Will we ever see Adriel or hints of him in Cradle?
Yeah, I think definitely hints of him, some of them were already there or were indirect references, but in terms of whether or not you'll see him? No, probably not, certainly not in Cradle. Probably not. Probably just one of those myths, but references, yes.
Will you ever top "I'm here to punch a hole in the sky." As the most badass line ever?
Hahaha, okay. Funny story about that. So I had that set up line, in the beta draft of Wintersteel; and a friend of mine, Devon, was reading through it and was like, I thought for sure, later when he comes back and sees Mercy again, and says like 'Im back', or whatever, and then he has conjured a hole in the sky, why doesn't he say 'I'm here to punch a hole in the sky'? I thought for sure he was going to say that, and then he doesn't, and I was like... Oh yeah, I guess that is a good line. So I looked it over and I was like, yeah, that definitely makes sense. So then I put it in there, so it was like yeah that looks like I set it up and designed it real well, but he was like 'Yeah I thought for sure that you were going to do that', and I was like. Nooope. So I just didn't think of the response or the punch line. I didn't think of it. So, the set up, great; but the, in terms of where I was going with it, I don't know. I had no intentions of that, so that was like one of the few punch lines where it really wasn't my doing, I had written everything around that except for the actual line. (Takes sip).
the training montages?
The training montage? There's a lot of training montage. I guess there's actually only one montage, a lot of training scenes.
Does Dreadgod have Makiel X Ozriel (blushing_emoji)?
No. They hate each other. They absolutely hate, I could not have definitively said that any more. Absolutely not.
Did you expect Dross to have such a fanbase?
Yes.
With the release of Dreadgod closing in and without going into spoilers, what is the thing you're most excited for the fans to read?
Without going into spoilers... (Sam says how Lindon dies from off camera) Yeah, how Lindon dies. There it is, that's the answer. I don't know how to do this without going into spoilers. What are you talking about? You ask me what my favorite part is, of Dreadgod, but don't spoil me. Ah.... I don't know. I don't know. I can't think of a non-spoiler answer. It's the, Sam's favorite part. That's what I want you guys to see, I'm excited for you guys to read Sam's favorite part.
How much is the dream tablet of Naru Huan kicking Eithan going to be valued at, now that Eithan is known to be the not so grim reaper?
It's going to make Naru Huan a very rich interdimensional tycoon. Now he's going to be, he's going to have influence comparable to judges. Just because, he has this memory; and this is something that can't be replicated. No matter where he goes, he's going to be a celebrity. He's going to be welcome in vroshir worlds. He's going to be an interdimensional diplomat. I'm just kidding, or am I?
If each Dreadgod released a flavor of Oreo, what would they be?
Rebecca! (Points at Rebecca) Answer, here we go.
So first of all, a lot of questions were submitted you guys are awesome, Sam and I were pre-selecting the questions, but I saw this yesterday, and I was like this will be a good one for Will to answer, and then I spent so much time thinking about it that I have answers and I wouldn't let Will do it. Okay. So, first, Bleeding Phoenix. There is, horrifyingly, there is a hot and spicy cinnamon Oreo. Perfect for Bleeding Phoenix, you would never want to eat it, it would be terrible. Then we've got, the Weeping Dragon. Okay so we've got lightning, so the fireworks Oreos that have poprocks in them that go pew pew pew pew pew in your mouth, it's great. Then, I really kind of struggled with the Silent King, but then! There's these white, fudge covered Oreos, so it's like an illusion because it's not a real Oreo looking thing, and it's covered in white frosting. So that's perfect. (Will Wight cuts in saying 'That's a great answer, I was just going to say vanilla regular, the white Oreos') No, no, I spent too much time on this when I should have been sleeping; and then the last one, wait, who have I not done? (Will: The Wandering Titan) The Wandering Titan! (They say it together) The Wandering Titan is a Mega Stuf Oreo, he's a big boi, that's it. Done. Definitive answer. Okay I'm out.
Wow. Man, those were great answers, she said she thought about that a lot and yeah, when we got to this question she wanted to be the one to answer it, she was excited, she invested a lot in this. I'm impressed.
When you started writing Cradle, I assume you had a general idea of where the characters and world would end up, has the story up through Dreadgod met or exceeded your expectations?
Exceeded, of course. My, people talk about getting your view, your vision on paper. It I indeed very difficult, when you're doing anything artistic you're trying to get what's on your brain onto paper, and it never works exactly as you intended it. In a lot of ways I find out that's a good thing, I have, a lot of times you find I have a vision in my head of what kind of an emotional impact this is going to have, so I have, so I'm imagining this being a really cool thing; but then I have to actually make it a really cool thing, in your head, and that's hard. What happens is, it then becomes more real, as it gets on the page. So, I think it improves, when you get it on, when you make it real. When you get it to the page. Now there are things you can't do, or things that don't work out as well as you thought; but you've got to make it real.
Are you going to kill a character off in this one? That would suck so much.
Alright, so let me talk in general about my feelings on killing characters. In general, I think, killing characters does a couple of things. One, and more prominently that people talk about it so much is that it amps up the stakes, because if major characters can die, in stressful situations, then when you threaten their lives later, that feels more impactful; because they might actually die. So when you're watching, in game of thrones characters being in mortal danger, you're a lot more on the edge of your seat than you are in, idk Spy x Family. Airing now on Crunchyroll. You know they're not really going to die, because they're, and by the way that's what plot armor is. The plot cannot continue without the character. You know they're not going to die, so they've got plot armor. People talk about plot armor in incorrect ways all the time. Like, this ability he has that keeps him alive is plot armor, no. That's just a device. A plot device. Plot armor, is if they're necessary to the plot, therefore they cannot die, or be removed from the plot or the story would stop. So Lindon for instance has plot armor, because until the end, that's where plot armor leaves by the way, at the end of a series the people who had plot armor up until this point don't need it anymore because they could die, because the series is over. So, (Takes a sip), the other thing that killing a character does is, tone, killing a major character of course. It impacts tone, and I am of the opinion, that not every series needs a lot of major character death, of even any, not every series needs that, not every series is improved by that. I think for instance, Harry Potter, you needed Cedric Diggory's death, you needed Sirius' death, I'm spoiling Harry Potter by the way. I don't give a crap, it's been out forever. Uh, I think Sirius' death is important and then I think probably, you know those kind of things, 4 5 and 6 the major character deaths at the end, and then 7 probably one or two characters needed to die, but a lot of characters died in 7, and I think that impacted it negatively. I think that, because of that, none of the individual deaths felt as impactful as they would have otherwise. Then I think in a lot of series you don't need major characters to die. So I don't believe that this is, and I don't think Cradle is one of those series where I need to kill a bunch of characters to show that I'm serious, but, on the other hand... It is also a series where I could. So, I feel like it's, it's kind of in the middle there. Where I think, some character death is probably appropriate, but I don't necessarily need it. It would be fine if they did all ascend and they all lived well, but I'm not necessarily saying that I have to do that or indeed intend to. It's one of those things where again I could go either way. Cradle. (Takes a sip).
So, no map?
Gabe, I'm watching you. I've got my eye on you Gabe.
Is Dreadgod a Dross book?
Well I used Dross' name I think more in this book than any other book so far. So, yes.
What's the hardest part of writing Dreadgod?
(microphone starts to cut in and out here so some text is lost) Oh boy. Uh, yikes. Oh man. I have (...) to that question. It happens Every time. Reaper. So, it's hard to (...). There's some cool things in Dreadgod, but I don't have any spanning explanations, to reveal. So coming off, you have to, there's a lot of detail to explain without slowing the pacing down too much. So things like, show off all the stuff that happens with Ozriel, and the Abidan story line, but then the Abidan story line would be super long, and nobody wants to read that; and then so I go to Cradle and it's like I said, they're all going off training and he's sending them off but he's also doing stuff on his own. So I want them to explore the labyrinth, to have them go off and do all their training, I want to have Lindon explore his new powers, but again I don't want to spend too much time on it, because then those branch and diverge a lot more. So I want them all to be linked into one adventure. So it's hard to just balance all of that, is sort of the juggling act. Its probably the hardest.
Why did the judges not wipe the memory of the inhabitants of Cradle of the Mad King?
They do go into that a little bit in Dreadgod, but I can answer that now. The judges didn't wipe the memory because they wipe memory or don't depending on what is going to cause further instability and chaos. So, when they determine that not wiping memory is more stable, they don't. Right? Because somethings leave such a imprint on the world, that not remembering them is weirder than remembering. In this particular case it was, there's so much, it would be so difficult to wipe the world, and it would be such a, it's such a significant event in the plot that it's just like, well let's just let it run it's course; and then when the elements that are causing instability are then removed, so in this particular case it's just like what Makiel did a few books ago, where he accelerated the timeline of the Phoenix, because that gets the, Lindon and company out of the world quicker. So now it's, if everybody remembers it, they're going to be forced out of the world quicker, and they're going to have less of an impact on Cradle's ultimate fate, and therefore more stable. So that's the idea, and they refer to that and down the road they explicitly explain it.
Say you received a world seed, what would you do with it?
I would make a world. So what world seeds do, they can be repurposed for other things, but they effectively are little drops of creation left over, and you can make kind of whatever. It's, it tended to bloom into what effectively would be a territory, then it's own world. So they're effectively the only ways left of creating new iterations; but you can also use them to make things, make unique things or people, beings, you can make sentient beings with them. So you can kind of make anything you want. It's kind of like having access to my notebook, where you can write whatever you want to into the setting. In a way, I do have access to a world seed.
Can we hear the back cover description?
I don't, am I allowed to do that? (Looking at Rebecca) Oh, I am! Oh great, so that's why I have, great. So, we have an early printing of Dreadgod, this is the not for resale. (...) This goes live Tuesday, so therefore this will go up on Tuesday as well, this is the book, this is roughly the exact same size as Reaper. If you were satisfied with Reaper's length, that's where this is. I then I am going to now, try to read the back cover, but unfortunately there is a 'Not For Resale' over one of the paragraphs. I'm going to do my best to interpret the words here, we will, I might just be making it up. If I start talking about velociraptors at any point that means I'm making it up. Okay alright.
"The battle in the heavens has left a target on Lindon's back. His most reliable ally, gone. The Monarchs see him as a threat, and he has inherited one of the most valuable facilities in the world."
'Not For Resale'. I'm gonna need to wait for another copy. Dub dub dub dub, something about his enemies, yadda yadda yadda, his enemies are working together to kill him. I think is what that line says. Now we're going to move on. We'll post the whole thing after the stream, I'm just going to decode this as best as I can. Something something something, his enemies band together to kill him is the gist of that line, and then it is
"If it weren't for the dreadgods. All four are empowered and unleashed, rampaging through Cradle. Grudges old and new must be set aside. The Monarchs need every capable fighter to help them defend their territory, and Lindon needs time. While he fights, he sends his friends off to train, they'll need to advance impossibly fast if they want to join him in the battle against the kings and queens of Cradle. Together, they will need power enough to rival a dreadgod."
There you go, the back cover copy. So, the idea there, here's one thing, I've never talked about this before actually, I don't like writing back cover copies. Heres why. I don't use it to make my decisions in a book when I'm reading, so when I'm reading a book I don't use the back cover copy to decide, I only use it to determine what is the content of this book. So for me, a list of tags, is just as good and a one line description of the premise is just as good as a, you know a multi paragraph thing. So when I'm writing these, I am trying to go 'What would I get excited about in the book?' So I'm trying to go, but it's book 11 right? I basically really want every back of the book to be like 'Did you like book 10? If so read this! If you did not, don't read this.' Right?; but as I was writing this, I have his most reliable ally is gone, so I obviously want to elude to the fact that Eithan is not around, but I don't want to say on the back 'Eithan's gone', because if someone is just reading through the Amazon pages in order, they're going 'Oh what happened to Eithan in Reaper? Hmm' So there's that, and then I have he's inherited one of the most valuable facilities in the world, I originally had that as one of the most valuable properties in the world, and then i was going, well first of all that sounds like a Monopoly board, and second of all, is that clear enough that I'm referring to the Labyrinth? Again, I can't say the Labyrinth, because some people haven't read the previous book. So, then we're talking about all that, so it's hard to elude to the plot of this book accurately and tease you a little bit without giving stuff away from previous books. It's just an interesting word puzzle, but that part I enjoy. It's fun, you get to kinda like figure out how to fit these things into a trailer like format. So that's fun. (...) So the general plot of the book is Lindon is well ahead of his friends, and he is coming up with a plan to help train them up to his level. So that they can work together against the dreadgods and the Monarchs.
First things first, I know one of the things that people ask a lot, and of course, the first couple of questions are about this. Is about the...
Are you the real Will Wight?
Yes I am. (continuing previous thought) Did you use the method of writing that you did with Wintersteel with this one? I knew this would be about the method of writing, that's what YBD asked. I had been prepared to talk about my method of writing Dreadgod, so let me just, for just one second this is probably going to answer some of the questions that are coming up. So I'm just going to briefly outline how I wrote Dreadgod. Almost a year ago now? Maybe, maybe a year ago, I say down with a friend of mine, and we worked on the last 3 books in Cradle, and we kind of speculated and talked about the last 3 books and we sort of planned them like they were a trilogy. Now they are not structured like a trilogy, just, If you're going out there writing a trilogy don't structure it, it's like they're written like the last three books in a long series, but we planned them like they were a trilogy. So we planned Reaper, Dreadgod, and unnamed book 12, we'll call it Lindon Dies. As, we planned it like they were a trilogy, we plotted them together, so that they had a story that went through the 3 books. The one we were most worried about was Reaper, that was the one I was very concerned about, because of the ending, obviously recontextualizing a lot of the series I didn't know how people would respond to that. I was very nervous about that. So, then Dreadgod kind of comes off that so last September I think is when I started plotting Dreadgod, er started working on Dreadgod specifically. So I sat down and plotted that book specifically, based on the broader plan I had. I started plotting Dreadgod specifically, and I started writing it, and then around November, I had it to beta readers, so I had gone through an alpha draft, and I had taken it to now beta readers around November. They said, yeah, you know it's good, we need to do a little more work on it, but the base of it is there. So I paused it. Put it into the fridge for awhile, and I started working on book 12. So around the end of November and December January and into February I think? I was working on 12, so that then I could go back to Dreadgod, and insert some things that would set up events in 12 a little better. So I just I had planned them together and so I kinda knew where we were going, but I wanted to make sure that I could set them up appropriately a book ahead of time. So that was kind of the, and then I went back of course and finished off Dreadgod, and then we got the manuscript to Travis so he could read it and now it's coming out. Right. So that was the process for Dreadgod, also during that is when we were deciding whether this was going to be 12 books or 13 books. That was the whole debate, the whole process. We did end up deciding I could do it in 12 books, mainly because I don't have a character limit in book 12. If this one needs to be 200,00 words, significantly longer than Wintersteel it can be, that's not a big deal. If that needs to end up happening, I will, I'm not committing to that. Please don't hold me to that, I'm just going, it's going to be long and I'm gonna wrap up everything that I can. In book 12, that's the idea.
Are you Michael Manning, the author? Or borrowed name
So I also saw Amp asking are you the real Michael Manning? Now I know you were actually addressing that to Michael Manning in chat, and I would like to say, that I am not the real Michael Manning, if you were expecting me to be the real Michael G. Manning, you're in the wrong stream.
I feel like Rebecca and Will look more alike, compared to Sam. Sam is an imposter, confirmed?
I saw a couple of questions as I was, taking a break, I did notice the sibling resemblance question, Sam is definitely one of our siblings, I feel like the reason why I, we don't look like him is because he's just a lot better looking than us, it's the beard, it's the power of the beard. If I were able to grow a beard like that, then I would be, my power level would be too great, and I couldn't be contained. So I have to stay clean shaven, in order to give everyone else a chance.
What is everyone on the teams favorite Cradle scenes?
You know, it's, ok let's do that real quick. Rebecca what's your favorite Cradle scene?
The end of Ghostwater, when it gets revealed that Dross is a presence, because, that was one of the only things, in the major moments and twists in the series that Will hadn't told us ahead of time. So I knew about Eithan being Ozriel, I knew about a lot of the other major moments, but I had no idea that Dross was going to be a presence, and I lost my freakin' mind, reading the beta draft and was like, screaming, and it was like midnight and wasn't sure if he was awake, and I was going to wake him up, and, yeah so yeah.
It turns out I was playing a game of League of Legends, and she had to wait for me to stop, so that she could freak out. Yeah, she had to wait for the game to be over, because I'm not gonna leave a game.
Rebecca selfishly took my answer as well, because I have died on this hill that that is the best scene in all of media, in recorded history; but since she took that one, my favorite scene is, is in Dreadgod.
So there you go, that's your answer.
