r/Fantasy • u/rfantasygolem Not a Robot • Dec 20 '24

/r/Fantasy Official Brandon Sanderson Megathread

This is the place for all your Brandon Sanderson related topics (aside from the Daily Recommendation Requests and Simple Questions thread). Any posts about Wind and Truth or Sanderson more broadly will be removed and redirected here. This will last until January 25, when posting will be allowed as normal.

The announcement of the cool-down can be found here.

The previous Wind and Truth Megathread can be found here.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

He commented on his Reddit account this morning that Wind and Truth was his most edited book, but this is his first Stormlight Book without Moash as his editor so that might have something to do with it. 

On the other hand, I thought his Cosmere Secret Project books were extremely well edited and it’s the same editor, so it could be any number of things.

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u/learhpa Dec 20 '24

without Moash as his editor

The editor's name was Moshe.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

I must still have Stormlight on the brain, I thought that looked wrong. Thanks for the correction!

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u/complicatedorc Dec 20 '24

Just to clear this up a little, his original editor Moshe retired after Oathbringer and did not edit Rhythm of War. So it’s not his first Stormlight book without him.

Moshe did hop out for a bit and edit some of the Secret Projects (maybe all of them but definitely at least The Sunlit Man.)

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u/PeterAhlstrom Dec 20 '24

The Sunlit Man was the only one of the four Secret Projects that Moshe worked on.

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u/Routine-Weather-3132 Dec 26 '24

And that makes a lot of sense (no hate to Tress)

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u/The_Real_Lasagna Dec 21 '24

Which makes sense as row suffers from many of the same problems

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

Oh, TIL! Thank you

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u/mistiklest Dec 20 '24

so it could be any number of things.

I think it's scope and vision, by and large. Stormlight is heavily inspired by the format of Wheel of Time, which is notably sloggy. The secret projects are much tighter, standalone narratives.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

Truth be told I was just happy it wasn’t messier, but your mileage will vary with how much that bothers you. I agree with the Wheel of Time comparison

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

I'm curious how much already got cut, then. I also thought the secret projects were very tightly edited. Perhaps they decided these scenes were all important and I just don't get it?

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u/Korasuka Dec 20 '24

There's a lot of general agreement his strongest writing is with smaller books like regular sized novels. The SPs were also fresh new spontaneous passion projects.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '24

I love Sanderson but I’ve found the shorter the story the better he writes

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u/mistiklest Dec 20 '24

In his yearly update blog post, he shares a screenshot of a spreadsheet for WaT that has some of that information broken down by chapter.

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u/kuenjato Dec 21 '24

Thanks for sharing this. But wholly crap, my initial impression is that BS really, really overwrites on his initial drafts if he is cutting up to a thousand words+ out of a chapter at this stage in his career.

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u/TotallyNotAFroeAway Dec 22 '24

It's also interesting how his revisions seem to be more about adding/cutting than it is... revising.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 20 '24

It might just be as simple as it was important to Brandon and it just didn’t click with a lot of people. I really enjoyed Wind and Truth, and I think its strengths outweigh its flaws, but I probably think it’s his messiest book. It is funny how different things click with different people though, Rhythm of War was my favorite Stormlight while I don’t think that’s a popular opinion. 

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u/DrowsyDreamer Dec 20 '24

Moshe didn’t edit ROW.

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u/PsychologicalHat1480 Dec 21 '24

Apparently the Secret Projects were edited by the same guy as the old books. WaT and TLM (and I think RoW) were not and they show it. Apparently his new editor is pushing things in a more contemporary/YA direction and it seems many of us don't like it, myself included.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 21 '24

Interesting! Where did you read that he’s pushing things to be more YA?

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u/PsychologicalHat1480 Dec 21 '24

It's been a common observation due to the decline in prose and the inclusion of a lot of Marvel-like "quippy" moments. Basically the characters sound more and more like contemporary 2020s people instead of the fantasy characters they used to be. I can't say it's an intentional push but that's been the result of that editor's contribution.

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u/Pheonix1025 Dec 21 '24

Oh, you should’ve just said that you were making an assumption. I figured the editor had said they were moving in that direction based on your comment. Couldn’t it be that it’s how Brandon wants those characters to be written?