Vol. 4, Draft 3.9 & Vol. 6, Draft 0.5

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

I’ve finished the 3rd draft of volume IV. It was a brutal twenty-day process of pouring over the tome and cutting. As stated in an earlier draft, I cut a subplot that carved out a good chunk of words, and you can’t tell it’s missing. That’s when you know whether something was relevant to the story or not. Again, it detailed this character’s life, but it added no value to the overall story. So, now, we have a more streamlined story with all the crucial elements. We’ll see how it reads as I’ve given it to a beta reader.

For the bad news: I didn’t make my target goal of 280,000 words. I ended at 285.500. Without being too negative, I did add to the story in some areas for clarity, or to bring into focus a character that will become quite relevant in later novels. I don’t want this one to be overlooked and feel like he popped up out of nowhere. All considered, I started this third draft at 319k, and we’re down to 285.5k, so that’s 34,000 words gone. When it comes time for the editor, my pocketbook will thank me. 

So, where does that leave me now? Considering I’ve gone through books four and five recently, it’s fresh in my mind, so I’ve decided to jump to book six and write Starriace’s storyline. She’ll be in this book a lot more. She is, after all, the central protagonist to the series, and her story’s taking center stage. 

Where is book six in terms of completion? Pretty far off, not going to lie. When I started book six years ago, I only wrote about the first 10 to 20% of some characters, with the exception of one story arc, which is complete for the book. So, in those terms, maybe 25% is done. I did jump ahead and write the end of Starriace’s plot for this book, to make sure it resonates with volumes four and five. That boosted the word count past 125k words. And we’re only a quarter of the way done? Shades! Looks like this book is shaping up to be even bigger than volume four. God, I hope not. I’ve got my work cut out for me.