As detailed in my last post, I've really been struggling with the sequel for Relentless Blades. I'm very much a "plotter" so for me to feel comfortable writing the sequel I need to know where the story is going. I know this isn't the approach all authors take, but it's my approach.
Not only do I need to know where the sequel is going, since this is a planned trilogy, I need to know how the full story ends. One of my major pet peeves is trilogies/series that don't fit logically together. Where you can tell the author or filmmaker had no clue where the story was going, so you have books/movies that don't fit well together. A prime example of this would be the Star Wars Sequel trilogy. I can't stand that. It's important to me that the whole story flows properly. This has caused me six months of frustration. I've felt like I'm staring at a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with an abundance of cool plot points, but without being able to put it all together in a satisfying way.
I want to thank my sister for spending several sessions talking through my various plot points with me. She had some good insight, but beyond that, it was just good for me to talk through things to make myself understand what I was trying to do and where the story needed to go.
I'm happy to say that I now have an outline for books two and three. Now that I do, I'm running the outline by my wife and a trusted friend to see if they point anything out that doesn't make sense.
I already have roughly 30,000 words written on the sequel and I like most of it. I'm very optimistic that with an outline I like, I can really start hammering out the book. I finished the first full draft of Relentless Blades in about four months. I'm not sure if I can duplicate that, but am hopeful I'll have the first draft of Book 2 done by June 2025.
I have a title for Book 2 that I think I like, but am not ready to reveal that just yet. Stay tuned...
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