Mistborn

State of the Sanderson 2018

mistborn — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 18:31:17 GMT

Introduction

Another year has passed, and Koloss Head Munching Day is upon us again. It’s been a fun year, full of me working on interesting side projects, so expect quite the list of updates in this (very long) post. But first, let me give a hearty thank you to the community of readers that continues to put up with my sometimes insane writing process. I realize it results in me having a lot of projects, necessitating posts like this one to keep everyone up to date. For many writers, this might be an overwhelming number of irons in the proverbial fire—but it is exactly what I need to keep me excited about the process, and to keep me from burning out.

Know, however, that I realize this can be a little frustrating if you’re waiting for one specific update that keeps not happening. It’s quite the challenge to keep all this straight, but I do my best to keep in mind that by beginning something, I make an implicit promise that I will finish it. I take this promise seriously. I will do my best to balance my artistic needs with the trust you’ve all shown me by continuing to support my work. I consider this post, along with updates on places like my subreddit, to be essential parts of this process. I often cannot rush the artistic process, but I can keep you all informed of what is causing delays, or what projects I find exciting. This is how I make myself accountable to you, as you are the means by which I even get to do this wonderful job in the first place.

So, introduction done, here we go! Let the circus commence.

My Year

January-March: Skyward and Legion Revisions
I kicked off the year quickly doing a second draft of Skyward. Pulling The Apocalypse Guard from the publisher, then promising them Skyward to publish in the fall of 2018, meant that I had to scramble. It wouldn’t do to pull a book I judged it to be of inferior quality, only to replace it with a book that I didn’t have time to revise up to my standards. So you’ll see a number of months dedicated to Skyward. (Which, if you somehow missed it, did come out—and is still sitting quite happily on the New York Times bestseller list many weeks later, so thank you all very much!)

Another thing I’d been putting off for months was the necessary revisions of the third Legion story. Tor was quite patient with me on this one, considering the Legion collection was scheduled for publication in the fall as well. But during these three months, I did multiple revisions of both books, eventually getting Legion into a polished state. (There was one more draft of Skyward still to do.) Legion Three, Lies of the Beholder, can be found in the Legion collection that was published earlier this year.

Finally, somewhere in here, I squeezed in an outline and world guide for Death Without Pizza. (Yes, that’s a name change—no it’s not the final name, but just a placeholder.) More on that later.

April: Children of the Nameless
Sometime around March of last year, Wizards of the Coast sent me an exploratory email. It being the 25th anniversary of their card game, they were wondering if I’d be interested in doing a story with them. As most of you know, I’m quite the fan of Magic: The Gathering. It’s my primary hobby, and I have way too many cards. (Which still aren’t enough, of course.) I was enthusiastic, and you can read more about the process I used to approach the story in this blog post.

I knew that by doing so, and by writing the story as long as it ended up, it would make getting to some of my other projects later in the year more difficult. (Namely, the fourth Wax and Wayne book, which I’ll talk about shortly.) But this was kind of something I had to do, so I ask your forgiveness in taking this detour to Innistrad. I’m exceptionally pleased with the story and the response it has gotten, so if you haven’t read it, I present it to you here! Reading it requires no prior knowledge of the card came or the lore surrounding it.

May: Skyward Final Draft
How long it takes to write a story depends on a lot of factors, but in general, three months gets me around 100k words. Shorter stories, with fewer viewpoints, tend to be faster—while longer stories with more intricate plotlines (like Stormlight) tend to take longer. But that’s just for the rough draft. Generally, doing all the other drafts takes an equivalent amount of time to the first draft. (So, if the first draft takes three months, the second through fourth drafts will together take another three months.) You can see this at play in Skyward, which took about three months to write in the end of 2017, then took three additional months of revision to polish up.

I did sneak in a little time to do an outline for a piece called The Original in here as well, which took about a week. I’ll update you on that in the secondary projects section.

June–August: Starsight First Draft
And, speaking of three month first drafts, here we get me buckling down and doing the sequel to Skyward. It’s finished in its first draft form, and dominated my summer. In here, I also did detailed outlines for the third and fourth books of the series. (And this is where I determined for certain that the series would need to be four books instead of three.)

September–October: Odds and Ends
In these months I had some travel to record episodes of Writing Excuses, I did a quick second draft of Starsight to send to my publisher, and I did some revisions to Children of the Nameless. I also did more work on The Original, Death Without Pizza, and Alcatraz Six (AKA Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, or Alcatraz vs. His Own Dumb Self). Finally, I slipped in some brainstorming with Dan Wells on how to fix The Apocalypse Guard.

Basically, I knew that November would be mostly lost to touring, and I was scrambling to get some work done on small projects to clear my plate for 2019, which will be dedicated to working on Stormlight Four.

November: Skyward Tour
I spent most of November on tour for Skyward, and quickly finishing up final revisions on Children of the Nameless. I got to see a lot of you while touring for the book, and had a blast—but these tours get more and more difficult as the lines get longer and longer. The tour for Stormlight Four in 2020 might require me to do some things I’ve been dreading, such as limit the lines to a certain number of tickets. It makes me sad to contemplate, but I’ll keep you all in the loop about what we decide to do.

That said, here are some pictures from my tour! Let the costume parade commence:

Syl – Barnes & Noble, El Cerrito

Mistborn – University Bookstore, Seattle

Shallan and Jasnah – University Bookstore, Seattle

Cobalt Guard – University Bookstore, Seattle

Spensa Nightshade – Anderson’s Bookshop, Chicago

Mistborn – Barnes & Noble, Atlanta

Wax – Barnes & Noble, Atlanta

Shallan – Murder by the Book, Houston

Australia(?) and Bastille – Murder by the Book, Houston

Mistborn – Murder by the Book, Houston

December: Death Without Pizza
I needed a break from all the other things I’ve been doing, so in classic Brandon style, I worked on something fresh and new to give myself a breather. This was where I was going to do Wax and Wayne Four, but doing Children of the Nameless meant that instead of three months extra space at the end of the year, I only had one month. (As CotN had taken one month to write, and one month to revise.) I had the choice of pushing back the start of Stormlight Four, or doing something else for this month and trying to sneak in W&W 4 sometime next year. I chose the latter. It’s important to me that I let myself do side projects to refresh myself—but I also think it’s important to keep to my Stormlight schedule. It would be too easy to keep putting off the big books until they stretch to years in the making. I told myself I was going to divide my time in half between Stormlight and other projects.

The truth is, I’m getting really anxious about getting back to Stormlight. That’s a very good sign, as once I finish a Stormlight book, I’m usually feeling quite burned out on the setting, and need a number of months to recover.

Anyway, that’s where the year went! Now, on to the exciting part. The big list of projects and updates to them.

Updates on Main Projects

Stormlight
As you just read about above, I am on track for starting this book on January first. I’ll begin with a reread of the first three books, as I find I need a periodic refresher, even on my own novels. This will also be important for helping me really nail down the outlines for books four and five.

As I’ve worked on the Stormlight series, I’ve shifted a lot of things around in the outlines. Famously, I swapped Dalinar’s book and Szeth’s book (making Book Three have Dalinar’s flashbacks instead of Szeth’s). But along the same lines, I moved a chunk of Book Three into Book Two, and then moved around smaller arcs for Three, Four, and Five.

The Stormlight series has a very odd structure. Each novel is outlined as a trilogy plus a short story collection (the interludes) and is the length of four regular books. This lets me play with narrative in some interesting ways—but it also makes each volume a beast to write. The other superstructure to the series is the spotlight on the ten orders of Radiants, with each book highlighting one of them while also having a flashback sequences for a character tied to one of those orders. If that weren’t complicated enough, the series is organized in two major five-book arcs.

What this means is that I need to do some extra work on books four and five, as they together tie off an arc. There are some small plot lines I’ve been pushing back from book to book as I nail down what each volume will include—but I can’t do that with Book Five, as it will be the capstone of this sequence. So I need the outlines to be tight to make certain I get everything into them that needs to be there.

Anyway, that’s a long way to say, essentially, I’ll start posting updates to the Stormlight subreddit in January, and you can follow along there or on the progress bar we’ll post here on my website on January first. I’ve commissioned a special piece of artwork to be used in Stormlight Four blog posts, which we should be able to reveal next year. (I’m pretty excited about it.) So you have that to look forward to as well!

Note that while I’m optimistic about this being my fall 2020 release, delays could happen if the book doesn’t come out smoothly on the first draft. I’ll keep you updated with regular posts. A lot will depend on how long the revisions take.

Status: Book Four is my main project for 2019, for an anticipated 2020/2021 release.

Mistborn
My big failure in 2018 was not getting to Wax and Wayne Four. But all is not lost! I am going to do whatever I can to squeeze this in next year. I’m feeling I might need a break in the middle of Stormlight Four, as I sometimes do. If so, I might squeeze this in there. But it will depend on a many factors. So, we’ll have to take a wait-and-see attitude.

I’m going to try to hold myself back from doing any other side projects, like Children of the Nameless or The Original from this year, until Wax and Wayne is finished. Book Four will be the conclusion of their story, and the wrap-up of era two of Mistborn. (And I have big things planned for Era Three, which I am planning to write between Stormlight Five and Stormlight Six.)

Status: Pushed off for now, but to be written very soon. No release date yet.

Skyward
Book Two, Starsight, is done, and I’ll be noodling on revisions for it in the early part of next year while I write the Stormlight Four and Five outlines. It’s scheduled for October of next year.

Stormlight Four taking all of my 2019 will likely mean that Skyward Three won’t be written until 2020, for a spring 2021 release. (At least, that would be my best guess at this point.) So you’ll have a larger-than-usual wait between Books Two and Three, unless something happens to let me squeeze Book Three in early. As I mentioned above, it’s a four-book series, and when I get back to it, I anticipate doing Book Four soon after Book Three. (Like I did in writing Books One and Two very close to one another.)

Status: Book Two ready to go in 2019. Book Three likely in 2021, Book Four likely in 2022.

Death (Without Pizza)
A major bombshell update here: we have finished a first draft of this book! I’m moving this up to major projects, as I anticipate a release of this novel in the coming two years. It is a Dresden Files-esque urban fantasy series set in London, starring a necromancer. (With a very Sanderson-style take on necromancy.)

Many of you have been following along with this project, which I’ve mentioned for many years in the State of the Sanderson posts. I wrote a rough draft of a big chunk of this book back some years ago now, but didn’t like how it was going, so I shelved it. The idea stuck with me though—and I really wanted to give it another chance. Over the years, one part I didn’t like was actually the pizza aspect. The original pitch was for a pizza delivery man who became a necromancer.

Well, over the years, I found I wanted a stronger character for the protagonist. Starting with the title Death by Pizza had pushed me to make the story more jokey than I wanted, and had led me to cut corners on the worldbuilding in ways I didn’t like. So when I went back to the drawing board, I started going in different directions with the storytelling. A more intricate, interesting magic system. And a character with more heart. Where I eventually ended up going was studying metal music culture.

The subculture of heavy metal music is fascinating to me. I really like how passionate the fans are about it, and how often outsiders are wrong about those inside it. (Do a little reading on the topic, and you might find that a lot of your stereotypes of metal fans are wrong—like mine were. The more I read about and talked to metal fans, the more fascinated I became by the subculture.) It seemed to me that a metalhead who finds out he’s a necromancer could be a cool hook.

Well, around the time I was really getting into this, I was chatting with Peter Orullian, a novelist who is a friend of mine. He’s mostly known for his epic fantasy series The Vault of Heaven, but he also happens to be a metalhead and a musician. (He’s toured internationally fronting metal bands, and recently composed an entire rock opera in the style of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He’s even written a book with the band Dream Theater, in conjunction with one of their concept albums.)

Well, the match seemed perfect. He could bring the expertise on metal music, and I could provide the worldbuilding. So we jumped into a collaboration. I wrote out a lengthy world guide and outline, and Peter did a lot of experimenting to find the right voice for our character. We worked on the first volume all during the summer and fall, and the resulting book is quite promising. It’s the story of an American metal singer living in London whose day goes from bad to worse as he gets kicked out of his band, then makes his way to his favorite pub to lick his wounds—only to end up getting shot in the head during an apparent robbery. And after that, things start to go really badly for him.

Peter finished the first draft in November, and I’ve been spending my December doing a second draft. After that, I’ll kick it back to him for a third draft so that we can make sure our different voices are smoothed out. We’ll see where it goes from there! In any case, though, Death Without Pizza will not be the final title for the story. We’ll pick something a little less silly; I’m a little worried people will expect something over-the-top metal like Brütal Legend—which was great, but not the direction this story ended up going. Anyway, I’ll post updates as we go along!

Status: Being revised. After that, we’ll look for a publisher.

Updates on Secondary Projects

The Original
I’m moving this novella (which I don’t think I’ve mentioned before in a State of the Sanderson) into the Secondary Projects section. A while ago I had an idea for a story about a world where, if you committed a crime and went on the run for it, the government could create a clone of you (with your memories and personality) to hunt you down. After all, who better to hunt a criminal than a copy of that criminal? The copy would have strict controls in place so they could be killed by the government with the press of a button, but would be given the promise that they could take their Original’s place if they succeeded in hunting them down and killing them.

Earlier this year, the idea developed into a full-fledged outline, which I wrote out during time when I needed a break from other things. It worked out well, and so you might see progress on this in future years. Right now, I like the idea of doing it as an audio original, perhaps with a coauthor who is more experienced in audio or voice acting. So watch for updates here.

Status: Outlined.

The Apocalypse Guard
I do someday want to do something with this book. I’ve given it to Dan Wells, my long-time friend and sometimes partner in crime. He’s come back with some suggestions on how I could fix it, along with some brainstorming on where it could go as a series.

I’m going to give you fair warning, though. Every time Dan and I brainstorm together, weird things happen. Legion was the result of one of those sessions, as was Dan’s book I Am Not a Serial Killer. (Which you should all go read, if you haven’t.) The two of us are odd enough on our own, but together we’re downright strange. (You should see the two of us in role-playing sessions, where we constantly try to out-bizarre one another with our character concepts.)

I fully expect something to come out of The Apocalypse Guard sessions I’m doing with Dan, but…well, don’t expect it to be normal by any stretch of the word.

Status: In revisions, getting weirder.

Alcatraz
I’ve been tweaking Alcatraz Six. I did a partial draft a few years ago that went off the rails, and this year, I trimmed that back with some help from a friend into the parts that worked. From there, we’ve been trying to figure out how to get Bastille’s character voice right. It’s moving. Slowly, but it’s moving. Book Six, written from Bastille’s viewpoint, will be the end of the series.

Now that Legion is done, the next series I want to make sure gets tied up is Alcatraz. It shouldn’t be too much longer.

Status: Book Six made some small progress this year.

White Sand
Graphic Novel Two came out this year, and was very well received. (Save for the forced artist change, something I hated to have to do. That said, the new artist is doing a fantastic job.) Graphic Novel Three is the end of this sequence, and is well on its way to being completed.

The prose version is still available if you sign up for my mailing list. Though remember, we’ve made numerous updates to the story during the adaptation process.

I have no immediate plans to do sequels to this in graphic novel form, though you can expect stories set on Taldain to happen in the future.

Status: Final graphic novel is well under way. Release in 2019 or early 2020 likely.

Dark One
My outline for this drew a lot of buzz around both Hollywood and New York. The story, if you aren’t familiar with it, is about a young man in our world who discovers that a fantasy world has declared him to be the Dark One, and starts sending hit squads into our world to assassinate him. Pitched as “Harry Potter from Voldemort’s viewpoint,” the story follows this young man as he is forced to confront the possibility that he might do what the prophecies say.

We have a graphic novel in the works, and I’ve been doing pitches in Hollywood for a potential television show. So movement is certainly happening here.

Status: Going well. Might have art to show soon from the graphic novel.

Elantris, Warbreaker, Rithmatist
No updates from last year, I’m afraid. There was no intention to make progress on these this year. Once Alcatraz is wrapped up, I’ll turn my attention back to The Rithmatist as the last looming series that needs a wrap-up that hasn’t gotten one. Elantris and Warbreaker sequels aren’t to be expected until Stormlight Five and Wax and Wayne Four are done.

Status: Keep waiting. (Sorry again.)

Updates on Minor Projects

The Reckoners, Legion
These are both finished, and I don’t foresee any future updates anytime soon. Do note, however, that the Reckoners board game has been shipping, and it turned out great. You should soon have a chance to buy copies if you missed the Kickstarter, and I suspect there will be expansions in the future.

Status: Completed

Adamant
No change from last year. This space opera series of novellas is in limbo until I find the right time to work on them. It will happen eventually.

Status: No movement.

Soulburner
No motion on this space opera that I might rename Starburner once I get around to doing something with it. I have a cool worldbuilding document, but no novel specifically. I’ve been tempted to see if it would work for a video game setting.

Potential Cosmere Stories
Keep the following on your radar, as they may happen someday. However, as I’ll be knee-deep in Stormlight in 2019, don’t expect anything to happen on any of them until it is done. The list includes: Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel, Sixth of the Dusk sequel, Silverlight novella, Threnody novel, Aether of Night, Silence Divine.

Movie/Television Updates

So, let’s talk about movies.

People tend to get really excited about news of my books being adapted—and rightly so. I’d be very excited to someday see one of my properties turn into a film, and I think it’s inevitable that some day, we’ll see it happen. However, the process of a book becoming a film or television show is a long one, involving the input of a lot of people. And fans tend to get very excited when something is being developed, but often don’t realize that the stages of development can often take a long time.

I thought it might be helpful here to go over what some of those steps are, so you can get a better idea of how far along my various properties are. Understand that this is a rough guide, and individual properties might follow a different route. This is also kind of an outsider’s take on it all, as I don’t consider myself an expert in Hollywood. Those who know more about the ins and outs of the business would probably consider this a gross over-simplification.

Step One: Producers Option a Story
In Hollywood terms an “option” is kind of like a rental agreement. The most common way a story starts on its path to an adaptation is with an option. (Sometimes, there’s even a step before this called a Shopping Agreement.) Basically, someone (usually a producer, but sometimes a studio) comes in and offers to pay an author every year to “option” their work, meaning the producer/studio gets exclusive rights to make a film on that work. They don’t buy the rights completely, however. Usually, they set a buyout price, then pay 5/10% of that price every year or so to keep the option locked up. This gives them time to put all the other pieces together for a film without needing to commit to paying the full buyout price until they’re certain the film is going to happen.

My agent once told me that about 1 out of 30 of the properties he saw get optioned eventually got made into a film or show. An option is absolutely an important step, but a lot of times fans see an option agreement in place and start expecting a film any day—when really, this is just the first exploratory step in the process. Sometimes, producers even option rights they never intend on making into films. (I once had a producer brag to me that he—in order to make sure nobody in town was trying to sell something similar to his property—had bought up all rights to similar books for cheap, with the intention of sitting on them for five years to make sure he didn’t have any competition. I was not impressed, to say the least.)

Step Two: Screenplay
Usually, after the option agreement is signed, a screenplay is commissioned for a film. For a television show, it will either be a screenplay for a pilot, or some kind of series bible or “treatment,” a kind of outline that talks about the process the group would use in adapting the property.

This screenplay, treatment, or bible is what the producers will take around town to try to get studios, directors, and actors interested in a property. A book being successful is interesting to Hollywood, but what they rightly want to see is if that book can be made into a workable screenplay. Often, this process takes years, as a screenplay/teleplay will be commissioned—then go through several rewrites. Sometimes, the producers will decide to hire a second or even third screenwriter to do a pass on the script, if they decide it needs another take or specific revisions.

Step Three: Studio Interest
With screenplay in hand, the producers will approach the studios or larger production companies. (Or sometimes content distributors, like Netflix.) The goal here is to get interest from parties with deep pockets and the power to actually make a film. This step can occasionally be skipped if a studio was involved from the beginning. (This has happened with several of my properties.) Sometimes, the studio might be interested—but send the producers back to step three to do more revisions before offering any kind of official deal or promise of distribution. Sometimes, the producers will need to secure promises from multiple parties—like, for instance, they might get a smaller studio in the US interested, then have to get a foreign partner interested to provide funding for overseas distribution promises.

Step Four: Attaching Talent
With a screenplay in hand and the backing of a studio or similar group, the producers can now try to get a director or actor on board with the film. This crucial step will have a big influence on how/if the film will get made. Obviously, if you get a major director interested, that makes the studios sit up and take notice. Likewise if a major actor attaches to the project. For television, this often involves getting an established show runner attached. (In my experience, with television, sometimes sort of thing happens in Step Two instead—with the showrunner being involved in the pitch documents. In that case, Step Three is the big one: getting someone big in the business to fund a pilot.)

Step Five: Actual Green Light
Finally, if all the pieces come together, you get what is called a green light. The film is scheduled for shooting, the studio commits a large chunk of money to the project, and people start getting hired. This is when the option actually gets exercised, and the author gets the payment for the contract they likely signed years and years ago. Once in a while, a group of producers will decide that the property they hold is big enough that (once their option period runs out) they decide to pay the buyout price to get more time to try to get the film made. Sometimes, instead, they’ll just agree with the author to extend the option period for another payment.

Step Six: Film Gets Made
I’ve never gotten here, but I hear it’s a lovely experience.

So, with that in mind, I can tell you where each of my properties are. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to name a lot of names. For instance, if a director is interested but hasn’t signed on officially, it’s not my place to announce them as being involved. Likewise, if some producers have offered to option something, but we don’t have signed paperwork, it’s generally best if I stay quiet about the details so that they can do publicity on the deal in the way they would like.

Anyway, here’s where we stand for each of my properties.

Snapshot
It might be odd to see this one at the top of the list, but I think right now the best chance we have at a film would be one based on my story Snapshot. MGM announced their option of the rights almost two years ago, which is great—because it meant that we already had studio backing, cutting out one of the steps in the process. The producers were impressive in their enthusiasm, and they jumped right into commissioning a screenplay with a very talented writer.

I’ve read the screenplay, and consider it the best I’ve ever read based on one of my books. It helps that Snapshot itself is a shorter work, more easily adapted to a film. The Snapshot screenplay is an improvement on my story in virtually every way, something that I discovered with both joy and a little bit of shame. (Really, the screenwriter did some things with the story I probably should have figured out myself.)

With this great screenplay, I hope there will be a lot more good news to share really soon.

The Cosmere
DMG Entertainment optioned the rights to the Cosmere, and they have been wonderful to work with. They commissioned screenplays for The Emperor’s Soul, Mistborn, and The Way of Kings. They’re currently in Step Three above, trying to get studio interest for the properties. Mostly, they’ve been pitching Mistborn as a film series and The Way of Kingsas a television series.

Likely, the success of things like the new Lord of the Rings show and the Kingkiller Chronicle will influence how this goes in the future.

Steelheart
The Reckoners series was optioned some years ago now by 21 Laps, Shawn Levy’s company, using backing from Fox. We were happy when they renewed their option this past summer, as we weren’t certain what the status of this would be in light of the Fox–Disney merger. It seems they’re planning to take the Reckoners with them through the process, which is good news.

This was an exciting deal, as Mr. Levy has done some great work—including the film Real Steel, which was an excellent adaptation of the original story. (And, of course, he was heavily involved with Stranger Things on Netflix.) Beyond that, it came with the implicit promise of support from Fox, meaning that we could skip the “finding a studio” step. That said, this is still in the screenplay stage.

Stephen Leeds/Legion
The Stephen Leeds stories have recently been optioned for a television series by a new production company. This is the property’s third time being picked up for an option, so I’m hopeful we’ll make it work this time. I don’t believe the company has been announced officially yet, so we’ll hold off on mentioning them for now. But we’re probably in the middle of Step Two for this one.

Dark One
Dark One, based on an outline and worldbuilding guide from me, is being shopped (in a Step Three kind of way) by a production company, with an impressive showrunner attached. Unfortunately, since none of this is completely announced yet, I need to remain quiet on how it is going other than to tell you where we are in the process.

Bonus Mention: The Wheel of Time
As The Wheel of Time does not belong to me, I like to be careful about what I do and say with it. I don’t want to overstep my bounds. But for those who haven’t been paying attention, this series has progressed into a full-blown green light at Amazon Studios—with actual episodes being written and filming soon starting.

I don’t know what role, if any, I’ll have in this. Like I said, I like to be respectful of Team Jordan. It’s not my place to try to muscle in and pretend I’m in charge. At the same time, I do think I could offer something to the production, and the showrunner (who is quite sharp) has reached out to me multiple times for conversations about the adaptation. I’m impressed with everything I see, and hope to at the very least be able to pop over to the set when filming happens and grab some photos for you all.

For most of my own properties, I’d say to not hold your breath. I think they’ll happen eventually, but you shouldn’t start to get hyped up until Step Five happens for something. Well, we’re past Step Five with the Wheel of Time, and you can officially begin to feel hyped. It’s actually happening, and it looks great so far.

Games and Other Licensed Work
I’m interested in doing some more video game work. Ever since I got to be part of the Infinity Blade games, I’ve had the itch to do this again. Right now though, there is nothing in the works that I can announce—I’ve had some short preliminary conversations with game studios, but no contracts. I’ll continue to look at doing this, and will announce what I can, when I think something might actually be happening.

Unfortunately, Mistborn: Birthright never came together. (Though I’m on very good terms with the folks there.) And you can ignore any rumors about CD Projekt Red. Some fans got hyped when I said I liked them as a studio—and some news sites even picked it up as a story, for some reason. But that was just me mentioning in a random post that I think they do good work. I’ve never met with them—or talked to them—and have no reason to believe they even know who I am.

Video games aside, we do have some exciting and fun licensed properties that we’ve been working on, and I figured I should have a section in the State of the Sanderson for updates on these.

Board Games
We’ll keep looking at doing more board games. The Reckoners game, from Nauvoo Games, and Mistborn: House War, from Crafty Games—who also developed the Mistborn Adventure RPG—all of which turned out very well, and (equally important) were shipped in a reasonable timeframe to the backers on Kickstarter. We had a Stormlight game in the works, but have backed up a few steps on that one for various reasons. I hope to have one of those finished at some point. You may have seen my announcement from a few months ago, but we’ve partnered with Brotherwise Games to bring you the Call to Adventure: Stormlight expansion that should be out fall of 2019. I would also be interested in doing a deckbuilding card game based on my works eventually. (After all, you know how addicted I am to Magic: The Gathering.)

Jewelry
Badali Jewelry continues to do an excellent job creating a variety of awesome artwork pieces based on my various books. They approached me to do this way back when I was basically a nobody, and have been with me all this time, creating beautiful and detailed works.

Coins
Shire post, creator of many fantasy-themed coins for various different properties, did a very successful Kickstarter for Mistborn coinage, and I’m quite pleased with both their professionalism and artistry. We here at Dragonsteel did the designs so that they’d be 100% in continuity with the books. We’re looking at doing more with Shire Post in the future.

Music
Black Piper’s Kaladin album has been shipping its physical rewards for backers, and are finishing up the last steps of their Kickstarter. I’m very pleased with the music, which you can find on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon MP3, and many other digital outlets. I think they did a great job, and suggest that it would make a great accompaniment to your next Stormlight reread. Due to the complexities of fitting in the album around the windows for some of our other licenses, if you’re interested in owning this we’d encourage looking at it before year-end.

Amazon
We’ve recently partnered with Amazon to help bring you more apparel options. As of now, it’s the only place other than my website store to sell officially licensed clothing. And in the not-to-distant future we’re going to expand our selection to include hoodies and other things as time allows.

Projected Schedule of Releases

Starsight (Skyward Two): November 2019
White Sand Three: Sometime 2019–2020
Stormlight Four: Fall 2020
Skyward Three: 2021
Wax and Wayne Four: Sometime 2020 or 2021

Conclusion and TL;DR

Whew. That’s quite the list, eh? This post gets longer and longer each year. The short version is actually very simple. I’m dedicating most of my efforts to Stormlight Four next year, with occasional short deviations to work on Skyward or Mistborn.

Once again, thank you all for joining me on this journey.

Brandon Sanderson
December 2018

A Christmas Present

mistborn — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 17:41:14 GMT

Introduction: The Short Version

I’ve got a new story out for you to read. It’s free, and you can dive into it by going to this link. Enjoy! Once you’ve read it, here are some links of places to talk about it, all of which are likely to contain spoilers.

Discussion on Reddit
Discussion on the 17th Shard

I’ll be doing an AMA about the story on Reddit and I’ll also be appearing on the Wizards of the Coast Twitch stream tomorrow, talking about the story.

Introduction: The Longer Version

Back in January this year, Wizards of the Coast approached me. Knowing of my love for their game, Magic: The Gathering, they were wondering if I would be willing to write a tie-in story for them. They mentioned since it was the 25th birthday of Magic, they wanted to do something special—and might be able to splurge on a Brandon Sanderson story.

I was, of course, interested—but went back to Wizards with a proposal that I think surprised them. You see, I knew they’d been doing some very interesting things with their stories in recent months. (The multi-part Dominaria sequence by Martha Wells is a good example, if you are interested.) I liked how they were using free stories on their website to both enhance the lore and give some work to talented writers.

Way back in the beginning of my career, one of the things I liked to do was periodically release free stories. Defending Elysium, Firstborn, and even Warbreaker are examples. Over the years, though, I’ve gotten busy enough that I haven’t found a good opportunity to do this again. I liked the idea of doing a story for Wizards in part for this reason.

So I went back to them with a proposal: I didn’t actually want payment for this story. I just wanted them to put it up for free on their website, and then if (later down the road) it generated any money by being in a collection or in print on its own, I wanted my portion of that donated to charity. In exchange for doing it for free, I wanted to be allowed to write the story my way. That meant me picking one of their settings, then developing my own characters and plot to happen there. (As opposed to writing the story for one of their official releases, as most of the other writers they hired were doing.)

It wasn’t that I had anything against writing one of the main-line-setting stories. I just felt that in this case, I wanted greater flexibility. Beyond that, for several years now, I’ve had a story brewing in my head that I felt was a perfect match for one of their settings—a story I couldn’t make work in the Cosmere, but which I really wanted to write.

Wizards was on board immediately—and so, “Secret Project” was born.

Regarding the Story

Wizards has a lot of great settings for the card game, so I had plenty of options. The story I’d been brewing was specifically inspired by their Innistrad set—a gothic horror setting with some magepunk elements underpinning it. It has had a very interesting evolution over the years, and was the setting for one of the best Magic sets of all time. Ever since writing Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, I’ve wanted to do another horror/fantasy hybrid, and so I dove into what became Children of the Nameless.

I don’t know exactly what Wizards was expecting of me, but I suspect a 250-page behemoth of a story wasn’t it. (At 50k words, the story is roughly half the size of something like Skyward.) I have to say, though, working with them was an absolute pleasure. They jumped on board with the main character pitch I made, integrating him right away into the larger Magic story. They even went so far as to loop me in on conference calls, where I could explain my character concepts so they could develop art. I’d thought they might be worried about letting me go off on my own like this, but they were instead enthusiastic and supportive.

So, it is with great pleasure I present Children of the Nameless. Consider it a Christmas present from me and from Wizards of the Coast to you. I hope you enjoy it!

PFAQ (Possible Frequently Asked Questions)

Q: Do I have to know anything about the Innistrad setting to enjoy this story?
A: No. The story was written to be a standalone, and though it uses a MTG setting, everything you need to know about that setting is presented in the story itself. Just like you don’t need to know Roshar before picking up The Way of Kings, you don’t need to know Innistrad before picking up Children of the Nameless. (And as an aside, if you’re unfamiliar with Magic, you should at least check out some of the art books they’ve done for their settings. The creative team over at Wizards includes some of the best worldbuilders in fantasy, and their settings are incredible.)

Q: What about the game itself? Do I need to know anything about Magic to enjoy the story?
A: Again, no. Going into the story, I was a little worried about how I’d balance the card game mechanics with a story—but the creative team quickly put me at ease. They explained that they find stories in their worlds work better without the author trying to present game mechanics. The explanation I got was something along the lines of: Imagine that the card game is trying to represent things happening in a fantasy story—rather than the fantasy story trying to represent things happening in a card game.

If you are a fan of Innistrad and MTG, you might be able to catch some nods I made to cards, but many of my alpha readers had never played a game of Magic before in their lives—and they loved the story. In fact, most didn’t realize this story was a tie-in piece until I explained it to them. Note that I’m not trying to say that Wizards doesn’t care about continuity. In fact, they provided a large number of lore resources to me, and sent my story through numerous continuity fact-checks. They worked with me from the get-go to make sure that I didn’t break lore or continuity, and were quick to offer suggestions of things I could change to make sure the story worked in their setting.

The end result is a story that’s in line with their overarching lore, and doesn’t break the fundamental magic system rules of their universe. At the same time, it’s a story that’s very much a Sanderson piece.

Q: Can I get this on my Ereader of choice?
A: Yes! I’ve been told that the page for the story will include a downloadable version in epub and PDF. That said, the intention was always to put it up for free on Wizards’ website—so we didn’t even talk about propagating it to places like the Kindle/Nook/Kobo stores. I don’t anticipate it appearing there, but maybe we’ll decide to do so eventually.

Q: What about a physical edition?
A: I suspect that we’ll do one of these eventually. Wizards did, after all, commission some awesome cover art for the story—and they have a publishing deal with Random House (one of my publishers) for releasing novels. (Including the upcoming Ravnica novel.) I have told everyone I’m fine with this, so long as the free version remains available, and I have asked for my proceeds from any physical editions to be donated to Child’s Play. That said, we haven’t really talked about this, so it will depend on numerous factors.

Q: Will these characters or places get their own cards?
A: That’s up to the card design team to decide. I worked primarily with the creative team, and can’t really say when/if cards related to this story will appear in the game. (Though a little bird tells me that fans should keep an eye on upcoming sets.)

Q: When will we get the sequel?
A: I’m putting this question on here because, dear readers, I know you very well. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. I would not be opposed to doing something more with these characters in the future, if Wizards is amenable, but I’ve also got a lot on my plate. I suspect that if I were to do something more with Magic in the future, it wouldn’t be for several years. (I have Stormlight 4 to write, after all.)

Anyway, enjoy the story!

A larger State of the Sanderson update will be released next Wednesday (aka Koloss Head Munching day).

Brandon

Skyward is out today!

mistborn — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 20:34:42 GMT

Once in a while, an idea takes hold of me, and I just can’t be satisfied until I sit down and write it. Skyward was one of those books. Some of the initial ideas had been floating around in my head for years, but once everything clicked together in my mind, it consumed me. I had to write this story and I could not be satisfied until it was written. I abandoned the other book I was working on and started banging out chapters on my laptop, actually writing a big chunk of Skyward while flying around the country on tour.

It was as if I—like Spensa, the protagonist of Skyward—had found a broken-down spaceship in a cavern, and I couldn’t rest until I knew what it felt like to fly the thing. Her story was inspired by tales I loved as a child: when someone would find a dragon egg and then raise the hatchling to soar with them in the air. Skyward didn’t really come alive until I re-imagined this style of story in a science fiction setting, taking my own spin on the idea—a spaceship taking the role of the dragon, pointing the story in a new direction.

People often ask me my favorite part of being a writer. I have a tough time deciding. I delight in the original inspirations—the beginning of an idea, and imagining what could happen with it in a book. I love writing the first chapters, then love the ending chapters even more. But hands down my favorite part is being able to say, “The book is out and you can read it right now!” That trumps everything else.

So, I present to you Skyward (out today worldwide in print, audio, and ebook). May it consume your life as fully as it did mine.

As always, I hope to see you while I’m on tour (you can see my full tour schedule on my Upcoming Events page), but if you can’t make it, that’s okay. The greatest compliment you can give me is to read my books.

Voices in My Head: Part One

mistborn — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 18:25:00 GMT

Hello, all! My new book is coming out next week! Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds is a compilation of three stories that tie together to form a single narrative. Two of the stories (Legion and Legion: Skin Deep) were available previously, but the third (Lies of the Beholder) is exclusive to this edition.

I’d really appreciate it if you would have a look at it, and maybe give it a preorder if it looks interesting. It’s got a patented Brandon Magic System™, only this time applied to a modern-day setting—and in specific, one person’s very unusual way of seeing the world.

In conjunction with the book’s release, I thought I’d delve into some of the themes I find interesting (both in writing, and in the way I see the world) that made me write the series in the first place. So I present to you a three-part series of blog posts centered around this idea. I’m calling it Voices in My Head.

One of the most common questions I get, as a writer, is some variation on, “Do you ever hear voices, or feel like your characters are real?” People ask it timidly, as they don’t want to be offensive, but there seems to be genuine curiosity about the way a writer’s brain works. (Other variations on this theme are questions such as, “What are your dreams like?” or “Do you ever get so wrapped up in your worlds that you have trouble coming back to our world?”)

They’re legitimate questions, though I’m not convinced that a writer’s brain works in any consistently different way from someone else’s brain. I think you’ll find the same amount of variation in the way writers work as you’ll find in any profession. There are as many ways to approach stories as there are people writing stories.

That said, I have talked to a lot of writers who imply a certain autonomy to their characters. “I had to write their story,” one might say. “They wouldn’t leave me alone until I did.” Or some version of, “I was writing one story, but the characters just didn’t want to go that way, and so took off in another direction.”

To me, these are ways of trying to voice the fact that the way our minds work—and the way we construct art—is in some cases a mystery even to those involved. Human beings have this fascinating mix of instinct and intent, where we train ourselves to do complex tasks quickly through repetition. In this way, writing a book is somewhat similar to driving home from work—you can consciously think about it, and make each decision along the way. Or, more often, you just let your body do the work, interpreting things your brain says should happen without you thinking about it directly.

I spend a lot of time teaching how to write and talking about writing, but I don’t consciously use a lot of the techniques I talk about. I’ve used them so much that I just move forward, without formally saying something like, “Now I’m making sure my chapter ties together the sub-themes it introduced at the beginning.” The truly conscious technique comes during troubleshooting, when a story isn’t coming together for me—and so I have to step back, take apart what I’ve been doing, and find the broken bits.

So again, a mix of intent and instinct is where books come from for me. I don’t generally feel that the characters “want” to do things—but I still write them by gut feeling most of the way, and only look at breaking down their motivations specifically when I’m either working on the outline or trying to fix something in revisions.

On one hand, I know exactly who the character is and what they would do in a situation. So it does feel a little mystical sometimes, and you can have eureka moments during writing where you finally find a method to express this character that will convey the right idea to the reader. In that way, there’s almost this Platonic version of the character that you’re chasing—and trying to explore, figure out, and commit to paper.

On the other hand, it’s likely that these characters feel right to me not because of any mystical connection to the abstract. It’s because I’m unconsciously drawing from tropes, characterizations, and people I’ve known before—and I am putting them together on the page to form something that will feel right because of the backgrounds I’m drawing upon.

It’s an exhilarating process for me, but also can lead to troubles. Which I’ll talk about in Part Two.

FanX Confirmation

mistborn — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 14:29:58 GMT

All,

I have decided for certain that I will be attending FanX (formerly Salt Lake Comic Con). If you haven’t been following the drama, I joined in many other authors signing a letter that challenged the convention to do a better job presenting a safe place for our fans to attend.

While FanX has made a number of missteps along the way, I feel encouraged by their progress. I feel that at the very least, FanX will now take complaints seriously—and I feel that my fans can have a reasonable expectation that if an incident does happen, they’ll be listened to. I commend FanX on the steps they’ve taken, and I hope that it isn’t simple lip service, but represents a sincere desire to improve how they deal with harassment at their convention.

In any case, I’ll be happy to see many of you there. We should be posting my schedule soon!

p.s. If it turns out I’m wrong—if FanX continues to mishandle your harassment complaints and/or you encounter a situation where you feel FanX has encouraged a dangerous or hostile environment at this year’s convention—I would encourage you to email me. (You can do so anonymously.)

Worldcon Wrap-up and Dragon Awards

mistborn — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 14:20:35 GMT

had an excellent time at Worldcon this year. We got a chunk of Writing Excusesepisodes recorded, and I was able to hang out with a number of friends I hadn’t seen in a while. On top of that, I felt that the panels went well, even if they were a little crowded in the rooms. (Apologies to any of you who might not have been able to get in.)

The Hugo Awards ceremony was a delight. We didn’t win the Best Series award, but to be honest, at only three books into the Stormlight series it might have been a little preemptive to give it any awards. We’ll see how things go as the series progresses. Many congrats to Lois McMaster Bujold (the winner), who is a favorite around the Dragonsteel offices. She’s a fantastic writer, well worthy of the award.

Oathbringer still has one shot at an award, the Dragon Award, given out at look at the thing.)

This, like the Gemmell, is a fan-voted award. So if you feel inclined to vote for Oathbringer, you can sign up at the form on this website. They’ll send you a ballot to fill out, though you need to do this before the end of August to vote. The award does seem to be getting some traction, so maybe give it some attention!

As always, however, I strongly urge you to be a thoughtful voter when it comes to awards. Don’t vote for Oathbringer just because I wrote it—only do so if you think this book, in specific, deserves the award. And there are some other excellent nominees, so if you enjoyed one of those more, then vote for it!

Signing near Idaho Falls this weekend + Updates

mistborn — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 19:09:36 GMT

Adam here. I have some exciting news for those of you in driving distance of Idaho Falls, Idaho. This Saturday Brandon will be appearing at Iona Days just a few miles away. You can see his full schedule below, as well as on his Upcoming Events page, but it will include a short presentation, reading, Q&A, and signing. Those who come to the presentation will be given wristbands that will give them priority position in the signing that immediately follows the Q&A.

The Grand Teton Mall Barnes & Noble will also be on site, so if you're looking for a book—including the leather bound editions of Elantris, Mistborn: The Final Empire, and The Well of Ascension—you can find them there. They are also (generously) donating 15% of their net sales to Brandon's Lightweaver Foundation (more on this in a minute); donations that will be matched by Brandon.

If you're not able to attend and still want to buy some books (not just Brandon's) while supporting charity, you can use these vouchers in any B&N store on July 21^st and 22^nd. They will also be active for any B&N online purchases through July 27^th. Some exclusions apply. Please see vouchers below for details.

Iona Days

Location: Iona Square on Main Street (park near the Iona City Building)
Reading and Q&A: 2:00 p.m.
Signing: 3:00 p.m.

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, What Writers Get Wrong, with Wildstyle, Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard talk with special guest Wildstyle. Recorded live at GenCon Indy 2017.

Last week, in Tor.com's continuing reread of Oathbringer, Shallan, as Veil, confronted the Midnight Mother in the depths of Urithiru. This week, in chapters thirty-one and thirty-two, Kaladin, near Revolar, upon seeing a group of human's unprepared for an oncoming Highstorm somehow uses Windspren to create a windbreak that allows them get to safety.

The Twitter Archive for June is up to date.

I found this week's featured cosplay of a Steel Inquisitor, by EHyde, on Brandon's official fansite 17thshard.com. She wrote a little post if you want to know more about it.

Harassment at FanX

mistborn — Tue, 29 May 2018 18:13:27 GMT

All,

I don't normally discuss charged issues on my social media, but I do find harassment at science fiction conventions a topic that is very important to discuss. It is also very relevant to my fans, as conventions are often how they interact with me.

Recently, Salt Lake City’s biggest media convention (FanX, formerly called Salt Lake Comic Con) has made some troubling missteps. First, it grossly mishandled harassment claims—then it doubled down on its mistakes, bungling interactions with voices that have called for reform.

Some authors I respect deeply have composed an open letter to FanX, calling for them to do better—and I have co-signed it. Many of these authors have spoken better about this specific issue than I can, and I encourage you all to read what they have said. I believe that conventions like these (alongside the smaller literary conventions that were so instrumental in my road to publication) are important parts of our community—and it is essential that they provide a place where victims are not silenced and harassment is not tolerated.

For now, I am still scheduled to appear at FanX this fall. My team and I have been evaluating whether or not this is a position we can still take—and it will greatly depend on how FanX responds to this letter in the next few weeks. I will keep you informed of our decision—and if I do decide to bow out of FanX, I will try to schedule some replacement signings instead.

Best,

Brandon

New Writing Excuse Episode + Updates

mistborn — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 14:33:32 GMT

Adam here. In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Character Nuance, Brandon, Mary, Amal, and Maurice talk about characters who have conflict built right into them; characters whose attributes and attitudes might seem to contradict one another; characters who like, y’know… actual people.

Last week, in Tor.com's continuing reread of Oathbringer, we jump back in time again, thirty-three years, as Dalinar shows what a warrior armed with Shardplate can do to… well, pretty much anyone without Shardplate. It does have a few disadvantages, though. This week, in chapter twelve, we get to watch Dalinar attempt to play politics, with careful guidance from his wife and various scribes. Why don’t people just say what they mean?

The Twitter Archive for April is up to date.

In honor of JordanCon next week, here is an excellent Aes Sedai cosplay from The Wheel of Time.

Foil Maps + Updates

mistborn — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:10:05 GMT

Dragonsteel art director Isaac here. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen me post about the maps for the latest Osten Ard books by Tad Williams: The Heart of What Was Lost and The Witchwood Crown. The original trilogy was what hooked me on epic fantasy in the late 80s/early 90s, and the maps for the series were part of what got me into cartography. So to be able to create new maps of Osten Ard has been something of a dream project.

These books were also foundational in Brandon’s early reading in the genre. He gave the newest books this quote:

“Tad Williams is a master storyteller, and the Osten Ard books are his masterpiece. Williams’ return to Osten Ard is every bit as compelling, deep, and fully-rendered as the first trilogy, and he continues to write with the experience and polish of an author at the top of his game.”

I was thrilled when Brandon supported the Indiegogo campaign for merchandise based on Tad’s worlds by buying the map of Osten Ard. I’ve tried to make this the essential map for the series. Remember those foil Middle Earth maps from when the movies were big? Well, I was able to get a hold of the original supplier, and that’s who’s printing the Osten Ard map. It’s going to be gorgeous, and the only way to get it is through Tad’s Indiegogo campaign. We might have a few left over after that, but I wouldn't risk it if you really want one. There's only a little over a week left.

For those of you waiting for a foil version of the latest Roshar map found on the back of the dustjacket for Oathbringer, keep an eye on the store over the next month or two. I hope you’ll enjoy these, as I’m quite excited for them. Thank you for reading the books. Thank you for enjoying the maps in them. You make it possible for me to do something I absolutely love.

Adam here. In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Q&A on Heroes, Villains, and Main Characters, Brandon, Valynne, Dan, and Howard answer your questions about heroes, villains, and main characters. Here are the questions:

How do you make planned power increases not seem like an ass-pull¹?

What do you do when your villain is more interesting/engaging than your hero?

How do you know when a character is unnecessary and needs to be removed from the story, or killed off in the story?

What tricks do you use when you want the reader to mistakenly believe a character is a hero, rather than a villain?

Which is more fun for you: creating a villain, or creating a hero?

How many side characters can you reasonably juggle in a novel?

What are the drawbacks to making your villain a POV character?

If your villain doesn’t show up until late in the story, how do you make their eventual appearance seem justified?

How do you get readers to like a character who is a jerk?

Last week, we continued on with Kaladin's heart-wrenching homecoming before he headed off to hunt Voidbringers. This week, in chapters eight and nine, we return to Urithiru for disturbing drawings, cooperative cartography, international intrigue, and mystifying murder.

The Twitter Archive for March is up to date.

This week's featured cosplay is of Syl and Kaladin from Emerald City Comic Con.

Awards Season 2018

mistborn — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 19:16:22 GMT

Hey, all. It’s awards nomination season again!

As is tradition, I’d like to do a quick post highlighting what I have that is eligible for the various awards in sf/f. As always, I request that you nominate based on work, not author. If you are eligible to nominate, and truly think one of the works below is among the best you read this year, I’d love to have your vote.

Nominations for the Hugo Awards are now open. In order to nominate you need to have already been a Worldcon member (Helsinki, San Jose, or Dublin) as of December 31st, but members who join this year's convention anytime may vote on the final ballot once it’s available.

Here’s what I have eligible in what category:

Best Novella:
Snapshot

Best Novel:
Oathbringer

Best Related Work:
Writing Excuses Season 12

Best Series:
The Stormlight Archive

As usual, I tend to highlight one of my releases. This year, to no surprise, I’d like to focus on Oathbringer and the Stormlight Archive. I feel that the Stormlight Archive has a good shot at a Best Series Hugo—it is my best work, and the previous volume missed a nomination by a fairly small margin of votes. I feel the series does interesting things with worldbuilding and narrative that Hugo voters would consider valuable to the fantasy genre as a whole.

If you’re eligible to nominate for the Hugo Awards, but haven’t read any of the Stormlight Archive, I’d be happy to provide a review copy of the first book to you for your consideration. The Hugo Awards nomination deadline is March 16th.

Other awards this year of interest, with who can nominate (and any notes on categories for the above works), are below. As always, the best reward for a novelist is the fact that people are reading the novels—and I don’t stress awards season very much. But I do like what these awards do for the community, and find it important to support them and fandom in general as it works to highlight our genres and the best they can provide.

Nebula Award

Members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America can nominate by February 15th.

World Fantasy Awards

Members of the World Fantasy conventions can send eligible works to the panel of judges before June 1st.

David Gemmell Legend Award

Nominations are now closed. Voting on the long list of nominees opens to the public on February 16th, with final public voting beginning on April 20th.

The Legend Award is for novels. The Ravenheart Award is for novel cover illustrations.

Dragon Awards

Nominations are open to the public now through June 20th, with final public voting beginning on August 1st.

Oathbringer is eligible for Best Fantasy Novel. (I recommend nominations go there rather than in Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel; you can’t nominate it in two categories.)

White Sand Volume 1</a> is eligible for Best Graphic Novel.

The Reckoners board game + Updates

mistborn — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 20:19:57 GMT

Adam here. In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, What Writers Get Wrong, with Aliette de Bodard, Dan, Mary, Aliette, and Howard discuss "What writers get wrong." This year the third-week episodes will follow this theme and each of the episodes will feature an expert guest who will help us understand what writers get wrong about something in which they have expertise.

Aliette de Bodard will be co-hosting several of these week-three episodes, but this week her role is “subject matter expert.” She has several fields of expertise, and among the hats she expertly wears which writers often fail to correctly describe is a hat labeled “motherhood” (note: not an actual hat.)

Many of you may have already seen Brandon's post yesterday regarding the board game based on his Reckoners books from Nauvoo Games, but if you haven't, here is the game trailer which will begin its Kickstarter on February 13.

If you want a bit more detail about the game, you can watch the game overview with the design prototype.

There will be a special post tomorrow from Arcturus XR. The VR company that produced "Escape the Shattered Plains VR Experience" which is set to release next month, so keep your eyes open for that.

The Twitter Archive for January is up to date.

This week's featured cosplay is of Shallan by Yashuntafun.

Oathbringer's Final Step

mistborn — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 15:29:10 GMT

For those who didn’t see it, right before he left on vacation a few weeks ago, Peter arranged for his daughter to do the ceremonial “stair toss” of the new Stormlight book. This is a tradition that started when she was a baby, and tossed the manuscript of The Way of Kings down the stairs. Now we get her to do it each time.

This blog post is going up a little later, as Peter took some deserved time off, but now that he has time to edit again I wanted to get something up on the website to celebrate. A few days back, the last version of the proofread was turned in. My team has finally finished the laborious process of copyediting and proofreading the books—which is the last major step in sending the book to press. (I finished my last part, the final revision, back in June.)

This means that Oathbringer is in, once and for all. It’s actually coming! Brace yourselves. Tor will be releasing sample chapters every Tuesday on their website. (By my suggestion, we’re going to do about a quarter of the book this way.) The prologue and first three chapters are already up there for you to read.

In conjunction with the book’s launch, we actually have a couple of Kickstarters coming up. I feel good doing these now, as the Mistborn board game is done and shipping—I don’t want to have too many of these things going at once. However, two others that we’ve been working on for a few years have come together around the same time, so I hope you’ll forgive us running them in succession.

The first is a concept album of instrumental music, inspired by the Stormlight Archive. This one is up and running, and you can kickstart it here.

Once that’s done, Shire Post Mint, which does in-world coinage for fantasy books, will be launching another Kickstarter. They’ve already done a lot of high quality work for various book series, and now they are minting some beautiful coins with designs by my team. We’ll be supporting them in a kickstarter for Mistborn coins running from September 28th to October 28th. Details will be coming soon.

So, you can have your pick! Stormlight music, in-world Mistborn coins, or both. In the future, we’re hoping to do a few more board games (one based on the Shattered Plains and one based on the Reckoners books) and maybe even a calendar.

The release date for Oathbringer is November 14th for the US and Canada, and November 16th for the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. You can preorder at your store of choice, and doing that is always appreciated. We’ll also be shipping out our traditional Weller Book Works signed editions. Look for details on that in a month or so. Also, we should have release party details for you before too long.

I know that Poland, Spain, France, and a few others are actively working on translations shooting for as close to the English release date as possible. But it’s a big book. In fact, my biggest so far.

I’ll be doing a very short tour in the States—one of the problems with releasing so close to the holidays is that squeezing tours in is tough. After Thanksgiving, though, I’ll go back out and do an equally short tour in the UK. Dates for the US tour are up on Tor.com already, but I don’t have exact dates for the UK yet. Should be around the last week of November.

This has been an incredible journey. The book took years of work, but it came together wonderfully. I’m excited to be sharing this series with you, and have planned a few blog posts about the history of Stormlight (and the cosmere) for you to read sometime around the book’s publication date. So watch for those! And Peter is putting together a number of deleted scenes from old drafts of the first two books to release during the next two months, so that's something else to look forward to.

In the meantime, I’ve launched into my next project, a series called The Apocalypse Guard, which has some loose connections to The Reckoners.

The pitch is as follows: Emma is the office intern (and Coffee girl) to the Apocalypse Guard—a supergroup that saves planets from cataclysmic events. During a series of attacks that leave the Guard crippled, Emma gets trapped on a doomed planet they were planning to save—but one they no longer have the resources to defend. Emma is left to try to survive the coming apocalypse, or somehow figure out how to save the planet—neither of which are things her clerical internship prepared her for.

The Apocalypse Guard is a fun, fast-paced adventure with (hopefully) some very cool worldbuilding. It also asks the very important questions: Who fetches Superman’s coffee, and what does she do when the world is falling apart?

Our target release date is next fall. You can follow along with the percentage bar on my website—though I should note, it’s a percentage bar (right now) for the entire trilogy, which I’m writing straight through. (Something I haven’t done since the Mistborn trilogy, but which I’ve been keen to try again.) I’ll be stopping between books to do some novellas or other shorts. (Odds are, right now, that I’ll write Legion 3—the last of that series—between books one and two of the Apocalypse Guard.)

As always, thanks for putting up with the schizophrenic insanity that is my writing schedule. Know that your willingness to embrace some of these crazy ideas—like Steelheart and Legion—is part of what makes me so excited to keep doing this job. I always have something new and bizarre to look forward to writing.

Brandon

P.S.
My current expected writing schedule involves taking a year and a half to do other projects, then diving back into Stormlight.

2017
June–August: Apocalypse Guard One (Fall 2018 Release)
Early September: Legion 3 (Sometime 2018 Release)
Late September–December: Apocalypse Guard Two (Mid 2019 Release)
Late December: Random Novella
2018
January–March: Apocalypse Guard Three (Mid 2020 Release)
April–July: Wax and Wayne Four (Series finale, Fall 2019 Release)
August–December: Undecided (Rithmatist 2, maybe?)
2019
All months: Stormlight Four (Fall 2020 Release)

The State of the Sanderson in December will have more details. For now, I hope you enjoy Oathbringer! I’ll be sure to do some posts early next year, gearing you up for next year’s books, the Apocalypse Guard and the final volume of Legion.

Brandon

Gen Con

mistborn — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 16:52:24 GMT

Hey, all! Things are going well with both Oathbringer and other projects, and I should have a blog post for you about those going up fairly soon.

In the meantime, however, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be attending Gen Con (Indianapolis) this weekend. Unlike most conventions I attend, here I’ll have a full-blown booth with T-shirts, signed hardcovers, and lots of other swag for sale—including the convention exclusive hardcover of Snapshot and Dreamer. Huzzah! I’ll also be on panels and playing the odd game of Magic the Gathering.

Here are my schedule and booth details.

Dates: Friday–Sunday, August 17th–20th

Address: Indiana Convention Center,

100 South Capitol Avenue,

Indianapolis, Indiana 46225

Thursday, August 17th

Worldbuilding: Creating a Universe of Worlds

Time: 2:00–3:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM - Seminar

Location: Westin - Capitol I

It's one thing to build a world, but what do you do when you need a universe of interconnected worlds for your stories? Featuring Brandon Sanderson, David Mack, James L. Sutter, Marco Palmieri
This event is sold out.

*NOTE: If a panel is listed as sold out (people tend to grab the tickets for free events super fast!), you still might be able to get in. Most of the Gen Con panels have an overflow line, for people without a ticket, that you can wait in. Usually a good number of people from this line get into the panel.

Signing

Time: 4:00–5:00 p.m.

Event Type: Zed - Isle of Misfit Events

Location: Exhibit Hall
Have him sign your books! Only guests with tickets are ensured of a chance for a signing.
This event is sold out.

Signing

Time: 5:00 p.m.

Location: Dragonsteel Booth #467

The signings at my booth are first-come first-serve. Ask for details at the booth. They’re longer than the official signings, which are only an hour, and are sold out.

Magic the Gathering draft with Brandon Sanderson

Time: 8:00 p.m.–12:00 a.m.

This draft is being put together by Kara, who runs my booth. She’ll have details about when/where, but I don’t have them yet. Best to ask at the booth if you want to grab a spot.

Friday, August 18th

Q&A with Brandon Sanderson

Time: 1:00–2:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM - Seminar

Location: Westin - Grand Ballroom V

Meet Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn and Stormlight series as well as the final Wheel of Time books. Ask him about his books, his projects, or anything else you're dying to know!

This event is sold out.

Play Magic the Gathering with Brandon Sanderson

Time: 1:00–5:00 p.m.
Brandon will arrive at 2:00
Event Type: ZED - Isle of Misfit Events

Location: ICC : 141–142 : 6

Worldbuilders is a charity founded by author Pat Rothfuss in order to use the collective power of readers, fellow authors and book lovers to make the world a better place. We raise money for other charities who we believe do the best work in their field: Heifer International, Mercy Corps, and First Book. These charities' missions and values are exactly what we have in mind when we think, "Where can this money do the most good?" We’re excited for the opportunity at Gen Con to have fans play games with some of their favorite celebrities all while generating money for these three charities who make sure the money we raise gets to where it’s needed most, and where it will do some real, long-term good.

This event is sold out.

This is a charity event, run with Worldbuilders, which should explain the high ticket price. It’s sold out, so don’t worry about it—but for the few of you I’m playing with, you’ll be playing sealed deck using Deckbuilder’s Toolkits. I’ll arrive an hour late, because of another panel, as the event starts at 1:00. (I’ll get there around 2:00.) However, I’ll have already built my deck, and you’ll spend your hour building yours. So we should be ready to play right when I arrive.

Writing Excuses LIVE!

Time: 6:00–7:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM - Seminar

Location: Westin - Chamber

Join hosts Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler as they talk to authors and editors for a special live recording of their fast-paced, educational podcast for writers!
This event is sold out.

Writing Excuses LIVE!

Time: 7:00–8:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM - Seminar

Location: Westin - Chamber

Join hosts Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler as they talk to authors and editors for a special live recording of their fast-paced, educational podcast for writers!
This event is sold out.

Saturday, August 19th

Signing

Time: 12:00–1:00 p.m.

Event Type: ZED - Isle of Misfit Events

Location: ICC - Exhibit Hall, Book Signing Area

Meet Special Guest Brandon Sanderson and have him sign your books! Only guests with tickets are ensured of a chance for a signing.
This event is sold out.

Worldbuilding: Making Magic New Again

Time: 2:00–3:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM - Seminar

Location: Westin - Capitol I

Have you had your fill of spellbooks, wands, and wizards? Explore ways to make magic in your world exciting and new! Featuring Brandon Sanderson, Anton Strout, Brian McClellan, Christopher Husberg.
This event is sold out.

Writer's Craft: Can a Hero be Too Powerful?

Time: 3:00–4:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM - Seminar

Location: Westin - Capitol I

Is it possible for a hero to have too much power? Is there a point at which a powerful hero stops being interesting? Featuring Brandon Sanderson, Bruce R. Cordell, Howard Tayler.

Signing

Time: 4:30 p.m.

Location: Dragonsteel Booth #467

The signings at my booth are first-come first-serve. As for details at the booth. They’re longer than the official signings, which are only an hour, and are sold out.

Board Games

You should also be aware that various companies working on board games of my books will be there, doing demos of the games. The Mistborn board game, House War, has been printed and shipped to Crafty's warehouse, and they'll have a couple of copies to show off at the convention, but I'm not sure if they'll have any quantity to sell there. Be sure to stop by the booths of both game companies to ask after the games, and maybe get in on a demo.

Note that I’ll have some copies of a special gamepiece on my person relating to the Mistborn board game for those interested. If you can find and ask me, you can get it.

Dragonsteel Entertainment (my booth) & Steve Argyle: Booth #467
Crafty Games: Booth #1929 (Mistborn game)
Nauvoo Games: Booth #2812 (The Reckoners game)

Scavenger Hunt

It’s Gen Con’s 50th anniversary, and we wanted to do something to celebrate. Since I’m sharing a booth with Steve Argyle—the illustrator who did these awesome endpapers for last year’s Leatherbound Mistborn—we figured we’d use them.

So, at Gen Con this year, Steve and I will have a limited quantity of generic creature tokens (for use in various card and board games) featuring Vin. You can use these for your games of Magic, for other games that they might fit, or just to have because they’re cool!

How do you get them? Well, the warrior token is quite easy. To get a copy, you just stop by the booth and ask either my people or Steve’s crew to give you one. We’ve printed off several thousand, so they should last for a little while. All I ask is that you don’t pick up more than one per person. (Please don’t come through, grab one, then come through later and grab another.) It’s okay to bring friends to collect an extra, then have them give you theirs—but I would like these to last for all who want to have one.

The Assassin token is a little more difficult to get. We only printed a few hundred of these, and after some discussion, Steve and I decided that we’d split them in half, then each come up with a game or scavenger hunt to give away our half.

I don’t know what Steve’s game is, so ask him at our booth. However, I settled on mine quickly. After all, I’m at a gaming convention, and you all probably know my nerd hobby by now.

I’m going to put up a bounty board of Magic cards that I still need for various set cubes I’m building. It will be a Google spreadsheet, open for everyone to read, that you can find here.

Yes, for now, it is empty. Each morning of the convention at 10am (on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) we’ll put up a new list of cards. (I’m going to choose mostly cheap cards, relatively easy to locate, so we’re not going to give you warning about what they are.)

You can show up at the booth any time during show hours with one of the cards on the bounty board. As long as it hasn’t been turned in yet, you can exchange it for a copy of the Vin assassin token. However, that’s the dangerous way to do it, as you might show up and find out that the card has already been turned in.

Instead, I suggest you come to my booth and look over the most current, up-to-date list of cards. (Which will list which cards have been turned in already.) You can then “claim” one for fifteen minutes. My staff will write your name beside it and a time—then you have fifteen minutes to return with the card. During that time, nobody else can snipe the card out from underneath you.

We’ll keep this physical list up to date, but I can’t guarantee that the on-line list will indicate which cards have been found already. Note that I intend for these to be cheap cards, $5 and under (with many under a buck) but I haven’t gone through my “to find” lists in depth to check which might have spiked in price—so you might want to quickly double-check on your smartphone the price of a card before you claim it or trade it in to us.

I’d again ask that you limit yourself to one card per person—but in this case, I’ll let you do a different hunt each day, for a total possible of three per person over the weekend. (Perfect for a certain planeswalker who creates assassin tokens.) I plan to sign all the assassin tokens ahead of time. (I can’t do that for the warrior tokens—there just isn’t time—though I’ll sign them during my regular signings if you give me one.) In return, I’d ask that you sign the Magic card you give me (on the back, please) and maybe write a little note or put Gen Con 50 on it or something.

Hopefully, this will be fun! If it’s popular, we’ll do future tokens for other characters. Either way, looking forward to seeing many of you at the convention!

mistborn — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 17:34:11 GMT

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, “Oh Crap, the Cops are Here!”, Howard, Dan, Steve Diamond, and special guest Joe McKinney tackle law-enforcement. We invited Steve Diamond, who has been a guest before, and who has some law enforcement background, to help us grill Joe McKinney, who has tons of that background, and who also happens to be a best-selling author.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Vivenna and Vasher spiked one of Denth’s guns by rescuing Nanrovah’s daughter. This week, in chapters 50 and 51, the priests debate, Siri is trapped, Vivenna is worried, and the gods vote. Well, most of them do. Then Vasher attempts another rescue, which goes… poorly.

The Twitter post archive for July is up to date.

Today's poll, to be answered Friday, July 21st, focuses on the cosmere. As always, if you have a question you'd like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

In case you missed the announcement on my social media last week, my U.K. fantasy publisher Gollancz just released their cover to Oathbringer, the third book in the Stormlight Archive. Check out series artist Sam Green’s full front cover below!

New Writing Excuses, #FaqFriday Poll Results + Updates

mistborn — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 18:20:28 GMT

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Narrative Bumper Pool, with Bill Fawcett and Carrie Patel, Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley talk revision. Revision: it’s when you make a too-short piece longer, or a too-long piece shorter. (It’s also a great many other things, suggesting that this description is a too-short piece in need of revision.)

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, those in positions of theoretical authority moved toward taking actual responsibility. This week, in chapters 34 and 35, Vivenna and Vasher rescue an innocent victim and spike one of Denth’s plans.

The Twitter post archive for June is up to date.

Today's poll, to be answered Friday, June 14th, has a few of the more random questions I could put together. As always, if you have a question you'd like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

Full questions:

Why do you think there are so many Mormons in sci-fi/fantasy?

Do you prefer Bread & Butter or Meat & Potatoes?

Have you considered developing a full language for one of your worlds (like Tolkien did)?

If you could World-hop one character from another universe into the Cosmere, Who would it be and where would you have them Visit?

What Allomantic ability would you want to have and why?

New Writing Excuses episode + updates

mistborn — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 15:05:15 GMT

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Proposals, Pitches, and Queries, Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard talk about selling your stuff. In this episode we discuss query letters, pitches, and proposals—the tools that you use to present your material to people who can pay you for it, and who will partner with you in the task of selling it to the general public.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Siri flirted while Vivenna fled. This week, in chapters 38 and 39, Lightsong counts priests and squirrels, while Vivenna counts bruises and alleyways.

The Twitter post archive for May is up to date.

As I mentioned last week, Brandon is going to be out of town for the next few weeks, and will be unable to answer poll questions while he was gone. He was kind enough to answer a few in advance. The question that received the largest vote from last week was: Can holders of Shards give them up voluntarily? If so, what would happen? I will post the answer on Brandon's social media channels, his FAQ page, and in this blog post on Friday.

FAQFriday Voting and Weekly Update

mistborn — Wed, 31 May 2017 17:42:19 GMT

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Hybrid Outlining and Discovery Writing, Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Piper answer some questions: what can discovery writers learn from outlining? What can outliners learn from discovery writing? Is there a balance between the two that can serve as a happy, productive place for writers? (Summary of answers: lots, lots, and yes-but-not-all-writers.)

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, while Siri was feeling guilty about enjoying her political challenges, Vivenna barely escaped with her life—twice. This week, in chapters 36 and 37, Siri and Susebron have a picnic on the floor, while Vivenna wanders the slums in despair.

The Twitter post archive for May is up to date.

Brandon will be out of the country for the next few weeks so we are going to change the format for this week's #FaqFriday poll. You will see a variety of topics ranging from the the cosmere to writing advice and I will take the top rated questions to Brandon and give the answers over the next few weeks. As always, if you have a question you'd like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

#FaqFriday voting and weekly update!

mistborn — Tue, 23 May 2017 18:12:58 GMT

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Narrative Bumper Pool, with Bill Fawcett and Carrie Patel, Howard, Dan, with special guests Bill Fawcett and Carrie Patel who have extensive experience writing for games. This week they talk about writing for interactive stories, like tabletop RPG's, or video games.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Vivenna acknowledged a few hard truths about herself and her motivations. This week, in chapters 34 and 35, ightsong muses, Siri worries, Blushweaver threatens, Bluefingers prevaricates, and Vivenna escapes—twice. Quite the party up in here!

The Twitter post archive for May is up to date.

Today's poll, to be answered Friday, May 26th, will focus on writing advice. As always, if you have a question you'd like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

#FaqFriday voting and weekly update

mistborn — Tue, 16 May 2017 19:49:05 GMT

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Retrofitting Structure into a First Draft, Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley speak, at least in part, to discovery writers. In this case, talking about how to take a non-outlined work and apply a structure to it in revisions.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Vivenna learned some very difficult recent history, while Siri learned unexpected ancient history. This week, in chapter 33, Vivenna confronts hard truths, badly.

The Twitter post archive for May is up to date.

Today's poll, to be answered Friday, May 19th, will focus on the cosmere. As always, if you have a question you'd like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

The Brandon Sanderson Humble Book Bundle

mistborn — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 20:07:19 GMT

For those of you who have been paying attention to my various feeds on my social media channels this won't come as a surprise, but for those of you who are just seeing this, Humble Bundle has put together a collection which includes many of my shorter works as well as the Graphic Audio edition of a few others. I will get to more on that shortly. Many of you may not know how Humble Bundle works and I don't think I could say it any more succinctly than they have listed on their website.

Brandon Sanderson's the man. So we're bringing you a bundle of some of his highlights – and some lesser-known titles, too. Some are audiobooks and some are ebooks, but all are awesome.

Pay $1 or more. All together, the novellas, audiobooks, game guides, and graphic novel in this bundle would cost over $174. Here at Humble Bundle, though, you name your price of $1 or more and increase your contribution to upgrade your bundle!

Read them anywhere. The books are available in PDF, ePUB, and MOBI formats (instructions are here); the adventure game and supplements are available in PDF; the comic is available in PDF, ePub, and CBZ formats (instructions are here); and the audiobooks are available as MP3 and FLAC files (instructions are here).

Support charity. Choose where the money goes – between the publishers, The Moth Education Program (Storyville Center for the Spoken Word), and, if you like, a second charity of your choice via the PayPal Giving Fund. For details on how this works, click here. If you like what we do, you can leave us a Humble Tip too!

So, What's Included?

Pay $1 or more

Firstborn/Defending Elysium

The Emperor's Soul

Legion

Legion:Skin Deep

Warbreaker Part 1 - Graphic Audio

Elantris Part 1 - Graphic Audio

Mistborn Adventure Game

Pay $8 or more to also unlock!

Sixth of the Dusk

Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell

Perfect State

Warbreaker Part 2 - Graphic Audio

Elantris Part 2 - Graphic Audio

Terris: Wrought of Copper Player's Guide

Pay $15 or more to also unlock!

Snapshot

Dreamer

The Hope of Elantris - Graphic Audio

Warbreaker Part 3 - Graphic Audio

Elantris Part 3 - Graphic Audio

White Sand - Graphic Novel

Alloy of Law: Mistborn Campaign

There are a few regional restrictions that we couldn't work around, so a few items will vary from one region to another so use the link at the top to check the specifics for your locale.

Tor.com is offering a free download of the The Way of Kings

mistborn — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 17:22:08 GMT

I have some great news for all the US and Canada readers: in preparation for the Oathbringer release later this year, Tor.com is offering a free download of the ebook edition of The Way of Kings, the first volume of the Stormlight Archive, today and tomorrow (March 23rd and 24th, 2017).

— Please take note —

This free ebook download will only be available for 48 hours. You can only download the file between 12:00 AM ET, March 23 and 11:59 PM ET, March 24.

Note: This offer is only available in the US and Canada. We apologize for the geographic restriction, unfortunately it is required for various legal reasons.

Last week Tor.com revealed the cover for Oathbringer, the third volume in the Stormlight Archive, by artist Michael Whelan. You can see the cover below, but if you'd like more detail, I would suggest you reading the post on Tor's website.

Brian McClellan’s Sins of Empire

mistborn — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 18:58:47 GMT

Adam here. Brian McClellan is a favorite with members of team Dragonsteel; you can read previous posts from Isaac and me experience more uncontrollable gushing about The Powder Mage trilogy, specifically The Crimson Campaign and The Autumn Republic.

Brian recently released his follow-up to The Powder Mage trilogy with Sins of Empire that builds on the all the ideas set forth in the previous books. The setting switches from Adro to the capital city of Fatrasta, Landfall. Here we see a repressive government headed by Lady Chancellor Lindet and her psychopathic right-hand man, Fidelis Jes leader of the secret police known as the Blackhats. Unease is increased as the native Palo, the most subjugated of Landfall, begin to secretly campaign about the atrocities of the government via a manifesto called The Sins of Empire which begins to steer the populace toward rebellion. To quell the imminent insurrection, Lindet tasks powder mage Vlora and her Riflejack Mercenary Company to defend the city and keep order. Meanwhile, Fidelis Jes orders one of his blackhats, Michel Bravis, to investigate the origins of The Sins of Empire and bring in the individuals responsible. Things become more complicated for our cast as Mad Ben Styke, falsely imprisoned by Fidelis Jes, escapes a prison work camp with the help of the enigmatic Gregious Tampo, who is too well-informed and resourceful to be the mere lawyer he claims to be. The book finishes in standard McClellan fashion: in a furious, visceral, and relentlessly thrilling melee that became a familiar sensation during the original trilogy.

Needless to say, Brian is one of the first authors I recommend to people when they ask for recommendations. If you like Brandon's books–and since you're reading this I will assume you do–these should suit you fine.

Also, our resident artist Isaac–who also said, "this is Brian's best book to date"–also did the map work for these books and you can check them out below!

Weekly Update!

mistborn — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 20:58:06 GMT

Adam here. As you can probably imagine, Brandon's inbox is flooded daily with questions ranging from inquiries about his favorite color to asking how everything in the cosmere ends. For obvious reasons, Brandon can’t answer all of these.

What I am going to start doing is to create a weekly poll of questions—hopefully none of which will get an immediate RAFO—on Facebook so you get to help decide which question Brandon answers later that week. Some weeks you will see more than one poll—like this week—as I need to have several questions ready for the time that Brandon will be touring.

If you want to help decide what questions get answers, pay attention to Brandon's Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ as I will be announcing when the polls become active.

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Developing Your Own, Personal Style
, Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard talk about your voice as a writer, your authorial style, and the aesthetics you employ, and how this is an expression unique to you. And with that definition out of the way, our discussion focuses around how we go about identifying, developing, and embracing our personal styles.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Vivenna was manipulated into approving Denth’s plans, thinking they would benefit Idris. This week, in chapters twenty, and twenty-one, Siri’s new nighttime routine is disrupted, and Vasher begins some manipulations of … SQUIRREL!

You can see the February Twitter post archive here and March's here

Weekly Update!

mistborn — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 18:37:44 GMT

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Q&A on Viewpoint, Brandon, Piper, Dan, and Howard answer your questions about viewpoint. Here they are!

Do you have tips and tricks for making 3rd-person omniscient compelling?

How do you make 3rd-person limited compelling?

Is it normal to need several drafts to nail down a character’s voice?

What’s the best way to portray an unreliable 3rd-person limited narrator?

What are your most effective methods for immersing yourself in character attributes so that you can get the voice right?

How do you choose between 1st and 3rd person?

How do you select the viewpoint character for a scene?

How do you smoothly transition between viewpoints?

How do you prevent character voices from blending into each other and becoming indistinguishable?

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Siri had everyone blushing with her new bedtime routine, while Lightsong tried unsuccessfully to call in sick. This week, in chapter nineteen, Vivenna’s prejudices are on full display, even as her inexperience sets her up for further manipulation.

Brandon recently did an interview with Bulgarian fantasy outlet Shadowdance. You can read the interview in English or Bulgarian here:

You can see the February Twitter post archive here.