Monday, February 25, 2013

Writing Resource: Brandon Sanderson's YouTube: Writing Videos


Brandon Sanderson has done for the YouTube age what Harlan Ellison did when he wrote an entire short story in the display window of a department store:  put the usually private act of fiction writing out there for the whole world to spectate.  Through his YouTube channel, in a series of videos that receives an update every week, he is sharing his process in writing an interlude scene from the upcoming second book of The Stormlight Archive series.

I for one have always wanted to peak over the shoulder of a published (and prolific) author to see how they do what so many try to do, but rarely succeed in doing so well.  Brandon makes that wish come true, and the answer is both reassuring and humbling at the same time:  they write their books the same way every person on the planet writes: one letter at a time.  There's no magic method at work here; just hard, consistent work and skill earned from experience.