Brandon's Philosophy on Plot—Promises, Progress, and Payoffs

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[macseigel]

“I think most authors care way too much about opening lines.”

Easy for you to say Mr. “Szeth Son-Son-Vallano wore white on the day he was to kill a king.”

Mr. “Ash fell from the sky.”

[milospollonia]

I love how Brandon's short stuff is 40 minutes long

[TheGunrebel]

These videos literally cured my writer's block.

[nerdyBullfinch]

It's mind-blowing for me. On the other side of the world, in Ukraine, with only mobile internet, I'm watching free lection from famous writer and learning how to write my first novel. I still can't believe that this is possible.
Thank you, Mr. Sanderson, for putting your lections online and free.

[luanals]

I'm honestly so grateful that he puts these amazing quality writing videos up for FREE

[mrmcawesome]

All authors adore alliteration, and Brandon Sanderson ain't an anomaly after all.

[appledough]

5:22
(Opener)
Openers must have an indication of what kind of story it is. The opening should have some sort of conflict, motion and promise of change and the future.
9:54
(Promises)
You give the audience a promise of what’s gonna happen in the story. This gives them an idea of the type of story it’ll be and what they can look forward to. If you give a promise and the progress of the story is in the direction of a different promise, the audience will view it as a side quest and can be very turned off by it.
14:06
(Progress)
Give a sense of progress. It’s an illusion. You control the speed of the progress. Your job is to make the progress compelling. Conflict makes it compelling. Make the character get closer and closer to their goal (promise from the beginning) but they struggle to achieve it.
15:46
(Bracket)
Your story will be made up of multiple brackets. Each bracket represents a promise, progress towards that promise, and payoff of that promise. You story will have many plot points (brackets) that will weave together to make the story. All must be relevant and feed into the main plot.
25:54
(Payoffs)
Plotting Backwards. Make sure payoffs are earned. During the last chunk of the story where all the climaxes and payoffs are done, make the payoff as epic and cool as you want AS LONG AS they are earned throughout the story. This is done by plotting backwards. You think of cool and epic climaxes and events in your story and list things that need to happen for the payoff to make sense.
35:21
More Progress
Good progress keeps you turning the page.

[notgate]

As an engineer, learning how to architect stories and language using formulas and theory is weirdly empowering.

Authors all create their own personal formulas for repeated success while not being obvious enough to the reader to be boring, and seeing this larger hierarchy to story creation makes me want to try it myself.


Thanks for posting these!

[doublethick]

"dont write a story where only a second passages in 50 pages"

five episodes of HxH characters climbing stairs over the course of ten seconds intensifies

[jchinckley]

"it's spelled right now, you can't tell me it's not--it's in my own language..."

lol

[Crimson]

I wish D & D saw this video when they were writing season 7 and 8 of Game of Thrones

[justfriendly]

Its strangely reassuring to hear what Brandon does and realize your doing some of the same things already.

[or]

I've already watched a very similar lecture of his...but that won't stop me.

[kierharris]

All I could think about this whole time was tapping Brandon's shirt for one mana.

[cantbetamed]

I disposed of my unfinished 4th draft, went on a breakdown and an existential crisis but returned researching writing systems, linguistic quirks, sewage and irrigation, architecture, weapons, and how to make a freaking calendar while reading books on the side. My friends think I'm losing it... Maybe I am.

So I'm here, ready to start anew.

[samwallaceart]

Fun fact: a barrel-maker is called a *cooper.* Cooper is a classic English profession-surname like Smith or Carpenter.

[abcdef]

"Today we will talk about Plot".

(Unholy Stephen King noises in the background)

[jabzilla]

I wish the writers for The Book of Boba Fett had taken less than 40 minutes of their lives to watch this video...Thanks for being awesome Brandon Sanderson!

[jakeausten]

Most famous prologue in fantasy:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.


There is of course, Concerning Hobbits, Pipeweed, and of the finding of the ring. But I’d say that little poem at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring is the most famous in the history of all fantasy, maybe even of all books.

[Mikeztarp]

30:17 Brandon: "He's a barrelwright."
Me, loving Tolkien's writing too much: "He's a barrow wight!?" * gasp *