Brandon Sanderson to finish Wheel of Time

[Bond]

Mr. Sanderson I wish you the best.

I don't know if you're going to look back in this thread or if you do if you'd want to hear anything from fans of WoT but in case you don't mind I hope you don't think it amiss if I share some thoughts.

I hope you are someone who truly loves the series. WoT is my favorite fantasy series and knowing it as I do I don't see anyone who doesn't genuinely love and respect it doing it justice. (If you don't, well you'll just have to work harder!) I don't know if you've studied Jordan's writing beforehand but there is often stuff there that one will miss if only perusing casually. I'm presuming if you have detailed notes on hand this should become obvious.

It being the last book and with so many loose ends to tie up I fear writing the book may end up being merely an exercise of going from points A to B to C and revealing one thing one after another. Please take care in properly constructing each revelation so it doesn't feel like a series of info dumps. Also remember to give his characters the free reign they need to come alive.

Capturing the essence of Robert Jordan's tone and style may well be one of the harder things to achieve. He had a distinct sense of humor and infused his writing with a certain sensibility. If you ever have trouble thinking how something should sound, maybe you should think of Mat or think of how a gracious southern gentleman would handle it. From what I can tell from your bio that shouldn't be so hard since it appears you are one yourself.

Good luck!

[ChrisW]

I guess that's my question, too. Mr. Jordan, as beautiful a world and story that he created, was just far too concerned with minor details and if he had just skipped over a few of them I believe he could have made A Crown of Swords and The Path of Daggers one book, and the same can be said of Winter's Heart and Crossroads of Twilight.

Like I said, I've never read your work, but do you plan on emulating his style of "describe the room in intimate detail and then everyone in the room and what they're wearing, right down to the pages, before you even begin to tell us what the scene is about?" or do you plan on streamlining some of that stuff?

If Brandon listens to people like you i'm betting I won't be enjoying the bits he writes but from what i've read he will be paying attention to the detail(perhaps not as much as RJ but it will be there). My biggest fear is that he is one of the people who didn't enjoy the direction RJ went with the later half of the series. Also if RJ's notes don't say he intented to reveal or solve something I hope Brandon doesn't take it upon himself to do so just because some fans want an answer.

[Bluestar]

You guys should read the interview he did about this, it's answering many of the questions that are being asked here.

Grats Brandon on landing this job. There won't be many people who won't know of your name after that.

[clockwirk]

Brandon should just write like he writes and not try to cater to how anyone wants him to tell the story. Anybody could just move from revelation to revelation and give us all the info that we've been waiting for for all of these years. Conversely, I think it would be disastrous for somebody to try to cop Jordan's style, be it good or bad. Brandon is the guy they hired, obviously they hired him because they like how he writes. I've never read any of his stuff, but if he's a good writer I'll enjoy the last book regardless of whether it matches the previous books style or not.
Congrats, and go do your thing, Brandon!

[Richardb]

What an incredible honor for Brandon! This is sure to move his career to an entirly new level! I have not read his stuff, but if Robert Jordan's wife picked him as the successor, I'm buying his existing books to see what she saw there. That alone will drive a lot of sales, I am sure!
I am very happy this series will be done, and can only hope the prequels get done also.
Really excellent news!

[ChrisW]

Brandon should just write like he writes and not try to cater to how anyone wants him to tell the story.

He should cater to how Jordan wanted the book written. I agree that he shouldn't try to be an RJ clone but the book still needs to have an RJ feeling about it(interviews give me hope). IMO Brandon should shut himself away from WoT fans and just write from the notes RJ left. He should write the book RJ wanted, not the book fans want. If they don't like it, bad luck. Another thing is I think they should find a few people who have spent years studying every detail of WoT to proof read it as RJ's team have shown in the past that they miss mistakes.

Anyway I won't be reading any of Brandons work before book twelve as i'm hoping that his style won't stand as much if I don't know before hand what it's like.

[wolfbrother1846]

I do hope it has a Jordan feel to it, and I think it will. But I really would just like to hear the STORY, I need closure. I started reading this series in the 6th grade, and moving into graduate work pretty soon, so its safe to say I (along with many many others) have been waiting for this for a long time.

Its the wierdest coincidence, never read Mr. Sanderson's work at all. Randomly bought a book (Elantris) about two months ago on a whim, and brought it out to read it yesterday. Right before I started I went online and saw the author of the random book I was going to read would be finishing up one of my favorite series of all time. Quite the coincidence.

Good luck Mr Sanderson.

[Rob B]

Brandon, thanks for stopping by. Good luck and congrats on the big assignment!

[Timster]

Excellent - I am looking forward to seeing how all of those loose ends get tied up, I guess it wil be a 10,000 page novel

[Evil Agent]

Wow... this is pretty cool news! I don't know Brandon Sanderson's work, but I am just glad to hear that the project is being finished. For better or worse...though I'm hoping for "better"!

I'm really curious as to whether Sanderson will imitate Jordan's style or not. Will we hear about Nynaeve tugging her braid? Will Aes Sedai drink tea? Will there be spankings?

Honestly, though, I'm looking forward to reading the final book!

[Skywarp]

Also, I WILL be more detailed in my descriptions for this book. I may need a fleet of people to help me get the clothing descriptions down, but I'll do it!

You do realise this is a major complaint by a huge number of fans of Jordan's writing style :/.

I can see how its a hallmark of the series and you would want to continue it but seriously, Jordan really bogged down some of his work in a detail quagmire that really stalled alot of chapters and some might say books.

[Grasshopper]

You do realise this is a major complaint by a huge number of fans of Jordan's writing style :/.

I can see how its a hallmark of the series and you would want to continue it but seriously, Jordan really bogged down some of his work in a detail quagmire that really stalled alot of chapters and some might say books.

So you would have this Mr. Sanderson, personally chosen by Mrs. RJ to finish the series, change the writing style????

I know that if I were bestowed that honor, I'd do my best to imitate RJ's style and finish it how HE would finish it and leave my own personal style to very minor details.

Yes, I think that RJ got a little winded in descriptions at times....SO WHAT!!! It's his book/series. It sells. The publisher is happy with his popularity.

[clockwirk]

The only way that Mr. Sanderson could make this a quality book is if he wrote it the best way he thought possible. If he's using a bunch of phrases and metaphors just because he's doing an imitation of RJ, the book will be a pathetic and obvious attempt to do something that's impossible. Tim Burton can't direct a movie like Steven Spielberg, or vice versa, and One writer can't successfully write like Another.

By telling Mr. Sanderson to copy Jordan's writing style and make sure that he tells it the exact same way that Jordan would adds the huge burden of satisfying all of the obsessed Jordan fans with the minutia of Jordan's writing to the burden of finishing off a massive story successfully.

Mr. Sanderson was not hired because he does a great Robert Jordan impression, he was hired because he's a damn fine writer and he should be trusted to write the story in the way he best sees fit.

[Bluestar]

I think it's funny to see you guys argue over what he was hired to do when none of you actually know what he was hired to do, or even apparently what he said he wanted to do.

It doesn't matter what anyone says on a forum because he already knows what he's going to do.

[Fred Gallney]

Good luck Brandon. I got the first 6 WoT books for Christmas and after reading my current material, I'll start. (I've already read bits and pieces)

Brandon, if you ever happen to read this, how many pages do you expect a memory of light to be? Just an estimate.

Sincerely

Fred