When I read one of your stories, I know I’m in store for surprising twists that I should have seen coming. How do you come up with these twists, and how do you conceal them so well? I love good endings, and good twists, and for me a solid outline…
For some things, I leave myself options so that I can use characters or ideas later when I need them. Take MeLaan from Mistborn for instance. You can go and look back in the original trilogy and see her there as a minor character. At the time I thought, “I’m going…
This is a very interesting question. I actually wrote the Mistborn trilogy straight through before releasing the first, so I have some experience doing it both that way, and releasing one book before the next is written. With Stormlight, I’m much more careful with my foreshadowing. Maybe to the point…
Have you ever had a stupid idea for a twist/book that someone had to talk you out of? This happens all the time. Greatness is often born of brashness. Of a reckless, bull-headed intent to do something everyone tells you is stupid. Sometimes, the best ideas are the ones you can’t articulate…
I don’t build any of my action sequences with models, though that’s an excellent question. I have a vivid imagination, and generally don’t need to place things on a map to create an action sequence. In fact, I think doing so might be dangerous, as I’d be tempted to describe…
Mostly, I choose an earth culture (or two) to base my linguistic influences on. For instance, in the Mistborn books, I used French. It’s obvious in words like Fellise, Renoux, Blanches, Delouse and Demoux. Less obvious is Kelsier, whose name would be pronounced in-world without the last R sound. Do you think you’ll ever develop…
I usually sketch myself out something vague to use as reference, then make it more and more detailed as I work through the book. At that point, I approach and artist and have them help me come up with a good visual style for the book and the map. If…
For a long time I’ve felt that epic fantasy has relied too much on Tolkien, who did a wonderful job, but I feel that rather than doing what he did by creating races and mythologies and worlds of our own we’ve in some ways allowed ourselves to be strongly influenced…
We like fantasy for the same reason that fantasy is hard to read: the learning curve. Starting a fantasy book can be tough because of how many new names, concepts, societies, religions, and laws of physics you have to learn and get used to. Epic Fantasies, with their dozens upon…
You’ve said that when you design a character or other part of the world for a novel, you put it into the book and see if it works. Are there any characters that you keep on a backlog and try to mix and see if they fit? Totally. What I have…