Brandon Sanderson's Blog, page 67

The Wheel of Time Retrospective: The Process

Just a reminder, all. Steelheart—my new novel—is out right now! It hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in the Young Adult section. If you’re curious, you can read about the book here, and listen to a cool audio sample here.

For an explanation of my Wheel of Time retrospective, see the beginning of my first post, which talked about the notes. Here’s post number two.

The Process

The first thing I did upon receiving the notes was dive back into a reread of the series, notes in hand, looking for foreshadowing that I needed to fulfill and character arcs that were incomplete. You can read my book-by-book reactions; I posted them as a sequence of blog posts in 2008 as I was rereading.

This took months, and I built for myself a large file of questions, potential scenes, and ideas while reading. My next visit to Charleston was in the spring of 2008. (April, perhaps? I don’t recall exactly.) I was nearing the end of my reread, though I don’t believe I was quite finished yet.

At this point, I sat down with Team Jordan. In case you don’t know the members of this group it includes:

Harriet: Robert Jordan’s editor and widow. She discovered him as an aspiring writer in Charleston after moving there to raise her son from a previous marriage. (She didn’t think NYC was the place to do it, and she had inherited the family home in Charleston.) She was encouraged by Robert Jordan’s writing and started publishing his historical novels (she still worked for Tor, but telecommuted). Eventually they fell in love and were married. She edited all of the Wheel of Time books, as well as doing some other things. (For example, she is responsible for nearly all of the chapter titles in all of the books.)

Maria: Maria was hired on somewhere around book seven, I believe. At first, her work seemed to be more clerical—but over time, she impressed Robert Jordan and Harriet, and moved into a more editorial position. She’d maintain continuity for him, as well as work on his copyedits. These days, she is also in charge of making certain things like the Wheel of Time graphic novels are following the storyline and descriptions in the right way.

Alan: Alan came on later than Maria, but has still been there for years and years by this point. He helps with office work and is the resident timeline king. He also is a military history buff, and knows warfare quite well. He became my “Great Captain” for the last books. (Though he and I did butt heads quite a bit as I pushed for more drama and he pushed for more specific descriptions of tactics.)

Wilson: I don’t know if he’d agree he was part of Team Jordan or not, but I view him as part. Wilson is Robert Jordan’s cousin and close friend growing up—the cousin that was like a brother. Jovial and welcoming, he recently dressed up in a costume of me for a costume contest. He’s been a cheerleader for Jim’s work for years, and every time I felt daunted by this project, it seems I’d get a little note of encouragement or help from Wilson.

During this second Charleston visit, I sat down with Alan, Maria, and Harriet to outline my thoughts on where the last books should go. I asked for big sheets of butcher paper, and upon this I started writing down characters, plots, goals, and sequences as headings. Then, we brainstormed answers to holes. I often presented my (somewhat daring) plans for sequences Robert Jordan had not outlined. I think a lot of the things I suggested were surprising to Team Jordan—and made them worried.

My argument was this, however: Robert Jordan would not have kept the last book stale. He wouldn’t have done everything as expected. He wouldn’t have flatlined the character arcs, he wouldn’t have stopped the worldbuilding. If we played this book safe, we’d end up with a bland climax to the series. Harriet agreed, and told me to proceed with some of these plans—but with the warning that as editor, she would read and see if I pulled off the sequences. If I did, they’d go in the books. If I didn’t, we’d remove them.

This ended up working really well. It allowed me to exercise artistic freedom, driving the books in directions I felt they needed to go without limitations. Granted, I had a personal rule—I didn’t contradict Robert Jordan’s previous books, and if he had finished a scene in the notes, we were going to use it.

This might make it sound like I was trying to steer the books away from his vision. Nothing is further from the truth. In rereading his series, in getting close to his notes, I felt like I had a vision for the types of emotional beats Robert Jordan was striving for in the last book. These emotional beats required surprises, revelations, and transformations—I felt like I truly had the pulse of this series. My goal was to fulfill his vision. However, in order to do this, I needed to exercise my artistic muscles, as he would have exercised his own. I had to allow the creative writer in me to create, to tell stories.

It meant approaching these books as a writer, not a ghostwriter. Harriet understood this; she hired me rather than a ghostwriter because we had notes and fragments of scenes—not an almost-completed novel. However, she was also very right to tell me that she would act as a stabilizing force. Letting my creativity out of its proverbial Pandora’s box meant walking a dangerous line, with things that were too “Brandon” potentially consuming the series. I didn’t want to let this happen, and Harriet was the failsafe.

This is why some sequences, like the “River of Souls” sequence that became part of the Unfettered anthology, needed to be deleted from the books. It’s not the only one. Others include a sequence where Perrin went into the Ways.

During the process of writing these books, all members of Team Jordan offered commentary on every aspect—but a certain specialization fell out naturally. Harriet did line edits and focused on character voice. (She famously told me, regarding one of my very early Aviendha scenes, “Brandon, you’ve written an almost perfect Elayne.” It took me a few more tries to get that one right.) Maria would watch for continuity with other books. Alan would pin me down on timeline, troop movements, and tactics.

To be continued.

THE EYE OF MINDS + Steelhunt updates

Two weeks ago I talked about a bet I have with James Dashner that hinges on how many copies Steelheart and The Eye of Minds sell in their first week of release. Well, The Eye of Minds came out yesterday. You should totally check it out, especially if you want to see me forced to become Justin Bieber. We’ll know the result of the bet in a week or so!

My Steelheart tour continues (today I’m in Los Angeles and this weekend I’m in the Bay Area), and the Steelhunt continues as well. If you’re in the Salem, Oregon area, there is one code at the Reader’s Guide bookstore. Their sf/fantasy guru Kim Mainord will be happy to give it out.

For those in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, you might find some other codes at the Red Balloon Bookshop. I got this email from Joan Trygg:

Hi Brandon,

The postcards and bookplates are tucked inside your books. I also wanted to let you know I handsold one yesterday. A young woman who had just finished Ender’s Game was looking for something “science fiction, but not all this,” by which I guessed she meant the general dystopian/supernatural/romance thing. So I handed her a few books, then I gave her Steelheart, and told her to sit down and read the first few pages. It wasn’t long before she came up to the counter to buy it. I told a co-worker the same thing, and now she can’t wait to read it either.

I was very glad to meet you. I do hope you will make Red Balloon a stop on your next visit to the Twin Cities!

Doing my best to help you not be Justin Bieber,

Joan Trygg
Red Balloon Bookshop

Thanks, Joan! I haven’t been to the Red Balloon but will have to check it out next time I’m in town!

Brandon

The Wheel of Time Retrospective: The Notes

Just a reminder, all. Steelheart—my new novel—is out right now! It’s sitting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in the Young Adult section. If you’re curious, you can read about the book here, and listen to a cool audio sample here.

I usually do a Q&A session as part of my book signings. One of the questions I get asked most frequently is: “What did you learn from working on the Wheel of Time?” I often struggle to answer; I have no idea how to cover the topic in brief.

I’ve long wanted to a series of blog posts collecting all of the things I’ve said at signings, during interviews, and in other blog posts talking about the Wheel of Time experience. I’m going to add to this my thoughts and feelings, and then try to use it all to tackle talking about some of the things I’ve learned along the way. This will be a multi-day process! So if you’re interested in this topic, check back across the next few weeks as I work my way through a retrospective on my involvement in the Wheel of Time.

The Notes

As I’ve said before, I signed the contracts with Harriet to finish this series before I was given the notes. Therefore, going into this, I knew very little of what had been done for A Memory of Light already. In fact, the only thing I did know was that Mr. Jordan had written down the ending—the one he’d been promising for years that he had in his head. (Though, being the gardener-type writer that he was, he always noted that the ending could change shape as his view of it evolved over time.)

Eager, daunted, I flew to Charleston in December 2007 to meet Harriet. I knew her by reputation only—the editorial director of Tor Books during its foundational years, the woman who edited Ender’s Game and who discovered Robert Jordan. I was rather intimidated. Turns out, Harriet is quite grandmotherly—in a southern gentlewoman sort of way. She’s confident, capable, and has this air of knowledge about her. However, she’s also kind, quick with a smile, and remarkably genuine. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who so effortlessly blends self-confidence with compassion.

Once I arrived at Harriet’s house, I asked for the ending, which she gave me. I spent hours picking through the notes and reading—I was at it after Harriet retired for the night, though before she left, she pointed to the computer in the front room where I was sitting. “That’s Robert Jordan’s,” she noted to me. “That’s where he wrote many of the books, on that computer, that keyboard. We recently moved it in from the office into this room.”

So there I was, sitting beside Robert Jordan’s computer, looking at printouts of his notes, and feeling supremely overwhelmed. You might wonder what was in those notes. Well, in preparing to write this piece, I went to Harriet and (as I’d often promised fans) asked if it would be possible to release the notes, or to at least speak specifically about their contents. (I still someday want to do a series of blog posts where I take scenes from the notes, then compare them to scenes in the finished books, with a commentary on why I made the decisions to change them that I did.)

In response to my question, Harriet pointed out that work on the encyclopedia of the Wheel of Time is still in progress. She and Team Jordan haven’t yet finished deciding what tidbits from the notes they want to include in the encyclopedia, and she thinks now is not the time to release them. (Or even for me to talk about specifics.)

Therefore, I can’t talk about many specific scenes. Instead, then, I want to talk about the general process—which might be of more interest to many of you. You see, as I’ve explained before, the “notes” aren’t what people assume. I was handed two hundred pages of material by Harriet, and this is what I read that first night. Those pages included:

Written sections by Robert Jordan: Robert Jordan was a “discovery”-type writer, meaning he tended to explore where he wanted his story to go by doing the actual writing. He didn’t work from an outline. Harriet has explained that he had a few goalposts he was aiming for, big events he knew would happen somewhere in the story. He didn’t know exactly how those would play out until he wrote them, but he knew what they were. Otherwise, he would write and explore, working his way toward his goalposts and discovering many parts of his story as he worked.

Robert Jordan was also not a linear writer. From what I can judge by the notes, he was one of the relatively more rare breed of writers who work on a scene as it interests them, no matter where it may be in the story. It seems like he’d often dig out a file and write a short time on it, then stick that file back into the notes. The next day, he’d work on a different place in the story. It’s possible that as he started work on a book in earnest, however, he progressed in a more linear fashion. The largest chunk of actual writing he left behind was for the prologue of A Memory of Light, after all.

However, from what Harriet has told me, he did not show his notes to people, nor did he show them early drafts. Even Harriet often wouldn’t get to see early drafts—she says what he gave her was often draft twelve or thirteen.

In the stack of notes I was given were all of the scenes he’d actually written for A Memory of Light. Together, these were about a hundred pages. I can’t tell you everything that was in there, not yet. I can speak about the things I’ve said before, however. One thing in these notes was the ending. (This became the epilogue of A Memory of Light, though I did add a couple of scenes to it.) Another was his unfinished prologue. (I split this into three chunks to become the prologues for the three books, though I did add quite a few scenes to these prologues as well. Scenes he’d finished, mostly finished, or had a loose first draft of include: the farmer watching the clouds approach in The Gathering Storm, the scene with Rand seen through the eyes of a sul’dam from the prologue of The Gathering Storm, the scene with the borderlanders on the top of the tower in Towers of Midnight, and the scene with Isam in the Blight at the start of A Memory of Light.)

Also included in this stack of scenes were a smattering of fragments, including the scene where Egwene gets a special visitor in The Gathering Storm. (Dress colors are discussed.) The scene in Towers of Midnight where two people get engaged. (The one that ends with a character finding a pot in the river—which is a piece I added.) And the scene at the Field of Merrilor inside the tent where someone unexpected arrives. (Much of that sequence was outlined in rough form.) I’ve tried to be vague as to not give spoilers.

Q&A sessions with Robert Jordan’s assistants: Near the end, Mr. Jordan was too weak to work on the book directly—but he would do sessions with Maria, Alan, Harriet, or Wilson where he’d tell them about the book. They recorded some of these, and then transcribed them for me. Most of these focus on someone asking him, “What happens to so-and-so.” He’d then talk about their place in the ending, and what happened to them after the last book. A lot of these focus on major plot structures. (“So tell me again what happens when Siuan sneaks into the White Tower to try to find Egwene.”) Or, they focus on the climax of the final book. The bulk of this information gave me a general feeling for the ending itself, and a read on where people ended up after the books. A lot of the “How do they get from the end of Knife of Dreams to the climax of A Memory of Light?” wasn’t discussed.

Selections from Robert Jordan’s notes: As I’ve mentioned before, Robert Jordan’s larger notes files are huge and have a haphazard organization. These are different from the notes I was given—the two hundred-page stack. My stack included the pages that Team Jordan thought most important to the writing of the book. They did also give me a CD, however, with everything on it—thousands and thousands of pages of materials.

Though you might be salivating over these, the bulk are not things many of you would find interesting. Each version of the glossaries is included, for example, so Mr. Jordan knew what they’d said about given characters in given books. (These are identical to the ones printed in the backs of the books.) There are notes for many of the books, things Mr. Jordan used while writing a given novel in the series, but much of this ended up in the books and would not offer any revelations to you. There is, however, a great deal of interesting worldbuilding, some of which ended up in the books—but there’s also quite a bit here that will probably end up in the encyclopedia. There were also notes files on given characters, with the viewings/prophesies/etc. about them that needed to be fulfilled, along with notes on their attitude, things they needed to accomplish yet in the series, and sometimes background tidbits about their lives.

Maria and Alan had spent months meticulously combing through the notes and pulling out anything they thought I might need. This was the last chunk of my two hundred pages of notes, though I was free to spend time combing through the larger grouping of files—and I did this quite a bit.

To be continued.

Wheel of Time Retrospective: The Notes

Just a reminder, all. Steelheart—my new novel—is out right now! It’s sitting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in the Young Adult section. If you’re curious, you can read about the book here, and listen to a cool audio sample here.

I usually do a Q&A session as part of my book signings. One of the questions I get asked most frequently is: “What did you learn from working on the Wheel of Time?” I often struggle to answer; I have no idea how to cover the topic in brief.

I’ve long wanted to a series of blog posts collecting all of the things I’ve said at signings, during interviews, and in other blog posts talking about the Wheel of Time experience. I’m going to add to this my thoughts and feelings, and then try to use it all to tackle talking about some of the things I’ve learned along the way. This will be a multi-day process! So if you’re interested in this topic, check back across the next few weeks as I work my way through a retrospective on my involvement in the Wheel of Time.

The Notes

As I’ve said before, I signed the contracts with Harriet to finish this series before I was given the notes. Therefore, going into this, I knew very little of what had been done for A Memory of Light already. In fact, the only thing I did know was that Mr. Jordan had written down the ending—the one he’d been promising for years that he had in his head. (Though, being the gardener-type writer that he was, he always noted that the ending could change shape as his view of it evolved over time.)

Eager, daunted, I flew to Charleston in December 2007 to meet Harriet. I knew her by reputation only—the editorial director of Tor Books during its foundational years, the woman who edited Ender’s Game and who discovered Robert Jordan. I was rather intimidated. Turns out, Harriet is quite grandmotherly—in a southern gentlewoman sort of way. She’s confident, capable, and has this air of knowledge about her. However, she’s also kind, quick with a smile, and remarkably genuine. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who so effortlessly blends self-confidence with compassion.

Once I arrived at Harriet’s house, I asked for the ending, which she gave me. I spent hours picking through the notes and reading—I was at it after Harriet retired for the night, though before she left, she pointed to the computer in the front room where I was sitting. “That’s Robert Jordan’s,” she noted to me. “That’s where he wrote many of the books, on that computer, that keyboard. We recently moved it in from the office into this room.”

So there I was, sitting beside Robert Jordan’s computer, looking at printouts of his notes, and feeling supremely overwhelmed. You might wonder what was in those notes. Well, in preparing to write this piece, I went to Harriet and (as I’d often promised fans) asked if it would be possible to release the notes, or to at least speak specifically about their contents. (I still someday want to do a series of blog posts where I take scenes from the notes, then compare them to scenes in the finished books, with a commentary on why I made the decisions to change them that I did.)

In response to my question, Harriet pointed out that work on the encyclopedia of the Wheel of Time is still in progress. She and Team Jordan haven’t yet finished deciding what tidbits from the notes they want to include in the encyclopedia, and she thinks now is not the time to release them. (Or even for me to talk about specifics.)

Therefore, I can’t talk about many specific scenes. Instead, then, I want to talk about the general process—which might be of more interest to many of you. You see, as I’ve explained before, the “notes” aren’t what people assume. I was handed two hundred pages of material by Harriet, and this is what I read that first night. Those pages included:

Written sections by Robert Jordan: Robert Jordan was a “discovery”-type writer, meaning he tended to explore where he wanted his story to go by doing the actual writing. He didn’t work from an outline. Harriet has explained that he had a few goalposts he was aiming for, big events he knew would happen somewhere in the story. He didn’t know exactly how those would play out until he wrote them, but he knew what they were. Otherwise, he would write and explore, working his way toward his goalposts and discovering many parts of his story as he worked.

Robert Jordan was also not a linear writer. From what I can judge by the notes, he was one of the relatively more rare breed of writers who work on a scene as it interests them, no matter where it may be in the story. It seems like he’d often dig out a file and write a short time on it, then stick that file back into the notes. The next day, he’d work on a different place in the story. It’s possible that as he started work on a book in earnest, however, he progressed in a more linear fashion. The largest chunk of actual writing he left behind was for the prologue of A Memory of Light, after all.

However, from what Harriet has told me, he did not show his notes to people, nor did he show them early drafts. Even Harriet often wouldn’t get to see early drafts—she says what he gave her was often draft twelve or thirteen.

In the stack of notes I was given were all of the scenes he’d actually written for A Memory of Light. Together, these were about a hundred pages. I can’t tell you everything that was in there, not yet. I can speak about the things I’ve said before, however. One thing in these notes was the ending. (This became the epilogue of A Memory of Light, though I did add a couple of scenes to it.) Another was his unfinished prologue. (I split this into three chunks to become the prologues for the three books, though I did add quite a few scenes to these prologues as well. Scenes he’d finished, mostly finished, or had a loose first draft of include: the farmer watching the clouds approach in The Gathering Storm, the scene with Rand seen through the eyes of a sul’dam from the prologue of The Gathering Storm, the scene with the borderlanders on the top of the tower in Towers of Midnight, and the scene with Isam in the Blight at the start of A Memory of Light.)

Also included in this stack of scenes were a smattering of fragments, including the scene where Egwene gets a special visitor in The Gathering Storm. (Dress colors are discussed.) The scene in Towers of Midnight where two people get engaged. (The one that ends with a character finding a pot in the river—which is a piece I added.) And the scene at the Field of Merrilor inside the tent where someone unexpected arrives. (Much of that sequence was outlined in rough form.) I’ve tried to be vague as to not give spoilers.

Q&A sessions with Robert Jordan’s assistants: Near the end, Mr. Jordan was too weak to work on the book directly—but he would do sessions with Maria, Alan, Harriet, or Wilson where he’d tell them about the book. They recorded some of these, and then transcribed them for me. Most of these focus on someone asking him, “What happens to so-and-so.” He’d then talk about their place in the ending, and what happened to them after the last book. A lot of these focus on major plot structures. (“So tell me again what happens when Siuan sneaks into the White Tower to try to find Egwene.”) Or, they focus on the climax of the final book. The bulk of this information gave me a general feeling for the ending itself, and a read on where people ended up after the books. A lot of the “How do they get from the end of Knife of Dreams to the climax of A Memory of Light?” wasn’t discussed.

Selections from Robert Jordan’s notes: As I’ve mentioned before, Robert Jordan’s larger notes files are huge and have a haphazard organization. These are different from the notes I was given—the two hundred-page stack. My stack included the pages that Team Jordan thought most important to the writing of the book. They did also give me a CD, however, with everything on it—thousands and thousands of pages of materials.

Though you might be salivating over these, the bulk are not things many of you would find interesting. Each version of the glossaries is included, for example, so Mr. Jordan knew what they’d said about given characters in given books. (These are identical to the ones printed in the backs of the books.) There are notes for many of the books, things Mr. Jordan used while writing a given novel in the series, but much of this ended up in the books and would not offer any revelations to you. There is, however, a great deal of interesting worldbuilding, some of which ended up in the books—but there’s also quite a bit here that will probably end up in the encyclopedia. There were also notes files on given characters, with the viewings/prophesies/etc. about them that needed to be fulfilled, along with notes on their attitude, things they needed to accomplish yet in the series, and sometimes background tidbits about their lives.

Maria and Alan had spent months meticulously combing through the notes and pulling out anything they thought I might need. This was the last chunk of my two hundred pages of notes, though I was free to spend time combing through the larger grouping of files—and I did this quite a bit.

To be continued.

Writing Excuses catch-up & Updates

Writing Excuses has put up a couple of episodes that I haven’t mentioned yet. There’s an episode on dystopian fiction featuring Cherie Priest, one on publishing featuring Subterranean Press’s publisher Bill Schafer, and a Q&A session from our Out of Excuses writing retreat talking about these questions:

How have your opinions on self-publishing changed in the last few years?
What did you find difficult early in your career? How did you address this?
What do you now find difficult? How do you address it?
Do you put Easter Eggs in your work that only your friends recognize?
How much do questions/comments from readers influence you?

I’m still working on my “What I learned from writing the Wheel of Time” post that I mentioned the other day. It’s getting really long, so I’ll most likely split it up across multiple posts. Also, my assistant has put up another Twitter posts archive; this one includes the Hugo Awards ceremony and the #AskBrandon chat I did last month.

This week I’ll be signing books in Portland, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. For full details, see my events calendar. Hope to see many of you there! And if you want me to send you an email reminder when I’m signing near you, tell me your city here.

More places to get signed books

All,

Looking for a place to get a signed copy of Steelheart? The bookstores I’ve been visiting might be a great place to look—and they are eager to ship to you, if you live out of the area. I posted about a few on Tuesday. Here are some more:

Chicago, Anderson’s Bookshop
This store now has in its possession a large number of signed books. They have all of my paperbacks, hardcovers of The Rithmatist, and—of course—Steelheart. In addition, I left them with a nice stack of Steelhunt codes to slip into copies of Steelheart that they sell. If you live in the Chicago area and missed my signing, drop in! We slipped extra Steelhunt codes in the books on their shelves, and they have others to send with their online orders.
So, If you don’t live in Chicago, but want to grab a signed copy of the book with a chance at a code, you can to order through their online store here. Or you can call them at (630) 355–2665. Be sure to ask for signed copies, and mention the Steelhunt, which might improve your chances of getting one of the codes!
Cincinnati, Joseph-Beth
You may know that this is one of my favorite bookstores to visit, and I had a wonderful time here. I signed a lot of stock for them, and they have copies of all of my books. In addition, they’re sending a lot of books to their store down in Lexington, where I commonly visit. They said these will be up for sale sometime next week, so you might want to call before you head in. But they do have Steelhunt codes, so never fear, Lexington. I haven’t forgotten about you.
I’d be willing to bet that the Cincinnati store would be happy to ship books to you if you want them! Please keep these wonderful stores in mind, particularly if you live in their area.
Airports
In addition, if you are traveling this week, the Salt Lake City airport (Simply Books, Gate C6) still has signed books and Steelhunt codes.
O’Hare Airport in Chicago also has many signed books. (Check out these endcaps!) Find the signed copies at Gates E3 (this store has Steelheart left, while the others are sold out), G1, and H/K3 (the bookstore there runs between the two gate arms).
Cincinnati Airport: Heritage Books in the B gates has signed Steelheart, and The Rithmatist in teen. Here’s a picture. I put three Steelhunt codes in books there, but they might be gone already.

Today I’m signing in the Dayton area. You can find the rest of my tour schedule here, and if you want me to email you when I’m signing near you, tell me your city.

Steelhunt, Week Two

We have entered week two of Steelheart’s release—by Wednesday, we’ll know what the opening week numbers were, and that will become the benchmark that Dashner will try to beat with The Eye of Minds. The loser will then become Justin Bieber. Many thanks to all who checked out the book last week.

Of course, you’re still perfectly welcome to buy the book this week! To encourage that along, I’ll be doing a few more cool blog posts this week. (Including one titled “What I learned by working on the Wheel of Time”!) In this post, however, I want to give you a little more about the Steelhunt.

If you missed last week’s post, I’m hiding prizes in books at my signings and in bookstores I pass during my tour. If you work at a bookstore somewhere that is not on my tour, do feel free to email me through my website and ask about the Steelhunt. We’d love to have you participate.

Last week, we gave you a glimpse of the prize. Today, I want to show it in its full glory.

It’s an awesome lenticular postcard designed by Isaac (who did all of the maps for Mistborn and The Way of Kings), which shows Chicago being transformed to steel. On the back of these postcards are codes that will take you to a hidden section of my website that contains goodies, such as a sneak peek at Words of Radiance. The more codes that are entered, the more goodies get revealed.

I’ll be on tour this week, visiting the following cities: Chicago, Cincinnati, Dayton, Milwaukee, Chicago again. I’ve given away codes at every signing so far—some in books, others with clues in the store, others to people in costume or who do something otherwise impressive. So please stop by! In addition, if you’re flying through those cities, you might find codes in signed copies of Steelheart in the airports.

Last week, I visited the following stores. All have signed books, and many have some codes hidden in them:

Orem UT, Barnes & Noble
Has signed hardcovers of most of my books, including Steelheart, The Rithmatist, and A Memory of Light.
Salt Lake City, The King’s English
They had copies of the Mistborn Adventure Game, which I signed! I know for a fact I left one Steelheart code here with their science fiction guru. He might still have it!
Salt Lake City Airport, Simply Books
By gate C6. They have signed copies of Steelheart and every Sanderson paperback, and they keep a huge stock of my books. I pass through so often that they almost always have something signed in stock. If you fly through SLC anytime in the future, you might want to stop by. I also left them a dozen Steelhunt codes last time, and there might be a few left hidden in copies of Steelheart!
Houston IAH Airport
There is a Simply Books near the B terminal escalators that has a ton of signed copies of Steelheart. In the A terminal, there is a newsstand-style bookstore with signed copies in an attached books section. I left a lot of Steelhunt codes in these.
Houston, Murder by the Book
An excellent store that you really should visit. Say hi to John for me, and pick up one of their signed stock of Steelheart!
Austin, The Book People
Another excellent store. They are doing a promotion in October for Steelheart and The Rithmatist. I left them a big stack of Steelhunt codes, so if you buy a copy of Steelheart from them, you might be able to get them to give you one. Watch for an announcement of when their promotion starts. They are going to use the codes then.
Austin Airport
Two newsstand stores, called Austin Article, each had eight copies of Steelheart. One is by Gate 5, and has no codes—but signed books! The larger one near the center of the terminal, by security, has codes hidden in two of the eight copies.

If you have friends passing through one of these towns or airports, have them grab a code for you! (And hopefully a signed book too.)

And watch for more ways to win a code on Twitter/Facebook and my mailing list! (Which you can sign up for here, through my website.)

STEELHEART Release in the UK + UK Trailer

Steelheart was released Thursday in the UK! In the upper right of this post are tabs where you can see links to buy the book in the UK and associated territories.

I wrote a blog post for my UK publisher, Gollancz, which you can see here. Fantasy Faction also has the reveal of the UK trailer for Steelheart; go read what they have to say about it, but I’m also posting it below.

Finally, I have a way to get a Steelhunt code just for people in the UK. You see, in London is one of my very favorite bookstores, Forbidden Planet. I signed there a couple of years ago, and it was fantastic. I think if you’re in London and are going to buy Steelheart, Forbidden Planet is a great place to do it—and there are several other Forbidden Planet store locations throughout the UK. So I’m going to give out Steelhunt codes to the first five people who go to Forbidden Planet, buy Steelheart, and have a picture taken standing next to a Forbidden Planet employee and holding your copy of Steelheart. Email your photo to my assistant Kara, and she will get the first five of you a Steelhunt code. Please be aware that I may want to use your photo in a blog post.

This is not the only opportunity that UK fans will have to find a Steelhunt code. Stay tuned.

And now, the UK trailer for Steelheart, which makes use of the excellent cover illustration by Sam Green.

The STEELHEART Big Idea + Games Creatures Play

I’ve started my tour for Steelheart! After two very successful Utah signings, I’ve flown off to Texas where I will have events in Houston and Austin. You can check out my full schedule here.

To accompany the Steelheart release, I’ve posted a guest Big Idea essay over at John Scalzi’s Whatever blog. It starts off like this:

Early in my life, I knew I was a geek. I just didn’t know what that meant.

For example, I went to a Star Trek convention when I was eleven or twelve. Now, at that point, I’d only seen a handful of TOS episodes. I hadn’t discovered fantasy novels or reading yet. But I went to a Star Trek convention because…well, I was a geek, right? That seemed like the sort of thing that geeks did.

Fortunately, it turns out my instincts about myself were right. During the next few years, I blossomed. In geek terms, that means I discovered comic books, role playing, and novels—then retreated to my room to pupate for the next six years, surviving on a steady diet of Anne McCaffrey novels and bags of Cheetos.

From there it talks about about Steelheart and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Give it a read!

Something else special today is that the cover to Charlaine Harris’s anthology Games Creatures Play has been revealed. You can see it below. When Charlaine invited me to be part of this anthology and explained what it was going to be about, I knew I had to write a story for it. My contribution is called “Dreamer” and is rather unlike anything I’ve ever written—and it’s even a true short story rather than a novella. I hope you’ll enjoy it when it comes out in April.

Here’s the full list of contributors and stories for the anthology.

Charlaine Harris: “In the Blue Hereafter”
William Kent Krueger: “Hide and Seek”
Jan Burke: “Stepping into the Dead Zone”
Joe R. Lansdale: “Dead on the Bones”
Caitlin Kittredge: “The Devil Went down to Boston”
Brendan DuBois: “On the Playing Fields of Blood”
Dana Cameron: “The God’s Games”
Scott Sigler: “The Case of the Haunted Safeway”
Ellen Kushner: “Prise de Fer”
Brandon Sanderson: “Dreamer”
Mercedes Lackey: “False Knight on the Road”
Seanan McGuire: “Jammed”
Adam-Troy Castro: “Hide and Shriek”
Laura Lippman: “Ice”
Toni L. P. Kelner: “Bell, Book, and Candlepin”

Sanderson’s Third Law of Magic

We’re celebrating the release of Steelheart, my new novel! It’s out this week. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can read up on the book here, listen to the first five chapters of the audiobook here, and watch the trailer here.

Please consider going to your retailer of choice and looking at the novel. I’m extremely proud of it. Also, play along in the Steelhunt!

As part of the celebration, I present to you Sanderson’s Third Law.

Introduction

At long last, it’s time for me to continue my series on how I develop magic systems for my books. If you haven’t read the first two pieces in this sequence, check out Sanderson’s First Law and Sanderson’s Second Law.

When I speak about these laws, I often make some wisecrack about how humble I am. (I named them all after myself, you see.) However, the reason I named them as I did is not because I view them as rules that everyone must follow in developing their magic systems. Instead, these are observations about what have made my own magic systems better—in the way I like to design them. Therefore, they are laws that I try to follow in my writing.

At times, I’ve broken these laws—indeed, I’ve figured them out over time by noticing places in my fiction where the magic system doesn’t work as well as I’d like. You could say breaking the laws is what taught me about them in the first place.

Remember that in writing, nothing is absolute. I don’t read a book and think to myself, “I wonder how well this magic system follows Sanderson’s Laws!” When I read, I’m there to enjoy the story. However, when I analyze why something works or doesn’t work—particularly in a book I’m working on—often these concepts will come into play.

Anyway, without further rambling, the third law is as follows: Expand what you already have before you add something new.

Explanation

There are a lot of potential worldbuilding pitfalls a fantasy and science fiction writer can stumble into. One of these is making your story boring by overburdening it with too much expository worldbuilding. This, in turn, is often a symptom of a writer who spent years and years practicing worldbuilding—but not much practicing the actual craft of writing.

Because of this, I sometimes warn about what we call “worldbuilder’s disease,” which is a little like warning a bodybuilder friend not to skip leg day. Practicing worldbuilding is important, but to have a well-balanced story, a potential writer will also need to practice prose, characterization, and plotting. You’re not a pianist if you only learn to play one song, even if you can play it really well—instead, you’re a party trick.

(Now, I’ll add the caveat that worldbuilder’s disease is only a problem for writers who want to make a professional living writing books. If your goal is to have fun worldbuilding, and the writing of a book is something secondary to that, then there’s nothing at all wrong with focusing your time on your setting. Do what you enjoy.)

Anyway, because I talk a lot about the dangers of over-worldbuilding, you might think that I’m against it entirely. Not at all—I like stories with massive worldbuilding, intricate worlds, and clever use of magic.

That’s where this law comes in.

Often, the best storytelling happens when a thoughtful writer changes one or two things about what we know, then extrapolates purposefully through all of the ramifications of that change. A brilliant magic system for a book is less often one with a thousand different powers and abilities—and is more often a magic system with relatively few powers that the author has considered in depth.

This is something I’ve come to realize over a long time. I often fall into the trap of thinking that “Bigger is better, and more is more awesome.” Films have this trouble all the time. How often has a sequel been ruined by this mentality? (An example comes from the Spiderman franchise of last decade, where the third film was widely panned for trying to cram too many villains into the space—when one very dangerous and compelling villain often makes a better story.)

In epic fantasy books, it’s not the number of powers that creates immersive and memorable worldbuilding—it’s not even the powers themselves. It’s how well they are ingrained into the society, culture, ecology, economics, and everyday lives of the people in the stories.

In short, this law challenges me to create deep worldbuilding instead of just wide worldbuilding.

I’ll talk about expanding a magic in three directions I’ve found useful.

Extrapolate

In developing your magic, your job as a writer is to look at how the changes you’ve made will affect the world as a whole. Keep this within reason, depending on your story’s goals and lengths. Epic fantasy has space for looking at history and economics, while a tight urban fantasy may instead want to look at one specific factor—such as how synthetic blood might affect vampire culture.

Extrapolating, to me, is about asking the “what happens when” questions. “What happens when a wizard converts to Christianity?” “What happens to warfare when a magic can create food out of thin air, enabling much more mobile armies?” “What happens to gender dynamics if magic causes all of the men who use it to go insane?”

Often, both in my own books and the books I read, if the worldbuilding comes out in a jumbled mess it’s because the writer is trying to shove far too many powers into a tight space. Instead, picking several of those powers and showing the problems they create in the lives of the different characters might make more sense. Instead of giving every character a new power, can you have different takes on the same powers, used in different ways?

Interconnect

Everything I’m talking about can be taken too far, and that goes for this law as well. In some of my own works, I’ve enjoyed having a large list of powers to draw from—it has helped me create a more unique experience for my storytelling. Some of my favorite series, such as the Wheel of Time and Discworld, involve a massive amount of worldbuilding and a story world where tons upon tons of things can happen. We want a fantasy epic to be immersive and evoke an entire world full of dozens, if not hundreds, of different cultures and peoples.

The second piece of advice I have here, then, is a suggestion that you tie your powers, cultures, and themes together in your story. If I am going to have multiple magic systems—or multiple powers available to a single character—I ask myself how I can connect these powers so they work together, rather than feeling like separate “isn’t that cool” abilities given to a character.

I try to avoid using too many examples from my books, as these essays aren’t intended to be me bragging about what I’ve done well. At the same time, I do think occasionally I hit the target—and when it comes to interconnection, the Mistborn magic system very much came together.

When developing the system, I knew I wanted a wide variety of powers. The first attempts at it had some very odd powers that didn’t fit with the others. In designing the magic, I realized that if I themed all of the abilities toward things a group of thieves would want to be able to do, I could name each power after a role in a thieving crew. This cohesion formed the core of what brought the magic system together.

(Further pieces of interconnection included designing the table at the back, with different categories of powers—though I certainly don’t think this is something you need to do for every magic. It lent strength to the sub-theme in Mistborn of a society on the cusp of industrial revolution.)

Tying your powers together thematically, and asking yourself how they play into the themes of your novel, will very much help you worldbuild and expand, instead of adding. You’ll end up with a magic system that feels like an important part of your book, and less like it includes “everything and the kitchen sink.” (A problem that was common to many early magic systems, like those of early superhero comics.)

Do note that this works very well for other types of worldbuilding as well. Asking yourself how your economy interconnects with the religions of your world can help you develop both in a more interesting and way—and then asking how those interconnect with your theme, and the challenges of your characters, will create a much stronger book as a whole.

Streamline

The third and final suggestion in this area is to look over your cultures, magics, and even characters and ask yourself, “Where can I combine these?”

This is particularly applicable when it comes to magic systems, and characters with powers. I’ve started asking myself more and more when developing a culture, “How can I take some already-existent piece of this world, and show a new culture’s reaction to it?” Instead of developing a brand-new religion, I ask myself if a schism in an already existent religion would not work better. Instead of adding a new character with a new power, I ask if this character can approach one of the already-existent powers in a new and interesting way.

In another example, my experience has been that if you’re going to visit ten kingdoms in your novel, your first instinct might be to create ten new quirky magic systems to distinguish them. Instead, you might want to consider creating one distinctive thing magic does in this world, then have each culture use it in a different way. A simple magic—such as some people being able to change their skin color at will—could spawn religions, influence social mores, provoke wars, play havoc with caste systems, create new kinds of jobs.

Streamlining in this way helps with a number of things. It keeps down complexity creep in your stories—something that is not as big a problem in book one as it becomes in book seven. It helps your narrative be more tight, and it has (with me) forced me to reach deeper into character design. Instead of a character being “look at this wacky power” it has become, more and more, “let’s have someone who looks at the world differently explore their problems with society and the setting.”

Harriet tells a story about this regarding Robert Jordan, who had originally intended his Wheel of Time series to be about four young men who are thrown into something above their heads. Partway into the first book, Harriet pointed out to him that one of the young men was never really doing anything. Robert Jordan kept saying that he’d be important in later books.

Harriet’s wise advice: “If the first one isn’t good, there won’t be any later books.” Robert Jordan cut the character and gave his parts to the other characters, and in so doing made them all increase in depth.

Now, there are ways you can take this one way too far. One example is giving all of the growth, interesting new powers, and adventures to one person—essentially ending up with a single hero who has been through way too much and had way too many experiences. It can strain plausibility. (Though, then again, some series are built on just this idea.)

A larger problem of streamlining can be developing each culture of your world to be identical, except for one little defining trait—such as how they look at religion. That’s streamlining way too far.

However, this rule of thumb has helped me a great deal over the years.

Conclusion

Expand, Don’t Add.

It can be tough to decide when to apply this idea. For me, Law Three is a constant balancing act—much like the balancing act between showing and giving exposition. Exposition is important; it can move the narrative forward and can establish setting elements quickly. Taking time to show a concept, instead of explain it, often requires a lot more words—though it usually creates a more powerful scene.

Getting the balance right takes effort, and the “right” balance will be different for every story. The same goes for pushing your worldbuilding depth, as opposed to adding more breadth to it. When do you spend time making an existing culture more deep to add to the strength of the storytelling, and when do you introduce a new culture to improve the sense of wonder and scope of a book?

I will tell you this, though. When I stopped thinking of the Stormlight Archive along the lines of “I want to add more awesome magics!” and instead started thinking, “What are the common themes to the magics, and how can I interconnect and consolidate those themes?” my worldbuilding got stronger.

It’s okay to go big. It’s okay to go epic.

But be sure to go deep as well.

Brandon