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Inside Brandon Sanderson's Council of Wizards, who helps him shepherd the stories of his Dragonsteel empire
With over 70 books written already, even Brandon Sanderson needs a little help guiding his Mistborn and Stormlight Archive books in the right direction.
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Writing a novel is, at its heart, a solitary job. It is also very difficult, as evidenced by how many people have half-finished books sitting on their hard drives right now. You’d think that someone like Brandon Sanderson, who has written over 70 books over his career, could tackle any narrative problems that come up on his own, but even he needs help. When a plot doesn’t come together quite how he wanted, or an ending needs to be reworked, he turns to a team he calls The Council of Wizards to help him.
During the most recent State of the Sanderson post on his frequently updated blog, Brandon Sanderson had members of his team chime in to give updates from their particular fields. Dan Wells, vice president of narrative at Dragonsteel Entertainment, gave fans a quick look at how even Brandon Sanderson sometimes has to get help unpicking a particularly tricky plot thread.
“I’ll leave you with a fun peek behind the scenes,” Wells wrote. “While the Narrative department [at Dragonsteel Entertainment] consists solely of me and Brandon (and my intern, who’s last day is TODAY), we also have what Brandon calls the Council of Wizards, which adds to the group Isaac [Stewart], Peter [Ahstrom], and Karen [Ahlstrom]. We bring in the Council of Wizards when a problem arises in a book and we’re not sure how to solve it – for example, if a book is mostly written but it turns out that the original outlined ending isn’t going to work. We convene the Council of Wizards, and the five of us chew through the problem and offer ideas about how to solve it, what things could change, and what things are working well and we don’t want to lose them. The Council convened three times this year, and it’s always a fun and productive time.”
Brandon Sanderson should count himself lucky; we’re sure that most writers would love to have a Council of Wizards ready to help untangle any potential narrative issues that come up.
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