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Latham

1. Suriel can manipulate strings of fate (even attaching one to London and forged madra ball) - is that a path of attributes of a path in your design, it seems that Fox clans Elder dreams of return of strategies and sees future ( this makes him connected to the way). Will there be others that can help Lindon learn to read fate from his connection to Suriel

2 if I was Ozriel and knew that other Abidan are looking for me and Suriel is the only one remotely compassionate I would try to sway Suriel to my camp and IF Somehow I, Ozriel learn about Suriels connection to Lindon, I would try to help and influence London from the very first steps along his development. So is it possible that something happenes along this line?

3. So far we have seen London primarily desire to do baby steps but he was the only one observe Suriels supreme powers- so naturally he would try to duplicate those right ? Right? It might bring conflict to Abidan if Makiel will notice that Suriels little protege tries to copy her powers while Ozriel in the shadows helping Lindon and stirring the pot to force the split in the court.ISo unique training along Eithans path? Or talking to Eithan and tell him everything about Suriel?

Will Wight

1.) I don't understand this question, I'm sorry. Probably not?

2.) It's possible that Ozriel has done something to sway Suriel to his side, but she hasn't seen it yet.

Suriel's connection to Lindon is relatively recent. So if Ozriel does learn about it and start intervening with Lindon, it won't have happened yet.

3.) Lindon is taking baby steps because those are the only steps he can take, but he has seen Suriel. No one else on Cradle has had their eyes widened quite so far.

Skeletickles

Have you played Dishonored? If so, how do you think the Great Elders or the Abidan would react if the Outsider was transported to Asylum?

Also, Daud and his Whalers vs the Consultants. Who do you think wins?

Will Wight

The Abidan would react swiftly and intensely.

As for Daud and the Whalers, it's been way too long since I've played Dishonored, so I'm going to side with the Consultants because I'm the one asked. Home team advantage.

hosoke

You said recently that you'd made some changes to your process so that you could write Elder Empire better and finish OKAK, what are those changes, what do they look like and how do they help?

Will Wight

The changes to my process, honestly iv'e been to work on and iterate on if you don't mind that word, my process basically constantly from the beginning, i'm always trying to write better. There are two parts of the process that i kind of separate it into and that "writing a better book" and "writing a book better". So writing a better book is sort of figuring out how to sit on the book i'm writing on and try to make that book as good as possible, and the other part of that is trying to make it so that the process of writing that book is superior.

So what I've been really working on is trying to front load a lot of the writing part, because i tend to lose a lot of time to rethinking and changing and tweaking and really thinking over these different parts of the book, and i tend to lose a lot of time doing that, it feels inefficient, it feels like l'm treading over the same ground. So a lot of things i think are very important as i'm developing the book end up not really mattering. I tend to rethink the ideas a lot, so what i'm trying to do now is not give myself to do that, to instead produce a book and then develop it from there. So I'm doing a lot more about what they teach you in writing class, which is you write the first draft, you don't think about it too much and then to go and develop it afterwards.     but its hard to do, because i'm not used to that

Will.2

Will, the Sword Sage praised the chief of the Heaven Glory school(not sure the name is correct). Does this mean that he has a perfect jade body, or whatever it is called. Or did he simply mean that his foundation is better than the ones of the other elders?

Will

The Sword Sage didn't REALLY praise him, he just took it as praise.To a Sage, the Jades of Sacred Valley were like a bunch of blind monkeys swinging sticks around. He may have said "Nice swing," but he meant that in the context of a bunch of other blind monkeys.

Jack

1) You said each world had its own magic system. Does Amalgam have its own system seperate from the territories or is that all it had from the beginning?

2) Some iterations have galactic colonies. Are there aliens in the Willverse?

Will Wight

1.) Amalgam's magic system is its unique property that allows it to collect and draw power from Territories. 

2.) There is alien life, but the only sentient non-human life was either once human or gained sentience from humanity in some way.

The Elders, for instance, were never human, but they gained the ability to interact with the world in a way we recognize as intelligent from humanity.

Questioner

Why do you not like character development?

Will Wight

Yesterday, I saw a comment wherein a reader wondered why I didn't give character development the same attention as the plot, action, and magic scenes. "It would only benefit the story," this person said, and "I can't understand why he doesn't give this aspect of storytelling the same attention as the others." (Paraphrased, because I can't be bothered to look up the actual comment, but it's pretty close.)The thing is, he's not wrong. And neither are you, to suggest that the world-building is shallow. It is shallow. I have all this stuff charted out in my notes, but much of what I imagine about the world is only skated across or touched upon before we've left the area and moved on to the next.However, there's no such thing as a fast-paced, action-focused, character-focused, plot-focused, worldbuilding-focused fantasy novel. There are series that do all of those things well, but they tend to be much longer and they don't come out twice a year. And even they have priorities, because you cannot have every aspect of story-crafting as your highest priority.I have a limited amount of time to produce these novels if I want to keep releasing them regularly. Therefore, I have to choose what is most important to me.I think will is putting too much stock in keeping books close to the same length.There are two reasons why I put a high priority on keeping the books close to the same length. First is story consistency. It's very easy to let each book in a long series balloon longer and longer as the series progresses, because you're always adding new characters and new places and new aspects of the world to explore.Plus, you hear most of your feedback from your hardcore fans (because they tend to care the most and therefore talk the most), so they're always clamoring for more. However, a 120k book is structurally different from a 90k word book. It's not just "the same story, but more of it." You don't want people to sign on for one type of story and end up getting another.That said, I could see a Cradle book stretching up to 120k without it changing too much, and we might end up there. Which brings me back to the other point: release rate. It takes me longer to write a longer book.If I didn't give myself a cap, I would always write longer and longer books, because there are more cool things I want to cram in there. But I have to limit myself, or the stories will stretch and change and the release rate will slow down."Ah, but Will, you snide devil," I hear you say, "why don't you just take more time to write each book?"Two reasons: first, I don't believe most people want that. I believe most readers value consistent releases more highly than you might expect. I am firm in this belief, but I know everybody doesn't think that way, so in comes my second reason: it just doesn't work.If I took as long as I wanted for each book, and they each took more than a year to write and were as long as I wanted, they might individually become more highly rated. But the series as a whole would be less popular. My sales growth comes almost entirely from quick releases and ratings spikes on Amazon, and the way the Kindle store works means frequent releases are far better than infrequent releases, even if the infrequent releases have individually higher sales. My sales charts make it staggeringly obvious. Sales trend way down, and then a new release spikes the sales for all my books (especially books in that series) back up.If I were to take so long between books, I would fall below my minimum monthly income in about eight months. Which means that for the remaining 6-12 months it could take me to write this book, I'd be running off my savings.That is not a viable business model.Even beyond a business perspective and back to the artistic: the same thing happens to fans. Readers forget about me if they aren't reminded every few months. People stop talking about my books. Word of mouth slows down. People don't care as much. Fans are happier, more engaged, and more interested with more frequent releases.This might not be true if I had one Harry Potter mega-hit that sold a million copies and spawned a perpetual motion machine of fan engagement. Then I could take 2+ years for each book and really knock your socks off every time. But since I have not done that, I have to bow to reality.Bottom line: having established that I have to produce books in a finite amount of time, I therefore have a finite amount of space, and I have to choose carefully what I spend that space on.However, that doesn't mean I've given up on improving my world-building!Specifically in the areas of world-building and character development, I know that I can do more in the same amount of space and with the same amount of time. I am trying, and I push myself in these areas every book. There is a way to write an action scene that gives you deeper insight into the characters involved and demonstrates unique aspects of the world without taking up any more page space or sacrificing pacing, but it's hard to do.I am working on it, though! The issues you've brought up are valid, and I'm aware of them, and I'm working to improve, even within the constraints under which I now operate.Thanks! I don’t want to be one of THOSE writers who lets time stretch on forever between books...although Elder Empire fans might say I’m getting there.By the way, part of the “unanswered question” problem is that, when I set out to write this series, I knew a lot of the upcoming plot points but I did not know how long the series would be. So I wasn’t sure when I would reach the right place for those answers.Now, I have a much better idea of where we are and where we’re going.

Questioner

Are there bows in the Elder Empire?

Questioner

There are bows as Vessels, and I have notes for at least one Soulbound that uses one. Bows didn’t show up in the series primarily to distinguish it from my other series, which had lots of bows, and secondarily because the books aren’t that long and there’s a lot we don’t explore.

Questioner (paraphrased)

How close does the current cradle story align with the initial outline? Are there any major deviations after the world/characters became more flushed out?

Will Wight (paraphrased)

Yes. Uh...There are definitely things. What I usually do is I have certain big events that i am definitely going to get to, so that road map down the road has always been there, all the major events have remained the same, so the general outline has been the same pretty much the whole time but the specific events that happen in each book, that changes all the time. That changes based on what I want to do. So a lot of times those minor changes snowball into bigger changes. One of those things is, Bliss from elder empire for instance, I know you asked about Cradle but this is the easiest off the top answer. I had designed, I had said there was a woman who was the head of the Blackwatch who was an artificially created homunculus basically and she had the spear of Tharlos, and had this certain power and she was this kind of person. But then when I wrote her intro scene meaning Calder, I really enjoyed writing her, and i enjoyed that scene a lot. So she became a bigger character than I intended her to be just because it was fun to write, just because she was fun so I enjoyed her.

So that kind of stuff happens in Cradle, like I said... earlier I had planned on Akura Grace just being one of the more sympathetic Akura clan characters, then as I fleshed her out, she grew into a character. So that ended up creating new things.

LCSpartan051

Honestly my biggest shock came when i figured out that if Eithan is so powerful, as is shown when he easily stomps all the other elders, and the Sword Sage was more powerful than Eithan, then HOW THE F*** DID JADES KILL THE SWORD SAGE???

I mean poison, but still...

Will Wight

There is a reason.

A lot of times I have to go back and add explanations later for mistakes I made, but this one actually wasn't a mistake! WOOHOO!

You're right that under normal circumstances the Sword Sage could not have been killed by Jades using any means, including poison (you know, unless they got their hands on some really good stuff, but that's far beyond the scope of Sacred Valley).

There were extenuating circumstances, I promise!

TransEmo

Will Wight

Elder Empire. I put more work into it, and there were some very difficult things (for me) that I tried and worked out.

Walter

How the emperor’s original companions are still alive if the emperor had to bind himself to the heart just to live longer, and why nobody considers them like great elders at this point if they did the emperor. 

Will Wight

The Emperor's original companions were asleep in coffins designed by the Emperor to prolong their lives. They are awakened only when the Empire is in great crisis, and then put back to sleep.

Wodan

What is the official path of Arelius clan? And what are its basic principles?

Will Wight

That's an interesting question. So, the official path of the Arelius clan.

The Arelius family in the Blackflame Empire does not have an official path. They don't have one; the elders are all on different paths. I mean they really do a lot of different stuff. They usually use their different paths to create links and bonds--kind of like arranged marriages between the different sects and schools of the empire. The path that Cassius is on, the Path of Silver Grace, the School of Silver Grace is actually an influential and prestigious school in the Blackflame Empire. Therefore, they send qualified people there from the Arelius Family in order to create bonds. So, really, it's their people in different sects and schools all over the empire.

However, as has been alluded to for the last few books, there is a homeland continent the Arelius family come from and they have a main clan there. That clan does indeed have an official path but I'm not going to share it with you yet because I think it's going to come into play in book seven. Books seven and eight, so it's at least going to be featured in it. I don't know how prominent it's going to be so that's not as much of a spoiler as it sounds like.

Questioner

Is there a limit to how many Vessels can be bound to a person?

Will Wight

This is a subject of debate and research in the Aurelian Empire. The Vessel gets its power from the Kameira or Elder parts that went into its creation, but it's connected to the Soulbound through Intent. Basically, it has to be connected to you personally in order for a bond to be born.

The Magisters would see any claims of a Soulbound with three Vessels very skeptically. They would never believe a report of a Soulbound with four.

But in theory, the limit is however many objects you see as part of your identity.

Mierin

If the Emperor had been born on a world like Cradle where he could actually train and develop instead of having to hold back the Elders, how high would he or someone with his will/strength/etc. have been able to advance?

Will Wight

He certainly COULD have reached Monarch, but most of those with the potential to reach Monarch fail to do so. It requires so much luck and unique opportunity that it's impossible to guarantee anyone with reach Monarch, no matter how driven and/or talented. In the Blackflame Empire, he would have almost certainly become a powerful Underlord. With the right resources and chances, he could have potentially left the Empire and ascended to Overlord or better outside.

Justin

I wonder, if a prize was offered for your deathmatches, what would they ask for? I bet Simon would ask for a vacation or something like that.

Will Wight

He would ask for his mother and father back from the dead.

...but this is a fantastic question, and one I hadn't considered! If the Abidan were offering wishes, what would the characters want?

Urzaia would want to keep fighting where he could make a difference, ideally with Calder but he'd settle for something else.

If we assume Disney genie rules (no raising the dead, no mind control, no infinite wish loopholes), Simon would have to think and discuss with Caela first. I suspect he'd wish for all the lost Dragon's Fangs back, so that the Eldest would get off his back and let him do his many other jobs.

But he might surprise me.

Lindon would wish for a power-up, Yerin would wish for sacred arts knowledge (assuming resurrection is off-limits, again). Shera would wish for a box inside which time would stop and she could go take a break and nap whenever she wanted. Calder would also wish for increased personal power.

Kai would wish for the dolls to love him, and upon learning that his wish breaks the genie rules, he would instead wish for a new doll.

The Emperor would wish for a way to permanently destroy the Elders, would learn that it's essentially impossible, and would instead wish for the Abidan to take a more active role in keeping them suppressed.

Lil' Blue

I wish Jeri died instead of Lucian.

Will Wight

Too bad; in OKAK she wins and becomes the new Empress, ruling forever over an Elder-blighted homeworld.

Questioner

Where did you get the idea for Cradle?

Will Wight

It was really just I was reading a lot of cultivation novels that are mostly Chinese, but then I was also reading a lot of Korean martial arts web comics, so there's a lot of shared mythology there. So that was kind of where I was... that idea started percolating, and I was going to do it as a web serial, just on the website on my blog, at a couple of chapters a week to get some traffic to cover up the gap between writing Kings and Killers. And then I ended up doing the short stories instead, so then I bound the chapters I had left together and turned them into Unsouled, and then I... that took off, far more than Elder Empire ever had, so I pursued Cradle. So that's the long and the short of Cradle.

Questioner

You've stated in the past that you include secret bunkers in your settings In the case of an unexpected isekai, where's the one on cradle and what's inside? 

Just in case.

Will Wight

Well, I can't tell you the secret bunker because then if we both got isekai’d there, we would both have access to it. 

I want to also point out that it only responds to my authorization code, so even if you were there, you couldn't open it but, 

I have left secret......but what they're referring to is that what I do is I designed in my setting books for each one of my settings, I design some sort of vault that only I can open in the case that - in the very likely case that I ever did isekai’d - as in “banished” to my own fantasy reality. 

So if some sort of omnipotent dimensional entity makes my setting real and puts me in it, I've already outsmarted them by including secret cheat codes. 

It's like a like a little backdoor cheat. 

So for cradle, because cradle is so big, I have a number of vaults spread around. 

I've got one in Sacred Valley and then I have several under the control of the different monarchs so that if I really needed access to it, I could summon one of the monarchs by being within their territory and saying their name a bunch and then I would have The authorization code to access it and I have all sorts of cheat codes that would help it make it easier to advance and pads that would and iron bodies and stuff that would be easy to acquire and would make my life on cradle easy because I'm not here for an adventure. 

I'm here to stay alive, so that is my answer. 

In elder empire I have vaults in several major cities on file with the consultants guild, so all I would have to do is go into a branch of chapter House of the consultant skill, then tell them my name and they have a file for me. 

So I just want you to know in case you were planning on banishing me to another dimension, that I'm already prepared. 

Case anybody was considering that? 

Unless it's not something I wrote, in which case, I’m screwed 

emperor_calder

Interesting Contradictions in Lindon's FateWhen Suriel first examines Lindon's fate:

The boy fights against a relative of his, a young man with long black hair and an iron badge. The boy cheats, releases emerald hornets, ekes out a technical victory.

With a bulky brown pack on his back, he bends his head over a scroll, studying a Path by candlelight in someone else’s home.

And when she shows him his fate later:

The frozen world was wiped out, replaced with another. He was still standing on the stone of the arena stage, but the clouds Li Markuth summoned had never appeared, and the sun beat down out of a clear sky. Wei Jin Amon faced him, and though he resisted longer than anyone expected, he still lost.

That night, he nursed his wounds alone when the First Elder barged in without knocking. The old man slapped a book down on his table: Path of the White Fox.

Will Wight

This is intentional. She’s showing him something that is equally likely to occur as what she saw earlier.

The details change, but the broad strokes don’t.

OtherAndrew

Will you directly deal with the Abidan in your other series?

Will Wight

In Elder Empire, yes. In Traveler's Gate? ...maybe.