So here’s the deal. It’s kinda hard to write people who are more clever than you are. It’s one of the tricks you have to learn as a writer. The big difference is that they do it off the cuff in the moment, and you can spend a week or two…
I had a bit of a challenge in this book because at the end of the first Mistborn trilogy, one of the characters became the god of this world. He became a god figure, an almost omnipotent figure. I had planned this from the beginning, but it also offers a…
I honestly don’t look at it as much of a Western. The part that is in a Western setting, the prologue, is actually the last thing I wrote, feeling I needed a better introduction. Originally the story just started in the city. I view it as a clash between these…
This may be new information to some readers, but I’ve mentioned several places before that the Mistborn series was pitched to my editor as a sequence of three trilogies. Past, present, and future—epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction; all with the running thread of the magic system. I want…
Between Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light, I tried writing a short story set in the Mistborn world a few hundred years after The Hero of Ages. This one just didn’t work; the characters weren’t gripping for me. More importantly, it just didn’t FEEL like a Mistborn book. I got about…
A mistcloak is a cloak made of strips of cloth sewn together. They are attached together over the shoulders and chest like a cape, and then spread out from there. A mistcoat is a duster that’s been shredded into strips.They begin a little above the waist. But remember, there’s not like an…
For Mistborn, I came to the book wanting several things. I wanted a great magic system that would enhance the graceful, martial-arts style fights. This was going to be a series of sneaking thieves, assassins, and night-time exploration. And so I developed the powers with a focus on that idea….
I never rule out the possibility of doing more books in a setting or world, but I DO prefer to have endings to my series and stories. I conceived Mistborn as a trilogy, and this really is the end, at least for these characters and this story. I think there’s…
I wrote all 3 books of the Mistborn trilogy before the first one was published. I did take time off after The Well of Ascension to write Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. I often write my smaller books and short stories as a way to refresh myself so that I don’t…
The evolution of a novel is such a complicated, complex, and strange creative process that it’s hard to step people through it. I don’t think even I can fully comprehend it. But by the time I was writing the Mistborn books, I was in a different situation with my career….