New Chapter

A few days ago I finished one of the two new chapters of book three. The other chapter I am working on is half complete. I know the gist of the last scene I need to write, but I do not have all of the details worked out yet. I will probably complete it in the next day or two. Meanwhile, I am still working on the world map. Though I have a glimpse of the world map on the cover of book four, I still wish to provide larger pictures of the continents where they are useful. A map of Hlendvlask should be in book one, Skiven in book three, and Aglodon in book five. I am not sure if these will only include the physical features or the states and countries as well. I also have to figure out how to best share the colored world map when it is complete, though I could just provide this in the Appendix of book one.

I am also looking at my different publishing options outside of Amazon, including Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and possibly eSentral. One or two of these outlets will be reached through smashwords, but I intend to oversee most of the file conversion and distribution myself. There is also the question of whether to get ISBN's for each of the books and also whether I should get a copyright filed. All of that is rather expensive, but can be beneficial. ISBN's make the books more official and easier to find, but I also have to use new ones whenever a new edition of the book is created, which means I have to avoid editing these later on. Even if there was nothing to fix, there could easily be new information in the appendix for me to add or some kind of new picture. I have to make sure everything is truly done if I am to go that route.

New Scenes and Pics

The primary goal now is to add more content to book three, as this is currently the shortest story. I plan to add an extra chapter that will hold at least two scenes in it (wrote the first half already), but there are a few more things to add elsewhere in the book. Overall, I need certain characters to play a greater role in the story so they are not forgettable, even if they may play a part in the fifth book. I face the same problem in book one with two characters, but have yet to think of a way to add more sections for them. All it would serve to do is eliminate exposition in a later segment.

As for book five, Cyfel's journey across Skiven appeared almost pointless to me. It is almost to the point where it could be eliminated completely because it doesn't really serve to add tension to the story. So I am rewriting a chapter that highlights this character, but have yet to figure out everything that happens. Right now, the additions to book 3 come easier.

The main thing I have been focusing on instead of writing is creating pictures for the books. I plan to have 3-5 pictures in the stories except for book 4 (which is a journal of sorts). Included in those are pictures of places and events important to the story, which include Rhinesvelt and Helskor as well. I have a pretty detailed image of Helskor that sets the stage for his devilish nature, though I am a bit worried that it does not communicate the fact that his form can easily change shape. A minor inconvenience, though. Rhinesvelt is in more images, but they are less revealing. I may yet produce a clear image of him, but that would find its home in the final book.

Reworking the Chapters

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.

The End Approaches?

After dealing with a temporary case of writer's block, I can now see the finish line. I have about three more scenes to finish, or basically half of one chapter and the end of the book. I have about three poems to write as well, which may prove to be the tricky part. Frankly, I think the additional poetry I added to the first book was so good that I'm not sure I can top it, but we'll see what I come up with. Luckily, the climax of the story is already written. I am basically leading up to that point in the story and easing out of it. I have also updated most of the book covers, completely changing the first two. They are very different from what I first created a few years back, capturing a bit more of the themes in the stories. I find myself going back to look at them again and again. The pictures will get posted here once everything gets published.

An Update

The first draft of the rewritten first book is complete. All that's left there is the proofreading/editing, which I am receiving help for at the moment. Revisions to the second book have been underway, though it appears that a new twist is developing. I had originally planned for two more scenes, one detailing an event in Almyros and the other aiding in the book's ending, but now I've figured out the basics of an important conspiracy that I hinted at in book one but had yet to develop fully. I believe it would involve three new scenes, but I am still unsure how it all ends. I'm thinking this could delay the book's completion by at least a week, but my personal deadline was the beginning of June. Guess I'll see how it all works out.

Future Revisions

After much thought and getting just a bit more constructive criticism, I've decided to expand the content of the first two books. I am nearly done rewriting the first story, which more than doubles the content. In fact, the length is greater than book three (though both are still just novellas). The extension of book two plays off of the content in the first story, but likely will not be of similar size. There is no way to tell yet.

At the moment, I have just two more scenes to complete before the first book is finished. The additional content really fleshes out the characters used and even introduces more. Some also play an indirect part in book six. There is legitimate character growth over time, and for those who have read the earlier version of the story, the timeline has been condensed considerably. The first edit improved the poetry in the book and the narration, but now the events themselves are less sporadic and include a hefty dose of much-needed dialogue.

Overall, the beginning story should be more enjoyable. I am hoping my improvements to the second book will be just as good, though it will no doubt be challenging because of the story structure. One of the time skips will be tricky to maneuver around, and when the fate of a particular character is known ahead of time, it can be difficult to make their actions appear relevant or engaging. The first story should be complete in a few days, and the second will likely take a few more weeks. After that, everything is slated to be republished.

The Series is Complete (But Not Published)

A few weeks ago, I successfully completed the novel that ends the series The Epic of Old. It has gone through proofreading, and I am likely going to make one last round of editing to tweak certain details in the story. While that is going on, I have also been editing the five other books in the series. In some cases, I have just updated the formatting, but the first two short stories have basically been rewritten. The events presented haven't really changed much, but there is more content that adds a bit more detail about what is happening. There are also some poems that I completely changed just to make them sound better. Why was this necessary?

The first book started as a way to connect separate poems into a somewhat cohesive story, and they were made when I first started writing poetry several years ago just after college. I experimented a lot in free verse (which is hard to do well), and some of the results just weren't up to par compared to what I can make now. Making adjustments to those first poems can be problematic, because it alters the original source of the material. In fact, it is from so long ago that I cannot even remember what information or emotion I was intending to portray in some of the lines. A good example was The Philosopher's Plea in book two. It had a sporadic rhyming scheme, introduced elements of fantasy that were unnecessary, such as mermaids and trolls, and simply had lines that droned on near the end. So I altered it by adding a simple AABB rhyming scheme, and then organized it so that the meter increased by one syllable every two lines. At a glance, it doesn't look too different, but it reads far better. It also incorporates real themes that the character would actually discuss.

Overall, I need to make sure the first group of stories are good enough to get people interested in the later books (without completely altering them), which I am actually more proud of having written. I think book six is the best one I've made so far. There is a far bigger focus on individual characters. The setting does not change drastically. All of the events happen within two months compared to several years in many of the other books. There is a clear main character. And most importantly, there is finally more showing than telling. A big problem with the stories is that the narration bits are too lengthy, creating info dumps that many readers probably don't care about. Perhaps it's not as big of an issue as I think it is, given how short some of the stories are and how different they look compared to similar narratives, but it is still an issue I am working on fixing.

Some of the formatting issues I am fixing are mainly things of consistency. I had to indent some things differently. Some sections didn't use quotation marks correctly. The chapter heading for every book is changing. There are more sections in the stories that actually read like normal novels, at least where dialogue is concerned, but I am not ditching the old style I used. It is helpful to illustrate a new shift in time or location, especially when not a lot of action is occurring. Also, I noticed that the name of the fantasy planet (Patmos) was only introduced in book three, so I had to sprinkle that in books one and two. I also made it more clear that Hlendvlask was one particular continent and not the world itself. Then, there was also the issue of the appendices at the end of book three. This section originally had some information about the series that I wanted to share with the reader to help book 3 make more sense, but it revealed a bit more than necessary, especially concerning what the gods were capable of and what predicament they were in. When I completed book 4, most of the section got cut, but I still had to include the info about the calendar system. This information recently got condensed and moved to the end of book one as an addendum.

I have no idea when I am going to republish all of the stories (along with publishing book 6), but I know I am doing them all at once. I currently just have the last two stories to look through again, so I estimate that it will all be done in another week. Only time will tell. So what is the plan after all of that is done? Well, I'm still working on the map, which is a fun little side project, but I also have more short stories planned, perhaps approaching the length of the first two books. It would be a series of short stories with a separate series title than the Epic of Old, but I have to make it known that they are from the same universe. They would also need to probably be read after the original series, because these stories would contain certain spoilers that would ruin some of the things revealed in book six. Yet it is a project definitely worth pursuing, because the ideas and events behind these stories are interesting enough to write about. They are about as good as the same idea that forced me to complete book six, which was the longest thing I have ever written.

Once I am ready to get everything published, I will announce it here. It shouldn't be too long now.