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Questioner

What is your view on a possible Lindon x Yerin romance?

Will Wight

All of the reasons listed in this conversations are reasons why I don’t like writing romance. It’s usually out of place and unnecessary, and you have to take time out of the plot to write it. Plus, it’s entirely based on emotional interactions, and emotional/relational interactions are what I have the hardest time writing. They’re my greatest weakness.All that said, a well-executed romance makes the whole story better. I don’t dislike it as a reader, it’s just hard as a writer.So what I’m trying to do is lay the foundation for a romance by creating two likeable characters who care for each other and have spent a lot of time together. Which is the groundwork a lot of stories don’t do, and why a lot of romance sub-plots fail.

Lil' Blue

Lindon and Yerin go to an "educational dream tablet viewing" a.k.a a date.

Tievel

If we ever get a scene or story about those two going on a date, I definitely want it to be Yerin who plans the outing. Because I imagine that would be hilarious.

OrgnlDave

How would Lindon be any less hilarious? he knows nothing about the world or women?

Will Wight

I know I’ve said this a lot, but it bears repeating: the main reason there hasn’t been overt romantic development in Cradle thus far is because it’s hard to find space. Not my unwillingness to write it. There just aren’t many purely character/relational scenes in the whole series. So I need to either make room for those, thus potentially altering the fundamental formula of the series thus far, or find a way to work the same level of relational development into plot scenes. I’m trying the second one, but it’s hard.

Lil' Blue

You should definitely address romance in your books. ;)

Will Wight

Shshshshshshshshsssssssshhhhh. Hush now.

Lil' Blue

I need an awkward Will protagonist date in my life.

Will Wight

Jk, I know you’re right, and it’s going in. I have to practice to learn how to use it effectively, and the only way I practice is through LIVE-FIRE EXERCISE.   Everything that happens to Lindon and/or Simon results in awkwardness.

Lil' Blue

"Lindon: So uh...you like swords, right Yerin?"   "Simon: I like my eyes and having both of them."

Will Wight

^ Thats now my favorite. I’m going to try and work that in.

OrgnlDave

Actually Will, that's the perfect way to introduce it, Yerin x Lindon kissed between books, but when we get to Underlord, she's pulled back because her blood shadow tried to kill him or something and now she's struggling with it or SOMETHING LIKE THAT totally works it into the plot, see?

Will Wight

I would love to do that, but my challenge is doing more character/relational development in scene. Have to step up.

DJ Johnson

Did you think of making a harem for lindon in the past? How many books till cradle ends?

Will Wight

I don't necessarily see these two things as linked, but I will try to answer this together. No, that never occurred to me. That was not something that I ever had as an idea. There was a time when there was a lot of pressure on me to have him go through a thorough romantic life, so therefore he would have multiple love interests. Some of the romantic relationships would end badly or end soon. But that would've taken up a lot of the books and I didn't want to write it, so there you go. 

Three more left, and I've got my work cut out for me. There's a lot coming, as the several hundred people who have already finished Bloodline can tell you.

Will Wight

What do you want to see in Skysworn

Questioner

Maybe adding some romantic relationships? I know he has a one track mind of "getting stronger" but he is still a 15 year old boy, he should be thinking about girls at least sometimes.

In most fiction works it is either "one fated love" or "A huge harem", I would love to see a more realistic approach in your work which mean Lindon having 4-5 different relationships during the course of the series.(not at the same time, of course).

Will Wight

You know, I understand and feel the same way, but I'm not sure this is the series for it.

It's not like I spend much time on Lindon's day-to-day life. I've been trimming away basically everything except progression and exploration, so anything focused purely on relationship development would be taking time away from either the story or the world.

It's the reason why so many series default to either a single, fated relationship or a harem: time.

For a harem, you just have one love interest per arc. It's part of the story formula, and you repeat it over and over. It takes no extra time because it's part of the story, and because the girls only get shallow development and have no real lives of their own.

And a single relationship is either gotten out of the way early or is someone intimately involved in the plot, just like the main character is, so their development together can be folded into plot development.

Basically, that's two ways to bake romance into a story without it taking up too much word count.

As it is now, an ongoing series of romantic relationships would mean 20-30k more words per novel. Which means either 20-30k fewer words spent on the meat and potatoes of the story, or a lot more time to develop and write each book.

Plus, writing engaging and organic character relationships is far more challenging than writing fights or cool magical doohickeys. So...it comes down to having a limited amount of time, and having to choose where I spend it.

However, despite everything I just said, I'm not entirely ruling it out. I'm spending some time over the next few days just trying to figure out how much of my books should be spent on plot progression, and how much room I have for other things. This will be part of that discussion.

Questioner

Lindon should have a harem.  By now Mercy, Yerin,lil blue and Geisha would be in harem by now. Orthos would turn out to be female and Lindon's goal would be to show arrogant young lords why he is worthy of Emperor's jade like beauty sister.

Will Wight

Strange...this is exactly the plot of the sixth novel. Using the Emperor’s elixirs, Gesha is regenerated back into her young body, and she finally notices how heroic Lindon’s eyebrows are and falls for him. Little Blue gains a solid form and can now express her long-standing affection for Lindon, it’s revealed that Mercy is actually gone from the Akura family to look for a man strong enough to be her husband, and all this attention causes Yerin to realize her true feelings for Lindon. The Emperor’s sister begins to see him as a little brother until Lindon rescues her, and as she is carried away in his arms she realizes how much she’s missed a man’s strong embrace. Despite the fact that she’s physically stronger than he is, but forget about that.

The only thing you got wrong is Orthos. He’s not a female turtle, but his never-before-mentioned daughter is, and she’s so advanced that she is perfectly human in appearance and, of course, has beauty like a heavenly fairy. She has to continue the Blackflame bloodline, and Lindon’s the only one around...

I’m amazed you picked up on all that, considering how subtle the clues were in the previous books.