Outlining For Book 4
Now that I’ve completed my draft of Veznek, and with Cassidy on the way soon, I’m starting to turn my focus to the finale of The Color of Water and Sky series: Hive.
Hive is my grand conclusion. It has the biggest scale, the largest stakes and the scariest enemy yet. It’s pretty crazy all in all and with so much going on, it’s tough to chart.
Charting is easy when characters are either all together or on separate journeys, but when characters jump in and out with each other, it becomes much harder. In Hive, I need characters to be in certain places at certain times to witness certain things. Getting everyone in the right places and with the right people is a complicated puzzle to put together. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to craft this piece.
Added to the difficulty of plotting this out, I’m still trying to determine the chapter arraignment. So far, POV has been logically sorted out in the series. For example: in both Iris and Kholvaria, my chapters were arraigned with odd number chapters told from Iris’s perspective and even numbers between four other characters. In Veznek, odd number chapters are told from the perspective of Kholvari characters and even numbers are told from human perspectives. In Cassidy, odd number chapters are told from the perspective of Sara and even numbers between two other characters.
I’m not sure yet if Hive‘s chapters will have a similar logic to it. For all I know, it may not be possible. I could take a page out A Song of Ice and Fire and make the order completely random. I’m still working around with it.
Additionally, all previous books have had five perspective characters (save for Cassidy, which has three). I currently have four characters in my head for Hive and I’m struggling to figure out how to fit a fifth perspective into it. For all I know, this book may turn out to have only four POVs.
If you draw any conclusion from this write-up today, it’s that Hive is not going to be easy to plot together. There are so many variables and the story’s scope is just so grand. I guess this is what George RR Martin must feel like. But all in all, once the puzzle starts to form, I know it’ll be amazing.
In other news, Cassidy is now available to purchase in paperback. You can buy your copy today! https://www.amazon.com/Cassidy-Color-Water-Sky-Novel/dp/197620528X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
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