It’s been a while, so I thought I’d type up an update. I’ve finished reworking book 1, like I mentioned in my last update. Then I ended up deciding to expand some sections in book 2 that I felt didn’t get the attention they needed. All that created some major ripples through book 3, and the end plot got a wee bit complicated. It took a while to think through those issues and make sure I wasn’t pulling a JK Rowling and just ignoring the issue. (Sorry HP fans, I do love the story, but the plot is sooo riddled with holes it sometimes makes it a bit hard to enjoy them. That’s the curse of being a writer, I guess.) That all ended up expanding book 3 a ton, to the point that it was too long to keep as one book. So, now I’m working on expanding and rewriting the last half to stand as it’s own book. Yup, I’m back to four books. Even though I literally just said it wouldn’t be four. Oh well.
I’m also working on new names for the series. Here’s two ideas I have so far:
Keeping with the current names, so they’d be:
Shadow of an Unknown Past
The Strength Within Us
The Katarab’s Heir
Shadow of the Inta’s Price (the new 4th book’s name)
Renaming them with a ‘shadow’ theme:
Shadow of an Unknown Past
Shadow of an Old Foe
Shadow of Inheritance…or something like that
Shadow of the Inta’s Price (the new 4th book’s name)
For the first idea, I like how it seems to open and close with a similar idea, and I do still like the idea of the the second book’s name. The third one, however, has been a thorn in my side since its inception (and doesn’t get any better with the new naming system, mind you). I’m not a fan of using the word ‘katarab’ in the name, because it’s one of the words I invented and I don’t want the name of one of the books to be difficult to pronounce. It might turn readers away. As the third book in the series, though, I feel like I could get away with it. And, the fourth book uses a made up word in its title too, so…
As for the more themed names, I like how cohesive it is, and looking at the book’s plots, it really works. The characters are constantly fighting to escape the shadows of other people’s decisions, always on the defensive and struggling to make things right. In the end, it boils down to the cost of the inta and the power it brings to bear, and the wreck it’s made of sooo many people’s lives. I’m just struggling to come up with decent names for the second and third books.
And so here you have it, the messiness that is my writing continues! This ended up being a much longer update than I expected, so I’m going to stop here. However, I will note, a lot of my other stories have been getting a lot of attention while I’ve been stuck on this one, which is good. I feel like those worlds give me more space to play and experiment because they’re not so late in production, so to speak. The things I learn there always help me do better on this series.
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