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 ...
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
@@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.
@@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
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.
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.
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.
This man has something very endearing about him. God bless the kind heart I perceive in him. Thank you for being an inspiring teacher. Your work is something of a public service. I have become a Brandon Sanderson due to his teaching.
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 RU-vid 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!
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 ;)
It astonishes me that this has all been free on RU-vid. 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.
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!!!!
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!
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
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.
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.
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. :)
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! :)
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
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.
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.
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]!"
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?
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.)
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
@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
Thank you. Thank you for using ‘bunk’ correctly. Also -the lecture. Thank you for the peek inside your class, it was brilliant & coming up with great answers as you do during a Q&A session- is the stuff of legend. 🙌🏼
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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
"How much time do I need to devote to a secondary character to make people care?" Within .1 second of Babu Frick being on the screen, I was ready to drop everything and dedicate my life to this creature. The entirety of the sequel trilogy and its many quirks and flaws became a net positive in that moment.
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?
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)
My notes 1:10 how to use pity or tragic backstory. Show something that spikes painful memory, show it spike and show them move on. We admire people who move through pain. Multiple notes, emotional reactions. Show them trying to succeed.
2:30 trope - women in refrigerators - use a character who does not have agency in story and kill them as a way of building sympathy for the character who does have agency in the story. Treats them as objects. Unrealistic characters and cliched trope. Make sure they are full and developed characters not just victim objects.
4:10 what comes first, characters or plot? For him, about even, Though characters do change more, And they do affect the plot more than other way around.
15:30 killing characters - don’t withhold consequences of actions and decisions - not tropey, what’s effect on reader emotions, what’s effect on other characters and arcs
