Brandon Sanderson. I love this man. Never met him. The guy doesn’t know me, and to keep mortal embarrassment to a minimum, we’ll keep it that way. But, I can earnestly say Brandon Sanderson’s a wonderful human being. The 318R lessons that he and Camera Panda put on youtube FOR FREE (find the link here), have been of immeasurable worth in my journey to finish my first book.
After 2 full years of writing over one million words, without a single finished novel to show for it, I finally gave in and went online. The first helping hand I found was his 318R course. By that point, I was desperate. I just didn’t understand why I could never get to the ending of any of my stories. They were so beautiful in my own mind. They kept me inside my own skull for untold hours. I created whole words in there but couldn’t for the life of me find a way to get them on paper in a readable fashion.
So, feeling pretty low one day, I decided to finally do the thing I had always thought I was too good for in the past, which is to sit down at my desk where I work, get an old-fashioned notebook, find his class on Youtube, and start taking notes.
And all I can say now is that…
Brandon Sanderson is a mind plumber. His style of lecturing is like the plunger that unclogs the toilet that is my brain. His writing tools are the solvents and detergents that cleaned out my pipes (and yes, I’m aware of how bad that sounds). If you’re a write first think later writer (like I am), then I cannot recommend enough that you take his classes. They are practical, well-structured (as well as a fantasy writer’s classes can be), and of immeasurable value for the beginning writer. Do not take this class for granted because I can tell you, you’d normally have to pay hundreds of bucks for anything close to the info that’s being dished out for free in that classroom.
If you like reading is your preferred medium over listening, then get out your notebook out and let’s do this, cause I’m diving right into my own notes on what this class taught me and I’m starting with the first thing I needed to know.
Here’s to hoping my notes on Branderson’s 318R class will be of as much use to you as they have been to me.