Recent entries

Questioner

Lindon went from Overlord to Archlord with very little training this time. Does that belittle other Archlords?

Will Wight

So there's a time skim in Reaper. Kind of a montage. So while yes it is definitely short compared to other Overlords and Archlords, he did still have access to his hunger arm for part of that time. So he was able to advance faster and he has a great foundation, obviously. And he's got other, he's still got Eithan around at that point, he's got other resources he can call on, he's got other people to help. He had a lot of advantages there that made the transition from Overlord to Archlord quite a bit easier. One of the things I would like to do, and I probably shouldn't even mention this because it's going to sound like I'm promising this but I'm genuinely not, what I would like to do is go into some short stories about, so that I can cover some side details that didn't get covered in the main series. So some stuff they did during the down time in Reaper or even other books. Or where they just go in detail about what are the differences between Sages and Heralds and they're just exploring that. Scenes where that happens. I don't mind reading those in other books but they tend to make it out of mine just because they don't advance the plot. So if they're not necessary to your understanding of what's going on I don't keep them in.

Questioner

That's a promise?

Will Wight

No, that's not a promise. I don't promise that.

Questioner

Cradle: thirteen books and many stories confirmed.

Will Wight

No, stop it. BAD.

Questioner

Me and my friend have been arguing about this point. It sounds to me that Dreadgods are more powerful or aware when they first awaken then slowly get corrupted by the hunger madra but he thinks that they become more aware the more they are awake.

Will Wight

It fluctuates depending on how strong they are. How strong they are at a certain time is how aware they are in general. But also the Dreadgods, some Dreadgods are more intelligent than the others. The Silent King is always aware, he's always self aware, and he's the smartest one. And the Weeping Dragon actually is the second most self aware. I kind of wanted to do the, I thought it would make sense for the Bleeding Phoenix to be that person because the Bleeding Phoenix absorbs a lot of awareness like its Emissaries and its Blood Shadows are all aware to some degree. But I figured the hive mind thing actually causes more problems than it solves, so the Bleeding Phoenix is now third. And the Wandering Titan is just kind of an idiot.

Questioner

What is your writing process like?

Will Wight

I am just convinced that what I write is terrible all the time. And that sounds like it is not true but it is and one of the funniest parts is that it's actually contradictory to what intend to do because I plan for stories to have a certain effect. So, I'm writing Reaper and I am planning to, I wanted the end to have a lot impact and I wanted it to feel like it made sense and I wanted even if you'd guessed for you to be okay with Eithan and the big reveal at the end.

So in order to do that I, of course, worked with the themes and the character journeys throughout the book and I had seeded some stuff in previous books but it's also, in Reaper in particular, I wanted to make sure the journey felt real and it felt emotionally rich and organic to the characters and that I was setting up the big moment appropriately. I also wanted to, in case you didn't like it or didn't want it or were emotionally invested in it not being him, so I wanted it to still be a full Lindon book before the whole Mad King/Abidan stuff at the end.

So that's why Lindon effectively has a little over a hundred thousand word book and then we've got the Abidan thing at the end. So, I wanted that to happen and I had designed all that very carefully to work. I had really tried to do setup for Mercy's revelation for Lindon's revelation. I do wish I had made it explicit that Lindon was at peak Overlord before he did his advancement. I could have easily done that but I just didn't notice. So I wish I'd done that.

But, otherwise, I had designed it all very intentionally with all this setup and then I realized later, by that I mean a few days ago, that it never occurred to me that I might have succeeded in that. So that while I did it intentionally, and this was an intentional design that I had set up, I just assumed that it wasn't going to work. I just assumed people were going to read the book and that the setup I did wasn't going to work, that people weren't going to buy it, they weren't going to enjoy the book, the moments weren't going to land, that it wasn't going to work. So, that is how I read things. I know that I've got a lot of friends, I've got a lot of people that don't believe me that it feels like okay but you have sold a lot of books. People are constantly telling you they enjoy them. How does that not break through?

It's not based on rationality, it's a character flaw, it's a problem I have, it's an emotional issue I'm dealing with. I don't know what it is. But it sucks. And, the problem is that if it were based on logic and rationality I wouldn't feel like this in the first place. I'd go okay well I'll emotionally respond based on how it works. But because it's an internal problem, internal problems don't really have external solutions, unfortunately. So I've got to keep working on that and growing as a person in that area.

So one experience I had in this book in particular was when I had finished the first draft, the alpha draft, I wasn't giving it to my alpha readers because I was certain that it wasn't good enough to be read by anybody. So, I didn't give it to the alpha reader because I was like listen this is a really complex book, there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot going on, so this isn't even readable yet. And they let me go about a week longer than we had agreed and then, finally, they were like look just let me read it. Just let me read it in the state it's in. And I was like alright I'll send it to you, whatever, I'm working on it but I guarantee you'll see what I'm talking about. And I had a good reason for it. I had a real sound theoretical basis for it. And they read it, two people read it, and came back to me and went you're an idiot.

So we had a meeting in an Olive Garden where they effectively berated me for like okay what the heck why didn't you give this to us, this is great.  It's really good, this is definitely a beta draft if not an advanced beta draft. Why in the world did you think this was broken? What is wrong with this? There's nothing wrong with it. I felt terrible. I felt like it is broken but they don't think it's broken but also I have screwed up by letting it go too long. So, I have messed up in every way. I have let them read a bad draft and I also didn't give it to them soon enough so they're disappointed in me. So I've screwed up everything. So I started crying in an Olive Garden. This did happen. This was like two months ago and when they saw how hard I was taking it they were like whoa whoa calm down what is happening? So that was a huge overreaction to what was happening. But it was, I was just thought it was the worst of all worlds. Not only have I screwed this up also I screwed up giving it to them.

So I gave it to them and they gave me their feedback and I gave it to the beta readers. And, as usual, this is my normal experience, the stuff I think is an insurmountable problem that's going to make me have to rewrite a third of the book was stuff that took a few lines to fix. It was very easy fixes, it was stuff I could go back and change very easily. But I just felt like I had failed at everything I had set out to do. And so because I felt like that, I was reading the book like that, and I created a case in my head on why that was true. So that was my experience writing Reaper. I ended up working the process better than I ever had before, I ended up with a really good product early on and thought it was terrible. So, when people ask me to evaluate how I feel like I've done it takes me a lot of distance to read the books as a though I was a reader instead of as the writer. And only when I do that can I then evaluate it. Every time I've done that I've been like I really like it.

My least favorite books when rereading the Cradle series were one and two because I think they don't have as much of the same tone as the later books and I hadn't quite fleshed out some of the ideas as well. As a reader, I think that. I read the books and I go eh. Also, I've read those the most so I'm sure that contributes to it. But, I reread those and I go they're still pretty good and once Blackflame begins I was like it just hits the pedal and goes. And sometimes people are like yeah but you wrote the books so of course you feel like it works. Frankly, it's the opposite. I was going in expecting for this to be garbage and for me to hella hate every second of it and I was like wow these are actually close to the books I wanted to write. And I couldn't believe that. So that's a peek inside the writing process for me. It's sort of the opposite of whatever the movie thing, where the writers are like I'm writing the greatest thing ever and the people read it and are like eurgh. It's kind of the opposite of that, so that is my usual writing experience.

Questioner

I've noticed that spent Madra often returns to essence. Is that somehow recycled into aura? 

Will Wight

Yes/  So in the books, I establish how constructs and forged madra, well, all madra does this, it's just I pay attention to it with remnants and forger techniques, dissolves into these motes or sparks of rising light and dissolves back.  Yeah, madra dissolves back into aura.  That's what essence is.  It's kind of madra fuzzing back into aura.  So yeah, that does happen.  But because of the way it dissolves it's not useful for ruler techniques.  I mean, eventually it would be; you could sit there and let it dissolve and eventually you would have some aura to use, but it disperses quick, and aura tends to change form based on what it's around, so it's not good for fueling ruler techniques, but it is something that get cycled back into the aura of the world.

Questioner

Do Ziel and Shira find the other cute?

Will Wight

You know, I mentioned this before but I come up with a name scheme for every faction or every culture, every source of names. And I named Akura Shira using those rules, not remembering that in the couple books prior I had named Akura Shiria. So otherwise, I wouldn't have created such a similar name but I forgot that Shiria existed and I was using the same rules. So that's the level of thought I put into Akura Shira because she exists basically just to be a foil for Ziel in the story but she does learn to see him as more human over the course of the story. So that definitely happens, she does have a little bit of an emotional arc there where initially she's seeing him for his rank and then, of course, he doesn't act like he's high ranked at all. And so she kind of gets a little softer on him and inspires him to do better. So they have a very healthy mutual respect and relationship and they've agreed to go on a couple of dates but other than that I didn't think a lot about their relationship.

Questioner

Will we see more of the Elder Empire?

Will Wight

Probably not. One of the things I want to do after Cradle is I want to tell different stories. I like telling different stories, I like going to different places, and so we're probably not going back to Elder Empire. If we go back to anything of course it would be Traveler's Gate.

Questioner

Do you have a backup writer or a way to finish the series if something happened to you?

Will Wight

No. So you better make sure nothing happens to me, Justin. I hold you personally responsible for my well-being.

Questioner

Brandon Sanderson?

Will Wight

Brandon Sanderson would never finish this series. That is way beyond my pay grade.

Questioner

Do sacred artists work out?

Will Wight

Yes they do.

Questioner

If Lindon had consumed part of Eithan would the Dreadgod arm have broken?

Will Wight

That was honestly one of the scenes I really liked because that was a moment I didn't think of until I was writing it. Like I wanted Lindon to have one goodbye gesture and I realized oh man he can shake his hand and tried to drain power from him. But it doesn't work because it's blocked by Ozriel's armor. So that does not work. That is not a way that Eithan sneakily left Lindon power. I've seen people speculating that maybe he did get something and that Eithan allowed it. No, the armor blocked it and he couldn't allow Lindon that power now without violating the Eledari Pact which he is now bound by once again. The only reason he was out of it is the same reason why, well this is an interesting thing, let me go into this for a second while I'm sitting here at the bottom of the ocean.

My initial mechanism, my initial plan, for having Eithan hide was that I was going to have Suriel do research into how Abidan retire and what retired Abidan do, how that mechanism works because that's clearly a mechanism by which he could have been hiding, right? When Judges retire, or when powerful Abidan are allowed to retire they can get out of Eledari Pact by reintroducing themselves into the Iteration in which they were born or certain other Iterations that will allow them like Sanctum, you can just live there if you want. So they give up their extra powers that are beyond the world but are still very powerful and knowledgeable and have a lot of Authority and so on and so forth. So they don't give up their full power, they are still extremely powerful. Usually what they do is they go into hiding and just kind of live like normal people.

But they know Ozriel couldn't have done that on Cradle because he would be immediately found out because their Presence would have found him, they would have scanned him, and found out who he was. However, the Presences have a sort of a shared memory and a way that they check facts against the Way. Like against pure order and truth. And that is fundamentally incorruptible except for the fact that Ozriel found a way to do it. So the idea was that he broke into the records, the metaphysical record storage system, and changed his origin so nobody recognizes it and just retires normally to Cradle.

So one of the reasons she's sure he can't be on Cradle in book one is that he can't be because we would see him and notice him and, as soon as I saw, would recognize him. Except that he just basically persuaded reality that he was a different person than he was. So I really wanted to do that because it would have first of all allowed for her to explore some interesting mechanisms of the system and the way it works. But that was a casualty of me not knowing how many books were going to be in the series. So I didn't know how to pace out the Abidan story line correctly because I didn't know how many parcels I was going to be allowed. And when I finally got there I was like okay so do I need, do I want Suriel doing research into background information on the world and the metaphysics of this system that we're not even really involved in yet or do I want her doing cool things like fighting? And, I eventually decided that it was more fun to have her intervene in worlds and fight Vroshir and all that kind of stuff than do researching behind the scenes.

I liked that better because it wasn't a single artifact that a bunch of transcendent craftsmen created together. It was a scheme that Ozriel cooked up and one that only he could have executed because the reason why other people can't do that is because you would have to be skilled in almost every other discipline and he is. So he can do things other people can't do. So, anyway, that would have been fun.

Questioner

Is Eithan always tugging his braid?

Will Wight

Yes. Actually this is a fun fact. Eithan is a descendant of Nynaeve in the last Turning of the Wheel. So he ends up being Nynaeve and Lan's descendent and therefore he is tugging his braid all the time.

Questioner

Can Ozriel kill all seven Abidan?

Will Wight

No. So one of the things that I did not demonstrate but have mentioned but I didn't show is that actually Raziel and Makiel are combatants on a similar level to Ozriel. Now Ozriel has a greater scope of powers that he can do things that they can't do because they're not full seven star ranks in every single thing except the Phoenix. So he can do pretty much anything except heal. And they can't. Makiel's powers are very diverse as well but he's not quite as good. But they are still very powerful combatants. The reason why they couldn't match up against the Mad King is because he had the Scythe, he had the replica Scythe. So that was what allowed him to outfight Makiel and Suriel together. Without that he would not have been able to do that and they would have beaten him. Which is why he's never done this before. So Makiel is a combatant on the level of Ozriel or Raziel or the Mad King. And the reason why Eithan was able to turn the tables on the Mad King there was because he was able to take over the Scythe.

Which, by the way, he was able to do, I had a longer scene there but it wasn't punchy so I had to cut it because it made the scene a lot more explanatory and a lot less cool. But it goes into the mechanisms of him gaining control and Authority over the Scythe so the idea was that I would have had to jump into the Mad King's perspective and that was just really clunky. So the Mad King immediately upon seeing Ozriel is there is like crap and wants to banish the Scythe but he can't so now he's stuck. So when he sees Ozriel, so then he tries to negotiate to stop Ozriel taking the Scythe and killing him. And then, Ozriel goes no. So, he just like oh crap, maybe I can catch him off guard before he's at full power and then that doesn't work. And then, yep, we all saw how that played out. So, it was one of those where there's a lot at the end of that book where I'm in a balance between explaining every little thing that goes on and making it snappy. And I think you all noticed where I tend to fall on that scale. I would greatly prefer having it have excruciating detail. *Laughs* I am not an excruciating detail guy. When I'm reading I much more often complain about people giving me too many answers than too few. So I hate having everything just explicitly laid out because it's boring and I don't like it. So not because I don't want to know but because it's boring.

Questioner

How many current Monarchs could Eithan have taken before he ascended as a Monarch the first time?

Will Wight

I don't fully understand that question so let me backpedal. Let me see if I understand this. So when Eithan was a Monarch on Cradle how many of the current, if he was matched up against the current Monarchs, how many could he have taken? Any one for sure. Could he have taken them all? Probably not without ascending. There was a power cap on the amount you could... so no matter how good you are there is a power cap on the amount you can have. So if they all joined forces they could have beat him out of sheer weight of numbers. But could he stack up against any of the Monarchs in sheer skill and ability? One hundred percent, yeah. Couldn't beat him.

Questioner

Where does the planet of Cradle rank in the broader multiverse when it comes to powerful combatants?

Will Wight

Oh that's a good question. So, as you know the Cradle is known for producing more Abidan candidates. That doesn't necessarily mean the most ascendants, so the most people who ascend from their world. That is, it might mean that, but it doesn't necessarily. It means the means the people who ascend that are compatible with the Way and able to join the Abidan and fill their criteria. There are quite a few people and quite a few methods throughout the multiverse of ascending without meeting their criteria. So, either they're not super compatible with the powers of the Way or they're just not good enough. Like if you, for instance, created a machine that allowed you to ascend beyond or dimension or if you slipped out of the cracks of a poorly established fragment that was attached to your world, for instance. Then you would not qualify to be one of the Abidan but you would still have technically ascended past your world so that is what Cradle is really good at.

In terms of powerful combatants, they are still high. That is, especially, there are, as we will go into potentially later, there are different ranks of worlds and they can handle different amounts of, for lack of a better term, I'm not sold on the terminology yet, so forgive me if this is kind of rough around the edges, but there are worlds that have a higher capacity for energy than other worlds do. And Cradle is not the highest of that which is why it's called Cradle. So they are not at the highest level of that even among the mortal worlds, it is not at the highest level. However, it is entirely focused around combat so the people who ascend from Cradle, especially those who were Monarchs, they are known for being very strong especially at the lowest level. As soon as they ascend, like the lesser, the lower ranks of Abidan kind of have to walk carefully around them. And they tend to join the Wolf division so they tend to be the fighters. That's kind of the answer. So where does it rank around power levels? Relatively high but not the highest.

Questioner

What is the saddest death you've written?

Will Wight

So that's a spoiler for other books. It is not in Cradle. It's in Traveler's Gate. That's the one I think is the saddest. So I don't want to give that away because it's not a [Reaper] spoiler. But I will say that there is somebody I killed in one of the first books of Elder Empire that I think may be pretty bad. That's a rough death. A lot of people give me crap for that to this day about that one. But I did that one in Elder Empire for a reason. There's  another thing that I think... I don't think killing characters inherently makes a series better. So I don't think killing characters makes a book or series better.

Like, for instance, I don't think Harry Potter needed to kill very many characters. You can kill Cedric Diggory in book four, you can kill Sirius in book five, and then obviously Dumbledore in book six. [Gets yelled at for spoiling book six.] If you haven't read Harry Potter, what are you doing here? Then in book seven she kills a lot of characters that I don't think are necessary. So, I just think that series didn't need that. It makes a more serious tone. Don't think it needed that. So, I'm not always about killing characters but in Sea and Shadow, I killed some characters in the first installment to, first of all because I thought it was tonally appropriate to the series and second of all because they are going to stick around for the next two books in flashbacks. So because I had a major flashback story line and could still use the killed characters I decided to be liberal with the people I killed.

Questioner

How many books do you plan to write in the Cradle series?

Will Wight

Two more. So I plan there to be two more. I was thinking, writing Reaper as I was planning Reaper, I was considering there to be two more, sorry, three more after this just because right now the twelfth book's looking pretty thick so I don't know how much... I've talked about this a little bit but my philosophy on final books in a series is that the final book is not just wrapping up the book but wrapping up the series. I prefer there to be a lot of falling action and resolution in that so I prefer there to be a lot of tied up loose ends.

So, one of the series that of course everybody knows is the Wheel of Time and the Wheel of Time is complete now and, of course, Brandon Sanderson wrote the last few volumes because Robert Jordan died so there's a lot of unique constraints that it's working under. But one of the things I wished it had more of was more epilogue for the characters. I wanted to know what happened to everybody. There's like forty point of view characters in that series which is just so many and I wanted to happened to a lot of them. So I was really hoping that they would wrap up the main conflict halfway through that book and for the rest of the half of the book to be wrapping stuff up.

So that's I want to kind of want to do in the final series because that's what I want out of a final book out of a twelve book series. I want that to be everything as wrapped up as it could be. So because of that, wrapping that up in twelve is possible, I have a plan for it, that's the intention, but that means that twelve is going to be a lot of where are they now? And so I was thinking about maybe I can move it to thirteen and maybe that structure would work better but I'm planning for it to be twelve right now.

Will's brother (offscreen)

Why would you say that? Why would you say that? That's official canon now.

Will Wight

What's canon now? What did I say?

Will's brother (offscreen)

I'm thinking about making thirteen.

Will Wight

I said I was thinking about making it! It's, oh no, I don't, I thought that was a fine thing to say dang it.

Questioner

We all heard thirteen books.

Questioner

What is your favorite power set you have created for your characters in the books?

Will Wight

Favorite power set? Hm. I don't know what do you guys think? Have a thought?

Will's brother (offscreen)

Power set? For any of the characters?

Will Wight

Yeah.

Will's brother (offscreen)

I don't know. I really enjoy watching Northstrider fight but I'm all about that shit.

Will Wight

That's fair. That's fair. I think it's probably got to be Lindon. I think he's got a very flexible power set.

Will's brother (offscreen)

First time Simon puts on the mask! BOY~!

Will Wight

That's true. That is a good point. I do like the Valenhall power set that one's fun. And I think it's got a lot of inherent limitations that I like that work with the system.

Questioner

I love Ziel's power set.

Will Wight

I loved Ziel's power set. Like I had a couple of ideas that I really wanted because they were just power sets that I liked. It wasn't something that, ugh, now his power sets fun, it's kind of neat. You get to work some scripting a little bit, you get to work some forge manipulation a little bit. I still like it but it's not the thing that popped into my head first when you asked me for my favorite.

Questioner

What would have happened if Penance was used to kill a Dreadgod?

Will Wight

One of the Dreadgods would have died. So, what would have happened is that that would have severed one of the Dreadgods existences and there now have been only three Dreadgods. So, that is why some of the Monarchs were encouraging them to do it. Because, it would have permanently killed a Dreadgod. We are working on incredible levels here. However, that would also have made the other three permanently more powerful. So, that's why the other Monarchs did not want it to happen because that is what would have happened.

Questioner

How did Eithan show up? Wasn't Tiberian ever curious where Eithan came from?

Will Wight

Yeah, Eithan came with a back story. He's got an artifact that can deceive inter-dimensional gods. He's good at disguising himself.

Questioner

Is Ozriel's madra still pure?

Will Wight

No. No, its not pure madra anymore. Although, right now he could pretty much mimic any Cradle power system he wanted. He could kind of do the effects of whatever he wanted, but its not still pure, no.

Questioner

Would you ever consider putting the Cradle-verse in a D&D style campaign?

Will Wight

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I think a setting book is one of the things that I took a lot of inspiration from.