There seem to be fewer and fewer standalone novels like Warbreaker and Elantris. Many readers love standalone novels by the way, and are hoping that format makes a return to popularity. Any comments on this from your perspective? Thanks! It’s a good question. One I’ve been considering, actually, for a…
That is a really hard question to answer. Do you emphasize the fantasy, or not? A really great story is going to be about awesome characters that you fall in love with. Beyond that, it’s going to need a really great plot. You can’t separate these things from writing a…
People often seem bemused by my productivity; when I get together with fellow authors, they sometimes jokingly refer to me as “the adult” in our group. I get this—for a lot of them, writing is more of an instinctual process. Sitting and talking about the business side of things, or…
Well, the publisher would really like the books to be shorter, but they don’t want any of the story to be cut. I do sometimes wonder what I’m setting myself up for by writing books of this length. Jim Butcher is able to reliably release a book every year or so in…
As a writer who has written a lot, do you still struggle with some aspects of writing, like your punctuation still sucks or something? My biggest weakness as a writer is repeating words and phrases, which is a very common thing for writers to have. There are people like Pat Rothfuss…
When all of the contest judges, beta readers, and writer’s groups say that your work is ready, but all of the agents say it’s just not right for them, how do you find out what would make it right for them? Sometimes, you can’t. One thing you have to be ready…
Your question is actually a common one: What to do with the passion project you’re really interested in writing, but worry you don’t have the skill to accomplish. I was in a similar spot when I was younger, only I was ignorant of the “lacking skill” part of the problem. Needless to say, I just…
I love National Novel Writing Month. I’ve participated for years. They asked me to write some peptalks a few years ago. You can find them here: http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/brandon-sanderson-2014 http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/brandon-sanderson-2011 In essence, NaNoWriMo is trying to hack out fifty thousand words in one month’s time. It’s more an exercise in endurance than it…
If a fantasy book had a bad (Not Happy) ending, would it affect the sales, the Goodreads rating, the overall satisfaction of the readers? Would publishers even publish a fantasy book with a bad ending? This is an interesting question to be asking! I’m going to preface this by saying a couple…
Start with a scene of motion and conflict, or as close to one as possible. This doesn’t have to mean a fight–it means tension or trouble in some way. Characters having an argument. Something going wrong, or a character struggling to do something difficult. Stay away from starting with too…