Still working on Plight of the Gods. I updated the timeline and made it more clear in the story how time was advancing. Also got a few more new chapters written, but there is a lot more to do. I believe I will finish one more tonight. By the look of things, both character development and pacing seems to be improving a lot. Main reason I have not released the anthology yet is because there is a good chance one or two new poems will end up in one of these extra chapters I'm writing.
I've been working on the world map, and have finally finished the next continent, Morthanis. Only Hyllutha and Hendvlask remain to be finished. I find myself watching a lot of political videos and debates on youtube and work on the map as it plays in the background. I've also completed a new cover for the Dream Dweller Archive, even though I still plan to release it for free (I think). I wanted the cover to match that of the anthology book, meaning it looks like this old mystical tome. It contains a complicated geometric design that was hard to put together. It's essentially a heavily edited alchemy circle with the edition of some eyes to continue pushing the ongoing theme of the covers. It's possible that I will sell the book at a cheap price sometime down the road, but only after I get some feedback on it.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Plans Ahead
After looking through the last book, Final Exodus, I've completed all of the major changes I needed to make to the story. I believe there are at least three new chapters and a lot of reorganized content. One of the last major problems with the story was disobeying "show don't tell". Most of the problem sections are gone, and there is no longer an info dump on the first page. Instead, the book starts with three short paragraphs before moving into the action.
At this point, I am mapping out my edits for the previous book, Plight of the Gods. I was originally going to fix this up beforehand, but so many issues stacked up that I moved on to the other book since it required less work to improve. In Plight of the Gods, I will have twelve new chapters. Not all of this content is going to be new. Many of the scenes were tacked on to other chapters unnecessarily, but now that they are separated, I need to lengthen them a bit. Other scenes are completely new, and fix a pacing issue that has become noticeable in the story. After I complete these changes and add a long-awaited climax to the second book, I should be done with the major edits. I may reread each of the books to find minor problems, but that alone doesn't take long. I can read through them pretty quickly.
Lastly, I believe it is best to publish my anthology book before the actual series. It might be strange to release all of the poems before the story that goes with them, but for publishing reasons, it is best to do this before I release The Dream Dweller Archive for free. It will be relatively easy to prove to Amazon that I own the rights to the poetry in the free book if it is first published in the anthology on their store. People sharing the contents of the book shouldn't be a problem, at least in terms of publishing. Not getting credit would certainly suck, but I can't charge for the book and implement DRM when all it really does is help my world building and provide historic context for parts of the series. Plus, it can function as great marketing while I'm still busy writing. The only downside to all of this is that I will likely need to update the anthology after all of the poetry is finalized in the story. There could be new additions, which would require me to republish the book, but this isn't that difficult.
At this point, I am mapping out my edits for the previous book, Plight of the Gods. I was originally going to fix this up beforehand, but so many issues stacked up that I moved on to the other book since it required less work to improve. In Plight of the Gods, I will have twelve new chapters. Not all of this content is going to be new. Many of the scenes were tacked on to other chapters unnecessarily, but now that they are separated, I need to lengthen them a bit. Other scenes are completely new, and fix a pacing issue that has become noticeable in the story. After I complete these changes and add a long-awaited climax to the second book, I should be done with the major edits. I may reread each of the books to find minor problems, but that alone doesn't take long. I can read through them pretty quickly.
Lastly, I believe it is best to publish my anthology book before the actual series. It might be strange to release all of the poems before the story that goes with them, but for publishing reasons, it is best to do this before I release The Dream Dweller Archive for free. It will be relatively easy to prove to Amazon that I own the rights to the poetry in the free book if it is first published in the anthology on their store. People sharing the contents of the book shouldn't be a problem, at least in terms of publishing. Not getting credit would certainly suck, but I can't charge for the book and implement DRM when all it really does is help my world building and provide historic context for parts of the series. Plus, it can function as great marketing while I'm still busy writing. The only downside to all of this is that I will likely need to update the anthology after all of the poetry is finalized in the story. There could be new additions, which would require me to republish the book, but this isn't that difficult.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)