I had noticed that the chapter lengths in the books were all too long. Some would be double or triple the length of popular books and novels, which all depended on word count. Increasing the number of chapters has helped me group up more related information, often focusing on only one or two scenes when there were previously three or four. I had based everything on page length, but this means little when dealing with the Word file since it will just get translated into other formats that likely inflate the page count of the book.
Overall, readability should improve, but now there is a problem with some of these chapters being too short. However, given the length of most of the books, I believe that to ultimately be fine. Some of these individual segments simply don't read as well when tacked onto other events. One specific example is chapter 6 in book 2. It only covers the conflict of an individual character as well as an outside observation of it. The ordeal does relate to other events in the story, but it is so personal in scope, that expanding the chapter past this point only serves to dilute its essence. This chapter, titled "Damnation", is more meaningful because it has such a tight focus.
Book 5 is the last book to receive this treatment, and I should complete the editing today. Afterwards, there are some scenes I want to add to the third book in order to improve the pacing. Markus is not featured enough in the beginning to establish the fact that he is an important character, so I would like to show him doing work in the castle. Meanwhile, Philos's rule does not appear to last very long since the book skips over several months. I need one or two scenes depicting how life has changed as a result.
Since editing for the rewrite of book 2 has concluded, it seems these additions to book 3 will be the last bit of writing needed before everything can be published, though I've been wrong before. I am also working on some pictures for a few of the stories. I want to get a picture of Hlendvlask and Rhinesvelt's throne in book 1. In book 2, I already have visuals for Evermore, Nevermore, and the Altar of the Gods. I believe only the first two stories need these pictures, acting as the bare minimum for the entire series. A world map is already contained in the cover of book 4, and while I would love to have accurate images of Rhinesvelt, Helskor, or other characters, I'm terrible at drawing and would need to hire someone to make something from scratch. Then there is the question of whether this is going to be a sketch created by someone in the story or an actual photo. In the end, it might not be necessary at all.
