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Interview #1133: Chicago, Entry #31

Question

How much research do you have to do in sciences and technology and history to create a world that is more relatable if not as believable as they are?

Brandon Sanderson

What it takes is a lot of general knowledge, meaning you read a lot of history books, a lot of science books, and this general knowledge that you then incorporate. It’s not like I go and say “I need to know more about this thing”. I’ll do that for characters and some aspects of the worlds sometimes but mostly this is coming from spending 10 years learning all this stuff. Does that make sense?

Question

It makes total sense, and my 10 years of community college will help me write.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it will.

Question

My 120 credit-hours.

Brandon Sanderson

120 credit-hours, that’s what makes a good writer… That really turns– You can pick out “Oh that’s my linguistics class” and I’d be like “Oh that’s my chemistry class. Oh that’s the class I snuck into, the psychology class”.

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