WRITING TIPS | LEARNING FROM THE BIG NAMES
What I’ve Learned From Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Class (2)
And what you can learn, too, on setting.
Recently, I rewatched all of Brandon Sanderson’s Creative Writing class on YouTube. With fourteen videos we get to learn crucial information on plot, character, setting and the publishing industry.
Since there are too many incredible tips to include in one post, I decided to focus on each aspect per article.
This time – setting.
In his two lessons on world building, Sanderson presents his four laws to create a cohesive, reliable setting:
First Law
Your ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.
Sanderson’s first law, simply, tells us we can’t solve problems out of the blue without any explanation, because we’ll lose the readers’ trust.
Let’s say our character is a loving single mom that raises her three children the best she can, despite their poor financial situation. She tries to provide them with everything they need without them feeling left behind. Then, after having one struggle after the other throughout the plot, she wins the lottery at the 98% of the book, and all her problems are solved.
Happy ending? Hardly.
Instead of giving the reader a satisfying solution, we put a band-aid to get to an illusion of closure. But in truth, we could have picked better endings, like getting a promotion at work due to her hard work.
The bottom line — Sanderson’s first law says that you can solve problems in your story in any way you want as long as the reader could have figured it out beforehand.
If you don’t want to lose your readers’ trust, start using foreshadowing.
Second Law
Limitations > Power
Sanderson’s second law is an intriguing one. It teaches us that what magic can’t do is far more interesting than what it can do. The beauty of this law is that even though Sanderson wrote it with magic in mind, we can expand it.
Are you familiar with The Giver’s world? In Lois Lowry’s book we dive into an ideal world where not only there is peace, but people have never heard of wars, pain, illnesses and suffering. But what is truly interesting in The Giver’s world is that they have never heard of other things, either. Like love.
What makes this setting an interesting one is its imperfections. The same is true for characters. Great characters are ones that we can connect with not just for their strengths, but for their flaws. Their shortcomings are what makes them them, and show us how they face each struggle the writer throws their way.
The second law can also be applied to content creation. Any post, any advice isn’t intriguing for what it can give to the reader.
It’s intriguing because every advice out there has limitations.
Does your advice work in specific conditions or in a given time? Does it work for a specific audience or situation?
As a reader, take each advice with a grain of salt, and test the waters. See if it works for you, and if it does, when and how.
As a writer, if you want to find more creative ideas to write on, try out the most famous advice out there, and write on your personal experience. Not just about what worked, but about what didn’t work – and why – as well.
In short: Let the limitations pull the readers in.
Third Law
Before adding something new to your magic (and setting), see if instead you can expand what you have.
This law is rooted in the saying “Less is more”. The more you create in your setting — whether it’s places, cultures, languages, costumes or anything else — the less deep they will be.
It’s a classic law of quantity versus quality. And just as easily we can implement it to content creation. What’s the point of writing ten posts a week if none of them convies anything significant to the reader?
If you want your writing to resonant with your audience, focus on quality instead of quantity. It will be more impactful to deepen one idea than shallowly presenting ten.
The Zeroth Law
With three simple rules Sanderson gives us not just foundations for writing a great setting, but for writing in general.
Foreshadowing, limitations, and quality versus quantity are crucial concepts for writing mesmerizing content.
But rules are meant to be broken. As Sanderson concludes in his zeroth law:
Always err on the side of what’s awesome.
If you have an incredible idea in mind, bend the rules. Better yet — forget them. Don’t let rules stand in your way to present a revolutionary, fantastic idea.
Follow wherever it leads you, and the rules will follow suit.
The previous post in the series focuses on plot. You can find it here.
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Thank you for reading!
I’ll see you on the next piece in the series.
