What's your opinion on adverbs and passive voice?
Negative? A lot of people demonize adverbs. I do not think adverbs and adjectives are necessarily wrong. When we overuse them of course they're a problem. But I think it's a tool like anything else. Passive voice is just generally worse than active voice in most cases.
Did the Emperor from Elder Empire have any authority?
I really wanted to answer that in the literal sense in that yes, he did have authority; he was the ruler of the world. But I know what you're asking and I'd say yes. Yes he did.
Are the animated attacks of a Sage just will/authority giving them versatility or are their attacks actually living?
Read and find out.
Is Mu Enkai dead?
Mu Enkai is not only dead, but he - somebody asked earlier about the afterlife in Cradle and I'm going to give a non-canon answer. Mu Enkai died and his soul went to Cradle Hell, and then it was killed again. So, he's double dead. He's the deadest man in all of history. There has never been anyone as dead as Mu Enkai is now dead. It set a record, as a matter of fact.
Will we ever get to see the Iteration with the strongest power level?
I don't know. Good question.
If Crusher's strength works on a conceptual level and Tartarus steel's durability works on a conceptual level, what would happen if Crusher tried to break Tartarus steel?
That depends on whether Crusher's conceptual ability to destroy it outranks the Tartarus steel's ability to be indestructible. I'll either get into that at the end of Cradle or I'll get into it in the next Traveler's Gate series, but there are ranks to that sort of thing. When the principals that outrank physical laws come into contact, it depends on which one outranks the other one.
Did you think of making a harem for lindon in the past? How many books till cradle ends?
I don't necessarily see these two things as linked, but I will try to answer this together. No, that never occurred to me. That was not something that I ever had as an idea. There was a time when there was a lot of pressure on me to have him go through a thorough romantic life, so therefore he would have multiple love interests. Some of the romantic relationships would end badly or end soon. But that would've taken up a lot of the books and I didn't want to write it, so there you go.
Three more left, and I've got my work cut out for me. There's a lot coming, as the several hundred people who have already finished Bloodline can tell you.
Just realised. Daruman could have destroyed every single star in the universe of Cradle and no one on the planet should have seen it before months if not centuries.
This book about humans punching with the force of a Tsar Bomba is now ruined.
I don't think that's an actual explanation. Light exists everywhere along the path it takes. For example the moment before I see a star the starlight is, say, a foot in front of my eye. All that light in the night sky literally exists in the sky before you see it. That's why if you turn off the sun earthlings wouldn't notice for 8 minutes. The light pre-8 minutes is already in transit and moving. Deleting the universe outside in doesn't turn off the distant lights first because their light is just as close as all the other light you're about to see.
I realize we’re talking about magical physics here, so any explanation is as good as any other, but no joke I did consider this when writing the scene.
The idea is that anything removed from the Way is removed from causality. It’s not that the rest of the Iteration was destroyed as we usually think of destruction—i.e. reduced to its constituent components—but that it ceases to exist. It’s not real anymore.
So it’s not that those stars WERE giving out light that is now in transit to us, it’s that those stars were reduced from real to not real and therefore never gave off any light.
I’m aware that this is a nonsense concept and we’re talking made-up rules here, but that is the ruleset I’m working with!
that's so cool! being a cradle/WW novice (started last year and have devoured everything 2x!) have you written about your process? or what goes into your process that keeps you so prolific (I'm reminded of Brando Sando with your consistency, and delight)
I’ve written about my process here and there, but in short my unofficial motto is “I’m writing the best six-month book I can.”
I prefer reading books that come out regularly to longer books that come out irregularly, so that’s what I write. Plus they tend to be more visible on Amazon and readers engage with them more, thanks to frequent releases refreshing fan engagement and visibility.
It’s kind of a win-win, except for the people who want me to write one eight hundred page book every year or two. For those people it’s a win-lose.
As a long-time reader of Light Novels, I still don't feel like "progression fantasy" is a new or unique sub-genre.
It wasn’t intended to be something new or unique, but rather to provide a name for this category. Because we were both regularly asked about stories in this action-y progression-y corner of fantasy and no one had any terms for it.
Now, people tend to quibble over definitions a lot. Is X progression fantasy? Is Y? Did we even need a new label at all?
My answer to that last question is a definitive “Yes” because of how often people asked for it. As for the other two questions, I think strict genre definitions don’t ever work well.
Is Star Wars sci-fi because it’s set in space? Is everything in space always sci-fi? Or is it fantasy because of its content and structure?
It doesn’t matter.
Genres and subgenres like this one are just terms to help people find stories with the characteristics they want.
And in that sense, “progression fantasy” has value as a label.
I have a mini-series I’m writing on the connection between making a private wiki and worldbuilding, and how it can better help me organize my writing and world so I don’t run into plothole issues later on, What organizational system do you use to write your book, and has tracking all of the information held within your series been difficult?
You know, a private wiki has always seemed like the best solution to me, but I don’t use anything like that.
I have piles and piles of notes. I just write everything down in a note file and save it in the folder with the main book manuscript.
It’s like having to shovel through a small mountain of notebooks every time I want to look up a character’s age. Not efficient; do not recommend.
If you had a sentence to describe your next book within the Cradle series, what would you say?
Lindon goes back home.
If I were to ask you what scenes would you feel are obligatory in detective stories, you’d likely respond with a death, a detective on the chase, red herrings, and a showdown at the end. What would you say are the obligatory scenes found within progression fantasy, or are we not there yet?
A scene showing how weak the main character is starting off, some scenes with them figuring out the magic system, a bunch of magic fights, and the infamous Clown in a Bottle scene.
Not sure how many more scenes I can write with clowns in bottles, but it’s tradition at this point.
In your Cradle series, Lindon is a weaker character who consistently pushes himself to grow stronger, even when he’s one of the strongest to be found within the region. What made you want to write a character this way, and how do you deal with the “power rangers” problem (the progressively stronger character has to constantly gain strength to fight progressively stronger antagonists)?
I know that part of what draws people to this series is their desire to see the character grow more powerful, so I wanted my main character to be someone who would actively want the same thing the audience does.
As for the Power Ranger problem, I don’t really see it as a problem.
If I want to see a character gain more power, I want to see them fight a more powerful antagonist too.
There are stories that abound within Dragoncon as well as those who state, having met you, that you’re one of the nicest authors they’ve met. What kind of reaction does this bring from you, and have you met any authors that inspire a similar reaction?
That’s actually just part of the contract I make everyone sign. You’ll notice that when people talk about how nice I am, their jaws are clenched and they’re intensely sweating.
The penalties for violating the contract are…severe.
The website interviewed Mr. Andrew K. Rowe earlier, and he stated that you helped him pick out the term “Progression Fantasy” to better describe your sub-genre. How did the conversation happen and what insights did it bring to your own authorial abilities?
Andrew and I were sitting on the hood of his space helicopter, sipping cocktails made of distilled dreams, when he mentioned to me that none of our readers really knew what to call the sub-genre we were writing in.
It’s next door to LitRPG, but isn’t really that, and yet it has a distinctly different flavor from a lot of traditional fantasy.
I agreed with him, but I said it was an impossible task to come up with a new term for a whole sub-genre of fantasy. He called me a coward, smashed his cocktail glass against my face, and marched off into the Dream Realm on a quest to prove me wrong.
Naturally, I assumed he was dead. But a week later, he came back with “Progression Fantasy” tucked under his arm, so it’s a label we’ve been using ever since.
In reviews found on reddit and other websites, it is commonly stated that the beginning of unsouled is hard to get through, but the rest of the series is quite worth it. Why would you say they think this, and how has your writing changed since that first book?
The beginning of Unsouled is very different from the rest of the series, and I made that decision intentionally at the time.
I knew I needed to ground Lindon’s character in the world he came from, and that I was going to kick the story into gear for the reader at the same time that Lindon’s normal life was upended. And that happens about halfway through the book.
Since then, I’ve gotten better at virtually everything, so if I were to do it over again I’m sure I’d execute the story differently at the beginning. But I think I’d go in with a similar strategy!
There's just no way [Ekeri]'s not going to be significant somehow. It's Chekhov's Gun -- Will wouldn't have carefully arranged for Ekeri's remnant to be in Sophara's void key if he didn't have future plans.
Well, I’m not saying that’s NOT the case, but I absolutely put details in that I don’t have future plans for.
I don’t particularly believe in using every part of the buffalo, story-wise. Like Naru Jing, Cassias’ wife. She gets a lot of description and clearly has her own story going on, but is she important to the plot? No, not really.
But if I have to have a side character, she might as well be a cool one.
So when Charity is talking to Lindon, she tells him that Mercy isn't an option for marriage because Mercy needs to get to peak archlord and then she can do what she wants.
But Mercy was engaged to Harmony while gold.
So what changed? Or did Charity lie? And why?
Mercy can’t do what she wants before peak Archlord. She has to listen to the family, like when the family engaged her to Harmony.
Are Icons present on all Iterations, or are they specific to Cradle?
They are present in all Iterations, but they can have different names or expressions in other worlds. Also, some of them have more influence on some worlds than others.
Do the Abidan or other ascended beings use them?
Yeah, they use authority, but Icons just kind of define what area you have authority over
Huh. I thought they got authority from other sources. The "authority of Suriel" sounds like it comes from Suriel herself or her mantle.
It does.
Icons are just reflections of authority you’ve earned. There is no greater authority of restoration and healing than Suriel.
