Recent entries

Chason

Is there a path you really wanted to work into the main story but couldn't?

Will Wight

Yes. The path of the broken star, the one, one of the ones Lindon gets offered in BlackFlame instead of black flame. That was one that I had come up with a long time before because it's honestly based on, it's got a really uncool backstory, but there was in MegaMan Battle Network, (...) Bass is one of the enemies, and he in that series has a really cool power set, and I really liked it. Aesthetically. So I've been trying to look and work it into a magic system ever since, and so I worked it into Cradle, and sort of translated it, into Cradle, and then that became the foundation of that path, and I didnt get to use it. Its still unused. (Takes sip)

Anonymous

Who is canonically the strongest monarch?

Will Wight

It's a lot softer than you'd think, because, they're good at different things, in different ways. So they're all kinda sort of balanced, the, Sesh was the strongest in like an all out fight, but he's gone now so, there you go. In terms of they all have their own tricks, their own specialties, they all have their whatever. Right now Reigan Shen probably has the most cards to play, it really is almost a rock paper scissors sort of thing.

Chacho

How far ahead did you plan this series, was Eithan always Ozriel? I appreciate how well everything seems planned out.

Will Wight

This is an interesting, this is the question, so, was Eithan always Ozriel? Yes, and even more yes, because it was before I even came up with Cradle. So, he really was, Eithan was the character, that kind of this whole thing was built around, and not really, not because of his journey. It's lindon's journey, but in terms of, uh the setting, was really designed around Eithan being Ozriel. So... Yeah, that whole thing, the whole universe doesn't work anymore if that's not true; but, I was still building it so I was like, well... If I need to change my mind in the future, I can so I was still being cagey about it, in case I got to a point where I need it to change direction, but I didn't. So then, and how far ahead did you plan the series? (Takes sip) That, way way way in advance; but everything else, there are monuments that I, theyre landmarks that I can, that I set up. So I'm headed to these things, and there are concepts that I'm, that I've embedded in, and planned for, it's there it's in the background, it's done; and there are themes that come and go throughout the whole series that I'm setting up. So a lot of people go back to Unsouled and they go 'Oh man, there are, all these bits of foreshadowing for later books', Yes and no, some of them are just absolutely, yes they're foreshadowing. Others are, they are themes that echo throughout the whole thing. Things that Elder Whisper, the first elder, or whatever, tell Lindon about the sacred arts, and certainly what Suriel says, they are themes that echo throughout the series. So, yes they do come back, later, because that's, those are the ideas that the whole series is wrestling with. So its less foreshadowing, more, yeah I have a consistent thematic element throughout the whole thing; and then the other thing is, I often go back to my previous books and I see what I've established, and I think about okay how would people take this, what are they going to expect? Then I use that to make my future plans. It's kind of a mix of planning way way way in advance and, planning each book out, and sort of improvising. So a lot of things I leave open to future me to figure out. So I leave these elements that I, I leave myself tools in the future that I can use to play with, and then I figure out what I'm going to do with them when I get there. So, that is kind of how I work. You, we talked about Eithan's plans earlier, that's kind of how in this case I'm doing things, I'm sort of setting things up and then figuring it out later; but I set pieces up so that I can figure out how I can use them later. That's kind of the idea. So one of the infamous examples of that going wrong, is in, Ghostwater, when everything in Lindon's pack is destroyed and you have this, scripting stones he got in book 2, yeah it's because I intended Lindon to have a whole subplot with him scripting, and then I realized that would take way took much page space and focus away from soulsmithing, so I did away with it, and then the scripting stones had no purpose, so I was like 'crap'. (Takes sip)

Brandon Quill

Do either Reigan Shen or Lindon fully count as a dreadgod yet? If so, which?

Will Wight

They do not.

Mat

Would you continue the Cradle series but as a continuation series, once Lindon and friends ascend outside of Cradle?

Will Wight

Mat asks, and I assume it's Mat Cauthon asking on this form, (...), You know, maybe? Possibly, yeah I might continue Cradle past, ascension. That's one of those things that I'm, kinda, I'm like, yeah I'm gonna complete, the series is called Cradle, I'm going to complete their journey in Cradle; and then of course they're going to ride off into the sunset. Is there more adventure in the sunset? Yeah, of course there is. Should I, am I going to write it? Maybe. Yeah. I'm not against it. (Will's brother calls from off screen 'please write it, please!') Sam's begging, Sam's put his vote in

ForTheAfro

If Orthos were to obtain the dragon icon, could Lindon use dragon authority through their bond?

Will Wight

Uh, no. That would not, it would not work. That way, and vice versa it wouldn't work. So, Lindon wouldn't be able to, to use dragon, if he, if Lindon obtained dragon icon Orthos wouldn't be able to tap into it, having said that, what would happen is that, it would make it easier for the other to manifest the dragon icon. So, that is what would really happen. Is because, of the connection between them, they would both become more attuned to the dragon icon.

Vincent

Several times in the early books, Eithan mentions having grown up in BlackFlame city, was he just completely lying or was there any truth to what he was saying?

Will Wight

No, there was some truth to what he was saying, that's real, BlackFlame city is really old, this is, he was obviously saying it in such a way in order to, he was trying to hide from both the Arelius family and BlackFlame people, so he was playing some verbal shell games with his backstory, but yeah he did, he really did go kinda, he was really kind of here and there. So when he actually grew up, travel between BlackFlame city and the Arelius home land was a lot easier and faster and less restricted, so he'd kind of pop up, he was, he grew up in several places. So yes, that was something you could accurately describe him as having grown up in BlackFlame city and yeah growing up in the rosegold continent. (Takes sip)

Nick Fuller

Are they still fun to write?

Will Wight

So, is the Cradle series still fun to write? This is a very interesting question, because people ask variants of this question all the time, which is very understandable, and yes and no? Uh, the No is, nothing is fun to write to completion, like there's no, there's nothing, theres no book thats fun the entire time. Like, so there's always aspects of writing and rewriting, and it's just a grind. It's hard. You just gotta, you gotta produce the book, right? So, you can't like every part of the process, and you can't like everything you put in the book, you have to, a lot of it is just work. So, in that, to that degree, its like, yeah keeping up with a popular series for a long time is a lot of work. So, do I like those parts? ... Yes, I like the results of them, I like the ideas, I like the, and I certainly wouldn't trade it for anything, but is it fun the whole time? No. It's not, this whole saying that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day of your life, is nonsense. Uh, but! The, on the other hand, in terms of the, are the Cradle books still fun, is Cradle still a fun world to be in, is it still fun to come up with Cradle ideas? Do I still like the characters, yes! I wouldn't write something that I didn't enjoy, I would just write something that I did enjoy. ... So if Cradle wasn't fun to write, I would write it so that it was, fun to write. It's not, yeah, I always have fun. Coming up with stuff that is, I just like coming up with ideas. I like coming up with stories, I like being in the characters heads, I like, I like it when the stuff, the ideas come together and I think this, ooooh, this is a cool little moment, I can do, so I read the Reddit thread this week, it was really fun, it was your top three moments in Cradle, and, and that was fun. Especially because most of those were intentional, they were stuff that I was like 'aw yes!', 'this is going to be a big fun moment, I'm going to enjoy this!' and that was most of what people wrote. Some of them, they wrote that they thought were great moments and I was like, I, I did not put any thought into that, that just kind of came out. Sort of an organic thing that emerged, and that was even cooler. That was neat; but anyway, yeah, so the point is, yes they're fun, no they're not fun all the way, just because, what, how would that work? That would be a hobby, not a job. 

Telowyn

Ozriel disappeared without notice, how did his presence and mantle end up in Abidan lockdown?

Will Wight

He had to leave those behind. So, he, left them when he disappeared. So he had to leave those, there's no, he can't take them with him, so there's, he can't hide them, he can't hide those, I mean he can, he did, but you can't hide those permanently, because of course he had one particular method for hiding himself, and they're tracking him down, so they're going to find his presence and mantle, and scythe. So. The scythe, of course, remains hidden, but the presence and the mantle did not.

Cradle Enjoyer

What Sage would have trained Lindon had he become an Uncrowned?

Will Wight

I had an answer to this, I had charted all of this out, uh, shoot, I don't remember the, ... I don't remember. Dang it, that's a good question. Uh, I had a real answer to this, and I'm trying to, mmm I'll have to come back to that. I'll have to see if I can, well there's a, I'm just going to speculate on what I may have been thinking, I really did chart this out, I had, because, so I had actually made tournament brackets for the Uncrowned, and I had charted it out, based on who would win. Right? Like who would get the people, and either one was a possibility so the sage's had discussed that, and I really had, had this in an Excel spreadsheet, no joke, uh, but, yeah, so there's a, there is a sage that hasn't shown up much, that I think he has a cameo in Dreadgod actually?; but it's a fire, a fire sage, so he probably would have done it. Yeah, probably. That's my guess, on my, I'm speculating on my past intentions. (Takes sip)

Anonymous

Was Eithan's goal always to push both Yerin and Lindon toward early Sage, and did he know the blood shadow would allow her to advance as she did?

Will Wight

Well it says Yerin and London but my phone does that all the time too, even though I write Lindon way more often than I write London. (...) Okay, so obviously Eithan understood what a blood shadow was on conceptual level very well, he clearly understood the theoretical, how.. how that's all going to work; but no, he didn't have that specific goal in mind, what he was doing was working with the tools that he had, and he was kind of going hmm, what can I do with these raw materials, a lot of things! So he was sort of, his idea was sort of, to continue moving them in the right direction, and that's another thing that I've said about people when they've asked about pushing him, pushing Lindon toward BlackFlame, what if he had picked another path? There's actually a blooper about this in BlackFlame, we uh haven't released the bloopers yet. Yeah there's a blooper about this in BlackFlame now, we're adding it, but there are people who ask what he would have done if lindon had picked a path other than BlackFlame, and the answer is he really, he would have gone with it. So he, he does that a lot, its kind of how he plans throughout the series, is he sets up stuff that is going to work, kind of, no matter how, as long as you're heading in the right direction, it's going to work. So in terms of the specifics of how it was going to play out, he was like yeah so riff it, it's like jazz, except with advancement and lazer fists. (Takes a sip)

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.