About the annotation system Introduction

One of the unique features of this site is the annotation section, where Brandon himself shares behind-the-scenes articles about each chapter of his books. These are meant to be read only after you’ve reached that point of the book—they’re likely to contain spoilers for that chapter and earlier. But so that each annotation will not spoil the rest of the book after that point, we’ve developed a system for displaying spoilers only when you want to read them.

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 11

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 11 And now comes the redemption chapter. This is the sort of thing that I write books to do. It’s the sort of chapter that I really hope to be able to pull off. That may seem strange to some of you, as it’s not the climatic ending or…

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 10

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 10 Kal helps his father work on a young girl’s hand For years I had been wanting to do a full-blown flashback-sequence book. Flashbacks (or non-linear storytelling) can be a powerful narrative device, but they’re also dangerous. They can make a book harder to get into (nothing new for…

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 9

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 9 Kaladin in Bridge Four This chapter is probably the most depressing thing I’ve ever written. Writing a depressed character, someone in this bad a situation, is risky. It goes against almost every writing rule out there. A character like this can’t be active, and there is basically no…

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 8

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 8 Shallan Rejected Again I do wonder at reader reaction to these Shallan sequences. Some in the writing group found these scenes too long. They figured it was inevitable that Shallan would end up as Jasnah’s ward, and so spending several chapters with Shallan working overtime to secure the…

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 7

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 7 I’ve taken some visual art classes. I’m terrible at drawing—as you would expect from someone without a lot of experience—but I felt it would be important to know how visual art works and how artists think. Listening to the professors talk was in many ways more useful than…

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 5

One of the problems with The Way of Kings Prime was it had too many characters competing for the limelight. It lacked focus. One could argue that the published The Way of Kings is kind of all over the place itself—indeed, a lot of the plot threads don’t connect until the end. (And then only in some limited ways.)

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 4

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 4 This chapter in particular was a challenge to write. My experience with Sazed in The Hero of Ages warned me that a character deep in depression can be a difficult and dangerous thing to write. Depression is a serious challenge for real people—and therefore also for characters. Additionally,…

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Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 3

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 3 Shallan I chose to use Shallan as my other main character in Part One, rather than Dalinar, because I felt her sequence better offset Kaladin’s. He was going to some very dark places, and her sequence is a little lighter. She is the only ‘new’ main character in…

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