Creating characters
Sanderson was signing and numbering about 500 copies of Words of Radiance for fans who preordered the books from Weller. There were no crowds as he signed each book secretly in the store’s back room. The sounds were of a black Sharpie marker on the pages and the thump of the books as helpers plopped them down in piles next to him and then squirreled them away on shelves to be sorted for shipment around the world.
Sanderson is known for well-thought-out worlds that have elaborate magic systems. When somebody uses magic in a Sanderson book, there are laws. Some things can’t be done—and using magic has a price. The world created in The Stormlight Archive is as in-depth as any ever created for a fantasy book and rivals that of The Lord of the Rings in its intricacy and joy.
But what Sanderson would like to be known for is his characters—the people he writes into his imaginary worlds. Such as Kaladin, the soldier-turned-slave in The Stormlight Archive who is as compelling as Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables.” Or Szeth, the assassin who weeps as he is forced to kill. Or Shallan Davar, a woman with secrets that threaten everyone and everything she loves. Or Dalinar Kholin, the reluctant prophet who must unite a world gone mad.
“Action is only as interesting as it is putting people you care about in danger,” Sanderson said while signing another book. “A great world is only as interesting as the people who live in it and have to live with this really interesting world. And so if you don’t have a compelling character, you don’t have a story—at least not of the type I would like to read.”
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