Recent entries

Eransamo

Is there a type of sacred beast that Orthos is afraid of? like mice?

Will Wight

Sharks.

Will Wight

Yeah, that makes sense. That sounds like something I'd say. I don't remember half the things I say. That sounds about right. One of the big things is there's definitely some recreational alcohol-use, drug-use on Cradle just like there would be on most worlds but the difference is, in Cradle, there's a lot of--first of all, it's harder to affect a sacred artist's body because everybody on Cradle is superhuman, therefore, you have to get these really expensive, difficult elixirs and stuff in order to do this. The people who can afford those are often the best sacred artists, strongest sacred artists, and so they're a lot more about discipline and control. And so, typically, you just don't see a whole lot of that. Like, Monarchs aren't lounging around--most Monarchs aren't lounging around in their palaces, you know, smoking hookahs or whatever. I don't know what image I was trying to conjure there. Culturally, that's not what catches on. But, of course, there are some. I mean refining is a thing so, obviously, you'd have some really crazy weird substances.

The Lost Reader

The last time you were on the Discord chat, you said that people generally don't do drugs in Cradle because it would harm their advancement?

Valinora

What character do you most closely identify with?

Will Wight

I used to have an ready answer for this but I don't remember what it was, something from Travellers Gate I think.

Maybe Petal? the reclusive alchemist from Elder Empire. To be real, the character that has the most of me in them is probably Simon. What i tend to do in these action series, is the main characters are half normal action protagonists, so i'm gonna to the right thing cos its right, and I will fight if i have to and defend the weak and all that stuff. And then half the fleshed out person they would be in a more literary story, so they were more their own people. The half of Simon that was more unique and more distinct was mostly the way i feel all the time, he's sorta insecure, no matter how good he is at something he never feels like he is. Therefore there's a lot of times he feels like he should say something, but he's actually going to say nothing. Lindon has kinda a similar sorta thing, but it comes from a very different place and I think it ends up demonstrating differently, so they're sorta similar people but I don't think of them the same way as i'm writing them. I think they would make very different choices in a lot of ways.

Questioner

Is purity and quality of madra only about aspects or mostly about aspects, because I was thinking if it is, then Lindon and Eithan's pure cores are more or less very similar, except that Eithan did something with the soulfire to make it more dense or something along those lines?

Will Wight

So Eithan and Lindon's cores are very similar in that they're using the same jade cycling technique, so therefore they're increasing quantity and using external means to increase quality. So yes they would be very similar.

Arch

As an author, how do you get your statistics on your books, do you go through Amazon and how comprehensive is that information?

Will Wight

Its not very comprehensive, that's the bottom line. Amazon gives us some information, Andrew can weigh in on this to. So i get to see how many sales I've gotten when from which region of the world, and that's basically it

Andrew Rowe

There's also author central for looking at our rankings and ranking change over time.

Will Wight

That's true.

Questioner

Don't take this the wrong way, I really would like to buy some merch.

Will Wight

I'm already taking it the wrong way

Questioner

But i don't think a lot of it looks great, so is there any future plans to maybe hire an illustrator/graphics artist to get a cohesive style or an overarching emblem or some graphics for the overarching series rather than just the book logos?

Will Wight

So again that comes into, i could spend more time developing the merchandise, but why? Is it worth the time and the effort, and thus far it doesn't seem to be.

Lil' Blue

I will say the mugs are really awesome, the mugs are very big and they fit soup, and you know, very few mugs can fit soup. 

Will Wight

Yeah actually I really like the mugs, I use the mugs, but that's more of a practicality thing. 

Questioner

 Will we see more about refining? 

Will Wight

Maybe, I think probably not, simply for the reason that Lindon is not a refiner, so probably not. I think probably i'll just go deeper into Soulsmithing. I just don't know that i'll have the space for it. I have some rules and mechanics for it, I actually had drafted up a pretty extensive refining scene in Blackflame, and there was a whole refiner character, and he actually...that's neither here nor there, but anyway, I ended up deleting that and I gave basically his role in the plot to Cassius and a couple of other people, so I ended up not doing the refining scene. So probably not, but maybe , I'm not closed off to it.

Questioner

On the force thing, did you say that force aura is gathered via all kinetic energy or is it consistent? would a falling axe or a falling hammer generate enough force aura to use?

Will Wight

The intensity of aura changes depending on where you are, so that is going to affect whether something generates enough aura for you to use. Also so you, as you advance on your path need better and better sources of aura, so something that would be plenty for a copper would be like nothing for a truegold, they'd be like "this is useless to me". Its like black flame, one match vs an erupting volcano.

Questioner

Earlier you mentioned about the dragon monarch being able to shape shift. are all monarchs able to shape shift fluidly or is that specifically between the sacred beast and human forms?

Will Wight

That's specifically to him, like the sacred beasts with they're beast for and human form or whatever other form they've developed, it doesn't have to be human it just usually is. So the other monarchs can change their bodies, and they could change their bodies in many different ways, but it would be difficult. Like I think you posted earlier in chat, could she (Akura Malice) be 12 feet tall or a man for a day, and that would not be a casual amount of effort, that would be a lot of research and practise and difficulty, so she probably wouldn't do that, but there are certain ways she could change her body that are specific to her, and she could just shape shift in and out of that.

Lil' Blue

What's it like being a beta reader? 

Will Wight

It is actually super awesome, there are no demands of you at all, its really just fun and games. So yeah, people ask for beta reading all the time of course, cos they want the book early, which i understand. The beta readers see the book in the rougher state, so a lot of time that will affect your experience, a lot of people who ask for beta access don't really want beta access, they really just want an advance copy of the book, and that's not what you're getting; you're getting to see it rough, you're getting to see behind the scenes and that affects your experience of the book.

 

What i'm really doing is i'm looking for people to help me, i'm looking for people to read it...and a lot of people thing beta readers means proof readers, it doesn't entirely. So if you catch and error in the book you go "ah i need to beta read so i can proof read it for you." That's not typically true, typos don't get in there because of a lack of proof reading, its more usually a lack of time, because people catch errors. So really what it is, is the beta readers give me their feedback on the development of the book, and that helps go "ok now i can see how readers are taking this" and that helps me steer the book and tweak it and polish it. So its work, its a job, its a service i need to be done, more than it is....its not a reward for the beta readers.

Andrew Rowe

Beta readers can also slow us down, the more we have the more people we have to go through, the more feedback we have to sift through, and personally that has slowed me down significantly.

Will Wight

That's true too, that is definitely true. That's one of the reasons why I don't open it to just anybody, because if I had the time to do that, I would have the time to take it through more drafts. There's a saturation point, there can be too many, I cant wait for everybody's feedback, and all that stuff.

Bowyrd

When starting a new series what is one of the first things you develop. Like the power/magic systems or maybe the world settings/ characters you want write about? Followed by UL releasing madness! 

Will Wight

Great Question, that depends, so what that depends on is, there's some core thing.....if i want to write something then i have some kind of idea, and sometimes that idea is a scene or a magic system related fact, or some cool thing i'd like to do, maybe its a cool plot idea i have. What I do is I drill into what makes me like that idea the most. So for Cradle, i really like these xian xia fantasy Chinese web novels, and i knew what i liked about them, so i went down there and drilled into what i like about this, what do i want and i developed it from there; what do i want in the magic system, what do i want in the characters, what do i want in the plot, and that's how I began developing cradle. Travellers gate it was, i had an idea for a thing about... so this is dates back to playing Kingdom Hearts 1, so a kajillion years ago, and Riku is really the hero of the story, Sora inherits all his power and is never challenged and then just wins. Riku is actually really trying to do something, he's working towards a goal. What i realised from that, was its kinda cool to be the friend of a hero who grows up in the same place, and the other guy inherits his power and you actually save the day by working on it.

Questioner

How did the preorder sales compare to everything else? 

Will Wight

The preorder has sold a little over 6000 copies, and I would expect about that much in the first week, and its been up for three weeks, which is not bad considering the fact that there have been no kindle unlimited sales, and i would count those into a first week, so for just regular sales alone and no kindle unlimited that is actually really good, that's sold very well. The question is will I spike up in ranking? If the book spikes up in ranking then it's more visible and it will stay visible for longer and all that stuff.

Xektalon

If Lindon made a drudge look like a gold dragon (since they used to be a servant line to the blacks) ... How long would it last before said dragons destroyed it and tried to kill him? And would Orhtos pass out laughing at seeing the drudge?

Will Wight

Orthos might! He might really enjoy that. But the gold dragons wouldn't have it out for Lindon any more than they already do because a lot of gold dragons are selfish and whatever. They're going around stealing stuff and raiding places. As much as I said about Sesh's law-of-the-jungle mentality, his descendants really like the good life. They're rich and they're powerful and they really like it. And so they don't settle down places; they don't do very civilized stuff, but they do go take things from people who are civilized. Civilized is a weird word. I really mean settled; people who live in settlements. And so they see a lot of stuff. But they wouldn't care really--I mean if they ran across him they would definitely be mad, but that would be kind of they already kinda hate him like because Sophara hates him, and she's kind of their leader of their generation. So an older gold dragon would just completely not care--would just try to breath fire to kill him and that's it. But the people who are going to be swayed by that, they already hate him because he murdered somebody, so he's already on their list.

Tim the Sword Sage

What was your favorite scene to write in the story thus far?

Will Wight

Definitely the Dross scene at the end of Ghostwater. That was fun to write in a sense because I knew that was a really cool punch line to the book so I spent a lot of effort trying to set that up in the exact right way. So that was just difficult and then seeing it pay off was really cool. What was hard about it was balancing the rapport and him speaking as a presence for the first time and them finishing the Ghostwater project AND beating Harmony. So I had to have all of the happen and I really had to have all of that happen at the same moment and I had to set all that up so that it made sense when it happened and that was just very difficult but a lot of fun planning. Therefore seeing it pay off felt really good.

AngryEdgelord

Is Wei Shi Seisha (Lindon's Mom) related to the Kazan clan by blood? Where does her brown hair come from?

Will Wight

She is descended from another clan. From an outside clan. She is a Wei clan member but at a certain point in her ancestry her father or great grandfather was from the Kazan clan. That's just a thing that happens in Sacred Valley.

Chat

Did you give rough ages for the Monarchs?

Will Wight

I did not. I think Malice is about four hundred years old. So we're not talking forty thousand. We're talking four hundred, one thousand, twelve hundred. They tend to die. They don't age but they tend to die. Or ascend. Old Man Lo actually is not related to the Akura clan so he's just a... guy.

Conman#8457

After reading the Cradle series I became quite interested in Chinese XianXia genre anime and noticed more than a few similarities between your books and these anime. Have you watched (or read the base material) of anime like Yao Shen Ji, Mo Dao Zu Shi, and Wangu Xian Qiong? How much of an impact do you think external material had on the Cradle series?

Will Wight

Uh yes, I've seen... that. I don't know how to refer to those in English. But yeah, I did all the research. I've read it all, seen it all, but mainly just because I'm into it. It mostly wasn't a research thing. How much of an impact did external material have on the Cradle series? Infinite. I really like the genre, I really like the conventions, and I thought, "Hey I can a story in that genre." And so then I did.

SofaKing

Thanks for sharing your crazy stories with us. As for my question do you have any plans for D&D like handbooks to come out for your universe? Also do you plan on ever coming to the Pacific North West for a book signing? 

Will Wight

D&D like handbooks... maybe. The coolest thing about D&D handbooks is the art and I would have to buy that, so it would be expensive. But it would be fun. I really like those. I just really love D&D handbooks, they're great. Will I do a signing? I mean I guess. I've done a couple. I don't do them regularly and I probably won't ever do them regularly, but I can't say that I won't ever do one. I do them at Dragon Con, if you want to come to Dragon Con in the fall.

Keytar

Now that you seem to have an entire publishing company working for you, have you considered doing publishing for other self-pub authors? Do you do that already?

Will Wight

Yes I have considered that. No I do not do it already.

Oka wants to be unmuted. I think it's okay to keep him muted. What do you think?

Yeah, I think we keep him muted. He deserves to be muted.