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Arcturin

Many xianxia books feature notable similarities - development of the dantian as a source of power, sudden enlightenment leading to huge breakthroughs, people yelling "you are courting death!" before getting stomped, and so forth. What are some of your most liked and most disliked themes and similarities found across xianxia novels?

Will Wight

That's a good question. The interesting thing is, you can probably answer this for me. The reason why, is Cradle is my version of that genre with the stuff I dislike cut out and the stuff I like included, with one notable exception. The notable exception being, I really do like the deep roots and Taoist mythology and the themes of intellectual and spiritual self improvement. I've basically stuck with kind of magical martial self improvement, I think I could have done more character development. So I like those things, and I didn't include those mainly because they're not really included in those books, they're more culturally included. So the author often doesn't develop them at all, the reader just understands, the reader in the native culture that these stories are intended for, kind of understands the cultural context there. So Western readers often don't, I know I didn't, didn't get any of this Taoist immortal cultivation stuff. So I like that stuff, and I left it out of Cradle, so that's the only exception to that.

 

What I did with Cradle primarily was, I was reading these Chinese cultivation novels, and as well Korean and martial cultivation novels, there's some Japanese stuff in there and other nationalities and cultures that they came from. So I was reading these stories and I really liked a lot of the concepts, I loved progression, I loved the tie between magic and the universe, I loved all this stuff, the problem is when I recommended them to other people, my friends, they were turned off by the hasty writing. Often they are written in haste, because they're written one page or one chapter at a time every day, and so you can't spend a whole lot of time on each chapter.

Or they're turned off by the translations. The translations are done by fans who I think typically do a fantastic job, but they are fan translators and so they often don't read like they're written in English, they read like they're written in another language and then translated which is perfectly appropriate, but some people don't enjoy that.

 

They were tuned off by some other cultural differences, and one of the main cultural differences that turns people off is they way Chinese novels treat women. The treatment of female characters in Chinese cultivation novels is often very unfortunate, so I'm not going to go too much into that 'cos that's the sure fire way to get myself clubbed over the back of the head, but it is not good. For one thing, on the lowest level, women are treated as weaker than men, even though there's no like in universe magic system reason why that should be true, 'cos all of your strength comes from your cultivation and your advancement and your magic so therefore why should your physical body have any impact on that whatsoever.

So it's always weird that why in this culture would there be a hierarchy between sexes because at no point in this cultures development were men actually stronger than women. So that's always kinda weird, but then also there tends to be a lot of over sexualization/sexual abuse, there's high level of chivalry that ends up kinda being condescending and patronizing in, I'm not naming any specifics here but that tends to be the trend in a lot of the genre. So I was very much not a big fan of that.

So that was one of the things I really I didn't like, and another thing I didn't like, this is something I liked and didn't like, was the ruthless pursuit of power, because on the one hand, if you live in a world where you can learn to do anything, including fly and be immortal, yeah everybody is gonna be ruthless in they're pursuit of power, because that makes sense, why wouldn't you be?

So obviously I kept that to a degree in Cradle, but what I didn't really like was that the main character was very amoral. So what I've tried to do was that I've tried to take Lindon as more toward that side and make him less like that as he's grown and progressed as a character. So I've tried to make him, not more moral, but more sympathetic or more compassionate.

 

Those were some of the things I that liked and didn't like, what I loved is the action focus, the progression focus, the fast pace, a lot of times even though they're telling the same story over and over and over and that does kind of wear on you, because basically every single cultivation novel is the same story, 90% of them I guess. There's always some difference, and the other thing is there's really an infinite amount of ways a story can play out, because it's all about progress, and it's all about personal development, and it's all about getting your universe. So seeing the same story play out in dozens of different ways is honestly pretty cool, I kinda liked that. I started off seeing that as a detriment, and now I almost see it as a pro rather than a con.

 

All the stuff I thought was really good about cultivation novels, the pacing, the progression, the way magic is influenced into the culture and the way that there is no highest level, where the ladder never ends, all that stuff was worked into Cradle. The stuff I didn't like, the treatment of women, the way that it relied on cultural assumptions to deliver the magic system and the general kinda relationship to the reader, and then some of the repetition that I also didn't like, so I cut that stuff. The stuff I liked but then couldn't include was the cultural background which is very rich and amazing and one of the reasons I encourage you to check out the originals, because the original cultural background is really cool.

Patriarch Core Split

Have you ever considered partnering with an artist to make a graphic novel of one or more of your books?

Will Wight

Yes I have considered that. So as a matter of fact yesterday I was at Ringling which is primarily an art university, and so I was talking to some of the professors there about what it would take to get as graphic novel or a comic produced. One of the things they suggested which I thought was very interesting that some other authors do, is instead of a full length graphic novel, something like a 20 or 30 page comic, that could come out more frequently and not require a novel length script. Because a graphic novel requires a novel's worth of development, and a shorter comic doesn't. Thats something i'd be very interested in, and they said they had some students who were interested in that. I know there are alot of artists you could hire on a commission basis, and that would be something that I would definitely look into.

 

But writing a comic script is a seperate skill set that i have never developed because i have never written a comic before. So I would either have to learn how to do that or work with somebody else who was really good at that particular... (Will gets cut off by a tea delivery in a fancy mug, available on willwight.com!!)  So something like the deathmatches would make a great comic, Maybe! maybe! that would be a really cool....I would love to be able to see that stuff visually.

 

One of the reasons i've considered a comic is I know in the action/visual heavy series; with a lot of magic and a lot of action, they fit well in comic form. So that would be something I think my books would be suited for, but obviously I cant do it on my own, and thus far since i'm the only content producer, other than Travis Baldree who's fantastic, anything we do, it has to be within my abilities and I dont know how to write a comic. So I could do my best and I could learn how or I could learn from someone else who's good at it, but thats definitely something we're absolutely considering.

TristanLN

Will, Can you name and describe a sword path we have not seen yet in the books, Thank you, big fan

Will Wight

I dunno if i can name a sword path, because I wanna make sure that, naming is one of the things I spend the most time on and its very difficult, and so there could be some that I have named and theyre in my notes and there could be some that I know about but i havent named yet, so naming it is harder than describing it.

 

But, i actually was thinking today about some of the things that we haven't seen in the books, and some of the things we haven't seen are some weird sword paths, because there are some! There are sword and life paths, where there is this like laser thin green light that cuts through your life line and severs you, and that kind of thing. There are sword and fire paths where you fight with kind of like lightsabers. There would be alot of really neat fun flexible sword paths.

 

Now of course the most common thing are sword and blood paths, so plain sword paths are common, sword and blood paths are common. There are sword and earth paths, which I think was what Kiro was on, he might have been force, I don't remember off the top of my head, but they're similar, thats why I get those confused. 

 

So those are some of the kinda things that you can do with a sword path. There are also of course sword and wind paths that kind of duplicate what you see in anime where the wind user sends the razor sharp gust of wind at his opponent, the "kamaitachi" kind of thing, thats a path. So there are definitely things like that, pretty much any combination. I wanted to do a sword and dream path, because I just thought that would be fun, just to kind of see what it did, like does it cut your mind and your memories?  But I haven't developed that out yet.

LCSpartan051

Who was the last person from cradle to join the Abidan, and which faction did they join?

Will Wight

I dont know the answer to that off the top of my head. some of these things i'm going to have either say read and find out or I dont know off the top of my head 'cos some of this stuff comes from notes, and I dont really have time to consult my notes, so I am gonna just have to say...sorry.

IntotheWayVerse

Hi Will, interested in hearing a bit about your writing process. Maybe this sort of thing is proprietary/confidential for authors, so apologies if overstepping.How do you go about structuring the actual writing of your books? Do you write linearly, one chapter at a time, or do you jump around, writing scenes from future places in the book before filling in the gaps? (or, none of the above).How often do you change what you've originally written? I'm sure there is a lot of editing that goes on, but do you often read back over sentences/paragraphs/chapters and change everything that's there? I guess I'm wondering what % of your writing you end up keeping after it's first put down on paper.

Will Wight

It changes. what they tell you a lot is they tell you to sit down and write a certain amount per day, write 2 hours a day, write 1500 words per day, write from 8 to 10 am and make sure you....whatever whatever whatever. I can't do that, I'm not very good a writing to a schedule, so instead of trying that, is I write in blocks of time, so I isolate myself for 3 or 5 days or a week, as much time as I can and I just write all day. So I write all day, I sprint rather than marathon basically. For me, that helps me to stay more productive, and helps me keep more focussed, because as I'm writing for those 3 days, I am completely in that world, I'm in Cradle, I'm not thinking of anything else, I don't take phone calls, I don't do anything else, I just write. So that's the way I actually write.

So what I normally do, is a write a brief idea of what the book is going to be about first. So I try to come up with enough minimum information that I can start working, so I try to start working as soon as possible in the process. When its a series it's a lot easier because I don't have to, for instance, outline who Lindon is and where he was up 'til this point, because I know who Lindon is and I know exactly where he's been up 'til this point because I've written six books about it. So that part gets easier as the series progresses. So I write that basic idea, I write down any ideas of what I think is going to be cool, what do I want to include in the book, and so on and so forth, but not a real detailed like chapter by chapter break down of what's going to happen. Then I try to start writing ASAP. I get to start writing and I usually write sequentially, so I start at the beginning and I continue. However, what I tried this last time, and I'm probably going to do something like this moving forward, was I knew there were certain key scenes, and in this case they were the rounds of the tournament, but there were key scenes that I was definitely going to be including, and I knew how they would go and I knew all that stuff. So I decided to write those first. I went through an wrote all Lindon's rounds, and I wrote those one at a time, I wrote the first round and then the second round but I skipped all the stuff in between the rounds. That allowed me to really nail down the bigger structure of the book so it doesn't change, because a lot of times as I'm writing the book I get halfway through and I'm like "oh man I have this cool idea, and it'd be so neat", and then I start changing what I'd originally planned, and that's what ends up taking a lot longer in the books. Then I afterwards went in and I was like "okay so I know now what needs to go between rounds". 

So that's what I did this last time. I'm probably going to do that again. The reason I did that is so that I don't start changing my mind halfway through and end up taking too long.

The Lost Reader

Hey Will, If you suddenly teleported to Cradle and gained the ability to practice the sacred arts. What path would you choose and why?

Will Wight

So here's an interesting fact about me, what I do with every one of my books, is I make sure I'm prepared for the eventuality that I am magically transported into the world. Because so many people have not prepared for that, and it's too likely to avoid. So I therefore include a stash in all of my books, where there are things for me, that I know where they are, and nobody else does. So if I get sucked into the world, I'll be fine. So the Path I have chosen is the Path of the Cloud Hammer, from the Blackflame Empire, which I know I didnt get into, but its a cloud and force path, so its very versatile, its also something I can use to get along normally in the world, and i've included a lot of different artifacts and elixirs and stuff, to get me up to code, as well as some training things, so that I dont completely suck. So i've done that.

 

In Elder Empire, I left one file at the Consultants Guild, in all the major cities I've left a bunch of invested items and Awakened items under my name, that will help protect me, keep me alive, and protect me from Elders, so that I can just live out my life, and a bunch of money, because they have paper money in Elder Empire, so I just left myself a bunch of cash.

 

Then in Traveler's Gate I buried in a bunch of key locations, I have buried a lot of artifacts from Territories, that will allow me to get along and basically able to live a comfortable life in Damasca and not get murdered by Travelers. So basically what I did was I made sure that I could live as a normal person in these inhospitable worlds that I was in. In Traveler's Gate I didn't find a way to make myself a Traveler or anything, I think probably I would rather just live as a regular person.

OrenVelciter

What would happen if a person was in a void key when it closed?

Will Wight

so if you're in a void key when it closes, you're fine, i know that sounds weird, theres actually nothing unusual about that, its a seperate space. The problem is, theres a limited amound of air in most void keys, so you will eventualy suffocate. But there's no spacial isolation, you're not lost in time or space, you're not cut off from reality

OrenVelciter

At what rank would someone be able to A)dodge a normal bullet and b) essentially ignore the damage a normal bullet would do?

Will Wight

Prior to Underlord, you are reliant on your techniques to do that. So, if you have techniques that would allow you to dodge a bullet - you don't have the reaction speed for it, so you couldn't see the bullet coming and then dodge it, but you might have a technique that improved your defense to the point that you could take a bullet, or one that moved you out of the way of a bullet as soon as you saw someone, like, pointing a gun at you. So, yeah, there could be techniques. 

At Underlord, then it depends on your Iron body, it depends on your Path, but at Underlord you start having the level of reaction time to do something like that. Later on - Sages, for instance, can basically just ignore bullets and the speed of bullets except under very specific circumstances. I'm going to leave that there because it gets into spoilers about the higher-level magic systems. 

Argent

What would be your rapper name, Will?

Will Wight

Will Nye the Writing Guy

Will Wight

Yerin's sword is a jian and it's one-handed. People on Cradle prefer to use one handed weapons so that they have one hand free for techniques.

Questioner (paraphrased)

"Naru Huan is described as having given up some chances for his personal advancement so that he could better lead & govern the BFE. If Saeya & Huan had swapped ages and Saeya was the Empress instead, would she have made the same sacrifices?" 

Will Wight (paraphrased)

Will's answer was "Yes, but not at first" and from there talked about how he's got a decent amount planned for Saeya (including the character arc he implied in that answer), and while she's going to be more directly relevant in Uncrowned, she's going to be even bigger in the next books because there simply wasn't enough room in Uncrowned to tell her story.

Will Wight (paraphrased)

Tiberian Arelius was younger than Seshethkuunaaz

Questioner

Why is the Arelius monarch listed if hes dead?

Will Wight

Because his faction is still there competing on his behalf.

Will Wight

Will on Magic Systems

Questioner

Hardness is generally held to be a measure of how detailed and strict the magic of a world is, most often it's a way of knowing just how scientific the understanding of "magic" in a universe is. I've never seen it viewed as being able to predict how a character will utilize their skills.

Will Wight

Actually, that is exactly what a “hard” magic system is (according to Brandon Sanderson, who popularized the concept). It’s how clearly the reader understands the limits of the characters’ supernatural abilities and how they can be used to solve problems, not how scientifically understood magic is in the universe.

If you haven’t read Sanderson’s articles about his Three Laws of Magic, they’re a fascinating read.

I personally would put Cradle toward the harder end of the scale, but there definitely are soft elements (at least as the system has been presented thus far). E.g. what can a Monarch not do?

As for LitRPG, there’s nothing wrong with there being soft LitRPG magic systems. That’s okay! You can have a soft system with numbers, and there’s nothing wrong with softer systems. LotR and ASoIaF both have soft systems. But a lot of times people expect LitRPG to scratch the itch for hard, consistent, numerically calculated systems, and they often don’t. Even some of the really good ones!

Questioner

I don’t follow that.

Will Wight

I highly recommend Brandon Sanderson’s essays on the difference between hard and soft magic systems; he makes it very clear!

Questioner

Sanderson certainly doesn’t write anything of the sort.

Will Wight

From his First Law essay:

“We generally know exactly which powers Spider-man has and what they do. He 1) Can Sense danger 2) has superhuman strength and endurance 3) Can shoot webs from his hands and 4) Can cling to walls. While in the comics, he does sometimes gain other strange powers (making the system softer), he does generally stick to these abilities in the movies. Therefore, we’re not surprised when Spider-man shoots a web in a bad guy’s face. We’ve established that he can do that, and it makes sense to us when he does it. It is narratively a Hard Magic system, rather than a Soft Magic system.”

Since we know Spider-Man can shoot webs, we can predict that he will solve problems by shooting webs. Whereas Gandalf might do anything with magic. We can’t predict what he can or can’t or will or won’t do magically.

That’s all that “predict” means in this context.

I do agree with you that what OP is describing is a story flaw more than a soft magic system. The author making up a solution to a plot problem without introducing that solution earlier or defining its limitations is bad writing, it’s not a hallmark of a well-written soft magic system.

But that was effectively his point, wasn’t it? “I enjoy Cradle more than most LitRPG because Cradle is more consistent with the way its magic is used in combat.”

Also, when I said what I did about it being okay for LitRPGs to have soft magic systems, I was really trying to be polite to LitRPG as a whole and not say “Yeah, a lot of LitRPG magic systems are just really poorly constructed.”

And now I’ve said it anyway. Look what we’ve done.

Totally agree. One of the reasons I keep reading LitRPG despite it not being to my personal taste is that I feel like it should be. I love video games and I love progressive magic systems, so it should be a perfect match, so I feel like there's probably that LitRPG out there that I'll just fall in love with one day.

P_Tigras

According to the second sentence of Underlord, Sector 99 like Sector 100 has been abandoned:

Pariana was the last Abidan stationed in this nameless world. Sectors Ninety-Nine and One Hundred had been completely abandoned, but they still clung to Sector Ninety-Eight.

But....according to the second sentence of the same book's epilogue, while Sector 100 had been lost, Sector 99 was under attack, but not lost, at least not yet:

The Abidan were under attack all across their border worlds, from Sectors Ninety through Ninety-Nine. Sector One Hundred had already been lost, and the others were soon to follow.

So was Sector 99 temporarily retaken without comment by the Abidan during the events of Underlord? Or do we chalk this up as another number-related oops?

Will Wight

My intention there, which I obviously didn’t communicate clearly, was to show that the situation was different between the prologue and the epilogue. In between, people like Suriel are going around to reclaim lost territory and contest Iterations that are up for grabs.

Will Wight

Yerin's sword is a jian and it's one-handed. People on Cradle prefer to use one handed weapons so that they have one hand free for techniques.

Will Wight

Cradle Word Counts:

--Book 1, Unsouled: 89,097--Book 2, Soulsmith: 86,534--Book 3, Blackflame: 111,484--Book 4, Skysworn: 86,760--Book 5, Ghostwater: 90,870--Book 6, Underlord: 103,130--Book 7, Uncrowned: 93,571

Questioner (paraphrased)

"Naru Huan is described as having given up some chances for his personal advancement so that he could better lead & govern the BFE. If Saeya & Huan had swapped ages and Saeya was the Empress instead, would she have made the same sacrifices?" 

Will Wight (paraphrased)

Will's answer was "Yes, but not at first" and from there talked about how he's got a decent amount planned for Saeya (including the character arc he implied in that answer), and while she's going to be more directly relevant in Uncrowned, she's going to be even bigger in the next books because there simply wasn't enough room in Uncrowned to tell her story.

Questioner

What is the status of EE?

Will Wight

I’m sorry, I am shamed. Ideally I would have gotten Kings/Killers out two years ago.

Here’s the deal: this time, I’ve made real progress on OKAK. I knew I could stop, finish Uncrowned (because I had made a clear plan for Uncrowned before Underlord was released), and then resume work on OKAK pretty seamlessly.

I was going to give you a more specific timeline, but I know beyond the shadow of any doubt that no matter how many times I say “THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE,” I would get angry emails asking why I didn’t hit the date I set on Reddit. People flooded me with disappointed or angry messages after I didn’t hit the Uncrowned date from my April Fool’s schedule, so...

Anyway, I’m working on it! I mean literally, I’ve been writing it, and some of it is done enough that I might share excerpts on the blog soon.

Questioner

Why does the Jai Clan think they can attack the Arelius family if they are affiliated with a Monarch?

Will Wight

Most people in the BFE do not know that the Arelius family was connected to a Monarch on the other side of the world. Those who DO know also generally know that he’s dead and that the main House Arelius isn’t in any shape to avenge anyone.