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*(Updated with Q&A)* Anyone going to the Dayton Signing? (19th)


darkanimereal1

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Alright, I pulled a few of the questions from the general Q&A that seemed like they would be relevant and possibly things that haven’t been brought up yet (as well as CorwinofAmber’s question, which was so good that I figured we should get a word for word answer up :) ). I’m going to get the files up so that people can listen to the whole thing, but I wanted to get these up asap. There were also a few little interesting things in the first half when he talked about the book itself, but it’s getting to late for me to go sifting through the twenty minute video to grab all of them. I’m for sure watching the video again this Saturday (with my siblings, who couldn’t go), so I’ll update with more specifics at that point.

 

Q: I was wondering if any of the characters from interludes will end up with their own books.

A: Yes, they will. Lift, specifically, is one of the characters in the back five. I think she might be the only one who has had a view point so far. That’s, um, no … There are others. So, yes, interlude characters will end up with their own books later on. Right now they’re side characters.

 

Q: (This was my question. I basically asked how long he thinks it will take him to write future Stormlight books, since TWoK took 6 months to write and WoR took 18 months to write.)

A: My anticipation is that Stormlight should take about 12 months to write. It went in six months the first time because I had written the book already once. And so being able to start over from scratch, I had done it all once, so it was really like, even though I really wrote every word new, it was like doing a second draft. Words of Radiance took so long because I had to lurch out of the Wheel of Time mindset. I hadn’t written this book before, I had written the other one, and I was so steeped in the Wheel of Time doing two books that it took a lot more to pull me out. And I would start on it and would end up getting distracted by some other project like one of the novellas or I’d start on it and then I’d go back and do a revision on Steelheart and then I’d start on it. Eventually I managed to start on it and stay in it, but it took that extra six months of spinning my heels before I really dug into the book. And so, I would say that I’m hoping 12 months. I might be able to do them faster, maybe nine months. I don’t know. They are big complicated books to write, and you can’t really do these on the speed that you can do other things. It doesn’t scale. If I can write a novella that’s 20k words and I can write that oftentimes in a week, that doesn’t mean that when I’m working on Words of Radiance I can do twenty thousand words a week, because it’s just a lot harder to get everything connected. The longer you go, the longer it winds up taking per word.

 

A few fun tidbits: Brandon assumes that eventually they’ll make a collective art book of all of the Stormlight art. In addition, in the picture of Adolin, the double underlined sigh was “his addition.” Lol Also, this may already have been known, but for sure each of the ten books will be named after in-world books. Because of this, “Stormlight Archive” is a play on words (literally an archive of books).

 

Q: Are we going to be seeing more Wit in the Stormlight Archive?
A: Depends on if you mean the character or actual wittiness. I’m never sure if I’m actually witty or not—you’ll have to judge. But the character never knows when to leave well enough alone and will be muddling things for quite a long time.

 

Q: (This is CorwinofAmber's, I think) So one of the things I really like about this is that in the Ars Arcanum and the blurb on the back of the dust jacket, they’re not just Brandon Sanderson explaining the magic system, or Brandon Sanderson summarizing the book for casual perusing, they’re written in world by characters in the world, and I was wondering if you could tell us or give us a hint as to who wrote the dust jacket.

A: I can tell you it’s not the same person as who’s writing the Ars Arcanum, and neither of those are Hoid. How about that? That gives you something. I had to fight to get in world text on the back cover. I personally really don’t like summary blurbs. Those summary blurbs are either bland or they spoil too much, and they really get on my nerves. They’re marketing copy, not author copy. And so I fought and I fought and I fought. I won with Elantris, getting the prologue on the back of the hard cover, but then they didn’t do that for the paperback. But for the hardcovers of these I won, so I’m glad you appreciate that—I intend to keep doing that. But yes, they’re being written in world by a group of people on Roshar.

 

(Edit: added the name for the last question)

Edited by darkanimereal1
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These I already posted in the My Signing Questions thread, and then found out that we're supposed to post them here instead (Luke is luke.spence):

 

[Note, I was so dumb and didn’t record the exact answers for these first two, so this is paraphrasing.]

Me: So, the Purelake in Shadesmar is mountainous. Does this in any way have to do with the fact that the Purelake is so shallow?

Brandon: No. I haven’t yet discussed the nature of the relationship between Shadesmar and the Physical world.

Me: So, when Dalinar has his vision in what he assumes in the Purelake, he sees an obsidian fortress. Is that fortress in any way related to the fact that the Purelake in Shadesmar is mountainous?

Brandon: No.

 

Someone in line before us: Please don’t tell me you’re going to do a love triangle between Adolin, Kaladin, and Shallan.

Brandon: [he phrased this very carefully] I’m not a fan of the traditional love triangle. However, I am fond of conflict in relationships.

 

[Alright, these are from my recording, so word for word.]

Me: The weepings--Shallan and Kaladin react very differently to them.

Brandon: They do.

M: It just seems to me that the Weepings feel very close to Cultivation.

Brandon: The primary thing you’re noticing -- and I’m not going to say there’s not any magical influence -- but the primary thing you’re noticing is that Kaladin has season defective disorder and Shallan likes the rain. That’s the primary thing you’re noticing. I like the rain--my wife hates it. My wife gets depressed when it rains and I love when it rains.

 

Me: Did Taravangian go to see the Nightwatcher before or after Gavilar’s assassination?

Brandon: Um, oh man. I’m going to have to look at my timeline. I believe it’s before, but I can’t guarantee I’m right, because these things are all happening around the same time.

Me: Because he says that Gavilar confided in him the night of.

Brandon: Ooooh, you’re right. Nope, it’s after. It is after. You can send that question to Peter so we can confirm it. There might be something I’m forgetting about Taravangian.

 

Luke: What caused a Desolation to end? Was it just the defeat of Odium’s forces? Because the Desolations start when the Heralds break under torture.

Brandon: Because the Heralds can no longer be in existence. There is a certain period of time that they can be there, and after that, if they’re there, they will start a new one. So the Heralds do need to leave for a Desolation to end

Me: Oh. So they’ve got a time limit.

Brandon: They do. Otherwise the Desolation will start again. What they discovered is not all of them have to. As long as one remains, the Desolation will not start again.

Luke: So, by the nine leaving, did that actually break the Oathpact for them? Did it change the cycle of Desolations?

Brandon: They have not completely broken the Oathpact, despite what they may think.

 

Luke: How much stormlight equals one breath? Do you have an actual ratio?

Brandon: I have a ratio. It’s not on me.

Me: Okay, that’s a Peter question again.

Brandon: Yeah, well, I may not answer it even then.

 

Luke: Are the Heralds actually aware that Taln is back?

Brandon: Are the Heralds aware that Taln is back? Uh, you’re implying that this person actually is Taln. [The smile on Brandon’s face at this moment was the best, most excruciatingly awful smile ever. And we thought Peter was a tease.] Which is not guaranteed. It’s not guaranteed. However, the return of the Voidbringers does indeed indicate to them, in their mind, that he would have returned.

Me: So they assume because the Voidbringers are returning--

Brandon: Because the Voidbringers are returning, would be a clue to them that Taln has returned.

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There were a few questions that I overheard, but I didn't get a recording of and I didn't quite catch everything.

 

In particular, one woman in front of me said, "I really hope you're not going to do a love triangle between Kaladin, Adolin, and Shallan." Brandon's response (which he worded quite carefully) was, "I'm not a fan of the traditional love triangle. However, I am fond of conflict in relationships." And he left it at that xD

 

For the other one, I didn't quite overhear what the question was, but I did hear Brandon's answer (paraphrased): "An invested object resists any attempt to put additional investment into it. Just like you can't pull metal that's inside a person's body. When the shardplate cracks, the streams of stormlight that you're seeing are actually the plate doing what it's supposed to: healing itself." [This is, I assume, as opposed to "leaking" or losing stormlight.] "So, theoretically, you could maybe pull a tiny fraction of that stormlight out, but you can't just stick your hand up to the outside of the plate and retrieve it. However, if you have the plate open with the gem exposed and you were to touch the gem, then you could pull the stormlight from it."

 

This last one, especially, excites me, because it seems to indicate that Elhokar could be the one who weakened his own armor in TWoK (which I've suspected for quite some time).

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It was really fun - a nice big crowd - everyone was so into it - plus meeting fellow Sharders F2F!

 

HUGE thanks to the person who gave Brandon their "anticipation spren" so that I can send mine to be included in the scrapbook.

 

There weren't a ton of deep questions ... darkanimereal1 asked a good one (please post it here - I didn't write it down), and one guy got a RAFO card, but IIRC his question wasn't on WoR. Several questions were from children - how awesome that they were there! I wanted to let others have the spotlight, so didn't ask the questions I'd prepared for the Q&A (Is Jezrien really drooling? and, If we really knew the full backstory on the Heralds, would we still feel sorry that they get tortured after dying in a Desolation?)

 

Lots of folks were just starting to read WoR at the signing, so it's probably a good thing we didn't spoil it too much for them.

 

One question I did ask at the signing table is, Is Roshar a spherical planet? He surprised me by saying Yes. I had theorized that it used to be a planet, but had been transformed into a plane that functions as an arena, where 2 sides battle it out. Huh. No more theories for me.

 

I really, really wish these books will be published less than 18 months apart!

 

Also, it was great to get to meet you old aggie! Loved your necklace :)

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Someone on Twitter said my mom won a poster of the cover, which was surprising to me. My mom told me there was a charity auction and she decided to bid on it to give it to the son of a family friend, who was there at the signing. I thought that was really nice of her.

 

Yeah, we saw that!! Very, very nice of her! He was totally surprised when she gave it to him. All proceeds to charity, so that's a great story.

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Woot! Thanks for who asked my "How much Stormlight Equals 1 Breath?" question! I saw someone else's signing report where they asked that too, and he said he might have to canonize the ratio if people keep asking about it. Keep pestering asking him! Sizgil demands a means to quantify stormlight!

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