Recent entries

Cody Laurent

Love seeing the sibling dynamic with you all

Will Wight

(...) Love seeing the sibling dynamic with you all, says Cody. Yeah, the sibling, heh, it's funny because we, (Rebecca slides into camera with two thumbs up), haha there she is, I knew that was gonna attract a sibling. Yeah, they are great. They are really cool, I like them a lot. They are way cooler than me, I know you guys only know me, but they are, they're the cool ones, I'm the loser-y one. (Rebecca slides back into camera and nods) So, it's really fun, we've always been friends. It's fun hanging out, one of my earliest memories is we used to run a lawn business together. It's one of my memories of them that I still have fondly, is, I'm with them and we're weeding, a garden, a yard for free. So we're weeding for free, I mean, it's not for free. For money; and as we're weeding the garden, we are talking and I am making up stories. I'm telling them stories, and some of them, were proto-drafts of a story that would end up becoming Cradle. So, they were some of my first audience members, they were just, you know the weeding is boring, so they were just sitting there, listening to me and I was telling them stories and they were responding, so it was cool. It was really neat. 

TheAlmightyArchangel

What was the name of the lawn business?

Will Wight

That's a good question, and it was Starving Student Lawn Care; and that was how I payed for college. That's not a joke, that's for real.

TheAlmightyArchangel

When do you next plan to break your foot?

Will Wight

So I, I regularly, I've been going out to a quarry, I've been kicking rocks every Thursday; and I think that, over time it's going to make it so that my foot is less resistant to breaking, but in the short term, I'm just shattering it over and over and over.

CH

What's the release date for Lindondies?(Lindon Dies)

Will Wight

Uh, we don't know yet, that's not announced.

Anonymous

How many times were you kicked over the course of the Kickstarter?

Will Wight

that's not, that's uh, that's a good question, but it's not the best question. The best question is how many times was I started over the course of the Kickstarter?; and that answer is 11 times.

David Coates

Strictly for research, how long does it take to sign a few thousand books?

Will Wight

Heh, we determined this, and I think we determined it was what, I think 20 hours? 21 hours? Is that right? Something like that. Yeah, we calculated it and I think that's what we came up with. It's something like that, a solid signing. I think that's right. I'd have to you know uh I think we wrote it down somewhere. You know, uh, not that bad, haha just gotta do it all, just gotta sit down for 20 hours and (scribbling motion with hand).

Nick Fuller

When will the writing Livestream happen?

Will Wight

(asking his team) When is the writing Livestream going to happen? Do we have a date for that? What is that? Do we know? ... In the next month or so, we don't have a date selected yet, so there you go.

Haru

Do you plan on doing something like the collectors editions for the rest of the books?

Will Wight

 ... So presumably, yes for the rest of the books in Cradle, we're, like I said we're not going to leave you on book 3, presumably for the other books I write, .... Yes? Maybe? That's a thing that's possible, I'm not going to commit to that right now, but yeah, that's a, a possibility, for real.

Timothy Grose

Did you ever expect such a positive response to your Kickstarter, and does it encourage you to do more of them?

Will Wight

I covered that a little bit already; 'did I expect such positive response to your Kickstarter?' ... (of) 'course not, 'and does it encourage you to do more of them?' ..., yes! Of course, I mean it was a huge thing, and one of the reasons I've always wanted to do a Kickstarter like I mentioned before, is that I just love Kickstarters, but the part that I love about them is interacting with other fans, feeling like I'm getting in on the ground floor of something. 'so does it encourage you to do more of them?' well I mean obviously we're going to do more for the rest of the Cradle series, because we're not going to leave you hangin', but does it encourage me to kickstart other things? ... Yes, but I also just like people ask me about having a Patreon all the time, I dont want to do it just for the sake of doing it, because that feeks like... Why? I want to have a reason for doing it, but if there is though if there's stuff to kickstart well I mean it worked and if people enjoyed it and I enjoyed it then why not?

Matt McLaughlin

Do you have any particular new territories in mind for the next traveler's gates?

Will Wight

Yes.

Blue Pizza

A quick question I've had for a while... the whole 600 billion souls on Cradle thing... is that just the humanoid/sentient species or does that include everything alive including plants, remnants, etc?

Will Wight

Sentient population. It's very large and a much higher percentage of their planet's surface is inhabited.

Blue Pizza

How close are we to the end of Cradle?

Will Wight

Dreadgod is book 11 out of 12. But after you read Dreadgod, you'll be like "you mean 13 books right?"

No, I'm sure I can do it in 12. At least a solid 40% sure.

Kandra (Ozkiel Forever)

Please do cut it in half if you need to

Will Wight

I'll put it this way: I really really want to just do an extra-long 12 rather than a relatively normal-size pair of 12 & 13. If I can make it work, I will.

Honesty I think it'll just be better for the reading experience. I don't want to do Book 12: Part 1 and Book 12: Part 2.

Izzy

I mean obviously Will can't answer this because it's spoilers, but Cradle ending doesn't necessarily mean Lindon's story ends completely, right? Like after ascension their role can expand to future willverse stories and such

Will Wight

Cradle is the story in Cradle. Whether there’s more story after that…who knows? But Cradle the series covers their journey within the world of Cradle.

Questioner

Will constantly says that he branches off from his original plans all the time.

Will Wight

I really do. I think it’s important that plans should have room to flex, because what looks like a great idea five books out might end up not working once you get there.

The characters could be in a different emotional place than you imagined, for instance, or maybe the scene in your head doesn’t fit the tone of the current book.

So I like to leave flexibility. Even up to writing Reaper, I could have changed my mind about who Eithan was if I had wanted to.

I didn’t, though.

Questioner

I’m pretty sure that Eithan being Ozriel…wasn’t planned from the beginning.

Will Wight

As I’ve said before, I came up with Eithan’s identity before Lindon’s. He was designed to be the mentor in an older story whose grave formed the foundation for Cradle.

I could just be saying that, though. The real commitment came when I told people.

As early as Soulsmith, I told my family and about half of my beta readers where Ozriel was. So they could read all along with this in mind and help me keep it consistent.

Ultimately it’s up to you whether you believe me or not, but I am telling the truth on this one.

Frankly, if I had changed my mind, I wouldn’t mind saying so. I’m not afraid of deviating from the plan, nor am I ashamed of it. Nothing wrong with scrapping a plan that isn’t working.

This one was the plan all along, though.

sYnce

Why are there so many dense main character?

Will Wight

It’s easier to write.

People tend to overthink the answer to this question. It’s not like authors are going “Hm, you know what I think readers would enjoy? A protagonist who can’t pick up on obvious interpersonal cues.”

In a story with a romantic/relational plot or sub-plot, it’s to extend drama without making him a manipulative douchebag. If the protagonist doesn’t pick up on Love Interest’s obvious attraction, he’s a doofus. If he does pick up on it and strings her along, he’s a scumbag.

I can relate to a doofus, but I don’t want to relate to a scumbag.

In a story where those things don’t play much of a role—like in Japanese light novels, where this kind of protagonist is the standard—it’s to keep relationships from progressing so they don’t eat up too much of the story.

Now he can have flirty banter with everybody without betraying anyone OR spending precious page space on developing a healthy relationship. Maintains the status quo.

And that’s it.

You could say “Well, if you’re not going to have the main character pick up on it, don’t write other characters flirting with them in the first place,” but that can end up being distracting and weird in itself.

Ah, so your main character is a chiseled Adonis regularly dethroning evil gods in defense of the common man, and not a single person is ever attracted to him? I see, I see. Is the most attractive trait in this world bland incompetence?

Because if so, I’d like one isekai ticket, please.

sYnce

That is probably the best answer to my question. It at least makes a lot of sense from an authors perspective.

After all writing compelling relationships is probably pretty hard in the first place.

I think what I dislike the most about dense main characters is that they don't seem to evolve over time in many stories.

That said bland incompetence seems to be a rather attractive trait if japanese novels are to be believed.

Will Wight

One of my favorite one-shot manga chapters is a guy getting isekai’d to a fantasy world with three beautiful women as party members, and he keeps reacting with frustration to how easily they’re throwing themselves at him.

“We’ve known each other two days! How are you in love with me already? Have you never met any other guys?” etc.

I was disappointed it didn’t get serialized; I would have enjoyed seeing that concept fleshed out.

Terrible_Historian_7

"The final book is bound to be far longer than any of the others"

Will Wight

Let me clarify further: I do expect the last book to be the longest, and I’m prepared to make it as long as it needs to be to wrap up the story, but I don’t know how long that will be exactly.

It COULD be far longer than any of the others. But I haven’t written it yet, so I certainly can’t make any promises about page count.

Protic_

Will the new untitled series fall under the 'progressive fantasy' umbrella?

Will Wight

Progression fantasy? Probably not, but I’ve never cared about strict genre definitions.

I don’t plan on having a defined progression element baked into the magic system and the story doesn’t revolve around the main character getting stronger.

As always, though, whether you consider it progression fantasy or not will be up to you.

Soronir

I wonder if Will's writing will follow an identical formula for book length and the pacing of the story. With Cradle there's many kinds of scenes he avoided lest they slow things down. Slice of life moments and whatnot. There may be a few but he lets a ton of stuff happen off screen. Wonder if he'll try to develop any of that or just continue to eschew it.

Will Wight

Identical formula? Probably not.

Continue to skip those scenes? Probably.

I’m going to take a long wall of text to talk about why I skip these, even though it’s not directly what you asked.

A story being slow-paced doesn’t mean it wastes time, even by my definition. There are plenty of slow-paced stories that rarely waste time.

But I hate scenes that waste time. I hate them more than anything. I want to tear them out of the manuscript with my teeth.

“It was a rainy summer’s day. The air was thick with the kind of raindrops that—“ Let me stop you right there, because I can already tell this scene isn’t going to matter to my understanding of the character or the story and is just going to kill two minutes.

Not every character-building scene is like that! You need to establish your character for the story to work. NO character-building scene NEEDS to be like that.

WASTE: the scene in Moon Knight where they’re on the ferry talking about their failed marriage.

Why are you repeating exposition to each other? What does this show us about who you are as people? Nothing, it just gives us facts to remember about you.

NOT A WASTE: Tywin Lannister’s introductory scene in Game of Thrones, where he’s cleaning a deer and chastising his son. Fantastic. Shows us who both the characters are, tense, fun to watch, even though it’s just character dialogue.

It’s not like that second scene, storyline, or show is particularly fast-paced, but in this case it certainly didn’t waste time.

TL;DR - Wasted time is what I hate.

I would always rather an author err on the side of “too little” rather than “too much,” because I find the second to be a far more common and egregious mistake.

…and having said all that, I do still prefer a fast pace.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Soronir

I still have painful flashbacks from the Wheel of Time starting off all those books describing in detail where the wind is blowing.

Thanks for the response!

Will Wight

Wheel of Time is a big part of how I formed this opinion.

I started thinking about the later books in the series and what they would lose if you cut out entire sub-plots, characters, and tens of thousands of words, and the answer was “nothing.” (At least for me.)

If anything, the story would get better.

Though, admittedly, I now tend to take that to the other extreme.

acog

So we saw DreadLindon tank a Monarch's blow like it was nothing:

Shadow madra Forged into blades and swept at him, but he weakened them with the Hollow Domain. Then he allowed them to land. They cut his body and his spirit together, but he healed as fast as she damaged him.

Yeah, it was weakened with the Hollow Domain first, but it's still a Monarch's melee-range attack. We've seen that same level of attack obliterate mountains. So clearly Lindon's Iron body is now healing at hyperspeed.

-Varya-

Lindon was also helped here by Malice's own madra and bloodline ability strengthening his healing powers as he was consuming it.

Will Wight

^ This is what I was going to point out.

He can’t tank Monarch hits forever without a source of Monarch-level energy to Consume.

PlaceboJesus

Even with how much he expended healing himself, he did come out ahead in that exchange right?

Like how large an elixer are we talking?

Will Wight

About this big:

\ ___________ /

sYnce

Why are there so many dense main character?

Will Wight

It’s easier to write.

People tend to overthink the answer to this question. It’s not like authors are going “Hm, you know what I think readers would enjoy? A protagonist who can’t pick up on obvious interpersonal cues.”

In a story with a romantic/relational plot or sub-plot, it’s to extend drama without making him a manipulative douchebag. If the protagonist doesn’t pick up on Love Interest’s obvious attraction, he’s a doofus. If he does pick up on it and strings her along, he’s a scumbag.

I can relate to a doofus, but I don’t want to relate to a scumbag.

In a story where those things don’t play much of a role—like in Japanese light novels, where this kind of protagonist is the standard—it’s to keep relationships from progressing so they don’t eat up too much of the story.

Now he can have flirty banter with everybody without betraying anyone OR spending precious page space on developing a healthy relationship. Maintains the status quo.

And that’s it.

You could say “Well, if you’re not going to have the main character pick up on it, don’t write other characters flirting with them in the first place,” but that can end up being distracting and weird in itself.

Ah, so your main character is a chiseled Adonis regularly dethroning evil gods in defense of the common man, and not a single person is ever attracted to him? I see, I see. Is the most attractive trait in this world bland incompetence?

Because if so, I’d like one isekai ticket, please.

sYnce

That is probably the best answer to my question. It at least makes a lot of sense from an authors perspective.

After all writing compelling relationships is probably pretty hard in the first place.

I think what I dislike the most about dense main characters is that they don't seem to evolve over time in many stories.

That said bland incompetence seems to be a rather attractive trait if japanese novels are to be believed.

Will Wight

One of my favorite one-shot manga chapters is a guy getting isekai’d to a fantasy world with three beautiful women as party members, and he keeps reacting with frustration to how easily they’re throwing themselves at him.

“We’ve known each other two days! How are you in love with me already? Have you never met any other guys?” etc.

I was disappointed it didn’t get serialized; I would have enjoyed seeing that concept fleshed out.

Will Wight

We’ll most likely do special editions of some kind when the series is over.

These are not concrete plans. We have not begun work on these. We don’t have a timeline. Please nobody start messaging me tomorrow asking where the special editions are.

But we all want to do them, and the reason we haven’t done them so far is because the series isn’t complete. Once it is, this is most likely happening.

I would say “is definitely happening,” but nothing is definite and if I commit to something like that and then can’t follow through, I will be beaten with broomsticks.