#Brandon sanderson books where to start series
What we usually do is the Q-and-A with fans, which is probably the last time they’ll get a chance at a signing like this to ask whatever they want, so we want to give them that-what it was like working with Robert Jordan, how the series came to be. Harriet’s going to be at the signing with you-I imagine that there’s going to be a real overall tribute to The Wheel of Time at this event. One of the reasons why this project was even feasible was because Harriet was involved. Harriet was the editor on all of the Wheel of Time books, and was able to point out all those inconsistencies, along with a lot of line-editing to smooth over the issues between what I had written and what Robert Jordan had written, things like that. And that’s the soul of being a good storyteller, making interesting promises to the reader, and fulfilling them in even more interesting ways.Īnd what was the biggest challenge of keeping your own voice in the mix, while staying consistent with Jordan’s voice from the books before? Keeping track of the side characters was a real challenge, and filling out all of their plots.Īt the end of the day, you know, the most important thing for the book was that we kept our promises-that the storytelling promises that Robert Jordan made were kept. And there’s a lot of material to dig through-they’re big, thick books!-to keep track of everything I needed to know. There were 14 books of continuity in this series when I was working on this last one, if you count the prequel. I did a lot more revision than when I’m usually writing, where I would usually focus on, “Let’s keep the story moving.” Instead, I would have to ask myself, “Does this character know this piece of information? Does that character know this piece of information? Have these two characters ever met?” That’s because when I would work on these books, I would need to go back and read what Robert Jordan had written for all the characters in this scene, that I had their voices in my head, that I was using them correctly, that I was fact-checking things that had happened in the past. Writing a given scene for this series would take me about twice as long as it would take me to write a scene from another story. During the actual writing period, nothing really matters except the words on the page. But when I sit down to write, those sort of things flee my mind. Well, you know, as a writer, you train yourself to deal with distractions. What was the biggest challenge in keeping all this straight and just getting the work done? You obviously had some materials Robert Jordan left for you, and your own skills as a writer that you’re bringing to the table, but you’re also bringing those fan expectations to the table.
So there was a lot more performance anxiety for this project than any book before that. I’m kind of a stepfather, in a lot of ways. This story doesn’t belong to me it belongs to the fans. I do what I feel is best, and I just write the story.īut with this project, I didn’t feel that was right. In a lot of ways, as a writer, when I write something, normally I feel beholden only to myself. We got him on the phone to ask what it was like to finally bring the series he loved to an end.īrandon Sanderson: Yes, it does. 20 to promote Light and answer questions about the series. Sanderson will appear at Quail Ridge Books and Music with Jordan’s widow and editor Harriet McDougal on Feb. That last book, A Memory of Light, was published in January to rave reviews and a spot on the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
(Jordan had once said the last book could run 2,000 pages the finale trilogy collectively ran more than 2,500). A longtime fan of The Wheel of Time, Sanderson was tasked with turning Jordan’s partially-finished manuscript, pre-written ending and extensive notes into something that would successfully conclude the series, which eventually was split into three novels. Jordan’s death in 2007 while working on the planned 12th and final volume of The Wheel of Time caused an uproar among those seeking to know the fate of hero Rand al’Thor and the other characters.Įnter Sanderson, the prolific young writer of the acclaimed Mistborn series. That was the challenge set before young writer Brandon Sanderson when he was called upon to complete The Wheel of Time, a series of doorstop-sized fantasy novels published from 1990 to 2005 by Robert Jordan, a pen name for James Oliver Rigney, Jr., that have sold 44 million copies worldwide. Now imagine you’re the one who has to come in, bring the epic to a satisfactory conclusion, resolve dozens of dangling plot threads, all while dealing with a passionate and demanding fan base who’ll never let you forget it if you fail.
Martin passes away before completing A Song of Ice and Fire, the bestselling series that’s also the basis for HBO’s Emmy-winning Game of Thrones. Rowling had died before finishing Harry Potter, or if (as some fans fear) George R.R.