Welcome everyone!
I have a confession I need to make to you. Last month I announced that my fourth book would be coming out in September. That’s true! It is. However, what I didn’t tell you was that my fourth book would not be a continuation of my Hunter’s Rose series. Instead, it will be a stand-alone story.
If there is one piece of writing advice for authors writing a series that I’ve seen over and over, it is “Don’t take a break from writing your series! Finish it before writing something else.” It’s good and honest advice that is targeted at the type of people who are excited about something new or who have trouble finishing what they start. I do not fall into either of those categories. I enjoy the familiar, and I always finish what I start.
So you might be wondering why I chose to go against the general wisdom and do a stand-alone book. The truth is, after I finished up the first draft of The Huntsman and the Heretic, I knew I was not a good enough writer to write Book 4 in the Hunter’s Rose series. Book 4 will be a dark time in Tristan’s life, and up until now, The Hunter’s Rose has been a fairly light-hearted series. It will be very challenging to hit the right tone while at the same time keep the characters consistent with the first three books. I knew I needed to get better. I had to level up.
The only way to get better at writing is to 1) read more books and 2) do more writing. I decided to start working on a short story while my editors and coaches worked on my first draft of The Huntsman and the Heretic. I created a scene where a character knew what the right thing to do was but chose to do otherwise because the reward of doing the wrong thing was just far too alluring. I wanted to explore pride, temptation, lying to one’s self, and penance.
I finished the short story before the first set of revisions for Heretic came back. I was very pleased with it, but I put it aside and started my revisions. When my revisions were done, and I sent out my next draft to my next set of editors and readers, I resumed fixing up my short story. To keep it brief, I had the short story ready to go by the time I was publishing The Huntsman and the Heretic.
I decided I would publish the short story alongside Heretic as a kind of surprise. I was calling it Project X at this point. However, as the publishing date drew closer and I was still fiddling with the short story, I realized I could flesh it out some more. There were other themes I wanted to explore as well such as alternative moral codes, social ostracism, kindness leading to regret, and many more. I saw that I could pack an enormous amount of conflict into a very short narrative.
As a result, I decided not to publish Project X at that time. Instead, I went back to my computer and changed it from a short story to a “novelette.” If you aren’t sure what that is, a novelette is a work of fiction that is between 7,500 and 20,000 words. I think the new Project is right at 19,928 words. Some famous novelettes you might be familiar with are The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
This post is running long, so I will have to save more of my insights until later. Just know that I am returning to The Hunter’s Rose series. I’ve already finished the first draft of the first four chapters in the next book. I promise to give updates in my next post. I will also specifically address why I didn’t use my usual beta readers, editors, coaches, and proofreaders for this project.
Until then, take care of each other.
Peace,
-Troy
