I’m working my way through Mistborn and have read The Way of Kings and Warbreaker . It seems to me that one of your signatures as an author is a highly developed and often novel world mythology and magic system. I’m curious, do you develop the system in full before writing, and then introduce elements as the series progresses, or do you deliberately leave some wriggle room for later creative insights? For example, did you think of the duralumin when you first came up with aluminum among the other metals, or was that something you came up with in your brainstorming for The Well of Ascension ? Do you already have a fully fleshed-out idea of all 10 orders of the Knights Radiant, or are you still coming up with them and their Ideals?
It’s actually a mix of both. I generally flesh everything out at the beginning—then, as I write (particularly the first book) knock huge holes in the worldbuilding and replace them with new and better things.
I work everything out, then leave notes to myself as to what is cannon so I can throw out bad ideas and replace them with better ideas as I write.
So, all ten orders are finished and worldbuilt. (I feel pretty good about them.) However, I could decide to move some things around as I write.
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