What was the reasoning between there being many, many years between different stories in the different parts the Cosmere, like the huge gap between Warbreaker and Way of Kings, for example?
I want the Cosmere to be more than just a little blip of time. The concept for the Cosmere was never something to me like the Avengers, which a lot of people kind of view it that way because the Marvel movies have been so big. But it’s not like all these concurrent stories with the same characters converging, that’s not how I ever planned it. Now there are some people who are functionally immortal or close to it that will be involved in things across time, but I’m telling an epic story. And I knew we needed thousands of years between some of the events. For instance, Roshar, we start in the Prelude at 4500 years or whatever before the book starts. It’s like, if I didn’t have some big gaps, what are the stories that are happening in between? It feels illogical and false to me to have all the stories happen in a short time period. As certain part of the magic allow more communication and connection, then we will have to, by nature, accelerate some of those things. I feel like if I spent ten thousand years or whatever, and only had all the stories happen in the last 50, it would feel really weird. So that’s why.
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