The arches and symbols are a series of arches and symbols at the beginnings of chapters. They rotate and change for every chapter. What they mean should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer, as Robert Jordan used to say. I decided to use them because I wanted to have interesting…
There are a lot of named places on your maps. Will we see them all? You’ll have to read and see what happens. I will say this: When I build a map, I don’t consider it to be a to-do list. In fact, it makes a world feel unrealistic to…
Fortunately I haven’t done any of the illustrations in my books since the Aons in Elantris, and those were all redone in-house. I have very little talent with visual art, though for The Way of Kings I did get to have a lot more influence on the art than many…
What went through my head is one worry that we have in epic fantasy. The longer the series goes, and the more characters you add, the less time you can spend with each character. This gets really frustrating. You either have the George R. R. Martin problem where he writes…
I can be reasonably certain that Dragon Prince, by Melanie Rawn, was the first thick fantasy book I read. For those who don’t know my story, I was not a reader in my youth—and so the thought of approaching something that huge was daunting to me. However, I was just coming…
Right now, I’m planning on ten books split into two five book arcs. I do a lot of planning. By my nature as a writer, I like to plan things out–I feel the endings of my stories are better if I’m pointed toward a goal all along. So I do have…
I’ve wanted to do a long epic for a while. I guess that’s what comes from reading Jordan and the others while growing up. And so, way back in the late 90’s–when I was experimenting with my style–I started working on ideas for a longer form series. I knew the…
Why didn’t Vasher and Vivenna get much character growth? Vivenna ends the book having experienced a great deal of personal growth. However, unlike some of the other characters, she is only a few rungs up the ladder. She’s got a long way to go. That’s why as I was plotting…
How does Denth not die after giving up his breaths? Returned will die the moment they run out of breath to harvest. Once a week their body needs a breath in order to survive. Each Returned has one single superpowered breath. Imagine it as one breath that propels them up…
What led to this decadence in the Iridescent Tones? What were the social causes? Yes, corruption and cynicism has crept in. Part of it is something that Lightsong points out. Their religion encourages the best of the Returned to give up their lives for their people, and they hit a…