I’ve started writing the third book! It will be the end of The Breach series, making it a trilogy.
It is always daunting putting those first few words down on the page. How do you decide what will draw the reader in, make the story sound interesting, and keep an even pace overall. I had the entire story already plotted out based on the pen-and-paper role playing game that I created for my friends and family. We had already played the adventure through, and, with their help, the story had been fleshed out with interesting characters and events. I have copious journal notes detailing everything that happened. The stories in the three books (originally more, but that’s another topic) had already been told by us all. It shouldn’t be that hard. Right?
Nope. It was still, and probably always will be, challenging. Writing a story is very different from creating and playing an adventure. I have been through this twice before and did what I had done on the previous books. I spent a week or more going through my notes and breaking them down into chapters, so that I could focus my writing on specific stages of the story. That way, I wouldn’t be constantly distracted (it’s so easy for me to get distracted) by other parts of the story, wondering if I should include this or that, now or later. That would only lead to paralysis.
Eventually, I managed to (mostly) finish a planned outline for the installment. But, I still had one more challenge. While I knew what the first chapter held, I couldn’t decide what the prologue would contain. The first two books, The Tournament and The Watchers, flowed out of me in the order of the chapters, including the prologue, thanks to my notes. But this one stopped me up again for a bit. So, I eventually decided to write chapter one first. It really helped. Once it was done, I finally had a clear idea of what part of the story the prologue should tell.
It’s only the start of the first draft of course. And, there will be many iterations in the future. I will do my best to get the whole story written, before I start that process. For now, the words are magically appearing on the page in front of me and Book 3 is underway!
FANTASY FICTION 