Brandon Sanderson is, without a doubt, the most popular fantasy writer currently living and writing today. He is also one of the classiest and most gracious authors you will ever meet, in any genre. I\u2019ve also got a personal connection to him, from taking his writing class at BYU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brandon decided to become a writer when he was very young. The way he explains it, the bug really bit him when he read Dragonsbane<\/em> by Barbara Hambly. Depression runs in his family, and growing up, he always felt emotionally monotone and distant\u2014until he read that book. From then on, he became obsessed with fantasy, both with reading and with writing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way I heard Brandon explain it, that emotional monotone has been both a personal struggle and a great asset. It\u2019s part of the reason he\u2019s able to write so much, since where other writers tend to have huge emotional swings that affect their ability to write, Brandon is able to just sit down and do the work, day after day after day. It\u2019s also part of what gives him an even keel that makes him such a gracious and generous person. Where other writers tend to get worked up on social media or join outrage mobs, Brandon avoids all of that. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen or heard of him becoming outraged about anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brandon was one of the last major authors to break into book publishing before the indie revolution began turning everything upside down. He broke in by researching agents and editors, attending all the important conferences, and networking with everyone who\u2019s anyone in the genre. He also wrote a lot of really good books\u2014as well as a lot of crappy ones. I believe that Elantris,<\/em> his debut novel, was actually the sixth novel he wrote, and Mistborn: The Final Empire<\/em> was something like the 13th. He landed his agent, Joshua Bilmes, from attending World Fantasy, and his agent eventually got him his publisher, Moshe, at Tor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elantris<\/em> and Mistborn<\/em> were good, but not immediate bestsellers. In fact, Brandon was on track to be an average mid-list fantasy author with a relatively unremarkable career, until Robert Jordan died, leaving the Wheel of Time unfinished. By that point, a lot of readers felt frustrated with the series and used his death as an opportunity to write scathing screeds about how it had gone off of the rails and grown far too bloated and large. But Brandon was much more classy and gracious than that, and wrote a tribute to the man instead, praising his work and the impact it had had on his life. When Robert Jordan\u2019s widow read Brandon\u2019s post, she decided that he was the one who should finish the Wheel of Time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personally, I\u2019m not a huge Wheel of Time fan. I read the first three books and enjoyed them, but I got lost midway through the fourth book. My wife read them all and feels like the series is overrated, and I generally trust her judgment. But I can appreciate how a lot of people really love the series\u2014and really, there is a lot to love. Just because it isn\u2019t to my personal taste doesn\u2019t mean that it isn\u2019t good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My friends who are Wheel of Time fans tell me that Brandon not only finished the series\u2014he rescued it. Apparently, the last three books rejuvenated the series, wrapping things up in an incredibly satisfying way. Of course, Brandon would defer and say that it wasn\u2019t his genius that turned the series around, but Robert Jordan\u2019s original vision and the detailed notes and outlines that Brandon followed. But there\u2019s no denying that Brandon really stuck the landing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was around this point in the story that I met Brandon. I was a student at BYU at the time, and I had an opportunity to take his writing class. From the time when I was eight, I had wanted to be a writer, but I didn\u2019t think I would ever turn it into a career. Brandon\u2019s writing class changed all that, and helped me to see that I could pursue writing as a career. He also taught me the nuts and bolts of writing fiction, vastly improving my writing skills. I had started several novels in high school, but never finished anything until I took his class. And while my first finished novel was a disaster that I promptly locked in the trunk, my second novel attempt (which I started writing in Brandon\u2019s class) ultimately became my debut, Genesis Earth.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (As a side note, my wife was also in that \u201808 class with Brandon Sanderson, though we didn\u2019t actually meet each other until almost a decade later when we matched on Mutual. She also started a writing group with her college roommate, who won the Writers of the Future and married into Brandon Sanderson\u2019s writing group. Our writing group has also got one of Brandon\u2019s college roommates.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brandon\u2019s success with Wheel of Time was what catapulted Brandon from a midlist author to a bestselling phenomenon. But even then, if he wrote at the same slow pace as most other fantasy authors, he would have forever been known as \u201cthe guy who finished Wheel of Time.\u201d Instead, he became famous for writing and publishing massive +300k word doorstopper tomes at an unprecedented rate, leading fans to joke about his writing super powers. Then the pandemic happened, and he wrote four \u201csecret\u201d novels with all of the extra time he had from not traveling anywhere. The fans went crazy, and his kickstarter blew everything out of the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I haven\u2019t read all of Brandon\u2019s books. I really loved the Mistborn era I books, and the first Stormlight Archive book was good, but my favorite is Emperor\u2019s Soul,<\/em> because I think that Brandon is at his best when he writes shorter novels rather than the massive +300k word doorstopper tomes. In my experience, Brandon is a 3-star author who writes 5-star endings. His writing tends to meander, especially in the early middle, but around the 3\/4ths mark there\u2019s usually a twist that brings things together, and the conflict escalates consistently until it builds into a really satisfying ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brandon is also known for his hard magic systems, which have become a signature trait of his books. Some readers feel that clearly explaining the rules of magic defeats the sense of wonder that a fantasy novel should have, but that\u2019s not been my experience with his books. When I read a Brandon Sanderson novel, I feel almost like I\u2019m reading a video game. Knowing the ins and outs of the magic helps me to see the possibilities for the characters to use it, and Brandon is usually really good at adding an unexpected twist, exploiting the rules of magic in a surprising yet inevitable way. This creates its own sense of wonder that really adds to his books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brandon also is known for how all of his books are tied together into the same transdimensional \u201ccosmere\u201d multiverse, though I actually think this is the least remarkable thing that makes his books so distinctive. For one thing, he\u2019s not the first one to do it\u2014David Gemmell also discretely linked all of his books, which blew my mind when I discovered that particular easter egg. For another thing, Brandon has turned his cosmere from a delightfully hidden easter egg and nod to the fans to the grand key that you must possess in order to understand and appreciate his later books. As a result, the cosmere is becoming an obstacle to new readers, even as his most ardent fans all swoon over the cosmere connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think Brandon\u2019s ultimate goal is to turn his books into a massive cinematic universe, kind of like the MCU. From what I understand, he was really close to signing a Hollywood deal, but it fell through at the last minute, leaving him back at square one (I don\u2019t know all the details, though Jon Del Arroz did some interesting reporting on that). This is also probably why his books have become more woke in recent years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve already written at length about that subject, so I won\u2019t belabor the point here. But I really do feel that this represents a betrayal of his more conservative fans, many of whom turned to Brandon precisely because his books tend to be free of all of the gratuitous language and sexual content of most modern fantasy. Also, one of Brandon\u2019s really great strengths during the gamergate and puppygate fannish controversies of the 2010s was his strict neutrality. While the culture wars were raging all around them, he continued to be his classy and gracious self, refraining from picking sides or wading into the mudfest. With the LGBTQ romantic subplot in Wind and Truth,<\/em> that appears to have changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope he turns away from all of that. What the world really needs right now are books that transcend the whole woke vs. anti-woke divide, bringing us together and healing the artificial (and in many cases subversive) divisions that pit us against each other. Maybe Brandon will surprise me, and accomplish exactly that, just from the left side of the aisle. But as of Wind and Truth,<\/em> I can\u2019t help but wonder if we\u2019ve reached peak Sanderson. Only time will tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, I will always be grateful to Brandon Sanderson for the things he taught me, and for all of his graciousness and generosity that he showed in his writing class. Without that experience, I probably would have pursued a different career, and not written nearly so many books. I also probably would not have married my wife, since one of the big things that drew her to me was my love and dedication to my writing craft. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brandon Sanderson is, without a doubt, the most popular fantasy writer currently living and writing today. He is also one of the classiest and most gracious authors you will ever meet, in any genre. I\u2019ve also got a personal connection to him, from taking his writing class at BYU. Brandon decided to become a writer… Continue reading Fantasy from A to Z: S is for Sanderson<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,934],"tags":[404,78,1924,94,376,133,1857,1770,1597,331,1914,1568],"class_list":["post-21649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ge","category-genesis-earth-trilogy","tag-barbara-hambly","tag-brandon-sanderson","tag-depression","tag-english-318","tag-epic-fantasy","tag-family","tag-fantasy-from-a-to-z","tag-jon-del-arroz","tag-lgbt","tag-magic-systems","tag-robert-jordan","tag-wokeism","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-5Db","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21724,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21649\/revisions\/21724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}