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Northstriderbutyoung

Would Eithan have released Wintersteel early?

Will Wight

Eithan would have released Wintersteel back before Unsouled came out, and you guys just wouldn't have found it till today, when he planned for it to happen.

Questioner

When I write I consistently end up longer than I am shooting for. How do you keep your writing crisp and consistent?

Will Wight

Overwriting is common. The only way I got to the point where I don't overwrite is by writing a lot! One example is that my short stories. Initially a 2,000 word short story would end up being 4,000 words. Over time I have got that down and consistent. Now I can land short stories. Novels are still tricky. I plan to to write 100,000 words, then be 30,000 words in and only be 2% in. I changed all that with Wintersteel. I wrote so quickly that I didn't have time to overplan or tighten things up. So that is up to you to decide what works. 

So, in order to keep your writing tight, first of all, I try to plan accordingly.  So you underplan.  So if you have a tendency to overwrite, and you want a 100,000 word book, plan for it to be 60,000 word book.  Plan for way under what you think.  That's one thing.  Another thing is practice, just the more you write; like I was able to do this with Wintersteel and not end up with an unusable monstrosity because it's my 17th book.  So I have a lot of experience at this point and I was able to keep it under control and still somewhat reasonable.  So, practice is good.  Continually reevaluating where you are and knowing that you have this tendency is another good thing.  Then you just keep doing it.  You keep working on it.  You work on it throughout the process, and hopefully you get better and better at it.

Questioner

Could you have a goldsign that looks like a giant chicken?

Will Wight

Yes. 

Questioner (paraphrased)

 What does Little Blue do when she is in Lindon’s void key?

Will Wight (paraphrased)

She does a lot of things! She climbs around on all of Lindon;s stuff. She plays with her junk that she views as toys. Picture paperclips and you're close, but Cradle doesn't have paperclips. She gets bored, but honestly she doesn't stay in the void key as much as it sounds. I don't cover Lindon during his down time, and she is always out during downtime. 

Questioner

Is it possible to make a contract with a Remnant to advance to Gold, instead of absorbing it?

Will Wight

Yes, that is possible. You can advance to gold with any level of remnant. But to make a contract with a remnant the remnant would have to have a certain level of advancement. But you could do that. You could make a contract with a remnant to advance to gold instead of absorbing it. 

Questioner

Ok so you have stated that chicken exists in cradle. So my question is regarding sacred chickens. What madra type would the chicken have to use to become the most tasty sacred chicken?

Will Wight

Blood path. That way they get all meaty.

Questioner

Visualization help: Lindon lifting Yerin like a doll, or Yerin lifting Lindon like a doll? Which would look more awkward?

Will Wight

I told you I was getting rid of doll characters, so no one is lifting anyone like a doll. So anyways, here is Risk of Rain 2.

Questioner

Please confirm Lindon's height. I was not picturing an NBA player. I am confused.

Will Wight

I mean every time I describe Lindon I talk about how giant he is. So I don't know...I mean that is the only descriptor I use for Lindon. He is very tall. 

Questioner

When you were constructing the path that Lindon would follow what made you decide on a very brute strength path for him despite his personality leaning towards creativity?

Will Wight

I liked that dichotomy. I liked him being somebody who was a creative person who liked solving problems creatively and then all he has is a giant flaming hammer. I just enjoyed that little personality thing. If I had to do it now, i don´t know if I would give him the same path, I'm not sure. I like Blackflame a lot of course, I don't know if I'd do the same path now or if I would give him one that was more creative. The problem with giving him a more creative, intricate path is that it´s less straightforward, he has to come up with a lot of techniques. He's got to learn a new technique every book, he has to come up with new ways to use his techniques. It just seems very complex. So that might have been too much for the books, so giving him a path like Ziel has for instance might have been a little too much, even though he particularly would´ve liked it.

Questioner

Did Eithan ever play hide and seek as a kid?

Will Wight

Actually in Eithan's household, in the Arelius household they play hide and seek all the time. Frankly they don't ever stop playing hide and seek. So, he's very good. 

Kolai

Could Eithan be considered a monarch faction genius like Mercy or Sophara ?

Will Wight

Uh, he could be. He could be, potentially. He wasn't really in this particular case because he wasn't fighting for the faction who raised him who could take credit for him, right.

So... Therefore they don't consider him representative of their training prowess, as a matter of fact the Arelius family is just kinda happy he's there. So there's not really a, they don't actually claim responsibility for him, but if that were, if the family situation was different, yes, absolutely, he could be considered that way.

Questioner

I totally understand Will's point about they don't currently sell, therefore doesn't make sense to put a lot of effort into it.

Will Wight

Yeah, let me elaborate on that a little bit.

While what I said was and is true, it’s less about “current merch sales are low, so we won’t invest more in them,” and more that we have little indication that merchandise is worth investing in at all.

The only reason we have any merch whatsoever is because when we didn’t, we got REGULAR requests for “Something. Anything. Even just a book logo on a shirt!”

Okay, cool! We have that now.

Anything more than that requires a lot—and I do mean a lot; like, more than you’d think—of time and attention to get rolling.

In order to be willing to invest so much into it, we would need to think that there would be enough of a market that we would break even on our costs and time.

YOU would buy a Path of Twin Stars decorative book or a sword-replica letter opener. I believe you would, and frankly those sound really cool. I would be proud to sell those.

But how many people do you represent? Are we talking ten sales? A hundred? A thousand?

I have no idea.

We have to price it so that we’re not taking a loss on the individual item, AND assume that we sell enough to break even on the investment to develop and maintain these products. Which is a lot to take on faith.

And I, personally, would not buy either of those products if I were a Cradle fan. So it’s hard for me to say that we would sell enough to make the investment worth it.

TL;DR - Current merch sales being low aren’t the only reason we suspect we couldn’t sustain a line of high-quality merchandise.

Will Wight

Let me clarify some things in this post, since I’m getting some common responses here and in the blog comments.

Elder Empire didn’t sell well compared to Traveler’s Gate and Cradle. It actually sold fine, it’s just that the books were spread out over such a long time that the income was unsustainable.

If I could have released two pairs a year, it would have been perfectly viable, but my fingers would have fallen off like a leper’s.

And when they read something like this, a lot of people react by explaining to me why they’ve never tried to read the books.

First off, that’s fine! Any new story concept is going to have people it turns off, and I understand that going into everything I write. And this one in particular is weird and confusing on the surface.

I think there’s this perception that I blame readers for EE not selling as well as TG or Cradle, and that is ridiculously not the case.

Though I tend to mention it a lot, Elder Empire selling not-quite-as-well has never bothered me emotionally very much.

I never expected to succeed as an author in the first place, so I saw Traveler’s Gate’s high sales as the fluke and Elder Empire as the expected outcome.

My business manager mentioned to me not too long ago: “You know, you really never got upset by Elder Empire not selling well.” And I hadn’t thought about it much, but it genuinely never did bother me.

I would characterize my reaction as “Eh, I wish that had sold better. Oh well. I hope they enjoy the next one!”

I definitely take some things too personally, but EE’s less-than-stellar performance isn’t one of them.

Questioner

Why doesn't Will have more merch?

Will Wight

It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to develop a single product like that. Laura Verdin, the artist responsible for developing some of the merchandise you linked, is a professional designer and illustrator who makes a living designing excellent merchandise.

I make a living selling books.

The only reason we have merchandise at all is because people asked for it, and said some merch is better than nothing, and they just want a Cradle shirt to wear.

Okay, great! We have that now.

Would we make more money if we developed higher-quality merchandise and put effort into promoting and selling it? Yes!

But there’s a massive amount of up-front cost in both time and energy to doing that.

To me, not selling merchandise is not a problem that requires a solution. It’s not a problem at all. I don’t care if we sell merchandise or not; if you want something we have, cool! If not, no problem!

Those Undertale shirts you linked? Toby Fox didn’t develop those. A quick search around the site suggests he didn’t hire anyone to make them either; they’re fans who are providing a product to other fans under an official license.

If a professional merch designer wants to jump on Cradle and start making official products, we’d be willing to talk.

LLJKCicero

That all makes sense. I'm not saying you should care solely because of revenue you're missing out on, I think people would view it as a cool thing to do for your fandom.

Now, I wouldn't want to burden you personally with managing this kind of thing, I'm sure you're quite busy enough as it is. But as Cradle gets more and more popular, surely at some point it makes sense to hire a businessperson to manage all the things related to your books that aren't actually writing them? Like, I doubt Toby Fox is personally managing all the Undertale merch at Fangamer.

Will Wight

I already do have people who handle stuff that isn’t writing, and if we were to expand our merchandise, they would handle it.

But our current level of merch requires minimal management, and even that takes time and money to do. To expand our merch would mean hiring someone to run the store full-time, contracting artists to make better stuff, and managing the people involved.

Minimum, that requires more money and time and attention from me just to get the ball rolling. And that’s if I’m never involved in it again.

On top of which, that energy from my team is going to merchandise instead of anywhere else.

My Undertale example was meant to illustrate that Undertale has thousands of professional-quality artists making professional-level art for Undertale for free because they love it so much, so then the task is “Hire one of these people and get them to do their thing under our official banner.”

And even if we were in that scenario, just THAT is three orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive than what we’re currently doing.

Not to mention that Undertale has a hundred times the fanbase.

This stuff just takes more time and energy and money than people realize. For tertiary products that, quite frankly, we aren’t sure would be self-sustaining no matter how great they are.

We would need a LOT of Cradle fans to buy merch to justify that kind of expense. A higher percentage than is realistic to expect.

Could we make our money back on one incredible shirt design? Maybe. But we’re very far from certain that we could, even if we hired Leonardo Da Vinci’s ghost to draw us T-shirts.

Nugget Monkey

Have any sacred artists on a pure path ever advanced to a high stage, like sage or herald or above?

Will Wight

No, not really

Nugget Monkey

Do you think if the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel was common knowledge pure paths would be equally viable as a path choice, and pure paths would be more developed by now?

Will Wight

I don’t think so, no

LonerActual

What happened to story resolutions/denouements?

A major component in a story seems to be atrophying as I continue to read. You've got your narrative hooks, your expositions, rising action, climax, etc, but it seems like many authors don't bother to write more than a token resolution/outro to their stories anymore.

Remember Harry Potter? After the big battle, there was always the hospital scene (resolution), where we learn of the fallout and changes that the results of the climax are going to have on the world or story as a whole, then the end of the year feast, serving as a decompression, and finally the train-ride home.

Ok I saw Return of the King also, and I agree, endings can go on too long. However, endings in the vein of A New Hope to me are even worse. "Here's your medal, now go away!" is to me jarring and fundamentally unsatisfying.

The last few books I've read, to continue with the Harry Potter example, have only given me the hospital wing scene. The beat-to-hell hero is told how things fell out after they lost consciousness. End of story. No Feast, no train-ride, no decompression.

I bring up "A New Hope" specifically because I remember reading something from author Jim Butcher that this was what he modeled his conclusions on. I love me some Jim Butcher but I disagree with this specific conclusion of his completely, and I wanted to know what people who are a bit more educated than me on the subject might think, and this seems like a good place for that.

Will Wight

That’s a really good question, and I can speak for myself/hazard a guess, though of course I can’t speak for every writer out there.

The style right now is to get out as soon after the climax as you can, in order to make the third act feel like a memorable gut-punch rather than a punch to the gut followed by a lengthy period of recovery that gives the reader’s emotions time to cool down.

There’s also the series component, as in “If the next installment is coming out in six months or less, why would I tie up lingering story threads after the plot of this installment has been resolved? I can just do it in the next one.”

People tend to lose interest quickly when there’s nothing to work toward anymore, and once the climax has ended, then the goal is either achieved or not achieved. And it takes a lot of confidence to say “Now that you’ve read my story about fighting Godzilla, I’m sure you’ll also want to see my characters going back home and starting an ordinary life again after Godzilla’s dead and buried.”

Having said that, I think the one exception is at the end of a series. You DO want to see the characters going back to their boring ordinary lives after going on an awesome adventure for years, because that’s the payoff. That’s what you were really reading for all this time. And if you made it to the end of a massive series without investing in the characters and their lives to some degree, then...how did you do that?

And having said THAT, nothing says there can’t be actual falling action and resolution in each book of a story. Harry Potter is a good example, but part of what makes it work for Harry is that it’s a narrow scope, and that each book is structured after a school year.

Narrow scope: it’s just Harry. We get to see the fallout of the book’s events on Hogwarts at the end-of-term feast, then Harry and Ron and Hermione separate with implications of what they’re going to do that summer, but we don’t follow Ron or Hermione home. We follow Harry home, because there’s one main character and we can stay focused on him.

Structure: you’re not really reading Harry Potter to see if he finds the Philosopher’s Stone and saves the school or if he gets murdered, you’re reading to see him go through an imaginative school year of magic and adventure.

Sure, the plot part keeps you reading, but with a structure like that you don’t immediately lose narrative momentum as soon as the primary plot question is resolved. You can get away with three more chapters of no danger because there’s still magic and imagination on display and the school year isn’t over yet.

Books that don’t have such a structure aren’t working with quite as much leeway, because the assumption is that the readers are reading to see the conclusion of the plot. And once that’s over they want the book to be too.

That’s the theory, anyway.

ConeheadSlim

Your theory may illustrate the difference between plot-based and character-based readers. As said elsewhere, at the end of the Wheel of Time we have much invested in a large number of individual characters, and we want to see what happens with them regardless of the outcome of the Last Battle. If one doesn't put much effort in their characters, I can see why they wouldn't want to stretch their plot out.

Will Wight

I see what you mean, but I don't think I agree.

In Wheel of Time's case, the series DID need a more thorough resolution, and (I suspect) would have had one if Robert Jordan had been around to write it. But of course it needed one: like I said above, the end of a series generally needs proper wrap-up regardless, and how would any reader get to the end of such a huge series if they didn't sympathize with the characters?

It's not really about the amount of effort you put into your characters. While there are readers who prefer a tight plot and readers who would be fine reading a story about a handful of fascinating characters doing nothing in particular, I also don't think it has to do with one type of reader or another.

Even if you don't have a drawn-out denouement and resolution, you still want strong characters in the entire rest of the story, so not having those things doesn't really reflect an emphasis on plot over characters.

A properly executed resolution is part of a well-structured plot, so that also doesn't mean choosing characters over plot.

When you're designing a story, you have to assume what your readers are primarily reading for, and plot accordingly. If you're writing a mystery where the driving motivating factor is supposed to be the reader's curiosity as to who killed the Space Pope, then it makes sense not to stick around too long after the killer has been revealed.

If instead you're writing a story about (just off the top of my head) a boy going to wizard school, then the thing driving the reader to keep reading is presumably "I want to see what happens to this guy at wizard school." So you can afford to spend a little extra time on that.

Which doesn't have much to do with the amount of effort invested or not invested into your characters, because Harry Potter is a bland character with very few unique personality traits. He's...brave, and...other things, probably.

But that doesn't impact the series almost at all, because you still sympathize with Harry, his decisions and actions usually drive the plot, the side characters are great, the world is great, and generally speaking the plot is interesting and very engaging.

TL;DR - I don't think any kind of "plot vs. character" dichotomy affects this decision at all.

flanixx

Will, in the 'Reports' that are not marked with someone's name (such as Suriel) are we supposed to be reading that as a mystery and figuring out who it is that is accessing those reports or is that just your way of giving us info and backstory?

Will Wight

It’s not a mystery. 90% of the time it’s just Suriel.

Ray745

So in the Uncrowned King tournament there are 8 Monarch factions, 8 sets of teams, 8 factions giving gifts etc, etc. However, everyone believes Northstrider died 6 years ago. Everyone also knows Northstrider has no faction of his own, so it's not like the Arelius faction which still has people who are able to choose competitors and give out gifts to the other teams. If the 9CC truly believed NS to be dead, as the 9C Soul stated, then why would they have a NS team in the tourney? Who would have been selecting the competitors or giving gifts? The Beast King? It doesn't seem to me like they are together in any official way, just friends and allies. Has this ever been brought up before? Was everyone not surprised to see 4 full teams of Underlords for NS before he showed up at the beginning?

Will Wight

It was more of a surprise that House Arelius showed up.

There are lots of unaffiliated Heralds and Sages who compete under Northstrider’s banner, so it was always expected that they would show up in his name until one among them ascended to Monarch.

GuitarViking

Zorrus does "gather up golden fire in her mouth" in Uncrowned, so I went from there - but I agree, you're probably right that she's not on the Path of Flowing Flame. Fingers crossed we learn more in Wintersteel, haha. Thanks for reading, I'm glad you liked it!

Will Wight

Well I can’t speak to whether or not she appears in Wintersteel, but I can say that Xorrus is on a variation of the Path of the Wasteland. Her sacred arts are not exactly the same as Sesh’s, though they are similar.

In my notes, I have Xorrus on the Path of the Burning Wasteland (although that name is not final unless it makes it into the books).

UserInterface7

I often wonder if you sit at home with a drink and laugh your arse off reading these theory’s (or maybe sit the drink down very carefully when someone guesses something you have planned for the future)

Will Wight

Every once in a while I’m boggled at what people guess with such little information, but in general I just enjoy seeing people discussing the books at all!

UserInterface7

Do you ever get nervous that someone is close to a plot point, then keep reading and find out they are way off?

Will Wight

Yeah for sure, but despite what you might think I don’t really care if a plot point is guessed in advance.

Any multi-book “twist” will be guessed if there are enough people guessing, and in a popular series, there WILL be enough people guessing.

So the value of a reveal can’t entirely rely on surprise. The moment should land whether the reader guessed it or not.

Also, I feel like people think I value surprise more than I do. Surprise doesn’t really have any inherent value.

It would be incredibly surprising if Lindon transformed into a chipmunk and spent the rest of the series trying to steal a magical Roomba, but that doesn’t make it a good story decision.