Motivation for this post comes from recently burning through Brandon Sanderson’s “Mistborn” trilogy. It’s fascinating trying to understand at which point in a page, sentence or story that I became motivated to keep reading. Motivation leads to excitement, which (sometimes) leads to an entire evening spent reading.
The most obvious motivation I noticed is when there is a resolution to a conflict playing out in the short form. For instance, a battle or gunfight in which a characters livelihood is directly threatened. The reader is motivated to discover the fate of the character.
For me though, a more nuanced strategy that Sanderson employs is to give context in a way that assumes the reader has knowledge of a topic, even though Sanderson knows the reader has no knowledge of the topic. For example, this snippet from “The Alloy of Law”, It was the grandest city in all the world, a metropolis designed by Harmony himself. The reader has not yet been made aware of the entity known as Harmony.
For me this type of worldbuilding is wonderful. Not only does it lend a sense of mystery and grandeur to the world, but it lets the reader use their imagination as to what this entity might be. When the story continues, the reader is motivated to look for any clues that might give more information on this subject matter, and Sanderson is excellent at feeding information at a pace that keeps the reader interested.
This type of storytelling is useful in the context of a single book, but also on a more grand scale spanning thousands of years and an entire series. In Mistborn, a wonderful concept in the last book are snippets at the beginning of each chapter from an unknown author. At the end of the book you realize that these pieces are from a man who ascended to godhood.
In one of these snippets the (now god) author writes about attempting to research what preceded the gods that came before him, who also ascended from men/women. This beautifully written piece buried in the middle of the novel only reveals one word, of an ancient entity he hints might be a precursor to all creation. At the time of writing, it’s easy to gloss over this little detail. At the end of the book though, you realize the implication of the statement. How mystical the previous text becomes, when you realize that even a god could glean so little of what came before.
The suspense, action, fighting and magic systems are all cool and well done. However I think the most exciting prospect of reading more of Sanderson’s books is the hope of uncovering more about the origins of this universe he has created.