Cradle Weapon - POLL! - Will Wight, New York Times Best-Selling Author of 'Cradle'

Cradle Weapon - POLL!

3/26/2018

So uh...it turns out Strawpoll has a cap for poll options, and in less than three days, boy did we exceed that cap. I included as many of your submissions as I could, but if you don't see your name on here, try to vote for something similar. Even though I couldn't include all of your suggestions, that doesn't mean I don't love you anymore.

The poll is now live, so click here to vote: www.strawpoll.me/15366690

NOTE: You'll notice that several of these submissions don't really fit the Cradle setting, most notably Sally and Bowey McBowFace. In those cases, I'll be coming up with a setting-appropriate variation. I won't sacrifice the setting for the sake of an online poll, don't worry.

I kept it restricted to one vote per person, though I wasn't confident about that decision. It might have been better to allow multiple votes, so I'll consider that in the future.

Speaking of the future, you guys definitely came through in terms of submissions, so let me know in the comments if you'd like to do something like this again! And if so, what sort of thing would you like to name (character, place, another weapon, etc.)? And in what universe?

-Will

P.S. I'll probably include a few of these names as titles the bow has acquired over its long career, so your favorite name might make a cameo even if it doesn't win.

49 Comments

Deadnettle

3/26/2018 10:14:31 am

I would very much love to do this again! It really gets the community involved while we wait for our next binge of books.

3/26/2018 10:15:07 am

I´d like to name the releasedate for the coming cradlebooks.

They will be soon....

Ravi

3/26/2018 10:20:50 am

This was super fun! Let's do it again!!

Pickle

3/26/2018 10:24:25 am

I'm pretty sure my submission is going to lose to one of the slightly memey options, because I understand how the internet works, but Will said he liked my idea, so I'll take that as a moral victory regardless of what happens :>

Jacob

3/26/2018 10:28:29 am

It's such a fun idea to involve your fans. In my opinion, i think weapon/ability names are better for a fan vote than character names

Kaden

3/26/2018 11:48:19 am

Loved this but definitely stick to weapon and location names if you ask for character names its going to be nothing but people's own names with some memes inbetween. Which I think would ruin some of the cultural settings you have in place if somebody like Steve showed up in cradle for example. Also out of curiosity would the next short story be before or after OKAK and what about if before my vote is EE story if after cradle story

3/26/2018 11:55:13 am

Also at some point I think your fanbase for cradle would actually explode in joy if you allowed us to submit ideas for a path of a side character who is a recurring person in the books. Just a though

manty05

3/28/2018 02:41:02 pm

I liked this very much, and while talking we're about path ideas Will have any paths or path names in Cradle books gotten inspired by a fan-made/named path.

Will link

3/26/2018 01:47:39 pm

If I did character names, I would change them to be setting-specific. I'll do that to some degree with the weapon names as well, if something inappropriate to the setting makes it through.

Jayceblk

3/26/2018 01:00:05 pm

I would like to do this again for anything in any verse. Hmmm, no power in the verse...

Sorry, always flowing through my head.

Jeremiah

3/26/2018 06:33:49 pm

Too Soom(tm)

3/26/2018 02:57:09 pm

It's definitely going to be Sally. We all know how this works. I just hope that it's going to be some cool, setting appropriate variation like Sa'Lee or Sah'Li, the lightbreaker. Blessed bow of the soulseeker. Herald of shadows and piercer of heretics! !A! !A! May it's sights never set upon you!

3/30/2018 12:32:39 pm

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Sa'Lee wgah'nagl fhtagn! Ia! Ia! Sa'Lee fhtagn!

Sword Immortal Darknorth

3/26/2018 04:05:20 pm

[Shadowfury, Blessed Bow of of the Soulseeker] deserves a nice cameo.

If an online poll isn't at least partially hijacked by a World of Warcraft meme then we're using the internet wrong.

Sam

3/27/2018 03:49:14 pm

I think the meme is too subtle for most people. They don't recognize the glory that is [Shadowfury, Blessed Bow of of the Soulseeker] because It's not similar enough to [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker] to draw the Grand Wow Memer Horde. Anyone in the know will get it though.

3/30/2018 12:33:25 pm

I'm hoping I can find space for a single line about [Shadowfury, Blessed Bow of the Soulseeker]. The meme appeals to me too much.

3/30/2018 12:34:21 pm

Oh man, and if it comes from Suriel's Presence I can actually have it in brackets and everything! This must happen...

Shady Upvote Dealer

3/26/2018 04:14:30 pm

Mwahahaha!

Little does Will know, I actually get two votes! One from my computer, and one using my cellphone wifi!

I thought I would get infinite votes if I used proxy servers, but it seems strawpoll has already thought of that and made it so proxys can't solve the captcha. Not that my troll post even made it onto the form anyway.

3/30/2018 12:35:40 pm

(ﾉﾟοﾟ)ﾉ

Diego

3/26/2018 10:11:02 pm

Well.... Sally it seems... I think the many name thing was a bit over the top. Especially since so many were similar. Now we know why having fewer options makes us happier.

Jose

3/27/2018 04:04:55 am

😕🙁☹️😟😢😭 Not Sallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!😪🤧😔

Theophilus

3/28/2018 12:41:34 pm

I'm actually not against Sally spelled like "Sali" or "Xalee". But still, maybe something more creative!

3/28/2018 12:44:15 pm

No! Absolutely not! I will never call it Sally!!! Unless we put the emphasis on the last syllable. And then only maybe. -_-

3/28/2018 12:45:49 pm

That wouldn't be so bad... ;)

Ruffbrack

3/27/2018 09:51:30 am

I think this was a great thing! I agree with one of Kaden's ideas that it would be really cool to name a path of a recurring character or a far off character that is mentioned every now and then. besides that, it seems like there are a lot of locations and weapons in the story but also technique names and stuff like that too.

Thank you for letting us all contribute a little something to the story!

3/30/2018 12:43:44 pm

A Path or a technique were my original ideas, but the people on the subreddit seemed to really want a weapon, so...

And I'm glad people enjoyed this! I know as a reader I'd have fun with little things like this.

Fellow Daoist

3/27/2018 10:39:31 am

Weapon and path names are good things to vote on. If we choose character names though you should probably just put them in your disposable character que, that way the next time you need to give Palace Guard #4 a name or Arrogant Young Master Bodyguard Mook #3 a real name you can give them one from the que. They'll have their name said exactly once when the Arrogant Young Master orders their Mook to kill Lindon and Yerin, after which they will die a quick and meaningless death.

3/27/2018 10:45:39 am

/\ This fellow daoist reads quite a bit of xianxia/wuxia I see.

Classic trope for the genre. Arrogant Young Master sees Lindon looking too cool in some badass robes and demands Lindon sell them to him immediately for a couple of low-grade scales.

Or he sees Yerin and doesn't like the fact that he doesn't have a girl who is employed exclusively to spoon-feed him chocolate pudding, and thinks Yerin would be ideal for the job.

Yerin refuses angrily. Arrogant Young Master gets mad and tries to have his Mooks kidnap her. Mooks die to Yerin, then Arrogant Young Master gets more Mooks who also die. Then he dies and now Arrogant Young Master sect/clan is after the protagonists.

Yep, classic wuxia/xianxia.

TBoy

3/27/2018 10:48:32 am

Any sect or clan that titles themselves the "Arrogant Young Master Sect" is bound to get themselves into trouble.

3/27/2018 11:43:27 am

You forgot the part where the Arrogant young master insists the MCs are a bunch of weaklings despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and that they are worthless right up until they die.

3/28/2018 02:27:43 pm

Though with Will it can happen that the arrogant young master actually just used MCs in a ploy to topple a dangerous sect after faking his death, or something that can be actually sympathized with.

3/28/2018 10:00:43 pm

Yes that would be a pretty nice twist to put on it. Honestly I'd love to see Will Wight turn some classic xianxia tropes on their heads

EndanDrachon

3/30/2018 11:56:59 am

I kind of want the clan to have lost a duel with a rival clan and agreed to change their name to actually be The Arrogant Young Master Clan in exchange for being spared. Which sounds like something Eithan would agree to...

Andrew luscomb

4/2/2018 02:11:29 am

The arrogant young master needs to talk down to London about following a pure madra path in front of eithan first.😎

I Need an Idiot’s Guide to the Willverse

3/27/2018 12:33:18 pm

This was awesome! Do it again! But, I think weapons, objects, etc are a better option than characters — character naming might get out of hand.
Also, I think that having multiple votes next time would be a good idea. There were several that I really, really liked and wouldn’t mind seeing in the story.

Sai

3/28/2018 12:37:52 am

I am disappointed in lack of Bowey McBowface votes.

3/30/2018 12:26:14 pm

I think people were aware that I was never going to call it Bowey McBowFace. I'm not that committed to the meme.

...although if it had won, I may have made the weapon's original name "Bowey the Bow" or something, and then had the characters name it whatever came in second.

Will's Will Will Be Done

3/28/2018 07:38:37 am

I stop checking the blog for a few days, and miss so much of the fun! I can't believe nobody submitted the name "David Bow-ee"

3/30/2018 12:26:45 pm

They did. We just had a limited number of options so I had to trim it down.

coldsteel

3/28/2018 09:35:28 am

That may have been a fun exercise to run but wow, the top vote choices are all unimaginative and generally quite terrible. Leaving it to the unwashed masses to name stuff in your books may not be such a great idea. "Sally forth, denizens of Cradle".

3/30/2018 12:31:25 pm

Well, I'm not going to leave a significant portion of my names to majority vote, but what I call this weapon has ultimately no impact on the quality of the series. If the bow is called Shadestrike or Eclipse or Sali, it doesn't matter much, except to a reader who gets to go "Hey, I voted for that!"

Which means they're having more fun out of what would have otherwise been a mundane background detail.

And whether a name works for a given reader or not is highly subjective, so there's no way to get a home run on every name for every reader every time.

Tower of the Immortal

3/28/2018 11:37:39 am

I think I figured out who this bow might belong to! Muhahahahahah

Not a raccoon

3/28/2018 12:50:02 pm

You could actually use 2 from the poll if it is the weapon I think it is. The cool name the weapon believes it is named and what it’s user actually calls it.

Godking of the Outer Lithosphere

3/28/2018 05:36:21 pm

Bwahaha!

[Shadowfury, Blessed Bow of the Soulseeker], should it be present in the book will truly improve Will's meme-ability levels by over 9000!

Will this bow be wielded by a character who sometimes goes by the name of Leeroy Jenkins?

Super Secret Author Spy

3/28/2018 10:56:25 pm

Wow! 603 votes as of now! I always thought author blogs were just one-time things that readers visit to check and see when the next book is going to be out and then ignore for six months. Never would have dreamed that there'd be so many active blog readers who are willing to participate. +600 means there must be thousands who just lurk after all.

I really need to break down and hire somebody to build me a blog.

Memesicle

3/28/2018 11:32:16 pm

Whelp, if nothing else, you could have the bow miss, and kill a chicken.
And then when everyone bags the weilder out, say "at least i got [the] chicken".

@will, if the reference is a litle subtle, google 'leeroy jenkins wow' and watch it right to the end.
It's fantasticly meemy, before memes were a thing!

3/30/2018 12:53:50 pm

Nope, that was not too subtle. I got it.

Finn

3/29/2018 06:10:33 am

Y’know, what if we voted on a Valinhall power? Maybe something on a deeper floor with a cool artifact-y history.

Steve

3/30/2018 12:09:36 am

How about in Valinhall, there has to be a consistent number of dolls.
Simon, or whoever holds Azura or Mythra has to make and with the help of the house/ other dolls, animate a new doll. She will also need a name........

In which we ramble on.
And by we, I mean me.