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In Bloodline, Yerin said that her master never trained against constructs, but in Wintersteel Tim thought about fixing her training constructs.
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.
How many pages long is Bloodline?
About 400, or something like that.
Is there a lot of romance in Bloodline?
Compared to the early parts of Cradle where there is no romance, yes quite a bit. Compared to a novel with a lot of romance, no.
You have written some sections that have honestly made me cry. (Lindon's Underlord revelation as an example). What would you say has been the most emotional writing you have done across your books/series? What have you been most proud of writing?
I have found to be untrue is the saying "No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader." I have found that to be untrue. I have usually not found myself to be experiencing the emotions that I am trying to evoke in my readers. Because I'm writing, it's like work, it's a job thinking how I get this done. In terms of most emotionally impactful, there's a scene I wrote in Bloodline that punched me in the gut, it's halfway through the book. There's a part when he first gets home where it hit me. It felt to me so awkward in a way that hurt me in a soul. I don't want to spoil Traveler's Gate, but in City of Light some major characters die. That made me really sad and I really didn't want to kill them because I liked them and they were fun. Most proud of writing? I'm always most proud of the end of Ghostwater, that moment took a lot to build up to and everyone liked it. And it was very hard to do. I knew I needed to land it and I worked very hard to land it.
As a reader and listener on audible the most memorable moment for me is when Fury advances to monarch. As the author do you have a similar moment?
There are a lot... Really, it's funny, because of course it's different for me, writing the scenes, but most of the scenes that stood out to you, also stood out to me. Because I was like, oh, those stood out to me, I need to make them stand out to the reader. So that's why I did it. So you have something like the Dross scene at the climax of Ghostwater. and that is something that obviously stood out to me. I went into the book saying, I need to make this pop. Then I worked really hard to make it pop. So did I have the same experience you did? No. Because I was not feeling this big revelation, I was going, the reader needs to feel it. So then I set it up. But in terms of the stuff that really hit me to write, in terms of the moments that stood out to me as a reader, it's really a lot of the ones that stood out to you I think. The Dross moment in Ghostwater was definitely one of them.
Off the top of my head, the one that immediately comes to mind, is Lindon's showdown with his family in Bloodline. Because of course, that was a fairly recent book. And that was... I felt that scene. It mirrored an earlier scene. I felt like Lindon really would be that awkward. One of the things that has frustrated people about that scene is there were a number of other ways Lindon could have handled it. And, yeah, there were. But what I like about it, is he's feeling like he is back where he was before. And he's not, but he feels like he is. And I feel like that's real. That's something that stood out to me. And because I felt, I don't know, I enjoyed it more? It felt more memorable to me? It was just something that I guess I empathized with Lindon a lot there.
Other scenes that really stood out to me... Yes, there is a bunch of them from Reaper. I'm not even kidding. There's a few scenes that aren't even close to the end that really really stood out to me. And they are really memorable to me. Also, because that's the book I finished most recently, it is a lot clearer to me. The problem is I can't talk about those, dang it. So this is a land mine question. There's a few of them that aren't even deep into the book. They are fairly early chapter stuff, but I can't talk about them, dang it.
How much of your first draft, would you say survives revision?
Has it changed throughout your career?
Well it changes from book to book.
Some books are more intact than others at the end of my first draft at the end of Bloodline, the fight with the wandering Titan at the end was basically: insert boss fight here.
There really wasn't a whole lot to it, so I knew what needed to happen there.
I knew it needed to be the different characters combining their powers, but I didn't want to go blow by blow into it in the first draft.
So then of course I flesh all that out and wrote the whole ending.
And so in that case, the first draft and the second draft were very different.
Because one of them had a third act.
So that's yeah, it just depends on the end of the book, but,
How much would you say survives the process? most of it.
My first draft.
First of all, I'm generally just a kinda guy who wants to release a lot of books, so if you're gonna release a lot of books you don't redraft and redraft and redraft you sort of use the story that’s there.
But my first draft tends to establish the story I really am going to use.
And then I go through and flush it out, so usually instead of cutting, I am adding, so usually I write the first draft and then go in and change anything that needs to be changed of course, and then I usually flesh it out, usually just add more, so most of my first draft survives.
It's just that the language is cleaned up all, so usually there's at least a few page changes per page.
I mean, that's conservative.
What is a piece of cut content that you fully fleshed out, but never found a good spot to put in the books? Besides jade cycling techniques, that is.
Well, I shared a lot of that before, I guess, Bloodline I think. I shared some of the things I had thought about there. There's a lot of paths that I made. I think one thing - this is funny, but I made a full character sheet for Charity, Akura Charity. So the owls thing, that's a real technique. I know all the techniques in The Book of the Silver Heart. I have a character sheet for Pride too somewhere, but, you know. It's Pride. Charity though, I have names for her weapons and artifacts. I have some elaborate stuff, and we just never got into it. Maybe I'll shove it into the nest book. She still has a role in the series of course. So maybe I'll elaborate on that. So that's one thing. I have character sheets for quite a number of people, but Charity is one that I was looking through my notes the other day, and I was like, huh. I fleshed out her path. And I never really did a whole lot with it.
So, anything else... Another piece of cut content... Oh, there is a lot of setting stuff. A lot of Serpent's Grave. Even in Elder Empire. I actually built the Gray Island, for the Consultant Headquarters in Elder Empire, I built that in Minecraft so I would have a map for it. I just went into creator mode in Minecraft and built the whole thing. Built the docks, built the different traps, and the underground chamber, and all that stuff. I ended up losing that map because I transitioned computers and didn't back it up. So I was really salty about that. So that's another thing; there's a few setting things that I fleshed out then didn't get to include, because of course I, instead f lingering on settings, blow past them at the speed of light. So there's stuff with Blackflame City and stuff with Serpent's Grave that I came up with, then just didn't use. I do that a lot with characters and settings; come up with details for them that are probably never going to come up. There's a few sages that I think are super cool that are probably never going to come up. Just a few paths they get to use that are (aren't?) cool. There's also some that I initially had that overlap with another character or they just aren't that important. So there was one guy that was on a sun path, and he was conjuring... It's kind of like Heaven's Glory but taken to the utmost extreme, because he's a sage. So yeah, a few things like that.
One of the first things I did in Blackflame actually, was I went through and defined all the monarchs, and the most prominent heralds and sages and stuff, because I wanted to know who the most powerful figures in the world are. I did this in Elder Empire too; I went and elaborated on the regents and guild heads in one document in order to define the setting and the magic system. That's one thing I really enjoy doing, and I recommend anyone do it if you are trying to write a progression fantasy sort of setting where people scale in power, is if you define the upper end of the system really quick, even to yourself, it can help you answer questions you didn't even know you had. Somebody asked me earlier, how do you get past being stuck, and the answer I am sorry to say, is really just write nonsense. Write the best scene you can think of. Well, I don't know what to write. To bad, keep writing. Write as though someone is holding a gun to your head so words keep coming out of your fingers. So that's how you do it. Another answer that I'll elaborate on is you want to know more about your story. One of the ways to do that is to answer questions to yourself. Defining powerful people in your magic system is another way to answer questions you didn't even know you had.
So, one of the first things I did for Elder Empire, which I didn't do this for Cradle, mainly because I just went through and I had a file that's literally called powerful people of Cradle, and I just went through and outlined all the monarchs and their relationships to one another, and their factions, and what continent their on, their most powerful and loyal sages and heralds, all that kind of thing. So, I went through and did all that around Blackflame, when I was really trying to define the setting, and of course I had done a little bit of that already, because 3 of the monarchs show up in Unsouled, so clearly I had done some of that already, but I finished the documentation there. And in Elder Empire, I wrote a scene with the Emperor and the first generation Champions, uniting the world. And of course at least of those first generation Champions became a regent. And I didn't know anything about Estyr Six at the time; I just thought about a woman with long hair, and a black coat, and three lizard skulls that she was levitating around her with her powers that I thought was really cool, and because of that image, I fleshed her out into one of the major people in the setting. And that ended up helping me fill in history of the setting that I didn't know I needed, and the dominoes sort of fell, and that inspired me and gave me some gaps to fill in later.
Yerin at the end of Bloodlines vs Estyr Six
You know, there are some things that Yerin can do that Estyr Six doesn't have a good ability to block. Like, Estyr Six is an extremely powerful telekinetic, probably one that could give Yerin trouble. But at the same time, Yerin's now a suedo-herald, working on a conceptual level, so she's able to fight on some of the same tiers that Estyr Six can, and she can shoot what are effectively laser beams. And Estyr Six doesn't have a good way of blocking laser beams. So I'll have to give it to Yerin. Mainly just a compatibility issue. Now, there are problems that Estyr knows how to solve that Yerin does not, not that she is not capable of doing that, because there is some of those that a herald would probably be capable of solving, she doesn't know how. Also, Estyr Six's power set is a lot more similar to a sage's. So yeah, a little bit of a nuanced answer there.
You mentioned earlier that all your books are connected in the same universe. In Skysworn, the Sage of a Thousand Eyes was mentioned. Is that Sage anyway connected to the Elder Empire Overseer, who also has the nickname Lord of a Thousand Eyes.
That's actually a really good question, but she is not related to him at all, Ach Magut i think it the one.
Is the path related?
No its more of a colloquial nickname, in both cases. So the sage of thousand eyes is not on the path of a thousand eyes, i don't think, i'll have to look that up, maybe they are. Most of the sage of "whatever whatever", so sages have two names, so there's the "sword sage" and "the sage of the endless sword". so there's two names for sages, the "whatever" sage, and the sage of "whatever", so usually the sage of "whatever whatever" is their path, but in the case of the Sage of a Thousand Eyes, unless i changed this, so take all this with a grain of salt, shes not actually on the path of a thousand eyes, shes a member of the Arelius family. Therefore her ability is to see everything, like she can see all over the place, so therefore her most defining feature is her command over her bloodline ability. Whereas Ach Magut, the Lord of a thousand eyes, just kind of has eyes everywhere, and he has like a thousand eyes. I know there's a lot of overlap there and i'm sorry about that, i probably should have called him like lord of a million eyes or something cos he has a million eyes, i dunno. I just though a thousand eyes sounded better, really is kinda the crux there. But I apologise, and I hate telling people that the connections don't exist, but I am sorry, that's just an overlap in the naming conventions.
How far ahead did you plan Lindon's return in Bloodline?
From book 1, I think. Yeah. I had the broad strokes of him coming back in book 1, but of course the details changed as his journey went on. So how far did I plan his return? The whole time, yeah. I always intended for him to come back, and there were certain aspects of his return that I certainly had from the very beginning.
How do monarchs have babies on Cradle? Do they just appear instantly at the nine months stage? Do they rocket out of the womb at mach 9? The core is right below the navel, which is where a baby would be. Does this effect the baby or it's own developing core?
The children of Monarchs are born just like anyone else. Monarchs are not only extremely powerful, they are also skilled at controlling their power; they're not going to harm their child unless they want to. When the baby is within the womb, the Monarch's own spirit protects it, and it is born normally. Monarchs have smoother and easier pregnancies than most women, due to their superhuman resilience. The children of Monarchs are often born with special advantages. Some bloodline legacies (powers inherited through lineage) are from sacred beasts that have taken human form, but others come from Monarch ancestors.
How does Akura Malice pick who she has kids with, and what sort of presence does the father have in the life of the child?
She chooses her consorts from people with talents or bloodline abilities she values. Normally, the father has no contact with the child whatsoever.
So we saw DreadLindon tank a Monarch's blow like it was nothing:
Shadow madra Forged into blades and swept at him, but he weakened them with the Hollow Domain. Then he allowed them to land. They cut his body and his spirit together, but he healed as fast as she damaged him.
Yeah, it was weakened with the Hollow Domain first, but it's still a Monarch's melee-range attack. We've seen that same level of attack obliterate mountains. So clearly Lindon's Iron body is now healing at hyperspeed.
Lindon was also helped here by Malice's own madra and bloodline ability strengthening his healing powers as he was consuming it.
^ This is what I was going to point out.
He can’t tank Monarch hits forever without a source of Monarch-level energy to Consume.
Even with how much he expended healing himself, he did come out ahead in that exchange right?
Like how large an elixer are we talking?
About this big:
\ ___________ /
Is it theoretically possible to have a connection to all territories or are some bloodlines or tests incompatible with each other?
Theoretically yes. It's not realistic simply because most of the tests involve spending large amounts of time in the Territory. And also you'd have to be connected to Travelers of each Territory who were willing to administer the tests, which most Travelers probably wouldn't be.Ragnarus is the only one that would be difficult, because it's limited to the descendants of Queen Cynara.
Will Cassius children be Aureliuses or Naru? And if they are Naru, will the Naru clan (with much celebration)be getting members with the Aurelius bloodline ability?
They’ll be both, but the Naru clan takes precedence, so mostly they’ll be considered Naru.
So, Will, you tried some new things in your writing method, how do you feel it worked out for you?
I plan on blogging about this soon, maybe this week. I wanted to wait until as many people as possible got to read the book before I commented on the writing process, so now that sales are starting to slow down (relatively speaking), that indicates to me that most fans have had a chance to read Wintersteel and form their opinion on it.
In short, I feel like it was the most efficiently I’ve ever written a book. I was therefore able to write more in less time without killing myself.
However, I try to improve my writing process in some way for every book, so this is really just another step in a long iterative process that most likely won’t ever end.
Also, while I’m pleased with how efficiently I wrote Wintersteel, not all books I write in the future will be this long. For instance, Bloodline probably won’t be. It is (or it should be) a much more focused story, so I don’t need things like two competing primary storylines.
I feel like the answer I’m supposed to give is “I loved this process so much because it gave the story the room it really needed to breathe, and I felt more free to explore and flesh out the world,” but I didn’t really feel that way.
I felt paralyzed with fear over what to cut and what to leave in, shipped it off full of dread, received the positive reviews with a massive sigh of relief, and retroactively look over it with a feeling of “Well, I’m going to write the next book in a similar way but tweaked based on what I learned last time, and I hope they like the next one just as much but there’s every chance they won’t.”
Same as usual!
Well, it's funny because I was using some Akura naming conventions to make up Shira's name in Bloodline, and I forgot that there was an Akura Shiria in Uncrowned. So that is probably a little too similar. The reason it was, is that I have certain rules for making up Akura names, and they were both created through the same process.
The Blackflame Empire
The Blackflame Empire was founded by dragons.
In Cradle, dragons are a race of sacred beasts that can...well, they're dragons. You know what they can do. Like all sacred beasts and Remnants, their intelligence is based largely on their age and advancement levels, so many of them have human-level intelligence or better.
A family of black dragons once conquered and ruled half a continent, which is a truly massive amount of territory in a world the size of Cradle. They held their empire against all rivals for centuries.
Until a mysterious disaster killed most of the dragons, crippling their ability to continue the bloodline. As you know, no one in a fantasy novel ever discovers the truth behind ancient disasters, so I'm sure it will remain a mystery forever.
With their rulers dead or dying, a clan of humans stumbled upon a method of harnessing the dragons' power. They abandoned their old Path, instead choosing to develop the same sacred arts used by the dragons.
The Blackflame Empire shrunk in size, the humans lacking the ability to control quite as much territory as the dragons could, though it was still home to over a billion people.*
This clan started calling their main branch the Blackflame family, for obvious reasons, and they stayed in control for almost five hundred years.
But human bodies were not well-suited to the power of dragons. Slowly, the family declined, until even those who lived in the heart of the empire thought of them more as symbols and legends than actual individuals.
More and more of the day-to-day workings of the Empire were left to the Blackflames' traditional servants, the Naru clan. They became the face of the Blackflame empire, with their loyal reputation and shining emerald wings, and the people grew to know and trust them.
Fifty years ago, they quietly ascended the throne.
The first Naru clan Empress has since moved into private seclusion, and her son now rules the Empire. As for the Blackflame family themselves, they died out decades ago, gradually eaten from the inside out by their own madra.
That's the story, anyway.
*(A truly ridiculous number of people live in Cradle. The main planet of Iteration 110 is quite a bit bigger than Earth.)
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?
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.
I would like to know about the ethno-geographical population distribution across the BlackFlame Empire and surrounding continent.
I'm going to try and respond to the general questions about ethnicity in Cradle, though I can't guarantee I'll hit all of your points. I'll try to answer the spirit of the question!Humans did not evolve independently on Cradle. The Abidan initially thought they did, as the first Abidan came from Cradle; they ascended out of the world only to discover many others, most with humans that were virtually identical.Naturally, they assumed that Cradle was the first world, but upon further investigation determined that it was not.They have never been able to conclusively prove what the first world was.The Blackflame Empire (and the whole continent) has a similar ethnic makeup to our east Asia. The genetics get a little muddy when you factor in sacred beasts that can breed with humans, as well as Paths that alter bloodlines, but that's a general rule of thumb.The Arelius family comes from a different continent. Their family is, as you might imagine, Caucasian in extraction.
