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I should have expected that. If the humans can kinda do it, why can't Suriel.(referring to the above question)
Suriel did it already. It's how the Great Elders came to be sealed in that world in the first place.
And the versions the Emperor and Estyr Six dealt with were pale shadows of the entities Suriel would be dealing with. When they're inside an Iteration, they're bound by its rules to some degree. Not so outside.
to the Eldest Nye [House of Blades]: "What is or was the fighting style of the Dragon Army? Formation? Individual? Please elaborate."
The Eldest is behind you. No matter how you twist or turn to follow his rasping voice, he's always behind you. Like your shadow.
"Valin's 'children' took after their father. They were prideful. Individualistic. They formed teams, certainly, temporary alliances that were easily broken when they drifted off to pursue conflicting goals. Together, they could have been a force that broke Damasca like a hammer through glass. But they never worked together, and it led them all to death.
"That was the past. The future will be different--a weapon built to my design. For I am wise where my Master was foolish.
"The new generation of Dragons, they work together. They eat together. They live together. I am forging one weapon, not thirteen. And Damasca thinks they are servants. I know, more than most, the power servants have over their masters."
A cold length of chain settles around your throat, biting into the flesh of your neck. Your heart races, and you spread sweaty palms to show that you aren't reaching for a weapon.
Dry breath whispers into your ear.
"Tell me. Would you like a sword?"
If your characters ever came to life, who would you be the most terrified to encounter?
One of the Great Elders. Any of them, that would be terrifying. Some of them I would not be terrified for long. So that would be, there's that. If I ran into Urg'naut, and I encountered him, I would be terrified for a few seconds before I was obliterated into nonexistence.
How do you actually make it to the end of a novel?
I ascend from Death to answer this one question, and this one alone, before returning to the grave.This is part of the process. I had many 20k stories before House of Blades, because that’s about the point where the inner critic kicks in and you realize what you’ve written isn’t as good as it was in your head. Now you’ve realized that the REALLY good story is a different idea entirely, or you’ve figured out that you can take the current story in a much better direction as long as you start over from the beginning.This feeling is not to be trusted. Those are lies whispered into your ears by Book Satan. If you switched ideas or started over, you would once again get about 20k in before facing the same situation.You cannot evaluate a story until it is finished. Give yourself permission to write a story that you feel is the worst thing ever. Finish it anyway. Push forward. This is where the hard work of writing comes in.Only when it’s finished can you actually start to judge whether it really is terrible or if it’s actually pretty good. You’re going to feel like it’s terrible throughout the whole middle of the process, and that’s natural. Just don’t let it stop you from putting words on paper.
The topic that I really wanted to talk about tonight, in the sense that I wanted to talk about any particular topic in mind, is that Dreadgod is my twentieth book. Which is crazy. That's just a lot of books. So it's eleven books in this series, 3 books in Traveler's Gate Trilogy ('cause it's a trilogy,) and then six books in Elder Empire. So this book number twenty. We are having out twentieth book come out. I was talking before hand about things that I could talk about on stream, and they were going, "Do you have stories from the books?" What I thought, was I could do a really quick, rapid fire version, where I gave you whatever, just the first memory I have, just really quickly, just the first memory I have of writing each book. In all twenty books. In all of my series. So I'm going to go through them all; I'm going to tell you twenty stories, real quick. About whatever the first memory, I've not rehearsed this, this is something a just thought to do a few minutes ago, so I'm going to give you whatever story pops off my head for each book. It's going to be about the writing of the book, or where I was, or what I was doing, or any of that. Ok.
So, obviously House of Blades is the first one. And when I think of writing House of Blades, the number one thing that comes to my mind is we were in Roan Mountain. Roan Mountain, which is a park here in the US, and we're camping, and we're at a stone table, that is covered in moss. And I have set my laptop up, and I'm wearing a camp chair, and I've set my laptop up on the table, and I'm writing notes. Which rooms have which swords, and which advisors go with the swords. So that's the strongest memory for me from House of Blades. That's what I was doing.
Then, Crimson Vault, which was only two months later, we went back camping, because obviously that worked for the first one, but this time we were getting cabins. So I remember sitting in a cabin, because we could afford it, with House of Blades money, so I remember sitting in a cabin, and thinking over them, and trying to figure out the scene where we went on this montage over the Overlords of Damasca, and how they were reacting to the hanging tree; reacting in Crimson Vault to Valin breaking free. So that's the strongest memory for me from that one.
For City of Light, the strongest memory I
Where was Tharlos at the end of OKAK?
Tbh there’s a pretty mundane explanation if you don’t mind knowing it:
Tharlos is incapable of coordination with the others because he’s incapable of consistency, which is why he doesn’t help.
The reason he isn’t mentioned again is because of the scenes I removed dealing with Tharlos specifically.
One I actually wrote and then removed, so I have that saved, but the other one was supposed to be a Bliss epilogue that I never wrote.
I felt like the epilogue scene would put too much emphasis on a Great Elder who in the grand scheme of things didn’t do much, and would detract pacing-wise from the emotional impact of the ending, so I cut it.
Of course, what I then should have done was tossed in a throwaway line at the end where Calder senses what Tharlos is doing in order to tie up that loose end. But I didn’t think about it.
TL;DR - The reason it doesn’t exist is because I cut the Tharlos scene, and then I didn’t include a line patching it up because I forgot to.
If you could collab with another author, living or dead, who would it be?
I'll answer that question in a second, but first, I would say the idea of collaboration seems really fun to me. I feel like I would enjoy it. However, on the other side, there's the reality that it's just easier to just keep writing books by myself and it's probably easier for whoever I would collaborate with too. So it's hard to justify "Let's take longer to write one book instead of us each writing two books, like we each write one faster." It's just hard to justify.
But if I could magically collaborate with anybody, who would I collaborate with? My obvious instinct I would say is Robert Jordan because he was just a huge influence on me growing up and I would love to learn from him. However, I don't think our styles would be particularly compatible so this would mostly be him going "Will, do this." and I'd be like "Yes sir." and then we'd just be kinda writing a Robert Jordan book and I'd be sort of happily writing on a toy typewriter in the background while he's doing the real work. A more fun collaboration, let's see... Jane Austen. 100 percent. We get the same thing where I get to learn from a master and I get to improve my skills and also now we get to have a Jane Austen novel with her trademark character relationships and well defined people in a Victorian-I guess Elizabethan, whatever-English setting. And at the same time we also get magic and sword fights. That's it. It's kinda like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Sam just suggested D.B. Weiss and David Benioff and then my dad stage whispered "Who's that?" That's about right. I'm gonna move on. There's nothing I can say.
Outsource the slice of life to Jane Austen.
I'll be honest with you Liam, I would actually just outsource it all to Jane Austen. Again, it's another scenario that ends with me typing with a toy typewriter in the background while they do the real work.
Pride and Prejudice and Dreadgods. That's it, I'll read that, I'll be honest.
[Cradle] is sincere but doesn't take itself too seriously
Well said. And thanks!
That’s definitely how I think of it. Sincerity is higher priority to me than taking the world seriously.
On the one hand, I do take the characters seriously and I want them to live meaningful lives and grapple with sincere struggles.
On the other hand, I’m very aware that this is a series about punching Godzilla in the face.
So many series struggle with that concept. Either they have every instant be incredibly dire and epic and they just pound the reader with maximized stakes until they’re numb, or they turn everything into a joke and are unable to stay serious for more than a sentence, which kills the stakes entirely and makes the reader not care about the characters. Will strikes a good balance in Cradle. IMO, his earlier works were too far on the dire side.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of times sincerity is compromised by taking a series too seriously. There’s some integrity in the realization that “At the end of the day, this story is fantastical and ridiculous,” but at the same time, fantastical and ridiculous stories can still have real emotional impact.
IMO, his earlier works were too far on the dire side.
Funny enough, I agree, but I’d say it was for lack of ability, not lack of intention.
Early on, I thought the inflated over-the-top ridiculousness of the setting was enough to signal to the reader “Don’t take this too seriously.”
Simon’s carrying a doll and swinging a sword bigger than he is. Elder Empire is pirates versus ninjas versus Cthulhu.
But within the world, the characters take it seriously because of course they do. It’s not ridiculous to them, it’s real life.
That isn’t enough for someone reading fiction, though, because so often stories DO want you to take them 100% seriously. And I slowly realized that over a few years and adjusted how I presented them.
If I were to re-write my earlier books, basically through Soulsmith, I’d highlight the inherent humor a little more. Not necessarily ramping up the one-liners, but some more beats where I signal to the reader that THEY aren’t supposed to take this as dire and brooding even if the characters do.
Like Simon tripping over his cloak, Shera treating murder missions as the humdrum status quo, and so on.
For one thing, I could have exaggerated how overly stiff and formal Sacred Valley people are compared to outsiders.
I'm glad you enjoy them! They're fun for me too, they just take a long time due to sheer volume.
I find it easier to be imaginative within constraints. So when someone asks me "What's the Cradle equivalent of a piano?" I tell myself that I have to give them a satisfying answer. I can't just say "There is none," or "It's a piano," unless there's a story reason to do so. I have to actually invent a Cradle piano.
Which is fun. It makes me consider avenues of the worlds that I hadn't considered.As for your trying to be imaginative, it's not like my systems are the most original magic systems ever designed. I just give myself permission to have fun with it.
I start with what general kind of magic I want the people to use. For Traveler's Gate, I started with the idea of an extradimensional mansion where you went for martial training. I knew I wanted the House to exist, so then I built a world where extradimensional training grounds were commonplace.
For Elder Empire, I started by knowing that I wanted a world where significant objects held automatic power through their significance. Excalibur wielded by King Arthur would have automatic power BECAUSE it was Excalibur and BECAUSE it was King Arthur's sword. Then I worked out from there.You can do that too. And there's nothing wrong with using principles from known magic systems; madra is basically just elemental mana.
My main weakness is that I throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Every idea I can think of goes in. There are more Territories than necessary, for instance. Too many Guilds. Reading, Awakening, Soulbound, etc. are more complicated than they need to be, and could probably be separated into two systems. Vital aura is essentially elemental energy, but by trying to integrate it into the madra system I accidentally made it muddy and unclear.
No approach is perfect, but I like mine because it's fun. My magic systems might be too unintuitive or complicated, but they're colorful and fun. That's my priority over a logical, fully hammered-out, and ultimately simpler system.Of course, the Holy Grail is a simple, intuitive system that nonetheless fires your imagination and can be used to create as many fun and colorful situations as you want. And toward that distant goal, we all strive.
Did the Emperor from Elder Empire have any authority?
I really wanted to answer that in the literal sense in that yes, he did have authority; he was the ruler of the world. But I know what you're asking and I'd say yes. Yes he did.
Can you add a secret stretch goal reward of a second round of hot wings and rating the flavors?
No, because I won't do that again. The hot wings that we did... so we did the hot ones challenge at home. My brother, Sam, got what ever the cases they sell a bunch of different hot sauces for wings. And we went and got Publix wings at Publix grocery store, because we're in Florida, so we are privileged enough to have Publix. And we brought the wings home and we rolled them in the hot sauces and what we did, unfortunately, was they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, not on the scale but which spiciness level. So you're supposed to eat them in order and what we thought was the second one was actually the second to last.
That was shameless shilling for Publix, you're right. I shill for Publix all day long. It's like my name is John Q. Publix.
So we accidentally put the one that is second-to-last one second and we ate it. So we misunderstood the order. So we went from, yeah this hot sauce has a nice smoky flavor, it's like a rich Tabasco, to my tongue tried to kill itself and leave my mouth. That was pretty abrupt.
So because of that, then we went on and did the rest of them in order and we ended with the Last Dab and that one was an experience. Sam dunked his face in the pool. I don't remember what I did. I remember a light. That I remember. Then I remember photos from my childhood. It flashed in front of my eyes. I remember spirits whispering my name. So that was an intense experience that I don't want to repeat. I'm going to leave it as a singular memory. But if you guys want to do it, by all means, you can send me your videos. Please don't do that.
1. If reaching copper allows you to see the madra around you, what would a copper see in the worlds of House of Blades or Elder Empire?
2. With a mixture of madra and intent, could someone create an invested or awakened object that followed a path?
3. During his travels, did Valin get mocked a lot for his nye cloak?
4. You mentioned that it is very difficult to awaken a gun, but how difficult would it be to create a gun/gunpowder based path?
1.) Nothing. Copper's change allows you to see aura, which (for the most part) only exists in Cradle.
2.) If a Reader and a Soulsmith joined forces, they would be able to create some crazy self-aware objects, yes.
3.) He didn't wear one.
4.) Unnecessary. Why would you need chemical accelerant when you can launch projectiles with your mind?
How many books do you think Cradle will have?
I think 12. I said that recently on the subreddit. Which I fully understand, not everyone looks at the subreddit, so why would you know that? But I recently decided there is going to 12 for a couple of reasons. One is cradle is not structured in trilogies, but that's four trilogies. That's enough content. Secondly, it's a good length and I think that's about when I want them to reach an endpoint. That feels right to me, I think I can do the stuff I want to do in five more novels. After that there might be a spin-off or a continuation. Who knows? I would like to do some new stuff, because I just love doing new stuff. One of the things I like the most is coming up with new ideas, I just love doing that, and I don't get to do that a lot when I'm working on one series. That is something I'm looking forward to, and I also would like to go back to Traveler's Gate, it's been a long time. But of course, Elder Empire first.
With people being divided over the characters... Which book you choose first is 50/50 In a book that combined the two stories, if you read for a while and it switched POVs to one you liked, you could get into it But you're stuck with a bad taste in your mouth if you didn't like the one you randomly picked and probably won't try the other
Yeah, I’d have no problem believing that, but it doesn’t seem like a ton of people tried one and not the other. I’m not trying to figure out why people didn’t like Elder Empire—because by and large they did, at least in comparison to my other series—but why they didn’t try it in the first place. I have some operating theories, but idk if I’ll ever know.
You said it on some podcast that it was twice as many books from more than double the amount of work. If you could do the series over again, would you approach it differently?
Yeah, so one thing I would do is, we think the main deal with Elder Empire is, the concept is not super clear. So, I would clarify that. I think one thing that hurts that is, the titles, which I think are super fun, but they don't communicate the concept really that well; and they're hard to remember. So, it's, there's a lot of presentation things that we would change, I probably would, the thing is I probably wouldn't do, I would probably do a different concept; but it's hard to say that because I'm glad I did it, once, it was cool, it was a good experience. I grew as a writer, I learned a lot. Now I would do that, but I would only do that now with the benefit of hind sight, so if I really went back in time I would probably do the same thing. So... It's really the dual book structure thats not clear.
What's not clear about pirates vs ninjas...?
It's the dual novel structure that's not clear, why is it two novels? What is the structure, what are the flash backs? It's not clear. So I would clarify that more; but I did say before it is twice as many books for more than double the amount of work, yeah it, it look. Writing two books would be easier than writing two books in parallel; because two books in parallel you have to be extremely clear and exacting on where everything is at each time. Plus, they both have to be structured in relation to one another and also independently. So they have to work on a structural level, as themselves, and in relation to the other story. As you can imagine, that's hard; because you have to have characters, both characters pushing their story line forward in a way that interacts with the other, but in a way that's also satisfying on its own. It's very very difficult to do. So, that was a challenge that I took on. Some people have in the past been like, 'ah, yeah, you did that so you could get two pieces of income, for essentially the same book.' Uh, no. That, that's kind of the opposite of what happened; and it is really, I would have made way more money had I just written six books 1 2 3 4 5 6, instead of two at a time. So yeah. It would have been way easier.
Time-wise, does Lindon's adventure occur before, after or simultaneously to Simon's?
Traveler's Gate takes place slightly before Cradle, and Elder Empire takes place after Cradle (or at least after where Cradle is now). I don't want to lock myself into anything more specific than that.
For some reason, I think Lindon and the Fox would get on well together.
I've wanted to write a scene with the Fox for years now.With anybody really, but mainly between Ozriel and Zakariel. Because Zakariel irritates all the other Judges with a smile on her face, but the only one who gets on HER nerves is Ozriel.Fun fact: probably the first scene I wrote for this series, when I was working out the Suriel storyline, was a dialogue between Ozriel and Zakariel.
Will we get to enjoy that scene that you wrote about?
Probably not, no. I originally wrote it for Elder Empire.
Will's EE swag
So I keep this hat, I got a ninja painting when I did Elder Empire, and I hang this pirate hat up next to it. And, fun fact, somebody asked me about maximum nerd level - fun fact, I'm hanging them up on iron hooks I forged myself at a smithy. That's actually true. I took a weekend-long blacksmithing course and so you forge a mound of railroad spikes - it wasn't hard at all, it was pretty cool.
If Luminous Queen Sheia (or whatever her name is, you know, the one that keeps all the chains) and Northstrider had a baby, then that baby grew up and had a baby with the strongest elder, then the baby of those two was given the powers of the way, What would its spirit animal be?
An electric eel.
Hey Will I want to know something about Asylum's magic system. Intent, does it work even if the object itself does not possess the property the user is attempting to augment it for?
Eg.) Superstitions about the luck a rabbit's foot gives. If the person whom hangs it around his neck 'believes' it grants him that property does it actually accumulate that property?
Luck is one of those things that's difficult to quantify. People do invest objects to make them luckier, but they've been proven not to affect things that actually rely on pure unaffected randomness, like a lottery.
Therefore, it's believed that objects like a lucky rabbit's foot (for instance) would only increase your confidence or concentration, depending on what you mean by "luck."
Most of the invested or Awakened objects with crazy powers have Kameira elements, meaning they're borrowing some of the elemental powers of the Kameira. Or the reality-twisting powers of the Elders.
