Eh. That’s kinda just the set dressing, and it’s offscreen until the very end. It’s not what emperors soul is ABOUT. But he could absolutely write another book starting with the end of Emperor’s Soul that’s follows the new emperor as he tries to navigate the court
Right? I was cracking up at that part, like “But Brandon… you’ve already done that story!” Just, y’know, with a more serious, dramatic, heist-ish vibe, rather than the more comedic approach of their “bad story idea” version.
4:30 I want a story where the dark lord kills the first messenger who reports a city falling, so the messengers learn, and the dark lord never hears about the next city to fall and makes a tactical blunder by assuming no news is good news
I LOVED this episode. I am inspired every time I see Brandon encourage his students and fans to pursue writing as a hobby. For me, answering that call has been a rewarding experience, but there absolutely are challenges. It's validating to hear Brandon and Dan acknowledge that it can be hard to "write on the side". I've had to accept that there are limitations on the time and energy that I can spend writing. There are seasons in my life where even having writing on my to-do list just adds stress to my life. There are other seasons where I can make progress, but a little at a time. My books are written slowly -- writing has taught me about being patient with those goals that you can't achieve overnight. I really like Brandon's talk about opportunity costs, where he says that every story he writes kills other stories he could have told instead. As an amateur writer, I feel that in the extreme. I have ambitious ideas that far outstrip my capacity to execute on them, at least right now. Choosing one idea for a novel will tie down my writing time for years. Writing my equivalent of a Stormlight Archive would tie me down for life. Then there's the opportunity cost of writing itself. On New Years Eve 2022, I finished a draft of a novel I had been working on since Summer 2020. It was an incredible feeling (though it's just a draft -- still not ready to show it off), but I also had the nagging feeling that I could have spent all that time working on something more important. Progress has also been slow on some of my other life goals. Should I have put more attention into those? So while I love the idea that you don't need a writing career to write, I think it's important to recognize the ways writing careers enable writing. I have read really great fantasy from obscure authors and I've read some bestsellers, and in my judgement, the stuff by the pros tends to be better. As amateur writers we want to write things just like the authors we enjoy reading, but odds are your favorite author has more dedicated writing time than you do and so will write more and better books. Another advantage the pros have over the amateurs: Brandon himself has acknowledged that his fans' enthusiasm for his work helps him write better books than he would have if no one were paying attention. Obscure authors don't have that. They have a hard time getting anyway to read their books, much less buy them. At the same time, I want to acknowledge the incredible sacrifices for writing made by those who have gone pro and those who are trying to go pro. Maybe one day I'll be in a place where I can join those who are trying but I'm not ready yet. In the meantime, I'm trying to be patient with my limitations while still making progress when I can. Journey before destination.
I would love to see "Weekend @ Vader's" be made. Brandon and Dan should make their own Mystery Science Theatre 3000 type show. Millions of views would happen.
What if the Dark Lord injured the messenger...but did't succeed in killing him/her. Rather the messenger survives to exact their revenge by controlling the flow of information (as a messenger would) to undermine the Dark Lord's organization. Misinformation, character assassination, misdirection etc. and we get to see the messenger meticulously dismantle every facet of the Dark Lord's life. I'd title the book - "Messenger's Requiem"
This is more or less how Josef Stalin rose to power. He was a clerk under Lenin, and used his control over the flow of knowledge to manipulate events in his favor until he ended up in a position to seize control of the whole system.
And in Nona the Ninth, when John reminisces his beginnings as a necromancer, that is *exactly* what he did -- resurrected a president and controlled him as a flesh puppet :)
There was an episode of Batman the Animated series where a random mook "kills" Batman... which leads to every badguy in town trying to take him on to increase their own rep. Including eventually Joker who throws a funeral for Bats. Fantastic episode.
A happy medium for the steel inquisitors weekend at Bernie's-ing the Lord ruler is to write it up as a broadsheet segment. You already have the narrative device to justify stuff like that built into that world. Write it down now, so that when you get to era 3 you can use it or not at your discretion then. If you don't use it for that, it could be used for worldbuilding for a mistborn ttrpg or game. Set a pin in the idea for future development, don't toss it out with the bathwater lol
The messenger killing the dark lord? Thats "The Death of Stalin" which is a great comedy film. The power vacume following his death leads to everyone trying to stop the guy in charge of the meat grinder taking over without him noticing and putting them in the meat grinder.
about your point at the beginning, i actually disagree. “Chernobyl” is the perfect example of a story where messengers are constantly punished for being competent and bringing bad news to the dark lord, and its based on real life. Evil people in reality are irrational, they only PRETEND to be cold, logical, and rational as a branding exercise.
Dan, you need an idea book for dragonsteel that's accessible to others in the company. Similar to what Brandon said about his idea book. So you don't have to sacrifice good ideas and can focus on completing what's on hand
I was thinking the messenger would have to run and it would turn into a John Wick style behind enemy lines story as he tries to escape the city after accidentally killing their king.
5:50 there's a manga out there (I can't remember the name for the life of me) where mc is a perverted radish farmer obsessed with traps, who kills the hero in one of the traps so he now has to masquerade in the hero's dead body to prevent a panic
I hate to add any work to the staff at Sanderson Co. But, if I could get anything for my 35th birthday, it would be the little video time stamp things that allow you to see what is talked about by section so I can jump to parts and come back easily 😘
Instead of "I killed the Dark Lord, now I become the Dark Lord," I've had a kind of similar but kind of opposite idea running around in my head for a while now. I probably ought to do something with it at some point. Instead of a "messenger" or other minion of the Dark Lord, this is a lowly no-name soldier on the Good Guys' side: "I killed the Dark Lord. Yes, it's technically true. Everyone thinks I'm a hero now, the people want to make me their champion. They don't know that the whole thing was an accident and I have no idea what I'm doing."
The first trilogy is Weekend at Vader’s. At the end they fumble the controls and kill the Emperor. Second trilogy becomes Weekend at Palpatine’s. “Somehow, the Emperor has returned”
I wrote Magitism: The Force of Magic while working a full-time lead dev job. What I did was promise myself that I would write at least one word every Sunday morning, that usually was 1000-3000 words, and I finished the book in under a year.
The Darths & Droids webcomic KINDA does the whole "Vader was dead all along" trope, although I don't wanna spoil how it happens. It's a great webcomic. I love recontextualizing existing stories as TTRPG campaigns, and some of my favorite webcomics are, essentially, that
So a lot of security work is sitting around. Most places will let you have a tablet or a phone or a notebook. Most Security work pays $15+ depending on position and company. Might help with having a "day job" and writing.
I was a copywriter and copy editor for 5 years, and I can definitly crank out 5k in a day if I need to. It may not be great, but there will be words on the page. I had the exact issue that Dan talked about, your brain is so tired when you've been creatively writing all day, and it just needs to relax at the end of the day and do something else. I'm back working as a software tester and writing is so much easier now.
Dave (1993) was a nice movie where the president of the US died of a heart attack while having an affair with the secretary. Not wanting to deal with that political blowback nor give up power, they end up finding a comedian who impersonates the president as their bit, to come and actually be the president. It has its funny moments, but ends up being more of a commentary about how a regular person would probably be a better leader than the ones we actually have.
(I got recently introduced to Star Kids Star Wars Parody where Vader thinks he's hilarious but isn't, and is only in charge because of Palpatines genuine nepotism) There's a Cheers episode where Norm becomes a corporate reaper, and he's so sorry to be doing it that his victims feel cared for ... until he emotionally dries out and then he cant contact anyone in the company without them thinking "oh god im fired"
As soon as Brandon said he was going to a nice hotel in Salt Lake I was like 'oh hes gonna end up in the Grand America." Ive been to enough weddings there to know how swanky that place is.
Loving the podcast highlight of the week especially when you talk about writing and your experience and process. Wondering if you could touch on how you deal with procrastination? Any helpful methods you apply to avoid procrastinating? Stay safe!
there was a spy film where the villan would shoot the phone every time his minions called him with bad news. It shows he is daranged but not to stupid.
The zombie Vader thing is kind of true though. That was a specific thing that Lucas was trying to demonstrate. That Young Anakin was fast powerful but after his "death" he was slow and pondering.
I feel like "A Weekend at Vader's" meets Steel Inquisitor premise could totally work as an in-universe Mistborn play. You already have "A Hero for All Ages". Why not have some artsy characters create a quirky theater retelling of Mistborn era 1?
Weekend at bernies with a dark lord does appear in The Locked Tomb quadrilogy, a setting flush with necromancers. But uh, the whys and wheretofores of that are a spoiler so I will leave it at that.
If you treat the premise as essentially comic, the situations in the locked tomb also definitely DO NOT qualify for character and worldhistorical reasons.
What a funny coincidence. I'm also a night auditor, and at a Best Western at that. Thankfully, my pay is a ways above minimum wage ($17 an hour), though I haven't written any books during my five-year long tenure (not all at the same hotel, though there were three Best Westerns). The lack of sunlight is starting to get to me, though, so I'm thinking of jumping ship in the next couple of months to something more during the day.
Wow that's insane writing on the word counts! I had no idea you guys could do that. I'm new to writing and I've been listening to your advice recently and I'm hoping to get better at writing to fully publish a novel or comic someday! My end goal is to publish a comic kind of similar to a manga but with color but I knew I would had to get good at writing to do that so that's what I'm doing. It's a long road but I'll hope I'll get there. Your podcast is great btw I normally don't like podcasts but you guys are fun!
I might have an actual tip for finding time to write while you're working full-time and you've got young kids as well. Shift around your schedule & use all the spare time you have. Right now, I'm splitting time between writing & getting in shape, but I find I'm making good progress at both. I just wake up earlier than my husband and kids, write/exercise for 1-2 hours, then work 8 hours (some days from home, some days from the office, so I'll have to travel as well), have dinner, play with the kids & put them to bed, then clean up and go to sleep myself. I know 1-2 hours a day is not a lot, but it's loads when you've two kids under 4. The weekends are mostly dedicated to my kids and cleaning, so I'm actually getting more writing done on workdays now. Probably more manageable than Dan's schedule with 5 hours of sleep :')
My question for Dan, or Brandon--or both--is about writing and physical illness. You touched on it a little bit, but i was wondering about when you have days where you're exhausted from little to no sleep, or you're really, really sick (or have a terrible migraine, or something) do you chalk those days up as a loss, or do you push through and fix what you did that may have been sub-par later on? Has this changed since you both became successes?
I can completely relate to what Dan said about not needing as much sleep when he was young. From age 15 to 30 I would sleep from 2-5 hours per night, and forthe last decade I haven't been able to exist without a full 8 hours 😆 I definitely wish i had used that extra time to have been more productive creatively, but it is what it is 😂
For what it's worth, in Empire Strikes Back, we see Vader kill two men after what he perceived to be incompetence. Ozzel brought the fleet out of hyperspace to close to the planet and Needa lost the Millennium Falcon. Whether or not it's their faults, he saw it that way. It's not like we had seen them prove themselves before that.
Super accurate that a physical job lets your mind stay fresh for creative outlets later. If you ever want to focus on something mentally then find a manual labor job
My stepdad had a similar job at a bank but both he and the banking hiring him seemed to lack the foresight that this would cause a lot of tension. So we were there for three years and he was effective but super stressful.
I wonder if you could take Weekend-at-Vader's and do it as a two perspective story: Serious Heroes vs Silly Attendants. The Attendants are propping up dead lord because they know the next guy in line is worse but that person is kept in their place by the dark lord. The heroes are in an earnest struggle against this 2nd in command and if they learn of this, they are likely to use it to cause chaos in the ranks and thus give themselves the upper hand. The climax revolves around the Heroes and Attendants finally coming into direct contact and needing to oust the other guy while not causing the Attendants to loose their heads in the chaos.
The "kill the messenger" trope is why Putin thought his war in Ukraine would be easy. He did it often enough that no one gives him accurate intel anymore.
The zombie Vader should be slowly coming back to consciousness throughout the movie, like in Swiss Army Man. This would explain the zombie breathing sounds as well as his mask off scene. It helps that he already looks like a zombie. So the puppeteers would not only be trying to trick everyone else throughout the movie, but also be trying to subdue the signs of the zombie slowly coming back to life.
Why not combine both awesome ideas? The Great British Fakeoff Weekend at Vader's. Instead of accidentally killing Vader, Vader accidentally kills The Rock and has to impersonate him as the contestant investigating the crime during the contest that's being held on the Death Star. Instant box office gold
isn't what if the evil emperor died and they tried to bring him back to life with a magic forgery the plot of The Emperor's Soul? its not a bad story idea its a hugo wining story idea Brandon has already won.
I feel like immediately after that officer shoots Vader, he would be tackled by others on board, and put in some kind of holding on the ship. Soon after, the Emperor would learn of what happened and order the officer to be executed.
Lmfao i think Brandon forgot that he did do the Dark Lord gets killed by little underling thing you mentioned at 4:00 when Taravangian kills Rayze with nightblood in RoW
The trope began as killing the other persons messenger before we mutated it. The trope requires the villain be god like. He kills the messenger, the competent servant to prove his psychotic ness and his incompetence . But ppl like competent villains. Also in real life, being rich and powerful means you can withstand hard core incompetence but no one likes it when failure has no effect on the villain. The villain is usually so rich and well connected that incompetence has very small influence on his family’s bottom line. In real life that is.
Brandon: "I don't like the trope the evil overlord kills the messenger" Me: I know this is the case but this statement makes it so obvious Brandon has NO CLUE about working in the corporate world. Brandon: *spends next 1/2 hour saying the same thing 50 more times* 😂 Ok I love your books but seriously talk about ivory tower syndrome. That trope makes sense to anyone who's ever had to tell a client no they couldn't get what they wanted because of laws, code, physics, whatever, or anyone who's worked for a bad boss which is (almost) everyone.
what I am really curious about now is how they would fake the force, like would they go into a science lab and find a way to ''catch'' midi-chlorians and transplant them in humans creating a super powerful force wielder and a weapon that the empire actually never uses because of it just being there for the sake of faking Vader being alive or what other way would there be to fake vader being a powerful force wielder?
The “Weekend at Bernie’s President edition” is essentially the plot of Emperor’s Soul.
I was thinking the same. Weird he didn't catch that himself.
Eh. That’s kinda just the set dressing, and it’s offscreen until the very end. It’s not what emperors soul is ABOUT. But he could absolutely write another book starting with the end of Emperor’s Soul that’s follows the new emperor as he tries to navigate the court
And The Emperor’s Soul won a Hugo Award. Therefore there’s evidence that this is a good story idea 😂
@@GoErikTheRed Its just a difference in focus but that basic premise is the same
Right? I was cracking up at that part, like “But Brandon… you’ve already done that story!”
Just, y’know, with a more serious, dramatic, heist-ish vibe, rather than the more comedic approach of their “bad story idea” version.
The messenger who accidentally kills the dark lord is just a grimdark version of The Santa Clause
4:30 I want a story where the dark lord kills the first messenger who reports a city falling, so the messengers learn, and the dark lord never hears about the next city to fall and makes a tactical blunder by assuming no news is good news
I LOVED this episode. I am inspired every time I see Brandon encourage his students and fans to pursue writing as a hobby. For me, answering that call has been a rewarding experience, but there absolutely are challenges. It's validating to hear Brandon and Dan acknowledge that it can be hard to "write on the side".
I've had to accept that there are limitations on the time and energy that I can spend writing. There are seasons in my life where even having writing on my to-do list just adds stress to my life. There are other seasons where I can make progress, but a little at a time. My books are written slowly -- writing has taught me about being patient with those goals that you can't achieve overnight.
I really like Brandon's talk about opportunity costs, where he says that every story he writes kills other stories he could have told instead. As an amateur writer, I feel that in the extreme. I have ambitious ideas that far outstrip my capacity to execute on them, at least right now. Choosing one idea for a novel will tie down my writing time for years. Writing my equivalent of a Stormlight Archive would tie me down for life.
Then there's the opportunity cost of writing itself. On New Years Eve 2022, I finished a draft of a novel I had been working on since Summer 2020. It was an incredible feeling (though it's just a draft -- still not ready to show it off), but I also had the nagging feeling that I could have spent all that time working on something more important. Progress has also been slow on some of my other life goals. Should I have put more attention into those?
So while I love the idea that you don't need a writing career to write, I think it's important to recognize the ways writing careers enable writing. I have read really great fantasy from obscure authors and I've read some bestsellers, and in my judgement, the stuff by the pros tends to be better. As amateur writers we want to write things just like the authors we enjoy reading, but odds are your favorite author has more dedicated writing time than you do and so will write more and better books. Another advantage the pros have over the amateurs: Brandon himself has acknowledged that his fans' enthusiasm for his work helps him write better books than he would have if no one were paying attention. Obscure authors don't have that. They have a hard time getting anyway to read their books, much less buy them.
At the same time, I want to acknowledge the incredible sacrifices for writing made by those who have gone pro and those who are trying to go pro. Maybe one day I'll be in a place where I can join those who are trying but I'm not ready yet. In the meantime, I'm trying to be patient with my limitations while still making progress when I can. Journey before destination.
I would love to see "Weekend @ Vader's" be made. Brandon and Dan should make their own Mystery Science Theatre 3000 type show. Millions of views would happen.
What if the Dark Lord injured the messenger...but did't succeed in killing him/her. Rather the messenger survives to exact their revenge by controlling the flow of information (as a messenger would) to undermine the Dark Lord's organization. Misinformation, character assassination, misdirection etc. and we get to see the messenger meticulously dismantle every facet of the Dark Lord's life.
I'd title the book - "Messenger's Requiem"
How do you do character assassination of dark lord?🤣😂😂
@@IndiaTides Show his followers that he still likes to bathe with his yellow rubber ducky...or some such.
This is more or less how Josef Stalin rose to power. He was a clerk under Lenin, and used his control over the flow of knowledge to manipulate events in his favor until he ended up in a position to seize control of the whole system.
That's basically Arkham Knight.
Great, now all that's left is to write the book!
This recontextualization of Star wars is everything.
Came for Brandon, stayed for Dan
This always happens. Dan is hilarious.
Yes, this podcast is so much better than the old signing sessions, which were themselves good.
Love Dan, but I have to admit- came for Brandon and stayed for Brandon. He’s thought provoking.
Facts.
That was the best bad story idea I've heard so far! I remember that Robot Chicken! It was hilarious!
I really liked the part you guys talked about what goes on in the company. Would love to hear more about that!
+
Ditto. I would love to see a tour of Dragonsteel video.
The 'zombie overlords reanimated by a necromancer' is literally the beginning of Gideon the Ninth hahaha
Haha. I was thinking the same thing when I was listening.
And in Nona the Ninth, when John reminisces his beginnings as a necromancer, that is *exactly* what he did -- resurrected a president and controlled him as a flesh puppet :)
There was an episode of Batman the Animated series where a random mook "kills" Batman... which leads to every badguy in town trying to take him on to increase their own rep. Including eventually Joker who throws a funeral for Bats. Fantastic episode.
At the end, I almost expected them to say - There's your writing prompt. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
A happy medium for the steel inquisitors weekend at Bernie's-ing the Lord ruler is to write it up as a broadsheet segment. You already have the narrative device to justify stuff like that built into that world. Write it down now, so that when you get to era 3 you can use it or not at your discretion then. If you don't use it for that, it could be used for worldbuilding for a mistborn ttrpg or game.
Set a pin in the idea for future development, don't toss it out with the bathwater lol
The messenger killing the dark lord? Thats "The Death of Stalin" which is a great comedy film. The power vacume following his death leads to everyone trying to stop the guy in charge of the meat grinder taking over without him noticing and putting them in the meat grinder.
This is hands down the best episode yet. Hilarious but also practical. Weekend at Vaders… 😂
"Up In the Air" is a solid film...worth a watch
If Brandon moves to a beach house can you imagine how many more books we will get from him? 🤯
This episode has the most swings in tone. Incredible.
about your point at the beginning, i actually disagree. “Chernobyl” is the perfect example of a story where messengers are constantly punished for being competent and bringing bad news to the dark lord, and its based on real life. Evil people in reality are irrational, they only PRETEND to be cold, logical, and rational as a branding exercise.
Dan, you need an idea book for dragonsteel that's accessible to others in the company. Similar to what Brandon said about his idea book. So you don't have to sacrifice good ideas and can focus on completing what's on hand
I was thinking the messenger would have to run and it would turn into a John Wick style behind enemy lines story as he tries to escape the city after accidentally killing their king.
That sounds dope. Write it!
isn't necromance the emperor to play weekend at bernies basically the premise of emperor's soul?
I was thinking that same thing
5:35 the president is already a slightly animated zombie. Two words, made in America, not a joke, jack.
5:50 there's a manga out there (I can't remember the name for the life of me) where mc is a perverted radish farmer obsessed with traps, who kills the hero in one of the traps so he now has to masquerade in the hero's dead body to prevent a panic
yuusha ga shinda?
I haven't laughed that hard in soooo long, thank you so much ☺️🤣🤣🤣
The “ad lib” vader lines made me laugh at out loud!
I hate to add any work to the staff at Sanderson Co. But, if I could get anything for my 35th birthday, it would be the little video time stamp things that allow you to see what is talked about by section so I can jump to parts and come back easily 😘
Instead of "I killed the Dark Lord, now I become the Dark Lord," I've had a kind of similar but kind of opposite idea running around in my head for a while now. I probably ought to do something with it at some point. Instead of a "messenger" or other minion of the Dark Lord, this is a lowly no-name soldier on the Good Guys' side:
"I killed the Dark Lord. Yes, it's technically true. Everyone thinks I'm a hero now, the people want to make me their champion. They don't know that the whole thing was an accident and I have no idea what I'm doing."
The first trilogy is Weekend at Vader’s. At the end they fumble the controls and kill the Emperor. Second trilogy becomes Weekend at Palpatine’s.
“Somehow, the Emperor has returned”
The prequels are actually about grievous being puppeted.
I wrote Magitism: The Force of Magic while working a full-time lead dev job. What I did was promise myself that I would write at least one word every Sunday morning, that usually was 1000-3000 words, and I finished the book in under a year.
This is now my Darth Vader headcannon. 😂
The Darths & Droids webcomic KINDA does the whole "Vader was dead all along" trope, although I don't wanna spoil how it happens. It's a great webcomic. I love recontextualizing existing stories as TTRPG campaigns, and some of my favorite webcomics are, essentially, that
Love Darths and Droids
This is not a bad story idea-I really want to read this now!
Weekend at Vaders: (Dead and/or zombie-fied)Vader throws the Emperor down the shaft, "Noooo, not again!"
So a lot of security work is sitting around. Most places will let you have a tablet or a phone or a notebook. Most Security work pays $15+ depending on position and company. Might help with having a "day job" and writing.
I’ve been laughing this whole episode, thanks guys 👍
I was a copywriter and copy editor for 5 years, and I can definitly crank out 5k in a day if I need to. It may not be great, but there will be words on the page. I had the exact issue that Dan talked about, your brain is so tired when you've been creatively writing all day, and it just needs to relax at the end of the day and do something else. I'm back working as a software tester and writing is so much easier now.
The "President being Zombified by a necromancer" is literally a plot point in Nona the Ninth!
Dave (1993) was a nice movie where the president of the US died of a heart attack while having an affair with the secretary. Not wanting to deal with that political blowback nor give up power, they end up finding a comedian who impersonates the president as their bit, to come and actually be the president.
It has its funny moments, but ends up being more of a commentary about how a regular person would probably be a better leader than the ones we actually have.
The bad story idea could be the origin story of the Wizard of Oz
If Brandon build his writing beach house he should absolutely call it The Sand-castle
Weekend at Vaders is the new canon for Star Wars and no one can change my mind
Alright Dan and Brandon its time to joint write this book cause it sounds hilarious! I would read it
(I got recently introduced to Star Kids Star Wars Parody where Vader thinks he's hilarious but isn't, and is only in charge because of Palpatines genuine nepotism)
There's a Cheers episode where Norm becomes a corporate reaper, and he's so sorry to be doing it that his victims feel cared for ... until he emotionally dries out and then he cant contact anyone in the company without them thinking "oh god im fired"
Check out The Consultant! The ultimate corporate bad cop 😂
Star wars is 100 times better now with this head cannon.
5:45 isnt that basically emperors soul?
As soon as Brandon said he was going to a nice hotel in Salt Lake I was like 'oh hes gonna end up in the Grand America." Ive been to enough weddings there to know how swanky that place is.
Loving the podcast highlight of the week especially when you talk about writing and your experience and process. Wondering if you could touch on how you deal with procrastination? Any helpful methods you apply to avoid procrastinating? Stay safe!
I always see Brandon signing these book inserts but I can never find the signed books on the Dragonsteel site.
there was a spy film where the villan would shoot the phone every time his minions called him with bad news. It shows he is daranged but not to stupid.
The zombie Vader thing is kind of true though. That was a specific thing that Lucas was trying to demonstrate. That Young Anakin was fast powerful but after his "death" he was slow and pondering.
The hero is already dead is where I saw a similar idea
Not Anna Kendrick's first movie. I believe her first role was in this Vampire Blockbuster Twilight
The zombified world leader idea is actually touched on in The Locked Tomb series
I feel like "A Weekend at Vader's" meets Steel Inquisitor premise could totally work as an in-universe Mistborn play. You already have "A Hero for All Ages". Why not have some artsy characters create a quirky theater retelling of Mistborn era 1?
Weekend at bernies with a dark lord does appear in The Locked Tomb quadrilogy, a setting flush with necromancers. But uh, the whys and wheretofores of that are a spoiler so I will leave it at that.
If you treat the premise as essentially comic, the situations in the locked tomb also definitely DO NOT qualify for character and worldhistorical reasons.
What a funny coincidence. I'm also a night auditor, and at a Best Western at that. Thankfully, my pay is a ways above minimum wage ($17 an hour), though I haven't written any books during my five-year long tenure (not all at the same hotel, though there were three Best Westerns). The lack of sunlight is starting to get to me, though, so I'm thinking of jumping ship in the next couple of months to something more during the day.
Wow that's insane writing on the word counts! I had no idea you guys could do that. I'm new to writing and I've been listening to your advice recently and I'm hoping to get better at writing to fully publish a novel or comic someday! My end goal is to publish a comic kind of similar to a manga but with color but I knew I would had to get good at writing to do that so that's what I'm doing. It's a long road but I'll hope I'll get there. Your podcast is great btw I normally don't like podcasts but you guys are fun!
".... Or on the other hand, dry-aged steak." Ok that made me lol!
I might have an actual tip for finding time to write while you're working full-time and you've got young kids as well. Shift around your schedule & use all the spare time you have.
Right now, I'm splitting time between writing & getting in shape, but I find I'm making good progress at both. I just wake up earlier than my husband and kids, write/exercise for 1-2 hours, then work 8 hours (some days from home, some days from the office, so I'll have to travel as well), have dinner, play with the kids & put them to bed, then clean up and go to sleep myself.
I know 1-2 hours a day is not a lot, but it's loads when you've two kids under 4. The weekends are mostly dedicated to my kids and cleaning, so I'm actually getting more writing done on workdays now.
Probably more manageable than Dan's schedule with 5 hours of sleep :')
I had an early bird, so if he heard me awake, he’d think it was morning and not go back to bed. I write when they’re at school.
@1:52 In "Office Space" parlance, Vader is "the Bobs".
My question for Dan, or Brandon--or both--is about writing and physical illness. You touched on it a little bit, but i was wondering about when you have days where you're exhausted from little to no sleep, or you're really, really sick (or have a terrible migraine, or something) do you chalk those days up as a loss, or do you push through and fix what you did that may have been sub-par later on? Has this changed since you both became successes?
I can completely relate to what Dan said about not needing as much sleep when he was young.
From age 15 to 30 I would sleep from 2-5 hours per night, and forthe last decade I haven't been able to exist without a full 8 hours 😆
I definitely wish i had used that extra time to have been more productive creatively, but it is what it is 😂
For what it's worth, in Empire Strikes Back, we see Vader kill two men after what he perceived to be incompetence. Ozzel brought the fleet out of hyperspace to close to the planet and Needa lost the Millennium Falcon. Whether or not it's their faults, he saw it that way. It's not like we had seen them prove themselves before that.
Super accurate that a physical job lets your mind stay fresh for creative outlets later. If you ever want to focus on something mentally then find a manual labor job
"Up in the Air" was based on the book by Walter Kirn,
My stepdad had a similar job at a bank but both he and the banking hiring him seemed to lack the foresight that this would cause a lot of tension. So we were there for three years and he was effective but super stressful.
Shout out to supportive spouses for our risky endeavors 🎉
There's a Korean historical zombie drama where the zombie disease is used in an attempt to keep the king technically alive for political purposes.
I wonder if you could take Weekend-at-Vader's and do it as a two perspective story: Serious Heroes vs Silly Attendants. The Attendants are propping up dead lord because they know the next guy in line is worse but that person is kept in their place by the dark lord. The heroes are in an earnest struggle against this 2nd in command and if they learn of this, they are likely to use it to cause chaos in the ranks and thus give themselves the upper hand. The climax revolves around the Heroes and Attendants finally coming into direct contact and needing to oust the other guy while not causing the Attendants to loose their heads in the chaos.
I love this man as a human being... That is all
Okay but I would 10000% pay money for this book
Pizza driving is a good way to brainstorm ideas for books, and you can make decent money because of tips!
Looks like we have more Gavalar prologues for the back 5.😅
The "kill the messenger" trope is why Putin thought his war in Ukraine would be easy. He did it often enough that no one gives him accurate intel anymore.
It may just as well have been the level below him. Or even the level below that.
@@oneukum given how strict and inflexible the Russian military operates, probably all of the above. It's killed messengers all the way down.
The zombie Vader should be slowly coming back to consciousness throughout the movie, like in Swiss Army Man. This would explain the zombie breathing sounds as well as his mask off scene. It helps that he already looks like a zombie.
So the puppeteers would not only be trying to trick everyone else throughout the movie, but also be trying to subdue the signs of the zombie slowly coming back to life.
They just came up with a new Tag and Bink story😊
Why not combine both awesome ideas? The Great British Fakeoff Weekend at Vader's.
Instead of accidentally killing Vader, Vader accidentally kills The Rock and has to impersonate him as the contestant investigating the crime during the contest that's being held on the Death Star.
Instant box office gold
There's some Tamsyn Muir lurking in this discussion
isn't what if the evil emperor died and they tried to bring him back to life with a magic forgery the plot of The Emperor's Soul? its not a bad story idea its a hugo wining story idea Brandon has already won.
Dan is wearing a cool hat today
I’ve got an alternate title suggestion for Weekend at Vaders: “Dim One”
Isn't that kind of the plot of Emperor's Soul ? 😅
We really need to see a writer's group of taking this Weekend at Vaders through outline or something.
I feel like immediately after that officer shoots Vader, he would be tackled by others on board, and put in some kind of holding on the ship. Soon after, the Emperor would learn of what happened and order the officer to be executed.
Lmfao i think Brandon forgot that he did do the Dark Lord gets killed by little underling thing you mentioned at 4:00 when Taravangian kills Rayze with nightblood in RoW
The trope began as killing the other persons messenger before we mutated it.
The trope requires the villain be god like. He kills the messenger, the competent servant to prove his psychotic ness and his incompetence . But ppl like competent villains. Also in real life, being rich and powerful means you can withstand hard core incompetence but no one likes it when failure has no effect on the villain. The villain is usually so rich and well connected that incompetence has very small influence on his family’s bottom line. In real life that is.
Brandon: "I don't like the trope the evil overlord kills the messenger"
Me: I know this is the case but this statement makes it so obvious Brandon has NO CLUE about working in the corporate world.
Brandon: *spends next 1/2 hour saying the same thing 50 more times*
😂 Ok I love your books but seriously talk about ivory tower syndrome. That trope makes sense to anyone who's ever had to tell a client no they couldn't get what they wanted because of laws, code, physics, whatever, or anyone who's worked for a bad boss which is (almost) everyone.
He didn't say it doesn't happen irl, he just said he doesn't like it as a storytelling device.
Why does he organize his signings in groups of four piles?
"a cabana I can move from beach to beach"
Brandon forgot boats exist for a second and accidentally invented them
Bad story idea: bad guy does an Undercover Boss gag, dresses up as a messenger and the incompetent 2nd in command kills the messenger.
I really hope those signatures Brandon is signing are for a future leather-bound WoR!
Sounds like a villain back story
what I am really curious about now is how they would fake the force, like would they go into a science lab and find a way to ''catch'' midi-chlorians and transplant them in humans creating a super powerful force wielder and a weapon that the empire actually never uses because of it just being there for the sake of faking Vader being alive or what other way would there be to fake vader being a powerful force wielder?
Batman the Animated Series did something like that, where a hapless henchmen got lucky and took out Batman.
"Blood and Honor" by Simon R. Green has something similar in its plot
Title of this episode could've been Brandon's Biggest Fan
Alternate title: Dry Aged Steaks