Recent entries

Questioner

Did the people who originally inhabited Asylum when it was used to trap the Elders/ Fiends volunteers/ criminals/ or did the Abidan breed or trap innocent people to tie the iteration to the way and support the prison?

Questioner

I don't know how much I want to go into that, I might want to do a short story on that someday. At the risk of telling you something that I am gonna change later, it was sort of an opportunistic thing. The world happened to be able to be used to lure the Great Elders there and be able to be trapped there. So they trapped them there expecting everyone on this world to die. So they did that because if the Elders had been released they would have killed a lot more people, so they saw it as an acceptable loss. But then the human population ended up producing the Emperor who figured out how to make a thriving population on what was supposed to be this cursed hell world. And they ended up lasting a lot longer than anyone expected. It's morally questionable, it sure is.

Rob

 Hi Will, Are there any lectures or youtube series you would recommend for aspiring writers looking to take their work up a notch? 

Will Wight

This is a question I get a lot, and that is a hard question to answer quickly. It's difficult to narrow down all the things that I have learned. However, for this specific question, I do. Brandon Sanderson has all his classes online and that's really good. One of the things I like to do as well are a lot of video essays on story structure. I like Filmento, I like Lessons of a Screenplay, I like "Totally Not Mark" he does anime. I enjoy a lot of those channels because they help you understand story structure. However, one of my cautions, is that very rarely are those written by professional writers. They're breaking apart another story to see how it's done, which is very valid, but I disagree with a lot of their conclusions because they're coming at it from an analytical perspective. But it doesn't necessarily tell you how the person who created the story got there in the first place. I caution that learning too much about that stuff doesn't help you translate it into creating an actual story. The way you do that is to write.

Questioner

What genre of game would you most want to see in the Cradle Universe?

Will Wight

People talk about a Cradle MMO all the time. I don't really like things being made into an MMO mainly because if your MMO isn't named World of Warcraft it's probably not really going anywhere. What I usually want to see, I really like single player games. I wouldn't mind if it was an open world or adventure thing. But honestly, I don't really care about game adaptations, if I want to see a game, it'd be an original story in the Cradle world. 

Questioner

If you found yourself in a LitRPG situation what class and race would you choose for you character?

Will Wight

I don't read a lot of LitRPG, I mean i *have* read a lot of LitRPG, i don't generally as a rule read a lot of LitRPG, I don't tend to enjoy the genre very much, i don't really know why, because in theory, i like video games, i like fantasy novels, that's a video game/fantasy novel, so it should be right up my alley. It feels like i'm reading about someone else playing a video game, and i'd rather be reading a story or playing a video game, either one! So i don't have a super informed answer, I have read all the popular works in the genre, so I guess i have a grounding in it. I don't have a super great LitRPG answer, but in terms of the actual scenario, if i was sucked into a game or a game like world and i got to pick my class and race.... so barring some sort of overpowered race like a vampire of dragon or something...cos if you get to be a dragon, always choose to be a dragon! but other than that, i guess standard races, i mean Elf, the more Tolkien is is, why would you not want to be an elf? Elves are awesome, seems like the obvious choice for race. For class, so there are always these works, like Over geared that have these crazy legendary classes, so i'm not gonna make up something busted lie "SOUL SUMMONER" or something weird, so limiting myself to the basic d&d style classes....Wizard, its the best class. Why wouldn't you be a wizard? If you can get transported into a fantasy world, the one thing you can't do in real life if magic.

Will Wight

Someone also asked me how i'm liking The Wandering Inn, I am halfway through volume 5 which is about 3 million words in? something like that? I am tearing through it, I basically have spent every moment reading. I put it off for so long because its such a long series, so I felt like its such a huge commitment and that I wasn't gonna like it cos its so long. You guys know how I feel about stuff that is very very long, I would much prefer a tight, exciting 400 page story that's cut down to only its best elements than an 800 page story that has wasted pages. This is maybe the longest story I've ever read, so its the extreme example of that, except i'm completely engaged! Its extremely good! I was sure I wasn't gonna like it and i'm liking it, so I did not give the author enough credit.

The funniest thing about it is, it's a real world but it works kinda like a game, so you have classes and you have skills in those classes, and that's not a new idea, its a common LitRPG thing, but I had tried to come up with a system for the way I would want to do it, I mentioned not particularly caring for LitRPG, so I had come up with a system how I would want to do it. It ended up, the notes i have are very similar to what Wandering Inn ended up doing, so I was like holy crap, this is like somebody took my notes and did a way better job! So the author did an extremely good job. So its kinda intimidating, it was like well now why would I tackle a similar magic system because this person has already done such a good job? There's no room, so I dunno if i'm gonna do a class/skill system now because Wandering Inn did such a good job. 

Questioner

Lately it seems like a lot of the fantasy novels I’ve been reading fall into the trap of giving the main character some unreasonable ability that is just not realistic for the setting. Do you ever find it hard and/or how do you handle ‘balancing ‘ your characters so no one has an ability that doesn’t really pass the smell test?

Will Wight

One of the things I like to do, is give my characters abilities are reasonable within the rest of the setting. It's not that the main character has the only version of this magic ability. It's something that other people have. You might get an over powered ability, but it's an overpowered ability that exists the magic system as it's understood. That's generally how I do it. I think I've learned a lot about that while writing Cradle and would incorporate some of those lessons...((Will distracted by game, but probably comment about incorporating into books in the future)).

I don't have  a problem with characters that have abilities that are overpowered. I used to want characters that grow into overpowered ability, but not start with them. Now I kind of enjoy it when a character stars with an unusual ability because it's exciting.

Questioner

Have you ever used the subreddit for ideas?

Will Wight

No. I don't need to use anything for ideas. That's one of the things that's interesting is that it's harder to narrow down ideas than it is to come up with ideas. I'm never like "Man I sure am out of ideas! I'd better go find some."

I guess if I could have seen something in the subreddit if I thought it was really cool, but typically the stuff in the subreddit people come up with are stuff they think is going to happen based on what's already in the books... so it's already in the books. So I've typically already at least considered it.

Now what I have done sometimes is when a fan mentions an idea they have, and then they'll pitch it differently or present it in a way that they think it's really cool, and they'll get me to reconsider something I've set aside. So that is something I've done: I've reconsidered something because a fan said it. Or because when they said it and they're like "Yeah, this is probably what's gonna happen," and I've thought... not because they guessed it, but I've thought: "Oh yeah when you put it that way that sounds like a bad idea." So I've done stuff like that.

But it's very rare that anybody comes up with an idea - and that it all fits the series - that I haven't already though of... just because I've spent a long time thinking about this, that's all.

Questioner

We've seen resonance in soulsmithing. Can the techniques on a sacred artist's path resonate with each other? As in, could you have a path where your abilities, when used together, create something stronger than sum of each of the techniques used?

Will Wight

The canon that Lindon uses sometimes operates on the principle of technique resonance, so saying that these techniques work together better than they work separately. So you're asking if there are Paths that do the same?

Yes there are. But it's not something that is typically the foundation of a Path, because it would be like a suicidal technique - not literally suicidal, as in it wouldn't necessarily instantly kill you - but it puts a higher burden on your spirit and your madra channels and your body, than using them separately would.

So typically Paths are not designed like that. But there are techniques that can be used together. One of the problems with that is it's often hard to use two techniques together that are similar, so it's hard to use one striker technique from one hand and another striker technique from another hand - that kind of thing.

Questioner

What program(s) do you write in?

Will Wight

Word, it's always Word. 

Questioner

Have you read Overlord (Light Novel)?

Will Wight

I'm not a huge Overlord fan. The main character is playing an MMO when it shuts down. He's one of the top players in the game when it's shutting down and he wakes up in the body of his game character. He gets the power of a max level character and he ends up being able to explore this fantasy world. And his character is a lich; he's an undead magic user. That's really cool. He's awesome. The people are awesome. The place he finds himself in: the magic dark fortress his guild uses is super cool. 

The problem I have with the series is that because the main character is undead he has no human emotions, feelings, or morality. It's like reading through the perspective of a robot and he doesn't care about anything and doesn't have any goals. He has no resistance and faces no places and doesn't care about anything. So it's hard for me.

A lot of the books are various perspectives around him which I find a lot more interesting. Then again, he's the more colorful character and he's the main character. It's not one of my favorite series.

I've read it and I'm current (at least I was a few months ago). The anime is really good.

What I really like about it is the colorful cast of characters and the colorful setting of his fortress.

Will Wight

((Shows Oreo Easter Egg))

I'm not going to lie to you. It's not that good. It's Oreo cream filling a chocolate Easter egg. The chocolate on the outside overpowers the Oreo cream on the inside. I sound like an Oreo critic, but it doesn't taste like an Oreo. It just tastes like a regular cream egg with crunchy bits in it.

I did notice recently that the Canadian version of Oreos are crispier. I don't know if they're fresher or if they have a different recipe or something.

I've tried different Oreo flavors: dark chocolate and carrot cake. One I really liked was chocolate peanut butter pie.

Questioner

What are the stylistic differences between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean light novels?

Will Wight

I will preface this with: I don't know many of these differences are stylistic differences, how many are cultural differences, and how many are linguistic differences. I know there are few things with Chinese novels, when I started reading them, that drove me crazy that I eventually learned were part of the language.

One of the things I couldn't wrap my head around was, in all these different novels I read they would all use the same turn of phrase. They would use, "the smell of gunpowder was heavy on the air" in a world with no gunpowder, and I was "what is this?". Apparently, they have phrases that are directly translated that way, but have their own meaning in the language that don't mean that. "You are courting death" is another one everyone says and I'm sure is a genre thing.

In my experience, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese novels, just like popular American novels tend to, follow trends at a time. It's interesting to see how many become similar to one another. One of the things I've noticed is that a Korean main character's flaw is being very greedy. I don't know why, but they're considered very materialistic. It's considered a flaw so they aren't saying "you should all be greedy", but that's clearly what the Korean main characters start to do.

One of other things I've also noticed is that a lot of these main characters start - I don't want to say emotionless - very stoic, and in a way that is expressed differently in different cultures. The Chinese stoic protagonist is honorable and ruthless. Where as a Japanese main character will be distant and a loner. The Korean one sets boundaries; if you're fair to me I'll be fair to you. They bleed over each other a little bit. When I noticed that, I also noticed it's common in American novels, but the stoicism is portrayed very differently for American main characters. So you have stoic protagonists like John Wick, or any of the Clive Cussler, or Tom Clancy (TC is sometimes less stoic) are men who just get the job done. They're the growly men who "I only cry tears when a brother of mine dies in the battlefield". It's just interesting how different cultures have interpretations of the same trope.

One of the things I've noticed is that a lot of these cultures, the video game inspired novels have taken over. Those are expressed differently in the different cultures. In Korea there's a lot of trend towards things set in the real world where dungeon portals open up and people get powers and can go into the portals and grind up and come back to the real world. There's a lot of different interpretations of it, but they're all video game inspired which makes sense, I think. It's why LITRPG are really popular now. Video games are popular and they're probably more popular now than they've ever been and we've all grown up playing video games. It's just something that is hear to stay and will evolve and change as literature always does.

Questioner

If there were movies/tv series about cradle, who would play the characters?

Will Wight

I don't have knowledge of actors to say that... so... Danny DeVito for all roles. Every role. I can easily see him as Lindon. I could see him as Eithan, in a long blonde wig. I could easily see that. And then Yerin, you could just stick aluminum foil like arms to his back - I could see Danny DeVito doing that. And then... I would say him as the voice of Orthos, but actually I think probably he'd just sort of walk around on all fours with a black shell on his back and I think that's just... that's Orthos, so... Danny DeVito, all characters.

 

Mu Hentai

Would you guys consider getting some kind of Sacred Artist badges to sell on your store?

Will Wight

You know, people ask me that a lot, and like I've said before: the merchandise takes a lot of energy to run, and to develop. So it's a lot more difficult than people realize it is. And so often people are like: "No, it's not that hard, you can just 3D print a badge."

I know you can... look, 3D printing one badge is definitely doable; 3D printing a batch of badges is definitely doable. Doing something so that we have them sell-able and available on our store - it's possible, but it's not something that is necessarily worth the time and energy invested in it.

So maybe someday. I'd like to have them, they're cool... but we don't sell a lot of merch anyway. We're really just focused on selling enough merchandise to justify itself. But the reason why we started selling merch - kind of like the reason we started giving books away - is because people wanted merchandise. So... that's it, that's why it exists. So I would like to do badges - if we can justify it one day, we will.

Questioner

What is Eithan's favorite dessert, assuming he wasn't allowed to steal yours or anyone else's?

Will Wight

That's in reference to a question I was once asked, which was what's Eithan's favorite ice cream, and I said "yours".

So, hmmm... I think of him as a chocolate mousse kind of guy. Like a light dessert. [someone offscreen:"What?!?"]

That's what I think... yup, chocolate mousse. That's what I think; that's my answer.

And I mean a light dessert. By that I mean not m-o-u-s-s-e, but m-o-o-s-e. So it's a moose made of chocolate.

Curt

While we know people are only able to advance to Jade in Sacred Valley, we know that is was possible for Yerin to advance to lowgold. Is it possible for someone to advance so much in SV that when they leave they could advance straight to highgold or truegold?

Will Wight

No, not really. That's something that you just can't do. There isn't the ability to do that in Sacred Valley.

Jenny

Was Jai Chen the wife Lindon saw in Suriel's vision?

Will Wight

Yes.

Questioner

When do you think you will finish Cradle?

Will Wight

I don't know. There's three books left, so probably... it's going to be 2022 or 2023. I'm not sure when. It depends on what my release schedule is. So yeah, I would expect me to write one more book this year, and then probably get started on the next one, and then the third book finished sometime next year. So it depends on when that gets finished. So 2022 or 2023, I would say.

Questioner

Are you a DotA fan as you use the name Abidan, which is one of the heroes in it?

Will Wight

No, that's a character from... it's a demon from mythology. So that's a common name, that gets used in a lot of fantasy. That's actually not where the name of the Abidan organization came from, but that is where the name of the DotA character came from.

Questioner

Can Lindon create void keys now that he can sense The Way?

Will Wight

That is something that he can learn to do. Not all Sages can do that, but he can. So that is something that he can learn to do.

Now can he do that yet? No, he doesn't know how. But that is something that is viable with his power set. Void Icon, void keys - makes sense, right?