Second question, if completely hypothetically, and forbid, somebody had to do for you what you did for Robert Jordan, who would your choice be?
I would probably either pick Brent Weeks, who has a very similar style to me, or Brian McClellan, who is one of my students who is now publishing books, and writing very good books. Those guys, either one, I think would do a fine job.
I read McClellan’s book on your recommendation. Can you let him know that he needs to put women in his books?
Yeah, that’s what I actually told him. My number one criticism when he called me and said, “What do you think of my book?” I said, “You only put one woman in your book, and she’s a cliché. She’s the friendly cliché, *audio obscured*. The first thing that happens is you get the clichéd damsel in distress, then when people realize “Oh, that’s being sexist,” they then make the girl awesome, but have no personality. That’s like step two. Then step three is real characters, and so I did let him know, and he promised he would do better with future books. I think it is the most legitimate criticism of that book, is that he’s just bad with women. But you know, my first book I was terrible; I just didn’t publish that one. He’s unfortunate that he published it. But even in Mistborn, I only had Vin, so we all fall into this trap, and I’ve read many women who only put one guy in the book, and he’s perfect. It’s just something that new authors have a problem with very naturally, so hopefully he’ll catch on the same way I caught on.
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