BRANDON: I had a request out of my 15-person

workshop that I move world building up a little

bit, because they're starting new stories

and the world building comes up very early.

I'm going to do world building for the next

two weeks.

Isaac, Mary Robinette is coming when?

ISAAC: The 20th.

BRANDON: The 20th, okay.

We'll have this week and next week on world

building.

We'll then have Mary Robinette come and talk

to you about short stories.

Then we'll do the Q&A on world building, along

with some prose stuff the next week, and then

we'll do the two weeks of character after

that.

All right?

That's kind of our format going forward.

World building, I usually do about two lectures

on this, and today writer going to do the

lecture on Sanderson's Laws.

STUDENTS: Yay!

BRANDON: This is very fun for me to do, because

Asimov has laws, right?

Clark has at least one.

I figured I should have laws named after me,

so I did it.

Let me give you some background to what Sanderson's

Laws are and how they came about.

Sanderson's Laws started when I was working

on Mistborn, the first book.

I finished Mistborn 1, and I turned it in

and was working on Mistborn 2, and as Mistborn

1 was coming out, I started to realize that

I felt like I'd done something wrong in Mistborn

1.
Something wasn't working with the ending the
way I wanted it to.

I try to avoid too much in the way of spoilers,

but what happens in the first Mistborn book

is, we were at the climax.

The ending was happening.

Everything was going well.

I wrote it.

I sent it to my editor.

He wrote back and he's like, "I feel like

this needs a little extra oomph.

There's something missing here."

I thought, huh, what could I do to give it

a little extra oomph.

I thought, well, I've got this whole plot

where Vin is going to start learning to use

the mist to power allomancy a little bit,

because it's foreshadowing for some stuff

we need in book three.

I thought, well, I'll just move that forward

to this climax that allowed some new and interesting

thing.

Remember, this was the first book I ever wrote

knowing it was going to be published.

Even though I'd written 14 novels by this

time, I still was pretty much a newbie.

I'd never done a lot of these things before.

This was the first time that I'd really worked

with an editor on a book as I was writing

it.

Elantris had been finished years before, and

yes, I'd done a lot of editorial on this,

but it was a new experience working on Mistborn

1.

So I did this.
Moshe was like, "Great.

That works.

Gives it the extra oomph I need."

And we released the book.

When the book was being read, I started getting

feedback, and I went and looked at it, and

it really feels like I just added a new power

to the main character at the 95% mark in the

book, which is exactly what I did.

Absolutely 100% what I did.

I started to think about, a lot of people

will point at science fiction and fantasy,

that they don't like it.

One of the things that they will say about

it, that I don't think is true, and is a bad

reason to not like sci-fi/fantasy, is they'll

be like, "Oh, the author can just have anything

happen, and therefore your ending lacks any

sort of conflict because the author can just

make up a way to save them.”

Now, I'm totally okay if people don't like

sci-fi/fantasy.

It's a flavor of storytelling, and there's

no right storytelling and wrong storytelling

to like and dislike.

You can dislike things.

But I think this criticism doesn't actually

work, because any author in any story can

do this no matter what the story is.

It is not something that I think is actually

more prevalent in sci-fi/fantasy than any

other story.

Yes, in sci-fi/fantasy you can do what I mistakenly

did, which is invent a new power for a character

late in the story, and therefore deflate a

little bit of the satisfaction of the ending,
because it involves the character using something
you didn't know they had access to in order

to save the day.

But you can just as easily write a romance

where the primary tension is that Character

A is nobility and Character B is a commoner

and that's keeping them apart.

You could have, at the 90% part, a long-lost

uncle walk up and say, "Oh, by the way, she's

royalty.

You guys can totally get married," and evaporate

the conflict.

That's a sidestep of the actual conflict,

but you're solving it by putting a patch on

it, the same way I kind of put a patch on

Mistborn in a way that wasn't satisfying.

You can do that in a romance just as easily.

Doesn't matter what the conflict is, you can,

at the end of your story stick a patch on

it that will be a resolution, but an unsatisfying

one.

Having fluency over this is really an important

sort of storytelling mechanic.

Since I am a writer of science fiction and

fantasy, since I love fantasy, I framed my

kind of rule I came up with for myself to

help me understand why this problem existed

and how I could avoid it in the future as

a kind of little scientific-y sort of thing.

That's what I do write.

I don't write science.

I write scientific-y things.

With some development, I kind of broke this

out themed toward building a magic system

in a fantasy book, because I realized some

other things about it.

I'm going to write the first law up here.

You can find these online, though.

Isaac, I believe the essays are broken on

my website right now.

We've gotten emails saying that people can't

read them there.

We will get them up and fixed.

But Sanderson's First Law, and I apologize

in advance for my handwriting.

This is one where I actually want you to read

it, so I will try to write so that you can.

Your ability to solve problems with magic

in a satisfying

way is directly proportional to how well the

reader

understands said magic.

All right.

This is a technical way of explaining what

I just told you a story about.

Your ability to solve problems with magic

in a satisfying way is directly proportional

to how well the reader understands said magic.

This is something I thought about a long time,

how to phrase this in a way, because I was

understanding something about my fiction that

I hadn't before.

I had known that deus ex machina is a bad

thing.

If you're not familiar with this phrase it

means god from the machine.

Am I right on that?

It's an old Greek term for when they would

have the god save the characters at the end

of a play because basically there was no other

way to get out of the problem.

We use it in modern storytelling to mean the

author inventing a mechanism by which the

characters are saved from the consequences

of their actions in the late part of the story.

Inventing new magical abilities in the late

part of your story in order to get your characters

out of problems will often feel unsatisfying

for the same reason.

However, there's another story that goes along

with this, and this was when I was at my very

first Worldcon as a participating professional

author.

This would have been in Boston, so whenever

the Boston Worldcon was, around 2004-2005.

I sat on a panel at a big science fiction

convention.

I'd been going to these for a while.

I was really excited to sit on this panel.

I was put on a panel called How Does the Magic

Work.

How do we use magic?

I thought, this is perfect.

This is my thing.

I love magic systems.

I love interesting magic systems.

I am ready to go.

So we got on the panel, there was me and a

group of other people, and the moderator looked

down the line and said, "All right.

We'll just start off with what is your go-to,

fundamental thing you think about when building

a magic system?"

I thought I could just really knock this one

out of the park.

They asked me to go first.

I said, "Well, obviously, a magic system needs

to have rules."

I think I picked this one up from Orson Scott

Card's book.
I think he talks about it.

But either way, it was something that I just

had fundamentally believed.

A good magic system is a magic system with

rules.

I thought I was really just using the easy,

softball answer that would get the conversation

rolling.

But the other people on the panel looked to

me and said, "No!

If you put rules on your magic you ruin it."

I was shocked that the next half hour of our

discussion was me arguing with these three

other people, where I was like, "No, no, no.

This is foundational to building a magic system."

This was like you had just told me that one

plus one does not equal two.

I was flabbergasted that I had to argue this.

But through that discussion I actually started

to realize my way of doing it was not the

only way to do it, and in fact, a lot of the

stories I liked didn't explain the rules of

the magic to me, and maybe didn't even have

rules that the author relied upon.

I thought, well, how is this working then?

So I started to build this second sort of

philosophy about magic, which is that there

is, the way I see it, a kind of continuum,

a sliding scale that you can be on.

On one side is a sense of wonder about the

magic specifically, and on the other side

is problem solving with magic, or magic as

science.

Now, don't take this as law, because I bet

there are people who are able to do both.

But generally what happens is as you move

toward solving problems with magic and your
magic working more like a science, you move
away from a sense of wonder or mystery to

that magic.

It's very natural sort of thing.

The more you explain about something, the

more it moves to a different emotion and understanding

in you.

As I became a writer, my intersection with

movies and books that I read changed.

Instead of being in this sort of, "Wow, how

did they do this?"

I moved into, "Oh, I see what they're doing.

That's cool."

Those two emotions were kind of different

emotions.

I can be in awe of a story that's pulled off

well, because I know exactly how hard it is

to do.

But I'm no longer mystified about how the

author accomplished that.

It's kind of this same sort of thing.

I'm not sure if sense of wonder is the exact

right phrase, but I think you can get the

idea.

What's going on here is, as you move this

direction, you're able to solve problems in

a satisfying way with your magic.

What does this mean?

Why am I saying this?

Well, if you give your characters some tools,

and then get to watch the characters use those

tools to escape problems and to solve problems

and escape situations, then you as a reader

will feel really satisfied about that.

It's why my kids, when they were young, loved

to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was it?

Where they're like, "Here are the three tools

that we are going to need today."

They set up, "Here are your three tools,"

and then as they go along it's like, "Oh,

one of our tools is a jack.

Oh, our car broke down.

Which of our three tools do we use?"

Now, you do a more complicated version of

this in your stories, but it's essentially

the same thing.

You are going to set up, here are the tools

the character has.

This character is able to teleport through

walls.

This character is able to drink a potion that

turns them into looking like someone else.

This character has this ability.

Then you are going to, on this side of the

magic, rely on the character's quick wits

to apply that tool to different situations.

It's a little bit like the heist archetype

that I talked to you about a couple weeks

ago, where you can take a certain archetype

where you give someone a group of tools, they

work on it, and then they rearrange them to

use them in different ways at the end.

That's the sort of thing you're doing with

a rule-based magic system.

But it's not the only type of magic out there.

In fact, there are a lot of magics where they're

searching for something else, and in this

case, it's a magic you don't know what it's

going to do.

The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse they had a mystery

tool.

"We don't know what this is.

It'll solve a problem eventually."

The mystery tool, or even things more mysterious,

happen a lot in fantasy books, and it doesn't

mean they're bad magic systems.

In fact, some of the best magic systems use

what I would call a soft magic, as opposed

to a hard magic.

A soft magic is you don't know the consequences

or even really the cost of using the magic,

and you are not certain you can predict what

the ramifications or effects will be.

Most of the time, the viewpoint protagonist

is not the one using the magic, or if they

are, it is a type of device that they are

using, or some sort of magical thing that

they can't predict the consequences.

The Monkey's Paw story is a nice little hybrid

story that's a little bit sense of wonder.

It's on the sense of wonder side.

You know you can make a wish, but you don't

know what the consequences of that wish will

be, and the emotion that story's relying upon

is that sense of wonder twisted on its head

to a sense of horror.

A lot of times, horror is twisting a positive

emotion into a negative emotion in some way.

Monkey's Paw, if you don't know this story,

people make wishes on this monkey's paw, and

they always turn out awful and horrible and

frightening.

As the book progresses you see the escalation

of the wishes that are getting made and things

like this, and it's just a brilliant story.

It is using a soft magic with just a little

bit of an edge toward, so you understand what

the characters can do, but they cannot control

consequences.
That sort of story, that sort of magic can
make fantastic stories.

I'll give you two examples of stories that

use both a hard magic and a soft magic in

the same story, and you can see how the contrast
of the two is very effective.

The first of these is Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings uses for the ring what I

would call a magic that is toward the magic

as science with the ring.

It's still that one step away toward the sense

of wonder, or in this case also horror, because

you're not exactly sure what the ultimate

consequences of using the ring are, and you're

not exactly sure what Sauron can do with that

ring.

You just know it's bad.

But most of the storytelling mechanics of

the ring do a couple of things.

What does the ring do?

It turns you invisible.

Yep.

It turns you invisible and expands your lifespan.

What are the costs?

Sauron sees you and you turn into Gollum.

Right?

Basically these are the things.

The enemy can find you and you turn into Gollum.

Tolkien is very wise to put in the story example

of Gollum showing you exactly what the consequences

are.

That is a story that's very good at showing

you, look, if Frodo keeps this ring he turns

into this thing.

It's right here on screen.

It's actually a very hard magic system as

magic systems go.

Every time Frodo is using it, you can judge.

He's going to turn invisible, but here are

the consequences.

Lo and behold, in the story those consequences

are usually pretty dire, but they're anticipatable.

It's repeatable.

It's following the scientific method.

And the reader now knows the tool Frodo has

and the costs of that tool.

What can Gandalf do?

STUDENTS: (Calling out several indistinct

answers)

BRANDON: Yes.

Now, I'm not asking the people who have read

all the back material, which does move Gandalf

a little bit more toward the middle.

But in the books, Gandalf is pretty much all

the way over here.

You know Gandalf has power and can do stuff.

You're not sure what it is.

And a lot of times when he even uses his powers

he's offscreen.

He fights the Balrog offscreen, purposefully

in the books.

You're not sure what's going on.

You don't know what he's doing.

You know it will have huge consequences.

And lo and behold the huge consequences are

he dies and gets resurrected as Gandalf the

White.

You're not sure how that worked, why that

worked, the consequences.
You might say, "Wait a minute.

That feels like it's removing consequences

from the characters."

But that's not the purpose of Gandalf's magic.

Gandalf's magic is not-- Gandalf is not a

tactical nuke that you're using in a specific

place for a specific purpose.

Gandalf is there to make sure that the Hobbits

feel small, both metaphorically and literally.

That's the whole point of having Hobbits in

the story.

Tolkien was a student of the classic epics.

He did a translation of Beowulf once.

If you want to have fun, then go read Beowulf

and compare it to the Hobbit.

It very much felt like he wanted to write

one of these ancient heroic epics but put

a normal person in the role of the hero.

Instead of Beowulf we get Frodo or Bilbo.

In order to emphasize that, though he gives

Frodo a power that's a hard magic power, he

makes sure Gandalf exists in the story to

indicate this is a world of magic that is

much, much bigger than anything the Hobbits

can comprehend, and you as readers don't need

to comprehend it.

These two magics work perfectly in this book

hand in hand, giving both a sense of grandness

and wonder, and giving a tool to the main

character that he can use at certain times

in clever ways to escape problems and situations,

and then to have to pay for that later on

at the climactic moment of the stories, where

indeed, the costs that he has been paying

come due.

Another great example of this is Name of the

Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
One of the reasons Name of the Wind works
so well, I won't speak about this as much,

is that he also has a hard magic and a soft

magic, and by including both of those he is

able to contrast.

If you haven't read the books, he is going

to a magic school, and one of the things they

do is build magical devices using sympathetic

magic.

It's a type of magic that people believed

worked in our world, that like affects like,

that actually works in his world.

The rules, it gets a little soft in there,

but mostly it's like, you do this, you get

this.

You do this, you get this.

Meanwhile, there's a professor at the school

who studies a different type of magic.

This magic is the naming of things.

This magic is explained as very powerful,

very mysterious, and likely to drive you crazy.

Of course, the main character is drawn to

this naming magic in the same way that a moth

is to a flame, and that's part of the tension

of the story is, is he going to suffer the

consequences that this professor has by delving

into naming magic, which the naming magic

is there to reinforce this story being about

a poet and a musician and talking about a

magic that is more like poetry and music.

You can't define it.

There is engineering class in his magic school,

and there's poetry class.

Yes, he can figure out engineering class,

but he wants to go to poetry because you can't

quantify poetry.
The two work very well in a scholarly setting
as kind of showing off these two different

disciplines and the contrast between them

in these two stories.

You do not need to have both in your books.

In fact, most books only have one.

I will say that you don't have to be all the

way to one side or the other.

In fact, usually it's very handy to be right

about here with even your hard magics, so

that you have the mystery tool, so that later

on if you're writing a series you can expand

the magic and leave some mystery in the first

book that can later on be explored and explained.

The further my books go, because I tend to

be pretty far on that side, the more the magic

gets explained, and the more the holes that

I've introduced in the magic intentionally

in the start, start to get filled in.

This is how you actually have, like, the ending

of Mistborn 1 could still work.

Because Sanderson's First Law is really a

law of foreshadowing.

If I had spent the whole first book saying,

"There were some Mistborn sometimes who were

able to do something really weird and we don't

know how, and we think it might involve this.

And here's this apparent contradiction in

the magic system that we think should work,

but we don't know why."

And then later on those things are reconciled,

and the character figures something out and

is then able to access the magic, that would

work.

In fact, most Asimov Three Law stories are

this way.

If you haven't read Asimov's Three Laws, he's

got three laws of robotics, this, this.
And then a robot is acting weird.

It's running around in a big circle instead

of doing what it's supposed to do.

What's up?

Well, let's go look at how the three laws

interact with one another and we'll find out

why this robot's programming has a bug that

is causing a contradiction between the three

laws, and therefore they're acting this way.

That is kind of one of Asimov's go-to storytelling

devices.

Of course, he also has the "robots develop

some weird sense of wonder thing, we don't

like it, so we destroy it."

So he does have sense of wonder stories as

well.

This is the Law of Foreshadowing.

The reason I say, "in a satisfying way," I

want to point out before we do questions about

this one, is sometimes you don't want to solve

problems in a satisfying way because you are

doing something else with this scene.

The example I often use for this is, you've

probably seen a lot of stories where the characters

in the first third of the story get into desperate

situation, there is no way out of it, and

then out of nowhere someone comes and saves

them.

Probably seen a lot of this.

It's done all the time in Hollywood films.

Why is this done?

Usually to introduce this new character.

That's one of the things.

You're like, we want to have a dramatic introduction

to this character.

We will have them save the other characters

and show off their cool abilities in Act 1

when the characters couldn't possibly have

survived.

There are other reason that narratives do

this.

Some of them are kind of lame, I'll admit.

Some of them are quite legitimate.

Introducing a character in Act 1 to save the

day is very different from having an unnamed

character show up in Act 3 to save you at

the end.

Han works because it's foreshadowed.

But Han, if he showed up in the first part

of the story, could just show up and save

them.

Be like, "Oh, yeah, this is my friend Han.

Now you know how cool he is."

Understand that these are all tools.

There's not wrong ways to do this.

In fact, Sanderson's Laws, I call them laws

because it sounds cool, and that's basically

the format that people use, but they are not

laws for you.

You don't have to follow these.

These are rules I made for myself to tell

the types of stories I want to tell, to get

the type of effect that I want to get, and

they might be helpful for you to understand

some sort of narrative things about using

your magic systems in a story.

So let me ask, any questions about Sanderson's

First Law?

Yeah.

STUDENT: This could be spoilers, but the end

of Oathbringer.

BRANDON: Okay.
Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

CLASS: (groans)
STUDENT: And how that works.

I guess it doesn't have to be that specific

example, but how do you make it an ending

that is both satisfying and doesn't follow

that?

BRANDON: When I'm talking about this, when

I'm doing this right, the goal is that I am

foreshadowing that something can and will

happen, and that you could have figured out

what was going to happen before it happens.

Now, I might not always get this right.

It'll depend on your own personal read.

But when Sanderson's First Law is working

for me, it is you could have known and figured

out what was going to happen at the end ahead

of time.

With Oathbringer, I would argue the answer

was coming down to a character's decision.

You didn't know which way they were going

to decide, but you knew they could decide

either way.

The emphasis is, if they decide one way something

happens, and if they decide another way, something

happens.

The setup for this is very different based

on situation.

Let me explain.

I've got a good story for you to explain this.

The story is the two Lord of the Rings films,

movie two and movie three.

Now, movie two of the three is my favorite

of the Lord of the Rings films, and part of
this has to do with the defense of Helm's
Deep.

Now, in this story, what happens is characters

go to Helm's Deep to defend it against an

Orc, Orci, whatever, invasion.

They know that this is kind of one of their

last stands.

They are in serious trouble.

The setup ahead of time is, Gandalf says to

them something.

You guys remember what it is?

STUDENT: "Look for me the morning of the third

day."

BRANDON: "Look for me the morning of the third

day," is that what he says?

Fifth day.

"Look for me the morning of the fifth day."

What's that?

You watched it last night?

“Look for me at the morning of the fifth

day.

Look for me, and he rides off.”

The setup for that situation is, if we survive

five days, Gandalf will save us.

Now, the narrative does everything it can

do to make you forget that, by showing you

how terrible the situation is, by making them

fight to the very end of their wits, and their

strength, and their exhaustion.

They are basically defeated.

But at the end they go out for a final charge,

and then the sun rises, and then it plays

Gandalf's "Look for me on the morning of the

fifth day," and Gandalf appears.

They see him, and then an army comes up behind

him.
Now you've seen this army leave, so the pieces
were there, but the setup for the characters

was not "You need to defeat these Orcs or

else."

The setup is, "If you survive this amount

of time, you are okay."

In the third movie, this setup is not done

the same way.

They are defending Minas Tirith.

It is set up as, "If we don't protect Minas

Tirith, we are doomed."

And then Aragorn goes off to ghosts.

And then as they're about to fall, Aragorn

shows up with the ghosts and saved them.

On a kind of strict outline basis, these two

are the same.

Yet in the Aragorn saving them with the ghosts,

I felt just really kind of let down.

I'm like, "Oh, okay.

I guess they're okay.

It's still a great film.

Yeah, whatever."

And in the middle film, every time Gandalf

comes up over that ledge as I'm watching it,

I can barely keep the emotion in.

When the light comes down behind him and the

Orcs are like "Aaugh!"

It's just beautiful.

Every time when Aragorn shows up with the

ghosts I'm like, "All right, we're done having

fun with Gimli and Legolas bantering about

who killed what.

We're done with this.

Okay, we're done.

So I would ask you, why do I have such a different

emotional reaction to number three than I
do to number two?

This is about promises and payoffs.

In both the Tolkien, or actually this is Jackson,

because they don't happen exactly the same

way in the books, in both of these Jackson

is solving a problem with an external force

that is protecting the characters from the

consequences that are coming toward them.

But in one of them, they are promised if they

can do this, they will receive this.

In the other, they are promised, "You need

to survive.

Oh, you didn't?

Okay, we'll just save you anyway."

Now, it is obviously much better done than

that, because it's a fantastic film, even

the third one.

But when I am looking for this to work, it's

not necessarily that you need to understand

exactly what the magic can do.

You need to understand what the setup is.

For instance, a lot of stories will say, "I

feel like if I can solve this problem with

the magic I will receive a dump of understanding

about everything that will let me save the

day."

If you have set that up for the reader, if

they figure out this problems and then that

happens, the reader will be fine.

They're like, "Yes!

This is exactly what I was promised."

I
f they fail to figure that thing out, they

fail to make the decision, they fail to achieve

what you've set up in your narrative for them
to do, and then they still succeed, well,
then you're going to need some other way to

make that work, and you totally can.

But in that case, that's where Sanderson's

First Law is not really applied, if that makes

sense.

Again, I'm not perfect at this.

So you can totally read one of my books and

say, "You know, Sanderson, I don't think you

completely pulled it off.

I don't think you did the setup the right

way I needed to for this ending to work."

But this is what I'm trying to do, if that

makes any sense.

And that story helps me kind of explain how

I view this.

Other questions about this?

STUDENT: In regards to setup, how do you explain

your magic in an exciting way without info

dumping?

BRANDON: Yes.

How do you avoid the dreaded info dump?

Did I tell you guys last week what I was doing

with the Mistborn screenplay?

I told the little class, didn't I. I didn't

tell you guys.

I'm writing the Mistborn screenplay right

now.

CLASS: (oohing and ahing)

BRANDON: Ah!

Yes.

Ah!

STUDENT: How close is it?

BRANDON: How close is it?

It's not that close.

Basically, me writing the screenplay is not
what you want to have happen.

It means that I've given up on Hollywood writing

the screenplay.

I'm just going to do it myself.

I am not an expert screenwriter.

I've only written one screenplay before in

my life, so this will be number two.

So I'll need a lot of help to even make it

work.

But fortunately I have some good help from

some friends in Hollywood who are very good

at screenplays, who are giving me advice,

and I've done some brainstorming sessions

with them.

So I am approaching how to do this.

One of the things I ran into is in the book,

this isn't too much of a spoiler for the book,

in the book, Kelsior takes Vin, Kelsior's

the mentor figure, Vin is learning the magic,

out into the mist to explain how the magic

system works.

In a book it actually works pretty well.

It's like, instead of sitting down in the

classroom, he takes her out and says, "All

right, let's try this and experiment with

this."

She's like, "All right.

We'll try this magic power.

We'll try this magic power."

That alone takes it away, takes it several

steps.

One thing you could do is include an encyclopedia

entry on the magic you're doing.

That's your worst choice.

Choice number two is to have the characters

sit and talk about the magic and get it explained.
That's still a pretty bad choice, but at least
it's moved to dialogue.

Choice number three is, let's go out and experiment

and having problems making it work, and the

teacher instructing them.

That works pretty well in the book.

In the screenplay I don't have time for that,

and it would work less well on screen.

So what did I do is I combined that scene

and the scene also early in the book where

Kelsior sneaks into House Venture to steal

a bead of atium.

In the movie version, these were the same

scene.

Vin's followed him.

She's like, "You promised to train me."

He's like, "All right, baptism by fire.

Come with me and we're going to try these

different things while we're robbing these

people."

So by overlapping those scenes, suddenly there's

way more tension to "Now you've got to learn

to do this, and if you don't, that guard is

going to alert us, and we'll all be in trouble."

And when she screws up he can help out and

things, but now there's a tension to the scene.

And the scene combines two scenes and it gets

way more active and interesting because the

reader's like, or I guess in this case really

the viewer's like, "Oh, now there's some real

consequences on the line to this same sort

of project."

The same thing is happening, practice, same

sort of practice, same thing is happening

as happened in the book, but in a situation

with increased tension.

That is also a good way to make sure this

happens.

Now, you have to balance that.

Because one of the things you risk when you're

bring this into a tense scene is that the

reader might get lost and confused while and

action sequence is happening, which is generally

a bad idea.

Fortunately, on film I have all the ability

to visualize a lot of this, so I don't have

to explain it in the same way as I do in a

book, which makes that scene work.

One of the biggest challenges to writing science

fiction and fantasy is how you get across

your world building elements in a way that

is not boring.

To do this you need to construct your scenes

deliberately, in a way that gives you a chance

to not just show the magic working, but to

show character and setting details while you

are explaining the magic in some way.

In fact, the point of the scene might be to

explain the magic, but your emphasis in the

scene should be making sure the character

is interesting and you're showing as much

or more about the character as you are about

the magic, or at least you are providing excitement

equivalent to that.

Try to do multiple things at once, and make

sure you are keeping your focus on the character.

All right?

Okay.

Let's move on to Sanderson's Second Law.

All right.

Sanderson's Second Law comes about because

I was sitting and thinking about powers that

I put in my books.
This one also kind of relates a little bit
to Mistborn.

I was at a book signing at one point.

I spent a lot of time thinking about, what

are new powers?

What are new things I can put in my books

that are going to be different?

Someone came to me at a book signing once

and said, "Hey, I love Mistborn.

It's like a whole book full of Magnetos."

And I'm like, "Wait.

Oh, wait, that's just basically Magneto, isn't

it?"

Like what are Mistborn?

You take Magneto, you mash them together with

"these are not the droids you're looking for

because they can manipulate emotions," and

you've basically got Mistborn.

I was like, "Oh, wow, am I a hack?"

As a writer, expect that question to pop up

in your head frequently.

"Oh, no, am I a hack?"

The answer is no, you're not, because I don't

even really like that term.

If you are seeking to write stories the way

that you would want to read them and enjoy

in your stories, you are not a hack.

But there's this thing of, "Am I original?

I thought I was original, and now I realize

I'm not."

Well, that's a completely different story.

You are probably going to worry you're not

original too much, because the end of the

day, the most original thing you can add to

a story is your perspective, and that is unique

to you.
Now, the more you write, the more you will
realize how to not be derivative.

Because when you start off you will be derivative,

and that is generally a problem and something

you want to avoid.

The more you write, the more you'll learn

to put your own stamp on things.

But generally, experienced writers worry about

being derivative well past when it's not even

a consideration for you at all.

Okay?

If you're worried about it, see if some early

readers say you are.

Learn how to tweak things to make them your

own a little bit more.

Sanderson's Laws might help you.

But don't stress this as much as perhaps you

might.

But what I realized is, I'm like, "Well, how

did I come up with allomancy?

Why did allomancy work?

Why did I enjoy it so much?"

One of the things I landed on was this idea

that allomancy, if you haven't read the books,

you can push on pieces of metal and they'll

fling you up in the air.

Basically, if something's heavier than you

are, if it's attached to the floor and you

push on it you go the other direction.

It's vector physics used as a fun magic system.

If you push on a coin it flies away from you,

but if it hits something heavier than you,

then you'll launch backward.

Equal and opposite reaction, right?

This was really fun to write.

Why?
Because of Sanderson's First Law sort of stuff.

Making the character stretch with the tools

they have rather than solving the problems

externally was a real blast to write and it

made this writing more exciting, more interesting

to me, thinking how can I use this tool in

a way the reader's not expecting but they

could have anticipated is very fun to me.

So I spent a lot of time in that space.

I realized, though, that allomancy is just

a really lame form of flying.

Like, if you could fly, then that would just

be strictly better than launching off of something.

If you had full telekinesis, you could just

move things around wherever you wanted, that'd

just be a better version of allomancy.

And yet I've read books with that, and the

magic systems have been less fun.

So why is that?

And that was kind of Sanderson's Second Law.

Sanderson's Second Law is that flaws or limitations

are more interesting than powers.

Doesn't mean that the powers aren't interesting.

Like the question of "What if you could do

this?" is a great story starter.

What if you could fly?

Where would you go with that?

But in developing a magic system, building

in the flaws and limitations, and I'll say

costs, is generally more interesting and creates

more storytelling potential than the powers

themselves.

For instance, if I said to you, "You can fly,"

that might send you along some interesting

paths in telling a story.

If I said, "You can fly, but only as long
as your parents are both sleeping."

Then suddenly you're like, "Oh!"

It's a very different story, right?

This suddenly takes us into a different direction.

"Do my parents both need to be alive?

But they both need to be asleep?

Do I now move to the opposite side of the

world so I can consistently be a, during the

day when they are sleeping?"

Or come up with whatever, fly.

You can have the classic, like what is the

one that Scott Card uses in his book.

You can use the magic, but if you do, one

of your living relatives will be killed.

Suddenly, that's what the story is about.

The Wheel of Time has a great example of this.

All these mystical, wonderful powers, but

the more you use them, the more likely you

are to become insane and kill everyone you

love.

In fact, we start with the prologue showing

someone who has gone crazy and killed everyone

they love, so you understand the stakes and

consequences right from the get-go, which

was a brilliant move.

It's the same thing as putting Gollum in your

story so you can see what the character will

become.

But the flaws and limitations and the costs

are where generally your story happens.

Superman has classically been a very difficult

character for people to do films about.

We had one and a half really great Superman

films, and then we've had several films that

have had really great parts, but the authors

of the films have struggled with making those

Superman films click with audiences.

And this kind of comes down to the fact that

people are like, Superman has too much power.

It's too hard to write a story.

And yet I watched as a young man an entire

series about Superman that I loved, and I

still think is really fun, even though it's

a '90s show, so it's way campy.

That's Lois and Clark.

You'll see that Superman works really well

on the small screen.

There have been adaptation after adaptation

of Superman or Supergirl that have been really

fun stories to tell, and that generally is

because the people telling the small scale

story have such limited special effects budgets

that they can't make a big spectacle of Superman

punching someone harder than that person can

punch, and so they have to say, "Well, what

else can we do?"

And Superman stories generally fall into one

of three categories.

The first one is what I just said.

Someone has shown up who can punch harder

than Superman.

Oh, no!

That's where the movies tend to go a lot.

What is the other Superman story?

Somebody has kryptonite.

Oh, no, I don't have my powers anymore.

What is story number three?

I am unable to use my powers effectively to

solve this problem.

Either someone who is weaker than me is in

danger so my powers, now they don't have the
powers, or, I would really like this person
to fall in love with me.

My powers don't give me that ability, except

at the end of the second film, which is why

there's one and a half good Superman films.

Or I guess now that's the kiss of forgetfulness.

But you know what I mean.

But Superman II has some goofy super H stuff

in it.

I still love it, but it has some goofy super

H.

Okay, story time.

Early in my career, this has nothing to do

with anything, early in my career, I was guest

of honor at a con up in, like, North Salt

Lake or something, and they're like, "The

local news station wants to have you on the

news on the morning show."

I'm like, "Wow, this is really cool.

I've never been on the news before.

That's great."

They're like, "Yeah, but they're going to

invite several other people, and you're all

going to be on TV."

I'm like brand new.

I'm like, "Be on TV!"

So I show up and who's going to be on?

It's me and Ursa, the Superman II villain,

the one that's a woman, and a group of Storm

Troopers.

And the notice thing was us just standing

there, and they're like, "Look at these weirdos

at this science fiction convention.

You should go meet them."

It was actually a fine experience, but I'm
like, "Wow, my now claim to fame is being

on TV with the villain from Superman II.

Not that one, not that one, but that one,

and some Storm Troopers."

Somewhere, someone has that clip of me standing

there awkwardly, being like, "Oh, yeah, I

guess we are the weird-- the zoo has come

to town and we wear Storm Trooper armor."

She was very nice, by the way.

But that's neither here nor there.

The stories that people look to tell about

Superman I think are instructive to us because

generally they are looking to tell stories

about things that Superman's powers don't

really influence.

In fact, my favorite episode that I remember

of Lois and Clark was, like, there was this

robot who had kryptonite.

They're like, "We're powering it by kryptonite

so if it punches Superman it'll take away

all his powers."

But the whole rest of that story, this robot's

here, he's dealing with something with Lois,

which is really interesting and engaging,

because it's character relationship stuff,

and his powers come into play almost not at

all.

They do this, they have this thing, and at

the end of the episode they're like, "Oh,

yeah, you have to go fight this robot."

He's like, "Oh, right, I can fly, and I have

laser vision."

So he flies up and he lasers the thing and

then he flies away, and it takes, like, 10

seconds.

That is writers who understood that Superman

punching harder than something is not as interesting

as the fact that he has galactic-scale godlike

powers but can't interact with the human world.

He's still just a nerd who can't make relationships

work.

That's why that show worked.

Now, what does this have to do with?

Well, when you're developing your magic, naturally

a lot of your stories are going to err toward

conflict.

So they are going to err toward one of these

kind of three stories.

Either the character is not skilled enough

with their magic yet and needs to level up.

Or, they need to find something that's not

working in the magic and fix it so that they

can then use their magic the correct way.

Or, the magic is not working right now.

"What do I do?"

Or, the magic can't solve this problem.

It can maybe help me with the surrounding

things, but I need to then find a way to solve

this problem using my other attributes, not

just my magic.

Those are going to be your three paradigms

for telling stories about the magic.

there are others.

But those are kind of the three catchalls.

All of those deal with this idea of your flaws

and your limitations are a big part of why

those stories are working.

I view these three things as three different

things, and I also, they're just my definitions

that I talk about.

But I also view them as kind of larger storytelling

rules, just like the first one's really rule
of foreshadowing.

This is kind of about your characters also.

Your character's flaws and their limitations,

and the things they're willing to do and not

willing to do, and the costs of certain actions,

are where your stories are going to happen

about your characters.

Flaws, basically, are things the character

could change, or the magic you don't understand

yet, and with more application of effort or

character change, you will be able to fix.

For instance, I will see a flaw as, in Elantris

the whole story is about a flaw in the magic.

The magic stopped working 10 years ago.

We don't know why.

People used to get divine powers.

Now they get cursed for eternity, and they

become zombies.

The whole story revolves around there's a

flaw in the magic and we don't know what it

is.

Something's broken.

That flaw is what I build my whole story on.

But in a lot of stories there's also this

flaw of, we don't understand this part of

the magic.

Or, you are not good enough at the magic yet

to do what you need to do.

You need to practice.

If they character applies themself, if the

people apply themselves, there is a solution

to this problem somewhere in the narrative.

Same sort of thing with the characterization

thing.

A flaw in your character is your character

doesn't trust people.

Your character has good reasons for not trusting

people, but they really need to learn to trust

their thieving crew, because these guys are

actually good.

Through the course of the story, you are going

to learn to trust again so that you can actually

have a relationship with this guy you're falling

in love with.

That is Mistborn's theme.

There's a flaw in the character.

That doesn't mean, again, the character is

responsible for that flaw.

Sometimes life has beaten people down.

But it is something you can work on and fix.

A limitation is different for me, both for

a character and a magic system.

The limitation of allomancy is you can push

and pull only directly away from yourself

or directly toward yourself, center of gravity,

or center or mass, or whatever.

The narrative is now making you think, the

character's need to figure a way to fix this

problem.

It's just a limitation of the magic.

You work with it rather than you try to fix

it.

For a characterization, a limitation might

be something like, you were born with one

arm.

The narrative, you could imagine narrative

where this character's on a quest to get a

robotic arm or something, but most narratives

are like, you've been born with one arm, you

want to play in the NFL, you have a limitation

you're going to have to work with.

There's nothing to fix.

It's not that if only you'd been a better
person you wouldn't have one arm instead of

two?

But that's not the theme of the narrative.

The narrative is about this person who has

a handicap needs to work within this handicap

in order to achieve what they want to do.

Magic systems are the same way.

The magic system has this handicap, this limitation.

You're going to work with it.

And then cost.

Cost doesn't play as well with character as

it does with magic.

It's just kind of a good rule of thumb to

ask yourself what is your magic cost.

But you can also deal with this in character

by saying, if character takes this action,

what is the cost to them emotionally, physically,

mentally, these sorts of things?

You can set up that if character makes this

decision it's going to be very difficult for

them and cost them something, and that's really

good tension.

The same way with the magic system.

The magic system where if you have this magical

power, but every time you use it one of your

next of kin dies, that is a really steep cost.

You can vary these costs depending on how

much you want the magic to be used and what

the role of the cost is in the magic.

A lot of times, and this is just fine, but

a lot of times magic systems will write one

of the costs as being equivalent to the bullets

in a gunslinger's gun.

It costs using this resource, and the character

will run out of it when it's dramatically
appropriate that they do.

STUDENT: Stormlight.

BRANDON: Stormlight, that sort of thing.

Very common to use a cost like that with the

magic.

The reason that those sorts of costs are fun

is because they can have narrative tension,

but also you usually can tie them into the

economy really interestingly, and you have

a legitimate reason if you want to tell story

number two, character doesn't have their powers.

You don't have to invent a reason why they

don't have their powers.

You just deny them the resource, and now getting

the resource can become part of the narrative,

where you can set up your story as, "If we

can get this stuff, then I can solve the problem."

And of course, you're really telling, generally,

in those cases, a different story about the

character's story, and the getting the stuff

just becomes a McGuffin for the plot.

But it leads to a very useful method of being

able to tell versions of story number two

with the magic.

But it also can tie things into economics,

and you can add a social dimension to it in

that case where rich characters are able to

use the magic more.

Wow, theme!

There's all sorts of things there.

But you can also come up with very strict

costs, which themselves can be really fascinating

stories.

You have three wishes.

You're going to make all three wishes, but

they're all going to go wrong, horribly wrong
in some way.

Go.

Well, okay, we have a very strongly limited

magic that also is leading to a horror story.

You can vary the cost to depend on how you

want your story to go.

But a lot of times your story is going to

be about your flaws, limitation, and cost,

either in character or in the magic system.

Any questions about rule number two?

STUDENT: With limitations, like not being

good enough, how do you do a story about that,

which is something about, like, they don't

have enough in the story?

BRANDON: It depends on the type of story you

want to tell.

It kind of depends on the character arc the

character is on.

If the character arc is, you need to get better

at this, I frame it in the story as a flaw,

not a limitation.

I narratively structure it out, if the character

will do X, Y, and Z, they will overcome this

ignorance they have and be able to succeed.

Usually you tell these stories in the "I showed

up to fight Darth Vader, and guess what happened?

I lost my hand and now my entire world is

shot.

I'm going to go train some more so that next

time I can fight Darth Vader, and I'm going

to train in a way that isn't just about battling

the sword.

I'm going to train in a way that I use the

revelation."

That third movie works because a flaw has

been overcome in Luke where he realizes that

just slamming his light saber against Darth

Vader is not the way to win that battle.
But it could also be couched as a limitation.

I used this one in The Rithmatist.

In The Rithmatist, certain people have magic,

certain people don't, and someone who loves

the magic doesn't have it.

The story is framed as a "You aren't going

to get this thing, because unfortunately life

isn't fair and the people who might be really

good at something sometimes just aren't born

into the privileged situation where they can

use it, like you weren't.

So let's find a way that you work with that

limitation that is satisfying."

That story is not about the character overcoming

a flaw.

It is working with a limitation.

I tell very different climaxes for those two

stories, even though they're basically about

the same thing.

That would be my response to you.

What do you want the character's journey to

be?

What do you want your climax to look like?

How do you want your stand-up-and-cheer moment,

or your sit-down-and-cry moment to feel?

Yeah.

STUDENT: I'd like your opinion on low costs

that make a character more quirky.

BRANDON: Low costs that make a character more

quirky?

Do you have an example?

STUDENT: For example, let's say Luke can use

the Force, which is obviously one thing, but

say that you could throw in that he never

loses in that space chess game.

BRANDON: Right.
Luke never loses in that space chess game.

He's got a quirky-- So you're asking, can

I give someone a power that doesn't really

have much of a cost or limitation, but it's

just there to be fun?

Absolutely.

In fact, it also depends on if you're looking

for-- like, that's doing something more like

sense of wonder.

You're characterizing with this thing, and

you're using it for humor, for emotion, and

things like this, and not for problem solving,

and in that case, great.

You're going to run into a problem where if

your story then becomes about whether someone

can win the big space chess game, and Luke

isn't the person they choose to go play in

that space chess tournament, that's where

you have problems.

Sometimes you give someone these quirky powers,

and then as the story progresses the readers

start to ask more and more, "Wait a minute.

Why aren't the eagles flying them to--" Right?

There are explanations, but the fact that

a lot of people ask that question means that

the explanations were not satisfyingly presented,

and that was given, it's more a quirk of Gandalf.

He knows the eagles.

It's more a sense of wonder.

But then those two things intersect, and people

start to ask.

"Wait a minute!"

And that's your problem with that.

Does that make sense?

All right.
Let's go ahead and move on to rule number
three.

There's three of these and a Zeroeth Law.

All right, Law Number Three.

Law Number Three comes from me when I was

working on trying to build the Stormlight

Archive.

Now, the history of the Stormlight Archive,

if you're not familiar with it is, I think

I told you guys about it before, but I wrote

the book in 2002 before I sold Elantris.

This book, I failed in writing it.

For those who haven't read the book, the Stormlight

Archive is a large epic, full of a large cast

of characters, with a very different world

from ours.

There is a lot of bringing people up to speed

on the world building.

There's a very steep learning curve.

There's a lot of information to get across.

Plus, I wanted to do some big thing where

I had tons of characters.

I'd been reading The Wheel of Time.

I'm like, "There's so many characters.

I want to do something like this."

The first draft of Way of Kings was way too

expository, meaning I was just dumping information

on you, and it started the character arcs

of multiple different characters and didn't

finish them, because the book, if I'm trying

to do 10 character arcs or whatever it is

I ended up doing, and I only got through 10%

of each of them, instead of picking a couple

characters and getting through their arcs.

It made for a very unsatisfying book.

But in 2007, a very large freight train called

The Wheel of Time smashed into me unexpectedly

and carried me with it on a long journey that

I had not been expecting mere days before.

That changed my career dramatically.

TOR, as I had finished up Warbreaker and turned

it in, was like, "What are you going to do

next?"

I'm like, "This feels like the right time

to do Way of Kings, if I can fix it."

So I sat down, and I rebuilt all the world

building from scratch, trying to improve it,

trying to work with it, and I kept running

into this problem.

You see, I would go to signings, and people

knew that Mistborn had three different magic

systems.

That's part of what made Mistborn work.

Book 1, if you haven't read them, focuses

on allomancy.

Book 2 focuses on a different magic that's

hinted at in the first book, and Book 3 focuses

on a third magic that is hinted at in the

first two books.

You start to learn about the mechanics of

each of them.

It worked very well for the structure of that

series to dig into a different magic in each

series so there was always something new to

be exploring.

I didn't explain it all in the first book

and left some sense of wonder for the future

books.

So people started to ask me, they learned

about the Way of Kings.

They learned that I had written this book

and hadn't released it, and they found an

Amazon listing for it, somehow.

I still don't know how this happened, by the
way, because I never signed a contract for

The Way of Kings.

I signed a contract for Elantris and Mistborn.

But initially, Moshe had offered on Elantris

and The Way of Kings.

So somehow, someone in TOR told Amazon this

author was releasing these two books before

a contract was signed, and they put up a listing

for both of them, and then left the one up

for The Way of Kings even after we didn't

put that in the contract, and fans found it,

and then they became fans of my-- well, first

they became fans.

They fanned this and were like, "We're going

to pretend we have this book."

So they started taking fan pictures of themselves

with the book with a fake cover that had Elvis

on it, and a quote from Terry Goodkind that

said, "A hunk o’, hunk o’ burning good

book."

They started to put fake quotes on the back

of it.

Amazon just let you upload your own photos

and information.

They were doing a Wikipedia thing back then.

So there's all these wonderful quotes from

made-up people talking about loving the book,

and there's a bunch of fake reviews of people

loving the book and talking about the killer

penguins and all this stuff.

Regardless, TOR did eventually make that page

vanish.

I'm sorry.

STUDENT: Do you have records of it?

BRANDON: I do have records of it somewhere.

I'm not sure where they are.

I know fandom has some too.

We have a copy of the book, I think, that

they printed off the fake cover and put on

for us after it was published or something.

But regardless, The Way of Kings was known

in fandom, and they started to ask questions

about it.

They knew it was going to be my big epic.

I always planned this to be the biggest and

longest of my series.

It was the one that they knew the original

first draft of was 300,000 words, which is

way longer than my other books.

The published version has 400,000 words.

But they started saying to me, "Brandon, how

many magic systems will this book have?"

I started to say, "Thirty."

Because I'm like, "I'm going to develop 30

different magic systems.

I'm going to have 10 magics based on each

of the surges, and I'm going to have 10 magics

based on void binding, and I'm going to have

a bunch of different magical mechanisms for

the Fabrials science, and I'm going to explain

these as 10 different magic systems and all

the stuff."

And I started to get caught up in the hype

of bigger is better.

This, when I went to my world building, is

what I realized had ruined the first incarnation

of The Way of Kings, the thinking that bigger

is better, because it's not.

Now, there are some cases where bigger is

better.

It's not strictly true.

It's not strictly untrue.

If you love a book already, you get into it,
oftentimes you're like, "Wow, I'm glad there's

so much more of this book to love."

And if the storyline you're trying to tell

is improved by having a large arc in the same

story like The Way of Kings, then big is better

for that book in that instance.

But big is not strictly better.

In fact, with world building, I think it is

usually worse.

So Sanderson's Third Law is where I realized

that "Before adding something new

to your magic, and I'll put your setting in

general, see if you can instead expand what

you have."

There is a game series called The Elder Scrolls,

which I love.

A lot of people leave reviews on some installments

of this, because The Elder Scrolls has always

been about using a vast setting as a way to

engage you.

In fact, the first one I played was called

Daggerfall, and the reason it hooked me, people

said, "You've got to play this.

There are, like, 10,000 different dungeons

and they are all unique."

They used procedurally generated dungeons

to create Daggerfall.

I played it, and then I realized that those

10,000 dungeons were the same 10 assets recombined

in enough ways to make 10,000 whatever.

Not 10 assets, but, you know, a number of

assets.

In fact, people started reviewing the game,

saying, "They are an ocean that is an inch

deep."

This was one of the big criticisms for the

series.

In fact, one they kind of tried to fix in

the most recent one, Skyrim by saying, "We're

going to back away from the procedural generation,

and make some of these dungeons have a lot

of attention to detail, particularly the ones

that you're most likely to play through, so

that they're interesting and engaging."

And indeed, having 10 dungeons in a game that

are really well made, turns out, for most

player experiences, is way better than 10,000

dungeons that are basically all boring.

This is what you run into with our magic systems

and your settings if you start to say, "Wow,

Sanderson is doing a 10-book epic with all

of this stuff in it.

In order to write an epic fantasy, therefore,

I need to have my languages all built ahead

of time.

I need to have the lore going back 10,000

years.

I need to have built all of these different

interesting religious systems and governments

and magic systems.

And, oh, no!

I need 10 PhDs to write this book."

The danger here is that that's not necessarily

better.

Now certainly, having an expertise and applying

it to a book, or even making sure you're doing

a wide variety of different things in your

book can be very handy.

But most readers will latch onto one idea

done really well, better than they will latch

onto 100 ideas just barely touched on.

In Way of Kings, the original, instead of

taking and trying to do 10 different character
lines 10% of the way done, if I instead picked
three, Dalinar, Kaladin, and Shallan, and

I told a really good chunk of their stories,

turns out the book is way better.

Because doing a really good job with three

characters and having a bunch of side characters

who all have interesting hooks, and they'll

all get their own books eventually, but in

that first book making sure-- really, the

first book is 50% or more Kaladin and doing

his story just as best as I could do it, with

Dalinar and Shallan just being there enough

to get you interested in them, because you

knew they were going to have more extensive

arcs later.

That book worked.

You should apply this in many cases to your

world building.

If you're asking yourself, "All these things

I need to do," if you instead say, "You know

what?

I'm really interested in religion.

If I create three interesting religions that

all come off of the same branch, like Christianity,

Judaism, and Islam branched off of kind of

the same core theology long ago, it creates

an interesting relationship between these

three religions.

If they're all taking a different perspective

on it, and I dig into that perspective, and

maybe I related that to a magic in the world,"

you are going to have a better book than if

you say, "There are 50 different religions

in this book.

It's so diverse and interesting.

You're going to love it."

That book with three religions done well,

almost always going to be a better book.
This is about learning to dig deeper into
a concept and explore the different ramifications

of it, instead of just throwing everything

you can think of into a book.

This is really important for fantasy and science

fiction, because we are coming to fantasy

and science fiction because of the world building.

In general, we want to come to this world

building and be transported to a different

place.

It's very common for the author to say, I'm

going to take you to a different place.

I'm going to put all this weird stuff in,

but then not leaving the reader with something

to latch onto, that is really interesting,

that presents itself an interesting problem

or an interesting hook.

That interesting problem or hook related to

the world building is way more vital than

these other things.

Next week we'll dig into all the different

types of things you can put into a fantasy

novel, and it will feel like, "Oh, no, I need

100 PhDs to write this book."

The whole goal of that lecture, though, is

to kind of push you, to expand what you view

story or science fiction to be, and to try

to find where your niche for a given book

might be, latch onto it, and do it really

well.

If you are writing a big epic fantasy, you

probably need to be multiples of these, and

in fact, you need to learn a skill which we'll

talk about as the iceberg theory of world

building.

When I first became a writer, I heard a lot

of authors on panels talking about how world
building should be an iceberg, the classic
iceberg theory.

Here's the iceberg, here's the water, and

there is this huge body of world building

underneath the ice that the reader should

be able to tell that you did, but you're not

going to show them on the page.

Right?

Well, this is usually wrong.

This is not what writer doing most of the

time.

Pulling the drapes back and showing you the

wizard behind the screen, most of the time

what we're actually doing is we're doing that.

It is a hollow iceberg, that we've done just

enough work so that if you look down through

the water, you're like, "Yup, it goes on."

That would flip over, by the way, in real

life, so I understand that.

STUDENT: How about an iceberg with a steel

bottom?

BRANDON: Yes, with a steel bottom.

But what we're really doing is this.

Because unless your grandpa told you, and

you can take 20 years and a degree in linguistics

to create world building for 20 years, which,

by the way, there's nothing wrong with, and

if that's what you want to do, great.

But remember, this class' job is to assume

you want a professional career in sci-fi/fantasy

where you're releasing books consistently,

because that's what you'll need to do in the

market today, is have a book every few years.

You don't have time to do that iceberg that

people are talking about.

So what you do instead is, you learn to fake

it.
Writing books is like being a stage magician.

If you want to surprise people with twist

endings, it's all about making them pay attention

to this hand while you're slowly giving them

the information they need so you can punch

them in the face later.

If you are doing world building, you are doing

only what you absolutely need for your story,

and you are hinting that the rest is there

in a way that lets the reader say, "Oh, they've

done all that.

They have it all in their head.

I can trust them, and I can just let myself

enjoy this world."

Oftentimes, that's by doing things like saying,

mentioning there's this other thing that these

people know about that the main characters

don't, and okay.

Or it's done, we'll talk when we talk about

prose, it's done by getting small details

right so that the reader is allowed to just

assume you got everything else right.

Or it's about doing one thing really well

that the reader knows you've done well, so

that they trust you that all the rest of it

is there when you tell them, "By the way,

it's all totally there.

We have 10,000 worlds of history built for

this, but you don't need to learn it, because

it would bore you right now."

And the reader's like, "Yeah, it would.

Thanks.

I'm glad you did all that work."

When really you did none of it.

Next week we'll talk about how to do that.

But let's end with Sanderson's Zeroeth Law.

Sanderson's Zero Law is very quick.

Sanderson's Zeroeth Law came when I was doing

all of this, and I started to ask myself,

"How often is this where a story starts for

me?"

The answer is, not very often.

Now, the Sanderson's Three Laws generally

have a lot to do with my building of an outline,

and they have a lot to do with how I do my

revisions and write my story.

But Sanderson's Zeroeth Law is where stories

begin.

Sanderson's Zeroeth Law is, "Always err on

the side of what is awesome."

This is because I wanted to be very clear

with myself that most of my ideas-- my idea

for Way of Kings, where did it start?

It didn't start with all this cool stuff.

It started because I wanted to tell a story

about knights with magical power armor.

That is the origin, well one of them, there's

a lot of different threads that became The

Way of Kings, but one of the main origins

was, wow, power armor is cool.

I want fantasy power armor.

How can I make that work?

Well, big, enormous, cool magic swords are

cool, but they don't make any sense really

narratively in most settings.

How can I make a setting where giant magic

swords would be the thing you'd actually want

to have?

That is where I start, is with the cool idea,

and then I work backward.

So I'll just leave that with you.

Remember that making a great story is the
goal, and if these rules help you do that,

great.

I'm glad I shared them with you.

If they don't, throw them away.

We'll see you guys next week.

CLASS: (applause)