Lecture #11: Character Q&A - Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy

Welcome to the third lecture of my BYU 2020 creative writing class focused on writing science fiction and fantasy.
You can watch the whole lecture series here: • 2020 Creative Writing ...

[@jaqismyname]

Brandon: Explaining the rule of thirds, repetition, and escalation My brain: "MY CABBAGES!!!"

[@maikenelissen3767]

"It's not ripe."

[@thomass2125]

"I just want one twinkie."

[@firemyst9064]

He mentioned Bruce Willis in whatever movie, never seen it. But in Die Hard 3: With a Vengence, he keeps asking for aspirin because he has a hang over.

[@DisturbedFlyer7]

My mother liked cabbages. *touches necklace*

[@MaximilianonMars]

​@@DisturbedFlyer7what's that one from?

[@lesleybarklay798]

It makes me smile every time Brandon misspells a word. It's so humanising.

[@williamturner6192]

With his handwriting ow do you tell?

[@tommyinnes]

JuxtOposition =D Oh, Brandon, your spelling is a treasure.

[@luffycj]

its the flaw in his character that lets us relate to him

[@memcgiffin]

I agree with all the above lol

[@aarondilley5266]

@@williamturner6192 mostly because he tells us repeatedly he can't spell.

[@fancypantsu3002]

Hey Brandon, your whiteboard is upside down! The marker holder is at the top XD

[@lonsunokrogan]

The whiteboard isn't upside down he has just used a basic lashing to put himself and his camera on the ceiling for the duration of the lecture.

[@Ruylopez778]

white room syndrome

[@AndrewJSimpson]

Good for keeping the pens out of reach of his kids and stops you from catching your hip on the sticky-out shelf for pens. I did the same thing.

[@princessthyemis]

Oh my GOSH I think you're right! Hahaha!

[@ingridnorton1]

Hahaha. It's definitely up correctly. The markers are at the top so his kids won't get a hold of them. It's a parenting wave-length thing. My kids would ruin the house with expos. :) Savor the non-parent life. Good times, good times.

[@StarryRoses]

It means so much to me that you're continuing with these lectures right now; I'm nearly in tears with the relief. I had to pause my college pursuits two years ago and your course sort of brought me back from a dark place. I believe that through your lectures and your published material (which I haven't read but everybody talks about) that you're helping a LOT of people get through their own darkness. Thank you.

[@calin6327]

Creation is one of the best ways to get through dark times, so just write something and it could rend you better :) love and courage !

[@ooi97]

@@calin6327 I totally agree. Writing is awesome that way. You can get a lot of feelings out that you couldn't otherwise, not being able to talk them through with anyone or people just not understanding or being at their emotional capacity, like tends to happen right now. So... Keep calm and write.

[@tabithaormiston-smith590]

The books are wonderful. I've bought them for full price, because this course is free, it's my way of saying thank you, and they are worth every penny!

[@KBcutegeek]

QUESTION TIME STAMPS: Introduction: 0:00 First Question: "How can you use pity to help readers connect to a character" 1:00 Beware "Women in refrigerators" Trope 2:20 Second Question: "What comes first, the characters or the plot?" 4:09 Third Question: "Does being a teacher at BYU who agrees to live the honor code ever affect your writing?" 4:28 Fourth Question: "How does writing graphic novels differ from writing novels?" 5:11 Fifth Question: "What motivates you to work on getting plot and character progression to work together?" 5:31 Sixth Question: "How much time do I need to devote to a secondary character to make people care?" 7:00 Seventh Question: "What does it mean exactly when you say add a viewpoint?" 8:16 Eighth Question: "How do I keep character development at a steady rate?" 11:07 Ninth Question: "How do you write characters who have mental illnesses that you don't know much about?" 12:16 Tenth Question: "How do you keep character voices different from each other and make distinct characters? 14:32 Eleventh Question: "How do you kill characters?" 15:15 Twelfth Question: "What software do you use to keep everything straight?" 19:04 Thirteenth Question: "How do I know when my character is tooooooo competent?" 19:53 Fourteenth Question: "How do you make an iconic villain terrifying instead of cliché?" 22:15 Fifteenth Question: "How do I make two characters who have opposing goals equally sympathetic?" 26:30 Sixteenth Question: "How do you know which metaphors are appropriate when writing about a fantasy world that shares elements with the real world?" 28:50 Seventeenth Question: "How do you know you have the right character for the right plot in the early stages of developing a story?" 32:38 Eighteenth Question: "Can you give advice on how to submit to a publisher?" 35:54 Nineteenth Question: "Does every conversation need to be an info dump that's strictly centered around the plot?" 36:54 Why you should "Avoid always being at 10." 38:31 Twentieth Question: "How do you avoid becoming cliché with humor and not falling into a JarJar Binks rabbit hole?" 41:05 Twenty First Question: "When is introspection good for characters?" 54:02 Twenty Second Question: "How do you converge multiple plots and sub-plots without them feeling rushed, slow, or forgotten?" 55:15 Twenty Third Question: "If a character is not going to get a happy ending, what promises do you give at the beginning of a story so that you don't give too much away, but also don't set the reader up to be dissatisfied?" 59:40 Twenty Fourth Question: "How do I know when an arc deserves multiple books, and how do I know when and where in a story to break into multiple books?" 1:02:57 Twenty Fifth Question: "How do you develop characters; heroes, villains, heroes failing to villains etc. off camera so that it's a surprise?" 1:07:55 Twenty Sixth Question: "How do you balance that plot progression as seen on the graph with the impression of characters controlling their own destiny?" 1:09:53 Ending and "Buh-Bye!" 1:12:12

[@mortdog]

thanks so much

[@tulikas9862]

Bonus points for having exactly 7 'o' s in the "tooooooo competent".

[@fcomics476]

no one is thanking you enough so big thanks for this!!

[@TheKrazyLobster]

Doing God's work

[@keithp7325]

Thank you kindly, KBcutegeek.

[@brandonalston1578]

Hello my name is BB Alston, an author that will be published in January and i just want to say that Brandon's videos helped me understand how to craft a story. You guys are in great hands and I'm forever grateful that he's willing to share his wisdom with everyone.

[@brandonalston1578]

Dr. Uncanny thanks so much'

[@dazenguile4215]

Congratulations! Just Googled you lol

[@gudi4412]

Gonna check out your book!

[@ComedyNinjaStar]

Love your book!! Can’t wait for the sequel!!

[@msherif428]

wow you really became famous

[@whynotcaptaincrunch]

When you're talking about the translation problem, I'm reminded of something I read in the forward to some Asimov book or another. He advised strongly against using made-up units of measurement for alien races or whatever under the philosophy that if the author is "translating" the alien language into English, then he might as well translate the units of measurement into something we'd recognize.

[@DragoniteSpam]

Most of the time I feel like making up your own units, vocabulary, etc is just worldbuilding that defeats the purpose of itself. Sure, maybe it would be more "authentic" for the Pythagorean Theorum to be called "Thaseadir's Seventeeth Axiom" because that's how it came about in-lore, but assuming you're writing for a target audience of people from Earth who call it the Pythagorean Theorum, that's just extra work they have to do to keep everything straight for basically no gain. Which I guess also relates to the Hollow Iceberg idea from one of the other lectures. Unless they're plot-relevant, I hope nobody spent too much time figuring out what the first through sixteenth axioms were.

[@Vesi9000]

Having read every major work on writing, I think Sanderson’s lectures are a tier above everybody else.

[@QualityPen]

Having done the same, I concur.

[@justanothervoice2538]

“Great, you’re right; your story now works worse than if you were wrong.”

[@shaunholt]

Something I like about Brandon Sanderson, just one thing of several, lol, is whenever anyone asks a question he says it's a great question. Doesn't matter what it is. Makes people feel smart and engaged.

[@Violaphobia]

I think it's the mark of a great author that he can describe these concepts with such precision, yet the story flows so naturally on the page.

[@cartergreen2309]

Man I have zero interest in writing but this stuff is just fascinating to me to better understand books and intentions from the authors. Its been helping me appreciate stuff a lot more. Doesn't hurt it coming from my current favorite author

[@technochocolate123]

The fact that he referenced Mystery Men brings me such delight. One of my favorite movies that doesn't get talked about near enough.

[@zsoro9300]

Great movie 😂 mint reference 🤌

[@justinfury6331]

Looking back at this video 18 months into the pandemic, I can see that raw uncertainty in Brandon's eyes during this switch in our way of life. I noticed, too, the ever-declining heads in the audience in the run up to this entry.

[@anzolomyer4584]

Holy shit. I started reading "The Way of Kings" after hearing your speech on parrots and dragons and not being capable of doing everything your heart desires. The book is absolutely phenomenal. You're a legend, dude. Wow.

[@joewebber8431]

Did 2k words today and I'm rewarded with this? Thank you :D

[@rockyyan5938]

Counting all the classes I attended in my life, including MBA program at NYU, Brandon is among the best teachers and his lectures are one of the best. As a retired old man and have a fiction to write, after viewing his lectures twice, I gained solid knowledge about fiction writing, although I am not writing a fantasy fiction. Thank you Brandon, just bought your Mistborn.

[@boat1280]

These are incredible and have changed my life tbh. I always toyed with writing book since I was a kid. I wrote so many 200-plus page star wars fan fic novels in my teens. I play D&D/other tabletop games pretty much exclusively as a DM. Over time all of that got lost to me. I make my living now in music, playing in my own band etc and it's rad and I wouldn't change it for the world. But some of the insight in these lectures has re-lit that writer's fire that has always been in me, and I'm well on my way into a new version of a long-lost idea I attempted to write in years past. I appreciate this author so much, WOW.

[@tomswiftyphilo2504]

"how do you kill characters" "whoops. this is Utah. George's class is in New Mexico."

[@BlueisNotaWarmColour]

He may be the most talented killer of fictional people. Especially in comparison to the adaptation of his work.

[@dieNatoren]

Your lectures are so unbelievabel inspiring and helpful... They motivate me (and I think so many others from around the world) to write again- what I would call an outstanding achievement ! Please never stop... In case you (Mr. Sanderson) read this: I am so thankful, that I had the chance to talk to you in Bonn and that you as person took the time to really say some (for me) meaningful things - this experience gives me the power to never stop dreaming of being an author during my biochemistry studies... Thank you! Greetings from Germany.

[@wooshbait36]

Inspiring? How so? He is a fake opera writer that can't even make a good female character. Tell me what language did he invent? If Tolkien was alive he would slap this fool of a took.

[@Bapple34]

@@wooshbait36 lmao, I love your gatekeeping. He DiDn'T EvEN InVeNT A LaNgUAgE

[@wooshbait36]

@@Bapple34 The major problem is that all his female characters are blunt, you would expect more from a "one of the best fantasy writers" how fanboys describe him. For example, I liked Kaladin (or whatever his name was) character in his book, and he did his arc well, but that Shallan girl was the most boring read ever. Whenever her chapters came in I was feeling like quitting the book at how bad his female characters always are. He needs to go outside his basement and meet a few girls before he can become a good writer. And what's with all that racism? Dark eyed are lower people while light eyed are above them.

[@charlotteandrewsart2094]

@@wooshbait36 As a female, I LOVE Shallan and reading about her... so obviously his writing works for some people. It's fine if you have different tastes! And the dark eyed/light eyed thing isn't racism... all the Alethi (dark eyed or light eyed) are technically the same "race" as I understood the books. That said, you are under no obligation to like the same books as me or other people who enjoy Sanderson's work, nor are we obligated to agree with your assessment.

[@raddude585]

@@wooshbait36 lol I love how the response to a "this is great and means a lot to me" comment is to tell them you should not be happy or inspired. So classy. Since when is depicting elements that are a huge part of the human experience like racism as you said a negative? I'm not particularly fond of people starving to death either but it isn't outrageous to have some of that going on in a world if it fits yeah? Also am I the only person seeing the irony of a Tolkien fan throwing shade at not writing good female characters? lol

[@masonwheeler6536]

16:34: A giant war epic with the general dying of dysentery on the battlefield, rather than in combat or from betrayal, is unsatisfying. I'm reminded of one of the Riftwar books, I think in the Serpentwar arc, where almost exactly that happened. The good guys had won the battle, everyone was feeling great, the survivors were gathering together... then suddenly the general (captain? The viewpoint army characters' leader, anyway) gets his head abruptly blown off, completely by accident, by one of his soldiers being careless with his crossbow. It was a completely stupid, pointless death, but *because it was treated as such in-universe,* because the characters in the army reacted in a very human way, appropriate to this sudden and completely senseless death, it didn't feel unsatisfying or "just thrown in for shock value" the way it might have in the hands of a less skilled author. Because this sort of thing can and does randomly happen in war, and the way the scene was handled made it feel viscerally real.

[@neckpunch73]

My mind went to the exact same example! Well said.

[@thomass2125]

It reminded me of the Starship Troopers put your helmet on scene. Although this was a death during training.

[@aix83]

Yaaay, new lecture! My kind of Saturday fun.

[@sanderbregman9444]

Hi Brandon, I just wanted to add to the sea of comments thanking you for uploading these amazing lectures. I got into your work during the beginning of covid and fell back in love with reading. Then I got an idea for a story and found out that my new favorite author has engaging, insightful lectures about writing uploaded to KZbin for free?! These lectures have been instrumental in me developing a first draft, identifying what I'll focus on for a 2nd draft, and understanding how to go about getting a novel published. Thank you for doing what you do!

[@RooRooMEB]

Apparently my sleeping self wanted to take a class with Brandon Sanderson... I woke up listening to this class... and was even typing a comment... the comment was just gibberish but still. You go sleeping self way to be proactive. :)

[@rararrar98553047658]

It astonishes me that this has all been free on KZbin. I’ve been writing my first full novel, and finding these has been amazing. So many notes and revisions to be made (after I finish the first draft of course). I’ve learnt most of how to write through reading novels and watching good TV shows. I found A Game of Thrones and The Great Gatsby to be fantastic examples of characterisation and building up characters before meeting them, by having other characters talk about them from their own perspective - so you get different accounts of similar events, different personal issues or whether someone likes or dislikes the character, believes or doesn’t believe the character. I had no idea that there was so much more to it, though. Thank you very much Brandon, you’ve inspired me so much through this lecture series.

[@kredonystus7768]

Mystery Men is a great movie and more people need to watch it.

[@matthewjenkins5133]

Didn't realize until the second listen-through that the mention of a 14-book series could be the Wheel of Time series.

[@sofiaamm]

ive watched so many of his lectures and livestrems i knew the answer to a few questions in exactly the way he phrases them lmao

[@shines9290]

I sincerely hope these videos will carry on outside of the school year. I would love to see an hour-long video every two weeks throughout the year- Even if it is Q & A. We need you in our liiiiives ;)

[@Merlijn1994]

I know you mentioned him before, but I think Joe Abercrombie is one of the few authors I know that could quite easily pull off the dysentheria death without anyone batting an eye, but, then again, that is because he has set up a world that is not just unfair in a fantasy kind of way but in a very realistic, gritty kind of way, where people die of random shit because that happens, so you could also argue that it is so hard to pull that off that you have to craft a world over 9 books before it works

[@StarBoundFables]

This is so incredible to see that you took the Lecture-Hall home and continued to teach w/o missing a beat! Thank you, Brandon, you are awesome! 🙏🏽😃

[@Life0fBri]

Thank you for these lectures Brandon! Though I don't write sci-fi/fantasy stories, I used your old lectures as inspiration when I was writing my first book and I will continue to use these new lectures for inspiration as I outline and begin writing my next book. The plot and character lectures are extremely helpful. Cheers!

[@nikkiguerlain]

Thank you so much for all of your posts. Extremely useful and entertaining!

[@christiepowell3647]

I have to say, a story about a 6-year-old in a princess dress paired with a burly cop could be extremely tense instead of funny--if she's dropped into his high-stakes world instead of him coming into hers.

[@jaybe8877]

Another great QA lecture. Watched all the years & I'm very grateful that you made them available on youtube. Look for your name in my acknowledgments :D

[@korkritdanpradit8280]

I just want to thank you for every lectures in the past few months. I learned so much and you have inspired me to be a writer. I'm living in Thailand (and of course writing in Thai). Before I started my story I have my own small business which is kinda stable now so I have so much time to practice. I am so so happy about what I do right now. Thank you so much!!!!

[@mattwright6137]

This couldn't have come at a better time.

[@AbsurdNotions]

I love these lectures so much. Thank you for sharing for people who can’t take the class 😍

[@scottanastasi2527]

So good. I can feel my mind unfolding and grabbing new things like an octopus.

[@carlsinclair5954]

Would the Matrix be a good example of what you were talking about around 1:07:00. Neo completes his arc of becoming "The One" at the end of the first movie, but he has many other challenges ahead of him, even though he is clearly a 'master' of that magic system by the end of the first book.

[@ianshmeein8085]

I gotta say im a huge fan of both of your series, mist born and stormlight, and I've loved your writing skills love to see how its done

[@zsoro9300]

I am on the path. Thanks for the lectures Mr Sanderson 🙏

[@adamuffoletto7869]

As someone who read all four Stormlight books before watching this, every time he brings up a Thing To Do to a Character my brain immediately starts with, "Yeah, you did that to [insert character here]!"

[@vojtacepelak7767]

I love this and i am not even thinking about attempting to write a book anytime soon :D. I feel like I can understand the works that I'm reading and that I love much better now tho and it's trully awesome to be able to pick up on some clues or ideas that the writer put into the book a little better. Thank you for posting this on youtube, I really appreciate it! :)

[@negritoojosclaros]

beauty class Brandon. Thanks!

[@Padre_Semaj]

All I have to say is, homicidal hat-trick is a spectacious phrase, lol. Much love for these lectures, Mr. Sanderson and Co.! ✌🧡🤘

[@QuarksSystems]

Wise words from my favorite author. Well wishes from a fan! :) -Kel

[@blazeapleos]

Anyone else notice the whiteboard is upside down?!?!? XD XD XD Love you Brandon!

[@DeusExMachina50]

BlazeApleos Brandon is standing on the ceiling.

[@vicc19]

these videos are incredibly valuable! thank you

[@TheKrazyLobster]

One heck of a Saturday gift 😍

[@ruthlund2831]

I hope Brandon will see this question. Can you make the protagonist be a passive character and still have them be likeable to a general audience? I ask because while I was in college I read the story of Psyche and Cupid and in it Psyche has to be almost literally dragged through the whole thing. She bemoans her fate and if I remember rightly actually gives up at one point and has to be carried forward by the wind or something. Of course she still makes it to the end and Zeus gives her godhood. Several people in my class wished she had been more active (and if that sentiment was voiced by a few I'm sure it was shared by many more) but I actually found the story incredibly comforting. I was in a bad place with my depression at the time and feeling like it was all I could do to be dragged along by the events and obligations of life rather than be proactive about anything, so I felt like the story was saying "It's okay if all you can do is just make it to the end." Will such stories only ever be compelling to people like me? Or is there a way that you could write it to make more people sympathetic to such a character?

[@ammonnakai453]

I hope Brandon sees this, too. But I'll share my experience. Whenever he talks about making characters likable I think of the MC of a novella I wrote. He is passive, incompetent, and by the end of the first scene everyone knows he has done something bad....and yet almost everyone who has read it has liked him and many have said he's relatable. In his case, what people seem to be latching on to is his naïveté. So I think as long as there is some aspect people can attach to, you can break some of the rules and still have a likable character. (The intriguing part to me is I wasn't even trying to make him likable.)

[@ruthlund2831]

Ammon Nakai Thank you so much for your reply!

[@Forgot10Legends]

The progression of classroom to A joke of China and corona to Zoom call is so interesting

[@dbrooke3629]

I was thinking the same thing

[@dreadedassassin44]

thank you brandon !!

[@jamesalexander5025]

Splitting Dalinar and Adalin into two characters was definitely a genius decision because it added a new dynamic for Dalinar, Renarin, and Shallan!

[@MrJacobBartlett]

@Brandon I noticed one little translation problem in Rhythm of War: one of the characters once said “what on Earth?” :) One of my favourite books ever though

[@BillBelew]

Where does he find the time to read so much, watch so much and write so much?

[@smm855]

I'm actually convinced that he's actually a set of triplets. Before I realized that he taught, and I just thought he was writing I was like "dang, the guy must not sleep" then when my husband realized that occasionally Sanderson will make appearances on other youtube channels I decided that not only does he not sleep, he must also never bother with revisions and everything must come out perfect the first time. After watching this lecture series and realize how strictly short his writing schedule is, how much he does revisions/flavor text, the fact he plays games, watches movies, goes on book tours, teaches classes AND has a family...the only answer is that he's obviously multiple people. Which makes sense why he writes Shallan so well ;) lol

[@tiagodagostini]

Danm your observation about some people having a "narrative voice int heir head when they introspect, while others don't " light up a bulb here. I had never realized that some people might not self narrate their feeling (as I do).

[@scheidt5766]

Hey, if you have nothing else to do Mr Sanderson would you mind finishing the Kingkiller Chronicles for Mr Rothfuss, otherwise I don't think that series will ever continue.

[@EnergyFlux2012]

Thanks a lot for posting these!

[@carlajenkins1990]

Rule of Three. Do you remember a song that used a list of people in a particular rhythm? And, the final one of these was always out of rhythm: "And the guy in the rear ----was a Methodist." Audiences just roared with laughter. Because of the break in the rhythm.

[@GodmyX]

Love you, Brandon!

[@fafikommander1903]

In my story, different real life languages are used for different fantasy race languages. For example, German, my native tongue is common. But gäelish is dwarvish, english is elven and stuff like that. Magic is basically latin most of the time, or greek, because magic is old and so are those languages. I think that's a neat detail, which I came up during a d&d session on the fly, because we were picking out different music styles for the characters.

[@tranquil_cove4884]

humor is tough. you can probably have an entire class on humor alone

[@TheSoly78]

Fantastic vid!!

[@beata8416]

Homicidal hat-tick cracked me up! What a great and funny phrase. I think I will borrow it for future use :)

[@jamzzzist]

Always bothered me that in FFVII, Cloud can order Korean BBQ at one of the restaurants in Midgard! Where does Korea exist in this world?!?

[@hexadeciamldm3447]

1:08:05 Another good example for the off camera character developmant is with The Night Fox in Oceans 12.

[@bipidyboo1274]

Brandon closing and opening his water bottle is such a satisfying sound.

[@fratystuff6737]

This is what I needed ty

[@austinkoble]

I’m currently working on a horror story set in a medieval fantasy setting, and I plan to use some pretty tropey horror characters cause to me that just felt like it would be fun to see in a fantasy story. Since the characters I’m including are fairly well known archetypes I will play with it a little bit, but I also think it will allow me to do some smaller, one off pov scenes of a side character without fully explaining everything about them. I can kinda just put them in a scary situation and have them react and hopefully I make it interesting enough for readers to enjoy lol.

[@jonathananderson2381]

1:04:36 i randomly paused here and didnt realise what I had done till later. Its worth it trust me XD

[@AdmiralSenn]

15:25 "How do you kill characters?" Moash, mostly.

[@makaylaheighton9482]

This is even more relevant now 🙄

[@lutherffs]

Moash deserves to he sent to Braize, have Ashyn crash i to Braize, shoot it across the cosmere to Nalthis where it crashes into the sun there. Though not before swinging by Threnody as well where he can pick up some ghosts and have the torture him on the way.

[@clintcarpentier2424]

The right character for the book... I have an MC in a book I just finished. She's a genetically modified cuddle-bug who is almost five feet tall on her toes at full stretch, and a little over forty kilos. Her story is a military sci-fi. She should not be the MC of this story, but if she (or of her kind) wasn't, this story wouldn't happen.

[@karenamyx2205]

Sounds like a purposeful subversion though... not sure it applies to the question asked.

[@jimmccleery5305]

Shhhhhh the great Brandon Sanderson is speaking!!

[@nextgenwarrior]

But for real, can we all just agree that "homicidal hat trick" is *chef's kiss*

[@susanbuckminster282]

Thank you!

[@swiftsword4444]

I have loved this series so much. A couple of these questions was about villains in this. I just wanted to say, the show She-Ra on Netflix honestly has some of the best villainous characters, it's an amazing example for anyone that wants to look into it.

[@m.s.flores]

Totally, some of those villains I felt bad for but still felt like they needed to be dealt with.

[@metro6567]

19:15 What is this software which Brandon mentions? I can't find anything on it.

[@nathanross-hammond5476]

wikidpad.sourceforge.net/ i believe this is the one he was referencing

[@ruben307]

WikidPad

[@eodico]

I recommend focuswriter. It's free and you could adjust the width of the canvas to make it look like a page in a book.

[@Kendojin]

Charlie Chaplin - Master of comic drop. I love hearing Chaplin talk about humor and why the comic drop is funny, and why it matters philosophically in the world Juxtaposition - Kindergarten Cop

[@justanothervoice2538]

Pretty sure the second to last question meant how do have a character change, like going from hero to villain, off camera over the course of the story

[@alchemicpunk1509]

26:0ß This was kinda left out of it but you can still pull off one note villains that become iconic: They just need to hit that note in a thouroughly entertaining way.

[@gavasiarobinssson5108]

ßßß??

[@EnderTitan]

Gav Asia Robinssson Punk probably meant “8.” 26:08 is when Brandon stops talking about the iconic (flat arc) villain question.

[@jpjordan90]

28:50 I'm always asking myself this question. If I write a fantasy inspired by Japanese history and folklore, do I use words like katana? Does it add description or does it break disbelief for the reader?

[@therealgrawger]

I would say use the word katana and such. Most people will have an image put in their head immediately when you use a word they’ve heard before. I’ve heard this phrase before in relation to this; ‘If it looks like a horse and acts like a horse, call it a horse.” But then again, if your Japanese inspired swords all have some other kind of property that makes them so different they’re not just a katana, maybe it would warrant a different name (think lightsaber, for example)

[@dansheppard2965]

When you said Allomancy, I first think of divination using onions.

[@tsulkaluspeaks8827]

Cliché's monologuing by a villan, was watching Incredibles with grandkids other day, and they had much fun with that . lol

[@masonwheeler6536]

50:30: "You want to start small with this escalation [of humor], for the same sort of reason that, if it's always up here, it's always completely crazy, then you're not going to enjoy it as much as if it starts normal." Just out of curiosity, have you ever played any of the DIsgaea games? They start the humor and zaniness at 8 or 9 and quickly escalate to 10 and beyond, and they're hilarious! (The anime adaptation of the first game was even more so, by introducing the funniest, hammiest character at the very start instead of halfway through the story the way the game did, and IMO by doing that they improved on the original).

[@MadAtreides1]

A most peculiar example. Pratchett also started most of his books immediately with the weirdness at full power.

[@mana20]

I like Lift is a good character example of Brandon's comedy. I love watching Wyndle suffer.

[@yousefalyousef4019]

0:57 that look made me search for that sheet even tho I'm not even a student xD

[@pavelowjohn9167]

21:00 Characters that are competent in one area and incompetent in another. I immediately thought of Jack Aubrey from the Master and Commander series. As the author described Jack, he was "a lion at sea but an ass ashore...." and part of the fun of the series (for me) was watching the Jack that screwed up everything on dry land turn into this God of War once out at sea.

[@astrothsknot]

what's the wiki software used? i've tried google, but i'm getting the wicked musical or a tablet.

[@Axhula]

It's "Wikidpad", I found it linked on the Brandon Sanderson subreddit

[@johanliebert5269]

Spoilers for Mistborn TFE Brandon mentions that the ‘woman in the refrigerator’ trope is troubling (which is a lot of cases it is) but isn’t that exactly what he did with Kelsier? Mare died which pushed him to cause an uprising against the Lord Ruler. Please correct me if I’m wrong

[@aeonarin]

Ad. secondary characters who you care about. Ym was my favorite character from Way of Kings 😅

[@joshzoolian7821]

Cracked me up! : The big strong guy, and his companion is a 6 year old in a tinker bell costume. Amazing!

[@ST-ve5si]

34:40 Spook and TenSoon storylines in Mistborn 3. I legit didn't want to read about Vin and Elend anymore lol

[@jamesjedi]

What if I'd like to do a story with a grim dark fantasy/science fiction setting, but more in line with literary fiction, with elevated language, darker in tone, where the focus is mainly on the characters psychology, philosophy, and a social message, and the plot is secondary?

[@calin6327]

Read some classics, there the character is almost always at the forefront. Look for some naturalistic stories or the sort for mild inspiration.

[@jamesjedi]

@@calin6327 I have a masters in literature and writing. Adverbs so thick you can get out and walk on them. Incomprehensibly long paragraphs followed by fragmented sentences. Dialogues without indicators as to who is speaking. Shirking punctuations. Grammar that is a sentence. Active voices on passive characters. Passive voices on active characters. Sheer madness. 21k chapters followed by one word chapters. Anthropomorphize pencils. Inanimate people. Nouns that are verbs. Verbs that are nouns. Alliterations of the pretty how towns. Magical realism using real magic. Natural falseness using bunk science.

[@Oscar-hm3sn]

Read Black Leopard Red Wolf for inspiration. It's a prime example of blending grimdark fantasy with literary fiction.

[@hassassinator8858]

WOOOOHOOOO

[@ooi97]

24:50 “taking more screentime on the page" I'm dying XD

[@atlaswar2425]

I love the Black Lotus on your shirt

[@elathiaskade7311]

The translation problem: Orc: “looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!” Me: “Orcs have menus? Do they have restaurants too?”

[@eliasmann7381]

Characterization through time skips?

[@hariman7727]

30 minutes in: If you want to make a world that feels real, it needs slang and colloquialisms. This is related to the question of which idioms to use.

[@aascottie]

Darmok and Chellad at Tenagra

[@hariman7727]

@@aascottie dratsad. "Squid" as an epithet, and "Frothing tides" ;)