Hey! Brandon here. You know, I said that these were not going to be weekly probably, even though I was going to call them weekly, and now we’ve done one every week.

So here is our Weekly Update.

I am still working on Wax and Wayne 4. It’s going really well. I have just finished the first chunk of scenes, and it came together. I’m somewhere around 12%, I believe, is what my latest send-in to the team was, and it’s looking really good. Right now, if I haven’t mentioned before, I’m planning to finish this by August 1st. I’m planning the book at about 150,000 words. There is a longer update on Reddit, if you’ve kind of missed some of these updates and just want to read only about Wax and Wayne 4, which we’ll link in the liner notes.

Last time I asked you what you guys were most interested in regarding art books for the Stormlight Archive. And 66% of you prefer the guidebook style. You can look last week if you want to know. This is what I thought you would say. It’s the one that I thought would be most interesting, an in-world guidebook that features a lot of art but also is kind of like a coffee table book you can put out that you can give to a friend who hasn’t read the Stormlight Archive and they’re like, “What’s it about?” Well, here is some cool artwork with some in-world descriptions.

I kicked around some ideas with Isaac on this. We’ll probably start working on this. Again, this is probably not for four years or so. But we will start working on this. It looks like you guys are excited. We did get 20,000 responses from you, so that’s really good. And the overwhelming majority of you, 76% of you, said that we would buy all three if we put them together. And I chatted with Isaac, and right now we’re going to take the first two on this list, because we think that we can make the coffee table art book and the guidebook kind of combined into one. But what we can’t really combine in that is the encyclopedia-style book, which we’d actually want to be alphabetized, and things like that.

And so what we’re going to do is we are going to start kind of working on these two things together but as separate books that we would sell together and sell separately. But probably do a Kickstarter for the two of them together, and then later on you can just buy them individually. So like, a larger art book/guidebook as one, and then an encyclopedia-style sort of companion book, and things like that. I really think these will work well matching the first five books, because we will probably have to do separate ones after book 10 that would cover that era of Stormlight, the 6 through 10.

Thank you for your feedback. It’s been really super helpful at pointing us the way we should be working. And because this feedback was so good, my team came to me and said, “Could you ask them another question this week?” So I hope you guys are up for another poll.

Because one of the things we’ve been working on, we get a lot of requests for more games. Not necessarily video games, we get a lot of requests for video games. We can’t just—video games are hard. But we get a lot of requests for board games, RPGs, these sorts of things. And we are thinking of doing a Stormlight one. We do have Mistborn House War. And we also have the kind of deck-building card game Call to Adventure: Stormlight. We want to do something else in this realm, focused on the Stormlight Archive, more of a traditional board game sort of thing.

But we weren’t sure what you guys were interested in. And so we actually have a little poll attached to this. And this is just, we only want the one you are most interested in right now, the one we would do first. I can imagine us doing multiples of these in the future. But for right now, what do you want most?

And so our options are, a kind of lighter, faster board game. And our examples like that are something like Splendor or Ticket to Ride. Again, those are only examples. It’s not like we would go and make a Stormlight version of one of those games. We just want you to kind of see where our head is at. And some of our board game experts that we talked to said these were smart categories.

There’s a medium-length game style that would be more like Small World or Dune: Imperium, where it’s, again, medium length.

There would be the heavy, large, in-depth game, like War of the Ring is the example they gave. My brother loves these, the big, intricate, massive board games that take days to play. Would you be interested in that?

And then there’s a legacy game, like Gloomhaven. The games that play, they’re probably going to play like a medium-style game, but you’re going to change the game as you go. They’re very much the rage. I like legacy games, so I made them throw that in there as an option as well.

And then, of course, there’s the classic pen and paper RPG, which we don’t have yet for Stormlight.

I imagine we’re going to do multiples of these in the future. Which one are you most excited to get right now? What would you like us to work on next? And this is mostly targeted to you board game fans. What are you looking forward to getting from us? And we will take that advice to heart. Anything you want to mention in the comments about what you like and what you don’t like, and where we should steer clear and where we should go. We’re getting more experience in this realm. I think we’re doing a better job with each thing that we make. But those comments are really helpful to us, just to know what people are wanting. We don’t want to overload you with merchandise. We want to be targeted in creating the things that we are excited about and you’re excited about.

So those are your options. If you have time, go down and click on that poll. And we also have some links there to what some of these games are in case you need to familiarize yourself with the style of game we’re talking about with those various ones. And I will be back next week to talk more about Wax and Wayne 4. Thank you, guys, so much.

Adam and Isaac here. Several months ago, Johnny O’Neal from Brotherwise came out to Utah to show us an early test copy of Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archive. We had a blast. The artwork was incredible, the gameplay was engaging, and most of all—at least for me (Adam)—it was fun to craft my very own character on Roshar.

After several months of working with Johnny, Chris, and the entire Brotherwise team we’re excited to say the preorders open today for the first official board game based on The Stormlight Archive. Isaac, our art director, and Karen, our continuity editor, have provided feedback on the over 120 pieces of original art commissioned for the game and they are incredible. Here’s a look at some of them:

Isaac here. I’ve liked Brotherwise’s games ever since I picked up Boss Monster several years ago. I didn’t know much about the game company, and they hadn’t approached Dragonsteel yet about their Stormlight Archive game, but even then, I was impressed with the quality of the game and the quality of the art. When they did cards in homage to Brandon and several other fantasy authors, I started to realize that not only were their games fun, maybe the people behind the games also had similar reading tastes.

So when Brotherwise approached us about theming a version of Call to Adventure to the Stormlight Archive, we didn’t have to deliberate very long about it. Now that they’re about to release the game, and I’ve had a chance to play the new version with Adam and Johnny, I have to say that partnering with Brotherwsie has been an excellent experience. The game is fun and cool, and the art…! If I open my mouth and get started on the art, then I’m not sure if you’ll get me to shut up about it. Let’s just say that some of my favorite Stormlight pieces ever are found in this game. I think you’re going to love it.

A Bit About the Game

Adam here again. As I said before, The Call to Adventure game system invites you to build your own character in Roshar. You begin with an Origin, like a Shin farmer or an Alethi warrior, then work toward your Destiny. You could belong to any one of the ten Orders of Knights Radiant, or you might secretly serve Odium. Over the course of the game you gain traits, face challenges, and ultimately confront Odium.

There will be two editions of the game. The core version contains everything needed for up to 4 players. It’s coming to game stores in late June. The Deluxe Edition is identical to the core version in terms of gameplay, but contains some nice extras: a book-style package, two foiled alternate-art cards, and A Worldhopper’s Guide to Roshar.

This 48-page booklet will only be available as part of the Deluxe Edition. It compiles information about the nations and cultures of Roshar, the Orders of Knights Radiant, and the forces of Odium. Most importantly, it’s a showcase for the game’s artists to share their vision of Roshar. Many of the artists—from Randy Vargas and Petar Penev to Ari Ibarra and Antti Hakosaari—are avid fans of the series and it’s been a real pleasure to see their excellent work on this project.
Pre-orders will launch today at 11:00 a.m. MDT here.

We hope you enjoy creating your own adventures in Roshar. For more details, visit BrotherwiseGames.com!

Introduction

Another year has passed, and Koloss Head Munching Day is upon us again. It’s been a fun year, full of me working on interesting side projects, so expect quite the list of updates in this (very long) post. But first, let me give a hearty thank you to the community of readers that continues to put up with my sometimes insane writing process. I realize it results in me having a lot of projects, necessitating posts like this one to keep everyone up to date. For many writers, this might be an overwhelming number of irons in the proverbial fire—but it is exactly what I need to keep me excited about the process, and to keep me from burning out.

Know, however, that I realize this can be a little frustrating if you’re waiting for one specific update that keeps not happening. It’s quite the challenge to keep all this straight, but I do my best to keep in mind that by beginning something, I make an implicit promise that I will finish it. I take this promise seriously. I will do my best to balance my artistic needs with the trust you’ve all shown me by continuing to support my work. I consider this post, along with updates on places like my subreddit, to be essential parts of this process. I often cannot rush the artistic process, but I can keep you all informed of what is causing delays, or what projects I find exciting. This is how I make myself accountable to you, as you are the means by which I even get to do this wonderful job in the first place.

So, introduction done, here we go! Let the circus commence.

My Year

January-March: Skyward and Legion Revisions
I kicked off the year quickly doing a second draft of Skyward. Pulling The Apocalypse Guard from the publisher, then promising them Skyward to publish in the fall of 2018, meant that I had to scramble. It wouldn’t do to pull a book I judged to be of inferior quality, only to replace it with a book that I didn’t have time to revise up to my standards. So you’ll see a number of months dedicated to Skyward. (Which, if you somehow missed it, did come out—and is still sitting quite happily on the New York Times bestseller list many weeks later, so thank you all very much!)

Another thing I’d been putting off for months was the necessary revisions of the third Legion story. Tor was quite patient with me on this one, considering the Legion collection was scheduled for publication in the fall as well. But during these three months, I did multiple revisions of both books, eventually getting Legion into a polished state. (There was one more draft of Skyward still to do.) Legion Three, Lies of the Beholder, can be found in the Legion collection that was published earlier this year.

Finally, somewhere in here, I squeezed in an outline and world guide for Death Without Pizza. (Yes, that’s a name change—no it’s not the final name, but just a placeholder.) More on that later.

April: Children of the Nameless
Sometime around March of last year, Wizards of the Coast sent me an exploratory email. It being the 25th anniversary of their card game, they were wondering if I’d be interested in doing a story with them. As most of you know, I’m quite the fan of Magic: The Gathering. It’s my primary hobby, and I have way too many cards. (Which still aren’t enough, of course.) I was enthusiastic, and you can read more about the process I used to approach the story in this blog post.

I knew that by doing so, and by writing the story as long as it ended up, it would make getting to some of my other projects later in the year more difficult. (Namely, the fourth Wax and Wayne book, which I’ll talk about shortly.) But this was kind of something I had to do, so I ask your forgiveness in taking this detour to Innistrad. I’m exceptionally pleased with the story and the response it has gotten, so if you haven’t read it, I present it to you here! Reading it requires no prior knowledge of the card came or the lore surrounding it.

May: Skyward Final Draft
How long it takes to write a story depends on a lot of factors, but in general, three months gets me around 100k words. Shorter stories, with fewer viewpoints, tend to be faster—while longer stories with more intricate plotlines (like Stormlight) tend to take longer. But that’s just for the rough draft. Generally, doing all the other drafts takes an equivalent amount of time to the first draft. (So, if the first draft takes three months, the second through fourth drafts will together take another three months.) You can see this at play in Skyward, which took about three months to write in the end of 2017, then took three additional months of revision to polish up.

I did sneak in a little time to do an outline for a piece called The Original in here as well, which took about a week. I’ll update you on that in the secondary projects section.

June–August: Starsight First Draft
And, speaking of three month first drafts, here we get me buckling down and doing the sequel to Skyward. It’s finished in its first draft form, and dominated my summer. In here, I also did detailed outlines for the third and fourth books of the series. (And this is where I determined for certain that the series would need to be four books instead of three.)

September–October: Odds and Ends
In these months I had some travel to record episodes of Writing Excuses, I did a quick second draft of Starsight to send to my publisher, and I did some revisions to Children of the Nameless. I also did more work on The Original, Death Without Pizza, and Alcatraz Six (AKA Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, or Alcatraz vs. His Own Dumb Self). Finally, I slipped in some brainstorming with Dan Wells on how to fix The Apocalypse Guard.

Basically, I knew that November would be mostly lost to touring, and I was scrambling to get some work done on small projects to clear my plate for 2019, which will be dedicated to working on Stormlight Four.

November: Skyward Tour
I spent most of November on tour for Skyward, and quickly finishing up final revisions on Children of the Nameless. I got to see a lot of you while touring for the book, and had a blast—but these tours get more and more difficult as the lines get longer and longer. The tour for Stormlight Four in 2020 might require me to do some things I’ve been dreading, such as limit the lines to a certain number of tickets. It makes me sad to contemplate, but I’ll keep you all in the loop about what we decide to do.

That said, here are some pictures from my tour! Let the costume parade commence:

Syl – Barnes & Noble, El Cerrito

Mistborn – University Bookstore, Seattle

Shallan and Jasnah – University Bookstore, Seattle

Cobalt Guard – University Bookstore, Seattle

Spensa Nightshade – Anderson’s Bookshop, Chicago

Mistborn – Barnes & Noble, Atlanta

Wax – Barnes & Noble, Atlanta

Shallan – Murder by the Book, Houston

Australia(?) and Bastille – Murder by the Book, Houston

Mistborn – Murder by the Book, Houston

December: Death Without Pizza
I needed a break from all the other things I’ve been doing, so in classic Brandon style, I worked on something fresh and new to give myself a breather. This was where I was going to do Wax and Wayne Four, but doing Children of the Nameless meant that instead of three months extra space at the end of the year, I only had one month. (As CotN had taken one month to write, and one month to revise.) I had the choice of pushing back the start of Stormlight Four, or doing something else for this month and trying to sneak in W&W 4 sometime next year. I chose the latter. It’s important to me that I let myself do side projects to refresh myself—but I also think it’s important to keep to my Stormlight schedule. It would be too easy to keep putting off the big books until they stretch to years in the making. I told myself I was going to divide my time in half between Stormlight and other projects.

The truth is, I’m getting really anxious about getting back to Stormlight. That’s a very good sign, as once I finish a Stormlight book, I’m usually feeling quite burned out on the setting, and need a number of months to recover.

Anyway, that’s where the year went! Now, on to the exciting part. The big list of projects and updates to them.

Updates on Main Projects

Stormlight
As you just read about above, I am on track for starting this book on January first. I’ll begin with a reread of the first three books, as I find I need a periodic refresher, even on my own novels. This will also be important for helping me really nail down the outlines for books four and five.

As I’ve worked on the Stormlight series, I’ve shifted a lot of things around in the outlines. Famously, I swapped Dalinar’s book and Szeth’s book (making Book Three have Dalinar’s flashbacks instead of Szeth’s). But along the same lines, I moved a chunk of Book Three into Book Two, and then moved around smaller arcs for Three, Four, and Five.

The Stormlight series has a very odd structure. Each novel is outlined as a trilogy plus a short story collection (the interludes) and is the length of four regular books. This lets me play with narrative in some interesting ways—but it also makes each volume a beast to write. The other superstructure to the series is the spotlight on the ten orders of Radiants, with each book highlighting one of them while also having a flashback sequences for a character tied to one of those orders. If that weren’t complicated enough, the series is organized in two major five-book arcs.

What this means is that I need to do some extra work on books four and five, as they together tie off an arc. There are some small plot lines I’ve been pushing back from book to book as I nail down what each volume will include—but I can’t do that with Book Five, as it will be the capstone of this sequence. So I need the outlines to be tight to make certain I get everything into them that needs to be there.

Anyway, that’s a long way to say, essentially, I’ll start posting updates to the Stormlight subreddit in January, and you can follow along there or on the progress bar we’ll post here on my website on January first. I’ve commissioned a special piece of artwork to be used in Stormlight Four blog posts, which we should be able to reveal next year. (I’m pretty excited about it.) So you have that to look forward to as well!

Note that while I’m optimistic about this being my fall 2020 release, delays could happen if the book doesn’t come out smoothly on the first draft. I’ll keep you updated with regular posts. A lot will depend on how long the revisions take.

Status: Book Four is my main project for 2019, for an anticipated 2020/2021 release.

Mistborn
My big failure in 2018 was not getting to Wax and Wayne Four. But all is not lost! I am going to do whatever I can to squeeze this in next year. I’m feeling I might need a break in the middle of Stormlight Four, as I sometimes do. If so, I might squeeze this in there. But it will depend on a many factors. So, we’ll have to take a wait-and-see attitude.

I’m going to try to hold myself back from doing any other side projects, like Children of the Nameless or The Original from this year, until Wax and Wayne is finished. Book Four will be the conclusion of their story, and the wrap-up of era two of Mistborn. (And I have big things planned for Era Three, which I am planning to write between Stormlight Five and Stormlight Six.)

Status: Pushed off for now, but to be written very soon. No release date yet.

Skyward
Book Two, Starsight, is done, and I’ll be noodling on revisions for it in the early part of next year while I write the Stormlight Four and Five outlines. It’s scheduled for October of next year.

Stormlight Four taking all of my 2019 will likely mean that Skyward Three won’t be written until 2020, for a spring 2021 release. (At least, that would be my best guess at this point.) So you’ll have a larger-than-usual wait between Books Two and Three, unless something happens to let me squeeze Book Three in early. As I mentioned above, it’s a four-book series, and when I get back to it, I anticipate doing Book Four soon after Book Three. (Like I did in writing Books One and Two very close to one another.)

Status: Book Two ready to go in 2019. Book Three likely in 2021, Book Four likely in 2022.

Death (Without Pizza)
A major bombshell update here: we have finished a first draft of this book! I’m moving this up to major projects, as I anticipate a release of this novel in the coming two years. It is a Dresden Files-esque urban fantasy series set in London, starring a necromancer. (With a very Sanderson-style take on necromancy.)

Many of you have been following along with this project, which I’ve mentioned for many years in the State of the Sanderson posts. I wrote a rough draft of a big chunk of this book back some years ago now, but didn’t like how it was going, so I shelved it. The idea stuck with me though—and I really wanted to give it another chance. Over the years, one part I didn’t like was actually the pizza aspect. The original pitch was for a pizza delivery man who became a necromancer.

Well, over the years, I found I wanted a stronger character for the protagonist. Starting with the title Death by Pizza had pushed me to make the story more jokey than I wanted, and had led me to cut corners on the worldbuilding in ways I didn’t like. So when I went back to the drawing board, I started going in different directions with the storytelling. A more intricate, interesting magic system. And a character with more heart. Where I eventually ended up going was studying metal music culture.

The subculture of heavy metal music is fascinating to me. I really like how passionate the fans are about it, and how often outsiders are wrong about those inside it. (Do a little reading on the topic, and you might find that a lot of your stereotypes of metal fans are wrong—like mine were. The more I read about and talked to metal fans, the more fascinated I became by the subculture.) It seemed to me that a metalhead who finds out he’s a necromancer could be a cool hook.

Well, around the time I was really getting into this, I was chatting with Peter Orullian, a novelist who is a friend of mine. He’s mostly known for his epic fantasy series The Vault of Heaven, but he also happens to be a metalhead and a musician. (He’s toured internationally fronting metal bands, and recently composed an entire rock opera in the style of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He’s even written a book with the band Dream Theater, in conjunction with one of their concept albums.)

Well, the match seemed perfect. He could bring the expertise on metal music, and I could provide the worldbuilding. So we jumped into a collaboration. I wrote out a lengthy world guide and outline, and Peter did a lot of experimenting to find the right voice for our character. We worked on the first volume all during the summer and fall, and the resulting book is quite promising. It’s the story of an American metal singer living in London whose day goes from bad to worse as he gets kicked out of his band, then makes his way to his favorite pub to lick his wounds—only to end up getting shot in the head during an apparent robbery. And after that, things start to go really badly for him.

Peter finished the first draft in November, and I’ve been spending my December doing a second draft. After that, I’ll kick it back to him for a third draft so that we can make sure our different voices are smoothed out. We’ll see where it goes from there! In any case, though, Death Without Pizza will not be the final title for the story. We’ll pick something a little less silly; I’m a little worried people will expect something over-the-top metal like Brütal Legend—which was great, but not the direction this story ended up going. Anyway, I’ll post updates as we go along!

Status: Being revised. After that, we’ll look for a publisher.

Updates on Secondary Projects

The Original
I’m moving this novella (which I don’t think I’ve mentioned before in a State of the Sanderson) into the Secondary Projects section. A while ago I had an idea for a story about a world where, if you committed a crime and went on the run for it, the government could create a clone of you (with your memories and personality) to hunt you down. After all, who better to hunt a criminal than a copy of that criminal? The copy would have strict controls in place so they could be killed by the government with the press of a button, but would be given the promise that they could take their Original’s place if they succeeded in hunting them down and killing them.

Earlier this year, the idea developed into a full-fledged outline, which I wrote out during time when I needed a break from other things. It worked out well, and so you might see progress on this in future years. Right now, I like the idea of doing it as an audio original, perhaps with a coauthor who is more experienced in audio or voice acting. So watch for updates here.

Status: Outlined.

The Apocalypse Guard
I do someday want to do something with this book. I’ve given it to Dan Wells, my long-time friend and sometimes partner in crime. He’s come back with some suggestions on how I could fix it, along with some brainstorming on where it could go as a series.

I’m going to give you fair warning, though. Every time Dan and I brainstorm together, weird things happen. Legion was the result of one of those sessions, as was Dan’s book I Am Not a Serial Killer. (Which you should all go read, if you haven’t.) The two of us are odd enough on our own, but together we’re downright strange. (You should see the two of us in role-playing sessions, where we constantly try to out-bizarre one another with our character concepts.)

I fully expect something to come out of The Apocalypse Guard sessions I’m doing with Dan, but…well, don’t expect it to be normal by any stretch of the word.

Status: In revisions, getting weirder.

Alcatraz
I’ve been tweaking Alcatraz Six. I did a partial draft a few years ago that went off the rails, and this year, I trimmed that back with some help from a friend into the parts that worked. From there, we’ve been trying to figure out how to get Bastille’s character voice right. It’s moving. Slowly, but it’s moving. Book Six, written from Bastille’s viewpoint, will be the end of the series.

Now that Legion is done, the next series I want to make sure gets tied up is Alcatraz. It shouldn’t be too much longer.

Status: Book Six made some small progress this year.

White Sand
Graphic Novel Two came out this year, and was very well received. (Save for the forced artist change, something I hated to have to do. That said, the new artist is doing a fantastic job.) Graphic Novel Three is the end of this sequence, and is well on its way to being completed.

The prose version is still available if you sign up for my mailing list. Though remember, we’ve made numerous updates to the story during the adaptation process.

I have no immediate plans to do sequels to this in graphic novel form, though you can expect stories set on Taldain to happen in the future.

Status: Final graphic novel is well under way. Release in 2019 or early 2020 likely.

Dark One
My outline for this drew a lot of buzz around both Hollywood and New York. The story, if you aren’t familiar with it, is about a young man in our world who discovers that a fantasy world has declared him to be the Dark One, and starts sending hit squads into our world to assassinate him. Pitched as “Harry Potter from Voldemort’s viewpoint,” the story follows this young man as he is forced to confront the possibility that he might do what the prophecies say.

We have a graphic novel in the works, and I’ve been doing pitches in Hollywood for a potential television show. So movement is certainly happening here.

Status: Going well. Might have art to show soon from the graphic novel.

Elantris, Warbreaker, Rithmatist
No updates from last year, I’m afraid. There was no intention to make progress on these this year. Once Alcatraz is wrapped up, I’ll turn my attention back to The Rithmatist as the last looming series that needs a wrap-up that hasn’t gotten one. Elantris and Warbreaker sequels aren’t to be expected until Stormlight Five and Wax and Wayne Four are done.

Status: Keep waiting. (Sorry again.)

Updates on Minor Projects

The Reckoners, Legion
These are both finished, and I don’t foresee any future updates anytime soon. Do note, however, that the Reckoners board game has been shipping, and it turned out great. You should soon have a chance to buy copies if you missed the Kickstarter, and I suspect there will be expansions in the future.

Status: Completed

Adamant
No change from last year. This space opera series of novellas is in limbo until I find the right time to work on them. It will happen eventually.

Status: No movement.

Soulburner
No motion on this space opera that I might rename Starburner once I get around to doing something with it. I have a cool worldbuilding document, but no novel specifically. I’ve been tempted to see if it would work for a video game setting.

Potential Cosmere Stories
Keep the following on your radar, as they may happen someday. However, as I’ll be knee-deep in Stormlight in 2019, don’t expect anything to happen on any of them until it is done. The list includes: Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel, Sixth of the Dusk sequel, Silverlight novella, Threnody novel, Aether of Night, Silence Divine.

Movie/Television Updates

So, let’s talk about movies.

People tend to get really excited about news of my books being adapted—and rightly so. I’d be very excited to someday see one of my properties turn into a film, and I think it’s inevitable that some day, we’ll see it happen. However, the process of a book becoming a film or television show is a long one, involving the input of a lot of people. And fans tend to get very excited when something is being developed, but often don’t realize that the stages of development can often take a long time.

I thought it might be helpful here to go over what some of those steps are, so you can get a better idea of how far along my various properties are. Understand that this is a rough guide, and individual properties might follow a different route. This is also kind of an outsider’s take on it all, as I don’t consider myself an expert in Hollywood. Those who know more about the ins and outs of the business would probably consider this a gross over-simplification.

Step One: Producers Option a Story
In Hollywood terms an “option” is kind of like a rental agreement. The most common way a story starts on its path to an adaptation is with an option. (Sometimes, there’s even a step before this called a Shopping Agreement.) Basically, someone (usually a producer, but sometimes a studio) comes in and offers to pay an author every year to “option” their work, meaning the producer/studio gets exclusive rights to make a film on that work. They don’t buy the rights completely, however. Usually, they set a buyout price, then pay 5/10% of that price every year or so to keep the option locked up. This gives them time to put all the other pieces together for a film without needing to commit to paying the full buyout price until they’re certain the film is going to happen.

My agent once told me that about 1 out of 30 of the properties he saw get optioned eventually got made into a film or show. An option is absolutely an important step, but a lot of times fans see an option agreement in place and start expecting a film any day—when really, this is just the first exploratory step in the process. Sometimes, producers even option rights they never intend on making into films. (I once had a producer brag to me that he—in order to make sure nobody in town was trying to sell something similar to his property—had bought up all rights to similar books for cheap, with the intention of sitting on them for five years to make sure he didn’t have any competition. I was not impressed, to say the least.)

Step Two: Screenplay
Usually, after the option agreement is signed, a screenplay is commissioned for a film. For a television show, it will either be a screenplay for a pilot, or some kind of series bible or “treatment,” a kind of outline that talks about the process the group would use in adapting the property.

This screenplay, treatment, or bible is what the producers will take around town to try to get studios, directors, and actors interested in a property. A book being successful is interesting to Hollywood, but what they rightly want to see is if that book can be made into a workable screenplay. Often, this process takes years, as a screenplay/teleplay will be commissioned—then go through several rewrites. Sometimes, the producers will decide to hire a second or even third screenwriter to do a pass on the script, if they decide it needs another take or specific revisions.

Step Three: Studio Interest
With screenplay in hand, the producers will approach the studios or larger production companies. (Or sometimes content distributors, like Netflix.) The goal here is to get interest from parties with deep pockets and the power to actually make a film. This step can occasionally be skipped if a studio was involved from the beginning. (This has happened with several of my properties.) Sometimes, the studio might be interested—but send the producers back to step three to do more revisions before offering any kind of official deal or promise of distribution. Sometimes, the producers will need to secure promises from multiple parties—like, for instance, they might get a smaller studio in the US interested, then have to get a foreign partner interested to provide funding for overseas distribution promises.

Step Four: Attaching Talent
With a screenplay in hand and the backing of a studio or similar group, the producers can now try to get a director or actor on board with the film. This crucial step will have a big influence on how/if the film will get made. Obviously, if you get a major director interested, that makes the studios sit up and take notice. Likewise if a major actor attaches to the project. For television, this often involves getting an established show runner attached. (In my experience, with television, sometimes this sort of thing happens in Step Two instead—with the showrunner being involved in the pitch documents. In that case, Step Three is the big one: getting someone big in the business to fund a pilot.)

Step Five: Actual Green Light
Finally, if all the pieces come together, you get what is called a green light. The film is scheduled for shooting, the studio commits a large chunk of money to the project, and people start getting hired. This is when the option actually gets exercised, and the author gets the payment for the contract they likely signed years and years ago. Once in a while, a group of producers will decide that the property they hold is big enough that (once their option period runs out) they decide to pay the buyout price to get more time to try to get the film made. Sometimes, instead, they’ll just agree with the author to extend the option period for another payment.

Step Six: Film Gets Made
I’ve never gotten here, but I hear it’s a lovely experience.

So, with that in mind, I can tell you where each of my properties are. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to name a lot of names. For instance, if a director is interested but hasn’t signed on officially, it’s not my place to announce them as being involved. Likewise, if some producers have offered to option something, but we don’t have signed paperwork, it’s generally best if I stay quiet about the details so that they can do publicity on the deal in the way they would like.

Anyway, here’s where we stand for each of my properties.

Snapshot
It might be odd to see this one at the top of the list, but I think right now the best chance we have at a film would be one based on my story Snapshot. MGM announced their option of the rights almost two years ago, which is great—because it meant that we already had studio backing, cutting out one of the steps in the process. The producers were impressive in their enthusiasm, and they jumped right into commissioning a screenplay with a very talented writer.

I’ve read the screenplay, and consider it the best I’ve ever read based on one of my books. It helps that Snapshot itself is a shorter work, more easily adapted to a film. The Snapshot screenplay is an improvement on my story in virtually every way, something that I discovered with both joy and a little bit of shame. (Really, the screenwriter did some things with the story I probably should have figured out myself.)

With this great screenplay, I hope there will be a lot more good news to share really soon.

The Cosmere
DMG Entertainment optioned the rights to the Cosmere, and they have been wonderful to work with. They commissioned screenplays for The Emperor’s Soul, Mistborn, and The Way of Kings. They’re currently in Step Three above, trying to get studio interest for the properties. Mostly, they’ve been pitching Mistborn as a film series and The Way of Kings as a television series.

Likely, the success of things like the new Lord of the Rings show and the Kingkiller Chronicle will influence how this goes in the future.

Steelheart
The Reckoners series was optioned some years ago now by 21 Laps, Shawn Levy’s company, using backing from Fox. We were happy when they renewed their option this past summer, as we weren’t certain what the status of this would be in light of the Fox–Disney merger. It seems they’re planning to take the Reckoners with them through the process, which is good news.

This was an exciting deal, as Mr. Levy has done some great work—including the film Real Steel, which was an excellent adaptation of the original story. (And, of course, he was heavily involved with Stranger Things on Netflix.) Beyond that, it came with the implicit promise of support from Fox, meaning that we could skip the “finding a studio” step. That said, this is still in the screenplay stage.

Stephen Leeds/Legion
The Stephen Leeds stories have recently been optioned for a television series by a new production company. This is the property’s third time being picked up for an option, so I’m hopeful we’ll make it work this time. I don’t believe the company has been announced officially yet, so we’ll hold off on mentioning them for now. But we’re probably in the middle of Step Two for this one.

Dark One
Dark One, based on an outline and worldbuilding guide from me, is being shopped (in a Step Three kind of way) by FremantleMedia and Random House Studios, with an impressive showrunner attached. There has been movement since that announcement in June, but I can’t say anything publicly yet.

Bonus Mention: The Wheel of Time
As The Wheel of Time does not belong to me, I like to be careful about what I do and say with it. I don’t want to overstep my bounds. But for those who haven’t been paying attention, this series has progressed into a full-blown green light at Amazon Studios—with actual episodes being written and filming soon starting.

I don’t know what role, if any, I’ll have in this. Like I said, I like to be respectful of Team Jordan. It’s not my place to try to muscle in and pretend I’m in charge. At the same time, I do think I could offer something to the production, and the showrunner (who is quite sharp) has reached out to me multiple times for conversations about the adaptation. I’m impressed with everything I see, and hope to at the very least be able to pop over to the set when filming happens and grab some photos for you all.

For most of my own properties, I’d say to not hold your breath. I think they’ll happen eventually, but you shouldn’t start to get hyped up until Step Five happens for something. Well, we’re past Step Five with the Wheel of Time, and you can officially begin to feel hyped. It’s actually happening, and it looks great so far.

Games and Other Licensed Work
I’m interested in doing some more video game work. Ever since I got to be part of the Infinity Blade games, I’ve had the itch to do this again. Right now though, there is nothing in the works that I can announce—I’ve had some short preliminary conversations with game studios, but no contracts. I’ll continue to look at doing this, and will announce what I can, when I think something might actually be happening.

Unfortunately, Mistborn: Birthright never came together. (Though I’m on very good terms with the folks there.) And you can ignore any rumors about CD Projekt Red. Some fans got hyped when I said I liked them as a studio—and some news sites even picked it up as a story, for some reason. But that was just me mentioning in a random post that I think they do good work. I’ve never met with them—or talked to them—and have no reason to believe they even know who I am.

Video games aside, we do have some exciting and fun licensed properties that we’ve been working on, and I figured I should have a section in the State of the Sanderson for updates on these.

Board Games
We’ll keep looking at doing more board games. The Reckoners game, from Nauvoo Games, and Mistborn: House War, from Crafty Games—who also developed the Mistborn Adventure RPG—all of which turned out very well, and (equally important) were shipped in a reasonable timeframe to the backers on Kickstarter. We had a Stormlight game in the works, but have backed up a few steps on that one for various reasons. I hope to have one of those finished at some point. You may have seen my announcement from a few months ago, but we’ve partnered with Brotherwise Games to bring you the Call to Adventure: Stormlight expansion that should be out fall of 2019. I would also be interested in doing a deckbuilding card game based on my works eventually. (After all, you know how addicted I am to Magic: The Gathering.)

Jewelry
Badali Jewelry continues to do an excellent job creating a variety of awesome artwork pieces based on my various books. They approached me to do this way back when I was basically a nobody, and have been with me all this time, creating beautiful and detailed works.

Coins
Shire Post, creator of many fantasy-themed coins for various different properties, did a very successful Kickstarter for Mistborn coinage, and I’m quite pleased with both their professionalism and artistry. We here at Dragonsteel did the designs so that they’d be 100% in continuity with the books. We’re looking at doing more with Shire Post in the future.

Music
Black Piper’s Kaladin album has been shipping its physical rewards for backers, and are finishing up the last steps of their Kickstarter. I’m very pleased with the music, which you can find on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon MP3, and many other digital outlets. I think they did a great job, and suggest that it would make a great accompaniment to your next Stormlight reread. Due to the complexities of fitting in the album around the windows for some of our other licenses, if you’re interested in owning this we’d encourage looking at it before year-end.

Amazon
We’ve recently partnered with Amazon to help bring you more apparel options. As of now, it’s the only place other than my website store to sell officially licensed clothing. And in the not-to-distant future we’re going to expand our selection to include hoodies and other things as time allows.

Projected Schedule of Releases

Starsight (Skyward Two): November 2019
White Sand Three: Sometime 2019–2020
Stormlight Four: Fall 2020
Skyward Three: 2021
Wax and Wayne Four: Sometime 2020 or 2021

Conclusion and TL;DR

Whew. That’s quite the list, eh? This post gets longer and longer each year. The short version is actually very simple. I’m dedicating most of my efforts to Stormlight Four next year, with occasional short deviations to work on Skyward or Mistborn.

Once again, thank you all for joining me on this journey.

Brandon Sanderson
December 2018