Brandon Sanderson Explains Why He Would not Write About Elves or Dwarves

With Brandon Sanderson now attracting much more consideration past his loyal fan base than ever earlier than—a headline-grabbing deal to adapt his works into films and series for Apple TV may have that impact—the writer is now addressing a query he’s been requested typically all through his publishing profession, which kicked off within the early 2000s. It’s this: why aren’t there elves and dwarves in his fantasy epics?

Sanderson took to his YouTube channel for his newest in his “SanderFAQ” video series (hat tip: Polygon) to clarify. Principally, when he began writing throughout his school and graduate faculty days, the fantasy style was “deep in Tolkien’s shadow,” most likely much more than regular due to Peter Jackson’s massively profitable Lord of the Rings movies.

And because of this, Sanderson observed many different works that took inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s worldbuilding. In actual fact, as he remembers within the video, he was impressed on the time to put in writing a controversial essay “about how Tolkien ruined fantasy,” a bit he now calls “very clickbaity within the days earlier than we understood ‘clickbait.’” (Later within the video, he admits he now realizes he was additionally being “a bit snobbish” attempting to inform folks what they need to and shouldn’t get pleasure from.)

Sanderson says he’s readjusted that view and is even in the midst of a Tolkien revisit by way of the Andy Serkis-narrated audiobooks. “However within the late ’90s, I’m like, ‘Can’t we get away from this?’” he stated. “Fantasy ought to be probably the most imaginative style. It’s the style the place you are able to do something … and so I assumed, effectively, I need to have an indicator of my writing be that it’s extra human-focused than fantastical-creature-focused.”

And even past that, “If I’m going to be doing fantastical creatures, I need to try to provide you with my very own. I need to have some new fantasy races that don’t simply really feel like elves with one other title or dwarves with one other title.”

He did embody dragons, he famous, as a result of “developing with one thing that has the load and awesomeness of a dragon that isn’t a dragon could be very troublesome … in order that’s the one I made a decision to bend on ultimately.”

On the finish of the clip, he concludes by saying, “I now not really feel like we have to ‘kill the elves’ [referencing the name of his essay] or something like that. I really feel like, write your e book, learn your e book, learn what you’re keen on, write what you’re keen on. And there may be room to do new issues even nonetheless all these years later with a few of these concepts that Tolkien approached again within the ’50s and ’60s.”

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