With as many novels as you’ve written, do you have an assistant or a system you use to remember everything?
Yes I do. I use a personal wiki, just like Wikipedia, but on my own server. I use an open-source software called wikidpad. I have someone whose job it is to read my books after I write them, then make all of those notes into the wiki with page references so I can look them all up in the book as I write. They have a very fun yet tedious job.
(Editor’s note: Along with curating the FAQ, I get to do the continuity job he mentioned above. In the wiki, I have a separate page for each character with discription, history, family, etc. I also have a page for every kind of spren, all the places we’ve seen, magical abilities, and so on. It takes a certain frame of mind to decide what is worth tracking, and how much evidence I need to collect. When I’m with fans, they try to ask me trivia questions. I’m terrible at answering them off the cuff, but with my wiki, I could find the answer to virtually anything in about 30 seconds. One of my favorite things about the job is when somebody emails me and says, “We’re working on a Stormlight side project. Do you know which characters own shardblades?” and in a few moments I can send them a complete list of anyone in the whole world who had ever owned, won or lost a Shardblade or Plate. Or when the mapmaker asks how far apart to make the cities, and I can give them a list of all the cities, and how long it took characters to move from one to the next.)