Brandon Sanderson wrote 4 different endings for Wind and Truth, confirms main characters for Stormlight books 6-10

This week marks the release of Wind and Truth, the long-awaited fifth book in Brandon Sanderson's epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive. Any Sanderson book is worth noting, but even by his own lofty standards, this one is special. The Stormlight Archive is a massive epic fantasy series which forms the heart of Sanderson's interconnected fictional universe, the Cosmere; it's planned to be 10 books long, and Wind and Truth marks a major turning point as the end of the first arc of the series. After this, Sanderson will take a six-year hiatus from working on The Stormlight Archive, meaning that we can expect some pretty major resolutions in Wind and Truth.

We know the exact amount of years Sanderson is taking off because of a recent interview he did with Esquire, where he talked about his plans for the future of the Cosmere, among other things. Sanderson shared in that interview that he was a little "worried" about how fans would receive his ambitious fifth Stormlight Archive novel, since it is will seemingly bring in elements from the wider Cosmere in more substantial ways. He also revealed that he actually wrote multiple endings for Wind and Truth because he wanted to make sure that he stuck the landing.

“I actually tried three different endings with three different alpha and beta reader groups, just to see what their responses would be,” Sanderson said. “I ended up with an ending that’s none of the three. It turns out what I needed was an amalgamation with different parts of each, and I hadn’t been able to figure that out until I was reading the feedback.”

According to Esquire's Adam Morgan, who has read Wind and Truth, Sanderson takes "the biggest swings of his career so far" during the final 200 pages of the book. So it sounds pretty understandable that he'd want to spend extra time and attention fine-tuning those closing pages.

Brandon Sanderson talks about what's next for the Cosmere

Sanderson has been pretty open about his plans to take a hiatus from The Stormlight Archive following Wind and Truth; he first revealed it in December of 2023 in his yearly "State of the Sanderson" blog post where he outlines all his current and upcoming projects. The Esquire interview confirms that there will be a 10-year gap in The Stormlight Archive storyline after Wind and Truth, to coincide with the six years Sanderson will take off from the series in the real world.

That won't be idle time, though. Instead, Sanderson will be hammering out at least five other books: a new Mistborn trilogy and two sequels to Elantris, his debut fantasy novel which launched the Cosmere all the way back in 2005. “For narrative and continuity reasons, I need to write those novels first, but you don’t need to read them to enjoy or understandThe Stormlight Archive,” he explained. “All the series are intended to be self-contained, even with all the crossover elements.”

Mistborn is to be expected; that's Sanderson's biggest series outside of The Stormlight Archive, and he's already set a precedent for leaping through different eras of it. The original Mistborn trilogy is an epic fantasy; the second era of Mistborn books, which follow detectives Wax and Wayne, is set centuries later in that world's equivalent to a Steampunk Wild West. Sanderson has said from the start that he would eventually do a Mistborn series that's set in the early computer age with 1980s-style technology, followed by a far-future space opera. So we've got at least two more Mistborn eras down the pike.

The other big piece of information we have about Mistborn Era 3, which was revealed in last year's "State of the Sanderson," is the series title: Ghostbloods. That should ring some serious bells for anyone who's current on The Stormlight Archive. Last year Sanderson said he expects to start work on Ghostbloods in January of 2025; we'll keep an eye out to see what he says in this year's post.

I also find the news about the Elantris sequels are on the way pretty exciting. Fans have been waiting a long time for a sequel to Sanderson's debut novel, so to have not one, but two of them coming out in the next few years is going to be thrilling.

Brandon Sanderson confirms which POV characters will lead Stormlight books 6-10

Another exciting thing we got confirmed in the Esquire profile is which characters will form the heart of the final five Stormlight Archive novels. Each Stormlight Archive book features one character who has flashbacks, revealing their hidden secrets and how they relate to that book's larger narrative. The Way of Kings featured Kaladin's, Words of Radiance featured Shallan's, and so on. “It’s the Lost format,” Sanderson said, before teasing why he'd chosen the mysterious assassin Szeth to get that treatment in Wind and Truth. “It felt natural not to delve into his story until I got to the end [of The Stormlight Archive’s first half]. It matched what I was planning to do in this book for reasons I won’t say.”

Sanderson has been saying for a while now that he planned to feature characters like Renarin, Lift, and Jasnah as the main flashback POVs for books six through 10. But things change over time, so it's still nice to get a new confirmation: the final five books of The Stormlight Archive will feature flashbacks from Lift, Renarin, Shalash, Talenel, and Jasnah, in that order. They will also include the other main characters from the first arc who survived, but I wouldn't expect more flashbacks from them.

The most intriguing parts about this to me are Shalash and Talenel. Those are two of the Heralds, demigod figures who play an extremely important role in the mythology of Roshar, the world of The Stormlight Archive. I can't even imagine what flashbacks Sanderson will choose for them. It will also be curious to see what flashbacks Sanderson chooses for Lift, Renarin, and Jasnah. At this point we know a lot of the secrets related to those characters...but with a 10-year time jump on the horizon, it's possible the flashbacks could fill in some of what happened during those missing days as well.

Of course, this is all subject to change. Originally, Sanderson had planned to include Szeth's flashbacks in book three before moving them to book four and then to book five. While Sanderson has had an overall plan for the series from the start, these things are all subject to adjustment once he actually gets to the current book he's working on and reassesses its needs. So we shall see!

But either way, soon we'll be able to read Wind and Truth and find out how this first arc of The Stormlight Archive wraps up. It releases this Friday, December 6. We'll be covering Wind and Truth extensively here at Winter Is Coming, so make sure to check back for more Cosmere-related articles in the coming days.

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