Annotation Warbreaker Chapter Four Part 2 Hawaii Why, yes, I did visit Hawaii in the middle of writing this book. Did you notice? Following Mistborn, I wanted to do a book set in a place that looked very different from the Final Empire. What’s different from a burned-out wasteland? Why, a tropical paradise of course!…

Annotation Warbreaker Chapter Four Naming in This Book The names in this novel, particularly in Hallandren and Idris, follow the concept of repeated consonant sounds. I wanted to try something a little more distinctive in this book than the names were in Mistborn. In that book, I intentionally backed away from the insane craziness of…

Annotation Warbreaker Chapter Three Part 2 Llarimar Llarimar is based on a friend of mine, Scott Franson. Back when I was working on Hero of Ages, my local church group had a service auction for the local food bank. The idea was that church members would offer up services—like a car wash, or some baked…

Annotation Warbreaker Chapter Three Similarities Between Warbreaker and Elantris And finally, we arrive at my personal favorite character in the book. Lightsong the Bold, the god who doesn’t believe in his own religion. I had the idea for Lightsong a number of years ago. My first book, Elantris, dealt with the concept of men who…

Annotation Warbreaker Chapter Two Part 2 Vivenna and Her Father Chat about Siri King Dedelin does love Siri. He’s a good man, but not quite as great a man as his daughters probably think. He does put Vivenna first. He loves her more. Perhaps because he relates to her; the two of them are very…

Annotation Warbreaker Chapter Two Siri Rides South, Stunned Already, you should be able to see another tone shift in the book. We’ve gone from lazy highland romping to frustration and terror. My goal with this book was to keep that up—to always have things moving and the characters being pulled out of their comfortable lives…

Annotation Warbreaker Chapter One Part 2 Ramblemen Ramblemen are more than simple traveling jugglers or storytellers. They’re merchants who specialize in bringing news (for a price) and stories as well as goods and services. Readers latched onto this word, and I’ve had a lot of people say, “I love that term! Why don’t we get…

Annotation Warbreaker Chapter One Tone You can probably guess why I was worried about the transition from the prologue with Vasher to this chapter with Siri. The tone shift is quite dramatic. Actually, one of the things my agent complained a lot about with this book was the tone. Not just for this chapter shift,…

What else to say about the prologue? I’ll talk about Nightblood in a future annotation. Let’s see . . .

Annotation Warbreaker Prologue Part 2 There are a couple of other relics from the original short story version of this chapter that made it into the final book. I toyed with cutting these, but figured that there were good reasons for them. The Guard Approaches, and His Clothing Becomes Brighter This is an essential part…