Recent entries

Questioner

What is your favorite book, web novel and game that you have discovered in the last year?

Will Wight

Ooh, book, web novel, and game. Does it count if I say Subnautica: Below Zero for the game? Is that cheating? Because while I did not discover Subnautica in the last year, Below Zero came out in the last year. So, still counts.

So book, web novel, and game. Trying to think of what all games... I mean I really liked the Demon Souls remake for PS5. That was really good. Again, I feel like that's a cheating answer, though, because it's not exactly a game that came out in the last year but technically it is. I don't know. I'll have to think about the game part.

Then book and web novel. Book and web novel. Now book is going to be hard. Let's see, let me look at my Kindle. I don't know. I liked Alec Hutson's The Shadows of Dust. That was a space fantasy series that came out and it was coming out when I was thinking out outlining a space fantasy series. So that was something I was like wow this is fortuitous and he wrote The Crimson Queen which was a book I really liked a few years ago and then, of course, the rest of that trilogy. So I enjoyed that, that was creative and neat. But that's the first one that pops into my head.

I really liked the last Dresden Files book. I actually really liked, there was a Dresden Files book, the one before last, that Peace Talks, that wasn't as popular and you know it wasn't my favorite Dresden Files book but it was a Dresden Files book and that is all I needed. And it had been way to long since I had had any Dresden Files book of any description so I was extremely happy to get both of those. Still really good.

And then web novels. Now the question is, how to narrow down my answers. Probably I'm the Lord of an Intergalactic Empire was, I think that was hilarious. It also happens to be scifi/space opera stuff. But it's just, I think it's very funny. One of the top negative reviews for that series is well it's almost like a comedy. Well it is a comedy, it is 100 percent a comedy. So I don't know what they were thinking. And I Want to be a Power in the Shadows or I think it got translated as Eminence in the Shadows. That's getting an anime which is great because it's fantastic. It's like fantasy isekai One Punch Man.

Someone is saying plus one on Iron Prince. And yeah, I would have said that if I had discovered it in the last year but I didn't. It's been more than a year, right?

So, Intergalactic Empire I think is great. I also have weirdly enough been really enjoying Kidnapped Dragons. I'm not all the way, actually I am all  caught up on that. I enjoyed that. That's very much not something I usually like because it's very slice of life but it's about a guy raising, effectively, four daughters who are shape shifted dragons because he has to keep them happy because otherwise they'll destroy the world. And it's surprisingly wholesome and slice of life and yet, I enjoy it. So that is an unusual combination. Usually I don't like those at all.

Questioner

The Beginning after the End was amazing.

Will Wight

Yeah, the Beginning after the End is amazing.

Questioner

Does Sha Miara have to manifest an Icon?

Will Wight

Yes, she did. In a sense, manifesting an Icon is, all it is, is the Way recognizing you as the manifestation or representation of a concept. So you really embody a concept enough to connect with it, to connect with its reflection in the Way. So, yeah, when Sha Miara inherited her mom's power she would have manifested an Icon, absolutely.

Questioner

The Silver Spoon Icon.

Will Wight

Yep, that's the one.

Questioner

Who is your favorite Judge or Abidan member and why?

Will Wight

Hm. Favorite Judge or Abidan member? Just for pure fun either the Ghost or the Fox. They're just fun characters to mess with, to think about. They kind of have fun personalities and they both are... so the Ghost and the Fox both have a tendency of popping up on people and, as you know, I really like characters who just pop up unexpectedly on people. So because of that they are probably my favorites. More fun to write. I obviously have a soft spot for Suriel but I kind of like them all.

I had a, I answered this earlier today, but I had a whole story line planned as like a heavenly/Abidan story line and it was about a person who was a new recruit to the Abidan and he was going to end up using both the power of the Void and the Way. And he had a dragon companion, a black dragon companion, that gave him destructive powers aligned with Void and he had a little tiny blue sort of river fairy spirit who gave him water aura powers. So you can kind of see where this is going.

And he was going to end up being a new Judge. He was going to replace one of the Judges but that was a long time before Cradle. So what happened was I was writing a cultivation knockoff, I knew I needed a heavenly realm, I needed a kind of a pantheon and a heavenly realm story line. So I went back to that book and I repurposed the Abidan from there pretty much wholesale. So, yeah. At that point, by the way, Mercy was the Ghost. So there you go.

Questioner

Is Northstrider the most attractive Monarch.

Will Wight

I think you probably have to ask somebody... I mean that would be a... not to me. That would be a very opinion question I guess. Is Northstrider the most attractive Monarch? No? They're all effectively physically perfect pretty much so it's kind of down to viewer taste at that point. So I can't really answer the question.

Questioner

Clearly he is.

Will Wight

Yeah, in that case, I've been corrected. Clearly he is.

Questioner

Most attractive Monarch?

Will Wight

I guess I've answered that, huh?

Will's brother (offscreen)

Reigan Shen.

Will Wight

It's Reigan. Sam says it's Reigan Shen so it's Reigan Shen.

Will's brother (offscreen)

I like cats.

Will Wight

He's into cats. He does not have cats ears, does that anime style cat ears, does that affect your opinion?

Will's brother (offscreen)

Yeah, absolutely. 

Questioner

When Malice was punishing Mercy after she lost in the Uncrowned tournament, did she intentionally not include Lindon in the punishment?

Will Wight

What I intended for that moment, and I'm still going to leave it a little bit up to interpretation because it's all about how you read the characters in the end, but my intention for that scene was more about Malice was kind of treading the line and so she was going okay which of these would be more embarrassing to Mercy and which of these would be a little too embarrassing and that was one she decided, based on her analysis of the situation, that would be a little too embarrassing for Mercy. Now is that true? Would it be too embarrassing to Mercy? She didn't know. It was just kind of one of the things that Malice thought at that time. So that was my understanding of it.

Questioner

You have a chance to spend a couple of hours with another author of your choice. Who is it and what do you discuss?

Will Wight

Another author of my choice? Jane Austen. That's who it is. And we'd discuss a couple of things. One is, I would like to know her opinion on prose and how she came to her style. She's very, she has a very concise prose style that I really like. And another one is, I would very much like to know what happens to you when you die. So two good things Jane Austen could answer for me.

Questioner

Have you read the web serial Beware of Chicken? It's about a cultivator who becomes a farmer.

Will Wight

You know, I haven't. There are a few of these popular web serials that like Beware of Chicken and He Who Fights Monsters or Fights With Monsters, which is the actual title, that I know I should check out but I just haven't yet. I tend to, oh got a geode nice, hey the local blacksmith and break those open, you guys know that? So there are a few of those that I just haven't checked out yet. Not for any particular reason just, I think it's procrastination more than anything else. One of the things that I do I lot is I just go through and add new things to top of my TBR file that I probably should be whittling down.

Questioner

Favorite part or line?

Will Wight

One of the things I like the most, one of the threads I like most reading on Reddit, or one of the conversations I most like reading are people's favorite lines or moments that don't get talked about a lot. Because the big moments everybody talks about, I designed to be big moments, right? I was like okay I knew the Dross becoming a Presence thing was going to be a big deal and I intended it that way. And I set up the entire book and worked and planned it to great detail to try and make that work. So when people say that liked that I go phew, I'm glad because I would be disappointed if you didn't. But when people talk about things that they didn't, that was, that they don't normally hear talked about that's pretty cool because usually those are moments or lines I wrote off the cuff or wrote and didn't put as much thought into or wrote and was like yay I like this little detail nobody is ever going to see. And people see those and that makes me happy. So I like feeling appreciated for the little stuff I did.

Questioner

Favorite part of Dreadgod?

Will Wight

You know, that's hard. There's a couple of big moments in Dreadgod that I really like. I think it's probably Little Blue's death. I think it's just heartwrenching, I think.

Questioner

There are fewer books on How to Train Your Dragon than in the Cradle series. Why do people think Cradle is too short?

Will Wight

You know, one of the things I think people think Cradle is too short is the novels are quick to get through and they could have a lot more detail than they do. So there are a lot of scenes and a lot of characters that we could see a lot more from and in a lot of the inspirational source material like the ones I've written or just recommended a minute ago, they are very long. So they tend to go into a lot of detail and so, therefore, you would think that you could flesh it all out. But I tend to prefer it when I... I don't have a lot of patience when reading so when I read something that I feel like is dragging, I tend to read something else. So I like stuff that tends to stay engaged.

An interesting thing about Reaper is that some people felt the beginning was too slow and other people felt like the beginning was skimming way too fast and needed more detail. And that's because I felt like the characters needed downtime and I wanted to throw a bone to some people who wanted some more details. So I included some details but I also didn't want to slow the book down too much and I had some people who already felt like the beginning of Reaper was slow. So I, therefore, wanted to keep it at a decent pace. So I kind of split it down the middle. I normally don't compromise like that. I usually pick one and just roll with it. But in this particular case I felt like it had been too long since I had thrown the detail people a bone. So I decided to spend a little bit of extra time there. But, as a result, it's kind of... it's hard for me to add detail.

One of the things I don't like about fantasy novels is that they tend to get longer and longer with every installment. And I have yet to think of an example of a series that got longer and longer and also better and better. They tend to get longer and then they kind of plateau at how good they are and then they get longer still. And that inhibits my enjoyment of the series. I find I would rather have a tightly plotted 350 page books than a dense 700 page book that doesn't advance the plot as much. That is my preference, it's what I enjoy. Which is really funny because one of my favorite series of all time is the Wheel of Time, that is notorious for that. And I actually read quickly so, therefore, I get through the books fast and they don't feel like they drag as much to me but when I do feel like they drag, I don't like it.

Questioner

Do you think the Will who wrote Unsouled could have written Reaper?

Will Wight

No, no, of course not. I don't the Will who wrote Unsouled could have written Unsouled. There's a... I went back and looked at Ghostwater and every time I do that I'm like man whoever designed this book did a great job. I hope I learn lessons from this and I go wait a second I designed this book but that doesn't feel right.

Questioner

If you got to rewrite a famous piece of media in your own style what would it be and why is it Sword Art Online?

Will Wight

Alright, fun fact, I read Sword Art Online very soon after it came out. It was one of the, at the time it was only partially translated so that was one of the few that I stumbled through with my rudimentary Japanese and read. It's relatively simple as these things go so I was able to puzzle through it because I was really engaged in it. I really liked it a lot. So, right after it was translated in Japan, partially translated partially not, and I read it and I really loved it and I was oh man you guys are going to love Sword Art Online and then it kind of became this... first volume, then second volume wasn't as good and then, the first volume won all these prizes and started off this whole subgenre and then the second volume wasn't as good. And then it just kept going and then it got the anime which I thought first season of the anime was fantastic. And then everybody became this sort of meme for good reason because it way outstayed its welcome. But anyway...

Questioner

Will speaks Japanese confirmed.

Will Wight

Stop doing that. You've got to stop. I've seen you do this before. I am being completely honest about my level of Japanese which is I once was somewhat proficient enough in order to consume very basic amounts of media and that was ten plus years ago. Ten years ago, however long. Too long ago. So I am not competent. Let's be very clear.

Questioner

You have to power through SAO to get to the last season.

Will Wight

Ugh, I don't know that I do.

Questioner

During the last stream you mentioned the potential of ripping off Harry Potter.

Will Wight

Oh yeah. So the answer, well so what media would I actually consider covering. What I do wish a lot of time is that writers would cover other people's stories. I just think that would be cool. I mean I'd love to see writers cover different stories in their styles. So which one would I cover? I don't know. Most of the ones I can immediately think of are too ambitious.

Will's brother (offscreen)

The Eternals.

Will Wight

The Eternals. That's the answer. That's the story I would cover. I would immediately cover The Eternals. Anyway, I did not enjoy The Eternals, folks.

Questioner

Will we ever see what happened when Eithan fought or confronted Ozriel's shadow in the lab?

Will Wight

Ooh, that's a fun question. So I actually did write a draft of that scene. I just talked about writing drafts of scenes. It was more of a prototype or rough version of that scene. I was thinking I might include it in the book. It is not polished and it is not edited and it doesn't quite fit where they are now in the book because, of course, it's a rough scene that I ended up not including. So it didn't get edited. But it was effectively Eithan and Ozmanthus sitting down and talking because, in order to express Ozmanthus' full power, Subject One put a lot of energy into the projection which made Ozmanthus more self aware than a normal projection would have been. So he was able to sneakily maintain control of himself and Eithan recognizes that and they just sit down and talk. And Eithan tells Ozmanthus where he's at an Ozmanthus goes oh that sounds nice. And that's sort of, they come to an understanding and Eithan walks away.

Questioner

J.K. Rowling said she wrote the key parts to the end of Harry Potter in advance.

Will Wight

I don't like that. I don't like that approach. That reminds me of one of the things, again let me be very clear I think the end of Wheel of Time was extremely well written and that Brandon Sanderson did the best anybody could possibly have done with the original author being dead, however Robert Jordan wrote the, apparently from what I hear, Robert Jordan wrote the final chapter before he died and wanted that to be the final chapter. Well I don't think the final chapter fits well at the end, as it is now. I think if he had been alive he would have rearranged it or set it up differently. But, of course, no way to change that after his death and, again I don't blame anyone for the finale and it's not bad. It's just I don't think it works super well at the end and it's because he wrote it ahead of time and then got to it. I think it's a lot better to write down what you want to have happen or do maybe a prototype scene to get kind of get a feel for what you want it to do. Like I did for the Eithan reveal. I did prototype scenes for that. But, I don't like having it locked in like that so I know what I want to happen and I know where I want to go. I know where I want the gang to end up but I haven't written most of the scenes.

Questioner

Did Lindon soulsmith any treasures for his sister?

Will Wight

Yes. Let me explain, for a moment, my response to the, did Lindon Soulsmith anything for his sister. Yes he did, but you'll have to read and find out what.

Questioner

Please tell us more about Sesh's reign. Can you tell us anything about him at all?

Will Wight

Ah, yeah. I think he... the way I think of him is or the Akura family sees him as this tyrant who wants to kill humanity kind of thing but I see him as more of a character who believes that Cradle is run by the rule of the jungle anyway, the law of the jungle. And that we should all kind of embrace that and that everybody would really be better off if we were just honest about it. So I see him as sort of someone who from the outside looks cruel but doesn't think of himself as that way. And he goes listen I'm going to get mine because I'm the strongest so let's all be clear about that. And that the problem with a lot of things, including the relationship between the Monarchs and the Dreadgods comes from the fact that we're trying to impose order on chaos. So kind of in that way, he's similar to his... his worldview is more similar to the Vroshir than to the Abidan because he's going look let's deal with the world as it is and not try to make it something that it isn't. That's how I think of him.

Questioner

Will you ever get into the LitRPG/Gamelit genre?

Will Wight

It's so funny, because I love stories with game mechanics. I love stories that take place in real worlds that, so I don't like VRMMO stuff so this virtual reality things where the characters are actually playing a game. I've never enjoyed those, and the reason is because, I could be playing a game right now. So why am I reading about someone else playing a game when I could just go play a game. It's like, I wouldn't be reading a fantasy novel if I had the option to go on a real fantasy D&D adventure. That's not true; I would decline that option and then I would just read fantasy novels, because I don't want to die. But it's more that I could easily have this experience and I don't know why I'm reading about something--it's indirect. It's low-stakes. It's--I don't enjoy it. But I do like stories that take place in real worlds that have game mechanics. And I've read a lot of those, and typically they still--they're still just not my favorite stories, necessarily, so I think there's probably a version of that that I would really enjoy writing. But the problem is, LitRPG is really crowded right now, just a lot of people are writing LitRPG, and I don't want to feel like I'm moving into their territory and stealing their thunder or something like that, or get in some weird competitive thing. So I don't have any issue with that, I don't feel it in that way, I'm like, great, you guys like...

I also think that, LitRPG fans who enjoy most LitRPGs being written now are after something that I'm not necessarily after. One of the things they like about LitRPG is that they're going and--you get the full experience, right? You're going out and you're hunting 10 wolves and, you're kiling 10 wolves and bringing their pelts back and you're turning the quest in and then you get the reward for the quest, and then you go back and hunt 10 more wolves. I'm like, that is the part of the book that I would cut out. It's the part that I don't enjoy. It's the standard part of any LitRPG, you're going out and doing the mob grinding. And that's the part that I don't enjoy. The part I enjoy is when you're, you know, running Icecrown Citadel and you're showing down with the Lich King. I mean that's the fun part. So, anyway, but that makes it more similar to a standard fantasy novel. So probably I won't, or at least not anytime soon. It seems like the kind of thing that I would enjoy more than I actually do, so it's probably just not something I understand the genre enough to write. That's probably the real answer to that.

Questioner

What inspired you to do cultivation for the Cradle series?

Will Wight

I just really enjoyed cultivation novels. That's basically--yep.

Questioner

Have you decided your next project yet?

Will Wight

I don't think so. There's, I have a lot of possibilities, there's a few, I want to flesh out some ideas. I have not spent a lot of time doing that because, typically, the ideas I flesh out and then I go a little while writing some more Cradle and by the time I go back to to them I'm like hm, but maybe I want to do something else.

Questioner

Does the Eight Man Empire generate hunger aura?

Will Wight

They do not.

Questioner

What was your journey as a writer?

Will Wight

Last weeks' stream that I didn't answer well because I wasn't prepared for it, somebody asked me what my journey as a writer was. They asked me to expand on my journey as a writer and I didn't know how to answer that question. That was something that I was like hmm. The problem is that there's too many answers to that question. It's not that it's a bad question or there's not an answer, it's that I could talk about that. It's a years long journey that is constantly evolving so it's hard for me to give a straightforward answer in a stream.

But I thought about it over the course of the last week because that was an answer that I should have done better answering and here is what I came up with. One of the things I remember as a kid, is I remember in high school or middle school and I read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and I was going wow this book is amazing. This guy's writing style is so great I love it. I was talking about how well written it was and I was just going this is insane. And I saw all these other people talking about how Dan Brown's writing style was cheap or it wasn't good or it wasn't fleshed out and I was like what are you talking about?

First of all, it's a best selling novel. Second of all, it's engaging from beginning to end. It's a story that's very hard to put down. I found out later as I grew in my education and knowledge of writing that it's a style called pot boiler, which you keep the pot boiling so you keep stuff happening so the end of every short chapter there's kind of a hook that keeps you moving on to the next chapter. And I remember thinking people are looking down on him for this? Why? Clearly this is an intentional choice, he's not doing this accidentally or because it's an easy crutch.

And it really reminded me of in video games when you're losing to somebody and they're playing a character and you go your character is overpowered. Well if your character is overpowered enough to get you easy wins why aren't you playing that character? So, that was kind of my thought on that. But I thought look it's a more engaging, more entertaining writing style. Later on, in college, I had a professor who said to us in the class hey I hate to break it to you guys but J.K. Rowling is not a good writer. And I thought, hmm. Now I was significantly older at this time and I've learned a lot more. Again, I'm in college for creative writing so I have a lot more of my own opinions and I'm going wait a second, if your definition of good writing doesn't include the most popular fiction series ever written, probably your definition is the one that is wrong.

So I was not into their definition of what a good story was. So I continued to develop that and really my definition of what good writing was or what a good story was is good writing is something that engages the reader. It's a story that engages the reader and that they are eager to keep reading and something that immerses them and causes them to have an emotion, whatever emotion you're trying to express. So it entertains them and gives them emotional reactions.

There's a... I was talking about this to my sister who is a big Jane Austen fan and she mentioned that in Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen goes on this monologue that I didn't remember. I actually took a course in college it was on the history of the development of the novel as a form, as what we now know as the novel, where it came from. One of the authors we studied was Jane Austen. The long and the short of it is around Jane Austen it was mostly women who wrote these novels to one another and so it was not considered serious. It was considered this is something that oh well women do that in their spare time it's not worth reading. Which is very odd to us now. And so Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey goes off and starts talking about that. How novels are not considered a serious pursuit and she mocks people basically for having that opinion. Which that oh yeah novels aren't serious and you should be reading historicals or you should be reading science or you should be reading... and I, of course, we agree with that now right? Yeah, well obviously Jane Austen is worth reading and people that, in their day, that considered that a lesser form of reading were clearly incorrect, they were just wrong and we can easily see that.

Except people do the same thing now. There's this weird hierarchy between things that are made for entertainment and things that are made for some other purpose. And my thought was, that is not true. If you set out to entertain your reader and you entertain your reader you have succeeded and you have done an excellent job. So that's kind of my journey as a writer and my journey of what I thought good writing was and what I think good writing means and how I developed that.

It was a years long thing of me reading books and going what did I like about this? What did I enjoy? And one of the funniest things to me is people talk about all these literary stories and these classics and how they matter more because they're dealing with fundamental human experiences. They are dealing with topics that are more serious and topics that people can really relate to and mean something deep. And I thought back to all the books that meant something deep to me and that had the lessons that had stuck with me and the stories that really mattered to me and they tended to be the stories that I enjoyed the most. So, no matter how great your message is, it doesn't get out if people aren't listening. So I felt like the ones that score at all were the ones that were entertaining and the ones that were not entertaining you're not going to listen to them regardless of how good the point is. So that was kind of my philosophy and how it developed that and how I developed as a writer. So that is the answer to that question.

Questioner

Can goldsigns have "externals" like in Iron Prince, where they technically aren't directly attached to the body? Does Harmony's halo or Ren Fei's cloud count?

Will Wight

No, not really.  I mean, they are not directly attached to the body, yes in that sense.  Like, one of the examples in this question is "Does Harmony's halo or Renfei's cloud count?"  Yeah, those are goldsigns.  And they count as being attached to the person's spirit, not their body.  But they are directly attached to the person.  That's the criteria.  So a goldsign does have to be attached to the person; physically hovering next to them often counts, because they are attached to that person's spirit, rather than sitting on their head like a hat.