writing update – The Rychilla Cases

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so here goes.

Embers of Doubt is still being edited. I ended up rewriting chapters 1, 2 and 14. There’s a fairy politics subplot that runs through these chapters, and ties into Yaetherim’s character arc across the first three books. First time around, it was just Yaetherim getting angry at his village council for their inaction. The rewrite made it more subtle, and lined it up better with the fairy culture I’ve come up with. Discussing duty to one’s village and so on.

With that done, the pen edits are complete. I’ve got chapters 1 & 2 up to the stage where they’re ready to go to the beta readers. But I won’t be sending those out until they’re all done.

I’ve also been working on some side projects, too. I’ve had ideas for some interquels. These will be novellas, which take place between the full-length novels. I’m working on two at the moment. One features Naeliya, and leads into her plot in novel 4. The other features Yatherim, investigating what starts as an ordinary case. That could turn into a full-length novel, depending on how things go.

Most of these stories are planned out, as they’re murder mysteries. I usually work backwards, starting with what needs to happen and who the murderer is. For something a little different, I’ve started working on a slice-of-life story featuring a character who’s just moved to Alkentoft. Unlike the others, this is not planned. I’m just writing it and seeing where it takes me.

A Pinch of Distrust is now finished. I’ve spent the last few months getting my head around the self-publishing process on Amazon, Ingram, Draft2Digial and Google Play books. I think I’ve got it worked out now. I’m planning to do a cover reveal within the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I’ve already started working on the second book in the series. It is a sequel, in that the events of APOD give rise to the plot of this one. But it’s still a standalone murder mystery. When I came up with the idea for the series, I conceived it as a ‘murder of the week’ type deal. Each book can be picked up and read on its own, and the reader will get a complete story. But there’ll still be underlying subplots and character development that carry through from one book to the next.

In this case, book 2 starts in the aftermath of APOD. The boss of one of the murderers from that book hires Yaetherim to help assess the character of those applying to fill the murderer’s job. Seems straightforward, until one of those candidates dies in what seems to be an unfortunate accident.

Progress on book 2 is going well. I was able to do up a plot outline and start drafting while awaiting beta reader feedback for APOD.

I usually do plan my stories, as it works best for me. I’ll usually start with the solution to the mystery and plot backwards from there, to ensure things line up. I use a tool called Plottr, which allows for scenes to be tagged, edited and adjusted on a timeline. It’ll then export an outline that can be referred to.

However, even with a plan in place, my stories have a way of evolving as I write them. As such, I recently had to adjust the plot outline. Some of the characters weren’t where they needed to be and I was getting writer’s block. To me, writer’s block usually means that the story isn’t meant to happen that way. So I had to adjust things, and in doing so, I was able to smooth out the plot and close a few plot holes.

I’m going to try and keep up with these writing updates, now.

The Rychilla Cases

Tag: writing update

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