Whatever theme you consciously put into a story will be consciously received by the readers—and, unless they already agree with you, will be immediately rejected, probably along with the whole story.
Therefore, when you write to a theme, you guarantee that in most cases you will be preaching to the choir, unable to change anybody’s mind because your theme is standing in front of the story and blocking the view.
However, in the thousands of unconscious decisions every storyteller makes during the process of invention and writing, you will tap into the deepest places in your unconscious. You will include certain events or ideas because they simply feel right or inevitable to you; usually you aren’t even aware that you’re making a decision.
These unconscious choices access your beliefs at the deepest level: The things you believe without knowing you believe them, because it doesn’t occur to you that the universe might be otherwise.
Only upon rereading your own work—usually years later, or with someone else’s insights to guide you—do you discover these beliefs. Thus your fiction will reveal to you, not what you think you believe, but what you really believe.
And because these elements were placed in the story unconsciously, most readers will not notice them either. Instead, they will live inside your moral universe and absorb your deepest thoughts without awareness.
If your readers are uncomfortable with living in your fictional world, they will lose interest in the story, finding some superficial reason to abandon it. But, especially with science fiction, where the readers seek out new experiences, readers will rarely repudiate strangeness. Instead, they’ll remain in your moral universe for the duration of the story, and will thereby give it a chance to influence their own deepest worldview.
You’re not “converting” them, but rather you’re giving them the transcendent reward of story hearing—the chance to live other lives, acquire alien memories, and live inside the mind and heart of a stranger. Whether they are aware of how your story has changed them, their world is transformed.
Naturally, your story is also edited and revised by their own inward story, so that they may often “receive” things that don’t actually come from your story. But communication does happen, and even if your story is a catalyst rather than a director of their inner transformation, it is that interchange that makes stories the DNA of culture.
We pass our culture person to person through the great network of story exchange. But it is most effective where there is the least deliberate control of the “theme” by the author.
Having a theme is like heckling your own story, keeping readers from receiving your best, most personal gifts.
So as you plan your fiction, if you really want to communicate something important with your readers, you will repel any temptation to preach, to organize your story around a central idea, to make sure your story gets this or that particular idea across to the reader.
Often such messages are really a matter of tagging up with whatever culture group or elite you want to impress: See how I did that? See how I’m getting “our” message across?
If that’s what you really want to do, then write an essay and openly attempt to persuade the readers.
Don’t pollute your stories with such toxic distractions. Keep your stories as pure as possible, and trust your unconscious mind to deliver the truths that are most important to you. What enters your stories unconsciously will have far more power and influence than anything you can possibly do on purpose.
The Lesson
written by
Brandon Sanderson
illustrated by Bea Jackson
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Number-one New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. By junior high he had lost interest in the novels suggested to him, and he never cracked a book if he could help it. Then an eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Reeder, gave him Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.
Brandon was finishing his thirteenth novel when Moshe Feder at Tor Books bought the sixth he had written. In 2005 Brandon held his first published novel, Elantris, in his hands. Tor also published six books in Brandon’s Mistborn series, along with Warbreaker and then The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and Oathbringer, the first three in the planned ten-volume series The Stormlight Archive. Five books in his middle-grade Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series were released by Starscape. Brandon was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series; the final book, A Memory of Light, was released in 2013. That year also marked the releases of YA novels The Rithmatist from Tor and Steelheart from Delacorte—the first book of the Reckoners trilogy, which concluded in 2016 with Calamity.
Currently living in Utah with his wife and children, Brandon teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. He also hosts the Hugo Award-winning writing advice podcast Writing Excuses with Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells.
Brandon’s work has garnered wide critical acclaim and won numerous awards, including the Hugo. The story you are about read was excerpted from his bestselling novel The Way of Kings.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Brittany Jackson, also known as Bea, is an award-winning freelance illustrator born and raised in the “Motor City” of Detroit, Michigan. Taken by a passion for the arts at a young age, Bea embraced her gift of drawing and learned how to bring her vivid imagination to life in a variety of artistic styles she’s studied throughout the years prior to majoring in illustration at the College for Creative Studies. Bea loves the challenges that arts bring, the thrill that comes with learning something new and the satisfaction of using her gifts to help others visualize their dreams. With a strong sense for concepts and design, Bea has become well recognized for her ability to paint a picture from words, communicating ideas—hers and others—through beautiful narrative illustration.
She is a former grand-prize winner of the Illustrators of the Future Contest. Her artwork was published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 24.
The Lesson
It was not uncommon for us to meet native peoples while traveling through the Unclaimed Hills, Shallan read. These ancient lands were once one of the Silver Kingdoms, after all. One must wonder if the great-shelled beasts lived among them back then, or if the creatures have come to inhabit the wilderness left by humankind’s passing.
She settled back in her chair, the humid air warm around her. To her left, Jasnah Kholin floated quietly in the pool inset in the floor of the bathing chamber. Jasnah liked to soak in the bath, and Shallan couldn’t blame her. During most of Shallan’s life, bathing had been an ordeal involving dozens of parshmen carting heated buckets of water, followed by a quick scrub in the brass tub before the water cooled.
Kharbranth’s palace offered far more luxury. The stone pool in the ground resembled a small personal lake, luxuriously warmed by clever fabrials that produced heat. Shallan didn’t know much about fabrials yet, though part of her was very intrigued. This type was becoming increasingly common. Just the other day, the Conclave staff had sent Jasnah one to heat her chambers.
The water didn’t have to be carried in but came out of pipes. At the turn of a lever, water flowed in. It was warm when it entered, and was kept heated by the fabrials set into the sides of the pool. Shallan had bathed in the chamber herself, and it was absolutely marvelous.
The practical decor was of rock decorated with small colorful stones set in mortar up the sides of the walls. Shallan sat beside the pool, fully dressed, reading as she waited on Jasnah’s needs. The book was Gavilar’s account—as spoken to Jasnah herself years ago—after his first meeting with the strange parshmen later known as the Parshendi.
Occasionally, during our explorations, we’d meet with natives, she read. Not parshmen. Natan people, with their pale bluish skin, wide noses, and wool-like white hair. In exchange for gifts of food, they
would point us to the hunting grounds of greatshells.
Then we met the parshmen. I’d been on a half-dozen expeditions to Natanatan, but never had I seen anything like this! Parshmen, living on their own? All logic, experience, and science declared that to be an impossibility. Parshmen need the hand of civilized peoples to guide them. This has been proven time and time again. Leave one out in the wilderness, and it will just sit there, doing nothing, until someone comes along to give it orders.
Yet here was a group who could hunt, make weapons, build buildings, and—indeed—create their own civilization. We soon realized that this single discovery could expand, perhaps overthrow, all we understood about our gentle servants.
Shallan moved her eyes down to the bottom of the page where—separated by a line—the undertext was written in a small, cramped script. Most books dictated by men had an undertext, notes added by the woman or ardent who scribed the book. By unspoken agreement, the undertext was never shared out loud. Here, a wife would sometimes clarify—or even contradict—the account of her husband. The only way to preserve such honesty for future scholars was to maintain the sanctity and secrecy of the writing.
It should be noted, Jasnah had written in the undertext to this passage, that I have adapted my father’s words—by his own instruction—to make them more appropriate for recording. That meant she made his dictation sound more scholarly and impressive. In addition, by most accounts, King Gavilar originally ignored these strange, self-sufficient parshmen. It was only after explanation by his scholars and scribes that he understood the import of what he’d discovered. This inclusion is not meant to highlight my father’s ignorance; he was, and is, a warrior. His attention was not on the anthropological import of our expedition, but upon the hunt that was to be its culmination.
Shallan closed the cover, thoughtful. The volume was from Jasnah’s own collection—the Palanaeum had several copies, but Shallan wasn’t allowed to bring the Palanaeum’s books into a bathing chamber.
Jasnah’s clothing lay on a bench at the side of the room. Atop the folded garments, a small golden pouch held the Soulcaster. Shallan glanced at Jasnah. The princess floated faceup in the pool, black hair fanning out behind her in the water, her eyes closed. Her daily bath was the one time she seemed to relax completely. She looked much younger now, stripped of both clothing and intensity, floating like a child resting after a day of active swimming.
Thirty-four years old. That seemed ancient in some regards—some women Jasnah’s age had children as old as Shallan. And yet it was also young. Young enough that Jasnah was praised for her beauty, young enough that men declared it a shame she wasn’t yet married.
Shallan glanced at the pile of clothing. She carried the broken fabrial in her safepouch. She could swap them here and now. It was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Jasnah now trusted her enough to relax, soaking in the bathing chamber without worrying about her fabrial.
Could Shallan really do it? Could she betray this woman who had taken her in?
Considering what I’ve done before, she thought, this is nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time she betrayed someone who trusted her.
She stood up. To the side, Jasnah cracked an eye.
Blast, Shallan thought, tucking the book under her arm, pacing, trying to look thoughtful. Jasnah watched her. Not suspiciously. Curiously.
“Why did your father want to make a treaty with the Parshendi?” Shallan found herself asking as she walked.
“Why wouldn’t he want to?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Of course it is. It’s just not one that tells you anything.”
“It would help, Brightness, if you would give me a useful answer.”
“Then ask a useful question.”
Shallan set her jaw. “What did the Parshendi have that King Gavilar wanted?”
Jasnah smiled, closing her eyes again. “Closer. But you can probably guess the answer to that.”
“Shards.”
Jasnah nodded, still relaxed in the water.
“The text doesn’t mention them,” Shallan said.
“My father didn’t speak of them,” Jasnah said. “But from things he said … well, I now suspect that they motivated the treaty.”
“Can you be sure he knew, though? Maybe he just wanted the gemhearts.”
“Perhaps,” Jasnah said. “The Parshendi seemed amused at our interest in the gemstones woven into their beards.” She smiled. “You should have seen our shock when we discovered where they’d gotten them. When the lanceryn died off during the scouring of Aimia, we thought we’d seen the last gemhearts of large size. And yet here was another great-shelled beast with them, living in a land not too distant from Kholinar itself.
“Anyway, the Parshendi were willing to share them with us, so long as they could still hunt them too. To them, if you took the trouble to hunt the chasmfiends, their gemhearts were yours. I doubt a treaty would have been needed for that. And yet, just before leaving to return to Alethkar, my father suddenly began talking fervently of the need for an agreement.”
“So what happened? What changed?”
“I can’t be certain. However, he once described the strange actions of a Parshendi warrior during a chasmfiend hunt. Instead of reaching for his spear when the greatshell appeared, this man held his hand to the side in a very suspicious way. Only my father saw it; I suspected he believed the man planned to summon a Blade. The Parshendi realized what he was doing, and stopped himself. My father didn’t speak of it further, and I assume he didn’t want the world’s eyes on the Shattered Plains any more than they already were.”
Shallan tapped her book. “It seems tenuous. If he was sure about the Blades, he must have seen more.”
“I suspect so as well. But I studied the treaty carefully, after his death. The clauses for favored trade status and mutual border crossing could very well have been a step toward folding the Parshendi into Alethkar as a nation. It certainly would have prevented the Parshendi from trading their Shards to other kingdoms without coming to us first. Perhaps that was all he wanted to do.”
“But why kill him?” Shallan said, arms crossed, strolling in the direction of Jasnah’s folded clothing. “Did the Parshendi realize that he intended to have their Shardblades, and so struck at him pre-emptively?”
“Uncertain,” Jasnah said. She sounded skeptical. Why did she think the Parshendi killed Gavilar? Shallan nearly asked, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t get any more out of Jasnah. The woman expected Shallan to think, discover, and draw conclusions on her own.
Shallan stopped beside the bench. The pouch holding the Soulcaster was open, the drawstrings loose. She could see the precious artifact curled up inside. The swap would be easy. She had used a large chunk of her money to buy gemstones that matched Jasnah’s, and had put them into the broken Soulcaster. The two were now exactly identical.
She still hadn’t learned anything about using the fabrial; she’d tried to find a way to ask, but Jasnah avoided speaking of the Soulcaster. Pushing harder would be suspicious. Shallan would have to get information elsewhere. Perhaps from Kabsal, or maybe from a book in the Palanaeum.
Regardless, the time was upon her. Shallan found her hand going to her safepouch, and she felt inside of it, running her fingers along the chains of her broken fabrial. Her heart beat faster. She glanced at Jasnah, but the woman was just lying there, floating, eyes closed. What if she opened her eyes?
Don’t think of that! Shallan told herself. Just do it. Make the swap. It’s so close ….
“You are progressing more quickly than I had assumed you would,” Jasnah said suddenly.
Shallan spun, but Jasnah’s eyes were still closed. “I was wrong to judge you so harshly because of your prior education. I myself have often said that passion outperforms upbringing. You have the determination and the capacity to become a respected
scholar, Shallan. I realize that the answers seem slow in coming, but continue your research. You will have them eventually.”
Shallan stood for a moment, hand in her pouch, heart thumping uncontrollably. She felt sick. I can’t do it, she realized. Stormfather, but I’m a fool. I came all of this way … and now I can’t do it!
She pulled her hand from her pouch and stalked back across the bathing chamber to her chair. What was she going to tell her brothers? Had she just doomed her family? She sat down, setting her book aside and sighing, prompting Jasnah to open her eyes. Jasnah watched her, then righted herself in the water and gestured for the hairsoap.
Gritting her teeth, Shallan stood up and fetched the soap tray for Jasnah, bringing it over and squatting down to proffer it. Jasnah took the powdery hairsoap and mashed it in her hand, lathering it before putting it into her sleek black hair with both hands. Even naked, Jasnah Kholin was composed and in control.
“Perhaps we have spent too much time indoors of late,” the princess said. “You look penned up, Shallan. Anxious.”
“I’m fine,” Shallan said brusquely.
“Hum, yes. As evidenced by your perfectly reasonable, relaxed tone. Perhaps we need to shift some of your training from history to something more hands-on, more visceral.”
“Like natural science?” Shallan asked, perking up.
Jasnah tilted her head back. Shallan knelt down on a towel beside the pool, then reached down with her freehand, massaging the soap into her mistress’s lush tresses.
“I was thinking philosophy,” Jasnah said.
Shallan blinked. “Philosophy? What good is that?” Isn’t it the art of saying nothing with as many words as possible?
“Philosophy is an important field of study,” Jasnah said sternly. “Particularly if you’re going to be involved in court politics. The nature of morality must be considered, and preferably before one is exposed to situations where a moral decision is required.”