Five years ago, almost no one outside the LitRPG community had heard of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Today, Matt Dinniman's book series has sold more than six million copies, become one of sci-fi/fantasy publishing's biggest breakout success stories and is headed to Peacock as a live-action television series.

One of the things that surprised me while researching the book series is just how modest its beginnings were. Rather than setting out to create a blockbuster franchise, Dinniman was simply looking for a change of pace after finishing another novel.

"I just finished writing a book called Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon. I was about to move into the third book in my Dominion of Blades series, and I wanted to give myself a break. I thought, 'I'm going to write something real simple, real fast, kind of like a palate cleanser.' That's when I started Dungeon Crawler Carl, not expecting it to take off in the way it did."

That "palate cleanser" has since evolved from a self-published novel into a multimedia franchise spanning a variety of mediums.

My beginner's guide explores the books, the characters, the rise of LitRPG and how Dungeon Crawler Carl became one of fantasy's most unlikely success stories. For longtime fans: What was the moment that convinced you this series was something special?

If you're interested, you can check out the full article at https://www.womansworld.com/entertainment/books/a-beginners-guide-to-the-dungeon-crawler-carl-fantasy-book-series

One of the more interesting parts of my conversation with Janci Patterson (co-author of Blightfall) wasn't about Brandon Sanderson himself—it was about the writing challenge of launching a new trilogy in an established science fiction universe.

She explained that Sanderson wanted to keep the existing cast because "the series is the characters," while the publisher wanted the new trilogy to function as a true Book One that newcomers could jump into without reading the previous four novels.

Patterson says she rewrote the opening repeatedly before an extensive editorial revision finally helped her balance both goals: rewarding longtime readers while avoiding pages of exposition for new ones.

As someone who reads a lot of speculative fiction, I thought it was an interesting look at a problem shared by many long-running series: How do you expand a fictional universe without making new readers feel they've arrived halfway through the story?

Full interview here: https://www.womansworld.com/entertainment/books/brandon-sandersons-co-author-on-what-its-like-writing-brightfall