How long is the gestation period for one of your stories? What I am wondering is if The Way of Kings or Mistborn , for example, were stories you had in mind for a long period of time before sitting down to do the outline, or if they were fresh ideas you began to generate when beginning work on them.
Absolutely amazing work, by the way. When a new Sanderson novel comes out, I get excited. When I finish it, I get panicky.
There are two different ways I write books.
One is the long gestation book, the book built off of themes I’ve been thinking of for years. I first wrote Dalinar (by a different name back then) in a story when I was a teenager. Same for Hoid. I wasn’t ready to write the story yet, as I wasn’t good enough, so I backed off.
Other books are almost more like performance art—you take a few ideas, you juggle them about a bit, and you then stand up on stage and do your best with them. In the hands of a skilled writer, this comes out like a solo from an improvisation expert. Flawed in places, yes, but also full of a kind of majestic life.
Some things work better in the first form. (Foreshadowing being one, carrying a story across multiple books is another.) Other things work better in the second. (Humor, for example.) Mostly, they just have a different feel.
The Way of Kings and Mistborn were like the first. Warbreaker and Alcatraz were like the second.
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