Recent entries

Hammy

I don't think [Lindon and Yerin] should date at all. I don't have a reason, just imo I do not think they work and it kind of a troupe that the two lead characters of opposite gender started dating in a book.

Will Wight

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools?from=Main.TropesAreNotBad   

 

Just as a clarification, a "trope" is just a literary element used to build a story. The story's a house, and a trope is a brick. Stories are made of tropes.   As for this specific subject, I know that if I do end up pairing Lindon and Yerin, some people are going to be thrilled and others will be disappointed. I'm aware of that with every choice I make. There's nothing wrong with not wanting a specific pairing, or not wanting something to happen in a story.

Kidpen

What is the best mix-in at Cold Stone?

Will Wight

This is the kind of question I like to see. Reese's Pieces.

Lil' Blue

Followup, which ice cream flavor?

Will Wight

Cookie dough.

TransEmo

I have to ask Will, does the sword sage have a name? I’ve been assuming it’s Tim until proved otherwise.

Will Wight

He does. It is Tim.

(Not to take us too far back on topic, but just to be clear: the Sword Sage does have a name, it will be used in the series, and it isn’t really Tim. Let your meme-y hopes die.)

It’s Timothy. He didn’t like nicknames.

TransEmo

... it was too odd, and due to this bloody discord involved northstrider having a harem lol.

 

(describing a cradle inspired dream questioner had and was sharing in humour)

Will Wight

Random response to a comment in General: you know who in Cradle canonically has a harem? Akura Malice.

Will Wight

Her real name is also Tim.

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.

Mierin

If the Emperor had been born on a world like Cradle where he could actually train and develop instead of having to hold back the Elders, how high would he or someone with his will/strength/etc. have been able to advance?

Will Wight

He certainly COULD have reached Monarch, but most of those with the potential to reach Monarch fail to do so. It requires so much luck and unique opportunity that it's impossible to guarantee anyone with reach Monarch, no matter how driven and/or talented. In the Blackflame Empire, he would have almost certainly become a powerful Underlord. With the right resources and chances, he could have potentially left the Empire and ascended to Overlord or better outside.

AdmrlHellNinja

Is it possible to cultivate "Sex aura", if so what would this look like? What kind of remnant would you bond to get to gold? What kind of Iron body would be best suited for this path?

Will Wight

Sex aura: no, that's not possible. If anything, you'd generate some form of interaction between dream and blood aura, but it probably wouldn't be anything unique.

Questioner

Is Charity the sister of Malice?

Will Wight

Charity isn't Malice's sister. She refers to Mercy as her niece because the actual relationships get weird, given that so much of the head family is ageless.

OrgnlDave

There was an entry [on the old wiki] that talked aobut how judges had the ferarris and regular abidan had the corollas

Will Wight

I don’t remember that analogy, but it’s a good one. Abidan use Presences for a lot of things, not just personal regulation of power. Everybody in the Abidan WOULD have one, at least as the equivalent of like a cell phone.

OrgnlDave

Wait, does that mean that they are as common and useful as cell phones, or that the difference between a Judge and and Abidan presence is a cellphone and a ferrari?

Will Wight

Sorry, I switched analogies. I meant they’re as ubiquitous and convenient as cell phones.

OrgnlDave

Hi Will, what sounds do techniques make? Is sound integral to a small set of types of madra, and things like the Dragon's Breath and Rippling Sword only make sounds due to superheating the air or moving fast or something? Do scripts also make noise when they activate?

Will Wight

Scripts do make a small noise when they activate! It’s something like the strike of a match followed by a hum like a power line, though for many scripts, that sound fades away. As for the sounds of techniques, that depends on the nature of the madra and the technique itself. As you say, something like dragon’s breath would make a sound because of its heat (and because of its destruction component tearing apart whatever it hits), but something like the Path of the White Fox would make no sound.

Walter

How the emperor’s original companions are still alive if the emperor had to bind himself to the heart just to live longer, and why nobody considers them like great elders at this point if they did the emperor. 

Will Wight

The Emperor's original companions were asleep in coffins designed by the Emperor to prolong their lives. They are awakened only when the Empire is in great crisis, and then put back to sleep.

Walter

 I also need to know if great elders used to be people, since kelarac talks about when he used to be a merchant.

Will Wight

The Great Elders were never people in the sense that you mean. But there is a human origin to them all.

OrgnlDave

With people being divided over the characters...       Which book you choose first is 50/50       In a book that combined the two stories, if you read for a while and it switched POVs to one you liked, you could get into it       But you're stuck with a bad taste in your mouth if you didn't like the one you randomly picked and probably won't try the other

Will Wight

Yeah, I’d have no problem believing that, but it doesn’t seem like a ton of people tried one and not the other. I’m not trying to figure out why people didn’t like Elder Empire—because by and large they did, at least in comparison to my other series—but why they didn’t try it in the first place.       I have some operating theories, but idk if I’ll ever know.

Walter

Can you improve your reading beyond application of a skill?

Will Wight

Yes, you can improve your Reading.

Walter

 Was the emperor so strong because he had 1500 years to practice or because of the heart?

Will Wight

The Emperor is strong both because he's naturally gifted and because he's had so long to grow and practice.

Walter

How is Reading advanced? Is it like on Cradle?

Will Wight

Reading isn't trained like the sacred arts because the magic system is a lot harder to quantify than the sacred arts. A madra technique literally starts to crystallize in the practitioner's soul as a binding, so there are measurable and observable effects. Reading is much more difficult to boil down to a tangible process.

Walter

Why don’t people and things leave remnants in EE and travelers gate? It all seems like a connection to the way, and I’m trying to figure out where the elders play into it all vs the Abidan, but I have been wondering why there’re no remnants

Will Wight

Remnants are a consequence of the Cradle energy system, not a function of the Way, so they're tied to Cradle and are not universal.

manty65

How do monarchs usually prepare for a fight against a dreadgod or another monarch.

Will Wight

That will absolutely be shown in the series, so I won't comment on it here.

Terrible

If a Sage or higher level Sacred Artist world-hopped over to Amalgam and got access to a Territory, could they Incarnate?

Will Wight

Yes.

Terrible

If so, would they be corrupted, or...

Will Wight

Depends on the Sage's powers and their control over them. It's possible that they could remain themselves, but simply draw more deeply on the Territory. They could potentially siphon the entire fragment of a world that formed that Territory, leaving it a powerless husk.

kruppe12

What effect, if any, would an Empty palm or Madra Bullet (eithan's core - breaker) have on a non-madra user? Could it scramble a reader's senses or some such, or would they just look at you funny?

Will Wight

Just look at you funny. If Lindon Empty Palmed Simon, Simon wouldn't even feel it.