably be revising and posting very soon, that is going to talk about this. When I finished the Mistborn trilogy and Warbreaker, I felt that there were a few things that were becoming Brandon clichés that I needed to deal with. I don't mind being known as the magic system guy. But when I become known ONLY as the magic system guy, that worries me. It isn't that I sat down with this series and said, well, I'm gonna show them, I'm not going to do a magic system. But when I planned this series, it was not appropriate for me to shoehorn in a lot of the magic system in book one. Though my agent suggested that I do just that. He said, look, this is what you're known for, this is what people read you for; if you don't have this it's going to be glaringly obvious. My response was that I would hope that story and character are what carries a book, not any sort of gimmick—well, gimmick is the wrong word.
Something that I pondered and wrote about a lot—just to myself—is that Mistborn was postmodern fantasy. If you look at the trilogy, in each of those books I intentionally took one aspect of the hero's journey and played with it, turned it on its head, and tried very hard to look at it postmodernly, in which I as a writer was aware of the tropes of the genre while writing and expected readers to be aware of them, to be able to grasp the full fun of what I was doing. And that worried me—that was fun with Mistborn, but I didn't want to become known as the postmodern fantasy guy, because inherently you have to rely on the genre conventions in order to tell your story—even if you're not exploiting them in the same way, you're still exploiting them.
For that reason, I didn't want to write The Way of Kings as a postmodern fantasy. Or in other words, I didn't want to change it into one. And I also didn't want to change it into a book that became only about the magic, or at least not to the extent that Warbreaker was. I like Warbreaker; I think it turned out wonderfully. But I wanted to use the magic in this book as an accent. Personally, I think it's still as full of magic as the others, but the magic is happening much more behind the scenes, such as with the spren I've talked about in other interviews, which are all about the magic. We haven't mentioned Shardplate and Shardblades, but those are a very powerful and important part of the magic system, and a more important part of the world. I did intentionally include Szeth's scenes doing what he does with the Lashings to show that there was this magic in the world, but it just wasn't right for this book for that to be the focus. I do wonder what people will say about that. I wonder if that will annoy people who read the book. But again, this is its own book, its own series, and in the end I decided that the book would be as the story demanded, not be what whatever a Brandon Sanderson book should be. As a writer, that's the sort of trap that I don't want to fall into.
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PART TWO: BUFFERS AND MY WRITING SPEED
Because of this, and because of my writing style, I need a little bit of a break before I tackle it. I pushed myself very hard to get both Towers of Midnight and The Way of Kings ready for publication this year. Even then, it was only possible because I had written a sizable chunk of Towers of Midnight while working on The Gathering Storm AND because I'd already finished an early version of The Way of Kings.
People have mentioned before that I am somewhat prolific. Some of this is an illusion. For a while now, I've been warning people that we've been chewing through my buffer at a frightening rate. Once upon a time, I would turn in a book three years before it was scheduled to come out. This gave me a lot of wiggle room. If a book wasn't working, I could shelve it and think about it, then get back to it. Working that far ahead prevents most big crunches.
However, the books I've been working on lately were a little more high profile than previous ones—and high-profile books get released when they get turned in, not three years later. So, though I took eighteen months finishing The Gathering Storm, it looked like I finished it very quickly. (I turned it in during the summer of 2009, and it came out in the fall of 2009. Warbreaker came out that same year, though I'd turned it in back in 2006.) The very long write of that book was invisible to a lot of readers because books I'd written years before continued to come out while I was working on it.
The buffer is gone now. I'll talk more about that later. However, I want to mention something else that helps me be productive—and that's allowing myself deviations to keep myself interested. I've told people before that I wrote the Alcatraz books to give me a break between Mistborn novels. If I'm able to refresh myself on other projects, I don't get burned out on the big epics. (Which are my true love, but can be very demanding on me mentally.)
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MY OWN WRITING
I ran into this problem full-on when I first conceived the idea for Mistborn. For those who haven't read the series, one of the main premises is this: A young man followed the hero's cycle from a fantasy novel, but failed at the end. The thing that made me want to write it, originally, was the thought, "What if Rand lost the Last Battle? What if Frodo had failed to destroy the ring? What if the Dark Lord won?"
A very intriguing thought. And yet, I realized early on that if I wrote the book as I was planning, I would fail. That story undermines itself. Perhaps there is someone out there who can write it in a way that engages the reader without betraying them at the end, but that person was not me. By the point I started that book, I was in the camp of those who (despite having a great love for the fantasy epics of the past) wanted to explore where fantasy could go, not where it had already been. I wasn't interested in writing a standard hero's journey. Jordan had done that already, and had done it well.
And so, I set Mistborn a thousand years after the hero's failure. I made my original concept into the backstory. People have asked (a surprisingly large number of them) when I'll write the prequel story, the story of Rashek and Alendi. My answer is to smile, shake my head, and say, "I don't think it's likely." To explain why would require a lecture divided into three lengthy parts, and you know how boring that kind of thing can be.
Now, some of you may be thinking the obvious thought: "But Brandon, Mistborn is a postmodern fantasy epic."
Indeed it is. I was intrigued by the concept of writing a postmodern fantasy, and that's what Mistborn is. In each book, I consciously took aspects of the fantasy epic and twisted them about. My story above wasn't to discourage that type of writing; it was to explain one major way that it could go bad, if you're not careful.
I tried to walk a line in Mistborn. Enough archetype that I could resonate with the themes from fantasy that I wanted to play with, but enough originality to keep the readers from expecting a standard ending. It's the type of balance that I can never walk perfectly because there is just too much variety to be had in the world. Some people are going to read the books and feel betrayed because of the things I pull; others are going to find that they're not original enough for their taste.
The success of the books was in hitting the right balance for the right people; those like myself who love the old epics, and like some resonance with them—but who also want something new in their storytelling. That careful blend of the familiar and the strange, mixed up and served to people who have tastes like my own. That's basically one of the only measures we authors can use. (And note, I'm not the only one—by a long shot—doing postmodern fantasy. Look to Jacqueline Carey's series The Sundering for another example of someone doing the right blend, I feel, in a postmodern fantasy epic.)
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THE WAY OF KINGS
The Mistborn books were successful. Many readers liked the idea of a world where the Dark Lord won, where prophecy and the hero were not what we expected them to be.
Because of how well it worked, however, I fell into something of a trap. When it came time to rewrite The Way of Kings, I floundered. I knew the story I wanted to tell, but I felt I needed to insert a major twist on the fantasy genre, along the lines of what I'd done in Mistborn. What would be my twist? What would be the postmodern aspect of this book? It literally kept me up nights. (Not hard to do, since I'm an insomniac, but still.)
Over time, I wrestled with this because a larger piece of me resisted doing the postmodern thing in Mistborn again. That piece of me began to ask some difficult questions. Did I want to be known as "The guy who writes postmodern fantasies"? There would be worse monikers to have. However, one of the major purposes of deconstructionism, is to point out the problem with self-referential material. There was a gimmick to the Mistborn books. It was a very useful one, since it allowed me to pitch the book in one sentence. "The hero failed; this is a thousand years later."
There are a lot of very good postmodern stories out there, and I love the Mistborn books. But my heart wasn't in doing that again. In order to write Mistborn the way I did, I also had to rely on the archetypes. My characters, for example, were very archetypal: The street urchin. The clever rogue who robs to do good. The idealistic young nobleman who wants to change the world. My plots were very archetypal as well: a heist story for the first book, a siege narrative for the second. I believe that a good book can use archetypes in new ways without being clichéd. (The Name of the Wind is an excellent example.)
In fact, it's probably impossible not to reflect archetypes in storytelling. I'm sure they're there in The Way of Kings. But I found in working on it that I didn't want to intentionally build a story where I relied upon reader expectations. Instead, I wanted to look for themes and character concepts that I haven't approached before, and that I haven't seen approached as often in the genre.
There's a distinction to be found. It's much like the difference in humor between parody and satire. (As I define them.) In the first, you are funny only if your audience understands what you are parodying. In the second, you are funny because you are innately funny. Early Pratchett is parody. Mid and late Pratchett is satire. (Not to mention brilliant.)
And this is why, in the end, I decided that I would not write The Way of Kings as a postmodern epic. (Not intentionally, at least.) Mistborn felt, in part, like a reflection. There were many original parts, but at its core it was a study of the genre, and—to succeed at its fullest—it needed an audience who understood the tropes I was twisting about. Instead of making its own lasting impression and improvement on the genre, it rested upon the work done by others.
In short, I feel that using that same process again would make it a crutch to me. There is nothing at all wrong with what Mistborn did. I'm very proud of it, and I think it took some important steps. But it's not what I want to be known for, not solely. I don't just want to reflect and study; I want to create. I want to write something that says, "Here is my addition, my tiny step forward, in the genre that I love."
To couch it in the terms of the Jewel video that started the essay, instead of creating a piece of art that screams, "Hey, look at those other pieces of art and hear my take on them," I wanted to create something that says, "Look at this piece of art. This is what I think art should be in this genre now." Part of me thinks that a video that was beautiful for its own sake, that didn't rely upon the follies of others, would do more toward undermining those follies than would a video that pointed them all out.
And so, I tossed aside my desire to confine The Way of Kings into a single, pithy sentence explaining the slant I was taking on the fantasy genre. I just wrote it as what it was.
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He spoke about magic system creation and that he had a science background that inspired him in creating Allomancy which has a scientific basis, and elements of chemistry, biology and physics. He also mentioned a podcast he is a part of, Writing Excuses, and that one episode was about creating magic systems.
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How much pre-writing do you do for each book?
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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He wrote three drafts of [The Final Empire], two rough and one polished. He may do another book in the Mistborn world, but it would be in the far future as opposed to being a sequel, and the world may actually progress scientifically.
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On Allomancy, he said that tin and pewter are opposites in a sense, that they strengthen different aspects of the body, and that there will be a published poster to explain some apparent inconsistencies among the last four metals.
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It represents several things. It is my attempt to expand the fantasy genre a little bit. I grew up reading fantasy and loving it; I love the great fantasy novels of my youth. Some of my favorite authors were Anne McCaffrey, Robert Jordan and Melanie Rawn, who I think is very underappreciated. I absolutely love their work—Tad Williams, David Eddings—and yet as a reader and a fan of fantasy, it seemed like during the late nineties and early 2000s, we hit kind of a slump in adult fantasy, particularly epic fantasy, which I write. And there were really exciting things happening in young adult fantasy—if you go look at some of the authors like Garth Nix or J.K. Rowling, who were doing really amazing work—but epic fantasy kind of slumped a little bit. I'm sure there were great things being published, it's just that they didn't get a lot of mainstream attention. It seemed like a lot of the authors who got mainstream attention were all trying to do the same story that had already been done, a lot. The young boy from an unknown village finds out he has an amazing noble heritage and has to defeat the dark lord...
I mean, there's nothing wrong with that story; that's a good story, but it's not the only story. And for a lot of time, fantasy seemed to be having trouble growing out of its youth and growing up. As a reader I was very frustrated with this. I really wanted fantasy to step up and go beyond that. So when I started writing my own works and working on them, I was really looking for places to explore, that could expand upon this lore and take different directions. Mistborn represents several concepts of me, just as a reader and as a writer, trying to explore these new directions to go. I'm certainly not the only one doing it.
The first book is about: what happens if evil has won? And in a lot of ways the second book is part of what started me in the trilogy. One of the big foundations or concepts was: what next? We always hear about the easy part. I always say that overthrowing something, tearing something down, actually seems easier to me than building it up. Then what next, after you've caused this great revolution, after you've blown up the Death Star and taken down the Empire? I think then you're going to realize that, whoa, administering something that large is enormously difficult, far more difficult than tearing it down.
So it just represents my attempts and struggles as a writer and as a fan to wonder beyond fantasy's older lessons and try to figure out what we're going to be as an adult genre, as we grow up.
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I think that it does, and yet it's not a direct influence; it's more of an indirect influence. I'm practicing LDS, Mormon, for those who don't know. It shapes who I am, and who I am helps shape my fiction. There's been a long-running sort of argument, so to speak—a nice argument—in fantasy, about how much of it is allegorical and how much of it isn't. If you look back to Grandpa Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, you can see from C.S. Lewis' work he was very allegorical, whereas Tolkien was not. Tolkien was doing story and letting theme grow, and I actually prefer his way of writing. I feel that as wonderful as C.S. Lewis was, when you specifically embed messages, then the story becomes about a message, and not about the characters.
And so I don't go into my work saying: "I want to prove X, Y or Z", I actually go into my work with the opposite opinion. I really believe that one of the great things fiction can do is that it can explore ideas from lots of different viewpoints. And I think because I'm a religious person, religious ideas and conflicts are fascinating to me. But I like to explore these things from different sides, and people who believe in different ways, and I like to make all of their arguments equally sound and equally powerful, because that way when you read the book, you get to see an exploration of a topic, rather than someone taking an answer and shoving it at you, over and over again. It offends me when I read fiction and someone expresses my viewpoint, but they do it poorly. I'd rather they just not have my viewpoint at all than do it poorly.
So I think my religion affects me to be fascinated in these concepts, so religious concepts are in my books. I like to hope that I'm approaching them from lots of different and interesting aspects, but the nature of faith, the nature of hope, the nature of rational thought versus faithful thought: these different things are very fascinating to me, and so they tend to be fascinating to my characters.
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The second thing I tried writing was a short story set in the Mistborn world a few hundred years after The Hero of Ages. This one just didn't work; the characters weren't gripping for me. More importantly, it just didn't FEEL like a Mistborn book. I got about one scene into it.
As I was working on it, however, I did some worldbuilding on this time period in Scadrial's history. I got to thinking about what was wrong with the short story, and why it didn't feel right. This grew into an outline regarding a completely different story—with no overlap of characters—set in the same time period. I nurtured this and started writing, and it felt right from the get-go. I had the right tone, so I kept writing, expanding my outline, letting the story grow as big as it wanted to be.
In the end, I had an 85,000-word novel that I named Mistborn: The Alloy of Law. I'm very excited about the story, and I offered it to Tor for publication with one condition: They had to put it out in 2011. I've mentioned before that I worried I wasn't going to have a book release for you in 2011, what with the extra time A Memory of Light is going to take. Alloy of Law turned out so well that I wanted to share it with everyone, and use it to fill in the gap between Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light.
You may have seen the Tor announcement on this book. It should come out this fall; I'd guess September or October. I want to reassure people that I didn't do this instead of writing the next Stormlight book. This time period between big books had to be used to write something shorter, something more self-contained. I just couldn't have done a Stormlight book. It was this novel or nothing. I'm pleased that Alloy of Law turned out so well.
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I mention this in one of the Well of Ascension annotations.
After I came up with the idea and had Sazed mention it, my desire to explore it more was one of the initial motivations for Warbreaker's setting.
The answer to your question is yes and no. There are shadows.
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In your gut instinct, who would win in a fight, Marsh (no atium, limited feruchemy) or Szeth? (Or maybe we could go Zane & Szeth since I see a lot of similarities in their characters. They also happen to be my favorites from their respective series)
One of the interesting things I really liked about the book was Jasnah's lack of faith. It seems like during a lot of the scenes where that is an issue, you give her the upper hand. She makes some argument or point and the other characters leave it unchallenged. For instance the line where she says something like "Religion looks for super natural explanations to natural phenomena, science looks for natural explanations to super natural phenomena." That side of her seemed incredibly well written and genuine. Was it hard to do? Where did you get her arguments/points from? I swear a lot of what she says could of been ripped from comments of /r/atheism.
Lastly, I've been rereading the Mistborn series again after reading The Way of Kings twice in a row so I could decide which I liked more. So far...it's still a tie. I'm really liking getting back into the Mistborn world though. That has me super excited for Alloy of Law. Once it get's a bit more polished would it be possible to get an early copy? :)
First question: It's always hard to answer these questions, since there are so many factors. Do the combatants start at a distance? If so, Marsh/Zane have a huge advantage; they have the ability to fling coins.
Does Szeth have metal on him? Szeth's Shardblade would be mostly immune to Pushing and Pulling, as it's an Invested object. But he'd still have trouble getting to them if he had a clasp on his shoes, for example. He doesn't carry a lot of metal, but he might have some.
Overall, I'd say that a full-blown Mistborn would be tougher than Szeth in most cases.
Also, send me a PM with your Email, Phaz. I can't find your email in my address book. I remember that it's not something I expect it to be, so I'm having trouble looking it up.
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Hi! Two sort-of related questions here, about the writing process:
What would you do differently if you were writing the books to be released all at pretty much the same time (like Lord of The Rings) rather than as episodic updates? Would you still go into the same level of detail in describing relatively trivial events such as the affixing of contraband from the Chasms to the underside of permanent bridges?
I'll probably finish up the book later today, and if/when I write the review it will be a mixture of fulsome praise and F7U12-level frustration. The latter is largely because you set up so many questions—hints about characters' backgrounds, secrets about the world, its people and its magic, riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas. After 1007 pages I feel I deserve more answers! I imagine you planting the seeds of mysteries and thinking "haha, I'll make 'em suffer 8 years before they get the answer to that one!". The question here is how do you balance (1) providing enough information to make the world and characters seem consistent, real and immersive with (2) withholding information for revelation later in the series? Do you consciously think about building up trust in the reader that the questions they have will one day be answered, or worry that the reader might think everything is so mysterious it will probably end up in a nonsensical betrayal like so many scifi films and tv series?
This is a very interesting question.
I actually wrote the Mistborn trilogy straight through before releasing the first, so I have some experience doing it both ways now. With Kings, I'm much more careful with my foreshadowing. Maybe to the point of teasing. That's a contrast to Mistborn, where I may have been too blunt with my foreshadowing. (Or just not put it in.)
The trilogy there was one book in my mind, so things that happened at the end of the first book that should have been better foreshadowed didn't get the foreshadowing they deserve—because I was looking at them as elements I was introducing 1/3 the way through the story, and thinking of them as being on a proper curve of information.
The balance of what to provide and what to withhold has more to do with not bogging down this story with details for a future story than it does with trying to tease. In my mind, this book is three things: Kaladin's experiences as a bridgeman 2) Dalinar's decision to do what he does at the end of the book 3) Shallan's first apprenticeship. I wanted to keep the narrative focused on those things, and provide climaxes dealing with those three concepts. Other secrets and teases are more intended to begin setting up future stories.
However, the "Lost" effect (making the mysteries so cool that no reveal can live up to them) is in the forefront of my mind. My feeling is that instead of dragging them eight books, I should be quick to give answers in future volumes. The things that span eight books as secrets shouldn't be the ones that you're wondering at in the first book; they should be the things that, after you begin wondering about them in the seventh book, you can look back to the first book and see the hints. Then you get your answers in the eighth.
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That's a good question. Every writer has their own process, and understanding my process may help you understand how I work. I kind of have different levels of projects in my head. I have the big epics, the big super epics that I work on for a long time and take a lot of brain space, but also take a lot of digestion. They don't just pop out. They take years to get right. Gathering Storm took about 18 months to do. It didn't seem that way because I was ahead on some of my other projects, but that's what it took. And Way of Kings, you know, I finished the first draft in 2002. You got something like the 15th or 16th draft in 2010. And so these books take a lot of brain space, but just take time. It's hard to work on multiples of that at the same time. Doing the first Stormlight book was possible because I had finished the first draft in 2002. It is not possible for me to do the second one while working on another big epic. I can only really do one book of that scope at a time, which is why you aren't going to be seeing Stormlight 2 until Wheel of Time is done, just because I can't physically and mentally do that.
But I have different projects that work on different sort of brain space levels. I need to take breaks from the big epics some time, to just do something different and refresh myself. And I've talked about this on my blog; it's how I work. And usually these are quick projects that I give myself a few weeks or a month to work on in between big epics. My children's books, the Alcatraz books, were these during the Mistborn triology stage. I would stop and I would write one of these to really just cleanse the palate, to do something different. And I usually don't do a lot of outlining for these books. I write them off the cuff. I've talked about the difference between architect writers and gardener writers. Gardeners kind of just start with something and see where it goes. Neil Gaiman describes it as jumping out of an airplane with a ball of yarn and trying to knit a parachute by the time you hit. Robert Jordan was more of a gardener writer in all of his books, from what I've been able to determine. I usually architect, which means I plan extensively, but I do gardener books in between. Then I just see where it goes, and some of the times these books turn out horrible, and so I don't do anything with them, and sometimes they turn out great. But it doesn't really matter to me if they turn out great or horrible, because the purpose of them is to refresh myself so that I can then get back to the big epic.
And so when you see these side projects coming out, it's when one of these turns out really well and I decide to publish it. For instance, the new Mistborn book. The new Mistborn book is not part of the Mistborn epic. The new Mistborn book is a side project where I said, well you know, I'm not going to be able to return to this world for the next . . . I'm doing three trilogies of Mistborn books eventually. I've done one, I'll do a second, this book that's coming out is not one of those. This is a side project, kind of a short tale. It's more of a New Spring type thing, something where I'm like this is a cool story I want to tell. And I wrote it, and I still hope it's fun and exciting and people love it. But the purpose of this book, it's really a single narrative, one plot line. It has a couple viewpoint characters, but they're all together doing the same thing. And it's kind of a mystery set in an industrial age in Mistborn, the Mistborn world during the industrial age. This is the sort of thing that I can take one month off and write. I can't take one month off and write another Stormlight book. So, what you're looking at, how do I balance all these things? Well, what you're seeing is, you're seeing my vacation time. When I take a vacation for a few months, I work on something completely different to change, just to shake it up. And sometimes those turn out well and those get published, and so it looks like I'm producing differently than I am. Really, all these books are my babies, I love them, I hope that you all like them, but some are the big epics and some are the side projects. The Mistborn 4 book is a side project.
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In the eighth grade, I had an English teacher who pointed me toward Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. That book changed my life. When I first read it, I was amazed—I had no idea books like that existed. It engaged my imagination like no other book ever had, and it even helped me understand my own mother better, because the main character's conflicts gave me a perspective on what my mother went through when she chose to focus on her family rather than her career. The book was creative, it was fun, yet it helped me understand life. At that point I started reading every fantasy book I could get my hands on, including Robert Jordan's first Wheel of Time book, The Eye of the World, when it came out in paperback. I was hooked, and as I read more and more books, my grades went up in school—I went from a low-end average student to someone who got top grades.
It didn't take reading many fantasy books before I decided writing them was what I wanted to do with my life. I started my first book when I was fifteen. It was horrible, but I just kept writing and writing until I actually got any good.
My ideas come from many different places, and all of my books combine ideas I came up with at different times. For example, I once ran into a fog bank while driving, and thought how it would be interesting to have a book set in a world of constant mist. But Mistborn didn't come together until at a different time I thought about a metal-based magic system, and another time was considering how I'd like to see a heist movie like Ocean's Eleven done as a fantasy novel. I also picture cinematic images like a Mistborn flying through the mist with mistcloak tassels fluttering in the air. Eventually these ideas bouncing around in my head coalesce into interesting combinations, and I start writing.
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In my writing I try to combine the unfamiliar with the familiar. If something is too unique and unprecedented, then readers won't have anything to relate to and will just be lost.
But if something is too familiar, it will feel stale and cliche. I like to look for twists on familiar tropes that haven't been extensively covered before. This often comes when I read other books in the field and think of a different way something could go. That's not to say other authors aren't doing the same thing, but I like to tackle takes that I haven't seen before. Trying to do what the market expects of you is a bit of a trap in the publishing field. You want your books to be things that people want to write, but if you try to write to the market you usually end up with something too familiar and boring. Back when I was writing those thirteen books I was sending the good examples out to editors and agents and getting a lot of rejection letters. (Elantris was the first book I wrote that I felt was good enough to send out, and I also sent out a couple I wrote after it.) After being told time and time again that my books were too long (Elantris in manuscript form was 250,000 words), I decided to try to do what I thought the market wanted and write books that were a lot shorter. But I discovered that the books I turned out in that format just weren't any good; they contained some very interesting ideas but were lacking in many areas.
When Moshe bought Elantris and wanted to follow it up with another novel, I first offered him The Way of Kings but we realized that it was too ambitious a project at that point in time. So instead I took concepts from three of those failed novels and rewrote them into the first Mistborn book, writing it at the length my natural style seemed to work best at. And Mistborn was a huge success.
You shouldn't assume that when you've read one Brandon Sanderson novel, you know what the next one is going to be like. From one series to the next I like to try different things. I know that some readers who really liked Mistborn are not going to like The Way of Kings; Mistborn had a narrower scope and faster pace than a huge epic like The Way of Kings has, and if a reader prefers that sort of book that is perfectly okay with me. I am going to write some books that are fast-paced and others that are huge epics. I like to change things up.
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There was no one specific inspiration; it was a combination of different ideas bouncing around in my head for years and other ideas that I tried in earlier books that didn't work out. One idea does not make a book or a series, but ideas in interesting combinations makes a book. With Mistborn, one idea came while I was driving one day and entered a heavy fog bank: this started me thinking about a world shrouded in mist. Later I started thinking that a heist plot such as in movies like Ocean's Eleven would make a good fantasy story. I started thinking about different kinds of metal being used as magical batteries for different types of power. And I had a cinematic image of someone leaping through the air in a mistcloak. All these things combined to make a book.
I wrote all three Mistborn books before the first one was released, so I was able to go back and alter things in the first book to keep everything consistent with the last book. And it was indeed exhausting. I've found that from time to time in order to recharge my mental batteries, I need to take a break and write something else instead. So after writing The Well of Ascension and before starting to write The Hero of Ages, I took some time off from the series and wrote a fun experimental project instead. I didn't really know where it was going or what I would ever do with it, but it turned into the first Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians book, which was completely different from the Mistborn books that had been occupying my life for months. I found that when I was finished writing that side project, my mind was refreshed and I was ready to tackle the Mistborn world again. So ever since then I've made it a habit to take breaks to write experimental short projects that don't necessarily have to go anywhere. Sometimes they work out, and sometimes they don't and I shelve them. But it keeps me fresh.
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Maroon.
In The Well of Ascension I had to come up with a bunch of different religions for Sazed to study. One he mentions in chapter fifty revolves around color. It was such a fascinating idea that I decided to weave it into Warbreaker. The Awakening system uses color as both a cost and a benefit; using Breath drains color, and holding Breath increases perception of color. Awakening itself grew out of a common concept in tribal and shamanistic magic.
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Sanderson wants fantasy, particularly epic fantasy, to feel more alien. He is trying to achieve this while still using human characters because he doesn't think he writes aliens well.
He also thinks that technology in fantasy series is too static and his series is a reaction against that. Magic should change the world. There will be a sci-fi series set in the Mistborn world.
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Well, one of the things that bothers me about a lot of fantasy is that the worlds are strangely static, like we invent all sorts of contrived circumstances to keep them from progressing naturally, because we want stories of a certain type. What we do in fantasy, this kind of idealized time period, in literary terms we call it uchronia. Which in some ways is fun, but it's not very realistic.
I envisioned a series in which there was real progress. There are books that have done it; the Wheel of Time did it, for example, with the introduction of steam power [into a medieval/Renaissance setting], but I wanted to do a story where I wrote a trilogy which explored a fantasy world, and then do other books years later where that fantasy world has now progressed, and its technology has progressed, so that it's now almost more of an urban fantasy world. You know, write urban fantasies in a setting where the mythology and history are things you saw take place in the first part of the series.
This really interested me, because I'd just never seen it done quite the way I wanted to do it. And that's often where my books come from—I find a place where the genre maybe hasn't been explored fully, and I get really excited. And so I pitched my editor a series where the first trilogy is an epic fantasy series, and then years later an urban fantasy series, and then years after that a science fiction series, all set in the same world. And the magic exists all through, and it is treated differently in each of these time periods. And that's what Alloy of Law is: looking at the Mistborn world, hundreds of years later, where society has been rebuilt following the events of the third book.
The analogous time period in our world [for Alloy of Law's setting] would be about 1910, but that's not really very accurate, because in the Mistborn world there are certain things they're much better at—metallurgy, for one, obviously—but they're very poor with communication, because everyone's very concentrated in one area, so long-distance communication is just not one of the things that's very important to them. So it's not a one-to-one correlation. But electricity is starting to be installed in homes, and steam power is used quite extensively.
It has one toe dabbling in steampunk, but I don't call it that because while there is magic and technology, it's not quite the same. The steampunk genre has a certain Victorian feel to it; there's an air that makes something steampunk, and this isn't quite that.
So anyway, it's the story of a man who lives in the frontier lands, and comes back to the big city because he's inherited lands and a title. And he has certain things in his past that make him feel it's time to leave his old life and come to a new one. And the goal here was not epic scope; with The Way of Kings on one side I didn't want that. This is more a mystery/adventure, and I think it's really fun.
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Cuthbert gave Brandon packs of Magic cards in Italian and Brandon had him sign one of the cards, which was neat.
Other things we discussed included the Mistborn movie (Brandon has seen a screenplay and it was pretty good, but the project is not for sure going to be made). Dreamworks Animation has the rights to Alcatraz and Red Eagle has the rights to Wheel of Time.
There was an April Fools joke at one point that Lindsay Lohan was going to play Vin in the movie by Brandon's friend Dan Wells who does the Writing Excuses podcast for aspiring writers with Brandon. If you haven't listened to their podcast yet you should, its quite entertaining even for people who have no desire to become writers. Brandon mentioned that maybe about 50% of the audience is listening just for fun and may not have an actual desire to become professional authors.
Finally, Brandon told us that he is likely coming back to Europe next year. He wants to get to the UK very much and will likely go to the Imaginales d'epinal convention which is in March. He said that he generally has more time at conventions to do things like play Magic than at signings as there are events over multiple days, parties, etc...
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Ah, yes. The Mistborn movie and game. The movie rights were optioned to a production studio called Paloopa Pictures. We'll see what happens with that. I mean, they have a screenplay—if you don't know, getting a film made, there are a lot of ways that it happens; most of them seem kind of chaotic. One of the primary ways is a production company will option rights on something or option a screenplay. In my case, they optioned the rights, they write a screenplay, they do a big pitch, then they go to the studios. And the studios have to fund the thing. The production company would then become the producers on it, with the studios funding and make the film.
That's why what'll happen, often you'll see a film that'll [have] these five production studios at the start. Those are the people who did that sort of thing. So that's where we are there.
Sometimes you'll get lucky and a film will just get optioned by a studio directly. That doesn't happen as often. For instance, the Wheel of Time books got optioned to Red Eagle Entertainment, which is a production company. They did all of this, then went to Universal and got Universal to buy the rights and fund the movie... We have that. We also have some people with a video game that I can't announce yet, because I'm sure they want to announce it, but we had a nice offer on a video game that would be slated for around 2013. It will be cross-platform, so it would be on PC, Xbox, and PS3. I will probably be writing the story and the dialogue for it.
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They've got big theories because all my books are connected, so yes. They have lots of theories talking about that.
Last question.
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Is Preservation is a force of stability?
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Now for the big announcement. Crafty Games' Mistborn Adventure Game tabletop RPG's cover art has been revealed, and they're running a preorder special from August 4th through 7th. The RPG comes out in November, but you can preview it at Gen Con this weekend if you're lucky enough to be attending. The book's many illustrations, including the cover, come from artist Ben McSweeney, who also provided illustrations for The Way of Kings and The Alloy of Law.
The book also includes the Kelsier short story that I mentioned back during the Mistborn 2 annotations. Some readers have been clamoring for this for years, so if you want to find out about Kelsier's training with his master Gemmel, pick up the RPG.
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The characters in Mistborn all have very French names. My girlfriend insists Vin's name is pronounced almost "Veh", as it would be in France, and I'm almost convinced. How do you pronounce it?
You've also mentioned that in Elantris, there was more to Seons than what came out in the book (as far as a magic system, I believe). When you have to omit something like this, do you still consider it canon to the story? For example, if you were to write a sequel, would you feel obligated to stick with the original magic system you put into place (but never published), or would you be fine with drawing up a whole new one?
The Central Dominance is intentionally French sounding. I say Vin's name like an American would, but everyone in world would say it with a French accent. Same goes for Kelsier, (which they would say Kel-syay.) Again, I say it as an American would, but then I'm not from the Central Dominance.
Yes, I consider the ideas around Seons to be canon, though I don't always canonize something that is not in the books. If it isn't on paper, I'm usually willing to change it as it needs to in order to fit. One issue, however, is that things like the Seons are part of the greater magic system of the Cosmere (which connects many of my works.) I can't change things too much, or I'll start contradicting myself. (Which I don't want to do.)
One further question on pronunciation- Sazed. Is it sayzd, sayzed, or sah-zahd? I always pictured the Terris people as somewhat Arabic so Sah-zahd came more naturally to me, but I'm curious as to what the intended pronunciation is.
I say Sayzed, as does Kelsier. The Terris a is not as harsh as that, but it's not quite a soft "a" either.
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It was. It was released in June, so I've really been on tour for both that and the Wheel of Time at the same time. Warbreaker is a book I wrote back in 2006. It is a stand-alone single volume epic fantasy. I wrote this before I was even aware that I would be asked to work on the Wheel of Time, and so it's kind of coincidental they've ended up coming out the same year. But that's because the Wheel of Time book which I wrote in 2008 got fast-tracked and came out as soon as they could get it through production, where the other one had been waiting in the queue for a little while.
And so Warbreaker is my solo work. It's about a number of things. Any good book, it's about more than one idea coming together. People always ask me, where do I get my ideas? Well, I find that it's hard to explain because you have to track down so many different ones to talk about where a book comes from. A lot of new or aspiring writers try to write a book with just one idea, and that never works for me. I've got to have a good dozen or so.
But what is Warbreaker about? It's about me reacting against other things I've written, in a lot of ways. The Mistborn trilogy, which you mentioned, is what I was best known for before the Wheel of Time. And it is a series about a group of thieves struggling in a world where evil has won. A lot of epic fantasy deals with the same concept: you know, a young unknown protagonist discovers he has a talent for magic or a destiny and goes on this quest to defeat the dark evil. It happened in Harry Potter, it happened in Lord of the Rings, it happened in The Eye of the World, some of my favorite books. And when it came time to write my own books and break in, I was wondering. . .you know, these stories have been done so well, I want to go other directions. And so Mistborn became the story of what happens if good loses. What happens if the dark lord wins? What happens if Harry Potter would have gotten to the end of that story and Voldemort would have killed him and taken over the world? Or what if Sauron had gotten that Ring? And so that became the history of this book series, and the stories then are about a group of so-called rejects who aren't the prophesied heroes, who aren't following what's supposed to happen, who are working in this world to try and overthrow this empire. So it is a very. . .it's kind of a dark, oppressive series. I think it's very good. People find it very exciting and enjoyable. But there are certain themes: the darkness certainly is one, and the instigating a rebellion against an oppressive force, and these sort of things.
And when it came time to write Warbreaker, I wanted to try something different. I felt that I'd spent so long dealing with darkness, I wanted to use color instead as a focus. And so one of the themes became color and how color represents life, and the magic in the world is based around the concept of color. Beyond that, I'd been thinking for a long time that anarchy and setting up a rebellion and these sorts of things could actually be a lot easier than the concept of stopping a war. Starting one, in many ways, could be easier. And I wanted to tell a story about someone who's working against a ticking time bomb to try and stop two kingdoms which are just bent on going to war with one another because of different factions, and seeing if he could dig out what's really going on and get to the root of it, and stop it.
And that's part of the theme, but there are so many other things. In part, it's about an agnostic god who doesn't believe in the religion that worships him. It's about two sisters who have to exchange roles in life. It's about a sarcastic talking sword who really likes to kill people. I mean, there are a lot of things going on in this book.
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Is Adonalsium going to be mentioned by name in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings or is he going to be an underlining "God"(I don't know what to call him yet) idea? I am curious now, so I will have to keep my eyes open for him.
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In Mistborn, you say its planet is called Scadriel. In-universe, where (or when) did the name Scadriel come to be used to be describe the Mistborn planet? Did the Lord Ruler and his obligators use that as the name of the planet, or did it come later, post-Mistborn 3? Or is "Scadriel" just what you as an author use to refer to it?
It is "In Universe" so to speak, though the name itself isn't known to the people on-planet. The Lord Ruler was the only one who understood the exact nature of a planet, really, though some of the obligators and noble scholars had a general idea. Astronomy was one of the scientific areas where the Lord Ruler didn't mind people doing research, so long as it kept their interest away from chemistry or a science that could lead to advances in weaponry.
Scadrial would then have been the name that Ruin and Preservation understood for the planet, as well as certain other groups and individuals of a less directly divine nature.
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Is there a rationale to how Hemalurgic powers are distributed? I tried to look for a system, but they seem rather randomly distributed. For example, the spike which steals Allomantic powers for a particular quadrant is not always in one particular spot.
That is correct, it's not always in one particular spot. None of them are. I used as my model on this magic system the concept of acupuncture and pressure points. Placing a Hemalurgic spike is a very delicate and specific art. Imagine there being a different overlay on a human body, like a new network of nerves, representing lines, points, and 'veins' of the soul's spiritual makeup.
What is happening with Hemalurgy, essentially, is that you're driving a spike through a specific point on a person's body and ripping off a piece of their soul. It sticks to the spike on the Spiritual Realm. Then, you place that spike on someone else in a specific place (not exactly the same place, but on the right spiritual pressure point) and 'hot wire' the spirit to give it Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. It's like you're fooling the spiritual DNA, creating a work-around. Or, in some cases, changing the spirit to look like something else, which has the immediate effect of distorting the body and transforming it into a new creature.
Hemalurgy is a very brutal way of making changes like this, though, so it often has monstrous effects. (Like with the koloss.) And in most cases, it leaves a kind of 'hole' in the spirit's natural defenses, which is how Ruin was able to touch the souls of Hemalurgists directly.
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Can you tell us what the rest of the Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers are? Since, you know, you won't be writing in the Mistborn world for many years, and those Feruchemical and Hemalurgic Tables might not even come into existence if the Allomantic Metals one doesn't sell. Pretty please?
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Hemalurgically, atium steals Allomantic Temporal Powers. But, that seems unlikely, since atium is a god metal. It wouldn't fit in with the rest of the magic system. Did Preservation, in addition to switching Cadmium and Bendalloy for Atium and Malatium, also switch atium's Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers with Cadmium? Because it seems to me there's not a lot of atium Marsh can use to live for hundreds of years into the next Mistborn trilogy.
Preservation wanted Atium and Malatium to be of use to the people, as he recognized that it would be a very powerful tool—and that using it up could help defeat Ruin. But he also recognized that sixteen was a mythological important number, and felt it would make the best sign for his followers. So he took out the most unlikely (difficult to make and use) metals for his sign to his followers. But that doesn't have much to do with Hemalurgy's use here.
Remember that the tables—and the ars Arcanum—are 'in world' creations. (Or, at least, in-universe.) The knowledge represented in them is as people understand it, and can always have flaws. That was the case with having atium on the table in the first place, and that was the case with people (specifically the Inquisitors) trying to figure out what atium did Hemalurgically.
Their experiments (very expensive ones) are what determined that atium (which they thought was just one of the sixteen metals) granted the Allomantic Temporal powers. What they didn't realize is that atium (used correctly) could steal ANY of the powers. Think of it as a wild card. With the right knowledge, you could use it to mimic any other spike. It works far better than other spikes as well.
As for Marsh, he's got a whole bag of atium (taken off of the Kandra who was going to try to sell it.) So he's all right for quite a while. A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.
But this was a little beyond their magical understanding at the time.
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Will Sazed appear at all in the Stormlight Archive?
There are no current plans for him to do so.
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In the days of the Final Empire, how does one acquire a Kandra Contract? It's not like they can just walk up to their hidden Homeland and ask for their services.
Same way you would go about hiring an assassin. Secretly, using contacts who have used them before. You have to be in the know and well-connected, either with the upper-class or the underground.
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So, Brandon. Hoid. I remember you saying at the Idaho Falls signing last year that he was in Well of Ascension. We, your dedicated fans who like scouring books searching for obscure characters who have any possibility of being the mysterious Hoid, have yet to find him. Peter sent us on a hunt for him (Hoid, not Peter...) in the deleted scenes, and we found his boot-print.
Now, I think he broke the pottery there too—the one holding the larasium—and since there's broken pottery in the actual version, I think he may have snuck into the cavern and broken it as well. If so, is this Hoid's part in Well of Ascension? This trace of him? I commend you if it is. It is clever, making us think it was a person, when in fact it's just something he did.
You are on the right track, but wrong on one point. Hoid does appear in the book.
I had originally toyed with making his touch on the novel more obscure, but decided that I wanted to be consistent with the other novels by actually having him appear. Once I realized I'd probably cut the scene with the footprint, I decided I needed this actual appearance even more badly.
Fortunately, I knew what Hoid had been up to all this time, and had placed him in a position where several characters could run into him. In Well of Ascension, Hoid believed (as Vin did) that the Well was in the North, even though it was not. He spent much of the book pursuing this idea.
Through events, however, he discovered he was wrong. He made the realization after Vin did, but only because of a chance meeting. (This is recorded in the books. Let's just say he was listening in when someone implied that the Well was in Luthadel.)
He hurried to Luthadel, and was in the town, skulking about in the last parts of the novel. He isn't seen here, though he does still infiltrate the Well. (Hoid is quite proficient at manipulating Shadesmar for his own ends.)
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Additionally, how much time would you say that you spend researching on any given work, and what are some of the things that you research?
That one's really too hard to judge.
Research for me is on-going for any given work, and I don't track how much time I spend on it. Generally, I dig into specific topics when the need arises, then do more 'cast out the net' general reading for ideas the rest of the time. Generally, I'll only dig in deeply if a topic is important to a specific story. (Such as—for Mistborn—researching canals or the effects of being made a eunuch at various ages.)
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One other question, what is the name of the planet that Elantris is on?
Elantris: Sel
Warbreaker: Nalthis
Mistborn: Scadrial
Way of Kings: Roshar
White Sand: Taldain
Dragonsteel: Yolen
There are others, but I haven't talked much about those yet, so I'll leave them off for now.
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Any idea when you'll be releasing the full table of Allomantic metals and associated phonetics shown in your blog post about vinyl decals?
Very, very soon. It's at the printer right now. Should happen this month, if all things go well. We will start with the limited edition prints on the nice paper with the expensive inks, signed and numbered by myself and Isaac. Poster prints will come eventually too. And, of course, we'll also release in standard desktop sizes for free, for those who can't afford a poster.
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Upcoming book plans: A Memory of Light is first, of course; he expects to follow that with Book 2 of the Stormlight Archive in March or April 2013. Book 2 will have Shallan as the focus character (like Kaladin was in book 1), followed in subsequent books by Szeth, Navani and Dalinar. Once the first 5 Stormlight books are out, he plans to do the second Mistborn trilogy, then books 6-10 of Stormlight. Interspersed with the first 5 Stormlight books, he'll do several more Wax and Wayne books; similar to Alloy of Law, they'll be shorter, lighter, more witty & adventurous than the epics.
Warbreaker 2 will be another "in between" book; he plans to use the same process as the first Warbreaker, posting sections on his website and getting feedback, using a very open and interactive process of development.
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Let’s start with an Alloy of Law question, since that’s why we’re both here. You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into the evolution of the world of Scadrial, specifically in how you’ve integrated the world’s technological advances. Was there anything in particular that drew you to the old west setting, and did you do anything to research it, like going to a shooting range or a ranch?
Good question. I actually wrote the prologue LAST. I wrote it to be the prologue to another book about Wax and Wayne if I did one. I always knew what happened, but I didn’t want to start the book with the old west, because most of it didn’t happen in the old west, it happened in the city. What is now chapter one used to be the prologue. And after writing the whole book I realized that we didn’t see into Wax’s heart, we didn’t know what he was always referencing with Lessie… we actually needed to see it. And so I actually took that chapter and moved it to the front. I worry a bit that it will old-west-ify it a bit too much, because I did see this as a city book. All of the Mistborn books have taken place in cities.
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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?
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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Ok, last question. It was really difficult coming up with three questions that haven’t been asked already...
OK... you’re not going to ask me the “what would you ask me” question?
Oooooh, ok. Hm. That one is so hard! Every time people ask me something like this... What have I never been asked that people should be asking, is basically what the question is? Something that the fans have just missed... They pick up on so much, that it’s hard... I do wonder if, you know… all the magic systems [in my books] are connected and work on some basic fundamental principles, and a lot of people haven’t been asking questions about this. One thing I did get a question on today, and I’ll just talk about this one... they didn’t ask the right question, but I nudged them the right way, is understanding that tie between Aondor [the magic system from Elantris] and allomancy [Mistborn’s magic system].
People ask about getting the power from metals and things, but that’s not actually how it works. The power’s not coming from metal. I talked a little about this before, but you are drawing power from some source, and the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. So it is just a sign of “this is what power this energy is going to be shaped into and give you.” When you understand that, compounding [in Alloy of Law] makes much more sense.
Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the feruchemical charge overwrites the allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel feruchemy with allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels allomancy, to fuel feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of feruchemical power. That’s why compounding is so powerful.
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This may be new information to some readers, but I've mentioned several places before that the Mistborn series was pitched to my editor as a sequence of three trilogies. Past, present, and future—epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction; all with the running thread of the magic system.
Since I just started coming out with the Stormlight Archive, I want to commit myself to that and don't want to dig into the second Mistborn trilogy for quite a while. Yet I want to prep people for the idea that Mistborn is going to be around for a while, and they are going to be seeing more books. I didn't want it to just come out of nowhere at them in ten years or whenever I get to it. So I decided to do some interim stories.
One of the things I'd been playing with was the idea of what happened between the epic fantasy and the urban fantasy trilogies. We have some very interesting things happening in the world, where you've got a cradle of mankind created (by design) to be very lush, very easy to live in, so a great big city could grow up there relatively quickly; civilization could build itself back up over the course of just a couple of generations. Yet there would be very little motivation to leave that area at first, which I felt would mean that you'd end up with this really great frontier boundary. The dichotomy between the two—the frontier and the quite advanced (all things considered) city in the cradle of humanity—was very interesting to me. So I started playing around with where things would lead.
To worldbuild the urban fantasy trilogy coming up, I need to know everything that happened in the intervening centuries. Some stories popped up in there that I knew would happen, that would be referenced in the second trilogy. So I thought, why don't I tell some of these stories, to cement them in my mind and to keep the series going.
I started writing The Alloy of Law not really knowing how long it would be—knowing the history and everything that happened, but not knowing how much of it I wanted to do in prose form. Things just clicked as they sometimes do, and I ended up turning it into a novel.
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I'd say more organic. I honestly don't look at it as much of a Western. The part that is in a Western setting, the prologue, is actually the last thing I wrote, feeling I needed a better introduction. Originally the story just started in the city.
As I said, I view it as a clash between these two concepts, the city and the frontier. Mistborn as a series has always been city-based, urban. I intend to keep it that way, mostly. The story here as I saw it was of the man who had been living out on the frontier for a long time who comes back and has to integrate into society. Which is another theme of the Mistborn books—just as in the original trilogy Vin had to go from the streets to upper society, I wondered what it would be like to deal with a character who had lived among the two-faced society of city politics and more or less rejected it, who gets pulled back against his will. So I would say it's less a Western and more a clash between that more simple, rugged lifestyle and the city lifestyle.
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I don't generally sit down and say I'm going to write someone who's this archetype or that archetype. What I wanted for this book, honestly, was just to have fun. I love writing epic, awesome stories; I love stories that are full of deep character conflict and broad world-spanning conflict—but sometimes I just want to back away from that and have fun.
The Wax archetype with the sidekick—the two of them were built from the ground up to be characters who played off one another well to facilitate good banter. Because I like to write good banter. I like to read it, I like to enjoy it. Whether it's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or Holmes and Watson or whatever—I get a kick out of these types of stories. So when I was writing this book, I was really just saying let's step back for a little while from the kind of stories I was writing with The Way of Kings and the Wheel of Time—which are both (I hope) very awesome, and deep, and complex—and let's do something that's just fun.
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I had a bit of a challenge in this book because—and you may want to put a spoiler warning on this interview—at the end of the first Mistborn trilogy, one of the characters became the god of this world. He became a god figure, an almost omnipotent figure. I had planned this from the beginning, but it also offers a challenge, because in this world you have a real deity that is interacting, that is a character—not to say that in our world God doesn't interact with us, because as you know I am a faithful, religious person. However, I think there is a different interaction going here where the reader has spent time with this person as a character, and now he is a deity figure. So how to deal with this is one of the big challenges in worldbuilding this next several hundred years.
I wanted Sazed to be involved—I didn't want to just have him vanish and not be part of things. I wanted to acknowledge what happened with him and make it part of the mythology of the story. But at the same time, having one of your characters turn into God runs you right into the trouble of literal deus ex machina, once one of your characters has all of this power. So walking that line was both exciting and also very challenging.
I like to deal with religion in my books. I like to look at all aspects of it, and in this book I wanted to look at what it would be like if someone like Sazed had been put in this position and people started worshiping him—what do you do with that?
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You will have to look. Hoid is in the book, though his name doesn't appear. But the things happening here during this interim are not of deep interest to Hoid like the things happening in the original trilogy, so he is playing a much smaller role here than he was in the original trilogy.
Also, High Imperial just cracks me up.
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I can explain this better in person because I know things that the characters in the book don’t. So, they haven’t worked a lot of this out. All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.
In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.
In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.
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Yes, I will be.
Wait... what!? We already have Warbreaker 1 to recommend to friends as a free trial of your work.
Not that I'm complaining, but why make W2 free too?
Because it was a part of the experience of writing the book for me. It is something I'd like to try again. (Releasing the book chapter by chapter as I write it.)
Was the Warbreaker experiment successful? By which I mean, were there more, less, or as many sales as, say, Elantris?
More than Elantris or MB1/MB2 initially, not as many as MB3. Now it's about even with Elantris. (Expected. Mistborn has the series boost, which makes the entire trilogy sell about double what Elantris or Warbreaker do.)
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After I wrote the first book, and Elend grew more important in my mind, I reworked the three-book-outline. Usually, when I build a series, I spend a lot of time on the first book and then have a few paragraphs on the rest. Then, after finishing the first book and seeing how it worked (and how the tone was) I go and do much more in-depth outlines for the rest of the series.
When the first book is happening, things are much more 'anything goes' as I don't have any established cannon yet. I allow myself to toss the rest of the outlines out the window, and just try to make the first book the best it can be. From there, I have continuity, and I feel it is important to maintain that for the integrity of the series.
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It depends on the magic system. They are all related to a kind of "Spiritual DNA" that one gets from their heritage on a specific planet. However, there are ways around that. (Hemalurgy, for example, 'staples' a piece of someone else's soul to your own, and creates a work around to give you access to magic you shouldn't have.) Some of the magics are more regionally tied than others. (In Elantris, you have to access the Dor, which is very regionally influenced.)
The end answer is this: With in-depth knowledge of how the magics work, and their connection, one could probably get them all to work on other planets. It may take effort for some of them.
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I usually design my plot in some detail before I begin. (Though not in as much detail as the world, which I spend a LOT of time on.) I build it using the idea of focus scenes—powerful, game-changing scenes that I imagine cinematically and then try to 'earn' though building my plot.
Once that is done, I start my book with the characters. Characters, I grow organically. In writing terms, we speak of what we call "outline" writers and what we call "discovery" writers. (GRRM calls them "Architects" and "Gardeners.") I outline write my settings and to a lesser extent my plots, but I discovery write my characters.
In doing so, once I start the book, the character takes center stage. They have, at any point, the right to change the plot in any way to fit what they would actually do. I will often try a few different 'characters' in a lead role when starting a book. For example, there were three different Vins I tried out for Mistborn. The first one (which was a boy) did not work. The second one (a female) did not work either. It was the third time that I got her right.
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Which one? Pen and paper RPG or video game?
Pen and paper is done. Coming out this fall, probably. I am hoping to go to Gencon next year to support it.
Video Game deal has not been signed yet, but contract negotiations are done and we should sign soon. I can give more details then.
Movie deal: An actor for Vin has been tentatively attached, though it's very preliminary. Screenplay is done, and I got the latest draft in July. It's quite good.
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One of the 'basics' of the magic in all of the worlds is that the energy of Shards can fuel all kinds of interactions, not just interactions based on their personality/role. I did this because otherwise, the Magics would all be extremely limited.
The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do. So, in Preservation's case, the magic is a gift—allowing a person to preserve their own strength, and rely upon the strength granted by the magic. While Hemalurgy has a huge cost, ending in net entropy.
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When I sold the rights, I was not of the level of fame I now am. That's one consideration. It was the first REAL (as in, willing to up-front serious money) offer I'd had. I also knew that Red Eagle had had success with the WoT, being small and then getting the rights picked up by a large studio.
The producer impressed me a lot. He flew out to meet with me, and had a great vision. My agent and I thought that, getting a deal with a smaller producer and retaining some creative control was worth the risk. The worst that can happen is that a buyout doesn't happen by the end of next year, and the rights come back.
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I'm not going to waste Brandon's time with this—maybe someone else can answer.
Regarding the ending of the Mistborn Trilogy: What was up with Ruin having red hair? Is that significant? Does it mean that Ruin was originally a human who gained his powers somehow? My friend thought that Ruin was actually another red-haired character in the series, though I don't remember his name. I think he was a minor captain or something.
(My apologies for how vague this is—it's been a while since I read the series)
That is on the right track. Do some reading up on Adonalsium and the Cosmere if you are interested.
Will do, but I have to be honest—there is something off putting about having to do internet research to truly understand the ending of a book/series.
I try to make all of the cosmere stuff "bonus material" so to speak. I don't think it's essential to understanding Mistborn to know Ruin's origin. Those who want expanded information can find it, and theorize upon it. However, I intend to warn people up-front before writing any book where you have to know this to understand it.
Within the realm of Mistborn only, all you really need to know is that someone was holding this power—and that the 'individuals' of Ruin and Preservation were people, changed by the power they held. It holds to the theme of the story, with what happens regarding Sazed and other characters.
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A mix of many things inspired Allomancy. The 'feel' of a magic that was really just a new branch of physics, as I spoke about in another post. Alchemy, which is fascinating to me from the standpoint of its place on the border, is another. Real scientists believed in Alchemy, but had to sort out that it was not scientific. It was a time of great thought, and a time when science and 'magic' were mixed in what now seems like strange ways.
Dune was an inspiration (having a limited resource, though I didn't limit it nearly as much, to give an economic side to the magic.) Vector physics was a big influence, as was the fact that I wanted to write a heist story. I therefore designed powers that worked for thieves. The 'burning' of metals was chosen because it resonated with science—the basic way we gain energy is by ingesting things and breaking them down for chemical energy. I wanted something that felt like it had one foot in science, but was also very magical.
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I've done it all of these ways.
Most commonly, I develop the magic, plot, characters, and some setting ideas separately. I combine them in my head, looking for good synergy. (Allomancy and Feruchemy were designed separately, then put into the same book.) Sometimes, I design to fit a story. (Hemalurgy was designed to fit a hole in the three-fold magic system I wanted to tell.) Other times, the magic comes first, then I build everything out of that. (This happened for my YA book Scribbler—also known as The Rithmatist—which isn't out yet.)
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I've said that what I love about fantasy is that it can do anything any other genre can do, plus have that added sense of wonder. So I've wanted to explore different types of what fantasy can achieve. The steampunk movement is awesome for doing this. I don't actually consider this book to be steampunk, because the Victorian feel and steam technology aren't there, but it certainly is a cousin to what is happening in steampunk.
At its core, really what I've done is write a detective novel. A buddy detective novel set in an early 1900s industrial age equivalent, in a fantasy world where the epic fantasy that I wrote as a trilogy (Mistborn) has become the mythology for this new world. That concept excited me. What made me do it? The idea that I could, and that I hadn't really seen it done before. That's what fantasy is all about.
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During the era when I was trying to find my voice and find out what I was going to do as a writer, I felt that Robert Jordan had really captured the story of the hero's journey, the monomyth type epic fantasy, and done it about as well as it could be done. And so I started to look for things that I could add. This was very good for me to be doing, to be spending this time thinking about, not just retreading what had gone before, but really doing what some of the greats in the past had done.
One of the reasons I love the Wheel of Time is because I felt that when it came out, it best blended what was familiar about fantasy with a lot of new concepts. A lot of the books that were coming out were using the old familiar tropes: elves, even if they called them a different name, and dwarves, and even dragons, and these sorts of things. And then you came along to the Wheel of Time, which didn't use any of those things, or if it did, it twisted them completely on their head. No one knew what a dragon was, and a dragon was a person. And you know, the magic system having a logical approach to it rather than just being something that happened. And he really took the genre in a different direction. And I said, I have to do something like this. Not that I ever wanted to, or intend to, or think that I could be revolutionary in the genre in the way he was, but I wanted to add something. I wanted to take a step forward rather than taking the same steps that people had taken.
And so I began to ask myself what hadn't been done. And so you end up with me, Brandon, who...sometimes I look at myself as a postmodern fantasy writer. If you read the Mistborn trilogy, it's very much a postmodern fantasy epic. It's the fantasy epic for someone who's read all these great fantasy epics. And the story's kind of aware of all of those. It's the story of what happens if the dark lord wins? What happens if the prophecies are lies? What happens if all the things we assume about the standard fantasy epic all go horribly wrong?
I don't want to simply be someone. . . to be postmodern, you have to be a little bit deconstructionalist, which means you're relying on the very things that you're tearing apart. I think there's a level beyond that, which is actually adding something new, not just giving commentary on what's come before. But I do love the whole postmodern aspect. I love delving into that. It's something that I think can be unique to my generation because we've grown up reading all these epics, where the generation before us didn't.
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I've seen in reviews of Mistborn that a criticsm that pops up from time to time is that you tend to repeat the basic principles of the magic system. I've seen that some feel hit over the head with it. Personally, I liked that fact since the magic system was new and it helped me to remember and understand.
I'm also seeing criticsm now with Warbreaker that the magic system isn't explained enough to thoroughly understand it. I've pointed out in discussions that not even Vasher understands it all.
But here's my question: Did criticsm of the magic system's explanations in Mistborn have anything to do with Warbreaker having considerably less explanation in its magic system?"
Wow, that's a very detailed and interesting question. The answer is no.
...Okay, there's more to that answer. I accepted the criticisms of the Mistborn books with the knowledge that there was really no other way around it—the way I was writing those books and the complexity of the magic system made me feel like I needed to give those hints. It's not like I'm trying to write down to the lowest denominator, but at the same time I want to make sure that the complicated magic system is a force driving the book—and is something interesting rather than something confusing. Across a three-book epic like that I wanted to make sure that I was not leaving people behind. That's always a balance in a book series. And I don't know where to set that balance. In fact, I think the balance is going to be different for every person. Any given book that you read, some people are going to find it overexplained and some people are going to find it underexplained. I'm always trying to strike the right balance, particularly for the tone of a given book, to make that work for the novel.
With Warbreaker, as you've pointed out, the magic system is much less understood by the poeple taking part in it. In the Mistborn books the magic system is very well understood. Even though there are little pieces of it that people don't know yet, those peices are easy to grasp and understand and use once people figure out what they are. In the Mistborn books the world is in a state where people have spend 1000 years using this magic system and perfecting it and understanding it. In Warbreaker, they haven't. They still don't know much about what's going on. It's very mysticized. People haven't sat down and spent enough time pursuing scholarly research about it, figuring it out. Beyond that there's no immortal Lord Ruler figure explaining it all to them—or if there is, it's Vasher and he's not telling anyone. And so the magic in Warbreaker has a very different feel to it. I wanted it to be a little confusing, because it is confusing for the main characters.
I wouldn't say that the criticism of the Mistborn books is what drove me; the needs of the various plots is what drove me.
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While I loved Mistborn and am excited to see you optioned the film rights already, I think that Warbreaker would translate to film even more easily/successfully
So I guess my question is, do you agree that Warbreaker will translate to film better? Did you discuss this with the Paloppa Guys? Which of your works do you think is most "marketable" as a medium—to—big—budget film?
I think the magic system of Warbreaker is certainly better suited to film than a lot of the MISTBORN magic system. However, I think the plot and storytelling of Mistborn — because of the action/adventure style of it — would translate better to film. Story structure—wise, Mistborn, particularly the first book, is probably the best book-to-film translation I think I've got. I think Warbreaker would make a wonderful graphic novel, and someday I would love to sell rights to it in that medium. And certainly if we make a Mistbron film, the metals would have to work in a very different way. They would probably be understated in the film itself.
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Several hundred years after the original trilogy—Spoiler alert!—Wait, aren't these questions supposed to be about Warbreaker?
Anyway, the Mistborn sequel trilogy, as I've said before, takes place in a more technologically advanced version of the world, several hundred years later. They've progressed beyond steam technology to combustion engine technology, are building skyscrapers ;mdash; that level of technology. It will follow the exploits of a team of Allomancers who are kind of like an Allomantic SWAT team, a group of hybrid mercenary/deputized individuals who are brought in by the police to take out Allomancer criminals. The first book will deal with when they are called in to deal with a Mistborn serial killer. That's how it starts. It will go bizarre from there, of course, but think guns, cars, skyscrapers, and Allomancers.
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In November, yes.
Excellent. Why don't you tell us a little about it, and how you came to create it?
When I pitched the Mistborn series to Tor, I pitched it as a continuum, as a group of different smaller series set in a fantasy world that I... I had never seen it done before. That doesn't mean it hasn’t been done. Lots of things have been done. But I had never seen a series do a big epic fantasy trilogy, and then jump forward hundreds of years and have the technology have grown and changed. It seems like when we jump around in fantasy worlds, we're always kind of in the same tech level, and I wanted to do something different; I wanted to write this... The Mistborn trilogy is done and tied up, and it is an epic fantasy trilogy—I love how it turned out. Now I'm jumping forward hundreds of years and doing stories in the same world, with the magic still being around during the age of industry. And so this is a... This is guns and skyscrapers and cars and allomancers. Right about...equivalency of early 1900s. And so it's the dawn of electric power, and the dawn of motor cars and things like this. Kind of a clash between magic and the technology, and a guy who's kind of caught between the two.
This sounds standalone-ish. Like a new person to Mistborn could actually jump into it and...
Yes, it's definitely a new jumping in point. It does not have major spoilers for the previous series. So it's one you can just read, and the first chapters are on Tor.com. We're pushing the... We're publishing the first five on the website, so people can just go read them there.
Will you be touring?
I will be. I'll be doing a tour in the US and in the UK.
Because the Wheel of Time book will be turned in?
Yes. The Wheel of Time book is turned in, and then I go on tour.
Excellent.
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Well, I do these things kind of for the same reasons I mentioned above. First and foremost, I want people to feel like they get their money's worth from my novels. When they buy one—particularly in hardback—they're investing quite a chunk of change to be entertained. I want to give them as much as I can, kind of like the bonus material on a DVD.
It takes between a half-hour and an hour a day, four days a week, to keep my blog updated and to provide this bonus material. A fairly big investment, but worth it, I think. I go a year between publishing novels. If I can keep people coming back to my website to read new and good material, they'll be that much more likely to know when my next book comes out, then buy it!
The annotations came from my desire to do something like a DVD director's commentary. I'd never seen anything like that done on a book website before, so I went for it. I hope people enjoy them!
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Mistborn was good. Elantris was better, I think. I have a pretty low tolerance for sex and gore in novels and neither of these bothered me. Both were very interesting fantasy that actually spent some time thinking about new ways a world could work.
Oh Frank, Mistborn is much better than Elantris, but then I'm prejudiced against zombies. And as an added bonus, Mistborn had the best cover art ever—that unusual angle, so intriguing, and not contra the text as book covers so often are. In fact, after I finished the book I could see, in retrospect, that the cover depicts an important plot point at the end of the book—what a fabulous Easter egg is that!
It's fun that my oldest child is now old enough to pass my books too. We both love Mistborn. No undue influence from the woman who houses and feeds her, I assume. She wrote one of her big literature projects on Mistborn this year.
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Elantrians are not slivers. Mistborn trilogy spoiler warnings follow! The Lord Ruler was indeed a Sliver. So was Vin. For the rest, I would say probably not.
What defines an actual Sliver of Adonalsium is not as clear-cut as you might think. It's a term that in-universe people who study this have applied to various existences and states. Every single person on the world of Scadrial has a bit of Leras in them—a bit of the power of Preservation. Every single person has a bit of Ati in them. There's a certain threshold where these scholars would call you a Sliver of Adonalsium. But I would say that any regular Misting is probably not a Sliver. A full Lerasium Mistborn is getting closer, but people who have held one of the powers are what would probably be termed a Sliver by the definitions. If you hold all the power that makes you a Shard, but the Lord Ruler held a little bit of it and then let it go. From then on they referred to that change in him—the residue, what was left—as a Sliver. When he held it he became the Shard for a short time, and Vin was a Shard for a short time. After Vin gave up the power, what Kelsier is at the end of the trilogy—that's a Sliver of Adonalsium.
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The Inquisitor at the end is indeed Marsh. He stayed alive using the same trick that TLR used.
I said that I actually had a related question.
He said "Oh, do you want to ask why Marsh has a Feruchemical Atium spike?"
I blinked, and said that my question was actually "Why did Bloody Tan see Ten-Soon (as the Survivor) and Marsh (as Ironeyes)?"
He said that he was not answering any questions on what Bloody Tan saw, or thought he saw.
I then said, "But now that you mention it, why does Marsh have a Feruchemical Atium spike?"
He told me "You'll have to figure that out! Good job on getting two RAFOs in a row!"
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Got another one. Why do Kandra need two spikes to have a blessing and to become sentient?
It is just the nature of how Hemalurgy works. More spikes are capable of changing form and body more, and I didn’t feel that one spike was viable for the alterations that are made to their nature.
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Could you make a Kandra an Allomancer?
With the right sequence of sorts of things, you could impart those powers to them theoretically. It’s not likely to happen, but you could do it. You could build a spike that would let them Push or Pull. But you’d give the powers separately, probably.
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I've heard rumors of a Mistborn movie. Is that true?
The Mistborn movie, is not even up to handshakes now. We do have a Vin chosen, but it’s not official yet, so I can’t say who it is.
I've heard rumors. Will you confirm or deny this?
What rumor?
Linsey Lohan?
(Wild laughter)
Yeah, I can deny that one. (Continued Laughter) It's not Paris Hilton's dog either.
Yeah, basically it’s where it’s been at for a while, which is we’re at a good version of the screenplay, we’re trying now to get people to look at it in Hollywood.
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The video game is coming along very nicely. In fact, earlier just this week I built the whole plot sequence for that. It’s going to have some really good twists and turns and theoretically, if it works well, I will be writing all the dialogue and all the story.
Which is more on your plate.
Which is more on my plate. But that can be fun, because the main character is a really sarcastic kind of a little bit of a jerk. And so I can actually write his dialogue on napkins while I’m sitting, waiting and be like “Alright, here’s a good line,” and things like that. That’s because most of it is gameplay. I have to just come up with lots of good wisecracks and then of course, I have to write the cutscenes. But those really aren’t that much in a game like this. It’s maybe a week’s worth of work to get all of that written.
How long before is the game going to be? I remember you saying it was going to be before Final Empire, but I was wondering how long before?
We are shooting for second century after The Lord Ruler's Ascension.
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What is a Mistcloak made of in real life? Like what is the closest material you’ve seen one be made of? Because I’m having the hardest time figuring out what material to use.
The Mistcloak is mainly made of cool stuff in my head that moves in ways that’s very hard to make. (laughter) But I would say the key component to the mistcloak is how it falls. And a lot of people have tried to use the stuff that has the wires at the sides of it, and I don’t actually think that works right. I would say that the key to the Mistcloak is getting it to fall kind of straight , but the tassles not being too stiff. So I would look for a medium weight material. So, I don’t even know what, but felt isn’t right. I’ve seen some people do felt, and it doesn’t look right. Felt’s too heavy.
I’ve seen good Mistcloaks, but I don’t know fabrics enough to say for sure. I’d have to have it before me and say “Yes” to this, or “No” to this.
Congratulations. Now he’s going to make up a new magic system. (laughter)
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How do you pronounce the Mistborn Planet? [Scadrial]
Sca (as in Scab) dri (as in drink) al (sounds like ul).
Okay. I always said Sca (as in Skate) dri (as in drink) al (as in Albert)
That’s perfectly fine. This can launch me into my little thing on pronunciation. As readers, you get the say, you’re the director. I wrote the script. The director can always change things. If you want a character to look differently in your head, that’s okay. If you want to pronounce things however you want, that’s okay too. Because a book does not exist until it has a reader. It really doesn’t live. It exists, but it doesn’t live until you read it and give it life. So however you feel like doing it, go ahead. And remember, I’ve said this numerous times before, I don’t pronounce all the names right. I’m American, so I pronounce things with an American accent. The best example I give is Kelsier, because I do say Kel (as in bell) si (as in see) er (as in air), but they say Kel (as in bell) si (as in see) er (as in hey) in-world (it sounds very French). I say E (as in the letter e) lan (as in lawn) tris (as in hiss), they say E (as in the letter e) Lan (as in lane) tris (as in hiss) in-world. So there are linguistic fundamentals of these because I do have some linguistic background, but I don’t always say them right. I like saying Sa (like suh) rene (like Reen), instead of Sa (like suh) rene (like meany), which is how they say it. Which Suh-reany sounds kind of dumb in English. And in their language, it’s a beautiful woman’s name, but here you wouldn’t call someone Suh-reany, you’d call them Suh-rean.
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Does Iron store mass or weight?
Excellent question. The thing is it really does involve mass, but I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter) But I try to work within the framework, and I have reasonings built up for myself, and some of them have to be kind of arbitrary. But the thing is, it does store mass if you look at how it interacts, but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.
So there are a few little tweaks. You can go talk to Peter, because Peter has the actual math. Oh Peter’s back there. Peter is dressed up as Allomancer Jak from the broadsheet. In fact we’re giving some out broadsheets, aren’t we Peter. So when you come through the line, we’re giving out Broadsheets. Please don’t take fifty—I think we might have enough for everybody. The broadsheets are the newspaper from the Alloy of Law time. It’s an inworld newspaper. It’s actually reproduced in the book in four different pages, and we put it together in one big broadsheet.
So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”
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When will we see a Hoid book?
It’ll be a little while. He’s playing around with things in the Stormlight Archive if you couldn’t tell, he’s decided to—Hoid is fiddling with things, more than he usually does. But Hoid as a major part of things doesn’t really show up till the third Mistborn trilogy, which is the outer space Mistborn, the sci-fi Mistborn.
If you didn’t know, Mistborn was pitched to my editor as a trilogy of trilogies. I told him I wanted to do a trilogy of epic fantasy books, then the same world in a modern setting, which we’re not to yet, but it’s going to be Allomancers in the 21st century-equivalent technology. It’s an urban fantasy series. Then I wanted to do a Science Fiction series in the same world, using the Epic Fantasy world as kind of a mythology to this new world, and the magic system becoming the means of Space Travel.
Whaaa?!
And so that’s how I pitched Mistborn to my editor.
Alloy of Law is actually a deviation from that, because I didn’t want people to forget about Mistborn, I wanted them to keep reading Mistborn, so I wanted them to keep releasing things, and we’ll eventually get to that second trilogy—
Hey there you are Mark! I heard you got number one.
Yep.
You’re crazy (laughter). You’re awesome though. He even beat the 17thshard people, which is really a hard thing to do. (oohs and aahs) Two hours. Beat them by two hours.
So Alloy of Law I wanted to set up things for the second trilogy. I didn’t want to do the second trilogy yet, because the second trilogy, like the first trilogy is kind of bigger books, with a very involved storyline evolved across three books, and I didn’t want to be releasing that parallel to Stormlight Archive, which is the same sort of thing. Very evolved books where you tie a lot of things together, and so I wanted a series of Mistborn novels that were more independent.
Alloy of Law is intended to be a “read it, have fun.” Eventually I may end up doing more with those characters, but when I do, you won’t have to remember that much about this one. It’s not like you have to remember a cast of 500 characters. You can just keep track of the main characters. They’re more of an episodic adventure. I kind of imagine Alloy of Law being—I’m not totally sure how to describe it. It’s like you have the giant movie that comes out, and then you have a TV show that’s based off of it, and then another big movie series, or something like that, if that makes any sense.
So that’s what Alloy of Law is. So Hoid is very involved in the third Mistborn trilogy, he’s also very involved in Dragonsteel, which is actually the first book in the sequence, long before Elantris happened. So eventually I will tell that story. You can read a draft of it at the BYU library. It’s the only copy that I know of in existence. It’s almost always checked out. It’s my Honors thesis, and it’s not very good. It really is not very good, but basically it’s involving the ideas that eventually will become Dragonsteel once I write it again. But I stole the Shattered Plains and put them in Roshar instead because the fit better there.
226
How many Feruchemical powers have you revealed in the Alloy of Law?
In the Ars Arcanum in the back, I have revealed them all. I have not explained them all. (laughter), But I have revealed them all, they are in the back, so you are free to theorize what they mean.
227
What the heck is Investiture?
I’m not going to say that because it would be a spoiler for those who haven’t read the Ars Arcanum yet.
228
With the Alloy of Law being more Steampunk-style, and your genre of choice being fantasy, what things have you done differently in this book than in your previous ones?
Just a quick caveat—I don’t really view Alloy of Law as being Steampunk, but they put goggles on the cover, because Steampunk’s really popular, but I don’t view it as being Steampunk because it doesn’t fit the Victorian feel. It’s much more Edwardian, it’s later era, the book is really based off of 1910 New York, the feel and the culture that is there, but it’s really a Mistborn book. I think when you read it, you’ll feel that it’s more a Mistborn book than it is a Steampunk, or a Western, or anything else. It’s Mistborn. It’s Allomancers with Guns instead. (laughter)
So what have I done differently? I really wanted it to feel like a Mistborn book, with some new elements. It’s really more of a Sherlock Holmes feel than anything else, because I wanted the mystery feel, and I wanted the character dynamic deal with things like that, so this was just a conscious choice to have two or three compelling main characters be in a more episodic story, and I was more focused on that than if it’s Steampunk, or whether this is what, I really want this thematically to feel like a Mistborn book.
229
How did you come up with the Mistborn idea?
Boy, there’s so many different places this came from. The plot came from me wanting to tell a story about a world where the hero failed. You know, the Hero’s Journey a thousand years later, the sort of “What if Frodo had kept the ring?” or “What if Voldemort had killed Harry Potter?” That was one of my big concepts for it. Another big foundational concept was the desire to do a heist story, because I really love those, and I want to do one in the fantasy world.
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These are things that I overheard.
Kelsier was not spiked.
Part of the Lord Ruler's motivation for setting up The Final Empire was revenge against the people he viewed as encroaching on his people's land. He was also obsessed with creating order, which Ruin later exploited.
The Ars Arcanum in the books were all written by one person.
The author of the Ars Arcanum is either Hoid or a member of the Seventeenth Shard. Brandon also pointed to an annotation on the map of Elendel that's relevant to this question.
There's just the one system in Warbreaker, and it's also a world with only one Shard on it.
231
Are the usual quadrants (Physical, Mental, Temporal, Enhancement) preserved in Feruchemy and Hemalurgy?
No. In Ferchemy, it is based Realmatically. There is a quadrant of Spiritual, a quadrant of Cognitive and two quadrants of Physical.
232
How do Kandra decide gender? Is it just intellectual? Or are there subtle physical differences?
Kandra have a specific gender that is associated with scent- you can tell if a kandra is a boy or girl depending on how they smell. There is more to it than that. They also know who they are attracted to.
233
Does the person being pierced in order to charge a Hemalurgic spike have to die?
Not necessarily. A spike does require you to rip pieces of a soul from the victim, but that does not mean they must die. They would be a very different person afterwords though.
234
Far from the Central Dominance, skaa can hold land and get rich. The Lord Ruler doesn't let this be known.
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Watch for what happens when something leaves a bendalloy bubble.
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The Lord Ruler once gave up and tried to end the Final Empire.
237
In the most recent Hero of Ages annotation, you said that Preservation chose Vin to be the recipient of the power, just as Preservation had chosen Alendi previously (thus, this was why Ruin had manipulated the Prophecies). Was Alendi also chosen precisely sixteen years before the Well of Ascension's power returned?
Yes. He was chosen exactly sixteen years before, but he was a bit older then Vin when he was chosen.
238
Why did the Well of Ascension refill every thousand years rather than 500 or 200, etc.?
It's actually every 1024 years. The Lord Ruler just befuddled the information a bit.
239
What would have happened if Ruin *did* get the atium? Yeah, the world is destroyed, but how does Ruin "absorb" the atium so he can utilize the power?
He would metabolize it, just like the normal people have to do. However, if he did get it he would then be able to destroy the world.
240
Why is there such an imbalance between the amount of atium and the amount of lerasium in the world? Also, why are atium and lerasium very imbalanced in Allomantic power (Lerasium is far more useful than atium, really)?
There isn't. Leras is just spread out further. He is in the mists, in the Well, and in the lerasium. Ruin's power however is considerate strictly in atium.
241
Since the dawn of Scadrial, why was Feruchemy isolated in a single distinct population in the world, namely the Terrismen? Allomancy, while rare within the population of Scadrial, at least was not isolated to one population, it was spread evenly, it seems. What is special about the Terrismen that only they get the power of Feruchemy? Does it have something to do with the previous Ascensions before Rashek, with the guardian keeping the power for a time?
It's all in the spiritual DNA, which is passed on like normal DNA. However, they are a separate people. They've kept themselves isolated, similar to the jews in our world. When I asked he said there have been some Feruchemical-mistings in the past, but they are very rare.
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Does Ruin have a pool, similar to Preservation's pool with the Well of Ascension and Skai's pool in Elantris?
Yes. His pool is the pits.
248
Can Sazed "will" himself to any Shardworld if he so desires?
Yes, he has the capacity for it. However, will he? Don't know. If he did there would be a lot of ramifications for it...
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Will Sazed eventually go mad trying to hold two Shard's power at the same time (being pushed to two different Purposes simultaneously for millennia)? Why hasn't anyone else tried this trick before in the Cosmere?
No. Since they're so opposite they work together to create a whole. However, after a LONG time it would change him as a person.
250
Could you tell us a chronology of the Shardworlds thus far? Like, did Warbreaker happen after Mistborn or before, things like that. Personally, I was under the impression you said Mistborn was a sequel to Elantris, but Mi'ch and Josh disagree.
He wasn't positive on where Warbreaker went, but Elantris is first and MB is after it.
251
Can Inquisitors still breed through human reproductive methods?
Yes
252
Why did Rashek create mistwraiths the way that he did?
He wasn't sure what you meant by this, but he was sure that the annotations would cover what you wanted to know.
253
How long is the lifespan of an Inquisitor?
It depends on the powers they're given. Some burn up quickly, and others are extended. In general though they do tend to have slightly longer lives. Since Marsh has the missing bag of atiums he's going to be around for a while.
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Does being female alter the spiritual overlays on a person, so that a Hemalurgically imbued spike would need to be placed differently than in a male body?
No. In fact, there are female inquisitors in the huge fight when Vin goes blasting through them, but he felt like bringing that out would have been distracting.
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In the future when atium is rare again and we have a good Table of Allomantic Metals, which metal steals Allomantic Temporal powers?
It will be on the table when Brandon brings them out. Feruchemy is the next poster to come out. Until then RAFO.
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Can Hemalurgy be used to steal magic attributes from any Shardworld?
Hemalurgy has larger ramifications then just Scadrial. That's about all he'd say.
259
Does atium have a "side effect", much like how lerasium has a "side effect" in creating Mistborn?
RAFO
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What do you call mixing Allomantic powers with Feruchemical powers? Allochemy?
He hasn't decided yet.
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I recorded the entire session and, should we get approval to post it (I could understand if Peter would rather we didn't), I'll upload it here. Until then (or instead of that, should we get a "no") here are some details that I recalled on the ride home (no cheating, Peter. I promise!)
- We deal with a bendalloy (Allomantic)/gold (Feruchemical) Twinborn in addition to Wax's steel/iron combo
- The nickname for a iron Feruchemist is a "Slider"
- A nickname for Sazed is "Harmony" (I think)
- The events in the first trilogy have spawned 2 religions: Survivorism (der) and Pathism (followers of Sazed, unless I completely misread things)
- Bendalloy has some very interesting rules/restrictions:
once a time bubble is created, it cannot be moved; I had always thought it would follow the misting around as they moved)
entering/exiting a time bubble has some interesting effects. You can't shoot out of it, because objects entering/leaving the bendalloy bubble (especially those at high velocity) have some strange kind of conservation-of-energy-like effect, where they gain some kind of spin and ricochet in a different direction. I can't help but extrapolate what this means for individuals trying to enter/leave the stationary bubble. Maybe if it's done slowly (like with a shield in Dune), it's OK. We'll have to theorize on that until the novel comes out.
- [This one might already be known, but it sounded new to me] The third Mistborn trilogy will be sci-fi, involving space travel. Crossovers, anyone? This might be the beginning of the final stage of Unity
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"How is a Splinter different from a Sliver?
"Let me see... You have met splinters in Elantris, Warbreaker, and in Way of Kings. You have not met them in Mistborn."
"I feel like we know that. So, qualitatively, what's the difference?"
"Qualitatively, they're reverses of one another. A Sliver is a human intelligence who has held the power and released it. A Splinter has never been human."
"But it derives from a Shard's power."
"Yes. That's not it completely, but there's at least something to think about."
264
How could a person from Scadrial access Shadesmar? An alloy of a god metal?
He RAFOd me on this one and said it was a plot point for future novels.
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I do remember some things, but the majority of the questions were about WoT.
He said that all of his own books take place in the same universe, but not on the same world per se. The overall magic system was based on the principle of investing, i.e. people and things are invested by magic. So for example in Mistborn, the metals themselves aren't magical, but they become a vessel for the magic.
Also he said that the ways of magic are different. In Mistborn it's genetic (or through ingesting atium, but he didn't talk about that). In Warbreaker it has to do with gathering other people's Breath, etc.
266
Your side characters often have physical infirmities. Can you explain why?
I feel that often, fiction tends to gloss over or ignore people like Clubs. So I find myself sticking them in.
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You mentioned friday night in #Seattle Allomacy has "FTL" built into it, any more hints you can share on how that would work
It involves where the lost energy from thermodynamic issues goes in certain Allomantic interactions.
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Another question, do you think you'll eventually publish a "The World of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere"?
Probably. Though first, we'd probably do The Way of Kings and Mistborn worldbooks.
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What exactly is a dueling cane anyhow?
Depends. Some are flexible, like sparring swords, and are used for duels where blood is not needed.
Others are basically a big length of wood for hitting people, like a tonfa without the grip.
Do canes have a hilt like a sparring sword then? I always picture something like pic being used
Many have a hilt. However for most, there is no crossguard or the like.
And most don't taper like that one. They are often of a uniform diameter all the way down.
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Complex "magic" system in Mistborn, and the complex one in Elantris; what base ideas do you build from for this?
For Mistborn, Alchemy and biological metabolism. For Elantris, Chinese linguistics and geometry mixed.
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Kel said he ended atium production for a few hundred years. Will atium reappear in Alloy and such, or did Sazed move the Pits?
RAFO. :)
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In Alloy of Law are people still Snapping?
Sazed chose to alter the way Snapping works. It bothered him. It does happen, but differently.
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it seems that The Lord Ruler still needed to store age "normally" but less. Did Miles ever have to store healing?
Yes. He did, but not in the normal way.
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'IronEyes' at the end of Alloy of Law is actually Marsh? It could be any kandra could it not?
It could be a kandra, but I will tell you specifically that this time it is not. It is him.
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What would happen if you burned Duralumin and Bendalloy?
He gave us a big RAFO, and i think hinted at that it was going to play a part in future books, so its going to be important.
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At the end of Alloy of Law, Marsh tells Marasi, that Wax is doing "his brothers work". Does this mean Kelsier is still meddling, or is this a continuation of his initial legacy?
Kelsier has never been good at doing what he's told. He's still interfering.
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The Stormlight Archive is going to be in two 5-book arcs; will there be a big gap between these (story time wise)?
He said there would be a small gap, nothing as big as Mistborn and Alloy of Law, but it would be there.
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Is the size of speed bubbles affected by the strength of the allomancer?
Yes.
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Is Officer Brettin Tensoon at the end of the book?
Yes. (He let on during the signing that TenSoon made an appearance, and my friend Joe guessed it was Brettin, and Brandon confirmed it then later to us)
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Oh, and another little tidbit,
The person who gave Wax his earring was the kandra, MeLaan.
Also, that Kandra are working as "Sazed's Angels". And their role is primarily to go along fixing things by Sazed's Will. Brettin was killed towards the end of the book, but not in the storyline related plot. Sazed saw this, and told Tensoon to go get his bones, which is why he wasnt able to imitate him properly.
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The person who wrote the Ars Arcanum in Alloy of Law, is that the same person who wrote the Letter in Way of Kings.
Its not confirmed, but it's either Hoid, or someone in the 17th Shard. (However, thinking back, I'm not sure if he fully heard/understood the question, and perhaps he was expecting it to be something else. But it seems to me that if he namedropped Hoid, that he may have misunderstood the question, as it seems very likely that Hoid wrote the Letter, I dont think he'd let something slip like that. So i would count this information as rather tenuous.)
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One person asked what metal Wax's earring was made of.
He wouldn't say which metal, however he did confirm that it does have a "slight hemalurgic charge".
283
The Alloy of Law left me wanting more books in the universe right away. Any hints as to when we might get to see the next trilogy?
My current plan is to hold out on the second trilogy until I've reached a breaking point in the Stormlight Archive. (So after book five.) My reasoning is that the second trilogy is very involved, and I'm not certain if I want two thick-booked series going at once. There is a good chance I'll return and do another shorter book, like this one, in the world before then. Either about Wax, or perhaps a quick glimpse of the southern continent.
That's awesome! I really enjoyed both worlds, but right now the Stormlight Archive is the one that got me totally hooked. How was the reception for the first Stormlight compared to Alloy of Law? :)
I would say the reception is about what I hoped. The Way of Kings has made much more of an impact, as I would hope would be the case. A book that is the result of many years of effort compared to a fun diversion...well, I would be worried if Alloy of Law had been the one everyone latched onto.
That said, I've been very pleased with the reception to Alloy of Law. The sales are strong, and most people seem to be enjoying it for what it is rather than expecting it to be something it is not.
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Who wrote the "Ars Arcanum"? Since the writer obviously had knowledge of the Cosmere I assumed that it was you making an editorial note, but then I thought that it could be Hoid (who was suspiciously absent) or Sazed or any Shardbearer... Does that make sense at all?
The Ars Arcanum is written in-cosmere by someone, but I don't want to saw who yet.
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Not really a question, but the one thing that disappointed me was that you didn't come up with new slang names for Allomancers! After three hundred years, do you really think they would still be calling steel mistings "coinshots"?
Anyway, thanks for doing this and keep up the good work.
I toyed with this one, but decided that I would keep them the same for a few reasons. First off, I felt that certain things in-world would hamper some linquistic diversity. (Having the books Sazed left behind as a guide to Allomancy and history, everyone living in a small geographic area, the semi-religious nature of Allomancy making people look at it in traditional ways.) So, while I advanced the slang of the world, some of the terms I decided to leave the same.
Another reason for this came when I was writing the book. At first, I experimented with greater linguistic diversity—I even tried a vowel shift, as I figured three hundred years might be enough for that. In the end, I pulled back. I was already worried that this book not feel "Mistborn" enough, and so I wanted some direct ties back to the original series. Fiddling too much with the language while changing the setting and characters so drastically felt like a mistake to me.
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Is it significant that Miles said that the "men of gold and red" would come and rule? Is there a connection between this and the "gold and red" cigar box that Miles keeps The Suit's comings and goings on?
This is all very significant.
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How long before Way of Kings is Alloy of Law? I heard somewhere that it's a hundred years, but I don't think that's right.
I intended them to be happening roughly close to one another, with Way of Kings slightly before.
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That's Alloy of Law. Alloy of Law takes place several hundred years following the events of Hero of Ages. This was always the plan with the Mistborn series; I pitched it to my editor as a sequence of series set in the same world with an evolution of technology, which is not something I'd seen done very much in fantasy books—letting the technology process and seeing how magic interacts with it. Alloy of Law is the story of a man named Waxillium who has spent the last twenty years living out in the Roughs being a lawman. And his uncle dies, and we find out that Waxillium is actually the heir to his house. And back in the city of Elendel, they've got this sort of half lordship, half elected body that leads the government, and he has inherited a seat in this body and responsibility for thousands of people who work in his house. And so he has to leave the life of a lawman and come back to the city—which is patterned after 1910 New York—and live among, you know, the elite of the city. And yet he's kind of an unpolished sort of guy, having been out in the Roughs all this time. And it's his story, trying to make sense of this world. It's also a mystery; it's a very fast-paced sort of mystery, kind of... Imagine it this way, as I have been describing it lately. Imagine the Sherlock Holmes story. Now replace Sherlock Holmes with Clint Eastwood and add magic. And that's what you've got.
Excellent.
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The Mistborn RPG game is a go, for sure. We've got cover art, they're trying to release it by GenCon—which is a big gaming convention this year—and have it available for purchase by fall. It is certainly happening; it's 100% now. The film—the producers have finished the screenplay, which is quite good; I'm very pleased with it. And they are pitching the film in Hollywood right now. We don't know what will happen, what will come of it, but they are pitching it in Hollywood right now.
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Letting go of the original trilogy will be kind of hard. But in some ways, it'll have to. Because the original trilogy has become the mythology and lore of the world, which is really fun to work with as a writer. Beyond that, there are continuing characters. There was always planned to be continuing characters. I can't say much without giving spoilers, but there are characters from the original trilogy appearing in this book, several of them. Some of them are hidden. You're going to have to search and figure out who's who. Some of them are less hidden.
In the future, the second trilogy's going to be one that deals with a... By this point, in the world—and Alloy of Law is the same case—there are no Mistborn anymore. There are only Mistings, for various reasons that I don't want to give spoilers on, but there are Mistings. The second trilogy happens in a modern setting when we get to that. Alloy of Law is in an industrial setting. In the modern setting, there we will be doing a story eventually about a Mistborn serial killer and a SWAT team of Allomancers who... We're talking people with machine guns and, you know, Navy SEAL Allomancers whose job it is to hunt down Allomancer criminals, and then they'll reveal something, um...unexpected, how about that.
Right.
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Why on earth does Marsh have a Feruchemical Atium Spike? You've said that Ironeyes is in fact Marsh. Did Ruin spike someone for him? Or did Sazed grant him the power?
Dead inquisitors Vin killed. Some were granted the spike for reasons I haven't spoken of yet.
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A little safer question- Why did you not have Waxillium fall for Marasi? Why stick with the contract with Steris?
Marasi, as she was in Alloy of Law, was just plain wrong for Wax. As I write books, I allow my characters to grow more free-form (while my setting and plot are outlined in detail.) In writing the book, I felt that a Marasi hook-up at the end would not only be wrong for the character, but wrong for the story. If I do direct sequels (which I probably will) perhaps things will change.
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TenSoon wonders, and I wonder too- How can Kandra think and be sentient without Brains? Doesn't the body need a physical coordinator to relay between the Physical and Cognitive realm? Or do the spikes do a good enough job with that?
I imagine Kandra having a non-centralized nervous system, with brain power spread through their bodies. Well, non-centralized is probably the wrong way to say it. They have lobes of thought and memory attached to muscles here and there, and don't have a single 'brain.' They certainly have brain-like material, though.
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You've said that Inquisitors could have children. Would those children have a better chance at being Allomancers compared to if they had the kids before they were Inquisitors?
Yes, but there also could be...complications.
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I almost forgot! If you burn Nicrosil, will it deplete Feruchemial Storages? Or just Allomantic?
Just Allomantic.
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I have my own theory but I thought I should ask, if the koloss reproduce through hemalurgic spike's how can there be half koloss in Alloy of law.
I am holding this answer back for future books, I'm afraid. I have said some things, but the full truth is still subject to debate. I will answer this eventually in the books.
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I dislike double posting, but I have one question that came up recently from your tweet. You said that there are "multiple" people from Mistborn in WoK. Does this include Hoid?
Yes, it does.
Are they just vague allusions?
Vague, no. But I wouldn't say they, save Hoid, have any important impact on the events of the book.
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Was there something in particular which made you want to revisit the Mistborn universe after the first trilogy?
It was the original concept for the Mistborn series, in which I pitched a fantasy world that progressed drastically in technology through its lifetime, with the magic as a common thread. I felt that revisiting the world in a more modern world would provide unique ways to explore storytelling.
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What would it take for me to successfully bribe you into writing a sequel to Alloy? I think you may have answered this one before, but where do you come up with your names for all your characters? Thank you! I really love your work.
I will probably do one anyway.
It depends on the series. For Mistborn, I build a 'feel for certain regions and develop names using the linguistic rules of that region. The Central Dominance (and Elendel in this book) had a slightly French feel to the linguistics, and many of the names came from that paradigm.
However, unique to the Mistborn world was the need to give people simple nicknames in a thieving crew sort of way. Wax, Clubs, Breeze, Mr. Suit, all of these are along those lines.
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I'm not sure how free we are around here with spoilers regarding the Mistborn trilogy, so I'll try my best to avoid anything that will get me strung up.
The Mistborn trilogy left everything on the table, so to speak, with regards to the validity of a particular religion and its deitie(s). I worried the final scenario left no room for other religions to manifest in that world thereafter, and yet here we have Alloy of Law, which involved a few different religions (some of which we -the readers- know to be false) and somehow it seemed to work. My questions are:
1.What were some general challenges that you had to deal with when establishing the religious backdrop of the story?
2.Though you include brief examples of interaction with a deity in the novel, can you further explain some of the limits of that deity's ability to interact with the world in which the story takes place? The brief explanation in the novel seemed rushed. Then again, there didn't seem to be room for much philosophical debate during the awesome actions scenes.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to deal with questions like these.
You covered the biggest challenge. However, you have to remember that as a religious person, I do believe in God in our world--and we have a ton of religions, many of which are related and interpreting the same concepts and scriptures in many different ways.
As for this deity, you're right--this book didn't have the space for a lot of philosophy. However, I can get into it a little bit here. He does not interact partially because of his innate nature, which allows him to see many different sides of a lot of different debates and activities. On the other hand, I am a firm believer that the nature of free will demands people to actually be given opportunities to make decisions. Stopping them just before, ala Minority Report, doesn't cut it for me. So, the deity in question feels he must be very careful about direct involvement, instead letting people act and react--and letting choices be made.
That said, I want him to be involved. Just more in a "I give people the tools they need to accomplish goodness," rather than "I'll just step in and make sure everyone does everything right."
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I was just rambling on r/WoT about how awesome you are but yeah. Awesome.
Will there be a sequel to Alloy of Law? It felt like there would be but I want to know for sure lol
Are Allomancer more or less common than in the time of the survivor?
First one: Yes, most likely.
Second one: They are more common, but slightly less powerful.
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I was a little confused about how this book ties in with the other Mistborn books that you have planned. Wikipedia states that you're planning a "trilogy of trilogies" and that Alloy is a stand alone novel. I thought it was odd that it ended with something of a cliffhanger. Can you tell us then... Can we expect to see these characters again someday? Or is it the mystery/conspiracy aspect that will carry over to future books? Both maybe?
Thanks so much for the stories! Any nibbling from Hollywood for adaptations yet? It's not often that you find a good story that has both a compelling plot and interesting action to go with it. I think a Mistborn movie would be quite a sight to see. :)
I do plan to do more Wax and Wayne. The second trilogy is very involved, and I don't think will be a good balance to the Stormlight books. However, I don't want to leave Mistborn alone, as I have so many plans for the rest of the series. Therefore, I decided some smaller novels like this one would be appropriate while the majority of my attention is on the Stormlight Archive.
The Mistborn film is trudging along, bit by bit. The latest screenplay should come to me in the next month or so. We have a shot, but it's still a slim one. More than nibbles (I've sold rights to some producers) but no studio involvement or major talent attached quite yet.
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Of course these are going to be spoiler-tastic.
How are there kandra and koloss? Kandra especially, since they did their "mass suicide" thing at the end of the original trilogy.
The nice thing about the kandra for me in the narrative was that, though removing their spikes turns them feral, you can always stick those spikes back in. TenSoon feared that this was the end of his people, and it could have been, if those spikes hadn't gone back in quickly. As it was, there were costs. Time spent without spikes causes a kandra's memories to deteriorate, and some that were left a relatively long time were essentially reborn as new people. But the race survived, even if it is unlikely that their numbers will be added to.
Thank you very much for answering my questions!
If I may be allowed a follow-up question: Did TenSoon survive, then (as the TenSoon who experienced growth under Vin)?
(If it's not spoiler-tastic to the series, this is something I might share with my fiancee. TenSoon was one of her favorite characters. You, uh, kinda killed most of her favorites.)
Yes, though he did lose some things.
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How did you channel that much snark and oddball humor for Wayne without going a little crazy?
Characters like him actually provide a snark outlet for me, so that it can be very cathartic to write them.
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So the number 16 is importanton Scadrial, on pg 245, Wax is trying to find out where Miles is going to be next and he writes down the number "35.17" I couldn't help but notice that the 3+5+1+7=16, was that intentional or am I seeing things that aren't really there?
I slip it in here and there for fun, but it isn't actually important. It is fun when people notice it, though.
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Wait, are Mistborn and Stormlight Archive somehow connected?
Multiple people from Mistborn appeared in The Way of Kings.
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Right now, taking a (short) break from the WoT rewrite to spend an evening working on the Mistborn video game script.
XBox? PC?
Both.
I don't suppose you can tell us who's developing it yet, can you?
Afraid I'm not allowed to say yet.
Is Epic games developing? Is this how they got you to write the Infinity Blade novella?
I hope to do some projects with Epic in the future, but they are not doing this one.
Part of why I took that project, however, was to get more experience with video game storytelling and plotting.
Really looking forward to Mistborn game will it be xbox, do you get to be Kel?
It's set hundreds of years before the first book.
hello I've read Elantris and Mistborn (best books ever!) May I ask when the video game is planned to be released? Thanks
Summer/Fall 2013, I think.
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The second. I revised my placement of KINGS relative to HERO after realizing a behind-the-scenes conflict.
ALLOY had to happen after KINGS for Cosmere reasons. I had two timelines arguing, and in plotting Stormlight 2, I fixed this.
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Right now, taking a (short) break from the WoT rewrite to spend an evening working on the Mistborn video game script.
Any plans for a WoT game?
Yes, there are many plans. I don't know how far along they are, however.
Any news for a date on WoT?
Fall, most likely.
For those curious, I did finish the video game work I needed to do last night, and am back at work on the WoT revision today.
Was Towers of Midnight the last book to be published? I live in Ireland so news travels slow. XD
Yes.
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It's exciting, to be honest. The characters and setting to this world are so deep, so complex, so FASCINATING that it's going to be a worldbuilder's pleasure to look through the notes and begin work on the project. It will be hard, and it is certainly daunting, but it's also an amazing opportunity.
As you said, a lot of my work is a direct reaction to the fantasy I read when I was young. Not against it, really, but an attempt to build upon it and take the epic fantasy in new directions. Yet, I've always wanted my books to still FEEL like fantasy, and the Wheel of Time is part of what defines what feels like fantasy in our era.
A part of me has always wanted to deal with the classic fantasy themes, which is why Mistborn was about turning them on their heads. The chance to get right to the source and work with a series that defined those themes. . .it's just plain amazing.
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Are there 50 Allomantic Metals?
Nearly. Does Harmony have a metal?
Is that an alloy of Lerasium and Atium?
You're along the right lines.
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Yeah. One of the functions of getting published like I did—taking as long as I did, and working how I did—when I was trying to break in—and even in those early years when I didn't know about breaking in—one of the things I did was pop frequently from project to project. I didn't write sequels. In fact, I haven't brought this up before, but when I sold Elantris, I was actually on my thirteenth novel. That's how far along I was in the process. Mistborn is my fourteenth, so you can read my sixth and my fourteenth. I felt that if I just sat and wrote sequels in the same world unpublished, number one it would be bad for me professionally because I can't really send book two to a bunch of editors, and say "Hey, look at this!" I can only send book one, so if I wrote six books and only had the first one as something that I could try and entice editors with, then I think it would have been to my detriment. Instead I wanted to have six different books—standalones, and beginnings of series—that I could be sending out, and if[?] I could immediately send them something else, and say "Hey, if there's something you liked in that one, maybe you'll look at this one and see that I'm getting better," or "Maybe you'll like this one better," things like that. That was my philosophy. So I got used to always writing a new setting, a new world, and a new magic each time I wrote a book.
Partially, also, though, as a writer, this wasn't just market-field, it was because I wanted to develop something that was my own. I mentioned it before—I think that writers should add to the genre, and I myself was a little bit annoyed with the genre in the late '90s and early 2000s. Maybe I've overstated some of the impact that the children's book had because of that, but I don't know. I was one of those that was like, "Really? Do I really need to read yet another book that is about a guy who lives out in the rural woods and discovers that he is the lost king and needs to go find this magical artifact so that he can save the world. Do I really need to read that again?" I mean, Tolkien did a great job of that, and you know what, Robert Jordan did a really good job of that, and you've got Terry Goodkind with...I mean, with so many people telling this story, do we really need another one? And I think the late 90s, at least for me, is when I finally got tired of it, and I'd read Robert Jordan, and I said, "Look, I don't think this can be done better. How can you tell me you can do it better than he's doing it? Why am I going to read your book?" And that influenced me a lot as a writer. When I was trying to break in, I actually tried writing a story like that, cause I felt like that's what everyone wrote, that's what got published, and I got a little ways into it and said, "I just...I can't feel it. What am I doing that's new? What am I adding?"
And so I was trying a lot of different things. I was trying to explore. Those first six novels of mine, in fact, were—well, the first five in particular—were very different. I wrote several science-fiction novels. I tried a cyberpunk, I tried a social science-fiction, I tried a comedy—I tried lots of different things, trying to find my voice, and at the end, when the dust settled, after doing that, I realized what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to do was kind of the postmodern epic, so to speak. The child of the 80s and 90s who is aware of what happened with the monomyth and all this stuff in science fiction and fantasy, and say "Yeah, what's next? What happens next? And how can I do something different? How can I do something new? Where can we take this genre?" New magic systems, different styles of plot. That's partially where Mistborn came from. Mistborn is the [?] which really doesn't work for books like it does for movies, so realize this isn't the only thing the book's about, but one of the big influences in me writing the book was the idea of me telling the story where the monomyth had happened. The monomyth meaning Joseph Campbell is here with the thousand vases, you know—young hero goes on a quest to defeat the great evil, and what if he failed? What if the Dark Lord won? What if Voldemort at the end of Harry Potter had said, "You're just a stupid kid!" and killed him, and taken over the world? What if Frodo had kept the ring, or Aragorn had kept the ring, or even Sauron had just gotten it back? What happens next? And that's where that trilogy came from.
Alcatraz is an interesting story because...Mistborn is the first book that I wrote knowing that it was going to get published. It was my fourteenth novel. Always before then, I'd always written just whatever I had felt like next, and it was the first time I had to consider, "Wow. Elantris is getting published. How do I follow it up? What do I do next?" Originally I'd planned to release next a book called The Way of Kings, which was number thirteen—the book I wrote right before Mistborn—and as I was revising Way of Kings, I had this deep-seated feeling that I wasn't ready for Way of Kings. I'd written the first book, and it didn't do yet what I wanted it to do. It was a massive war epic, and was very intricate, enormous world, and thirty magic systems...I mean, it was actually beyond my skill level at the time. And I said, "I need practice writing sequels before I start a massive epic like this." I'd never written a sequel before.
And that's when I sat down and outlined the Mistborn trilogy, wanting to write an entire trilogy straight through so that I could have beginning, middle and end done by the time the first one came out. And I actually was able to achieve that, as a side note; I had written Hero of Ages by the time The Final Empire, the first book, needed to be in for its final draft, and so I was able to—I think it comes through in the trilogy—I was able to make it completely internally consistent. You don't have the problems in that where you have...in some series where you get a little ways into it and then realize the author's just making stuff up, and trying to...and being self-contradictory, and things like that; I didn't want that to happen, and I think I needed to practice doing that with the training wheels, so to speak, of having them all done before the first one came out—before I tried launching into something where I would just have to trust my outline in order to do that, if that makes any sense at all.
So, I sat down and wrote the first two Mistborn books back-to-back. First draft done of Mistborn 1, sent off; started the first draft of Mistborn 2, and was revising Mistborn 1 as I was finishing Mistborn 2. I got done with Mistborn 2, and it was the hardest book I've ever written, partially because of the grueling hours I set for myself—I wanted to get these all done—but mostly because I'd never written a sequel before, and I was so used to doing something new with every book that I wrote, and so I had to train myself into writing sequels. And after I got done with Mistborn 2, and was trying to write Mistborn 3, I realized I need, just for my own creative process—the way I've trained myself—I have to do something completely different now. I have to take a break for a little while and just do something off-the-wall in order to reset all of those tumblers in my head, get back, and write the third Mistborn book, because otherwise I felt that I wouldn't be approaching it fresh enough. I wouldn't be approaching it having enough passion for it. I felt I would started it burned out, or at least burn out to the middle of it.
And so because of that, I sat down with that writing prompt: a one-sentence line that had come to me one time, just when I was hanging out with some friends, and I hurriedly typed into my phone, and said, "Huh, I should write that story one day." And the line was: "So, there I was, tied to an altar made from out-dated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians." And I wanted to do what—I sat down with this—I wanted to do something very different from the Mistborn books. Number one, I wanted to do something humorous. Number two, I wanted to play off of the very things that were in danger of becoming clichés to myself, if that makes sense, to keep myself fresh, to say "I need to go completely different directions so that I don't just become a cliché of myself". And so I wanted to do something very wacky with the magic system that I could never do in an epic fantasy book, because I want those to all feel consistent and scientific. And I wanted to do a first-person narrative instead of a third-person narrative, to do something different again, and I wanted to write for a younger audience. Mostly though, I just wanted to write something off-the-cuff, which was more like a stand-up routine version, or...not a stand-up routine. More like an improv. You know, it's not just joke after joke, but it's an improv story, starting with a kid who discovers that librarians secretly rule the world.
Partially, at this time, I'd also been reading The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which has some fascinating aspects and some very annoying ones, the annoying aspects being, I don't like a lot of the cheap tricks he uses narratively to just pull you through the story, cause they get a little old, but beyond that, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that the Catholic Church, or anyone, has these secret cabals. I mean, they make for great stories, but I don't think that it's there, and so I wanted to tell a silly conspiracy theory book, and so I picked librarians ruling the world. And so what Alcatraz became was a short—for me; 50,000 words—novel that talks about fiction in general. There's a lot of Alcatraz, the narrator, addressing the audience and talking about what literature does, and what authors do. There's a point where he goes off about how authors are sadists—because we want to put you through all these terrible emotions—and explains and talks about it in what is hopefully a humorous way, but kind of digs at the roots of what makes someone want to tell stories.
And there is a goofy magic system. Everyone in the books who belongs to the Smedry family—he's Alcatraz Smedry; it's a—anyway, they're the Freedom Fighters who resist the Librarians. They all have really dumb magic powers. It's kind of like a Mystery Man sort of thing, if you've seen that movie. Alcatraz's grandfather, who introduces himself near the beginning of the book, has the super-power...um, his super-magical power is that he can arrive late to appointments. Alcatraz in the book meets someone in the book who is really magically good—his power is that he's magically good at tripping. Another guy who is magically good at speaking gibberish. Alcatraz himself has the super-power of breaking things—he's really good at breaking stuff—and I just based these magic powers on silly, goofy things that me or my family do—being late to something is what my Mom always said—and then trying to twist them on their heads. You know, later in the book, Grandpa Smedry will arrive late to a bullet when someone shoots it at him, so it just barely misses him. You know...fun stuff like this, where I take preconceptions and turn them on their heads.
And that's where Alcatraz came from. I didn't write it saying "I'm going to publish this." I wrote it saying "I need [to write] this." I finished it; I sent it off to my agent, and said, "Surprise, I wrote a different book than you were expecting me to." And he wrote back, and said, "Wow, this is actually pretty good! You wrote it really fast—I can tell; it needs a lot of revision—but I think I could sell this, if you want to put the time into revising it." So over the next year or so, I did some revisions and some drafts and some work on it, and we sent it out, and lo and behold, it had nine publishers want it. Four of them got in a bidding war, and it went sky-high and turned out to be this wonderful thing that Dreamworks Animation actually optioned it before it even came out. And so, yeah. It took on this entire life of its own.
I sold to Scholastic four novels in a series. I have just finished the fourth one. There may be subsequent volumes, depending on things—particularly depending on if...um, when things calm down for me; the amount of work I have to do right now prohibitive for me entering into another Alcatraz contract; my attention really needs to be on the Wheel of Time at the moment—but, the third one is coming out in October; sometimes they appear on shelves a little bit early. They're a little bit tougher to find in hardcover than my other books because—I've been told, and maybe...I dunno—it seems that children's books...Scholastic likes to market directly to the schools and libraries, and that's their main method of doing it, at least with my books. They've sold as many that way as they have in bookstores, and the bookstores are kind of hit-or-miss on having a copy. Only about half of them get copies in, and so Amazon might be your best bet, or going to your local independent and asking them to order you a copy, and the paperbacks are generally easy to find, but the hardcovers are a little bit tough to find, but the first few chapters are on my website. If you're looking for something that's lighthearted—that's not ridiculous, but it's lighthearted—has some comedy to it, but really has me looking at the novels in the fantasy genre, in specific, from a postmodern view, just trying to break it down and see what it does, and telling a story with it, then you might enjoy the Alcatraz books.
Cool.
Well, thank you for that answer.
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Just wanted to say, great work on the book. It kept me completely occupied from around 11 am to 8 pm and I have got to say that it had the most well thought out ending ever put into a book.
Also, do you have any plans for more Mistborn books? Or is this the end?
Okay, I was expecting these. Let's get to them first.
More Mistborn Books
My plans right now are to do a second trilogy of Mistborn books set several hundred years after the events of the first series. That means that technology would have progressed, and there's a good chance I'll decide to do the books as kind of an urban fantasy. (But set in a completely different world from our own, so not quite like other urban fantasies.) Guns, skyscrapers, cars—and Allomancy.
Now, I'm not 100% decided on that. I know that adding modern technology ruins the fantasy flavor of a book for many people, so I'll have to think about it. But I think the imagery would be compelling, and I would love to deal with a 'modern' world where the events of this trilogy form the foundation for the religions, history, and society of the book. It would be a really challenge, since I'd have to decide how technology and society developed following this book.
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Marsh is alive. I changed this from when I talked to [Peter]. I realized some things about his use of Allomancy that would allow him to survive. Actually, he is immortal. He can pull off the same Allomancy/Feruchemy trick that the Lord Ruler did. (And he knows it too, since he was there when Sazed explained how it was done in Book One.) He's actually the only living person who actually knows this trick for certain. (Though there's a chance that Spook, Ham and Breeze heard about it from Vin and the others.) So yes, if there were another series, Marsh would make an appearance.
I thought that trick required atium and involved burning the atium. With all the atium gone and Sazed not making any more, it would therefore not be possible even for a full mistborn/feruchemist. Am I wrong, is Sazed providing atium specifically for Marsh to allow a friend and valuable servant to survive, or what?
Marsh has the bag of Atium that KanPaar sent to be sold, as well as several nuggets in his stomach. So, I guess 'immortal' is the wrong phrase. He's got the only remaining atium in the world and can keep himself around for a long, long while—but he WILL eventually run out. Unless Sazed does something.
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The last two metals are Chromium and Nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a Nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)
If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.
The simplest idea is that they do to another person what Aluminum and Duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them. If this is true, then Chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while Nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash. This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.
The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.
Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name).
Nicely done.
Ookla is right, the others don't have 1/1 correlations. But I liked this concept far too much not to use it.
In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings—however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a Nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Mistings.
I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?
Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.
Very interesting about the Nicrosil.
So, if there is no more atium, then that would mean in any future trilogy, there would only be 14 metals, right? Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but maybe that is because it irks me that one quartet to be left incomplete with the absence of atium.
Would it be possible for Sazed to create a replacement metal, by chance, or will the temporal quartet remain inherently empty? It doesn't seem like it's too far of a stretch for Sazed to make more metals: after all, the metal Elend ate was a fragment of Preservation, and now Sazed holds Preservation.
That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...
Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like Malatium and Electrum works like Atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.
Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.
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I can guess two possible options for the Kandra.
1. God Sazed endowed the gift of presence on the now mistwraiths.
2. Some of the Kandra survived in the cave with the Terrisman and people of the city, along with the small mistwraiths, these are re-born with the spikes they pulled out during the resolution.
I can imagine too that some Kandra on assignment may have hidden in the shelters with the rest of humanity.
The Kandra.
Yes, they live. The people were smart enough, eventually, to replace their spikes. (And there were a couple who were on assignment who made it to storage caches.)
However, there will likely never be any more of them, since Hemalurgy is required to make them. They are now some of the few people who can communicate directly with Sazed, who—like Ruin—can whisper to people most easily when they are connected to him via spikes. With some speculation, you can probably guess what kind of roles the Kandra will end up playing in future books.
On a broader level, is hemalurgy officially dead, then? Or is it still extant in some Ruin-free (but still messy) form? (If it's gone, is there any imbalance since Preservation's magic power is kept and Ruin's isn't?)
Is Hemalurgy dead? No, not at all. It, like the other two powers, was not created by Ruin or Preservation, but by the natural state of the world and its interaction with the gods who created it. It still requires the same method of creation, but very few people are aware of how it works.
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Way back as early as when I was working on Well of Ascension, I mentioned to some readers that Mistborn was conceived as a trilogy of trilogies. The reason I wanted to do that was because I was fascinated by the idea of building a fantasy world, then showing it hundreds of years in the future when technology has advanced. Fantasy worlds rarely seem to get to have technological advancement. (The Wheel of Time, it should be noted, is a nice exception to this.)
I loved the idea of thinking about how a magic system, as established in a fantasy world, could change in purpose and use as it interacted with Technology. I loved the idea of a non-static fantasy world. Beyond that, I couldn't think of a major fantasy work that had done something like this—writing a complete series, then jumping ahead hundreds of years to show the same world, only in a more 20th century technology. Then jumping ahead again, and doing a science fiction series set in the same world. (Note that I'm pretty sure someone HAS done it; I'm certainly not the only one to think of this. I just hadn't read one that did it. And, whenever I consider something like that, it makes me want to do it myself.)
Anyway, that's all backstory. The story I'm working on right now, during my "Write whatever you want" break before starting A Memory of Light, isn't one of the three trilogies. It's a shorter work set between the Vin/Elend trilogy and the mid-20th century tech level trilogy. It takes place a few centuries after The Hero of Ages, where most technology (though not all) is somewhere close to 1910 on Earth. The advent of automobiles and widespread electricity. Plus Allomancers.
It involves a lawkeeper from the frontiers of the world who returns to the city to take over leadership of his house after the death of his uncle and cousin. He gets pulled into something he wasn't expecting. (And yes, it does show off some of the unexplored Allomantic powers.)
Whether you'll see more like this from me in the future really depends on how well the experience goes, and whether readers like it. It will be short—for me. Which is looking like around 60k words, at this point—so a short novel, rather than a short story.
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Koloss were bad tempered before Ruin's influence, though he certainly made them worse. They were designed by the Lord Ruler to be aggressive, so aggressive that they would destroy themselves if they got loose and away from him. (This was intentional. Note that he didn't give the spark of humanity in them enough credit, and they managed to overcome this and 'evolve' in a way to keep their species going, even after he died.)
There ARE still koloss around, though many of them were vaporized. Human is alive. Sazed took pity on them, however, and they have been transformed. They are now a race that breeds true, like the Kandra, and have different thought processes from what they once had. You'll see more of them in the sequel series.
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The metal chunk that Elend ate is intended to be something of a mystery. Much like atium, actually. Suffice it to say that atium isn't, and never was, what people thought it was.
I intended Allomancy to be much like a real science. People investigate and put things into boxes, trying to describe and understand the world around them. That doesn't mean they always get things right, however.
Let me say this, as I don't want to spoil too much. If that metal Elend ate were fused into specific alloys with certain metals, it could have instead created Mistings of each of the different Allomantic powers. Atium's abilities are not entirely explored yet either.
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Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy all work as they once did. However, now they are more directly affected by the presence or absence of the mists, which will slowly return to the world but not be of the extent they once were. (The mists are now an extent of Sazed's power, and where they roam, he is better able to influence things. There will also be two kinds of mists.) Note that in the future, Feruchemy powers will start to fracture and split, creating Feruchemical "Mistings."
Yes, this means that in the future series, it will be possible for a person to have one Allomantic power and one Feruchemical power. It will create for some very interesting mixing of powers.
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When did Preservation decide to imprison Ruin in the Well? No need to be specific, I should think. A simple "Near Alendi's time" or "Way before Alendi's time" would suffice, or whichever time of reference you want to use.
Also, this one is not a question, but nice Hoid reference in there. I especially like it how the Ars Arcanum refers to Slowswift as "bears a striking resemblance to a well-known storyteller." I'm on to you...
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I like it when my characters live on in people's minds. I have no plans right now to write any more books about Spook or Breeze, though what they do in the next period of time will create the history for the next series. However, there's a chance I'll change my mind on this. However, this ending was not set up for another book specifically. I just wanted to tell the best ending I could, and this is how it turned out.
(cross-post)
Brandon does want to write more Mistborn books, but not with the same characters. There would be two more trilogies. The second trilogy would be set a few hundred years later, in a modern day–type setting, when the events of the first trilogy have passed into legend. The third trilogy would be set a few more hundred years later, in a future, outer space–type setting.
It's such an audacious idea I wish he would write it right now because I want to read it, especially the third trilogy. But Brandon has announced his next project (pending Tor approval) will be Way of Kings, a 10-volume epic fantasy. He'll sprinkle in a book from another project here and there, so the next Mistborn trilogy might start before Way of Kings is ended, but it will be years yet before there is any more Mistborn.
But Ookla, he already wrote that one!
I know. :)
The real story is that Brandon was writing (or revising?) Way of Kings when Tor offered to buy Elantris. Brandon signed a two-book contract for Elantris and Way of Kings. Then Brandon realized he wasn't in the point in his career yet where he could write Way of Kings the way he wanted to, so while he was supposed to be revising Way of Kings he secretly wrote the first Mistborn book instead, which he then sold to Tor as a trilogy, replacing Way of Kings in the original contract.
But for some reason Amazon already had a listing for Way of Kings, with a release date. Thence the fake reviews.
I've read an early draft of the first book, and it aims to be very epic. (No, Elvis is not involved.) I do wonder, though, whether when it actually comes out, the fake reviews will get attached to its Amazon listing. :)
This is all true. Note that the book would not be named The Way of Kings. Most likely, I'm going to make that the series name. So I guess the book "The Way of Kings" must be some kind of parallel novel or prequel or something... ;)
Oathshards is out, eh?
You're such a tease, Brandon. All these details about the next series will make everyone hungry for it, and then we'll all have to wait.
Of course, any other book you put out in the meantime will still be awesome, so we should be content, right?
I don't think Oathshards is as strong a name as "The Way of Kings." Plus, that's really what the series is about.
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I'm surprised no one else has asked but does this new world have atium? If atium was the body of Ruin then it would seem when Sazed took up Ruin's power he would have reabsorbed all of the atium. New atium then would be bits of Sazed's new powers and weaken him with each newly formed bead. It would seem then that if atium exists it would be much rarer, and mean that Sazed would not be able to control this process.
I guess I am trying to understand why he would want to allow any atium to make its way into the hands of people or rather out of his control?
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Ruin and Preservation were not the only Shards of Adonalsium, though they are the only ones on Scadrial at the moment. Sazed's ability to be both at once is actually something I drew from Eastern mythology, where it is believed that the ability to contain two opposing forces at the same time represents ultimate harmony. The Buddha, for instance, was said to have performed the miracle of producing both fair and ice from his hands at the same time.
Is "Scadrial" the proper name to refer to the Mistborn world?
Scadrial is indeed the name of the planet.
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I was happy when Elend finally burned duralumin with atium. I was holding my breath hoping that someone would eventually do it. However we didn't really get any info as to what Elend experienced. Does a duralumin-enhanced atium burn allow a person to see significantly farther into the future? If so, being that Elend's army was dying all around him did he get to see into the afterlife? Also if you could tell us what he saw that would be awesome. Did something he saw make him not want to avoid Marshes strike?
On a similar note if someone burned electrum with duralumin would they get to see significantly into their own future?
There is much here that I can't say, but I'll give as much as I can. Elend saw Preservation's ultimate plan, and Elend's own part in it. What he saw made him realize he didn't want to kill Marsh, and that his own death would actually help save the world. Like a master chess player, he suddenly saw and understand every possible move his enemy could make. He saw that Ruin was check-mated, because there was one thing that Ruin was not willing to do. Something that both Elend and Vin could do, if needed. And it's what they did.
So, in answer to your question, Elend stayed his hand. This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind and decided that Marsh had to live through the end of the book. Elend spared him; I needed to too.
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Brandon, I just wanted to confirm that you did have a couple of cameos as Slowswift? Or was that mean to be someone else?
I'm pretty sure Slowswift is Hoid. The Ars Arcanum says he "bears a striking resemblance to a storyteller", which I take to mean Hoid.
Slowswift is an homage to Grandpa Tolkien. A study of his personality will reveal why that name was chosen for him.
Hoid appears in that same chapter, but Vin doesn't meet him. Something he does spooks her. She's just too darn observant for her own good.
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Actually, no. This one was finished off back before I knew anything of A Memory of Light or before I'd read Name of the Wind. Hopefully, the smoothing is a result of me trying to work out kinks in my storytelling ability. I'm learning to distance out my climax chapters, for instance. (I think I've I'd have written this book years ago, I'd have tried to overlay Spook's climactic sequence with the ending ones, for instance, which would have been a mistake.)
Also, of the three books, I worked the hardest on this one. Choosing that ending—even though I'd planned it for some time—was very difficult. I knew that it would anger some readers. I also knew that it was the right ending for the series.
I'm glad it worked for you.
I have to admit, I am one of those angered. I will be so glad when this cliché of killing off the heroes will finally pass. I escape to fantasy for the happy ending. If I wanted to be depressed I'd grab a 3-dollar bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 and drink it all and contemplate my mundane life. I can't spend much time reflecting on the book because of the mental picture of Vin and Elend dead in a field keeps popping up instead. They didn't even get a chance to reproduce.
Now outside of the horrible ending (which wasn't surprising in the least because it is so common to kill the heroes) I enjoyed them. I absolutely cannot wait to read your books written 10 years from now. You can definitely pick up the improvement in transitions and character development in each book I've read from you. I'm quite often reminded of David Eddings although I'm sure plenty would disagree. And while Eddings isn't one of my favorite writers to be at his level (to me) so early in your career leads me to believe great things will be coming.
I would like to ask you one thing to consider when writing endings. Fantasy is an escape, please don't ruin it with such depressing endings. When you have had the opportunity to look upon your dead wife in her coffin, reading about others dying isn't fun at all. It is absolutely terrible. Happily ever after.
I understand your anger. I wrote the ending that felt most appropriate to me for this book and series. I didn't find it depressing at all, personally. But people have reacted this way about every ending I've written.
I won't always do it, I promise. But I have to trust my instincts and write the stories the way they feel right to me. I didn't 'kill off' Vin and Elend in my mind. I simply let them take risks and make the sacrifices they needed to. It wasn't done to avoid cliché or to be part of a cliché, or to be shocking or surprising, or to be interesting or poetic—it was done because that was the story as I saw it.
I will keep this in mind, though. I know it's not what a lot of people want to read. Know that I didn't do it to try to shock you or prove anything. And because of that, if a more traditionally happy ending is something that a story requires, I'll do that—even if it means the people on the other side of the fence from you will point fingers at me for being clichéd in that regard as well.
If it helps, realize that one of the reasons I added the lines in Sazed's note was to let the characters live on for those who wanted them to live on. I ALMOST didn't have Spook even discover the bodies, leaving it more ambiguous.
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Kwaan went into hiding, and he was eventually discovered and executed by Rashek. He wasn't among the First Generation, though he would have been if he hadn't turned against Rashek. Rashek kept the plate, however, just as he kept Alendi's logbook. Partially because even then, Rashek was going a little mad, but partially because of the reminders about his old life they contained.
I'm assuming you meant Alendi hunted him down because he turned against Alendi. Or did Kwaan also turn against Rashek?
No, I meant that he turned against Rashek. Remember, the members of the First Generation were offered immortality in exchange for their Hemalurgy. They had to make this choice for all of the world's Feruchemists. Because his uncle had been the one who gave Rashek the chance to become the Lord Ruler in the first place, Rashek blessed him and included him in the decision. (Speaking directly into his mind along with the others during Rashek's moment of ascension.)
Kwaan was the only one who turned down this offer, calling it a betrayal of who they were as a people. Rashek could have just made him one anyway, but in a moment of anger, he tried to destroy Kwaan—which he couldn't do, not with Preservation's power. As the other Feruchemists changed, Kwaan remained the same. Rashek eventually hunted him down and killed him.
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A manifestation of Ruin's gathered consciousness, much like the dark mists in book two. The lake was still around in Vin's era, but had been moved under ground. (Note that the Well is a very similar manifestation. You've also seen one other manifestation like this....)
Such as...this?
The "lake" was barely ten feet deep—more like a pool. Its water was a crystalline blue, and Raoden could see no inlets or outlets.If that's what you're hinting at...I never thought of the connection before! I just kept thinking of Aether of Night, and never thought of this pool at all.
Both are accurate, but the first is what I meant, as most people here don't have access to Aether.
I'm also thinking that the Dor in Elantris is another Shard of Adonalsium. Certainly in the Elantris world, where the Dor came from is rather ambiguous, which I expected it would be. Of course, if other Shards of Adonalsium do exist, the Dor could have come from that source.
I will RAFO from here on the other Shards of Adonalsium, as it would be better for me not to give spoilers. Please feel free to speculate. Readers have met four shards other than Ruin and Preservation.
Have we met these four by name, or just by influence? I can't think of a name that would go with the one that the Elantris lake is a manifestation of.
Hoid could be one? I know nothing his purpose other than that he shows up in lots of different books, sometimes begging and sometimes telling stories. Since most of these series happen on different planets (though two of them may happen on the same planet as each other), I'm assuming he has mad planet-hopping skills.
...Nightblood...
Ookla, I'm going to be tight lipped on this, as I don't want to give things away for future books. But I'll tell you this:
You've interacted with two directly.
One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power.
The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence.
I thought Nightblood was explained sufficiently for my tastes in Warbreaker, so I doubt that it is a Shard, but I've been plenty wrong before. Also, I don't know if Hoid could even be a Shard. Certainly he has mean planet-hopping skills, but I don't know what purpose a celestial storyteller would have in this universe. He doesn't really have the same kind of power as Ruin or Preservation did, so normally I would rule him out right off the bat. But it is possible that these Shards come in many shapes, not just in the near-deific quantity Ruin or Preservation had. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say Hoid is a Shard... but, then again, I don't have any ideas for what those four other Shards are.
Maybe Hoid is just a traveler trying to find remnants of Adonalsium and stories about them. He doesn't need to be a shard, I suppose.
This is slightly a tangent, but here is a relevant chunk from the Warbreaker Annotations. As this won't be posted for months, I'll put it here as a sneak preview.
This whole scene came about because I wanted an interesting way to delve into the history. Siri needed to hear it, and I felt that many readers would want to know it. However, that threatened to put me into the realm of the dreaded info dump.
And so I brought in the big guns. This cameo is so obvious (or, at least, someday it will be) that I almost didn’t use the name Hoid for the character, as I felt it would be too obvious. The first draft had him using one of his other favorite pseudonyms. However, in the end, I decided that too many people would be confused (or, at least, even more confused) if I didn’t use the same name. So here it is. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about. . .well, let’s just say that there’s a lot more to this random appearance than you might think.
Brandon, I believe in one of Sazed's epigraphs, he actually called it "Adonasium" rather than what you are referring to here, which is "Adonalsium". I'm thinking that's just a typo, right?
I don't suppose you could tell us which book series of yours will tell us more about Adonalsium, would you? You know, just so us theorizers on the forum know when to properly theorize about these things...
Well, I guess this means that the proofreaders did not add the "L" when I marked the error on the manuscript.(sigh). Yes, the correct spelling is Adonalsium. I will try to get this fixed for the paperback, but I've been trying to get that blasted steel/iron error in the back of book one fixed for two years now. . .
If it helps, Sazed would probably under-pronounce the "L" as that letter, like in Tindwyl's name, is said very softly in Terris.
As for your other question, you will have to wait and see. Now, you could search my old books for clues, but I would caution against this. While there are hints in these, they are not yet canon. Just as I changed how things were presented in the Mistborn books during editing, I would have fixed a lot in these books during revision. Beyond that, reading them would give big spoilers for books yet to be released. White Sand, Dragonsteel, and Way of Kings in particular are going to be published some day for almost certain. (Though in very different forms). Aether of Night should be safe, as should Final Empire prime and Mistborn prime, though of those three, only Aether is worth reading, and then only barely. (It is still pretty bad).
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Yes.
Why did Ruin give off Allomantic Pulses? Because Preservation did and they're two sides of the same coin? Allomancy is of Preservation, so I figured that's why he did...
Manifestation of the awesome power he held, mixed with Vin's increased ability to sense these things. Allomantic pulses are like a ripple of sound in the fabric of creation itself—the power of creation being used, creating a drum beat to those attuned to it. Ruin created a similar beat when his consciousness was near.
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In one of the bumps, Sazed mentions a discussion between Vin and Ruin in which Vin asks Ruin why she was chosen to release him from the Well. Did this discussion occur in the in-between afterlife where Vin, Elend, Kelsier, etc., were, or did it occur off-screen while Vin and Ruin were busy stopping each other from affecting the world?
I was fairly sure she asked it while she was a prisoner of Yomen, but I could be wrong.
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What was she supposed to do? Well, this is difficult to answer, since the prophecies have been changed and shifted so much. Originally, the prophesies intended for a person to go take the power every thousand years and become a protector of mankind for a period of time. Someone to keep an eye on Ruin in Preservation's absence and watch over the world as he would have done. Imagine an avatar who arrives every thousand years and lives for their lifetime blessing the people with the power of Preservation, renewing Ruin's prison, and generally being a force for protection. (Note that Ruin wouldn't have gotten out if the prison wasn't renewed, he'd simply have been able to touch the world a little bit more.) Obviously, it changed a LOT during the years that Ruin was playing with things.
What should she have done? Well, Ruin's release was inevitable. Even if she hadn't let him go, the world would have 'wound down' eventually. The ashfalls would have grown worse over the centuries, and the next buildup of the Well might not have come in time for them to do anything. Or, perhaps, mankind would have found a way to adapt. But Ruin was going to get himself out eventually, so the choice Vin made was all right. There weren't really any good choices at this point. She could have decided to take the power and become a 'good' Lord Ruler, trying to keep the world from falling apart. Of course, she would have had to make herself immortal with Hemalurgy to make that work right. And since she was already tainted, chances are good she wouldn't have ended up any better than the Lord Ruler himself.
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The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.
Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)
So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.
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Well, I'd sure pay to see it in theaters! ;)
To be more serious, I think this series—particularly the first book—is quite cinematic. I'd love to sell movie rights on it, assuming I can find the right people to work with. So if you have any contacts, let me know.
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Glad you liked the book, Rainbow!
You may want to note that the moment Preservation dropped out and let the last of his consciousness die, someone was waiting in the Cognitive Realm to seize the power and hold on for a short period until Vin could take it up more fully. You'll find him using it to whisper in moments of great stress in the book, to one person in specific in two places. (I'll bet someone on here has already found them.)
He never could just let things well enough alone....
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Boy, this is a hard one to ask because it's been such a LONG process. There were bits of all of this popping around in my head almost twenty years ago, so it's going to be hard to define where what fit into place when.
Allomancy and Feruchemy were originally planned separately. I linked them together into this book when I realized that the 'focus' items that could store attributes could be metal, and therefore work wonderfully with the Mistborn book I was planning.
Hemalurgy came from the image of Inquisitors first, then developed as a need to integrate it in with the other two in a way that evoked the power of "Ruin" rather than the power of Preservation. I figured that Ruin would steal, and it was a great way to add a third magic without having to overload people with a whole new set of powers. The process of writing this series, since I did all three books together, was an interesting one, and I made a lot of connections as I went. Some of the latest things on the timeline were figuring out how to fit atium and the Preservation nuggets into the already built framework. But I don't know if I can give you an exact list. Partially because there would just be too many spoilers in it.
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Folks,
This essay I just posted:
http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/55/EUOLogy-My-History-as-a-Writer
Started as a blog post for this thread, talking about the old books I wrote to give context to my previous post. It outgrew the length of a proper forum post, so I put it on the site instead. But this might help you understand some of my history as a writer, not to mention explain the origin of all these old books Ookla that references all the time.
I remembered a thread from ages ago in which Brandon posted a list of the books he'd written, I looked it up when I realised it wasn't in the article, and I figured you guys might be interested too, so here it is.
1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel)
2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.)
3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime)
4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.)
5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors)
6) Elantris (You have to buy this one!)
7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic fantasy
8) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt)
9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.)
10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.)
11) Mistborn Prime (Eventually stole this world.)
12) Final Empire Prime (Cannibalized for book 14 as well.)
13) The Way of Kings (Fantasy War epic. Coming in 2008 or 2009)
14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Coming June 2006)
15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Early 2007)
16) Alcatraz Initiated (YA Fantasy. Being shopped to publishers)
17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages (Unfinished. Coming late 2007)
18) Dark One (Unfinished. YA fantasy)
19) Untitled Aether Project (Two sample chapters only.)
Thanks for posting that. Note that I can never quite remember which was first, Aether or Mistborn Prime. I always feel that Aether should be first, since it wasn't as bad as the two primes, but thinking back I think that the essay is more accurate and I wrote it between them.
This would be the new list:
1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel)
2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.)
3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime)
4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.)
5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors)
6) Elantris (First Published)
7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic, other than the not-very-good Final Empire prime.)
8 ) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt, turned out much better.)
9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.)
10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.)
11) Mistborn Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.)
12) Final Empire Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.)
13) The Way of Kings Prime (Fantasy War epic.)
14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Came out 2006)
15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Came out 2007)
16) Alcatraz Verus the Evil Librarians (Came out 2007)
17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages (Came out 2008)
18) Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones (Came out 2008)
19) Warbreaker (Comes out June 2009)
20) Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia (November 2009ish)
21) A Memory of Light (November 2009ish. Working on it now. Might be split into two.)
22) The Way of Kings Book One (2010ish. Not started yet.)
23) Alcatraz Four (2010. Not started yet)
Will elements of your untitled Aether project be worked into the Dragonsteel series?
The Silence Divine (Working title. Stand alone Epic Fantasy. Unwritten.)These titles are news to me. You described two potential YA or middle-grade books to me and Karen when you came out to Book Expo, plus Dark One, but now I can't remember the plots except they were cool (and that one of them involved superheroes). Are they among this list? Also, is that really Harbringer or is it supposed to be Harbinger?
Steelheart (YA Science Fiction. Unwritten)
I Hate Dragons (Middle Grade fantasy. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.)
Zek Harbringer, Destroyer of Worlds (Middle Grade Sf. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.)
Bah! That's what I get for typing so quickly. Yes, Harbinger. It should be "Zeek" too. Short for Ezekiel.
Steelheart would be the superhero one, though that's a working title, since I'm not sure if it's trademarked or not. Haven't had much time for thinking about any of these books lately.
Brandon, here you said Alcatraz 4 is called Alcatraz vs. The Dark Talent; is that still the working title? Also, you mentioned Dragonsteel: The Lightweaver of Rens, but now you say The Liar of Partinel is a standalone. Change of plans? (I know you can't get back to Dragonsteel for a while.)
The Alcatraz titles are in flux because I need to know if Scholastic wants the fifth one or not. (They only bought four.) Dark Talent will be one of them for certain.
The Liar of Partinel was part of a two-part story told hundreds of years before the Dragonsteel epic. However, since I've dropped plans to go with Liar anytime soon—A Memory of Light has priority, followed by Way of Kings—I don't know what I'll end up doing with the second book, or if I'll ever even write it. I was planning on not calling either of these "Dragonsteel" in print, actually, and just letting people connect the two series on their own. It wouldn't be hard to do, but I didn't want the first actual book in the main storyline to be launched by Tor as "Book Three" since there would be such a large gap of time.
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Jedal. After his father.
Which is the reason why Spook didn't like using it.
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They spike the drinks at one of the nobility's balls with trace amounts of Atium, then cause a bit disturbance. (Often, the Inquisitors themselves arriving will do it) and burn bronze and watch for brief pulses. The body will burn metals instinctively if it can, which has been shown quite often in the series. This is also how they get a lot of their secret information about who is a Misting and who isn't. It's not a perfect method, since you have to watch for Copperclouds messing things up, but it is effective once in a while.
Any time an obligator who is not a Misting joins the Ministry, he is unknowingly given a larger chunk of atium and then forced into a series of rituals that will drain him physically and get the body to react and burn the metal. This was how Yomen was discovered.
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It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.
In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.
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I also wondered if you could explain that circle in the cave some more, I didn't quite get it.
I was sure Vin was the hero right up until the end, even though originally before I read the book, I was sure it would be Elend or Sazed. But then the epilogue author started naming people off, so I knew it wasn't them. But it only mentions Vin as 'she,' when talking about how she got her spike. I was sure one of the epigraphs was going to be: "And that girl is me."
The Sazed thing totally made sense in hindsight, I can't believe I didn't figure it out. And we were right about the "on the arms," bit being the part Brandon was referring to, good find Vintage!
I'm a little sad that the lake doesn't come into it more. But the Mist spirit and the Deepness were BOTH Preservation. That was cool.
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So I have a couple of questions....
I loved the book, it was all great UNTIL Vin and especially ELEND died. I can see why you did it, but I was crying so hard when Vin confirmed Elend was dead. I actually had an urge to burn the books right then and there and pretend it had never happened. Either way, I continued reading and then found some sliver of hope when Sazed said he hadn't figured out how to restore the souls YET, he said he would get better at it.
1)Does that mean that he might someday, maybe, hopefully (pretty please) bring them back to life? I suspect that you might not answer, but can I at least hope? Cause if anyone deserved to live a full NORMAL life it was Vin and Elend. Besides, it would ROCK if Elend and Kelsier ever got to meet each other......
Aw man.....I'm still crying over Elend....Is it wrong I get so attatched to characters? Its just that Elend and Vin got so little time together. It's so sad. Which reminds me: You mentioned, when someone asked about Sazed meeting Twindyl again, that he hadn't because he hadn't reached that space where souls were and the ones that were trapped in the in between were the ones that had a connection with either the physical or the concious world. Those weren't the exact words but it was something like that that IMPLIED that Vin, Elend and Kelsier were somehow still connected with the earth because unlike Twindyl the hadn't progressed past that in between place.
2) Am I right and maybe going somewhere, or am I talking total nonsense and simply trying to cope with the loss of Elend?
One of the reasons for that line at the end is to give you, the reader, the power and authority to bring to the characters the ending you wish. I may do more in this series, but until then, please take the future of the characters wherever you want in your own mind. (Also, you mention that they had such little time together—which is true, but also remember that there was a year between books one and two, then another year between books two and three. They spent most of this time together.)
The door is open for a return of Elend and Vin. Will I write it? It isn't likely to be soon, if I ever even do. Does that mean it won't happen? No. Not at all. If I write more Mistborn books, they will be hundreds of years in the future. During that time, Sazed could have learned to get souls into bodies, given Vin and Elend a life together somewhere away from the others, where they wouldn't have to struggle quite so much like they did through their lives, then ushered their souls on to the beyond. Or they could hang around with him, working with him as he takes his next steps to shepherd humankind on Scadrial. Or neither of the above. Imagine it how you wish, for I'm not going to set this one in stone for quite some time, if ever.
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I'd first like to say that this series was fantastic. I was exceptionally pleased with how you tied everything together in this final book of the trilogy.
(1) This series has the best world-building, magic system, and over-arching plot of any epic fantasy I have ever read. I think George R.R. Martin is still the master of creating memorable characters, developing them, and having them interact with each other. Other authors, like Hobb and Rothfuss, are better at evincing emotion. You are an amazing writer yourself.
That being said, I have a couple suggestions for you.
(2) The first contradicts itself, so take it for what it is. I would suggest that you write how you feel the story should be written. Getting inspiration from someone is one thing, but changing your work because some people want a happy ending or dark ending takes away from the purity of writing. The part you added in at the end where Sazed let Spook know Vin and Elend were happy in the afterlife really stuck me like a thorn. I think it was apparent how happy they were together in life and how necessary their sacrifices were. That would have been enough for me.
(3) My other suggestion is more of a plea really. Please don't extend this series just to capitalize on it. If you really feel there is more story to be told, then tell it. I, for one, thought the ending would have been perfect if allomancy, hemalurgy, and feruchemy would have faded from existence as their corresponding gods did. It would have been rather romantic to have people start over with a new "normal" world.
Congratulations again on completing a masterful work!
1. You humble me. I don't think I've NEARLY the skill for characters that Mr. Martin does, and that's not just an attempt at modesty. I hope to be there some day, however.
2. This is a tricky one. I didn't change the worldbuilding or the cosmology of the story in order to fit what people wanted, but I feel strongly about using writing groups and test readers to see if my intention in a book has been achieved. I show things to alpha readers to see what is confusing or bothersome to them, then decide if that's really something I want to be confusing or bothersome.
In my mind, the presence of a powerful being such as Sazed, mixed with some direct reaching from beyond the grave by a certain crew leader, indicated that there WAS an afterlife. However, test readers didn't get it, so I tweaked the story to make it more obvious. Perhaps I should have left it as is, but I liked both ways, and decided upon the one I liked the most in the context of reader responses.
I do plan to always tell the stories from my heart, and not change them because of how I think the reactions will be. But I do think it's important to know what those reactions are ahead of time and decide if they are what I want or not.
3. We are on the same page on this one. You can read other posts on the thread to see what kind of thoughts I might have for more Mistborn books, but I don't know if/when I will write them. It depends on the story and how excited I am to tell it.
396
Yes, as has been pointed out:
A powerful peace swelled in Elend. His Allomancy flared bright, though he knew the metals inside of him should have burned away. Only atium remained, and the strange power did not—could not—give him this metal. But it didn’t matter. For a moment, he was embraced by something greater. He looked up, toward the sun. (From the text.)
As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals—even the two divine ones—are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy.
The means of getting powers—Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting—are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.
397
398
399
Well... I don't want to speak too much about the great beyond in the books, as in my opinion that level of cosmology is influenced by your own beliefs in the hereafter and in deity. Beyond that, I would rather not speak of what happens to the souls beyond the three Realms, as even Sazed doesn't know that.
Perhaps this will help, however. Like most of the leaders of soldiers in this series (Demoux, Wells, and Conrad included,) Goradel is based on and looks like one of my friends. In this case, it's Richard Gordon. He's read the book and cheered for his namesake's sacrifice and eventual victory. So the REAL Goradel knows. ;)
400
......wooooooooooooooah......
I still can't stop thinking that in my head. It's all that's really coming to mind at the moment.
I made the stupid mistake of finishing the book this afternoon in a public place. Therefore I looked like a complete moron as I burst into tears when Elend died. I think it was a good ending. I'm still not totally decided on that. I'm just in shock.
It's just so amazing how the books progressed, developing into this huge cosmic epic that I never expected from just reading The Final Empire a year ago. I guess in some sense what I'm feeling is a slight sense of... awe, maybe? I want to know how he comes up with stuff. I mean seriously, talk about not just writing another fantasy series.
But I'm also shocked that no one else seemed to have figured out that Sazed was the Hero of Ages. I thought it might be him when I started the book, but it could as easily have been Vin or Elend. But at about a third of the way through, page 215 to be exact, there was this line from Sazed thinking in his head:
"I am, unforunately, in charge."
Sound familiar?
"I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages."
No one else would have used the same wording as Sazed did when he was thinking to himself. I have to assume that was intentional on Brandon's part. It was very subtle... I'm actually surprised I noticed.
I'm gratified that you noticed. The Terris dialect IS very subtle. That speech pattern is one hint, the other is the use of "I think" to soften phrases at the ending. Beyond that, Sazed speaks with compound, complex sentences using frequent hedging to indicate that he's often uncertain. (That's another Terris speech pattern, not wanting to offend with language.)
The epigraphs in this book particularly (though I did it for Kwaan too) are intended to "sound" Terris, and like Sazed in particular. I didn't think anyone would catch it. You made my day!
401
I'm one of those readers that gets swept in the stories and fails to come up with any theories whatsover.
However I did notice one... 2 years ago.
Hoid
I can't believe this is being talked about. I remember making a thread about it shortly after I joined the forums (I can't even find it anymore) About how I thought it was odd to see Hoid in Mistborn as an informant, Elantris as a beggar, Warbreaker as a storyteller, and I had a strong feeling it was in the first chapter as Liar as well but was too lazy to investigate.
It was before these forums got so crazy crowded and I'm pretty sure my questions on whether the use of the name was intentional were brushed off. Weird right? Ever since then I considered my speculations unimportant (much like my speculation's on Reen's obsidian, the nobility really being Terris, and Vin being a feruchemist, by the way, don't ask about the second two, I'm crazy)
Anyway, just wanted to add this. I sure wish I could find my original Hoid post but I'm pretty sure it was so old, it's been deleted.
402
403
I've been thinking lately of ways to give away digital copies of my books when you buy a hardcover. There are some issues with this.
I don't know much about the logistics; it may be impossible. If there is a way to make this work, I'd propose it to Tor and Harriet for A Memory of Light.
Here's a reddit thread where I mention issues with the process. Weigh in here or in that thread to give me advice.
The only way I could think of would be to include one-time use codes with the books. But what's to stop people from selling?
Yeah. The other problem with that is securing the code. Books aren't wrapped up, so the code could be scratched off/stolen easily.
My preferred method would be to put a code in a book that, then, you can redeem for free or a small price. But how do we secure it?
You don't. Your stuff is already being pirated and publishers shouldn't consider those lost sales. Trust people a la Apple.
I'm not worried about piracy. However, a digital code that can be used many times seems foolish. A one-use would be stolen.
One use has to be secured, or the person buying the book is in danger of being ripped off.
Multi-use means that we're hosting the book, and paying the bandwidth, for those who want to pirate. Bad idea, I think.
I'll host it for you. :) No charge.
Lol. One other problem is that this needs to be reasonable enough to the publisher's ears to get them to go along.
My point exactly. Big Pub doesn't get the new model. They consider pirated copies as lost sales. See Seth Godin for new model.
The publishers aren't as ignorant as you think. The investors, however, are another story. (You're right about them.)
Tor has done plenty of giving away free, DRM-free ebooks. They did it with Mistborn, for example.
Ah! To me as an outsider they are one and the same. :)
Publishers and editors in sf/f tend to be techies. Notice that Cory Doctorow, with Tor's blessing, releases all of his books for free.
How is Marvel doing it? They don't tend to wrap Comics either.
I think you order directly from them, and they send you the comic and deliver through their own secure app.
Baen used to put a CD copy of the book inside the hardcover versions of @davidweber1 Honor Harrington books.
I asked if we could do that, and the answer was that it was expensive enough it couldn't become the standard.
Maybe like a gift card where it's only active after purchase?
Yeah, this is probably the best idea. I don't know how hard that is to accomplish, though.
A lot of textbooks used to include a disc in the book for additional material. Discs are a bit harder to steal than codes.
Textbooks also have a much larger profit margin than novels. I asked about discs for my last book, and the publisher said no.
They said it was just too expensive.
Old school tech, I know, but how about a coupon you have to fill in with your email address then post back to the publisher?
Ha. You know, I never thought about that. The problem is, how do we keep people from stealing them out of the books?
People with a nice hardcover don't want to cut their book apart to get a coupon.
Here are a couple of problems with what people are suggesting. 1) We don't want to shrink wrap books, but a code can be stolen very easily.
Anything involving the retailer verifying a code, or printing one out, requires large-scale involvement of retailers.
That's not something I can change. They may be working on this already. I want something I could take to Tor, that we could do in house.
Or if you're talking about securing the code in the book...it seems easy enough with textbooks. Peel-off? :)
People would walk into the store, peel off the sticker, write down the code, then sell it or use it.
How do you stop people from sharing a hardcover copy?
The physical product can be made to set off an alarm. A code can be copied and carried out.
Could codes be single use? That would largely get around the securing problem?
People would walk into the store, write down the code, go home and download the book.
What about one-time scratch codes like what's used on gift cards?
Those are usually activated by the retailer. I'd love for us to be able to do that, but it would involve more than I can do.
Another issue with this is that if I did it, I would need it to work for indy booksellers and not just Amazon/Barnes & Noble.
Can you sell the digital copy at http://tor.com, which provides a coupon for the hardcover?
This is actually what I proposed to Tor a few years back, and they said they didn't want to offend the retailers.
I still like the idea, though.
I won't have time to reply to everyone here, but keep sending thoughts. I'll read and see if I can come up with something to take to Tor.
How about this: Put the code in the book. Don't secure it. Each code works three times. Hope people don't abuse it.
That risks punishing the person who buys the book (but their code has been stolen and used.)
More on the A Memory of Light ebook thing. What would you guys think if I tried to talk Tor into a 'special edition' release.
A kind of 'boxed set' that came with hardcover, ebook, audiobook, a medallion or other keepsake, and maybe some interviews with me & Harriet.
Shrink wrapped & sold at bookstores for, say, $50 instead of $30? Does that get too far away from the 'free ebook w/the hardcover' concept?
It does seem to defeat the purpose, as far as most people would be concerned. Though many would buy it.
A Memory of Light e-book release announced with three month gap. Can you explain the rationale behind this? Lot of vitriol on Tor site.
Harriet worries, among other things, at the impact on the bestseller lists by releasing at the same time.
Ebooks make her uncomfortable.
Making us wait three three months for the A Memory of Light ebook is very obnoxious and shows contempt for the fan base. I have been reading...
...WOT since 1992 and deeply resent this type of staggering.
I've been working on it. The delay is not Tor, but Harriet, who worries at the implications of releasing an ebook immediately.
She originally wanted a six month, or longer, delay. I was able to persuade her to move to three months.
404
If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?
That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense?
It does.
By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.
405
Joe from the U.K. asks a terrifying question, "If an Allomancer is turned into a koloss, would they keep their powers?"
If an Allomancer is turned into a koloss? You know...
We're scared of this
Yeah, no. That's actually something I've thought about. An Allomancer turned into a koloss would keep their powers because, as you'll recall, an Allomancer turned in to an Inquisitor retains their powers. Whether they would be able to always know how to use them remains to be seen, but you could definitely have a koloss Allomancer if you built them right.
406
Are all Inquisitors required to have an atium spike?
No, they are not
407
Okay. Which metal steals the power of Feruchemic gold? The Hero of Ages epigraphs say it was pewter, but it can't be pewter, since pewter steals Feruchemical Physical powers.
Right…that's probably a typo. I will have to go back to the notes, that's more of a PAFO…
Is that a PAFO and actually find out? Or a PANFO…
Yeah, no, no. Peter and find out.
408
For the love of good things, tell me who kills Asmodean?
Real question: Mistborn surprised me with its intensity. I didn't think that it would have as big of an impact on me that it did, and for writing it, thank you.
How long do things cook in your mind before you put them on paper?
Spoiler
When you write something as beautiful as "I am hope." Does it give you the chills? Where does something like that come from? I am just so fucking amazed that, even though I knew of his past with his wife and the mines, that you could make me think he was just doing it for greed reasons... then you bust out with this and I was floored. It cemented the entire trilogy for me. With that one line, I will forever buy anything you write.
/heroworship
The Asmodean killer is revealed in Towers of Midnight. (Look in the glossary.)
How long things cook depends on the project. Some, like The Way of Kings, cook for decades. Mistborn was a period of about 2-3 years. Others, like my children's series, are exercises in free writing with very little 'incubation' time give.
As for the last question...sometimes, it's hard to pinpoint how things come together, even for a planner like myself. I often compare writing to playing music. Often, a musician gets to the point where they don't know why their fingers move as they do—through a great deal of training, they learn to just make it happen. Writers develop similar instincts, but for plot, character, and prose.
409
Are there a limited amount of atium and lerasium alloys for each metal?
Hmm, yes…I suppose there would be but there are…
More than sixteen?
Yeah, way more than sixteen.
Oh wow. Okay. That's fascinating. More than sixteen and less than infinite.
Yes.
410
Last time we spoke, we were talking about the 45-hour audiobook for The Way of Kings. Each of the Mistborn books came in at 25-30 hours, but The Alloy of Law comes in at a tidy 9 discs. Did you set out to write a shorter book?
I knew I wanted to do more in the Mistborn world, and for a long time I played with writing a short story. The short story that I tried to write didn't work; I tossed it aside after maybe a thousand words, and began working on a different story. I can usually judge what the length of a story will be, and I knew this one would be longer, but I wasn't sure how long I would want it to be, or whether I should make it a full-blown novel. So I wrote what turned out to be three or four chapters' worth, and at that point I decided, it was a big enough story to can make a novel of it. I knew it wasn't going to be the same length as the original Mistborn books, but I felt okay with that, because for a long time I've been wanting to start writing some—I don't want to say shorter, but quicker, faster-paced stories; thrilleresque, maybe a little more pulpish. I just think of it as a fun book, that doesn't require quite as much of an investment of time and energy for the reader as something like The Way of Kings—which I love, but I want to be doing a variety of things. So writing a shorter book was intentional, but I kind of slipped into it.
411
How much did you focus on writing The Alloy of Law as a starting point for readers who were new to Mistborn? Was it hard to balance writing for new readers versus wanting to give your existing readers a "welcome home"?
It takes place hundreds of years after the trilogy, so there was enough that I had to bring longtime readers up to speed on that it felt very natural to write the book as a potential new starting point, just because the world had been updated so much.
That said, I did make sure to slip in lots of fun things for those who had read the original trilogy, that are callbacks or that show how the world got updated and how it grew. I was conscious of the book possibly being a new starting point, but it's more that it felt natural for what the story required, as opposed to me sitting down and trying to force the book to be a new starting point.
412
A lot happens before this book opens—how did you pick an opening for Wax's story, leaving so much of the backstory with Wayne (and others) to be picked up and absorbed on the fly?
I usually like to start my books in medias res to an extent. It brings across the sense that I want to portray, which is that the characters all existed before the book started, and the characters continue—those who survive—to exist after the book ends. That helps with the sense of immersion. Granted, each book tells about a very important chapter of the characters' lives, and there's a distinct beginning, middle, and end to that chapter, but if the beginning or end are too hard and fast, it feels contrived to me. So I do this with all of my books.
It's usually harder to figure out a starting point than you might think. I often have to revise my beginnings very heavily. This is no different from my other works; in the Mistborn books I've had to do this often. The prologue for [The Alloy of Law] was actually written to be the prologue to a sequel, and after I wrote it, I thought, "No, that needs to go in this book." We did a lot of shuffling around at the beginning of this book to find the right starting point.
413
You've been involved with some pretty big projects over the last few years. Tell us what it's been like working on the art for novels such as the Mistborn trilogy and The Way of Kings.
Writing, art, and book publishing have always been my biggest interests, so working on these great books has been very fulfilling.
I get the manuscript early on in the process, print it out, and go through the whole thing with a pencil, marking it up with notes about artistic details and tiny maps marking places in relationship to each other. Then comes my favorite part of the process: working with Brandon and his assistant Peter to make sure that my vision melds with Brandon's vision for the book. We usually do a lot of revisions and emails to get to the point where we're all happy with the results. I cannot say enough good about Brandon and Peter; they are both gentlemen to the core.
414
I know some of us have heard the story of how you came up with the symbols for Mistborn, but tell those of us who haven't how they came about.
I'd drawn about a half dozen pages of symbols inspired by my first reading of the book. Pages with dozens and dozens of tiny, intricate symbols—maybe someday I'll write a post about the process: Failed Allomantic Symbol Designs. But nothing was really working for me or Brandon.
I'd collected a lot of reference material for the steel inquisitors—nails, railroad spikes, those sorts of things—and one day when I was looking at a picture of a rusty pile of bent up nails, I saw the symbol for Iron. It was a Beautiful Mind experience. The symbol just jumped out at me. Glowing and everything.
After that initial experience with the symbol for Iron, it was easy to come up with the others. The bent nail part eventually became the crescent shapes used in the final book.
415
No.
Something I had always wondered...ah well. Who makes the mistcoats/mistcloaks, anyway?
416
Maybe you could talk just to get us started, a little bit about your Mistborn series for example, which I know have seen lots and lots of posts. When are you going back to Mistborn?
I will be doing some more Mistborn stories, coming in the near future, right now most everything I have is dedicated to finishing the Wheel of Time, the last book of the wheel of time, we are in revisions right now and it is a lot of work and we are trying to get this last book ready for release next January, once I am done with that I can turn my attention back to my other projects like the Stormlight archive and Mistborn both of which I hope to do, very quickly some more books for.
417
I was wondering if you could only write in one universe from now on, what would you pick?
Well you gave me an out, because so many of my books are in the same universe.
*laughter*You know, I thought you might say that.
So that, I could cheat and just say the cosmere, but I think the soul of the question is which series would I write on.
I would probably have to -boy- it would probably be a toss up between Mistborn and the Stormlight archive, Mistborn because I've invested so much into it already. If I can only pick one I would probably pick Stormlight because there is so much left to tell there and I've got a lot of places to explore, but I would cheat and say they're all in the same universe.
418
If you could have the abilities of one of your characters what abilities would you want and why?
Any one of my characters? Well I would love to be able to- If I were to pick one superpower it would probably be flying and so I would totally go with, probably steelpushing just because I think it would be so much fun, the idea of the, of the Lashings from Way of Kings would be a nice second but the, the Steelpushing just sounds like fun, so I would totally be a Mistborn, I would get them all.
419
How did the whole cosmere come about?
Oh that's a good question, the cosmere came about because- there's really two genesis' of it. First off I'm a big fan of Asimov's work and if you know Asimov's work he tied his two universes together later in his life and I thought he did a brilliant job of it, though patching it together later in his life as he did there were certain continuity problems in doing it and I always thought "Boy, I bet he wished he'd done it from the beginning".
So, as I started to work on things, I thought "Well why don't I try something like that from the beginning." Once again I got to see what one of the masters did and learn from them, stand on their shoulders.
The other thing is early I realised that if I were writing mini-books then writing them all in the same series would be a bad for getting published, let's say I wrote five, I'm gonna write five books and a publisher rejects the first one. If the other four are in the same series, it's going to be very hard to convince that publisher to read book two if they've already said no to book one. However, if they are five standalone books, set in different worlds, then I can say if someone says "I liked this book but not enough to publish it," I could send them another one and say "Hey this one is different but similar maybe you'll like that." It just increased my chances.
The problem with that is I grew up reading the big epics and I love big epics and they are the books of my heart, like the Wheel of Time. I wanted to write big epics and so I started writing a secret big epic. It started with Elantris, which is the first one that I wrote in the Cosmere and right after it Dragonsteel, which is actually a prequel but in a different universe. I started putting characters from each of these books in the other books to have what I call a hidden epic, mostly for myself, because I had all these books I was going to be selling and marketing separately. But when Elantris sold, all of that stuff was buried in there, and I said "Well, I love it, I'm not gonna cut it, I'm just gonna put it in there to see if people notice." I'm going to keep telling my hidden epic because eventually I will be telling the greater story with Dragonsteel and the third Mistborn trilogy dealing with these things and so that's where the idea for the cosmere came from, those two pieces.
420
Before we wrap up, Brandon have you got any news about movies or a Mistborn game?
Yes, the Mistborn video game is very much a go, the guys at little orbit have just been awesome, we are working together to make an excellent game I hope. I'm working on the story, I've turned in to them an overarching story for the whole, for the game and they are taking that and building the game and level design around that and then I will come back after they've done that and I will write the dialog for the characters that moves the story along, so the videogame is a completely go, cross-platform ps3, Xbox 360 and steam for 2013.
The movie we are pitching to studios this month, so hopefully we can get something rolling on that, I have no news other than what I posted on my blog which is we've now got a good screenplay, it's quite good and we're now trying to pitch to studios and trying to convince somebody to pick this thing up and run with it. We're really hoping that, you know fantasy has a really good reputation right now because of the excellent Game of Thrones adaptation and so we're hoping that people will take a look at some good fantasy properties and that we can get a film made.
421
Will we be seeing any more worlds from the cosmere?
There are other word-worlds you will see, there are several I haven’t visited yet at all. White Sand, the world of that book which was one of my earlier novels I never published. I intend to eventually do that series, it may not have the same title or anything but I do intend to do that series, there will be a sequel trilogy to Mistborn, eventually. I’m actually in the middle of working on a short story for that world right now to release online and there will be sequels to elantris but the sequels to elantris will deal with new characters they won’t they won’t, they’ll take place the second book will take place 10 years after the first book.
422
Tell me about Mistborn
The Mistborn trilogy was the series I released following Elantris. I knew I wanted to follow up with something a little bit longer. Elantris was a standalone, and I wanted to try my hand at a series. I had made a name for myself, with Elantris, for being someone who does something different with fantasy: doesn’t do the same sort of things. Still, I want my books to feel like fantasy, I want them to give you that same feeling of epic wonder that you get in a good fantasy series. I just don’t want to do the same stories that have been done a lot.
And so with this, the inspiration really came from two places. I love the fantasy genre, I read a lot of fantasy books, I love the classics—Tolkien—I love the Harry Potter and the Robert Jordan books. These books all kind of share one similar plot element, which is kind of about the young hero, who goes on a quest to defeat the Dark Lord, which a lot of my classic favorites in fantasy deal with. I thought “Is there something different I can add to this?” I was actually watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies, watching Frodo go on his quest to fight Sauron and defeat the Dark Lord, and I thought about Harry Potter with Voldemort and all of these and I thought “You know, these Dark Lords always get taken down by these peasant kids. What happens if the Dark Lord wins? What happens if the peasant hero loses?”
That idea kicked around in my head for a long time, and I began to think of this story where there had been this young hero, who’d gathered an unlikely band of followers, and they’d gone traipsing off on a quest to defeat the great evil, and they lost: the Dark Lord took over the world, and began to rule. That’s kind of a depressing story: I didn’t to start, I didn’t want that to be the whole story, but that was a beginning.
The other seed for this story was my love for the Heist genre. I love the old Mission Impossible TV show, where you’ve got a gang of specialists who can each do something really unique, and they get together and try and pull off something impossible. I have often wondered: why don’t I see more of this in fantasy? It would be a great way to apply the genre—each person in our team could have a different magical power.
These two ideas rammed together, and I began to conceive this story of a world where the hero had lost, and now, a thousand years later, we’ve got this gang of thieves who say “okay the Peasant Hero, he didn't save us. the Prophecies, they were all bunk. We're now ruled by this terrible dark emperor—let’s do this our way. Let's rob the guy silly, bribe his armies away from him, and overthrow the empire. “And so it’s kind of a different take on the same story, and that’s what I did, and it turned out to be kind of a mix between Lord of the Rings and Ocean’s Eleven and a kung-fu epic and a little bit of My Fair Lady thrown in there for good measure. It’s kind of its own unique thing.
Well Mistborn, the series is a trilogy, and the progression from Book 1 to Book 2 is interesting in that, when I was originally conceiving this trilogy, this series, one of the things I wanted to do is tell the story of what happens once the heroes have already won. I wanted to start where the story usually ends because one of the things I like to do is try and turn the genre on its head, do new things with the genre. When I was planning the series, I decided that the story of the heroes winning is a great story, and that’s one that I wanted to tell. So I actually backed up by a book and started with Book 1, telling the story of the fight against the evil empire by a gang of thieves, trying to rip off the Dark Lord himself. But Book 2 then starts where my original concept had been. What now? I won’t tell you how Book 1 ends, but we’ve got the heroes having done something pretty spectacular, it’s where most books usually end, most series usually end. Book 2 takes up there and says “What now? What do you do now that you’ve pulled off this great accomplishment?" It leads me to some really interesting places, I think, in the series, because I get to tackle things that most people haven’t covered. Most series are done by now. It lets me forge some new ground in the fantasy genre.
423
How did Vin and Elend change during the course of the story?
This story, the series is about them, it’s about progression. I talk about the plot for books, for instance, the Mistborn series is about a group of thieves taking out a Dark Lord, but books, for me, are about character. Action is only as interesting as it happens to people you care about, in my opinion, and a setting is only as fascinating as characters’ ability to interact with it. The progression, who characters become, is really where I think fiction can shine. In a different medium, you just don’t have the time to do what we do, and we can show across a span of years how someone starts as a street urchin and ends up as a queen. You can show this and you can show the internal changes, and the struggles inside of them that leads to this.
The story, about, for Vin and Elend is the story of them coming to accept each other’s different worlds. Vin starts as a street urchin, and she understands that life. Elend starts off as a nobleman, and he understands that life. As they start to interact and begin to have romantic interest in one another, their two worlds sort of collide and start sucking each other into each other’s worlds. Vin’s progress is learning that there is a part of her that can survive in this world of nobility, and of balls, and of political intrigue. But Elend, just as much, needs to understand that there’s a need to be able to survive “on the street,” a need to be able to take care of yourself rather than being pampered. It’s a role-reversal for the two of them, how it works as the series progresses.
Hero of Ages is the third and final book of the Mistborn Trilogy. One of the things I love about this book is that it is the ending. I like to end things. I don’t want to leave people hanging. I like my stories to come to a conclusion. I promised people at the beginning, when I was writing this series, that it would be three books: and I would give them a dramatic, powerful ending. Endings are my favorite part, honestly, of novels. In a given novel, I love telling you the ending, and Book 3 is kind of a book that is an ending itself. The entire book is an ending. It’s a big climax: it’s exciting, and it’s powerful, and it fulfills things that have been building in the series for three books now. I was able to write the trilogy straight through when I was preparing, and so I had Book 3 drafted before Book 1 even went to press, which allowed me to really make these three novels cohesive. I have seeds in the very first few paragraphs of Book 1 to things that become climactic powerful moments in the end of book 3. Book 3 is just an overload of action and excitement and character climaxes and just an amazing, just, romp through this series. I’m really excited about people being able to finally read it because I’ve been waiting for quite a while to make good on the promises I made at the beginning.
The great thing about Book 3 is that I'm introducing a completely new magic system. Each book has had its own. We'll start talking about Hemalurgy, and Steel Inquisitors, and where they come from. A lot of the origins of things that people have been wondering about since Book 1. The last 200 pages are just some of my favorite writing that I’ve ever been able to write because I was able to bring things to a head and to a close. I hope you enjoy it.
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I love this exchange at the beginning of the chapter. We actually don't get many scenes in the book where Hrathen gets to interact with Sarene, let alone her friends. The dialogue in this section is rather spiffy, if I do say so myself. The exchanges feel quick, poignant, and telling of character.
One part of that is probably due to the pair of extremely good metaphors Hrathen makes during the scene. The crushing mountain, the bird banging its head against a stone—these are didactic metaphors, exactly the kind of thing you'd expect a priest to say. He places them quite keenly, and his oration has an effect on Sarene and the others. I'd call this scene the final cap of Hrathen's victories during the last few chapters.
By the way, I'm still fond of the fact that Hrathen is more skilled a warrior than Eondel. Eondel's good, but he's not in the same league as a warrior-priest. Besides, Eondel is a leader, trainer, and general—his skill set is different than Hrathen's. If the two were to spar, Hrathen would win nearly every time.
Interestingly, this is one of the first real action sequences we've gotten in the book. So far, all we've really had are: the fencing match between Sarene and Eondel, the place where Hrathen fights off Shaor's men, and a couple of short battles between Raoden's men and Shaor's wildmen. Really not very much. I'm quite proud, actually, of how well I managed to keep up the tension and pacing in a book without much physical action.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not a sucker for some good action. Go read MISTBORN if you want to see what I mean.
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Speaking of Raoden's honor and truth, I'd like to note something about assassination and killing in this book. As I've stated in earlier annotations, I wanted this book's conflict to be non-violence focused. I think that the characters in this book, therefore, represent a more mature philosophy regarding social problems—a philosophy that could only exist among a people who have spent so much of their lives not having to deal with death and war. A people who have a valid reason for seeing things more like people in a contemporary culture.
As my friend Alan likes to say, however, "Violence may not always be the best answer—but it's usually AN answer." Conflict and social commentary should be based on the characters and their beliefs, rather than forced expressions of the author's message. That doesn't mean that I don't let my personal views shade my writing—I think that level of self-removal would be impossible. However, I do think that the themes expressed in a book need to be reflective of the characters.
I like that I was able to write a novel where the characters came to the conclusion that they'd rather find a way to stop their opponents without resorting to hiring assassins. This, I think, is a noble way of viewing the world. However, the realist in me says that most people—and most situations—won't be so open to this kind of decision. It says something that after working so long on ELANTRIS, I promptly went and made my next heroine (the one from MISTBORN) an assassin herself. In her world, life is far more brutal—and these sorts of philosophical problems aren't as difficult to deal with. There, there is too much riding on the protagonists for them to worry about their methods. I think they're still good people. They just have a slightly different philosophy.
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Yes, Raoden lets the Dakhor monks go. That's the sort of thing that happens in this book. If you want something more gritty, you can read MISTBORN. (Which is gritty for me, though nowhere near the genius sadism of George R. R. Martin's books.)
I like having this scene from Lukel's viewpoint. If nothing else were gained from his other sections, I think the scene of the Elantrians emerging from the flames would be enough to justify his viewpoints in these last few chapters.
So, anyway, that's one major plot line finished. Elantris has been restored. Most fantasies, however, are about characters more they are about plot. I love great twists and revelations—but the book isn't over until the characters are fulfilled. So, onward.
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10) Would you read any more of Brandon Sanderson's books? (Hint: Mistborn is already out, and it's really good!)
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Talk about your process of writing; and also about how you creatively approach it.
Every writer has a different process. There’s as many ways to do this as there are writers in the world. For me, my creative process is that I’m always searching for the ideas that I can connect into a larger story. I feel that a book is more than just one idea. A good book is a collection of ideas; usually a good idea for each character—something that forms the core of their conflict—several good ideas for the setting: something that’s going to drive the economy, something that’s going to drive (for me the magic) the setting—that sort of thing—and then several good plot ideas. These all bounce around in my head—I’ll grab them randomly.
An example of one of these was for Mistborn: For Mistborn, one of the original seeds was, I was watching the Harry Potter movies that had come out, and I was thinking about Lord of the Rings, which I had just reread, and I was thinking, you know, I like the hero’s journey: young, plucky protagonist goes, collects a band of unlikely followers, face the Dark Lord… and I thought “yeah, but those Dark Lords always get, just like, a terrible, raw end of the deal. They’re always beat by some dufusy kid or thing like that,” and I thought “I want to write a book where the Dark Lord wins.”
But that was kind of a downer of a book, as I considered it, a little bit, you know, “you read this book, and then at the end the hero loses,” that’s kind of a downer. So I stuck that in the back of my mind saying “I want to do something with that idea, but it’s going to take me a little while to figure out exactly what I want to do with that idea.” And then I was watching one of my favorite movies from a long time ago—both of these ideas come from movies, many of them don’t but these two did—Sneakers, if any of you have seen it, just a, like an amazingly awesome heist story, and I thought “ya’ know, I haven’t seen a heist story done in fantasy in forever,” little did I know that Scott Lynch was going to release one, like, one year later [The Lies of Locke Lamora].
But nobody had done one, and so I said “I want to do a fantasy heist story.” The two ideas combined together in my head. Alright: world where the Dark Lord won, a hero failed; thousands of years later, a gang of thieves decided to rip the Dark Lord off and kind of try to over thrown him their way, you know, making themselves-- by making themselves rich.
And those ideas combined together. And so a story grows in my mind like little atoms bouncing together and forming a molecule: they’ll stick to each other and make something different. Those two ideas combine to make a better idea, in my opinion, together. And then character ideas I’d been working on stuck to that, and then magic systems I’d actually been working on separately. Allomancy and Feruchemy, two of the magic systems in Mistborn, were actually designed for different worlds, and then I combined them together and they worked really well together, with the metals being a common theme.
I did all of that, and when it comes down to write a book I sit down and I put this all on a page, and then I start filling in holes by brainstorming. “What would go well here, what would go well here, I need more here” [accompanying gestures indicate different “here’s”]. And I fill out my outline that way, and I fill out my “World Guide,” as I call it. I actually just got—the wonderful folks of Camtasia (it’s a software that records screens) sent me a copy of their software so that I can record a short story, and I’ll go—I’ll do the outline, and then I’ll do the story, and then I’ll post it on my website and you can see exactly, you know, step-by-step what happens. Just don’t make too much fun of me when I spell things wrong.
It’s really weird when you’ve got, like, that screen capture going on, you know people are gonna’ be watching this, and you can’t spell a word, and it’s like “I don’t want to go look it up, I can get this right,” it’s like, the writerly version of the guy who refuses to go get directions. So I like try a word like seventeen different ways, and like “Gehhhh okay,” and then Google tells me in like ten seconds. Anyway, that’s your answer and I hope that works for you. Thanks for asking.
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Real’ quick: The Mistborn movie and game: how involved are you in the game, or are you getting to points in each of those that you’ll be able to contribute, or are they just gonna’ have you take a step back?
Good question, good question. So far, I have been very involved in both. Now, movies being what movies are, if we sell the movie to a studio, who knows at that point what’ll happen. All bets are off, right. The people I sold it to were big fans—like actually big fans, not the type of big fans in Hollywood that have heard of your name, so they’re a big fan. Like actual, serious legitimate Big Fans. They did six drafts of the screenplay—they were serious about this—and the screenplay is awesome. I have read it, I really like it. It does tweak a few things that make the screenplay really cool: like it focuses more on Vin and Reen, and kind of leads with that relationship a little bit more, stuff like that that works very well cinematically. It’s very faithful to the book and it’s an awesome time.
Who knows what’ll happen: we really want to be able to sell this to a studio. What happened was I sold it to independent producers, and what normally you’re gonna’-- they’re gonna’ have to find funding; that’s what happens with producers unless they’re, you know, George Lucas or something like that. So we’re still shopping it, the screenplay is awesome, so anyone, if you’re uncle is, ya’ know, happens to be Joss Whedon, come talk to me. I’ll find a notebook for you, I promise [reference to Taiwanese Way of Kings notebooks which Brandon brought to Comic-Con].
As for the video game, the video game guys—I’m actually having dinner with them tomorrow night. They’re cool, you know, they’re-- a bunch of guys from Interplay are involved in this, and the games they’ve made so far with their new company are all kind of like, how should we say, “safe money makers,” okay, and the reason they came to me is that they’d built their company, it’s solid, they’ve got the safe money makers—they’re doing like DDR games and things like that—and they said to me “we want to go and make a big-- just cool fantasy story because we’re kind of getting bored of all this stuff”—not that it’s bad, they’re great games, but you know what I mean. And I’m writing the script for it. The dialogue of the game will be mine.
They actually asked what type of game I wanted to make. I told them some games that I thought would work really well, and they have built an engine and everything to do that, and it’s looking really good. For those who are curious, it’s going to be cross-platform, should be fall 2013. It’s going to be an action RPG and kind of—I mean it probably won’t be as open world as this—but Infamous is one of the examples I gave them as something I thought that would really match Mistborn. I don’t think we have the budget to do the just huge open-endedness of something like that, but that’s okay because I can write a really solid story, and it should have gameplay that’s going to be really fun. Demon’s Souls was another one I gave them, kind of on the other side of how a combat system I really like works.
So that’s the story of the game, we’re shooting for RPGish, a little big like Demon’s Souls but more of the kind of freeform gameplay of Infamous.
Is the game going to be a standalone and the movie a trilogy?
The game is going to be a standalone: they’re may be sequels, but right now we’re going to just get one out there, it is set about 250 years after the start of the Final Empire, stars a new character, one who is part of the history of the world, so…
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Mistborn:Birthright website is up.
I'm going to write the dialogue and have a lot to do with the story. That's the only part I can really guarantee, but these guys are pretty awesome.
Also, I've seen early gameplay demos of Pushing and Pulling with Allomancy. It gave me chills.
Can you tell us what genre it's going to be (action, rpg, etc...) or is that confidential information?
Action RPG.
Looking at LittleOrbit's web site, I think we shouldn't be expecting Skyrim here...
Little steps. I've pitched an open-world, Skyrim-like RPG (set in a new world I designed) to game developers before, but I don't have the video game experience to persuade them.
These guys are solid. The games they've done before were to stabilize the company, but guys on the Mistborn team worked on Fallout (the original ones) and others worked on Baldur's Gate.
Our goal is a third-person action RPG like Demons' Souls or The Force Unleashed with a heavier storytelling focus and a good system for Allomantic powers. If I can get the city to be somewhat open-world, like Infamous, I'd like to go that way—that may or may not be viable. We don't know for sure at this point.
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I was surprised to see that the production company made the trailer. Is this a thing? Taking pieces from other films and stitching them together in "mood trailers?" I've seen them before, but I always just assumed they were fan-made.
It appears this is, indeed, a "thing" in Hollywood recently. Another producer, completely independent from these guys, had one done for Steelheart (another project I'm trying to get off the ground.) He used the word "Ripomatic" instead of calling it a mood trailer, but it was basically the same thing.
EDIT: word flow.
I guess it if it helps, I can't gainsay it. But no dialogue, conflicting styles (I never really saw the Lord Ruler looking like Xerxes), and no consistency in actors ostensibly playing the lead characters doesn't really do a lot to suggest to me what the film would look like. I would think something like a motion comic would convey it better—though I suppose it would represent a greater intensity of funds and effort.
Yeah. These things cost much less, and they do a lot that Hollywood likes—namely, associates your story with other popular stories. That alone makes me skeptical of them. This trailer, though, did seem to make an effort to cut in a way that didn't emphasize the original films. Xerxes is the most glaring to me, and was the part I liked the least.
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It was the hat. Put on a man's hat, surround your mind with his way of thinking, and it changed you. A man in dock worker's clothing passed by, shoulders slumped, whistling a sad tune. Wayne picked up the melody. Rough life, that was, working the docks. You had to commute each day on the canal boats—either that, or find a bed out near the waterfront, where you were about as likely to get stabbed as have breakfast. He'd lived that life as a youth. Had the scars to prove it, he did. But as a chap grew, he wanted more to his days than a fight on every corner and women who couldn't remember his name one day to the next.
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So in the trilogy, we see that when someone has a Hemalurgic spike implanted in them, they can hear Ruin talking to them, both as a vision and in their head. However, we learn in the Hero of Ages that Ruin cannot hear a person's thoughts no matter how much under Ruin's influence they are.
In Alloy of Law, we see that Wax (and other Pathians) uses an earring to "pray" to Harmony, and we see that Harmony can hear his thoughts and respond.
So I guess this leads to three questions:
1. How does Harmony hear the thoughts of Wax, when it's explicitly pointed put that Ruin cannot?
2. Are the earrings that the Pathians use Hemalurgicly charged, as otherwise they would be of no use to Ruin, and therefore Harmony?
3. Or did Harmony completely change how that aspect of Hemalugy works?
How this all works dates back to the original design of the Magic system.
I wanted Ruin and Preservation to be complimentary opposites, like many things in the Mistborn world. Allomancy, for example, has Pushes and Pulls were are less "negate one another" opposites, but instead two sides to the same proverbial coin.
Ruin is invasive. The power is more "Yell" than "Listen." The philosopher would probably have some interesting things to say about the masculine symbolism of Hemalurgy and its spikes.
Ruin can insert thoughts. That power, however, can't HEAR the reactions. It's about invasion.
Preservation, however, is the opposite. Preservation listens, Preservation protects. (Perhaps to a fault—if there were no Ruin, there would be no change to the world, and life could not exist.) Because of this, Preservation can hear what is inside people's minds. It cannot, however, INSERT thoughts. (This is important to the plot of Hero of Ages.)
Harmony is both, the two complimentary opposites combined. And so, he inserts thoughts with Ruin and still uses Hemalurgy. He can also listen.
Yes, Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)
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|Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)
Doesn't that imply it was shoved through someone's heart at one point (ala Steel Inquisitor creation process)?
Yes, the metal would have to have been part of a spike that at one point was used to kill someone and rip off a piece of their soul.
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What inspired you to take your Mistborn world into the realm of steampunk fantasy?
When I was originally working on the Mistborn trilogy, one of the things that interested me was taking this world and progressing it. Allomancy screamed to be used in a more advanced society where metal was a larger part of people’s lives. By ignoring that and setting it only in an epic fantasy world, I would miss out on the possibility for some really cool interactions. So as I was working on the first three books, I called my editor and said, "Hey, I’d really like to take this world after the trilogy and go forward with it."
I wasn’t planning to do anything steampunkish per se, but to move into a more modern world. But then I was between books of the Wheel of Time, and between books I often take a break and do something small. I started writing a short story set between the first two trilogies I planned in the Mistborn world, and that story expanded to become The Alloy of Law. I really enjoyed the concept and the characters in the story, so I kept going and it became a novel.
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What is your favorite part of The Alloy of Law?
I would say my favorite part was getting to finally write about interactions between guns and Allomancy.
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What was the hardest to write?
The most challenging part of that book was to keep a strong enough focus on the characters while writing a faster, shorter plot. That’s a balance I haven’t practiced nearly as much as I have with the epic fantasies, where I have basically as much time as I want with any given character. So that was a challenge.
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What do you wish you’d done differently?
There’s not something I wish I had done differently, but I think the greatest weakness of the book is that for the ending to really work, you have to know some things about the original trilogy. For the rest of the book, you don’t need to know anything about the trilogy. So I wonder if that was the right move or not.
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Within the Mistborn novels, is there a message you wish your readers to grasp?
Not in particular. I don’t go into a book wanting to teach anyone a message. I go in wanting to tell a good story, and I let the characters develop their messages as they see fit. Each book grew to have its own theme dependent on the characters of the given book, their passions and things like that. I do think that the whole concept of Kelsier, “the Survivor,” and pushing forward is an overarching theme of the entire series, but it’s not necessarily a message that I want people to get.
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I am curious if professional writers ever get psyched out by their own works. When you are working on an epic series, such as 'The Stormlight Archive', do you ever have moments of doubt in your ability to see it through to completion? Does it ever feel overwhelming that you have so many volumes ahead of you to write?
That's not the part that psychs me out. Length doesn't do that to me, particularly when I have a series well planned and I have a feel for how each book is going to be distinctive. This really helped me with the Mistborn series, for instance-when I planned it out, I planned each book to have its own identity. That kept me interested in them.
No, what psychs me out is that sometimes something just turns out really well, like The Way of Kings, and then I immediately start thinking, "I have to do that again, and I don't know how I did it in the first place." Writing becomes a very instinctive thing.
Most of the time when I talk about the process of writing, I'm analyzing what I've done after the fact. The truth of it is that right in the moment, right when you're sitting there working on a book, a lot of that stuff isn't going through your head. You're just running on instinct at that point. So it's easy to get psyched out when you're not sure if you can ever do it again.
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What would you like to share with readers about your works?
To the fans: I’m just delighted that you guys enjoy what I’m doing, and thank you all for supporting me. The response to my books in Australia has just been amazing. Deep thanks for reading and for sticking with me. I do a lot of weird things and I do that intentionally because I feel the fantasy genre has a lot of room left to grow and explore. I love what has come before, but it seems like during the 80s and 90s, fantasy really narrowed in on one major type of fantasy, at least the very popular fantasies.
I think we have a big explosion of possibility coming. George R.R. Martin has started that: he’s taken fantasy in a different direction, really blending some historical with some gritty realism and some epic fantasy all together; he does some really fascinating things. I think that is only one of the ways of approaching fantasy that lots of people are now doing in their books. I’m really excited about the fantasy genre.
Recently I was happy to write Mistborn, which is kind of a modernist take on fantasy where it was kind of a little bit self-aware. Now jumping ahead with Alloy of Law and doing fantasy: this is a fantasy book where the epic fantasy trilogy became the foundation for a more urban fantasy trilogy set with a more modern technology. I love doing that: I love seeing where I can take the genre, and people are sticking with me.
I appreciate that there was a time back in the 80s where if you put guns in your fantasy nobody read it. There was kind of a rule: no guns. It’s dangerous to do something different...Not dangerous, but it’s a little bit worrisome when you do this as an author. Will people follow you along rather than sticking to one series and doing it as one big massive epic? They have stuck with me, so I appreciate it.
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When are the sequels for Way of Kings and Alloy of Law coming out?
I am working on revisions for the last Wheel of Time novel, and I have a number of revisions to do; I’m planning to be done with that around July. At that point I will write the sequel to Way of Kings. I feel very bad that people have to wait so long for the second book, but I plan to be much quicker in the future. And I plan to alternate a Way of Kings book and a Mistborn book after that.
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About the Mistborn movie:
Brandon conveyed that six drafts of the movie script have been done and that the latest draft, which he really likes, focuses more on the relationship between Vin and her brother Reen as a counterpart to Vin's relationship with Kelsier. Brandon and the independent producers are still shopping the script around to movie studios, however.
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About the upcoming video game Mistborn: Birthright:
He conveyed that he's still writing the script for Mistborn: Birthright (although, considering the production timeline of video games, you're never really done writing the script until the game is on the shelves). It will be a cross-platform action RPG in the style of Infamous and Demon Souls, although he doubts they'll be able to have as open-ended a world as is featured in Infamous. Brandon went on to reiterate that the game is set 250 years before the first Mistborn book and stars a character who is "part of the history of the world." You can read more information about the character and the setting here.
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On the origins of the Mistborn series and his writing process:
"I'm always searching for ideas that I can connect into a larger story. I feel that a book is more than just one idea. A good book is a collection of ideas, a good idea for each character, something that forms the core of their conflict. Some ideas come from the setting, or something that's going to drive the economy, something that's going to, for me, drive the magic [system]."
Brandon continued to explain his process by demonstrating how the Mistborn series came together. "I was watching the Harry Potter movies and I was thinking about The Lord of the Rings and while I like the idea of the hero's journey, I began thinking about how the dark lord in these stories gets the raw end of the deal. So I wanted to write a book where the dark lord wins. Although that's kind of a downer."
Brandon explained that he shelved that idea until he could figure out how to make a story where the villain wins not be so bleak. "It took me a little while to figure out what to with that idea. Then I was watching one of my favorite movies, Sneakers, and started thinking about how I hadn't seen an amazing heist story in fantasy ever. Little did I know Scott Lynch was going to release a great one only a year later!"
The two ideas combined, Brandon continued, "like atoms that combine to create a molecule that's something different." The magic system in Mistborn was the same way, according to the author. Allomancy and Feruchemy were magic that had been designed for different worlds but worked really well together with the story of Mistborn.
So Brandon set to work, filling out the gaps in the story by brainstorming along the way.
One audience member noted that Brandon has a pattern of having his characters working towards a goal only to have that goal turn out to be the incorrect one, which prompted the author to discuss how he thinks of plot twists. "To figure out a good plot twist you want the reader or viewer to be surprised that it happened and then, as it's happening, realize they should have seen it coming. You can't always pull that off but when you can they're really great and that's what I'm shooting for."
"I don't twist my plot just to twist it. My hope is that the more that is revealed, the more that you experience a hidden depth to the characters and their journeys. It's like life. Everyone you meet you make a snap judgment but then the more you get to know them the more depth they reveal. I want readers to experience that with my books. Part of why I like writing epic fantasies is because the story gives you the room to develop and explore that depth. Everything is about more than one thing."
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Your Mistborn series has been well-received. Will you continue exploring that universe in more novels or are you more interested in writing about new worlds?
I will come back to Mistborn. The original trilogy is done and complete. I did write a sequel to that that takes place hundreds of years later. I may do more with the characters in the sequel, The Alloy of Law, but my intention is to keep revisiting that world time and time again. When I first pitched it to my editor, I pitched it as a much longer series spread across the years with different glimpses of what's going on in the world.
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Yes.
Since you've had this other career—which has helped, I'm sure, in a lot of ways—what impact has this been on your original writing career, I mean I know you had to have slowed down your progress and your series, but you've still been writing those. What are the biggest impacts you've seen on your writing career because of taking on the Wheel of Time?
It's definitely done some...it's made me have to put down projects. In fact, next year, I have coming out the projects I was working on in 2007 when this came my way; The Rithmatist and Steelheart are both books that I did way back then that I didn't feel that I was able to release in the middle of the Wheel of Time books, even though I had them done, because I wouldn't have been able to do the revisions on them, and because I wouldn't be able to support them; I wouldn't be able to do sequels and things like that. They're both YA books. And that's, you know...when I accepted this, I said "Okay, I'm shelving these things." I did get to do a couple of books, I got to do The Way of Kings, which, granted, I already had a draft of that done. So really, the only book in these last years, the last five years that I've been doing this, that I've written from scratch and released was Alloy of Law. And so it's going to...it did kind of slow me down. The only reason it didn't slow me down as much as it could have was because I had all of this stuff done already. I had a great big backlog of books, because I enjoy writing, and I've been writing for years, and back then I wasn't as popular as I am now, so Tor would put things in slots later on, like...while I've been working on these, Warbreaker and Mistborn 3 came out, both of which were done years before I was offered the Wheel of Time. And so...yeah, all of this stuff that I had been working on long ago got delayed, and that was just fine—I went into this eyes open—but it is going to be nice to be able to go back to these things and give them some of the support that I've wanted all along.
You know, this project took more time than all of us expected it to. I had to say yes sight unseen to knowing how big it was. I knew what Jim had said, but I didn't know how much of it was done. I didn't know that we had two hundred pages out of two thousand. There was no way for me to know how much would need to be done. So yeah, it's been a big long deviation, but not a distraction, because I think my writing has grown by leaps and bounds. It's kind of like I had to go pump iron, because writing in the Wheel of Time has been much harder than writing on anything else I've done, and I have been forced to grow, and you can see my being forced to grow between the books in the Wheel of Time books. I think my writing is way better in Towers of Midnight than it was in The Gathering Storm, particularly in some of the ways that that Jim was strong. And so, I think that's helped me. It's certainly not an experience that I would trade for anything. I got to read the ending in 2007, so there's that. (laughter) But yeah, it's been a wonderful experience, but boy, it's been a big, big, big deviation. It's not where I thought my career would go at all.
Was it daunting seeing just that small amount of work that was taken care of before you stepped on?
Well, it's daunting in two ways: First, I got that. It was really nice to have the ending. Like, having the prologue and the ending basically done—those were the two things that he did the most work on—meant that I had the bookends, which is how I build an outline anyway. I know where I start, I know my ending, and I build an outline out of that. But at the same time, there's three million words of notes about the series, which is daunting in another way. Yes, there's two hundred pages of work done on the book, and then there's this stack over here of all these other notes that include all of these things that are just mind-boggling, the stuff that's in there. We released a few of them last year for you guys. Was it last year that we released the notes?
Yeah, we got the page on Cadsuane and...
Yeah, the page on Cadsuane and stuff like that. You just see all of weird things that he had in his notes. I have all the same sort of weird stuff in my notes about like Stormlight and stuff, but it's just fun to see. You go pore through these notes...he has the most random stuff. Lists of trees, lists of people, lists of this, and just millions and millions and words of this stuff, more than I can keep track of at all. It requires Maria and Alan to keep track of all this stuff. So it was also daunting in that, yes there are two hundred pages written, which actually nice, because as I've said before, if the book had been 80% of the way done, they wouldn't have needed to hire me, they wouldn't have needed to bring me in. When a book is 80% of the way done, that's when you get a ghostwriter, or Harriet just does it herself. She really could have done it in-house herself and finished that and said "Look, here we're going to do a few patches and stuff, but the book is mostly done."
And so, getting there and saying "Hey, I actually get to do something with this, I have an opportunity to add the scenes that I've been wanting as a fan for years and years, so I get a chance to actually write these characters, rather than coming in and just patching some holes," was very thrilling for me at the same time. You know, I worried that I would get there and it would just be patching holes—"Write these five scenes," or something like that—and that would have meant I wouldn't have really had a part in it. Granted, that would have been better, because it would have meant there was more Jim in it, and it would have made a better book, but at the same time, when I got to see those two hundred pages, I was saddened but excited at the same time.
448
So, here we are, the annotations for my second book, MISTBORN. I hope that everyone enjoyed the Annotations for ELANTRIS. If you haven't read the book, it's out in paperback now, so hurray!
In case you're not aware, this is how the process works. When I do the copy edit for one of my books—a process I find rather boring—I pause after each chapter and write out my thoughts, ideas, and impressions of that chapter. It try to talk about where the ideas came from, what my reaction is to the chapters after the fact, and what I was trying to do with some of the themes.
These are all posted for free, intended as a kind of companion to the text of the book. They're designed so that any spoilers of future chapters are hidden. So, if you want to pause after each chapter and read what I thought on that chapter, you're welcome. I more intend these to be used during subsequent reads of the book, however—a way to give you a little bit more value for the money.
I post about two of these a week, usually on Monday and Friday, though that isn't exactly set. Check back once or twice a week, and you should find a new annotation that you can peruse. Beware! I don't do a lot of proofreading on these, so they're bound to have some typos.
Anyway, enjoy! Remember, these WILL spoil the book for you if you haven't read it. However, they WILL NOT spoil future chapters. Anything that might be revealing of what is going to happen after the chapter of the indicated annotation is hidden. You can reveal any of this text (if there is any) by pressing the button on the top left portion of the screen.
Enjoy!
July 29th, 2006
449
All right, first annotation! About the title page.
I'm generally just going to call this book MISTBORN, though the entire series is the "Mistborn Trilogy." Technically, this book is MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE. The second book is MISTBORN: THE WELL OF ASCENSION, and the third book is MISTBORN: THE HERO OF AGES.
There's an interesting story behind this title. As some of you may know, I spent a number of years trying to get published, writing books all the while. My first five books are what I call the "throwaway books." Those were ones I did mostly as practice, figuring out how to do the whole novel-writing thing. Book six was ELANTRIS, which was published in May of 2005; it was the first book I managed to sell.
However, while I was trying to get ELANTRIS published, I wrote a number of other books. The three after ELANTRIS were big epic fantasy books, much like it in style. After that, I decided that I was writing things that were too big—that no publisher was going to take a huge epic fantasy book from an unknown author. (Though that's eventually what happened. . . .)
Anyway, I decided to try writing some shorter (i.e. only about 125,000 words instead of 250,000 words) fantasy novels. The first of these was what I now call MISTBORN PRIME. It was the story of a man who was a 'Mistborn' (a kind of super-powerful assassin) who gets trapped in a small village with people hunting him, and has to try and blend in with the population there.
MISTBORN was a different book for me in many ways. It was shorter, for one thing, and it was also about a kind of anti-hero. It only had one viewpoint character, and the plot was much smaller in scope than my other books. It was successful in some ways, but a failure in others. The magic system I developed for it—Allomancy—was quite spectacular, as were the action sequences. The character, however, didn't appeal to many readers. And, the plot was just a little. . .uninspiring. I'm really better when I have more to deal with.
As you can probably tell, this book—which was unpublishable—became the inspiration for the book I eventually wrote named MISTBORN:THE FINAL EMPIRE. We'll cover that second part in the next annotation.
450
Okay, so here we see the words FINAL EMPIRE for the first time. Continuing the discussion I had in the last annotation, one of the books that I wrote after MISTBORN PRIME was called THE FINAL EMPIRE. (I now call it FINAL EMPIRE PRIME.) It was the story of a young boy (yes, boy) named Vin who lived in an oppressive imperial dictatorship that he was destined to overthrow. It was my attempt at writing a shorter book that still had epic scope.
This book turned out to be okay, but it had some fairly big problems problems. While people reacted rather well to the characters, the setting was a little weak for one of my books. Also, once again, I wasn't that enthusiastic about the way the plot turned out.
After that, I gave up on the short books. I proved no good at it. I decided to do THE WAY OF KINGS next, a massive war epic. It turned out to be 350,000+ words—I kind of see it as me reacting in frustration against the short books I'd forced myself to write. About this time, I sold ELANTRIS, and Moshe (my editor) wanted to see what else I was working on. I sent him KINGS. He liked it, and put it in the contract.
I, however, wasn't certain if KINGS was the book I wanted to use as a follow up for ELANTRIS. They were very different novels, and I was worried that those who liked ELANTRIS would be confused by such a sharp turn in the direction of my career. So, I decided to write a different book to be my 'second' novel.
I had always liked Allomancy as a magic system, and I liked several of the character concepts FINAL EMPIRE. I also liked a lot of the ideas from both books, as well as some ideas I'd had for a great plot. I put three all of these things together, and conceived the book you are now reading.
451
I had trouble deciding on the dedication for this book. I know a lot of awesome people who deserve the honor. My mother got the dedication of my first one—that was easy—but it was much more difficult to decide who got to go next.
I eventually decided on Beth Sanderson, my Paternal Grandmother. Both of my grandmothers are awesome people. I decided to use Beth for this one because she is one of the only fantasy fans in my immediate family. (The other being my little sister Lauren.)
I still remember Grandma Beth talking about the sf/f books that she'd read, trying to get me to read them. She taught junior high English, and I think she must have been great at the job. She is just truly a fun-loving person, always smiling despite the physical hardships she's gone through lately.
In addition, she's a little screwy—in a good way. Everyone says I must have inherited my strangeness from her.
So, this book is for you, grandma!
452
This page is much like the one from ELANTRIS. I don't know if people ignore these, or if they read through them. Regardless, these are some important folks. They do a great job helping turn the rough drafts of my books into things that people would actually want to read.
I really do like having writing groups. I don't know if I've talked about this before, but I find a good writing group to be a vital part of the process. Not only do they give you encouragement, but they provide great chapter-by-chapter responses to books. Giving the entire book to alpha readers helps a lot with the big picture—but those kinds of readers don't generally catch the smaller issues in a given chapter.
But, there's another reason I like writing groups. I really enjoy watching writers progress, and seeing their prose develop. It's a lot of fun to take place in a small community of people who are all working toward the same goals, and to give them encouragement and aid.
I also felt I needed to give David and Irene acknowledgements on this page. I added them in last, after I realized just how much I owe to the people at Tor. Without the people who do the publicity and the artwork, no book would ever get taken off the shelves—or even get out of the warehouse. These people do a great job, and I think they are part of the reason Tor is the powerful force that it is.
453
I haven't actually seen the map yet. I'm curious to see how it turns out. . . .
The person doing it is Isaac Stewart, a guy in one of my writing groups. He's a man of many talents, and works as an animator. He was very excited about MISTBORN, and when I mentioned he could do the map, he was enthusiastic. I've heard a lot of what he's talked about with the book—doing a map that is based on old Victorian-era maps of London and Paris. We'll see what he comes up with!
EDIT: Now I've seen the maps!
Wow, Isaac did a wonderful job with these. One of the things I asked for was a round world map, and he really stepped up. I love the embellishments around the border and the illuminated manuscript type feel for it.
The city map is probably more important to the story. Oddly, I didn't actually do one of these when I was writing the novel. In fact, I only had a very basic sketch for the world map. That meant, of course, that when I sat down with one of the later drafts, some things were inconsistent. It also meant that a lot of things on the map weren't named, such as the gates.
I owe a lot to Isaac on this one. His intricate map is very detailed—each of those slums was hand-drawn with the insane twisting of all the little streets. He was the one who named the gates, building eight of them and naming them after the basic Allomantic metals. All and all, he did a fantastic job. Make sure to check out his website, Isaacstewart.com
454
Somewhere in the italicized pre-chapter blurb of the prologue here is the clue one needs to figure out the over-arching mystery of the entire series. If you figure it out, good for you! If you don't, you'll have to wait until the last chapter of the final book to get it explained. . . .
455
This initial section, with Tresting and the Obligator, was added during one of the last drafts of the book. I had some troubles starting this novel. I really liked the Kelsier section of the prologue (which was originally the first chapter.) However, before I got to Kelsier, I wanted to have a kind of scene-setting omniscient description of the skaa working.
The important part of this zoom out would have been to show them all with heads bowed, then show Kelsier look up and smile. I tried several drafts of this, and eventually settled on something that was okay. Later on, however, I decided that it was just too much of a viewpoint error to have an omniscient section in one of my books, especially since it was the first section of the novel. So, I decided to set the scene from Tresting's viewpoint.
Once I changed that, I like how this scene turned out. However, it does mean that the very first viewpoint that you see in the book is that of a passing villain who doesn't really matter very much. I guess that's all right, but it's part of the reason I moved this back to being the prologue—I think that gives more of an indication that the characters introduced aren't necessarily the main characters of the book.
Other than that, I liked how this scene let me introduce some of the world elements—obligators, Inquisitors, the ash, the nobility, and the Lord Ruler—in a quick, easy way. Plus, I got to have the scene with Kelsier looking up and smiling, which always gives me a bit of a chill when I read it.
456
I intentionally hit the setting very hard in this chapter. People bring a lot of preconceived notions to fantasy, and sometimes it's difficult to shake them free. With this book, I don't want people to assume an immediate time period or culture for this world. In realty, I've stolen from all over the place. My hope is that I'll be able to destroy people's conceptions quickly, then instead build my own world in their mind.
So, here we have a land where the sun is red, ash falls from the sky, mists come upon the land at night, and plants are brown rather than green. In addition, we have a slave population who live like very rural peasants—but, at the same time, Lord Tresting checks his pocket watch in the first scene. Later on, you'll see gothic cathedrals mixing with people in near-modern clothing. It's all just part of the image I'm trying to create—a place that isn't set in any particular time. In fact, it's a little bit frozen in time, as you'll find in later books.
457
I really like the scene where Kelsier first displays his scars in this chapter. In fact, I really like how this chapter sets up Kelsier in general. It gives him a chance to be a light-hearted (perhaps even a little flippant) while also showing that he's had a hard pas. He has some scars—both visible and hidden. At the end, his attack on the manor house should be something of an indication of what he's capable of doing.
In addition, we establish very quickly why Kelsier smiles so much. I've been accused of being a chronic optimist. I guess that's probably true. And, because of it, I tend to write optimistic characters. Kelsier, however, is a little different. He's not like Raoden, who was a true, undefeatable optimist. Kelsier is simply stubborn. He's decided that he's not going to let the Lord Ruler take his laughter from him. And so, he forces himself to smile even when he doesn't feel like it. This is a more brutal world than I presented in ELANTRIS—which is somewhat amusing, since ELANTRIS was essentially about a bunch of zombies. Either way, my goal in this chapter was to show the Final Empire as a place of contrast. Despair contrasted with Kelsier's attitude. The wealth of the nobility contrasted with the terrible conditions of the skaa.458
By the way, Joshua—my agent—pushed until the end to get me to put the Kelsier action sequence in-scene, rather than having it happen off-screen. I resisted. Allomancy is a very complicated magic system, and my writing relies on the reader understanding how Allomancy works in order to provide action. I didn't want to slow the story down right here by giving an extended explanation of the magic. Instead, I just wanted to show the effects of what Kelsier can do. Later (chapter six, I think) we'll actually see how he does them.
459
Okay, some spoiler stuff here. Mennis does make a return later in the book, as you probably know. I actually wasn't intending to ever use him again, and was surprised when people read this chapter and expected him to be a main character. I guess I characterized him a little too well in the scene where he gets up. So, when the time came for Kelsier to have a quiet conversation with one of the rebels, I dusted off Mennis and used him again. I'm very pleased with how that scene turned out, though it's another one I had to rewrite a couple times to get correct. We'll talk more about that later.
460
Unlike ELANTRIS, where I decided to divide the book into 'parts' after the fact, I always planned this book to be told in several sections. Naming the parts actually came quiet easily to me. Part One is the section where Kelsier gets most of his viewpoint time, and I decided that naming it after him would be appropriate.
In addition, I just like the way that "The Survivor of Hathsin" sounds. A piece of me was sad that I never came up with a good full name for Kelsier. Something like Kelsier Mistshadow or something like that. I tried several, but none of them ended up sounding quite right, and I had to rely on calling him "Kelsier, the Survivor" in those places. That ended up working just fine.
461
The 'bumps' or 'trailers' or whatever you want to call them—those things at the beginnings of the chapters—are a very interesting part of the book for me. If you're reading the novel for the first time as you go through these Annotations, I'd recommend paying good attention to what happens in the bumps. This isn't like DUNE, or even ENDER'S GAME, where the bumps give interesting—but tangential—information. These little paragraphs are vital if you want to figure out the climax of the story before it happens.
462
One of the advantages of moving the first chapter back and making it a prologue is that I now get to start the book, chapter one, with Vin. That's important, in my mind, because she's the main character of the book. Establishing her with a very strong viewpoint as the first chapter of the book adds a lot to it, I think.
We get a lot of important information in this first little section with Vin. I like starting early with Reen's advice and thoughts. As you'll see as you read the book, Reen's teachings have quite a strong influence on Vin. He's a little stronger in this chapter than in others, I think, but it's good to start off strong. You'll find out more about him, and about what these thoughts in Vin's head mean.
I will admit that one of my weaknesses in writing is that I like to spend too long in contemplative, in-head scenes with my characters. This introduction with Vin is a good example of that. I like the scene quiet a bit, but I can understand that too much of this sort of thing gets boring. That's why I move it quickly into a scene where something is happening. Given my way, however, I'd probably spend about twice as long with characters just standing around thinking.
463
This second scene with Camon is important for several reasons. The first thing I'll note is that Vin doesn't say anything out-loud in the book until she tells Camon that his servants are too fine. I thought it would be interesting to introduce Vin as a character who doesn't say a whole lot—who thinks her responses. This establishes, I think, that she's something of an introvert, and that she's smarter than she lets people know. When she does speak, she's blunt and straightforward.
The other thing established in this scene is Vin's use of Luck. Hopefully, you connect her abilities with Kelsier's line in the prologue about the Lord Ruler fearing skaa who have 'powers they shouldn't even know exist.' Vin fits quite well into this category. She can obviously do something extraordinary, yet she doesn't know why—or really even how. It was difficult, narratively, to work out how Vin was able to use Allomancy without knowing it, but it works, and you'll get the explanation later.464
Camon was originally far less competent than he ended up in the final draft. Originally, Vin was constantly (in this chapter and the next) thinking about how he was making mistakes when talking to the obligator and the crew. I thought this would establish Vin as an intelligent, insightful character—one who is even better than the guy in charge of her crew.
However, I eventually realized that this didn't work. Camon was too incompetent—the version of him in the first draft would never have been able to keep control of his crew. In addition, by making him so weak, it weakened the threat to Vin. It's always better to have antagonists be strong, if only to make the heroes look stronger by comparison. Though Camon is only a minor villain in this book, strengthening him made the story seem much more logical, and I really don't think I lost anything.465
Moshe mentioned to me that we're going to have to do a book after the MISTBORN series that doesn't have such a gloomy setting. First, I had ELANTRIS, with the city full of dark sludge. Now I've got MISTBORN, with the entire world full of black ash.
The coincidence wasn't intentional. Remember, for me, there were seven books in-between ELANTRIS and MISTBORN. Most of those had far more cheerful settings. However, this story—which is based around a world where the Dark Lord won—kind of required a depressing atmosphere.
466
Dockson, by the way, got his nickname before his real name. I wanted to call a character Dox, for some odd reason. The name just came into my head and stuck. And, I figured that this book would be one where everyone would have nicknames, so I started playing around with Dox until I got Dockson to be the main name.
Of course, because of that, I established that 'son' could end names. Therefore, we get other names in this linguistic paradigm—such Ferson in the second book, or Franson in book three. (Both of those names came from friends of mine.)
467
This introductory scene, where Dox and Kell meet on the city wall, has just the right feel for me. I wanted this book—particularly at the beginning—to have the feel of a heist movie. Something like Ocean's Eleven, Sneakers, or Mission: Impossible. I thought a couple of senior thieves getting together on the wall and talking about the team they are gathering would fit in just perfectly.
That was, by the way, one of the major inspirations for this book. I've mentioned that I stole the concepts for Allomancy and Vin's character from other books I wrote. The plot came from a desire to write something that had the feel of a heist movie. I haven't ever seen that done in a fantasy novel—a plot where a team of specialists get together and then try to pull off a very difficult task.
468
Joshua, by the way, also pushed for an action scene here—where Kelsier grabs the Inquisitor's attention and runs. I do take most of Joshua's suggestions. In fact, his desire to have an action scene earlier in this book is the biggest bit of advice by him I can think of that I haven't taken. I just really felt that I needed more time to ease into Allomancy before I could do justice to an action scene. Actually, I think a fast scene like that would actually slow the book down, since I'd have to spend so much time explaining. Better to let the next few scenes play out, where we get some good explanations in dialogue.
469
So, Kelsier is very interesting to me as a character. Mostly because of what we see in this chapter. He is a man of dichotomy, which is one of the themes of this novel. On one hand, he's the joking, lighthearted man you see in the second half of the chapter. On the other hand, however, he's a very dangerous, even ruthless, man. He laughs at himself in this chapter, but he wasn't faking when he acted the way he did. There is an edge to Kelsier I've never built into a hero before. Sometimes, he makes me uncomfortable.
470
An item of note his in this chapter bump. I mention 'Terris' for the first time here, which I was glad that I was able to do. Remember that name, because you'll soon get a lot more about that country.
I do worry that the bumps will make the book feel a little too much like a standard fantasy. Mention of prophesies and the like has become such a cliché in fantasy that I avoid them whenever I can. The story in MISTBORN doesn't really deal much with that aspect of the history, but the story that is happening in the bumps has quite a bit to do with it.
471
In MISTBORN PRIME, there were no such thing as Mistings. Allomancy's practitioners were called Mistborn, and they could use all of the various abilities, depending on which metal they ingested.
When I started work on this incarnation of the book, however, I felt that I wanted to involve a specialized team of Allomancers. That meant including people who were really good at one specific thing, but who couldn't do other things. It's a staple of the heist genre—you want specialists. So, I split up Allomancy, allowing lesser Allomancers to exist. These people, who only could do one of the many Allomantic powers, would be very good at the one thing they do. And, since Mistborn were so rare, you couldn't really make an entire team of them. You'd be lucky to even get one. (Though Kelsier's team just got a second one.)
Soon, you'll get to meet the rest of the crew, and will be able to see how I split up Allomancy. One thing of interest, however, is that there was no emotional Allomancy in MISTBORN PRIME. I added Soothing and Rioting—the ability to make people less or more emotional—into this book because I felt I needed something that would be more. . .sneaky. These are skills that don't relate to fighting, and I think they'd be very helpful for the sort of political intrigue I want to do in this book.
472
Ah, the introductions. I worry that this scene is a little too long, and perhaps a little too obvious, as we bring in the separate members of the crew. However, it seemed like the best way, and it adheres a little bit to the heist genre framework I'm using.
My favorites of the group are, of course, Ham and Breeze. I knew I wanted to use a smaller crew than you see in some heist stories—I wanted to get to know them better, and deal with them more, than one has opportunity for in a movie like Ocean's Eleven. Ham and Breeze, then, formed the basis for my group. Simply put, they're both guys who are fun to talk to. I can put them in a room with each other, or with Vin, and an interesting conversation will blossom.
473
I was a little worried about Ham when I first started writing him. The warrior philosopher is, perhaps, a character that you've seen before. In this case, I knew I wanted a character who could be a foil for Breeze. Since Breeze tends to be arrogant, long-winded, and manipulative, I came up with someone humble, long-winded, and kindly. Mix in a desire to understand the world, and a mind that thinks about things a little differently from others, and I had Ham. I think he turned out all right.
474
The other big part of this chapter is, of course, the plan. This is where the story has been pushing up to this point. I worry that even still (despite several cuts) this section feels a little too much like an info-dump. I couldn't really get around that, since Kelsier is—essentially—dumping some information on the crew.
This is also where I begin to diverge from the 'heist story' framework. I started with that concept to write the book, but as I proceeded with the plotting and the writing of the actual novel, I realized that the heist structure was simply too small to fill the larger concepts for the trilogy I was working on.
So, in rewrites, I came back and reworked this section to take to focus off stealing the Lord Ruler's money. The truth is, Kelsier wants to overthrow the government and get back at the Lord Ruler. The money isn't half as important to him. And, as the story progresses, you'll see that the crew spends most of its time on the army.
Originally, by the way, Yeden wasn't the one who hired the team. There was no employer—Kelsier just wanted to try and overthrow the Lord Ruler. The main way I took the focus off of stealing the atium (making this less of a heist book and more of a Mission: Impossible style book) was to put the focus on raising and training the army. Having Yeden be paying them to get him an army worked much better for this format.
475
"There's always another secret." That's the unwritten law of this series, by the way. Keep that in mind as you read not only this book, but books two and three. Also, keep in mind that I take no end of delight from doing what people don't expect. (But only in cases, however, where such unexpected events make perfect sense, once they happen.)
476
Okay, so I lied. I thought the fight scene came in chapter six, but it came in five. I'm better at pacing than I thought!
The truth is, this is one of my least favorite fights in the book. I put it in primarily because it gave a good, quick showing of the basic concepts in Allomancy. You got to see Kelsier enhance his strength with pewter, his senses with tin (including using it to help him focus), and then use both steel and iron in a variety of different Pushes and Pulls. The thing is, it wasn't that exciting because it wasn't really a fair fight. As soon as Kelsier got ahold of that ingot, those soldiers were toast. I did spice up the fight a bit by giving them shields—something that was missing from the original draft of the fight. Even still, this seems like a kind of brutal combat, not the more poetic and flowing battles I generally envision for Allomancy. (This is, by the way, the only fight I ported over from MISTBORN PRIME. There was a similar scene in that book where the protagonist took down a group of men with only an ingot. Again, I decided to grab it because of how well it introduced the concepts of Allomancy. It was quick and dirty.)477
The reference to northern mystics, in this chapter, is a foreshadowing of the powers of Keepers, such as Sazed. One of their abilities is to make themselves heavier and lighter. You won't see much of that until book two, however.
478
This chapter is where, in my opinion, the book starts to get good. These kinds of chapters are part of what I write for—good, solid character interaction with some intellectual problem-solving going on. I really like the way that the crew works through their challenges here. The items presented really do sound quite daunting as they're listed; yet, by the end, I hope that the reader feels as the crew does—that this plan could actually work, if they pull it off right.
I had to rewrite this scene several times, bringing the focus away from simply stealing the atium. By the last draft, I had something I was very pleased with. It outlines things simply enough, yet doesn't make everything sound TOO easy. At least, that is my hope.
479
This chapter also has some of my favorite early-book characterizations of Vin. The Vin we get in the first few chapters is a beaten down, sorrowful thing. The Vin in this chapter, however, is more true to who she really is. Careful and discerning, quick to scout out her surroundings and wary of anything new. Yet, at the same time, not hateful or even really brutal. She kind of lives in the moment, taking things as they come.
480
We mention the Lord Ruler's flawless memory here. This is actually the only time in the entire series that it's mentioned. However, this is an important clue for later. However, as I'm writing this, without being able to hide this text, I don't want to explain too much and inadvertently ruin something. However, if you've finished the book, you might be able to figure out why the Lord Ruler might have a reputation for being able to remember things.
481
The Kelsier-Marsh-Mare relationship was something that just kind of grew naturally as I was writing. When I started designing the characters for this book, I knew that I wanted Kelsier to have gone through something very traumatic. I settled on a time spent in the Lord Ruler's slave camps, then built his having a wife out of that.
Marsh's unspoken love for Mare wasn't something I originally intended. It actually worked into the story as I was writing this very chapter. I needed tension between Marsh and Kelsier for their relationship to work the way I wanted it to. However, Marsh' disapproval of Kelsier just wasn't enough—especially since Marsh himself had given up leadership of the skaa rebellion, proving that he himself wasn't as much of a hero as he wishes he was.
Mare provided the perfect explanation for their tension. It was something I could imply in just a few sentences, then gain a lot of weight of back-story.
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The scene with Vin standing in the darkness and looking in at the people having fun inside was one of the first and fundamental scenes I got for her character. Those who have read other annotations and essays by me know that I build my books by important focal scenes. This image of Vin keeping herself aloof from the fun and good humor, yet desiring to be part of it so badly, seemed to me to be the perfect character for Kelsier's apprentice.
Of course, this scene was actually only half of the image I conjured in my mind. The other half comes, of course, the scene later in the book where Vin has become fully a part of the crew, enjoying their friendship, and looks out of the kitchen at the dark hallway beyond, where she once stood. Nice little brackets of a character arc, and the main focus in my mind of Vin's growth in this book.
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Actions and reactions. Kelsier's little explanation here is probably the most fundamental and important thing to realize about Allomancy—indeed, about a lot of my magic systems. I like to follow physics as best I can. I think it's more interesting that way. Kelsier's mention that you can't just fling things around randomly with the mind is a kind of dig against Star Wars and other magic systems with telepathy.
Certainly, you could come up with systems that work they way they do. However, I personally find it more fascinating—and more logical—if a person is only able to apply force directly.
It really is the way the world works. You apply a pressure, and something moves in that direction. For strong forces, people can only push away from themselves or pull toward themselves. It makes perfect logical sense to me that a magic system would work that way.
Of course, I might just be a loon for trying to apply so much physics logic to magic in the first place.
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To be honest, I'm not certain if Kelsier's right. Making someone jump off a city wall as one of their very first Push/Pulling experiences seems a little extreme. Kelsier is, however, a somewhat extreme person. It's fortunate for him that Vin is both determined and a quick learner.
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As I re-read this chapter, I'm realizing just how obvious I made it here that Renoux is a kind of Mistwraith. Maybe I overdid it a bit. One problem with this novel in alpha reads was that many of my readers had also read MISTBORN PRIME, and so they understood the nature of kandra, and immediately knew what Renoux really was. It's not an extremely important surprise, however, so it probably doesn't matter that people can figure it out.
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There are a few points in this chapter that really and truly sum up Vin's character for me. The first point comes in her asking Kelsier if Marsh beat him often. The fact that Vin wouldn't even consider the fact that two siblings could get along without some form of beating or dominerance speaks a lot about the life she's led.
She's not a bad person, however. Kelsier gets it right—she isn't herself bad, she just assumes that everyone else is. In my opinion, the amount of good left in her despite what she's gone through is a powerful testament to her character. And, finally, some of that starts to come out in this chapter. It might be a little early for her to begin changing—it's only been a few days—but I wanted to leave a few hints in this chapter, since we're going to have a big time jump here pretty soon.
The first hint is that she really is starting to want to become part of the team. She feels sad when she thinks she won't get to act the part of Renoux's heir. In addition—and, for Vin, I meant this to be something very telling—she left food behind. That's a great moment in the chapter for me.
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n this chapter, for the first time, I straight out mention that plants aren't green. I hoped that this concept would come across in the first few chapters. However, this sort of thing is difficult to enforce in people's minds. The fact that there are NO green plants in the world is something that most people will probably just skip over in their heads. So, I had to make Kelsier aware of the way that things should be, so that he can explain it to Vin, and therefore point out to the reader—in no uncertain terms—how the landscape works.
The other thing to notice is, of course, that there are no flowers in this world. But, we'll get to that later.
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In this chapter, we get to meet Sazed—who ranks as one of my favorite characters in the entire series. (Alongside Vin and someone we haven't met yet.) I like Sazed because he's inherantly conflicted, yet acts so peaceful. He's a member of a servant race, bred to be humble and submissive. Yet, he knows the one who directed all of that breeding is the Lord Ruler. Add in that he seeks to work with the rebellion, yet feels out of place unless he's acting as a servant, and you get a really good character, in my opinion.
Needless to say, you'll be seeing a lot of him.
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Also, Sazed gives us our first real discussion of belief and religion. I think this is a very important aspect of this novel, since the Lord Ruler is—esentially—God. I'll get more into this later, but I wanted it known that some members of the group are worried about religious concerns.
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Once I was to this point in the book, I knew that I had something. I needed a book to follow ELANTRIS—one that did all the things that ELANTRIS did well, but then expanded and showed off my strengths. In other words, I needed a "You haven't seen ANYTHING yet" book.
MISTBORN is, hopefully, that book. I took the best magic system I've ever developed, and put it together with two killer ideas and some of my best characters. I cannibalized two of my books for their best elements, then combined those with things I'd been working on for years in my head. This is the result.
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All of that considered, I know the beginning is kind of slow. That's how my books are—while I can often start with a bang in the first few chapters, I then need to go into building mode so that I can earn my climaxes in the later third. We need to have some scenes explaining Allomancy in detail, for instance, before we can have scenes like happen in the next chapter.
Still, I like a lot about the introduction to this book. Vin's character comes off very strongly, and the plot is established quickly—something I sometimes have trouble doing.
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One odd thing I've heard—and noticed—about new writers as opposed to more experienced writers is that the more experienced ones tend to make their books last longer. Many first books take place in a matter of days, or perhaps weeks. Yet, books by more accomplished writers tend to span months or years.
It might just be coincidence relating to books I've read. I mean, there doesn't seem to be any reason it would be true. Yet, it certainly holds for myself. My first books happened very quickly—even ELANTRIS, which was my sixth, happened in only the space of two months. Yet, in MISTBORN, I let more time pass between sections and chapters.
I think, perhaps, newer authors are intimidated by plotting over such a longer stretch of time. Or, perhaps, it's just something unconscious.
Either way, we've jumped in time—something necessary for this book, considering the amount that needs to be done in order for the job to get pulled off. This was one of my first clues that I couldn't do a straight-up heist novel with MISTBORN. The book covers too much time, and too much has to happen before the ending can occur. I just didn't feel that most of what the crew would be doing would be interesting to a reader, and I wanted to focus too much on Vin's character growth to let me focus on the 'heist' of stealing the atium.
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The fight in this chapter is what I consider the first true Allomantic battle of the series. This is what it's supposed to feel like—there's a reason I started with the concept of Vin feeling free. Allomantic battle is graceful, yet sharp. It is leaps through the mist and clever uses of Pushes and Pulls. This is what attracted me most to the magic system—not the logic of metals and the like, though I enjoy that. I loved the idea of mist, plus flying forms in fluttering mistcloaks.
I realize that it's obvious, by the way, that Kelsier is her opponent. I didn't write the chapter calling him 'her opponent' to be surprising. I just thought that by de-emphasizing Kelsier, I could better create an illusion of tension. The idea is that Vin herself isn't thinking of him as Kelsier. Just as an opponent.
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I'd just like to point out that Sazed heard Kelsier approaching before Vin did. That should mean something to you. This is also the first time we get Vin wanting to ignore Reen's voice in her head. That is, in my way, an acknowledgement to the progress she's achieved during the last few months.
The mists and Allomancy feeling right to Vin have something to do with the ending, where she draws upon the mists for an extra burst of power. I'm afraid I can't say more until we get to future books.
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This chapter has my favorite of Ham's little philosophical dilemmas. Most people I've had read the book don't think much of this argument. It seems obvious to them that resisting the Lord Ruler is the right thing for the people to do. I guess that means I've done my work well, giving the readers a distinct hatred of this government.
And yet, I don't think the answer is that simple—not for the people living in the world. Ham has a point, in my opinion. Not a big one, but at least one worth considering.
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In the original draft of the book, Kelsier didn't show up at this meeting. He let Yeden do the recruiting. However, as the drafting proceeded, I decided that I wanted Kelsier to present himself more fully to the skaa population. With Yeden now acting as their employer—rather than just another member of the crew—I also needed to show what Kelsier could do that Yeden could not.
Of course, this is also the first hint we get of Kelsier's true plan. I decided that I wanted him to give this speech here to initiate the idea that he's building himself a reputation with the skaa.497
We've now seen Sazed preach a couple of religions to members of the crew. You may be interested in my process of coming up with his character.
It actually began when I was watching the movie THE MUMMY. Yes, I know. Sometimes it's embarrassing where we come up with ideas. However, my inspiration for Sazed was the moment when the oily little thief character gets confronted by the mummy, and pulls out a whole pile of holy symbols. He goes through each one, praying to each god, looking for one that would help him.
I began to wonder what it would be like to have a kind of missionary who preached a hundred different religions. A man who, instead of advancing his own beliefs, tried to match a set of beliefs to the person—kind of like a tailor looking to fit a man with the prefect and most comfortable hat.
That's where the inspiration for the entire sect of Keepers began. Soon, I had the idea that the Lord Ruler would have squished all the religions in the Final Empire, and I thought of a sect of mystics who tried to collect and preserve all of these religions. I put the two ideas together, and suddenly I had Sazed's power. (I then stole a magic system from FINAL EMPIRE PRIME, which I'll talk about later, and made it work in this world. Feruchemy was born.)
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This book is quite a bit more violent than ELANTRIS. I worry about that, sometimes. I hope I don't put people off who enjoyed my first novel. Several things save me, I think.
First off, though people initially don't think of ELANTRIS as a gruesome book, it really does include quite a few disturbing elements. The brutality of the people in Elantris, for instance, or the slaughtering done by the Dakhor monks. In chapter one of Elantris, we see a boy with his throat crushed, seeping blood. So, really, there isn't anything in MISTBORN that stands out THAT much.
The difference is, I guess, that one of the heroes is himself a killer. Also, we have scenes like this one, which are just plain disturbing.
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Originally, I had Vin far less emotionally affected by the scene of slaughter. I wanted to imply that she's seen a lot of death and hardship in her life, and so something like this wasn't all that shocking to her. Alpha readers, however, found her too callous here. I did a rewrite, and realized that I liked it much better with Vin reacting emotionally to the scene of death. She still puts up a strong front, which is very like her. However, she no longer just walks through it without reacting.
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We get another mention of the Deepness here. I am a bit sad that I didn't get to spend very much time in this novel explaining the mythology behind the Lord Ruler's rise to power. I get to plenty of that in the next two books, fortunately. So, you've got a lot to look forward to.
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Oh, and no. I don't know what Camon's throat-rope is tied to. You did have a foreshadowing of this kind of execution earlier in the book. (Though, to be honest, I added that in during a rewrite. I didn't come up with particular method of killing someone until I got to this point in the book. It seemed to me that the Inquisitors wouldn't just kill Camon. They'd do something more drastic.)
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Why do I have the ball scenes in this book? Isn't this supposed to be an action story? Well, the absolute truth is I like party scenes like these.
It's kind of odd. I don't particularly like parties myself, but in books, they add quite a nice contrast to the dark skulking type of activities Vin has been about so far. It's nice to show the lavish side of life in Luthadel. The ball scenes in ELANTRIS were some of my favorite, since they allowed for some relaxed—if important—verbal sparring and witty commentary. So, when I was planning MISTBORN, I knew I had to have some parties at the noble keeps.
So, that meant I had to get Vin to said parties. That meant she had to pretend to be a noblewoman. That's where this whole plot cycle started—with me wanting an excuse to have ball scenes in this book.
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The limelights were added at Moshe's suggestion. In the original drafts of the book, I had bonfires burning outside. That was problematic, however, since they not only required a lot of fuel, but getting them close enough to the windows to provide enough light meant getting them close enough to be dangerous to the glass because of the heat. In addition, Moshe pointed out that bonfires just wouldn't be intensely focused enough in their brightness to provide the right illumination for the stained glass windows. (And, of course, I HAD to illuminate the windows. Why go to all the trouble of putting the balls in gothic cathedrals if nobody could see the windows?)
So, anyway, Moshe came up with the limelights as a fix. They actually work quite well—they fit the general level of technology I place the Final Empire as having, and the provide focused and intense light. As I understand it, they were the way that stages were illuminated to show the actors during the nineteen hundreds. Hence, being in the limelight as a phrase for someone who is being paid attention to.
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Several other things were added to this scene in later drafts. One was the moment when Vin looked up at the windows and contemplated the Deepness and what she knew of it. As I've mentioned, I wanted more chances to talk about the mythology of the world. Moshe mentioned this as well, and so for the sixth draft (this book took seven, including the copy edit) I added in this scene.
Another big change was renaming the Lord Ruler's priests. Originally, they were called just that—priests. And, the Steel Ministry was the Steel Priesthood. I made the change to Steel Ministry and obligators because I didn't want the religion and government in the Final Empire to feel so stereotypical. This was a world where the priests were more spies and bureaucrats than they were true priests—and I wanted the names to reflect that. So, I took out 'Priesthood' and 'priests.' I really like the change—it gives things a more appropriate feel, making the reader uncertain where the line between priests and government ministers is.
By the way, my friend Nate Hatfield is the one who actually came up with the word 'obligator.' Thanks, Nate!
Anyway, I when I changed the priests to obligators, I realized I wanted them to have a more controlling function in the Final Empire. So, I gave them the power of witnessing, and added in the aspect of the world where only they can make things legal or factual. This idea expanded in the culture until it became part of society that a statement wasn't considered absolutely true until an obligator was called in to witness it. That's why, in this chapter, we see someone paying an obligator to witness something rather trivial.
This was one of the main chapters where obligators were added in, to show them witnessing—and keeping an eye on the nobility. Moshe wanted me to emphasize this, and I think he made a good call. It also gave me the opportunity to point out Vin's father, something I didn't manage to do until chapter forty or so in the original draft.
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And, Elend. He's one of my other favorite characters in the series. You'll see more of him—don't worry. I really wanted him to walk the line between being clever and just plain dense (in the way that men can sometimes be.) Some people accuse me of writing Elend too much like myself. In truth, I could see myself sitting at a party reading a book, rather than paying attention to the pretty girl trying to talk to me. Or, at least, that's the way I would have been when I was growing up.
I'll talk more about Elend later. Though, I do want to note something important. It's a law of storytelling that the girl is going to end up talking to the one boy at the party that she's not supposed to. So, don't pretend you didn't see it coming.
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Apparently, both the names "Elend" and "Straff" are words in German. I certainly didn't intend that, though I did try to make the names have a similar feel, since they're father and son. It's funny how often we fantasy writers come up with words that actually mean something in another language.
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The pathway that Vin uses is called a Spikeway—or, at least, that's my informal title for it. I had a lot of trouble deciding how I was going to move people between Luthadel and Fellise (which, by the way, used to be named Tenes. I changed the name because of conflicts with other names in the book. And, for the life of me, I can't remember which names those were.)
Anyway, the spikeway occurred to me as an interesting application of the magic system that also solved a narrative problem in the book. I needed to get Kelsier back and forth quickly. So, I devised this. Often, this is the way things like this occur to me in writing. I'll see a need—such as Mistborn needing to travel—and fill it by applying the magic system in a logical way. This is one of the advantages of writing Hard Fantasy, where the rules of the magic are very well defined. You can actually be creative in the way you apply things.
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Yes. I had this whole series that was outlined. This [Alloy of Law] was not in the outline, it was from fun, and I really enjoyed writing it, but it's not part of the series. It's three sets of three. And I may do other things like Alloy of Law, but Alloy was just for fun.
I don't know if you know this, but all my fantasy books are connected. There are repeating characters involved, but you have to search to find them. And the Mistborn Trilogy is kind of interconnected with that. Particularly with the third trilogy. The Science Fiction one.
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No. This is foreshadowing the second trilogy. I may do some more books with these characters.
So is the second trilogy in the same time period?
It will be a little future forward from this. More like mid–20th century.
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I did, I did.
K, good. I just wanted to make sure.
I feel kind of silly because it actually is a pun. And the entire Mistborn trilogy is therefore based on a pun. The first paragraph of the first chapter. But you know, if you can't tell from me naming my character Wax and Wayne, that I have a slight problem with puns.
I love that! I didn't even realize it until I started to explain it to my family, and I was saying that the main characters are Wax and Wayne. It was a good moment.
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There's some other cool stuff in there that eventually I'll talk about.
But nothing specific?
Nothing I'm going to be able to (can't tell what he's saying. Basically that he can't say anything specific, I think.
I was going to say generalities. Does that cover the basics of it?
That definitely covers the basics of it, yeah. There was stuff from Sazed's metalminds. A lot of that stuff that was in there. Everything that was in there, he tried to get in the books. And then some other additions. Such as Elendel, which he created as a basin for life and things. And stuff like that. They are very interesting. These guys are here recording everything I have to say. So I have to watch myself.
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Yes.
Any estimate when the first book might be?
I might do some more Alloy of Law era things in between, they are not the second trilogy, but I will do them. The second trilogy will come between the break between the first sequence in the Stormlight Archive, and the second sequence of the Stormlight Archive. it's two five book sequences, and during that break I will stop and do the second Mistborn trilogy. So it will depend on how quickly I can write those.
So when exactly would the second Mistborn trilogy take place relative to Alloy of Law?
Late 20th century era. Modern technology.
I've heard that's like... 50? years after Alloy of Law.
Yeah, right around there. Roughly. Not quite information age, is what I was looking at. So there's no direct equivalent, because the different technology aspects, but you would see it as something around the 80s. Maybe early 90s. Allomancer SWAT team is what it's about.
Okay, that's exciting.
First book is a Mistborn serial killer versus an Allomancer SWAT team. With deeper ramifications to everything.
Is Dan helping you with the psychology on that one?
Uh, I actually haven't yet gotten his help on a [profile?] yet.
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No, I'm always looking for something that strikes me. And I'm looking for things that haven't been done before. Things that will make nice conflict, that walk the line between science and superstition.
That's what I love, that it's all super scientific but it also has magic.
If you will Google Sanderson's First Law, and Sanderson's Second Law, I have two essays that I wrote about how I do magic. They're both on my website, but Google will find them easier than trying to find them on my website.
Did you ever read Master of 5 magics?
I did. That's old school.
Yeah, not great stories, but wonderful magic.
Yep. Great magic. That's what I felt about them too.
When will the next Mistborn (Alloy of Law era) come out?
It will probably come out after the next Way of Kings. Next Way of Kings is next Christmas, the next Alloy of Law era book is probably the following Spring or something like that.
Are you planning two more or three more?
I will do as many of those as strikes me. The Alloy of Law books are a deviation from the main world plotline.
So it's just for fun. I'm not going to commit to how many I'll do or not do. Just whatever's working.518
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Oh, that's a great question. The thing about Waxillian's name is, a lot of people don't like it. I actually love it, but that happens a lot in my books; I'll do something I love that I kind of know other people are going to be annoyed by. The Wax books came, actually....as I was designing the books, I was figuring the characters, and the pun Wax and Wayne struck me, and I thought, "I can't do that; that's too lame a pun." But the characters adopted those name before I could even do anything about it, and I actually tried changing the names, and it didn't work. You know how sometimes, organically, it just happens, and you're like, "I gotta go with this." And so I didn't want to actually just named them Wax and Wayne; I wanted Wax to be short for something, and it fits very well into the Mistborn universe, because all the characters tend to have nicknames that—you know, there was Clubs and Ham and Breeze in the last series—and I wanted a name that fit with that, and so Wax worked really well, but I wanted it to be short for something, and so I started looking at period names, things like William that worked and I actually ended up picking Waxillian because it also has a metallurgic sound and I figured names in this culture in the Mistborn world where metals are so important to the magic, you might have people named after metals; you might have names that sound like metals intentionally because of that resonance. At the end of the day I just really ended up liking it. It is a bizarre name.
Thank you.
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Hi.
I've read a bit online about how you have an overall storyline covering all of your novels, but I really don't know much about it. I was wondering if you could expand and explain.
Okay. The overarching story of all of my novels. This warrants some backstory. If you weren't familiar, I wrote thirteen novels before I sold one. I spent a lot of time practicing and learning, and I love big epic grand series. However, you know, you can't grow up reading the Wheel of Time without loving big series, but advice I heard early on was, selling a big series is actually pretty hard from a new author and if you, for instance, spend your life and you write like six books in the same series, and you send off the first book to someone and they don't buy it, you can't really send them the second book because, you know, they've already rejected that, and so it's really putting all of your eggs into one basket, and that doesn't end up working out for some people. I didn't want to do that; I wanted to expand my chances, and so I wrote thirteen novels in different worlds, all with their own different magic systems and own characters. But secretly I loved the grand epic, and so I started connecting all these worlds during my unpublished era, and telling a hidden epic behind them all that I was setting up for.
Well, eventually I sold book number six, and embedded in book number six was a bunch of this stuff for the hidden epic, of course, and six is actually one of the ones where I first started doing this. My first five were kind of throwaway novels. It was six, seven, eight, and nine that were really involved in this. Six was Elantris; seven was a book called Dragonsteel; eight was a book called White Sand; and nine was a book called Mythwalker, which eventually became Warbreaker, which I eventually rewrote and released as Warbreaker. So that four-book sequence was very ingrained in this kind of hidden story behind the stories. When I started publishing these books, I just kept it going, the hidden story, the hidden epic.
Now one aspect of this was that I didn't want people to have to know all the books that came before to understand what was happening in any one of them. So, for instance, if you read these you don't need to know anything about the hidden epic. It is back there behind the scenes for some day when I actually write a series dedicated to it, that there will be all this foreshadowing, but it will never directly and in really important ways influence a given series. For instance, you don't have to have read Elantris to understand Mistborn even though technically they're sequels; Mistborn is technically a sequel to Elantris, just set on a different planet.
There is one character who has appeared in all of my novels, and several other characters who have jumped between novels. For instance there's a character from Elantris who is in The Way of Kings—one of the main characters from Elantris shows up in Way of Kings under hidden auspices, but it's pretty obvious; the fans found it really fast, those who were watching out for it—but that sort of thing. So, there is a story going on behind all of this that I will eventually tell, but what do you need to know about it right now? That all of these things are basically Easter eggs right now. None of them are dominating the storyline at all; it's just a bunch of cool Easter eggs that eventually will mean something to you. So the character to watch out for is called Hoid; it's a pseudonym he usually uses—pseudonym is I guess the wrong term; the alias he normally uses—and he's all over in the books, so if you watch out for him you'll see him.
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Thank you.
...but I noticed towards the end you started creating overtones of a much larger story, and I was curious how you are going to follow up on that.
I will do more books without Alloy of Law, with Wax and Wayne. I originally—I may have said this in the forward to Alloy of Law—I pitched the Mistborn series a three-book, as three sets of trilogies, past-present-future, and I do still intend to do that, but I am going to pick up some of the things that I did in Alloy of Law and keep going with those same characters for a little longer, the main reason being I really like how Alloy of Law balances Stormlight Archive. I love big epics, but I also love fast-paced kind of actiony books as well, and being able to do a little bit of both of that fulfills both sort of itches, scratches them both, and so I like having Alloy-of-Law-style books come out alongside larger epics.
So I will be—to answer the questions that are coming—next is the last Wheel of Time book, and pretty much everything I have is devoted to that book. I'm hoping to have revisions of that done by the end of June, and then can start on Stormlight 2 which is what I will do next. The Wheel of Time book is coming out in January. I had really hoped to have it out in November, but it proved unrealistic, and I'm too optimistic on these things sometimes, and Harriet wisely counseled that we need to slow down a bit and spend some more time on the revisions, which we are doing. The Stormlight book, if I'm really on the ball, will be next November-ish—not this one but a year from that—and then I would follow it really closely with another Alloy of Law book.
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The author, who also writes video game adaptations, expressed interest in working with local moviemakers and the gaming industry, saying that he sees films and games as another storytelling medium.
Sanderson helped write a video game called "Infinity Blade" that was released last year. Another game based on his bestselling Mistborn Trilogy is scheduled for release in 2013.
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What are some of the books you've been a part of, and what exactly were you in charge of?
I’m responsible for all the maps and symbols in the four (so far) Mistborn novels as well as all the symbols, chapter headings, maps, color end pages, and Navani's notebook pages in Brandon's Way of Kings. (The other artwork in the book was done by Michael Whelan, Ben McSweeney, and Ben Call. I'm thrilled to be showcased in the same book with these amazing artists.)
On the design side of things, I've been designing self-published books—covers and interiors—for a while, but recently had the luck to get into the business professionally with the book design for Bryce Moore's YA novel, Vodnik. I've also done covers for some ebook re-releases of some science fiction and fantasy classics from the 80s.
In addition to Brandon's maps, I've also worked on maps in the re-release of Robert Silverberg's Nebula-winning novel A Time of Changes and the upcoming reprint of his very-enjoyable Downward to the Earth.
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For Mistborn fans, World of Warcraft is adding a "Survivor's Bag of Coins" to the 5.2.0 patch. See details here. I think this is awesome! (Also note that the Mistborn action RPG Mistborn: Birthright is still in development, but right now it looks like the release might get pushed back to 2014 instead of this year. There hasn't been an official announcement though.)
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I do plan to write a sequel to The Alloy of Law between books in the Stormlight series, and will probably write more of those after that. The second major Mistborn trilogy is something I will write after book five of the Stormlight Archive.
If I'm not mistaken, you have great plans with this universe and you intend to write more trilogies set in this world. Would you tell us about this conception in some detail?
Sure. I originally pitched the Mistborn series to my editor as a sequence of three trilogies. Past, present, and future—epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction; all with the running thread of the magic system.
Since I just started coming out with the Stormlight Archive, I want to commit myself to that and don't want to dig into the second Mistborn trilogy for quite a while. Yet I want to prep people for the idea that Mistborn is going to be around for a while, and they are going to be seeing more books. I didn't want it to just come out of nowhere at them in ten years or whenever I get to it. So I decided to do some interim stories.
One of the things I'd been playing with was the idea of what happened between the epic fantasy and the urban fantasy trilogies. We have some very interesting things happening in the world, where you've got a cradle of mankind created (by design) to be very lush, very easy to live in, so a great big city could grow up there relatively quickly; civilization could build itself back up over the course of just a couple of generations. Yet there would be very little motivation to leave that area at first, which I felt would mean that you'd end up with this really great frontier boundary. The dichotomy between the two—the frontier and the quite advanced (all things considered) city in the cradle of humanity—was very interesting to me. So I started playing around with where things would lead.
To worldbuild the urban fantasy trilogy coming up, I need to know everything that happened in the intervening centuries. Some stories popped up in there that I knew would happen, that would be referenced in the second trilogy. So I thought, why don't I tell some of these stories, to cement them in my mind and to keep the series going.
I started writing The Alloy of Law not really knowing how long it would be—knowing the history and everything that happened, but not knowing how much of it I wanted to do in prose form. Things just clicked as they sometimes do, and I ended up turning it into a novel.
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So . . . While the plane was landing, I had a great idea for fixing Death By Pizza, a novel I abandoned a few years ago. NOT RIGHT NOW, BRAIN.
Yay!
Lol. Have you even read that one?
No. But I wanted to react anyway.
You and your ideas on planes! Isn't that how Legion got started?
Yeah, traveling does that to me. Mistborn started while I was driving on a road trip.
Given I don't know anything about you besides the fact that you're a ridiculously talented writer, that title and you don't seem in-sync.
Heh. It was one of my "breather projects." Stories I free-write (rather than planning in detail) between larger books.
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According to your blog, an RPG video game called Mistborn: Birthright, based on your Mistborn series, will be coming out in 2013. Can you give us a teaser?
It's set hundreds of years before the first trilogy. I'm writing the story, and it's about a young nobleman who gets entangled in events he did not expect at all. It should be a whole bunch of fun, and I'm trying to work into it things like the origins of the mistcloak and fun stuff like that, [so] we can dig into the past of the world and see the origins of a lot of things that we see later on in the series.
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So, since we usually only interview filmmakers, is there any big-screen news to share?
I wish I had more film news. The Mistborn trilogy's been optioned, and I really like the producers and they have a screenplay, but that's the big step, you know, going from producers with a screenplay to getting a studio. Wheel Of Time has also been bought, not optioned, by Universal Pictures, so they're in the screenwriting stage right now.
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Wheel of Time for me feels like an example of something that absolutely shouldn't be made into a film, it's so sprawling.
I think it's do-able, but boy it's going to be tough! I do envy George RR Martin with HBO. I think that's a perfect medium for the story that he told.
The response to that has been fantastic; do you see that helping to make fantasy a bit more mainstream? In the same way that the Lord of the Rings films or even Harry Potter books were a sort of gateway drug to the genre, do you think A Game Of Thrones will have the same effect?
As an outsider to the film industry, I find it very interesting that they seem to focus on what's hot right now rather than what's well done. The thing about A Game Of Thrones is that it's an exceptional story, done really well, which is what happened with the Lord Of The Rings films as well. Those came out, and everyone said, "Oh, fantasy is hot". And fantasy, well, it's been opened up, but it's more that really great stories told really well are hot and always will be. It was really disappointing to me to see them snatch up a bunch of fantasy rights and make films out of them that didn't really work, because fantasy was hot.
The Golden Compass film was heartbreaking, because my perspective on that is that they actually got fantastic casting, the visuals were beautiful and they tried really hard to stay close to the story. I think what happened there was that they didn't adapt it enough, they were too faithful and filmed it almost scene-by-scene. They were too attached to the source material. I talked to the Mistborn producers and we all agree that it needs to be more heavily adapted. It's a different medium. If you can keep the soul of the story but change the story that's what you want to do. If I can armchair it, the Harry Potter films where they were forced to adapt more strongly are the best. The third one is beautiful.
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Speaking of adaptations, of course, you've taken over Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and sped up the pace of the story considerably, so as a long-time reader there, thank you for that!
Credit needs to be given to Robert Jordan; he started to speed up in Book 11 [Knife of Dreams]. In fact, I've read interviews where he admits that the focus was a little bit wrong in Book 10 [Crossroads of Twilight], which is the one that the fans complain about being the most slow, and he himself changed that for Book 11 and picked up the pacing. And I like spectacular endings. When I build my books, I start from the end and work forward with my outline. I write from beginning to end, but I outline end to beginning, because I always want to know that I have a powerful, explosive ending that I'm working toward. Endings are my deal: if a book or a film doesn't have a great ending, I find it wanting. It's like the last bite, the last morsel on the plate, so I get very annoyed with the standard Hollywood third act, because they seem to play it most safe in Act Three, and that's where I most want to be surprised and awed. That's where it's got to be spectacular. You've got to give the reader something they're not expecting, something they want but don't know it, in that last section.
Does that go for something like your Mistborn Trilogy; did you start with the end of the trilogy or go book-by-book?
I plotted all three backwards and then wrote them all forwards. I had a great advantage writing those books, because I sold my first book, Elantris, in 2003. The nature of how books are 'slotted' into release dates is that a new author doesn't get the best slot. They want to give each author a good launch, but they can't give them in the really prime slots. So we had a two-and-a-half year wait, and usually you have a year between books. That meant I had three-and-a-half years before Mistborn would be out, so I pitched the entire trilogy together and wrote all three before the first one came out.
Is that something you have in common with Robert Jordan, because re-reading the prologue to the first book you think, 'This guy knows how it's going to end'.
He actually wrote the ending that I worked towards. The last pages were written by him before he passed away. He always spoke of knowing the ending, so I think we do share that. He was a bit more of an explorer in his writing than I am. He knew where he was going, but getting there he wove around a lot. You can see that in the notes I've been given; he jumps from scene to scene. So there's a difference there, but he really loved endings. And that ending is really great; I think fans are going to love it.
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What can you tell us about this new Mistborn book?
When I originally pitched Mistborn I did it as more than one series. One of the things that fantasy does that I don't necessarily like is that an author will skip, like, 4000 years and come back and you're still in the same world, nothing has really changed. In The Wheel of Time, I like that steam technology is starting to appear; there's progress. I wanted to do a fantasy series where I told a story that had a classic, medieval feel, and then I wanted to jump forward several hundred years and tell an urban fantasy in a world with guns and skyscrapers and the same magic, and the story of the first series had become the mythology of the second. Then I wanted to tell a story in the future of that, a science fiction story where the magic had become a means of inter-stellar propulsion. So this book is along that continuum; it's not quite up to the second series.
It's a story that I wasn't supposed to be writing but I just loved. It's the era of industry in the Mistborn world. Now we have characters living post-gunpowder. Motor cars are beginning to appear, skyscrapers are just being built. I based some of it on 1910 New York. The protagonist is an old lawman from the equivalent of the Old West who moves back to the big city after 20 years outside. It's a whodunit-ish sort of thing. Imagine Sherlock Holmes in a fantasy world, if Clint Eastwood played the role. It's a little bit steampunk, but not true steampunk because I'm not going interesting places with the steam technology.
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Introduction
We are always on the lookout for upcoming games here at Inside Mac Games. Recently, prolific fantasy author Brandon Sanderson announced that he was working with gaming company Little Orbit to create Mistborn: Birthright, a game based on his Mistborn novel trilogy. I was personally very excited about the game, as I have become a big fan of Mr. Sanderson’s books and truly enjoyed the Mistborn series.
If you haven't read this fantasy trilogy and are a fan of fantasy novels, you should really consider reading it. As with all of Brandon Sanderson's novels, the universe he creates is completely unique in the realm of fantasy and is definitely not a rehash of existing fantasy worlds. All of the Mistborn books (including a newer spin off series) are excellent reads (or listens in the case of audiobooks!).
The "magic" of the Mistborn series manifests in the abilities of certain citizens to utilize the "special properties" of metals. There are two aspects for each metal, affecting others or oneself. Most people, if they have this ability, can work with only one metal, but there are a rare few who can utilize more then one. In his novels, Sanderson develops ingenious ways for his characters to make use of these abilities to help them achieve amazing things. I will leave it up to you to read the novels to learn more.
If you are familiar with the Mistborn series, the events of the game will take place about 700-800 years before the events of the trilogy. What I believe Sanderson and Little Orbit plan to achieve is an Action RPG that stands on its own, but still exists in the world he created.
Initially, the game was to be released for consoles and Windows PCs. Later, it was revealed that the PC game will be released for Steam and that a Mac OS X version will also be available.
I had the opportunity to submit a handful of questions to Brandon Sanderson about his plans for Mistborn: Birthright. The rest of this article shows my questions, his answers, and perhaps a final comment of my own.
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Interview
Why did you decide to try to create a game? Was it to satisfy a need of your own, that of your fans, or perhaps some other reason?
I'm a gamer, and I've been playing games since I spent my vacation money on a Nintendo instead of what I was supposed to spend it on.
Doing the job that I do now gives me some opportunities that I just didn't want to pass on; making a video game is one of them. I tried a couple of times earlier in my career to launch a Mistborn video game, to get a developer interested, and it just didn't go anywhere. I wasn't a big enough name yet. I eventually had to wait until the trilogy was done and had a good reputation, and then people started approaching us about making a video game out of it.
The reason to do it is just because I love video games. It's a bit of a self-indulgent reason, but let's just say that it's one of the perks of being an author with some success.
Author's note: I have no issues with his "self indulgence". Anyone who has read and enjoyed a great fantasy novel would most likely enjoy the chance to play in that world. As a successful author, Mr. Sanderson can bring fans into his world via a game. That is a terrific thing, especially if it is done right.
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As an author, you can completely control all aspects of a story, the environment, and the characters in the story. When you move to a game realm, there will be many limitations and aspects you can't or won't control. How important is it to get "right" the following aspects of your fantasy realm? What do you plan to do to ensure they work?
a. The look and feel of the environment, which includes environmental sounds, and music
b. Character dialog and interactions, as well as NPC dialog and interactions
c. The storyline and sequences of events
d. Other aspects very important to you
This is quite an in-depth question. Certainly the things you mentioned, that you can't control all aspects of the story, are a consideration. The bigger thing for me with a video game, that is different from my own work, is that a video game is a collaboration. A novel in most cases is a solo work, certainly with the help of talented editing staff and art direction and things like that—but at the end of the day, I can do the bulk of the work on the book myself. On a video game, I can't. Nor would I want to.
On a video game, you take a step toward films where you need to have people who you trust working on aspects of the game that you yourself can't do. Certainly the look and feel and all these things you're talking about—I can oversee them, and Little Orbit has been great; they're showing me concept art and things and saying, do you like this or do you like this? What feels more like Mistborn to you? But at the end of the day, I have to let them do their job, which is program a great game, and come up with an engaging and fun system.
I can have some input in it myself, such as the dialogue and story—I can step in and say hey, I know how to do this; let me do it. So I have done that for this game—I've stepped in and I'm writing the dialogue and the story myself, and I'm going to try to make it the best it can be to match Mistborn. From there I'm working with and trusting people whose job it is to make great games be great.
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It is early in the development process, but I am sure you have some intentions as to what you want this game to be. If you could get everything you desire in this project, what type of game would it be? I assume you have played a few games yourself, would it be an RPG like Dragon Age or Two Worlds II, a graphical adventure like Monkey Island or Myst, or will it be more of an FPS like Bioshock?
We're definitely shooting for, on this game, Action RPG. A little less like Dragon Age in that it's a solo adventure with one person—certainly there are NPCs and things, but we're not talking about a party; we're talking about a Mistborn doing awesome stuff. That's what I wanted this game to be. There are so many different ways you could take a game like this; I would like to try different aspects.
One of my favorite games recently was Demon Souls, and its sequel Dark Souls. I like gameplay mechanics like that, for a game like this. But we have to mix it with something more like Infamous in its combat system; powers and things like that. A blend of those types of games is what I would be shooting for. Certainly with a stronger RPG element to it.
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Do you intend to create a novel (or series) to go along with or to follow this game?
I'm not intending that right now. There's a chance we'll do a graphic novel, but I feel like this story that I'm building matches the game, and I want it to be for the game.
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Will this game explore only the nobility of the Mistborn world or will it include some of the lower class elements? Are you going to bring in any aspects of the empire or the long planned revolution?
This story is taking place several hundred years after the Ascension of the Lord Ruler; 700 or 800 years before the events of the trilogy. I don't want to give any more spoilers than that, but there will be lots of things in the game dealing with lots of different aspects of the Mistborn world.
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I know there is nothing set in stone and there is a long path of compromises before the game becomes available. Is there any "teaser" you could share with our readers?
This is something really small—not a big deal—but I am planning to work into this game the origin of Mistcloaks.
Author's Note: You'll have to read the novels to understand these references!
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Yeah! I know everybody is excited to talk about The Wheel of Time, but let's first talk, really quickly about your Mistborn and your Alcatraz series. 'Cause I think it's interesting to find out where you came from before you got into The Wheel of Time. From the title, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, I get the hint that it's little humorous. Tell us a little bit about that series.
Well, that series is targeted a little younger, but most of my fans of it are actually older people. It's a silly series about a kid who discovers that evil librarians secretly rule the world.
[laughs]
Yeah. Let me back up and kind of explain how I work as a writer. I spent many years trying to break in, as a lot of us do, and during that decades worth of time, about, I wrote 13 novels. I was working on my 13th novel when I sold my first novel which was Elantris.
Oh.
A stand alone, epic fantasy. That was the sixth book I'd written. And then my next series was the Mistborn Trilogy, which you've mentioned. That was the first time where I had to sit down and write three books in the same world, which was actually pretty tough for me, to manage because I wasn't used to doing that. And after I'd written the second one, I needed to do something different. I needed to do something new. And so I jumped and wrote this book and in a lot of ways it was me riffing on what I do in my other fantasy books. You know, my epic fantasy, I think, takes itself very seriously as epic fantasy has to. And so I wanted to do something that poked some good-natured fun at that. And that's where Alcatraz came from.
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And your Mistborn series, like you said, it is more serious. Tell us a little bit about the Mistborn series.
Okay. One of the things I felt that I wanted to do, when I finally did break in, was find some way that I could add to the genre, rather than re-treading the same ground. I felt that I wanted to try and look at the fantasy genre and do plots that hadn't been explored yet. And the Mistborn books are my attempt at doing that.
A lot of epic fantasy has this same sort of concept. This young protagonist, raised in the rural area goes on a quest to defeat the dark lord. And it's a wonderful, powerful story; it's the story that Tolkien used to an extent; it's certainly the story that Robert Jordan used, and you see it coming up over and over again in fantasy and I worried it had come up too many times. And so the Mistborn series came from me saying, "Well, what if he failed? What if this kid, this plucky protagonist, you know, went to save the world and it went all wrong?"
And it failed? Oh!
What if Frodo kept the ring? Or what if Sauron had killed him and taken the ring? What if Voldemort killed Harry Potter at the end of book seven? What happens? And the way that I approached this is saying, "Okay, that's happened. You've got your generic epic fantasy story that all happened, and the hero failed." Thousand years later, now what? And it focuses around a team of thieves who get together and decide, "Okay, the prophecies were lies, the hero didn't save us, the world is essentially enslaved. Let's try this our way." And their plot is to rob the dark lord silly, use the money they get to bribe his armies away from him, and over throw the empire. And that's Mistborn.
You know, Brandon, as you were talking about the Mistborn [series], you brought up some memories of my childhood. I don't remember what this series was, but I read this series that exactly was kind of like that: you know, the character is a normal person, he's great, throughout the series, but the very end, it doesn't all turn out right. He becomes evil and the series ends! And it haunted me. My whole life. And I still don't remember what the series was. I wish I would have remembered it, but . . . yeah, that's a very interesting concept and it doesn't happen very often.
I was tempted to actually do that. I felt that would have been too much of a downer. Which is why I jumped forward a thousand years and then used kind of flash backs to tell the story of what happened a thousand years ago, because it's not as clear cut as I've made it sound.
Well, that series I mentioned, I mean, that scarred me for life. [laughs] So I'm glad that you did a little different at the end there.
The other thing is I would have had to write it as a kind of more generic fantasy at the beginning and then take it other places, and I wasn't sure if I could do that because I don't know if my heart would have been in it, trying to write a fantasy that is more generic.
The other big thing I like to do with my books that I hope does something new and interesting is try to approach having interesting different types of magic. And I think the best fantasy books do this, and I wanted each book that people read of mine to have a new magic system. I like to write magic that feels like it could be a science, that in this world there's another branch of science that we don't have in our world, that if you explore and apply the scientific method to it, you can figure out how it works. And I tend to write stories where we've got people figuring out the magic. They're working in sort of a magical renaissance. That's the theme for my next series, The Way of Kings, which is what's going to be coming out next year, is the idea that we're living in a world where people are discovering the magic and bringing it back to the world and trying to figure out how it works and actually applying reason and science to it to get some hard numbers on what it can do and what it can't do.
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When I first emailed you, Brandon, I indicated to you that my sons are readers. One out of three is not so much an avid reader, but they were captivated by the book that probably gave you a national name, and that was Elantris. And in there, there were themes of a Utopia, and then the opposite. What happens when Utopia crashes, or there's the fault line, there's a crack in it? And then we go to Mistborn, and with your permission to sum up kind of shortly, it was, some said, "A revolution of a new generation against someone in power, and yet they don't even understand the consequences of what they are beginning." So there are underlying themes that you are hitting as you move forward in your writing. Are these themes that you set out, you think, "This is something that is important to me as an author and I want to explore it?" Or does it evolve through the characters that you develop?
It's much more an evolution, the second one you mentioned. I'm not one of those who sits down and says, "I want to write a book about X." I don't go and inject any sort of philosophies or theories into my book. I sit down and say, "I want to write a book about this character. Well what's going to be important to this character? What's going to make them tick?" What makes them tick actually tends to be things that I am worried about, or I am concerned about, or I like to think about and so, the two do cross. You'll end up... In my fiction you will often find me exploring concepts and ideas that I am interested in, but that will be because my characters are interested in them.
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He would have taken over, because that character doesn't not take over. And it would have been a very different series, it would have been more heist focused, and not so much epic fantasy focused.
Would he have finished everything up a heck of a lot faster than Vin and Elend did?
Worse, but yes. Things would have gone very differently, how about that? The reason I decided it couldn't go that way was because I think the series just wouldn't have worked.
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Someone asked if Brandon intended to write any more science fiction books.
He indicated first that the upcoming Steelheart (available September 2013) is a sci-fi, though it's superhero sci-fi. He then said the third trilogy in the Mistborn series would be science fiction. He explained that built into allomancy is the ability for faster-than-light-speed travel and that the final trilogy would involve space travel.
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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 was 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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Who was the most challenging WoT character to write?
Mat was the most challenging, the second most was Aviendha. He explains that it is hard to write about someone so different than yourself and the Aiel culture seemed the most unique in the series. Of Rand's three women, Aviendha is Brandon's favorite. He recalls that after writing his first Aviendha scene, Harriet read it and then told him that it was a "picture perfect Elayne." Brandon went on to discuss how he has to write his way into his characters. Vin, in Mistborn, was originally a boy. Lots of his early work on The Gathering Storm was scrapped by Harriet because Brandon wasn't "there yet" with the characters.
He then goes on to discuss the volume of notes left by Robert Jordan. There are about 200 pages for A Memory of Light and then there is roughly 32,000 pages of other notes for the series, three times as large as the entire series put together. Brandon tells of how he tried to open it once and it crashed his computer because the file was so large. He also wants to commend the enormous efforts of Alan and Maria for their help in managing all of the details of the series.
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Has Hemalurgy been used on another planet besides Scadrial?
Yes it has. Brandon did not want to give out any more details about who was getting spiked or if the spiking was successful.
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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.
Yeah.
And a while ago, someone asked you if Splintering was permanent or reversible, and you said that it can be reversed.
Yeah.
And shard holders 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?
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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Hah. So in Cosmere, does physics work the same way in the physical realm as it does in our world? Specifically, particle physics; and are atoms made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, and is light photons, etc?
Yes.
So what's at the core of an atom of Atium? Ate-teum? Also how do you pronounce it? At-teum?
Yes. And the matter is just normal matter, but it's wrapped in the spiritual. The Spiritual DNA [or something] is what makes it magical.
(Note: he might've said slightly more about this but I didn't write it down and I don't remember. Sorry for not bringing a tape recorder :(/> )
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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, and he replied that he would neither confirm nor deny my statement and would only agree that it was very interesting.
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I did ask about Mistborn: Birthright and apparently it is going to make it's way to the next generation of consoles, so it should be a very nice representation. I did find out that Brandon is still writing 100% of the dialogue (there were some rumors a while back that he wouldn't be) and that it is well underway.
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Although I was taking some pictures during the signing, I was able to point my ears into some of the conversations between Brandon and the fans. First and foremost, Brandon is an awesome person. He first thanked people for coming, then asked if they had any questions for him. Never once did he rush anybody or shush them. For fans who mentioned they were writers themselves, he offered words of encouragement.
One great bit of information I overheard was the next Mistborn novel would be published in 2014.
Brandon also mentioned (and I tried to filter this through all the other discussions circulating) that Hoid would be the main character (I think) of the trilogy or that Hoid would feature as the main character in another trilogy.
I also overheard Brandon say his least favorite Wheel of Time character was Cadsuane, I don't think he is alone in that. Well, for I fact I know he isn't alone because she was probably my least favorite character as well.
One Russian fan brought a Russian edition of Mistborn: The Final Empire to be signed.
Another Bulgarian fan said the Bulgarian translations, which are recent, were done very well.
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The Mistcloaks are customized by the wearers.
(-I'm glad none of the characters went for hotpink-)
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Then Kiley had a question. She's very soft-spoken so I'm not sure I got it all down right.
So how much, either consciously or unconsciously, do the diary entries from the Lord Ruler reflect the Rand-type characters?
That's the pitch to myself for Mistborn, years ago: "What if Rand failed, and decided to take over the world instead?" basically. It's more than that, though; it's, you know" "What if Frodo kept the ring? What if the hero from the monomyth failed, and instead became the tyrant?" And so, I consciously evoked that.
So did you ever see in that through the end, so that Rand didn't go....like, this is really similar, ever?
Not specifically, but you know, I was basing the idea off of that, yeah.
It was like, "This could be Rand's diary," you know.
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Why did the Lord Ruler [in Mistborn] have to stay aged at times?
That's when he was doing his rebuild. He didn't really have to, but he let himself. He has to recharge periodically, and then stays on a higher and higher burn over the thousand years. It gets harder and harder. The way the magic works—he doesn't have to stay aged.
Is he burning or tapping?
He's tapping.
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What about the Mistborn video game?
We put it off until 2014, because of the new console generation. We had planned for it to come out right when the buzz was saying the new consoles were going to launch. And that felt like a bad idea to us. The Mistborn film is also in the works, but it is very early and it is not nearly as far along as the Wheel of Time film is. So if anyone's father is J. J. Abrams, have him call me.
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Why did you have to kill Vin and Elend?
They demanded that they be allowed to take the chance they did. And I just let them take the chance. I didn't kill them, I just let them take the chance that they demanded that I let them take. That's kind of a cop-out answer, I'm sorry, but that's what it feels like to me. And if I always make it so that there are no consequences, then the books have no heart.
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When is the next Mistborn book coming out?
2014.
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Are there going to be any more Mistborn books?
Yes, there will. In 2014 there will be a sequel to Alloy of Law.
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Is there a Cosmere-specific term you use to describe, say, a Shard's power inside someone? For example, people on Scadrial had little bits of Preservation in them that made them sentient (and, with enough Preservation, Allomancy). This obviously doesn't make these people Slivers or Splinters, so I was just wondering if you had a word for it.
In my own terms, I refer to all of this as types of investiture. The degree, and effects, can be very different - but those people are invested. I term this Innate Investiture, and it is similar to what happens with people on Nalthis. That is also innate.
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A lerasium Mistborn's kids would surely be Allomancers. If such a lerasium Mistborn traveled to, say, Nalthis, fell in love and had kids with a native Nalthisean, would those kids be Allomancers? Or something else?
In most cases, they would still be Allomancers. Mixed, potentially, with something else depending on the native innate investiture. That mixture could do some strange things, though.
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Hey Brandon
I just want to start out by thanking you for writing such wonderful books, one read-through TWoK made you my favorite author. I cannot wait for Emperor's Soul so I can get some new cosmere information! As a 17th Sharder I have to ask at least two timeline questions.
When is Emperor's Soul set chronologically in relation to Elantris? Because if its around the same time Teod and Arelon might not have to stand alone against the Fjordell Empire.
My other question is also a timeline one. (There are a lot of those tonight haha) I heard you had to move TWoK a little bit due to some plot constraints. So does Warbreaker still fall around the same time as AoL or has that shifted as well?
I understand if you don't have time to answer these, I know authors are busy. Its great to see one such as yourself interacting with your fans. Thanks again for providing me with books that I've speculated for hours about!
Thanks for the kind words! Emperor's Soul is after Elantris, but not too long after. It is before Mistborn.
Second question is that I've moved things so that TWoK is around the same time as AoL, forced by some behind-the-scenes events. Warbreaker now happens before AoL.
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Some great projects there Brandon and I'm really excited to hear you've decided to publish some of your own books.
Firstly, thank you so much for stopping by! It was great meeting you in England last year (despite my nerves!) and that interview we did still picks up tons of hits on youtube! It was truly a great day. Remembering how many question I hit you with; it probably won't surprise you I have more
1. So, now that you are self publishing - has it given you a new found respect for those who have been self publishing from the beginning? I mean, now you are do doubt speaking with printers, typesetters, cover artists, reviewers, convention organisers. I guess you are having to market your own titles as well (although you've always been a great author for self promotion). Also, has the amount of work surprised you?
2. I remember you saying originally that a lot of your work you wrote from your heart and based upon your own interests. I believe you struggled to get much attention from this early work and I believe your said Mistborn you wrote for the market as opposed to for yourself. Now that you are self-publishing certain titles, do you think we will be seeing more 'unique' and 'out-there' projects? I.e. Fantasy that is quite unlike things we have seen before?
Thanks for your time, Brandon!
1. Well, I get to cheat. I've done well enough that I ave a full-time assistant with a lot of experience in desktop publishing. So, I can hand him the book, and he can take it to design town. That said, we on the more traditional track have had to do some eating of our words in recent years. Once upon a time there was a large stigma to self-publishing, and we all kind of got infected by it. So when it became viable as a real, serious alternative for authors, we had trouble getting rid of our biases.
I wouldn't say the amount of work has surprised me, as I've paid attention to those self-publishing. I teach a writing and publishing class, and I've found that as publishing changes, I've had to keep my eyes on what it takes to publish reasonably on your own. I also know how much work goes into publishing a book on the publisher's end, and had no illusions about how much work it would take us.
2. You've got the story mostly right, though it was the original draft of Mistborn (that did not get published) which was a 'For the market' book. It was awful. The Way of Kings was the book I wrote after that, giving no care to the world, writing only from my heart--and so you can say I've already started doing that. I would like to point out, though, that the second version of Mistborn (the one that got published, in which I tossed aside everything but the magic system and some original character concept) as in my mind a 'return to form' of the books like Elantris that I'd been writing and feeling were not getting attention.
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The southern continent is where people have discovered how to harness the metallurgic arts in a more mechanical method. (I've hinted several places that this is possible. I've been holding off doing it until we go here.)
Ooh, cool, ferugolems? Do you have any hints for us where we should look for these hints of how you can use it in a mechanical fashion? I haven't reread the Mistborn books in a while.
The hints are things I've said in interviews, not so much in the stories. (Sorry for not being clear about this.)
About the southern continent, would it be possible for other Scadrians to discover this method of using the Metallic Arts, or is it unique to the southern Scadrians?
It is technology-based rather than genetics based.
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My favorite part of the Mistborn trilogy was Sazed and his scholarly work. I really liked how you described the motivations behind and the methods used in his analyses of religious doctrines. It seemed like you took a lot of care in writing about his quest.
Was Sazed's search inspired by any sort of scholarly work you've done, on religion or otherwise?
Yes, it was, though his sequence in the third was one of the most difficult to get right in any book I've written. Originally, I wrote it as him having already come to the conclusion he does near the end—that all religion is false—and that left him wallowing about in a depressive funk through most of the book. This was just horribly boring to read, and it was only through revision that I decided to show his quest.
I am a religious person, and have spent a lot of time thinking, questioning, and deciding what I believe and why. I don't think questions like these are easy ones to answer, and anything that is difficult is prime material for storytelling in my mind. Writing Sazed was an exploration for me as much as it was an exploration for the character.
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I recently picked up the Mistborn Adventure game and am loving it. I made a character who is a blind Mistborn because hey, I thought it would make for some interesting possibilities. As I understand Allomancy, he can hear/sense well enough to get around with Tin, plus even though he's blind he can still "see" Steel lines (like the inquisitors), and I assume Atium would work the same way—that is, he could still "see" Atium shadows. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
No, you're right. That works. He'd have to burn metals a LOT though. It might warp him a little. :)
The metal that's stumping me is Gold—what happens when a blind person burns Gold—especially if he "sees" a version of himself that isn't blind? Can he see the other version or just hear/feel/sense him? What about the other version, can it see things? Could a blind person use gold in this way to see the world around him?
A blind person would indeed sense these things, but not have the vision with the eyes. In the same way that a blind person still dreams, but doesn't "See" in them. (As I understand it.) I'd suggest talking to someone who is blind and getting their take on how this would work.
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Anything infused (regardless of the world or magic that infused it) is resistant to magic. So you'd have a lot of trouble pushing or pulling on a spike, unless you had access to a boost of some sort to overcome the resistance.
So, Nightblade would be resistant to steelpushing? Good to know ;-)
My friend and I asked him something like this at a book signing, but for some reason it never seemed to make it onto 17th Shard. We asked if a shardblade or Nightblood could be used as a hemalurgic spike (i.e.: two different investitures of magic). Brandon said that yes, in theory you could do that, but objects have a limit to how much investiture they can hold, and that it could be argued that things like Nightblood and Shardblades are already "full."
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Hi --
Long time lurker, first time poster.
While at Dragon*Con, during Magic:tG with Brandon, I was able to get an answer to one of the question on the big list of questions.
Here is the question:
Why are invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?
His answer was complex, I took notes, but didn't get recorded audio. I am going to try to explain as best as my notes and memory support.
There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.
1.) The ability to push/pull an invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the investiture
2.) Further, invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that A hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.
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This further explains why Vin required more than normal power to push/pull the metalminds from the Lord Ruler, because of their proximity to his soul, via the Spiritual Realm.
3.) The amount of investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.
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Brandon said that theoretically you can push/pull Shardblades and Shardplates but you would need to wield an incredible amount of power. One example he gave that could so such as a thing is that if you were a Mistborn wielding the full power of the Well of Ascension, you could push/pull Shardblades/plate
I hope everyone enjoys the question I got to ask.
Thanks,
Trae
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A coinshot able to store weight can, as you showed us with Wax push in a ridiculously powerful manner, as the weight/mass is the largest factor wich controls the push strength.
I'm wondering if the same can be done with soothing(or rioting). If you where to increase your identity, that may/should increase your emotional imprint(or whatever you might call it), would your soothings/riotings become wastly more powerful in a simular way as weight makes steelpushing more powerful?
And if it does, is this how the lord ruler improved his Soothing in such a spectacular fasion?
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All of the keeps in the Mistborn series are based on real structures I've visited. The mists are based on a trip to Idaho, were I drove through a fog bank at high speeds.
Warbreaker's setting was inspired, in part, by a visit to Hawaii.
Much of Roshar is inspired by tidal pools and coral reefs.
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And now some magic mechanics questions:
1) What benefit does compounding copper get? Exceptionally clear and detailed memories? Memories that can be split into a new coppermind while still remaining in the feruchemists mind? Something else?
2) How does Feruchemical luck work? If a chromium compounder tried his hand at day trading on the stock market, what would happen? Would it make him choose stocks that were coincidentally going to go up anyway? Would it change stock prices by altering the world around him? Would it fail because the required scale of action is too large? Something else?
3) This might have been specified in the books, I don't remember, but does Duralumin expend itself as well as the metal it's used with? If it does, I've got this theory that its effect is actually just to cause a regular flare, not a superflare, but it affects itself in a feedback loop that keeps forcing the flare higher until it runs out.
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Sure.
BOOKS YOU WILL SEE SOON: (The books that are done.)
AMOL: January
The Rithmatist (once named Scribbler): Summer 2013
Steelheart: Fall 2013 or spring 2014.
BOOKS YOU WILL SEE SOMEWHAT SOON: (Working on right now.)
Stormlight 2: Hopefully Fall 2013.
Shadows of Self (New Wax and Wayne): 2014
OTHER:
Alcatraz 5: I own the rights again now, and hope to write this book sometime in the near future.
Stormlight 3: Goal is to write this soon after Stormlight 2
Steelheart and Rithmatist Sequels: I will probably try to do one of each of these between Stormlight 2 and 3.
MAYBE MAYBE:
Elantris 2: I'd still love to do a sequel for 2015, the 10th anniversary of the book's release.
Warbreaker 2: Long ways off.
STALLED PROJECTS
Dark One: Unlikely any time soon.
The King's Necromancer: Unlikely any time soon.
I Hate Dragons: Unlikely any time soon.
Death By Pizza: Turned out mediocre. Won't be released anytime soon.
The Silence Divine: Will be written someday.
White Sand: Will be written someday.
Mistborn modern trilogy: Will be written during the gap between Stormlight 5 and 6.
The Liar of Partinel Didn't turn out well. Scraped.
Dragonsteel: Won't be written until Stormlight is done.
Not a lot of changes from back then, except that Steelheart got finished and Rithmatist got a release date for certain.
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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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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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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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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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I enjoy Way of Kings, it seems like that’s the one where everyone’s coming together. I was reading online about Galladon and Demoux being in it. I enjoyed that. Is that going to happen more often?
In that book- that series, yes. There will be more crossover. It’s kinda one of the core stories, along with the things happening on the Mistborn world and things like that. And so, there’s going to be a lot more crossover. Most of it’s still kind of subtle stuff, but if you keep your eyes open there’ll be some real zingers in the next two books.
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Just wanted to ask how you come up with all your different universes?
You know, it’s hard to say where specifically where they come from. You can point to certain ones and say, Mistborn, Mistborn came from me driving through a fog bank at 80 miles an hour and saying, “Wow that looks cool, can I use that?” And you can point at Warbreaker with me saying, “I’ve done this whole world of ash and I need to do something colorful, let’s build a color based magic system.” Way of Kings is definitely influenced by tidal pools and things like that. And so, each one’s different, it’s just things I see that I think will make interesting stories and settings.
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So, this is a question expanding on the whole gardener versus architect thing.
Uh huh.
You say that you're an architect.
Yes.
Now that—not a Wheel of Time question, actually—but your non Wheel of Time works have this whole meta world connecting them, the shard worlds and the sixteen shards and stuff. Where do you think you're going to go with that now that you . . . ?
Oh, I can tell you where I'm going to go with that. I'm not sure how much I can say. For those who don't know, my epics are all connected. There are continuing characters through Elantris into Mistborn into Warbreaker into Way of Kings. It's a behind the scenes sort of thing—it's not something . . . you don't need to read them in order. It's not something you need to know in order to read one of the books. But there are continuing characters.
And I have a grand arc for what is going on. It has to do with my original pitch to my editor on the Mistborn trilogy, which was actually a trilogy of trilogies. Way back in 2005 when I told him about it, I wanted to do three trilogies: one past, one present, one future. And I wanted to do an epic fantasy trilogy, which really explored kind of mythology and magic. And then a modern day trilogy, in which the epic fantasy had become the foundations of myth and religion for a trilogy set in about a 1980s level technology. And then I wanted to do a far future science fiction, in which the magic which had gone through all of the other books became the means by which space exploration became possible and the foundation of technology, particularly faster than light technology. And so that is a core spine of the greater story that I'm telling.
I love Wheel of Time, but please do that, too. That sounds amazing.
[laughter]
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Actually, similar question, though slightly broader scope. So Robert Jordan . . . well, I should say the Wheel of Time computer game came out mid 90s. I personally wasn't too fond of it, but I'm hoping that other computer games and things like that based on that world will come out. Any plans for that, is signed publishing . . .
The game rights . . . Well, forgive me, I think they're doing business as Manetheren. They were Red Eagle. It's the same people. It's just a change of the moniker. And they're working on it
.You know that . . . we haven't heard any press about it. Is there any details available on the net?
I don't know.
Not that we know. No major movement right now.
And last, when's your Mistborn computer game scheduled to come out?
Mistborn we pushed back until 2014 because we worried that we don't have specifics about the potential new console releases in 2013, and we figured we would rather be . . . A lot of you are like, hmm, I can't say anything. [laughter] We figured we would rather be a newer title on the new consoles than a title that got lost in the shuffle of all the hype about a potential 720 or things like that.
Sound reasonable. Thank you.
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What character of yours would be a great addition to Game of Thrones?
Ha! I don't know if I hate any of my characters enough to do that to them! What interesting questions you have! I think Kelsier from Mistborn would probably fit in the best. Not a lot of people pick up on this, but Kelsier is actually a psychopath. He likes to kill people. He takes pleasure and joy in it. He only lets this side of himself out once in a while, but there are points in the book where he takes down a nobleman, and he's just gleeful about the ability and the chance to do it.
In the Mistborn world, he's a hero because the people Kelsier is killing are oppressors. Part of the fun of writing him was the idea that in another story, if things had gone differently, he'd be the villain. But in this story, Kelsier is the hero, and it's because he's able to channel his being a psychopath into a noble cause, but still, there's a danger behind Kelsier's eyes that might let him survive in Westeros better than a lot of my other characters.
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Was the Lord Ruler using feruchemy + alchemy to soothe all of the people around him? Or was he, as I like to think, flaring for so long that he became a Soother Savant?
He lived long enough and used his metals enough (particularly Soothing) to become nearly a savant in every area, if not a full savant.
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Any updates on the Mistborn video game or movie?
Movie I mentioned earlier. Video game has been moved to Next Gen, so next fall. (Hopefully.)
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The initial plan for Mistborn was three trilogies, with Alloy of Law being a spin off. With Alloy getting a sequel, has the Waxillium portion become the second trilogy?
No. The second trilogy will still happen. (As will more Wax books.)
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Given the planned length of the Stormlight Archive, is the Mistborn trilogies plan still in place at all?
Yes. Second trilogy will probably be written after Stormlight 5.
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I don't really have a question, I just want to say that the twist at the end of Well of Ascension absolutely blew my mind.
I specifically remember when Sazed noticed the Holy First Witness in the prophecy, I was surprised I hadn't made that connection myself since I remember the prophecy so well. Then I get to the end where we learn about Ruin altering text, and thought that was an amazing plot twist, and I started wondering if you'd been altering the text in the passages at the beginning of chapters, since some of them were repeated a few times. THEN I suddenly remembered that the text originally referred to the Announcer, not the Holy First Witness, and . . . my mind was blown. That was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced in any fiction I've read.
Thanks! I worked quite a lot on that one. Glad to see it worked for you.
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I remember reading you answer earlier that a person being used to charge a hemalurgic spike does not necessarily have to die. Would that victim be similar to a Drab from Warbreaker?
Well, making a spike rips off a piece of someone's soul. So...yeah. I'd need to see my exact quote from before, but let's say it's not going to leave a person in good shape.
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If someone broke a coppermind, could the feruchemist still access a fragment of the information in it from a chunk of the coppermind, or would he require that the whole thing be reformed to access any of its storage?
The information would be fragmented.
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I've got a non-Brandon-specific question. I just happened to think about one thing about authors: When do you decide if the character is male or female?
1. Did it happen to one of your characters that you changed the gender pretty late?
2. What is important when choosing the gender?
3. So why did you make Vin female and not male, for example? Is it much easier to write a male character as a male?
Personally, I don't like books where a woman is very physically strong. I don't know, I'm strange. gotta admit I stopped reading Mistborn after the first book due to it. As I said, I'm strange...Still love your books and I never was looking forward to a book as much as I am looking for followup of Way of Kings. (Not even Harry Potter LOL!)
1. Vin, in Mistborn, started as a boy. I wrote about one chapter of Mistborn with her as a guy, then changed. However, another character by that name had existed in one of my unpublished books as a boy.
2. This is hard to answer, as characters are very organic things for me. I don't plan them nearly as much as I do plots or settings. I go with my gut when writing them. I can't say why some "feel" right as male and other "feel" right as female. I write it and see if it works. If their voice is right, I go with it.
3. As mentioned, Vin swapped genders. It had to do with my writing instincts, her dynamic with the other characters, her backstory, and just WHO she is. I'm sorry that I'm not being very specific. Characters are hard to explain.
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Have you ever thought about a television/film/video game adaptation of the Mistborn series? I always thought that a television series would be great or a video game in which you could actually push/pull off metal within an open world. What are your feelings in general on adapting your/other's books for a different medium?
We're working on both a film and a video game for Mistborn. I think Mistborn would be better as a film, as opposed to a TV show, personally.
I've approached these things with optimism, but have tried to retain what rights and control I can to keep the adaptation from becoming a disaster.
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Pre-Hero of Ages, was the human population of Scadrial located only within the Final Empire? Were there people living beyond the lands of the Lord Ruler? If so, what happened to them?
The southern continent of Scadrial is inhabited. It still is. No contact has yet been made.
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Will the Mistborn RPG have hints towards the seventeenth shard and whatever secret story that your building to?
Very small hints. I've purposefully kept most of them out.
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Finally, looking at the Future Mistborn Trilogy, what role will the "gods" play in that? The "gods" played a massive role in the original series, being a main character. However, seeing how the Mistborn world's god is no longer a destructive force, what will be the new threat to their world? Themselves, the seventeenth shard, or more likely, Odium himself?
The current Wax/Wayne books will be smaller-scale Man vs Man type stories. The second trilogy will deal with something larger, but giving away too much now would be to reveal my hand.
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Hope I'm not too late! This question does contain spoilers for the first Mistborn book. I'm electronically inept to a degree so that's all the warning anyone will get.... Seriously, though.
Did you intend for the reader to almost believe Kelsier would come back to life... or was I just sort of crazy?
Yes, I did. And whether he is completely gone or not is actually something I want to be more nebulous than many people think it is.
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Inquisitors knowing how to Compound: some may have figured it out at some point. I got the impression it was not a technique the Lord Ruler taught them.
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As much as I know I'll enjoy every single book listed there, I'm a bit curious what (if anything) is happening with the "modern" and "future" trilogies in the Mistborn universe. Are those still planned? Have they been put into a "not until the Cosmere is far more well-established" category?
I decided that, while doing Stormlight, I wanted to stay away from other "in-depth" series. The second Mistborn trilogy is very involved, and will require memory between books for all of the hints, plotting, and twists to make sense. (Much like the first trilogy and Stormlight.) Therefore, I am keeping to series like Wax and Wayne or Steelheart, where each book stands better on its own, and doesn't evoke a "I have to re-read each time to catch up to the new one" mentality.
Once I finish the bottom five Stormlight books, which form a complete arc of their own, I will jump over and do the modern Mistborn cycle.
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Sazed's two Shards do not "cancel out", as Brandon said that it would like being pulled by two huge gravitational tides. You can get to a way that you aren't instantly ripped apart, but that doesn't mean you don't feel it. EDIT: When asked what effect the Shards would have on Sazed, Brandon said, "Read Alloy of Law to find out".
652
Sazed is a Shard. Just like a king of two countries is still a king, a holder of two Shards is a Shard.
653
We asked some questions about the Lord Ruler, like if he knew about chromium and nicrosil. Brandon said he knew about those metals, and then also said "The Lord Ruler knew a lot of things that no one knows." All right then.
654
I continued to ask about the Lord Ruler and his Allomantic strength. There's an upper bound to the amount of power you can get from being a savant. Brandon said that, obviously, the Lord Ruler wasn't using duralumin and Elend could only get that powerful in Soothing using duralumin. He implied that there was a way to Compound to enhance Allomancy. (Note, we have discussed this on the forums a while back. This isn't news.)
655
We asked if it was possible to use bronze to Seek Feruchemy. He said it could be possible. If it were to happen, it was very hard, because the Inquisitors would desperately like to be able to find Feruchemists that way, and it was implied they had not discovered this power. So, it is a freaking hard technique to learn, if possible at all.
656
If you are Smoked, you can't Seek.
657
Ketchup does not exist in the Final Empire, since it is from a fruit, which are flowering plants. The Lord Ruler did not engineer fruit. Mostly people eat vegetables and roots.
Oddly, there are references to fruit in Mistborn: The Final Empire. It is not known if this is merely a case of early-installment weirdness, or something else.
658
For people really into the obscure workings of the politics of the Final Empire, we asked about the legality of assassinations. It turns out that you have to ask the obligators' permission to assassinate someone--and permission, of course, means bribe in this context. The Steel Ministry can say yes or no. Presumably more high level people would cost more money to be killed. Of course, if the Ministry says no, you can always risk it and assassinate illegally, but you'd have to be very careful not to get caught. Even with legal killings you need to keep things quiet. Brandon said the Steel Ministry has much more corruption than governments in our world. Corruption which we would abhor is commonplace in the Final Empire.
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Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, but it's probably easier to just Compound.
661
Feruchemy is about multipliers. The more the Lord Ruler aged, the less "multiplier" he could store in his metalmind. And the more he aged the more he would need to Compound to stay alive. There could exist an upper bound to the amount of time the Lord Ruler could survive off this trick.
662
At one point, the Lord Ruler tried to quit and end the Final Empire.
663
There is a way to get a non-powered person to access a metalmind. (Presumably now, with the Mistborn RPG, we know that this may have something to do with Identity.)
664
One does not have to kill someone with Hemalurgy to charge a spike, but it rips off a large part of the soul. The person would not be the same.
665
As it turns out, there is an error in the Feruchemical table when Brandon put it in Mistborn 2. If you look closely, Determination (insert metal) doesn't belong in its group. The group that it is in is obviously more physical powers. Determination was supposed to be a mental metal, and Warmth was supposed to be in that Physical group. He just made a mistake originally. But it turns out that Feruchemy obeys different rules than Allomancy, so Brandon isn't retconning it, but saying that Feruchemy works differently now. Apparently there was going to be a table of Feruchemy at the end of Alloy of Law, but it wasn't ready because Isaac kept thinking like an Allomancer. Feruchemy has its own rules (for example, Brandon confirmed that pewter does steal Feruchemical health, probably because that second group of physical Feruchemical powers are also "physical", so pewter can steal them.) Hemalurgy also obeys different rules.
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Mistborn Questions:
What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was Feruchemically charged using Allomancy?
The metal used in Allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is Feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of Feruchemical power with no Allomantic effect. The Feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything Allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and i'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular Allomancy, and the Feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.
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If someone aluminum or duralumin burned the Feruchemically charged metals, what would happen?
Basically the same thing as above, except with aluminum. Aluminum, they would just go away.
668
Does lerasium have Feruchemical and Hemalurgical powers.
Yes. Brandon will probably be getting into these, and the other metals Hemalurgical and Feruchemical powers, in greater detail in the future Mistborn Trilogies. He also will probably release full charts for these as he did with Allomancy.
669
What benefit does an aluminum savant get?
(After a short period of laughing)
Is it even possible to become an aluminum savant? You'd have to be burning aluminum consistently, and aluminum just kind of goes away in a burst.... After that, he discussed how being an aluminum Misting will likely be considered a handicap in the Mistborn RPG because you can't pick up other Allomantic abilities.
670
What do the burnlands look like?
The burnlands are the area surrounding the Final Empire area. They are liveable on the border, but as you get further and further from the final empire, they get more and more barren until eventually nothing can survive. Basically a really large desert. Brandon also mentioned that some koloss live there, because they can survive, and some humans live on the border. These humans actually have some technology that the Final Empire did not, because they needed it to survive, and/or because they were far enough from the oppression of the Lord Ruler to develop new things. Because of this, the border of the burnlands would actually be a good setting for a game.
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Where do the mists go in the day, why do they just disappear?
The mists are kind of like the physical manifestation of Preservation's power. During the day, the power is still there, but the mists that accompany them during the night are burned away by the sun. So really, it's more that they are somehow linked to Preservations power, and come out at night with the power, but they can't stay with the power during the day because of the sun.
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Before the Ascension, why did the mists appear just as the Well was gaining power? Did they come out at other times?
This one is trickier. From what I got out of it, it's because the mists are a manifestaion of Preservation, and physical manifestations of Preservation (including Allomancers) are intended to do two things - stop Ruin, and protect the Well of Ascension. Which are kind of the same thing. So, when the Well was dormant, the mists didn't really have much to do. The Deepness form of the mists is a result of the conscious part of Preservation freaking out and trying to produce a way to protect the well, mostly by producing more Allomancers. That's why the mists do all the funky things in the Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages - they're trying to produce more Allomancers to combat Ruin.
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Why did the mist sickness only happen after the Lord Ruler's death?
It didn't. It just happened on a much smaller scale. As you remember, the Lord Ruler basically meant stagnation. Because it seemed the Lord Ruler would be taking the power again (as was intended, and as apparently had been done many times before), and because of the extreme stability of the Final Empire, Preservation (though it really only had a shadow of it's mind left) wasn't as freaked out. After the LR died, Preservation began to attempt to create more Allomancers for the reasons mentioned in question 7. It also left clues, such as the number 16 everywhere, so that people would know it was Preservation doing it, and not just random chance, or ruin. Turns out that that didn't work so well.
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The second mistborn trilogy: Takes place in an urban setting with guns, cars, skyscrapers, etc. Plot will center around a group of Allomancers paid by the government to take out Allomancer criminals and will involve a mistborn (which is rare at this time) serial killer.
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Over-arching thing with the Shards of Andonalsium: Brandon told me tonight that he actually has a chart/list thing with all of the books that he's planned in the shards universe. His exact words were something about having an arch over thirty-six books involving the shards of Andonalsium. Which makes me wonder if we're going to get some of the story about Andonalsium. He also said that there were only a few lines in each book to give us clues. Apparently there's something in the HoA, but I didn't notice anything when I read through it. Of course, I wasn't looking for it. He mentioned that there were 36, or possibly 38 (he couldn't remember which) books that would be in this universe. They included all of the Mistborn books (all 3 trilogies), all of the Stormlight Chronicle, all of Dragonsteel, Elantris, Warbreaker, White Sands, the other book that I mentioned but can't remember the title of, and others. I'm excited.
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If you make a Feruchemical storage and you burn it, can you put the excess back into a Feruchemical storage?
Yes.
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People will be making your books into movies soon, right?
I’m hoping, we’re trying.
Which one first?
Mistborn, we’re working very hard to try and get it made. I can’t promise but we’re trying.
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Who do you want to be like Vin and Elend?
I don’t really cast people in my head. And so I would rather let the director decide that and the casting director and things. It’s not one of my things, is to cast people.
For a while, I really- I was kind of hopeful for Ellen Page, but I don’t think that’s viable now, I think that she’s too old now.
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When is the timeline for the sequel to Alloy of Law?
Sequel for Alloy of Law? Probably not next year but the year after. I’m pretty dominated by finishing the second Stormlight book right now. So once I do that, then things will open up a little bit more for what I might do. I do actually have half a sequel for Alloy of Law written but I don’t have time to finish it right now.
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In Well of Ascension, there are two strange "voice in the head" experiences. One of them is with Sazed and Marsh are fighting, and Sazed realizes that he can burn the metal rings that are now in his stomach. But the other one is with Elend, when a voice comes, and he’s not sure where it comes from. It says something like "If you have a dagger, the only way to win is to go in for the kill"
That one, where it came from, is – I know what you are searching for, but it’s actually just an old (something) from weapons training. He’s just dredging- he’s not sure where it came from because he never thought he would need any of it, he thought he was just going to be a scholar. But his father did have him trained in weapons, so it’s just instinct that he got from one of his old mentors in fighting.
So there’s nothing to see there, so no, he’s not (something).
Okay. We were just wondering if it was Preservation, or Kelsier.
Nope. Unfortunately, no. I do that on occasion, but this time...
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Okay, give me another one. We’re way over five now.
True. (Although it’s not! Haha!) Why did OreSeur signup for Kelsier’s plan. Was he forced to because of his contract? Or did he actually want to do it?
All kandra want to be back in the Homeland. That said, OreSeur, he as a kandra, likes challenges, and was a real method kandra, a lot of them are, but he truly was. And you can see that in him. So for him, the contract and the role he plays.
Are more important than what he actually wants.
Yeah. Even though he had spent all this time doing this stuff. So he was part of it, but for him, his role was being this person. If I may.
That’s interesting.
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Is there some reason why both Vin and Kelsier are half-skaa, half-noble, both natural Allomancers, both end up overthrowing the Lord Ruler, and have siblings that are seekers.
Both were heavily influenced by Ruin in doing what they were doing. So there is a connection there, maybe not the one you’re looking for, but Ruin was looking for talented Mistborn that were easy to manipulate and talented Mistborn tend to come from talented Mistborn lines, and so Ruin is looking for that, and they both end up fitting that role. And the thing is, is that the half breeds ended up being easier for him to manipulate and easier lost in the shuffle of things, so they weren't paid attention to as much by the ministry, because the ministry didn't know about them.
So it's mostly coincidental for what Ruin's trying to achieve.
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A question that has it’s roots in Dragonsteel. When Ruin changes words, is he actually changing words,or is he changing what people see?
Did we canonize this question Peter? I’m pretty sure we did. I thought we answered this one already.(It’s not in our records if he did)
Let’s just say that most of the time, Ruin was searching for a place to transition, where he could change what was being trans-transcribed. Or what was being heard, or what was being said.
That’s pretty interesting.
So the easiest time for him is when a scribe is writing in a new book, he’s copying a new book down, and he just pops in and changes the words.
Okay. That makes sense.
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Oh! Did Ati- We see Elend and Vin in that kind of holding pattern with Sazed at the end, did Ati perish? Or did he also stay in the holding pattern?
Ati perished. He is gone.
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You snake. I just finished Hero of Ages, and come to find out I'll never know the last 2 metals. Grr.
Cadmium and Bendalloy are what you're looking for. They create bubbles of warped time around the Allomancer. I will be doing more books in the world, though not with the same characters, and you'll see the other metals.
Wow, I was just trying to josh with you man. Thanks for the info, though, I definitely look forward to more of your work.
Edit: I guess while I've got you, I'll tell you this: Mistborn was one of a very few books in the last few years to actually surprise me. Kelsier's arc completely came out of left field. I read a lot of fantasy. Enough that it's extremely rare for a book to really catch me off guard like that. For that, you have my thanks.
Thanks.
I've heard you say that you were going to make more books set in the same world since I first started reading your books.
But my question is "when?"
I am dying to see what you have in store.
Well, it just so happens that I have a new Mistborn book coming out this fall. 300 years after the end of the last book, set in a roughly 1910ish tech level. Guns, trains, beginnings of the mass-use of electricity. And Allomancers. November this year.
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You mentioned that one of your most popular series is the Mistborn trilogy. How did those books come about?
The evolution of a novel is such a complicated, complex, and strange creative process that it's hard to step people through it. I don't think even I can fully comprehend it. But by the time I was writing the Mistborn books, I was in a different situation with my career. I'd sold Elantris by that point and the publisher was saying, "We want something else from you." Rather than taking one of the thirteen books that I'd written before, I wanted to write something new. I wanted to give people my newest and best work. At that point I had time to sit down and ask myself, "What do I want to be the hallmark of my career? What am I going to add to the genre?" I want to write fantasy that takes steps forward and lets me take the genre in some interesting direction. At first I wanted to play with some of the stereotypes of the genre. That's a dangerous thing, though, because, as any deconstructionalist will tell you, when you start playing with stereotypes, you start relying on something that you want to undermine, and that puts you on shaky ground. I was in danger of just becoming another cliché. A lot of times when people want to twist something in a new way, they don't twist it enough and end up becoming part of the cliché that they were trying to redefine. But I really did want to try this and went forward with it anyway.
A lot of fantasy relies heavily on the Campbellian Monomyth. This is the idea focusing on the hero's journey. Since the early days of fantasy, it's been a big part of the storytelling, and in my opinion it's become a little bit overused. The hero's journey is important as a description of what works in our minds as people—why we tell the stories we do. But when you take the hero's journey and say, "I'm going to make this a checklist of things I need to do to write a great fantasy novel," your story goes stale. You start to mimic rather than create. Because I'd seen a lot of that, I felt that one of the things I really wanted to do was to try to turn the hero's journey on its head. I had been looking at the Lord of the Rings movies and the Lord of the Rings books and the Harry Potter books, and I felt that because of their popularity and success, a lot of people were going to be using this paradigm even more—the unknown protagonist with a heart of gold and some noble heritage who goes on a quest to defeat the dark lord. So I thought to myself, "What if the dark lord won? What if Frodo got to the end in Lord of the Rings and Sauron said, 'Thanks for bringing my ring back. I really was looking for it,' and then killed him and took over the world? What if book seven of Harry Potter was Voldemort defeating Harry and winning?" I didn't feel that this story had ever really been approached in the way I was imagining it, and it became one idea that bounced around in my head for quite a while.
Another idea I had revolved around my love of the classic heist genre. Whether it's Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery or the movies Ocean's Eleven and The Italian Job, there are these great stories that deal with a gang of specialists who are trying to pull off the ultimate heist. This is the kind of feat which requires them to all work together and use their talents. I hadn't ever read a fantasy book that dealt with that idea in a way that satisfied me or that really felt like it got it down. So that bounced in my head for a while as well.
One more of the ideas for the Mistborn series happened when I was driving home to see my mom. She lives in Idaho Falls, and after passing Tremonton on the I-15, I just went through this fog bank driving at seventy miles an hour. Even though my car was actually driving into the fog, it looked like the mist was moving around me instead of me moving through it. It was just this great image that I wrote down in my notebook years before I ended up writing Mistborn.
After a while, all these different ideas, like atoms, were bouncing around in my head and eventually started to run together to form molecules (the molecules being the story). Keep in mind, a good book is more than just one good idea. A good book is twelve or thirteen or fourteen great ideas that all play off of each other in ways that create even better ideas. There were my two original ideas—a gang of thieves in a fantasy world, and a story where the dark lord won—that ended up coming together and becoming the same story. Suddenly I had a world where the prophecies were wrong, the hero had failed, and a thousand years later a gang of thieves says, "Well, let's try this our way. Let's rob the dark lord silly and drive his armies away from him. Let's try to overthrow the empire." These are all the seeds of things that make bigger ideas.
After I outlined the book, it turned out to be quite bit longer than I expected, and I then began working through those parts that weren't fully developed yet, changing some things. I ended up downplaying the heist story in the final version of the book, despite the fact that it was a heist novel in one of my original concepts. But as I was writing it, I felt that if I was going to make it into a trilogy, I needed the story to have more of an epic scope. The heist was still there, and still the important part of the book, but it kind of became the setting for other, bigger things in the story, such as the epic coming-of-age of one of the characters, the interactions between the characters, and dealing with the rise and fall of the empire. But that happens in the process of writing. Sometimes the things that inspire you to begin a story in the first place eventually end up being the ones that are holding it back. Allomancy, the magic system in the book, was a separate idea that came about through these revisions.
I wrote the books in the trilogy straight through. I had the third one rough drafted by the time the first one had to be in its final form so that I could keep everything consistent and working together the way I wanted it to. I didn't want it to feel like I was just making it up as I went along, which I feel is one of the strengths of the series. I don't know if I'll ever be able to have that opportunity again in a series, but it certainly worked well for the Mistborn books.
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Brandon Sanderson announces Infinity Blade: Redemption
I wonder which of the BSBs (Brandon Sanderson Bots) wrote this one? I'd guess it was BSB_04, since I'm pretty sure the current situation is:
BSB_01 is focused on Words Of Radiance
BSB_02 is working on Firefight (Steelheart sequel)
BSB_03 is prepping the Rithmatist sequel
BSB_04 is prepping Shadows of Self (next Mistborn)
BSB_05 is handling the promotional events
BSB_06 handles the Writing Excuses stuff
BSB_07 does M:TG/fathering
Seriously, how the hell does he do all of this?!
You forgot BSB-8: The Reddit bot.
Actually, this was my breather short piece between Words of Radiance (rough draft) and diving into Firefight and the WoR 2nd draft. I'm really feeling like I could use a few more bots, these days. The promotional events side of things has been killer.
I do have to say that these two Infinity Blade shorts have been quite fun to do. They've been my first chance to dive into something video game related, which is another entire world of writing. I plan to write the Mistborn video game when we finally get around to doing the thing, and getting some first-hand experience with the backend of video gaming has been wonderful.
So much awesomeness at once. Please don't burn out though! We want you to keep making books in the years to come too.
Also, we'll keep bying your books, so you don't need all that promoting ;)
Well, promotion for someone like me is more about going out and saying "Thank you" than it is about going out to encourage people to buy my books. Most of that promotion involves doing booksignings or conventions, which I do explicitly to meet with readers. (Without whom, I'd never have been able to do what I've done.)
The problem comes in saying yes to a full slate of conventions, then having two publishers decide to release three of my books this year. (When I had no book releases last year.) That added a heap of publicity onto my slate. Next year should go back to a more normal schedule.
Well, I can't pretend to be sorry for getting several books out of you this year, but it does sound like a monumental task.
Some of us really appreciate you interacting with your fans here, so thank you. That being said, I really prefer reading works that came completely from your own imagination than that of someone else.
I understand this, and don't worry—I don't plan to do a lot of this. At the same time, working within confines like these offer me a chance to flex different kinds of writing muscles, ones which I'd like to practice using. I plan to take these kinds of projects sparingly. However, if I'm going to dabble in video games, I figure I should gain some experience with the medium before I tackle something like Mistborn.
Are you tempted to write some content for an RPG like Patrick Rothfuss is doing for Torment? Love the books by the way.
The thing that would most tempt me would be doing Magic: The Gathering content, as that is my nerd obsession. I could foresee doing some kind of RPG content, however. Depends on the project and how behind on things I'm feeling.
Ha my respect for you just went up a notch. Nothing more fun then playing Magic: The Gathering with a big group of friends.
To be honest there must be versions BSB-9 and BSB-10 because you're also in those writing lectures on youtube.
I'm loving them by the way. At the start of the last years session where you started asking if anyone read Honor Harrington I literally raised my hand in front of the screen (couldn't believe more people didn't). You should assign it as a mandatory reading!
Glad you're enjoying them. Keep writing.
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A lot of your works that are stand alone novels or seemingly completed stories, you have announced or started working on sequels for. Are there any stories that you feel complete and don't need to work on the same world or characters again? Or do feel there is always some new tale to tell about every world you make?
Thanks for being involved in the reddit community so much, and for writing books I've enjoyed very much.
It's hard, because the way I plot I always have to know what happened before the book and what will happen after the book. Knowing that doesn't mean that I have to continue. It's also hard, though, to say no to fans who are so passionate about a specific project.
The Vin/Elend story is most certainly done. As is the Raoden/Sarene story, as is Siri's story from Warbreaker. So there are completed threads. There might be other stories to tell in those worlds, though, so I'll avoid closing the door on them for now. (That said, it did feel very good to finish the Wheel of Time for good, and look forward to putting some of my own works to rest in a similar way.)
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Do you think "movie potential" for your book is an important factor in the YA market?
I know this applies across the board, but many YA books are being given the book-to-movie treatment nowadays. As YA is an emerging market, it feels like many stories are lined up for their movie adaptation before they even hit the shelves.
Do you think that "movie potential" is more important for YA books? Do you think the YA market is being used as a vessel to more easily find big-bucks action movies?
I don't think that "movie potential" is more important for YA books, because movie deals are SO nebulous, and everyone in the business is very aware of that. Movie deals are often rather small, and remember, a movie deal =/= a movie, and movie deals are different from book deals in a few key ways: typically, with a book deal, you get an advance and then royalties when your advance earns out. With a movie deal, you get paid at each stage. They buy the rights; you get a small amount of money (and sometimes we're talking VERY small—like, maybe you could buy a used car small). They decide to buy a script, you get some money. They take the script into development, you get some money. They produce it, you get some money. So, movie deals CAN be lucrative—if they actually make the movie. But if they JUST buy the rights...not so much.
Now compare the number of books that have movie deals versus the number of books that are actually made into movies. Sure—there have been a lot of movies from YA books, but there are a LOT more without.
If I had the choice between just selling movie rights and selling to a larger foreign country, such as Germany or England or Brazil, I'd rather sell foreign. For most authors, foreign deals are far, far more lucrative than selling movie rights. (Exception: some high profile deals, movie rights sales that turn into movies.)
TL: DR: movie rights aren't important enough, nor are they guaranteed, to make writing a book for a movie worth it.
There ARE a lot of YA books-to-movies right now—I think this is more a reflection of the movie market, though, than the book market.
I think you are correct—that thinking of the movie potential isn't worth the effort—but for a different reason.
My experience is that the author can't do much to make film deals happen. Of the deals I've done for my books, in only one case was I able to go out and shop a property and sell it. The other four times, everyone ignored our attempts to sell the books for film—until someone came to us. My impression of Hollywood has been that they want to find it on their own, not have you go to them pitching it.
Every one of my five deals has been an option agreement. For those who aren't aware, an option is kind of like a lease on a property. You do a big deal, but the producer/studio doesn't have to pay out the entire amount at first—instead they make an option payment, which is often somewhere around 5-10% of the buyout price. That lets them reserve the rights for a period (usually 12-18 months) where you can't sell it to anyone else. They usually have two chances to renew the option, and often the option money paid is deductible from the final buyout price if they decide to exercise their option to purchase.
The vast majority of film deals I hear about from friends are deals like this, with very few films actually being made. But that doesn't mean they can't be lucrative. If the buyout is 10k and you're getting 1k every 18mo...sure, that's not much. If the buyout is 500k, and you're getting 50k every 18mo though, it can make a nice supplemental income.
However, bethrevis is right—translation deals are far more plentiful, and far more reliable. Beyond that, I'd suggest that developing a story for its film potential can draw your attention away from writing the book the way it needs to be written.
690
You're known as an epic fantasy guy. Why the change-up?
I like to do different things. It's what keeps me productive—switching projects. And usually after I've finished something big, I want to do something very different. And so I like to try different genres. Granted, the speculative aspect, the science fiction/fantasy aspect of things, is what really interests me. I basically have never written a book without some at least hint of the science fiction or fantasy element because that's what I love, so that'll show up in everything. But I also do like thrillers. And writing this book—it's been called dystopian now—I viewed it as action-adventure. Dystopian in the same way that some of the darker superhero films are dystopian.
Is it my first YA? I have another YA called The Rithmatist. This I wrote as an older middle grade novel, which is a very fine distinction that really only matters to literacy professionals, and to authors, and things like that. Middle grade ended up getting published as a young YA novel instead—the line there blurs very much. So, yes and no. I mean, Mistborn, which I'm best known for, stars a sixteen-year-old girl. That's shelved in 'adult' because there are adult characters as well, but the story's about her. So is it my first YA, is it not? I'm really honestly not sure. That's sort of a distinction I'll let the librarians and the booksellers argue over.
691
Can you elaborate on the use of atium at the end of Mistborn: The Well of Ascension?
Heh-heh-heh. Yeah, this is a pretty in-depth one. So . . . yeah. How about I send you to my annotations for that chapter, where I explain in depth on my website. I have annotations of all of my books. And in Mistborn 2, if you read the chapters through there—like I can't talk this through in the right way—and if you go look at the annotations and read those chapters, the explanation is in depth in there. And hopefully the explanation there will make better sense to you than what I can blab out off the cuff right here.
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No, being a Savant is when you burn so much it alters your spirit, Compounding is similar but different.
He might have heard the question wrong here, I don't know. I should have asked it differently. But, there goes my theory :P
694
[Impish grin]
Can I make some guesses?
Sure.
Is it Kelsier?
[Impish grin]
What does that mean?
That means I'm not going to answer that.
695
[impish grin] Ah ha ha ha. The Lord Ruler, heh heh heh, That is an excellent question.
Not going to answer?
Not going to answer that one.
Would you answer if Hoid used it for Feruchemy?
His bead? Hoid’s bead was—He originally got it because he wanted to be an Allomancer. [Note that he doesn’t actually answer the question.]
696
No, the bones are just there for the muscles to pull against.
Okay, so they don’t need it for some Spiritual link through the bones to mimic someone?
No. Good question.
Also, what would happen to a Kandra if you bisected it down the middle with half of its blessing ending up in either half?
That would be—like ripping off any other piece of it—that would be very disturbing for the Kandra. But they could reabsorb and come back together. They would not be able to function half and half, that would eventually kill them basically. They can’t like send pieces of themselves off and do things. They can be ripped apart and heal, but if you ripped them in half, that would be killing them.
697
Okay.
So, like metal inside a person’s body?
It depends on how strong the investiture in them is.
Is that going to be the answer for all of these?
Probably. :)
How about a spike charged with Hemalurgy? Not in a person.
Not in a person? It depends on how strong—yeah. A spike is moderately—in the realm of these sorts of things—moderately easy to push on, because a spike does not rip off very much investiture. Only enough to short circuit the soul, and it loses that over time. So I would put that at the bottom—with the top being very hard—to be one of the easier things.
How about a metalmind? A feruchemy metalmind that is "full."
That is going to be middle of the realm. Generally easier than, for instance, a shardblade, which is going to be very hard.
But a shardblade isn’t actual metal. Ish?
Ish. Is Lerasium a metal? Yeah.
So would that be the same for Shardplate, too?
Shardplate and blade are very hard. Blade is probably going to be harder. [...]
Halfshard? Like a halfshard shield?
Halfshard shield is going to be in moderate.
Nightblood? I imagine is going to be very difficult.
Very hard. Of all the things you’ve listed, he’s the hardest. Far beyond even a shardblade.
Far beyond metal inside a person?
Yes, depending on how invested the person is.
If someone was invested as much as Nightblood I’m pretty sure it’s going to be very difficult.
Yes, for instance, the Godking, at the end, with all of those Breaths. Pushing on something inside of him? Getting through all that? Gonna be REAL hard. Average person on Scadrial? You’ve seen how hard that is. A drab? Much easier.
That was actually going to be my next one- No, sorry, not a drab, a Lifeless.
A Lifeless. Lifeless are kinda weird, because they’ve had their soul leave, but then they’ve had a replacement stuck in, in the form of Breath, which puts them in a really weird position compared to a Drab, which has had part of their investiture ripped away, but the majority of it remains. So anyway, I’m going to give you one more. Pick your favorite.
Okay, a soul-stamped piece of metal.
A soul-stamped piece of metal is going to be on the lower, easier side. Not a lot of investiture going on in a soulstamp.
698
[Paraphrasing] That is not an inapt metaphor for it. It's like a wedge gets in the soul and cracks it, and investiture can fill it up.
And using allomancy breaks it further?
Yes.
Do other magic systems in the Cosmere function in a similar way?
Yes.
Which ones? Will we see them soon?
I'm going to have to RAFO that.
699
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Most of them are plant-based. I think I've mentioned one of the plants.
They have silk though, right?
Yes. It's called sea-silk, they grow it in the water. It comes from the coasts.
So they don't have anything like our silk, then?
If you looked at it, you would call it silk, but it is being produced in a very different way.
Our silk comes from insect cocoons, and they have a lot of that there, but they don't use it for fiber at all?
Insect cocoons on Roshar are either, they melt in water from the highstorm cycle, or they have stone in them, so they don't work really well for textiles. There are certain rockbuds you can shred the inside of the shell to get a textile, there's sea silk that grows out in the ocean, and there are other plants of a similar nature.
I was also wondering about the Steel Alphabet in the Mistborn books, each letter aesthetically looks like it's built from a cuff, a spike, and a bead, and was that intentional to reflect the magic systems?
705
Vasher misses Nightblood and feels responsible for him.
How many worldhoppers have we seen?
Oh, I haven't kept track, you've seen quite a few. There's one from Mistborn, did you catch him? I don't think people have really picked out the Terriswoman yet, who makes her way into them, but they're mostly not supposed to be noticeable yet, until you get to know them as characters and you look back and be like "oh that was that person."
Is it the Terriswoman I think it is?
I don't know which Terriswoman you think it is.
Tindwyl?
No.
Speaking of the Terriswoman, is she the nurse in Warbreaker?
< Pauses; gleefully says > RAAAAAAFO!
706
It definitely wouldn't be pleasant.
Ok, I have this steel allergy, I got it last year, and I work in a steel plant.
It would not be pleasant, but I would have the instinct that fewer people on Scadrial would have that allergy, because of the Investiture during their creation. But, it could totally happen.
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Ah ...
So I've been in contact a little bit with [something], I own a RP gamer, and they went radio silence on me.
Um, yeah. I had dinner with Matt Scott like two weeks ago, he said it's still in development, but he's like buying a game studio that was working on it, or something? He had farmed it out? I think. So I don't know.
Are you still writing?
I wrote the story for them to use. The idea was I write the story, they build the game, and come back to me for dialogue. So I have got an overarching story for them but I don't write the dialogue till we actually have a game to plug things into. That's still my plan. He's still really interested in buying the Mistborn movie option, and he says that he's working on a mobile game, so he's really awesome ... but I have nothing to tell you right now.
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Yes.
Are they bald by being bald, or do they shave their heads?
They shave their heads. Hemalurgy does not automatically make you bald.
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Well, the 1st one was The Alloy of Law, the one I read from tonight is the sequel, so there's at least two. I signed a contract with, well, I haven'’t signed anything yet. I offered Tor two more beyond The Alloy of Law; so, Shadows of Self and one more. So, I have promised Tor three of them.
So, there could be more?
I have not plotted this one. It does not have the same sort of interconnected arc as the others. It could go further. I think I would cautiously most likely do three or four and stop and if I wanted more short books like that, I'd pick different characters in a different location.
721
No, it was not.
Spook? Sounds like Spook's voice.
(smiling) It certainly doesn't sound like Marsh.
722
Hi FireOx! The three sets of symbols show the progression of the Allomantic text through the ages. The earliest script is from Hero of Ages. It was changed and modified into the Terris script symbols we see in Well of Ascension. After more time, the Terris script morphed into what is now known as the Allomantic Alphabet or the Steel Alphabet, which are the symbols used in Mistborn: The Final Empire. We've extrapolated the Steel Alphabet into a script that’s more-standardized and refined for the chapter headings in Alloy of Law, which takes place 300 years after Hero of Ages.
Thanks for the question!
723
This is the first chapter where we get to see atium work. The metal is one of the most interesting aspects of the magic system, in my opinion. In fact, one of the things that made me want to start writing MISTBORN was this idea of an extremely rare metal that gets used up by the world's mages. It felt natural to me, then, that this metal would do something very powerful.
Allomancy is, basically, a physical/combat oriented magic system. So, the spectacular power of atium would have to be something physical, and useful on a one-on-one basis. The ability to see slightly into the future, with the atium shadows, felt like a very interesting image to me, so I went with it.
In MISTBORN PRIME, the main character lacked atium—and spent most of the book trying to get ahold of it. (He actually stumbled across an atium mine hidden in a small village, which was being oppressed by a tyrant.) It is a small nod to the original book that I developed the plot of this one to be characters trying, essentially, to get ahold of some atium.
Just a lot more of it.
724
The epigrams in this section of the book should look familiar. Not because you've read them before, but because—assuming you have any familiarity with fantasy—you've read this kind of story before. The young peasant hero who rises up to fight the dark evil. I suspect that the jacket flap, if you've read it, gives away much of this storyline. This is one of the foundational concepts for the book, however. I've read too many stories about young peasant boys who save the world. I wanted to tell one about a world where the prophesied here came, then failed!
This concept, of course, evolved. The original idea was for the Dark Lord to defeat the peasant boy. Instead, however, I found the concept of the peasant boy becoming the dark lord more interesting.
725
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Originally, the nobleman Kelsier met with was Lord Hasting. This was the only place he appeared in the book. I decided in a rewrite to introduce Elend's father here instead, since he's a character we'll see much more from.
I also strengthened Straff in this scene. Before, he came off too weak as he bought the lies Kelsier told him. (Which, by the way, I've weakened. I realized that spreading too many falsehoods would be dangerous, and not really effective. Kelsier needs to whisper half-truths, rather than outright lies.)
727
I worry a little bit about this chapter. The problem is, it's probably one of the chapters that has undergone the most revisions. Not in a "Fix problems" way—more in a "I need to add scenes to the book. Where shall I put them" kind of way.
For instance, the beginning has a few paragraphs that—looking at them now—I think drag on a bit. The reiteration of Vin's relationship with Shan, for instance. I put it in because I need to indicate that time has passed, and that Vin's relationships have continued, but I worry that I spent too much time on it at the beginning of the scene. Next, I added another scene showing skaa life (the one with children shaking the trees) in order to remind the reader of how bad things are. Then, later on, I changed the book to have canal convoys rather than caravans. So, this chapter got some more revisions. Then, I added a lot to the scene with Marsh, including Vin's discussion of her mother.
All in all, it feels like a hodge-podge chapter to me. A lot of important information is explained, but it doesn't fit together as well as I might have wanted. The rhythm of the chapter is just a little... off.
728
You can thank my editor Moshe for the canals in this book. He's a bit of a canal buff, and when he had read through MISTBORN, he excitedly explained to me how canal technology was just perfect for the level of development I had in this book. So, at his suggestion, I changed caravans into convoys, and swapped horses for longboats.
I really like the change. It gets boring seeing, reading, or writing the same old things. So, by getting rid of one standard fantasy element—highways and horses—I think we add something very distinctive to the world.
Moshe, though. Man. He knows TOO much about this stuff.
729
Originally, I started this chapter by going right into the logbook excerpt. Then, I realized that I had logbook excerpts before and after the chapter heading—which made things confusing. So, I added in the quick sentence about what Kelsier was doing.
This is our first chance to see the text of the logbook collected in a longer form. I don't repeat all of the chapter epigraphs in-text—just some of the more essential ones. Partially, this is to make certain everyone who's been skipping the epigraphs has some of that information, and partially it's so that those of you who HAVE been reading the epigraphs can see some greater context for their order and flow.
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1. What's the schedule on when Reckoners parts 2 and 3 be released?
2. What are your plans for the Mistborn universe? More specific, will there be a sequel to The Alloy of Law? Will there be Mistborn books taking place in a further future society, with respect to Alloy of Law?
1) Two is in January. Three hasn't been set yet. We'll see when I finish it.
2) Yes, there will be a sequel, probably next fall. And yes, we will eventually go further into the future.
732
In Well of Ascension, it mentions that the language of Terris had a gender neutral pronoun. If you actually constructed the language, what was that pronoun? Or did you just leave it as its English translation of "it"?
I didn't spend a long time on the languages in Scadrial, since most people were speaking the same tongue. I just used "it" in my own writings. Roshar has a lot more detail on the languages, because culture-clash is a bigger part of the theme of the series.
733
What is the term for a full Feruchemist who is also a Mistborn?
Can "modern"(as in: Adolin's) Shardplate be summoned similar to how "dead" Shardblades (as in: Oathbringer) can be?
They use Full Feruchemist right now. We'll see if it develops into something else.
RAFO.
734
Hi Brandon! I'm curious if you have an update on Mistborn: Birthright or any potential happenings with the Mistborn film rights?
I'm afraid there are no major updates to either right now. :(
735
When are we first getting a look at the Cosmere coming together?
The third Mistborn trilogy is going to involve-it's the first one I planned to do a lot with. I doubt I will do much in the second Mistborn trilogy, more than I probably have done [so far]. It's fun for me, so I'll keep including things in. You'll notice that Hoid is a bigger part of the Stormlight than previous ones, but I still don't want it to come to the forefront quite yet.
736
Ok so would Rashek still have had powers [because he was a Sliver]?
He would have had some residual effects. But it also works the soul in weird ways, like a balloon that has been deflated.
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Well, you see those two were not really metals. Those were pieces, fragments, of a god.
I thought that might be it but the symbols are the same above them from-- the atium symbol is the same as--
No, it's a different symbol, it might be reversed though.
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Yeah November next year.
Is that one going to be a trilogy as well? Or just two books?
It's probably four.
Oh four, okay, wow.
But it depends, that's what I've plotted right now. But it depends on how long it takes me to write The Stormlight Archive, because I want to do them in between Stormlight Archive books.
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How what?
How Jazz could develop on Scadrial.
Jazz? Okay.
[audio obscured] Would it be appropriate to compare the Steel Ministry to the Catholic Church? Not so much in doctrine but...
Sure, that would be appropriate. I mean when I'm writing Alloy of Law era they are only hitting big band stuff.
That's what I figured.
Their music would lag behind ours.
'Cause big band stuff started around the 1920's
There not even quite there yet. In the second or the third... anyway one of the Alloy books Wax hears someone and they've added to a band brass and he's like "that's not right" he's expecting violin concertos or a pianoforte and he's hearing brass.
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Originally, you may be amused to hear, I was going to have Vin go on this trip with Yeden, with Kelsier staying behind. I even wrote about half of the 'leave for the caves' scene with Kelsier telling Vin he's going to send her with Yeden.
I'm still not sure what I was thinking.
Fortunately, I came to my senses, and I quickly reworked the scene. Vin had to stay in Luthadel—she's go too much to do there. But, I did want to get a chance to look over the army, so I sent Kelsier instead. It worked out very well, as I was able to do some other things—such as have Kelsier show off for the troops.
However, I didn't want to spend TOO long out here. When Vin had been the one coming to the caves, I'd planned two or three chapters. When it became Kelsier, I knew I wanted to shrink it to one chapter. So, that's why we get the kind of weird 'time passes' omniscient bit at the beginning of the second section.
746
One final note for this chapter. Bilg. I prefer him dead. (This is the guy Demoux fought at the end of the chapter, with Kelsier's help.)
In the original draft of the book, I had Kelsier—through Demoux—kill Bilg in the duel. I thought this was appropriate, and would be the sort of thing that Kelsier would do. In addition, I really wanted to emphasize the ruthless edge that Kelsier has. He is willing to do whatever he has to in order to see that his goals are achieved. It's that conflict—the happy, joking Kelsier mixed with the hard, ruthless rebel leader—that makes him interesting to me.
Joshua was the big complainer on this one. He felt that my books are too optimistic for something THIS harsh to be done by one of the main characters. He felt that readers wouldn't go along with it—indeed, it was one of the main points that my alpha readers brought up. Some liked it, others hated it. The scene did it's job.
Eventually, I went with Joshua's suggestion, however, and left Bilg alive. To me, this kind of castrates the scene. However, I suppose the most important elements still get across, and Kelsier gets to remain less tarnished a hero.
Still, I would have liked the death to remain, if only for the future books. I'll eventually post this scene as a deleted scene from the book.
747
Feruchemy. Some like the word, others aren't as happy with it. It used to be called Hemalurgy, but I decided that would be a better word for the third magic system in the series. (You'll see it eventually.)
Feruchemy (not called that, however) was a magic system I lifted from FINAL EMPIRE PRIME, a book I wrote some years before I wrote this book. I had a person who could store up attributes, such as strength, then use them when he needed them. The thing is, the magic wasn't really that well formed, and this character never got any viewpoints, so I didn't get to use the magic as often as I wanted.
When I was developing this world, I knew I wanted the Keepers to have the fantastic memories. I realized that Feruchemy would make the perfect magic system for Sazed and his people. When I decided that I could use metals as a focus for this magic system (something that made it much more interesting, because it put a definable limit on what could be stored and how much of it could be stored) I knew I had something really good.
I like to use multiple magic systems in books, but I like it when they all have common elements. Feruchemy and Allomancy are like different aspects of the same concept. They both do some similar—yet different—things. There will be a lot more about this in the text.
748
Ham's family makes no appearance in this book. I added this line in on a whim, since I figured it would add some more depth to a character who—unfortunately—I just don't have much time to develop.
I am happy, however, that I found a chance to spend some time with Dox. The scene between him and Vin is one of my favorites in the book, since it humanizes him while at the same time giving us further insight as to who he is, and why he does what he does. Dockson feels the same way about things that Kelsier does; Dox is just far more subdued in the way he goes about life.
This aspect of the world—the fact that noblemen regularly rape, then kill, peasant women—is the most discomforting to me. I don't like my books to be overly sexual in nature. However, there is a difference between having sexual books and having sex in the books, I think. This is a very corrupt and fallen society, in many ways. I think I had to include this aspect to show just how terrible it is.
In addition, I wanted this scene to be shocking because I hoped to put the reader in Vin's shoes. You all know that this sort of thing happens in noble society—in the prologue, a nobleman tries to rape a young girl, after all. But, I hope that you—like Vin—have kind of glossed over that sort of thing in your mind. Seeing people like Elend, and the pretty balls, has helped you forget about the terrible things these people do. So, when Dockson lays it out so bluntly, I hope that it is surprising.
Some alpha readers thought that it was unrealistic that Vin would delude herself to this extent. She'd know about the whorehouses, after all. However, I think that this is the kind of thing that people naturally try and gloss over. It is natural for Vin to not want to think about these sorts of things until she is confronted by them so expressly.
749
One interesting aspect of the book that I haven't mentioned yet comes with the metal of tin. Originally, tin wasn't one of the Allomantic metals—I used silver instead. You see, I originally paired silver and pewter together, thinking that pewter had a significant amount of silver in it. Well, turns out that isn't the case. (Remember, each set of paired metals is a metal and an alloy made from it.)
My false impression on the belief that pewter is a silver/lead alloy goes back to my childhood. I remember when I used to paint lead fantasy figures that I bought at the local hobby store. One of the employees told me that they would be going up in price because the manufacturers wanted the figures to be safer. They were going to cast them out of pewter instead of lead, because pewter is much less toxic. I asked what the difference between pewter and lead was, and the employee told me that pewter is has lead PLUS silver, and that's why the figures cost more.
He meant tin, I guess. Either way, that's stayed with me for quite a long time. I soundly resisted changing silver to tin during the first drafts of the book, even when I found out the truth. The problem is, I really liked the name "Silvereye" for those who burn silver/tin. It sounds far slicker than "Tineye."
I eventually came around, however. Consistency in the magic system is more important than a single cool-sounding name. I blame Hobby Town in Lincoln Nebraska for my pains.
750
The scene where Vin looks at the gate and sees the people being mistreated is another example of a scene I added in during the rewrite to reinforce how difficult life is for the skaa. Moshe wanted a few of these sprinkled thorough the book so that we don't forget.
After that, the scene with Ham and Vin discussing pewter is nice, but not one of my favorite of the Allomantic explanation scenes. The thing is, I had to stretch to find things that Ham could tell Vin about this one. She's really good with the physical metals&mdashshe uses them instinctively—and may even understand them better than Ham does.
I do like how Ham comes across in this scene. His personality, as the one who doesn't fake or play games in the crew, makes him really work for me as a character.
Then, of course, everything goes wrong. It always does, doesn't it?
751
Killing off the army like this was planned from the beginning. I knew I needed some kind of big wrench in the plans of the crew, and figured this would make a pretty good one. Plus, it felt natural, since it was a problem with Kelsier's own growing reputation. The very thing he's been working so hard to foster eventually turned against him.
When alpha readers read this chapter, they didn't see the loss of the army as much of a setback. That was one of the first things that made me realize the big flaw in the early drafts. I'd talked a lot in the crew about stealing the atium, but I'd spent all the time with them actually doing things on recruiting the army. So, the readers were still focused on the job being the atium heist, rather than the capture of the city. In that context, losing the army isn't all that bad.
So, I like how the rewrite focuses much more on the army. It makes the events of this chapter all the more poignant. Yeden, the one that was employing the crew, is dead. That should mean the end of everything.
752
From my journal, written the day I finished this chapter (I sometimes keep a chapter journal for purposes of doing annotations later on.)
MBFE Twenty-Six: pewter dragging
Finished 5-11-04
The first half of this chapter came quickly, especially after I switched it to Vin's viewpoint. She's come to dominate the story far more than Kelsier, which is good—that's what I'd hoped would happen. Now, it's much easier to write in her viewpoint than Kelsier's, since she has more internal struggles and, I think, more depth.
Things got tough once I got back to the caves. I knew I wanted Kelsier to have a kind of soul-searching period of thought, followed by the return of Mennis. The problem is, I wasn't exactly sure how much I wanted him to self-doubt. He isn't really the type to second-guess himself, so I didn't want him to brood for too long. Also, I didn't want his discussion of Mennis to go into the things I need to discuss in the next chapter—namely, the reasons the plan hasn't failed just because the army is dead.
The second half didn't start to work until I made Mennis more of a conversation-antagonist, having him advise that Kelsier just give up. This was kind of his function in chapter one as well, so I'm not certain why I didn't figure out his place in this chapter more quickly. In a rewrite, I think I'll strengthen this idea little more. It's good to pile on the 'you can't succeed' sections of the book, so that when the rebellion finally does happen, it's all the more sweet because of the overwhelming sense of the odds.
753
Another focal chapter. I like how this one turned out. The fountains were a last-minute addition. Originally, I'd planned executions, but I wasn't sure how to do it. I knew I needed something dramatic and memorable, but I didn't want to be so cheesy as to do something like a guillotine. Since I'd already established that there were fountains in the city, I think this way created a distinctive image.
One worry in this chapter is the population. There are a lot of people in Luthadel, and packing them all into one square is kind of a stretch. I hope that it would be believable that they would gather this many people together, and I changed the executions from single-people to four-at-once in order to make it seem like the Priesthood was taking the large population into account.
754
Here's my original journal entry for this chapter, written right after I finished the chapter itself:
Chapter Thirty: Vin saves Elend at the party.
Finished 5-19-04
It's wonderful when a chapter turns out just the way you envisioned it.
I worked on this chapter for a long time—from the beginning of the planning process, I imagined this as one of the major action sequences in the book. I began with the image of Vin shooting up through the air as the rose window twisted and fell beneath her in the mists, then I expanded that to her protecting Elend, giving Vin a real scene of heroism. Originally, I wasn't intending her to fight the Allomancers, just to lead them away, but I decided that I needed a pure Mistborn-on-Mistborn fight in the book. Every other Allomantic battle involves Inquisitors.The scenes in this chapter are some of my favorite so far. Though, oddly, it took me a long time to get into them—I hedged over what the first part of the chapter should entail. Eventually, I decided that this would be a perfect place to give Vin some abandonment issues. This is a hold-over from the original Vin from the first FINAL EMPIRE write–the fear of abandonment was a large part of that Vin's personality. It worked well in this setting, and I think I'll emphasize it just a bit more in the rewrite. The next chapter really plays off of this idea.
It feels a little bit weird to be writing about a young girl running around killing people in her skivvies, but I don't really see any reasonable way for her to fight in one of those bulky ball gowns I'm using in this book. So, underwear it is!
Kliss and Shan have both come to have much larger parts in the book than I'd intended. Kliss was intended to be a throw-away character used in one chapter, but now she's become an informant and a conspirator. In a rewrite, I think I'll have to introduce her sooner and try and give her a more distinctive personality. As for Shan... well, I only added her a couple of chapters ago. Obviously, she'll need more time in the rewrite as well. Vin's battle will be much better if I can have her fight a named character that's been an antagonist in a few chapters. The Vin ball scenes have become a larger part of the book than I had thought, and adding Kliss and Shan as recurring characters will help flesh out that plot-line, I think.
Like how I ditch Sazed in this chapter so that I can have Vin's 'grand' entrance in the next chapter? Pretty smooth, eh? I was worried about how I was going to deal with him... As for the actual fight and the scenes, I think everything flowed quite well. We'll see what readers think!
(Note, when I wrote this, ELANTRIS wasn-t even out yet—it was still over a year away from publication—so I really had no idea if people would be responding well to my writing or not.
755
This is another of my favorite chapters. (How many of those am I allowed to have, by the way?)
Anyway, it was about time for someone to say the things that Vin did in this chapter. Kelsier and his group really ARE a bit disconnected from regular skaa. In a way, they're like Elend and his little band of philosophers—they feel bad for those beneath them, and talk about helping, but it's really hard for them to really understand the skaa.
I love Vin's entrance. Perhaps I have a flare for melodrama, but I think it worked very well here to have her burst in, bloodied, carrying her dress. (Which, of course, she went back and fetched so that it wouldn't give her away.)
I did change the last line of this scene. Up until the copy edit, the last line from Kelsier's viewpoint (before we switch to Vin atop the roof) was him thinking "Well, she certainly has changed!"
This seemed like too much of a quip, and it undermined the tension and emotions of the last chapter. Sometimes, a good one-liner is good to release tension. However, in this case, I found that it really did feel out of place. This just wasn't the time for some half-snarky comment from Kelsier.
756
If you couldn't tell, this is one of the climactic scenes I was writing toward.
I'll admit, I didn't have this exact twist down when I started the book. As I worked through the novel, I quickly began to realize that Kelsier had to have some master plan—something greater than he was letting on. That's just the way his personality is. Plus, I needed something that lent more weight to the book. Made it more than just the simple heist story that I'd originally conceived. (After all, a heist story could be told in far less than 200,000 words.)
Kelsier's real plan wasn't firm for me until I wrote the scenes with him in the caves, influencing the soldiers. By then, of course, over half the book was written. So, I had to begin building Kelsier's true plan from there—and then do a rewrite to put it in from the beginning.
I had known from the beginning that Kelsier was going to die, and that he was going to gain such renown with the skaa (before his death) that the crew began to worry that he would turn into another Lord Ruler. Putting these two things together so that his growing reputation was part of his plan all along was the realization I needed to connect. Then, I could have the bang I wanted in the ending chapters, when the crew realized what Kelsier had been planning all along.
As surprises go, I think this is one of my better—but definitely not one of my best. It required keeping too much back from the reader when in Kelsier's viewpoint, and it required to much explanation after-the-fact to make it work. There's a much better surprise later on. Still, I'm pleased with the bang on this one—especially since I got to have such a beautiful scene with the crew standing atop the building, the mists coming alight around them, as if representing their own growing understanding of the job they'd always been part of.
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I was forced to cut one of my favorite lines from the book, and it was in this chapter. I'll write it now. Near the beginning, the narrative says regarding Vin:
"She was, as if, nowhere."
Moshe convinced me that this sentence just didn't make enough sense. Yet, to me, it somehow expressed how Vin felt. She had been cut free by Kelsier's death. Yet, she was still there. She wished she could just meld with the mists—she felt as if her soul were already cast away. Yet, she couldn't vanish, as she wished.
Ah, cursed grammar, ruining a perfectly good sentence!
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If I had a chance to rewrite the book again, one of the things I'd change is the scene where Vin gets caught here. If you want to imagine it this way instead, pretend that she dropped both Inquisitors completely, and therefore thought she was safe to inspect the room beyond. The Inquisitors can actually heal far more quickly than I've had them do in this book.
My problem with this scene is how easily Vin lets herself be cornered and captured. I think that breaking into the room is exactly the sort of thing she'd do. However, I just don't think the writing works here (around the section where she gets surprised and grabbed by the Inquisitor.) She's more careful than that. The way it's written makes it seem like she gets grabbed simply because that's what needed to happen. There isn't enough drama, or enough realization, to the scene.
I do like what happens afterword, however—Vin using the Eleventh Metal. In this book we get our first hints regarding just how much Allomancy has been hidden and obfuscated by the Lord Ruler. Vin realizes that the Eleventh Metal must be part of the structure of Allomantic theory, as is the metal that she's given that makes her lose all of her other metals. (It's aluminum, by the way.)
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My one disappointment with this chapter is that I had to end up making it look like I was breaking my own rules. The Allomancy-Feruchemy-Hemalurgy triad is one of the most complex magic systems I've ever devised. The interplay between the three systems, mixed into the mythology of the setting (which involves the mists at a foundational level) makes for some very complicated rules. I try to explain them as simply as possible—simple, basic rules are necessary for most sequences to work.
Yet, the depth of complexity leads to some things that are confusing at first glance. I wasn't planning on having Vin draw upon the mists in this book—I was going to save it for later—but the initial version of this chapter (which had Vin simply grabbing the bracelets off the Lord Ruler's arms with her hands) lacked the proper drama or impact. So, I moved up my timetable, and gave her access to some abilities she wasn't going to get until the next book.
A lot of the 'Rules' of Allomancy are, in my mind, like our basic rules of physics. They make simple sense, and can be explained easily. However, they only apply when generalities—or large-scale events—are explained. When you get down to the really advanced physics, traditional Newtonian Laws start to break apart.
The same is true for Allomancy. The vast majority of Allomancers aren't powerful enough to look beyond the basics. For them, simple rules like "You can't Push on metals inside of someone's body" apply. It's much easier to tell someone that, as opposed to "People's bodies interfere with Allomancy, making it much harder to affect metals inside of them—so hard, in fact, that only some people you'll never meet can Push on metals inside of people's bodies."
It is a matter of degree of power. Vin, for reasons I'll explain eventually, has access to far more Allomantic power than regular people. The Lord Ruler is the same way, though for different reasons. And so, he can affect metals that are blocked by blood. Vin has to draw upon another, external source of power in order to produce the same effect, but it is possible for her.
Narratively, I worry that this looks too much like I'm breaking my own rules. However, I had to balance drama with effect in this chapter, and eventually decided that I could make it work. I've established throughout the book that there are flaws in the commonly-perceived laws of Allomancy. There are metals nobody knows about. You can pierce copperclouds. In fact, one of the unwritten laws of Allomancy is that it isn't understood as well as everyone seems to think.
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This was the hardest chapter in the entire book to write.
That's often the case for me. I will write a first chapter, continue on through the rest of the book, and then be forced to write the first chatper a few more times to get it right. For this book, I wrote the chapter some five times. If I'm feeling proactive, I'll post some of these chapters in the deleted scenes section about the time Mistborn 3 comes out.
Anyway, I just couldn't get the right feel for the first chapter. I wanted to start with a dramatic fight scene involving Vin (you now get that in chapter two) but every time I did, the book actually felt too slow. That's because, in order to have a fight, I need to explain Allomancy.
I started to get this one right when I backed off of the fight a bit and just had Vin creeping through the city. This let me get out a little bit about Allomancy before I threw her into the fight.
However, I didn't actually get it right until I added the Elend and Ham scene at the beginning. This scene had been in the book, but much later. The first chapter wasn't the only one I rewrote, actually—this entire first section of ten chapters underwent some significant revisions to fix the pacing. Originally, I didn't say much about the army until the later chapters, after Vin's fight.
However, I realized that I needed to give the sense of large-scale danger to the book before I got into the smaller danger of Vin's fight. Elend and Ham here talking sets the book off right—it introduces the conflict right off, shows what we're going to have to worry about in this book, then gives context to Vin's fight.
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So, this is what I wanted to have in chapter one (see the last annotation.) Reading it again, I can see—yet again—why that was a bad instinct. It's much better here, in chapter two. I still feel that it's a tad long. I cut it down significantly (if you can believe that.) I worry that pacing wise, we spend too long in a fight for this early in the book. However, some of the things I get across in this battle are invaluable for the rest of the story. I introduce the Watcher, and I get rid of Vin's atium—thereby compounding the large danger of the kingdom being at war with the more personal danger of Vin being stalked while she's exposed without any atium.
We'll get to a third level of danger—that of something threatening the entire world—later on.
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Well, there you go. That chapter (with a big chunk of two) was originally the first chapter of the book. Oddly, moving it back made the book move more quickly, for me at least. It's strange how you can sometimes speed up a novel by ADDING material.
Speed in books, however, has little to do with how long the book actually is, and everything to do with how captivated the reader is.
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There were a couple of interesting edits that I made to this chapter. First off, Elend's proposal to the Assembly. It was a major point of revision in the book.
One of the biggest problems the novel had in the first draft was that readers weren't getting the right idea for the theme and plot of the novel. In early drafts, Vin's worries about the Deepness and the Lord Ruler's final words came before Straff's army arrived. So, readers were surprised when the middle of the novel spent so much time on politics and war. They wanted to learn more about the Well of Ascension. (Which IS important, but not as present—particularly at the beginning—as the rest of the plot.)
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One of my writing groups had an intense reaction against Vin killing the dog in this scene. I'm not sure, still, WHY they got so upset—but they really didn't like it that she killed a dog "in cold blood" as they put it.
So, her little "I'm sorry about this" in her head is there for them. At least now they know she kind of wishes she didn't have to do it.
That dog had it coming, though.
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I worry just a tad about the light-hearted feel of the end of the chapter here. Originally, this scene was in the book BEFORE the army showed up to attack. In the original draft I showed Elend and company living (and fighting off assassins) without knowing that an army was bearing down on them. Moving the army so that it began the book on the horizon was the major pacing change I made that sped up the book, and increased the tension.
However, we missed a few of the more light scenes—like the upcoming sparring—and I didn't want to cut them because they were so indicative of character. I decided to leave them in. Kelsier's crew is accustomed to dealing with stress and remaining jovial. The only change I really had to make was in the Elend viewpoints, which you will see in the next chapter. Still, I hope the tone isn't off—that's a real worry when you transplant scenes from a previous draft, as opposed to writing them new when you change as much as I did at the beginning here.
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This fight scene is, in my opinion, a lot more fun that the previous one. It's what I want—quick, dramatic, and shows off character by the way that the various people approach the fight.
I probably should have cut this scene, honestly. The book is a little too long. It's 250,000 words, where both Elantris and Mistborn 1 are around 200,000. I worried about this, particularly since the original Well of Ascension was only around 235,000, but we added 15,000 through editing to make the pacing work.
Regardless, when this beast got in, the people at Tor (the typesetters and the like) immediately raised a warning flag. However, some of the things they said surprised us. They said that the hardback for Mistborn 2, by their counts, was going to be over 700 pages long! Well, I knew that the book was a bit longer, but Mistborn 1 was under 500, so they were claiming it was around 40% bigger—and unpublishable.
My editor went to bat, claiming that 1) It was only really about 20% bigger and 2) That didn't matter, because the book was the right length—it worked well, and was paced well, and that he didn't want to cut it. We caused a big mess of various people arguing, and then finally the people down in production called up and said they'd done a re-assessment, and that the book would be around 560 pages or so. Very doable.
I don't know where those extra 140 pages went. If you find them, let me know...
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There was an epic battle with my editor over some revision changes to this chapter. I though that the word to use for a place where someone stands to address a crowd was a "podium." He said that was an adulteration of the language, and that the pure, classical word to use was "lectern."
He won.
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On a more serious note, this section contains some of the more lengthy additions to the rewrite. Elend's speech, and the arguments against it, were all added in the very last draft. As I said before, the first draft had Elend giving a much different proposal, as the army hadn't arrived yet.
This works TONS better. I worry that Elend comes off a little too strong—or, well, not weak enough—in this scene. I originally included it to show some of his faults as a leader. However, other readers have indicated that they thought he came off as too weak. Even if this is a book about Elend becoming a leader (or, at least, that's a big chunk of the novel) he doesn't have to quite as hopeless as I originally painted him.
So, perhaps we've got a good balance going on here.
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Here we get the return of Breeze, a perennial favorite of the Mistborn world. He gets far more screen time—and depth of characterization—than Ham, Clubs, or Dockson do. You just can't develop everyone. (Especially if you're not George R. R. Martin.) I did my best with the side characters, and Breeze and Spook turned out the best, in my opinion. You'll see more of both of them, and learn more about them, as the series moves along.
I love this rescue scene, and I got to use the "Vin splits and arrow with its own arrowhead" scene, which was one of the coolest moments in Mistborn Prime. (Long story. Read the Mistborn 1 annotations.) There's a certain arrogant flare to this scene, and it ends up working quite well, I think.
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I hope this first paragraph isn't too overly-poetic for you. I have a tendency to dabble in writing poetic language, and can veer into sections of prose that are a bit over-written. But, my editor didn't strike this down, so I assume it's all right.
The things Vin talks about in this first scene are, essentially, the things that will come to form the plot of the entire series. In the original drafts of the novel, she worried about these issues much earlier in the book. However, I backed off on them to let the siege take form first.
It's not that these worries about the Deepness and the past aren't important—they're VERY important. And, they'll play a big part in this book. The armies and politics, however, are the established plot of the novel. This book—book two—isn't about the deepness. It's about the "What Next?" So the characters overthrew the empire. What's next? In my opinion, what they're doing now–struggling to keep something going, rather than tear it down—is far more difficult than anything they did in the first book.
This grueling process is going to have a powerful influence on their characters, and make from them the people they need to become in order to deal with the events of the final book. In a way, that makes this the most important—and most interesting—book of the trilogy. It's the one which is about character over plot.
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This Elend scene here is almost a direct parallel of the scene in book one where Kelsier first introduces the plan to his people. Elend has a much harder time of it. In fact, this scene—in conjunction with the scene with the Assembly—is supposed to establish Elend as what he is: a man with great ideas, but poor leadership techniques. He's brilliant and scholarly, but he doesn't know how to get people to do what he wants.
This is reflected in his speech patterns, and has been since book one. He likes to use the phrase "Now, see," followed by an observation. He doesn't command, and when he argues, he uses very passive sentences. All of this is—hopefully—makes your subconscious see him in a certain way.
The only reason he convinces the crew to go along with them is 1) he's right, they like to gamble, and this is the type of plan they like and 2) they already know him, and his ideas have earned a measure of trust from them.
When necessary, Elend CAN give a brilliant speech. He can make people dream and hope. He just isn't good at arguing, and is rather poor at being a dictator.
This scene, by the way, is another substantially rewritten one. I focused a lot more on the idea that the crew was going to have to deal with a long siege in the rewrites.
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The koloss army was another thing that got shuffled about in this book. Originally, the Luthadel folks discovered its advance pretty early on. All of their discussions, then, talked about the fact that they had three armies bearing down on them.
I pushed back knowledge of the koloss for a couple of reasons. First off, koloss are scary—and I think they deserve to be treated differently from the other two armies. Their appearance can throw a real wrench into things later on, once Elend and company hear about them. It allows for the reader to know something that most of the characters do not, and leads to anticipation and tension.
In addition, it gives Sazed another good reason to exist in the plot. Now he knows about the koloss and nobody else inside the city does. His mission, therefore, is even more vital. He has to bring information back to his friends.
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Koloss are something I've been trying to work in for a time. Originally, in the very first draft of Mistborn one, I had them make an appearance in the prologue:
The skaa worked the fields with the lethargy of the hopeless, their motions methodical and listless. Though the sun's light was darkened and ruddied by the ever-present smoke, the day was still oppressively hot. Yet, no skaa man paused to wipe his soot-stained brow—being seen resting by a koloss fieldmaster would invite a whipping.
So, the skaa worked. Eyes down, watching the dirt by their feet, they dug at the weeds—daring not to speak, barely even daring to think. Koloss stalked amidst them, blood-drop eyes alert for signs of skaa laziness.
Obviously, I changed their place in the world drastically. During the drafting of book one, I was still working out what I wanted the koloss to be. I knew they were going to be something monstrous, and as the first draft of Mistborn One progressed, I slowly cut them from the book and decided to save them for book two. As the characters talked about them, the koloss reputation became more and more nasty—and I went so far as to explain that the Lord Ruler himself feared to keep them near human settlements.
So, when it came to plan book two, I put a lot of effort into developing the koloss. I wanted them to be cool visually, live up to their reputations, and work within the worldbuilding and magic of the setting. You'll find out a lot more about them as the series progresses.
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I will be completing stuff. The Reckoners will be finished fairly soon. I writing the last one right now.
And new Mistborn?
And the new Mistborns. We are getting close to the end of that.
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[Surprised, because this dashed a favorite theory of mine] Oh okay!
Yeah, the compounding trick. Really what’s happening is you’re fueling feruchemy with the power of allomancy, but you’re filtering it through you, and then you’re storing it.
So it’s not that you’re a more powerful mistborn when you’ve tapped [investiture]
No, good question.
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