New Format

I'm still waiting for beta reader feedback for Omen of the Ancient, but what I'm hearing in just the beginning is basically what I feared: the inclusion of the poetry interrupts the flow of the story. While I can't do too much to fix this, I have reviewed all of the poems in both Omen of the Ancient and Plight of the Gods, and removed/altered what I thought was more or less unnecessary. I only scrapped three so far (going by memory), but it should be a slight improvement nonetheless. I'm also adjusting the formatting of all of the poems so that they don't have titles, they are all italicized, and they will have a center alignment on the page. This should improve the way it looks immensely, and the titles for the poems are still going to be presented in the anthology. I'm also attempting to alter how the stanzas work in a few of them so that more text can fit on the page at once, making it seem like the poetry is shorter. This isn't always possible, but some were formatted to be shorter. I still have 2 more books to go through for this process, but I suspect I'll finish this work today. 

Next Phase

After a long day of writing two days ago, I managed to get the second book, Omen of the Ancient, ready for the beta reading stage. I also have one reader right now, and plan to get a second one when I can get my first round of feedback. I noticed with the first book that even just two beta readers at once can be redundant so long as the same issues are brought up, and I'm not constrained by time, either. Having one reader at a time should be enough so long as improvements can be made after each read. This is doable since the second book will end up being the shortest in the series.

I'm also considering making Omen of the Ancient the first book, Plight of the Gods the second, and The Planet of Whispering Strife the third. Though I originally wrote it so that the events would not need to be in exact sequence, this would improve the introduction of a few key characters and plot points. Essentially, the intro book to the series would not be bombarding the reader with new concepts so early on, and important details in Final Exodus would be more likely to be picked up when transitioning straight from The World of Whispering Strife. The main barrier to this is making sure enough from Omen of the Ancient is understandable and interesting when it becomes the starting point for those new to the series.

Another important update has also been made, being the fact that I'm now about two chapters away from completing the expedition arc in Plight of the Gods. Right now, there are about ten new chapters all lined up together that I built from two or three shorter ones that only summarized the events that transpired (and not in a good way). Once the arc is complete, there are about three more chapters to complete in different spots of the book, and then that too will be ready for the beta reading phase. Plight of the Gods is now the longest book, currently sitting at 81k words, and likely going to 85k. That being said, the future changes to The World of Whispering Strife are so extensive that it might surpass that. For instance, I've written parts of a whole new character arc for Talmanus, ending his quest for the fountain of knowledge while simultaneously sharing key information about the Surveyor (eliminating a really crappy chapter that just has the Surveyor giving a monologue for no good reason). This new change had me so excited that I basically wrote the whole conclusion on a whim. When the writing happens so easily like that, you know it's a good sign.

A Spurt of Progress

I finally had a good day to get writing done and finished making my additions to what is now the second book. The opening is far better than it was, the poems are distributed better throughout the first half of the book, and there is now an extra chapter. There might still be some pacing issues in the story, but that could just be due to the book's short length. Not much I can do about it at this point until I get more beta readers. I basically realized that working on the third book is kind of silly when I still have some changes to make to the second one, and since the book is a prequel, it might read well enough on its own without the first book for context. I basically need people to read and critique it while I go back to editing Plight of the Gods.

Moving Along

Things have felt rather sluggish, but quite a few changes have occurred since the last post. The major piece of news is that I have shifted jobs, so that has been my primary focus these last two months. As for the series, some new changes have been made to the combined books to improve their readability. The beginnings and endings of the two stories have been synced pretty well. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but it's looking a lot better. I've also adjusted the story's timeline quite a bit to improve the flow of events. There are also some new chapters and scenes I intend to write to fill in some major gaps in the timeline. There is also still the issue of creating a final scene with one of the story's villains, but that has been put on hold.

Most of my recent work has been on Plight of the Gods. I've completed the whole journey of the expedition team to Tritus, so now I'm working on what they're doing there. I know most of what happens there. One of the chapters in this section is halfway done, and another has already been started. The problem is just accurately describing all the manual labor that is being done while not sounding boring or summarizing it too quickly. Once I get this done, I'll feel tempted to revisit the previous book and rework the opening, but this may require the help of more readers.

The other thing I've done this past month is create more pictures, both for the books and the website. This includes some landscapes, the planet of Atmos, and the final climax of Plight of the Gods.

A New Format

I've once again considered the merits of combining the first two books, and am currently putting together a new book that combines the stories. The first two parts of the series cover the same timeline, but show different characters and events. Each book has a different focus and theme. It works pretty well, but it also has a price. The first story introduces too many characters while remaining a short read. The plot is simplistic and doesn't offer many surprising elements outside of the events themselves, at least when compared to the second book. Combining everything will add immediate depth to the characters and would also address some important pacing issues.

As I'm stitching together this document by combining everything in the right chronological order, there are a few distinct issues that I will need to fix. The opening to the two books do not work together. I would essentially need to rewrite the beginning of the book. Second, the endings also don't fit together, either. The same event is shown twice, but with different scenes. There is also quite a lot of poetry stuffed around both climaxes, which would look clunky if pasted together. Lastly, I like both of my book covers and don't really want to change them. Now, I can split this new story into halves and put a cliffhanger in the middle, but the second book cover would still need to be edited with at least a change of title. The second book primarily revolves around the Surveyor and the humans interacting with the World of Dreams. Now, this is present from the start, so the cover no longer seems relevant even if the title better matches the new content.

This updated story also needs to be edited within if all the parts are to flow together, and this will have to come at a later date. I'm still working on the new content in book four, which will still take some time to finish since I barely did anything over the holidays. However, even if it does mean extra work, I think the change is a positive one. After all, it will be a lot easier to get input from beta readers once the two books are combined.

Minor Updates

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.

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.