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Questioner

You said before that in Wintersteel, you mostly cut Yan Shoumei's stuff like her backstory. Would you consider turning them into a short story?

Will Wight

I'm going to be honest with you, I don't remember scenes I cut from Wintersteel.

So it's been a while. I don't remember which Yan Shoumei scenes I kept and which ones I did not. I don't really remember. So it's hard for me to answer. There was some stuff about her being abandoned as a baby and raised by a group of fishermen then she's kind of representing her city and Anagi was a local Archlord who was sort of pushing her out. I had all that in there, but I don't remember if that made it to the final book or not. Someone will have to tell me.

There was an extra fight scene between Yerin and Yan Shoumei and Calan Archer.

Questioner

You've mentioned in the past the possibility of hardback books at some point, but nothing definitive. With the more recent (presumably good) sales numbers for Wintersteel and Bloodline, have you given any more thought to this idea? Do you think there's enough interest to justify some kind of limited Collector's Edition through Kickstarter or something once you conclude the Cradle series?

Will Wight

The sales numbers are indeed good, no more need to presume, I can confirm that the sales numbers have been very good. We did hit #1 in the Kindle Store for Wintersteel and Bloodline, already, so yes they have been good. 

About the hardcover thing. Yes, I have considered doing hardcovers. We actually recently did a test run- a very limited number of copies, fifteen copies or something like that, of a test hardcover. We did that, and then I have the only existing Traveler's Gate- House of Blades hardcover. So we've considered that, it really has to do with getting printings- doing printings, getting enough people. There's kind of some concern over whether or not anyone would want that, whether we'd sell enough to justify the cost of doing a printing. Since we have to do limited print as opposed to print on demand, which is what we do with the paperbacks, it would probably be paired with a Kickstarter or something. So, you do at a certain tier, then we would have hardback copies of the book, I don't know. 

Yeah, like a Collector's Edition kind of thing. And then we'd probably do new covers and- probably. But that's really all, completely up in the air. So I can't be held to anything about that. But that's most likely what would happen, is we'd probably do some sort of special edition. 

bamfious

Mercy's 4th Technique is called "Dream of Darkness"

Will Wight

Funny story about that: I immediately regretted naming that technique in Uncrowned.

I don't like technique names that also contain the name of the aura, because then you end up with weird phrases like "She wove dream madra into the Dream of Darkness, which projected dreams into the darkness using dream aura and darkness aura and dark dreams of Dreamdark, the dreamiest darkest dream that ever dreamed a dark dream."

So when I was actually writing this technique in Wintersteel, I came up with a way cooler name for it: World of Night. And then I remembered I already revealed its name in Uncrowned (taken straight from the character sheet I made for Mercy's Path like three years ago), and I tore out my hair and burned all my clothes in regret.

EDIT: Also yes, the Book manages the extra aspects. She harvests only shadow aura, and her Book has a limited supply of other aspects that she can use initially, but she’ll eventually use that up and have to cycle more from the environment. Everything other than pure shadow is stored in the Book, not her core.

bamfious

Damn. It’s just one single line from one simple Sage....

Can’t Mercy alter it herself and make it different ?

World of Night is cooler.

Will Wight

Oh man, you’re right, I might do that.

It’s Charity’s technique, too, so that could add extra weight to Mercy going “Yeah, but...no.”

Kandra

So, mechanically, could you say that each page of the book acts as a second core, almost (but not quite)?

Will Wight

I have a technical answer and a meme answer.

Technically, it stores madra in the same way that any construct stores madra. Each page’s store of energy is used to power the binding on that page and that’s it.

Meme-ly, yes Mercy has eight cores.

jacktrowell

I still think that it was a narrative error to not have any character in the story mention the question earlier than that.

Not revealing the reason, just somebody asking the obvious question "how did a bunch of jades manage to kill a sage ?" (plus the similar question about Yerin managing to handle a Sage Remnant while only at Jade level at the time), even if followed immediatly by something like "I suppose they used some kind of rare poison ?"

Anyway the matter is now settled until we get more information.

That said, I really enjoyed the book and it's only one small flaw in a very good serie, please continue the good work, we are legions awaiting for Wintersteel now. ;)

Will Wight

Yeah, one of my big regrets was not having Yerin say something about it in Soulsmith.

Ragnrok

I actually thought that was intentional, and I liked it.

Yerin is a very focused and direct character. If Lindon had a larger knowledge base at that point then it would be in character for him to spend months wondering how the heck a bunch of Jades killed a Sage, but Yerin isn't one to waste her time questioning reality. A bunch of Jades poisoned and then killed the Sword Sage, so it must be possible, because it happened, so why waste time dwelling on it?

Will Wight

That was my thinking at the time; I thought it was consistent with her character not to question it, because they did it and it happened and now the question is what to do next.

I wish I had made her question it just because it would have saved me headache since then.

Questioner

In Bloodline, Yerin said that her master never trained against constructs, but in Wintersteel Tim thought about fixing her training constructs.

Will Wight

Ummm.  I don't remember the first part of that.  Her master never trained against constructs... I don't remember the context of that.  So, he was considering repairing her training constructs for sure.  That I remember.

Questioner

When will Wintersteel pick up?

Will Wight

As I have it planned currently, it’s going to pick up immediately after Uncrowned ends.

True Ruler of None

What are the chances that in the process of writing 7 books of Cradle the conclusion and outline in Will head of OKAK changed ?

Will Wight

Tbh, the scenes with Ozriel are now a lot less elaborate than they were in the original outline.   As I originally envisioned, all the pre-chapter text in Kings was going to be excerpts from a conversation Ozriel was having with Sector 11 Control. Where they had brought him in because the Elders were loose so he was supposed to erase the Iteration, but he kept jerking them around as Sector Control became more and more panicked over the course of the book.   Until they finally appeal to another Judge who basically goes “Idk guys, we can’t control him either.”   And then only at the end does the situation become dire enough for him to actually be willing to do his job, and then the good guys resolve it right before.   I actually wrote out most of that conversation screenplay style.It’s saved on my phone from my original OKAK notes from 2015.My only reluctance for [releasing] that kind of thing is that it wouldn’t be edited at all. It’s literally off-the-cuff dialogue thoughts from 2015. And I know you might say “Oh that’s okay, we don’t care, any content is interesting!” but there will always be that guy who goes through and points out the issues in the comments.   There’s always some guy.

bloodyraven

Hey /u/Will_Wight, did you enjoy writing Bloodline? You mentioned having to think about the book whilst in holiday. Did you improve it for the better?

Will Wight

I didn’t improve it, I just wanted to. I want that for all of my books.

And did I enjoy it...no, I’ll be honest with you, I’d say I didn’t. But I didn’t enjoy writing Wintersteel or Kings/Killers or Uncrowned either.

That’s why I needed a break.

True Ruler of None

Is Authority over Energy Systems a thing?

Will Wight

Let me get back to you on that. I know the answer, but I don't know how to phrase it well yet. I'll be developing my terminology between now and Wintersteel.

DisWastingMyTime

Should we expect [Wintersteel is] the same range of word count of the previous books?

Will Wight

Similar, yes. This isn’t going to be an 800 page monstrosity.

But I can’t imagine this being shorter than Underlord. There’s a real chance this ends up being the longest entry in the series so far.

Not sure until I finish, though!

Dan Nichols

Will you ever top "I'm here to punch a hole in the sky." As the most badass line ever?

Will Wight

Hahaha, okay. Funny story about that. So I had that set up line, in the beta draft of Wintersteel; and a friend of mine, Devon, was reading through it and was like, I thought for sure, later when he comes back and sees Mercy again, and says like 'Im back', or whatever, and then he has conjured a hole in the sky, why doesn't he say 'I'm here to punch a hole in the sky'? I thought for sure he was going to say that, and then he doesn't, and I was like... Oh yeah, I guess that is a good line. So I looked it over and I was like, yeah, that definitely makes sense. So then I put it in there, so it was like yeah that looks like I set it up and designed it real well, but he was like 'Yeah I thought for sure that you were going to do that', and I was like. Nooope. So I just didn't think of the response or the punch line. I didn't think of it. So, the set up, great; but the, in terms of where I was going with it, I don't know. I had no intentions of that, so that was like one of the few punch lines where it really wasn't my doing, I had written everything around that except for the actual line. (Takes sip). 

Questioner

So in the new Ghostwater excerpt is the construct that may have something to do with ghostwater littleblue or is it a yet to be introduced construct?

Will Wight

It’s yet to be introduced! It shows up in the first couple of GW chapters.

rocksoffjagger

I would have assumed Eithan would be hard to write because coming up with wit that feels real and genuine requires you to repeatedly create unique, context-dependent inventions of language, rather than just falling back on cookie-cutter patterns and stock phrases.

P.S. I really hope this won't be the last we see of Eithan as an important character in the series. I really want to see him being a smart-ass in his trial and his interactions with the other judges.

P.P.S. I'm forgetting the exact line, but my favorite Eithan moment was during the uncrowned tournament (I believe the fight for the crowns in the second stage) where he says something like "I really must insist that we go back to murdering each other in the spirit of the competition." (Heavily paraphrasing).

Will Wight

I have a (relatively) professional demeanor when dealing with fans, but as a person, almost everything I say is a joke. Responding to things seriously is out of character for me.

So part of what makes writing Eithan easier is that I’m more comfortable writing jokes than serious dialogue.

Another part is that I’ve been sitting on the character since I was in college, so I have a great understanding of his personality and can write in-character for him without thinking.

P.S. Minor spoilers for Dreadgod: Currently, the prologue of Book 11 is the Trial of Ozriel.

P.P.S. That’s one of my favorite one-off Eithan lines too. Probably my favorite joke, and the one I was looking forward to the most, is him throwing the match against Yan Shoumei in Wintersteel.

Questioner

What is the status of EE?

Will Wight

I’m sorry, I am shamed. Ideally I would have gotten Kings/Killers out two years ago.

Here’s the deal: this time, I’ve made real progress on OKAK. I knew I could stop, finish Uncrowned (because I had made a clear plan for Uncrowned before Underlord was released), and then resume work on OKAK pretty seamlessly.

I was going to give you a more specific timeline, but I know beyond the shadow of any doubt that no matter how many times I say “THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE,” I would get angry emails asking why I didn’t hit the date I set on Reddit. People flooded me with disappointed or angry messages after I didn’t hit the Uncrowned date from my April Fool’s schedule, so...

Anyway, I’m working on it! I mean literally, I’ve been writing it, and some of it is done enough that I might share excerpts on the blog soon.

nerbomer

(In response to Wintersteel's plotline post)

Make it a Jai Long book and release it April 1st.

Will Wight

How did you know about my plans for Cradle 13, Girthspear?

Questioner

When you wrote Akura Grace, did you you write her with the intentions of killing her off?

Will Wight

((Warns against Wintersteel spoilers despite this being a launch stream for next book))

No, not particularly. I wrote her in Uncrowned to be another Akura to be another notable person in this generation. Then I realized I was going to use her again in Winter Steel. And then she just kind of worked out. I sort of killed most of those people. Interesting

Questioner

What is your favorite scene in Cradle?

Will Wight

I think I answered that earlier. It's the Dross scene at the end of Ghostwater. Because it was difficult for me to write and it came out well.

Questioner

The wastland artist in the excerpt is described as "horned". What does his horn (horns?) look like? A heavy rhinotype horn, like a stag etc or?

Will Wight

Two upward-curving emerald horns. They’re luminous lime green at the base and they run up the gradient to the points, which are dark green.

Questioner

The wastland artist in the excerpt is described as "horned". What does his horn (horns?) look like?A heavy rhinotype horn, like a stag etc or?

Will Wight

Two upward-curving emerald horns. They’re luminous lime green at the base and they run up the gradient to the points, which are dark green.

Questioner

Did you always plan on having Akura Grace die or was her death come up later?

Will Wight

Eh, I mean a little of both. Like I said earlier I set characters up so that I can use them however I need to. So I wanted to do something with Akura Grace pretty clearly. I mean when I was describing her and she's one of the two people besides Pride in the beginning of Uncrowned that gets any of the spotlight. Clearly I was setting her up for something right? But it was always, haha feels mean, but it was always something tragic. It was going to be, either she was killed or left behind or betrayed the group or something. You know. Something bad was going to happen and when I needed someone to die at the end of Wintersteel I was like 'Ah we go'. So there it is. She always... never headed for a good end. Yep.

OjoGrande

In the scene prior to Sophara's semi final round, when she is reviewing her prizes she expresses disgust that Ghostwater is a product of Northstrider.

How the hell could she not have known this?

Will Wight

It’s mentioned in Wintersteel that she bought that drop of ghostwater. The Herald she bought it from knew where it came from.