|
Brandon Sanderson is an exciting new
talent in the fantasy genre. Here he talks about his first novel "Elantris,"
which came out in hardcover in May 2005.
RFBR: One
of the most interesting things that sets "Elantris" apart is its focus on the city, almost as a character in itself. Did the idea of
Elantris come first and you wrote the story around it, or the other way
around?
Brandon Sanderson: That’s a great question. The first embryonic
idea for ELANTRIS was that of the city itself. I wanted to tell the
story of a majestic city that had become a prison for a group of people with
some terrible disease. At that point in my thinking, I hadn’t come up with mystical elements of the book
(how people caught that disease, and what specifically it did) but I did really like the idea.
I played with it for a while, and the character of Raoden (then unnamed)
came from this city. The city gave room for conflict, but wasn’t
itself a conflict. I decided I wanted to tell the story of a man in
this city who was trying to work to bring civilization and humanity back to
the wretches--many of whom were brutal and violent--who lived around
him. My original idea for Raoden was a character who had been living
inside of the city for some time, and who finally decided to do something
about his surroundings. As I began to plot the book, however, I
realized that using someone who had just been thrown into the city would be
more interesting, as he could provide more contrast.
The other two characters in the story--those outside ELANTRIS--came second.
Hrathen was a character I worked on separately, not certain what story
he would fit into. I often work this way, thinking of characters in my
head, building conflicts for them, then sticking them together to see how
they work in my mind. After working on Hrathen for a while, I realized
he fit into the story very well, and I began to fold him into Raoden’s
story. However, I soon realized that I’d need a third character to
be an in-between for Hrathen and Raoden. That’s where Sarene came
from.
RFBR: Is it daunting/exciting/etc to be a new
author in the fantasy genre? How do you feel about the fans?
B.S.: All of the above! I go to
cons, and sit on panels, pretending that I know what I’m saying. And
I guess I do know a few things--I’ve been doing this for a while. However,
I look over, and two seats away from me I see someone who’s been doing
this for decades, like L. E. Modesitt Jr. That guy has three whole
shelves full of books at my local B&N. What could I POSSIBLY have to say
that would be as useful as his comments?
That’s the daunting part, I guess. The exciting part is that I
finally get to share my books with people I don’t know. I spent nearly ten
years writing books before I got to see one of mine on the shelves. I’ve wrote some fourteen books during those years (ELANTRIS was my sixth,
and the first to get sold.) During all that time, I could only
share my works with my friends, and they all loved the books. However,
a piece of me knew that I couldn’t QUITE trust what they had to say.
They’re great people, but there are many of them who would like my work no
matter how terrible it happened to be. (On a tangent, my grandmother
is now reading ELANTRIS. I’m sure she has no clue what it’s
talking about--she doesn’t do the fantasy or sf thing. However, she
claims to
love my book. . . )
Anyway, back on topic. It’s very fulfilling to release this book
into the world, and then have it receive such good press and good attention.
I’ve gotten a lot of fan mail, all of it positive. That’s a great feeling.
And, as for how I feel about the fans, I love them! You see, I’m one
myself! It wasn’t one con ago that I stood before Jane Yolen at a book signing, nervous to talk to her and thank her for writing such
excellent books. This is a great community to be involved with.
RFBR: Why did you choose to do a standalone
book (unless you're tricking us) when so many SF/F authors today have trilogies or even more?
B.S.: No, no tricks. :) This really is a standalone.
Now, I might write a sequel to it (I’ll talk about that in a bit)
but I wouldn’t do that for a few years yet.
Why did I write a standalone? There were a couple of reasons. First
off, it isn’t done much, and I really wanted to write one. I think there’s something to be said for a book that you can buy and read
knowing that you’ll get a fulfilling, complete story in one volume. It’s satisfying. The first fantasy novel I read as a teenager,
DRAGONSBANE by Barbara Hambly, was a standalone. I also got into Anne
McCaffrey’s Dragonriders books. Though those were tied together,
many of them felt like standalones. I think this is a wonderful thing.
There was also another consideration with ELANTRIS. When I wrote it, I
was trying to break into the field. I thought that if I wrote standalone books (or books that began series but could stand well on their
own) I could better show an editor what I was capable of. I think
endings are a large part of what make a book or series work, and if I put
off the ‘best’ parts of a series until the later books, editors would never get to read them. I figured that having a dozen or so
first/standalone books would give me a better chance at getting published than would a dozen books in the same series.
Now, I’d like to say that I do like series quite a bit. However, I think that too many authors right now in fantasy are letting their
series get away from them. I think that a really great series is one
in which each of the books can stand on its own, offering a complete story that
happens to be part of a larger story. My hope is that every time
someone buys a Sanderson book, they know they’ll get a fulfilling,
well-told story that is complete unto itself.
RFBR: I found the Aons and their multitude of
uses incredibly fascinating. What was your inspiration to use linguistics and characters in
such a way? Also, did you design the Aon characters yourself?
B.S.: The magic in ELANTRIS is based off of drawing certain
characters in the air. These characters, when written precisely,
are supposed to produce certain effects when completed. One of the big
mysteries in the book relates to why the Aons stopped working--the
characters can still draw them (lines magically appear in the air when the
right forms are followed) but the Aons just don’t do anything.
Because the basis for my magic system in this book was centered around
language, I found it appropriate to spend a lot of time working on the
linguistic feel of the novel. I like to have a kind of ‘theme’ for
the names and languages in each of my books. In ELANTRIS, I wanted
this theme to focus on the Aons. I wanted sounds for them that evoked
a kind of power, and maybe a little bit of a weight of age. And so, I
used a lot of long vowel sounds, and built up what I thought was an
interesting linguistic pattern. You can read an essay I wrote on it
at:
http://www.brandonsanderson.com/book.php?id=1§ion=7§ion=6
In more brief terms, my inspiration for the Aons was Asian languages,
particularly Chinese. I have some knowledge of Korean, which used
Chinese as its basis, and I found some of the linguistic concepts there
interesting. In Korea, and in Japan, they use a mixture of their own
written language and Chinese characters. Chinese character in
themselves are fascinating in the way they are constructed--stroke order
being very important to how the character looks.
My Aons don’t look anything like Chinese, of course, but I liked the
concept of the way one drew the character--not just the final form--being important. In ELANTRIS, Aons must be drawn precisely in
order for them to produce an effect. Every line must be in the right
place. The process becomes almost mathematical as one progresses on to
the most complex patterns. (And, yes, I did design the Aons
myself--though Tor hired an artist to re-draw them.)
RFBR: What are your plans next?
B.S.: One thing you can be sure about with me is that I’m always
working on something else. Usually two or three ‘something elses.’
I have far more ideas than I have time to write them into books!
My next book, MISTBORN, is coming out next May. It’s already
completed, as is the second book in the trilogy. I’m at work on the
third! It’s my goal to have all three books done by the time the
first one goes to press--that way, I can make certain they’re consistent
with one another. The trilogy tells a large story, and has persistent
characters--but as I said above, my intention is for all three books to
stand fairly well on their own as good reads. (Though this is more
difficult for the middle book than for the other two.)
I would someday like to do a sequel to ELANTRIS. I would set it ten years after this book, and probably use Kiin’s children as main
characters. However, whether I actually do this or not will reallydepend on how popular ELANTRIS itself is. So, here’s hoping it sells
a lot of copies!
We're sure it will! "Elantris"
is available in hardcover at your local bookstore, or you can order it
through our site by clicking here.
 Also,
check out his site at http://www.brandonsanderson.com.
RFBR review
on "Elantris"
|
Your source for romantic fantasy on the web